azbirdmom

Oops. Last week! I claim to be suffering from CWS (cruise withdrawal syndrome).

We were on the Discovery Princess next week and saw that the brands of wine by the glass were shown in the online dining room menu and for some of the bar menus too.

We just disembarked the Discovery on Sunday. I live in Arizona and tend to get cold easily but I did fine indoors with three quarter sleeve tops. It was comfortable. I did see folks in sleeveless dresses and they didn't outwardly appear to be uncomfortable but who knows?

Looks like the cancellations may just be to give them time to change things on the dock. https://alaskapublic.org/2022/07/25/skagways-busiest-cruise-ship-dock-at-risk-of-catastrophic-rockslide-study-says/ ETA: There is a link to the actual report in this article. Very interesting reading. I feel bad for the storeowners there who are just starting to get a more normal amount of business. They have been barely hanging on since 2019.

We were just there last week and the smaller slide that happened last month still seemed to be shedding rock. There was a larger one that happened before the cruise season started. I don’t recall seeing it like that last year. It’s sad because that’s where they berth two ships plus the busy small boat and ferry harbor.

We just disembarked today. Production shows were Rock Opera and Spotlight Bar. Saw the latter which is an exclusive show for the Discovery and loved it. Saw Carlos Oscar and he is a funny comedian who we have seen before. Also had an illusionist and a Las Vegas singer.

It was there when I did a mock booking but not after my TA booked it. Thinking that your TA should be able to do it, or Celebrity if you booked direct since it clearly was an option at booking.

It's been my experience that they charge the difference between the cost of the free cabin and the cabin that you want to upgrade to up through a mini suite (they have basically quoted rack rates when I've asked about upgrades to Club Class or full suites by the way). But we've only been charged this for one person not two so the cost is basically half the differential. It's been a great deal for us but I suspect that there can be lot of variability in what they will quote and things can change. It costs nothing to ask. Just remember you're on the hook for taxes / port fees, insurance, air, and the $200 pp nonrefundable deposit (that turns into OBC after you board).

You should be able to waitlist for their anytime dining. I saw that option available when I was doing a mock booking on their site. I did end up booking our cruise with a TA and only late traditional was available when we finally got around to booking. I was going to ask her about waitlisting for our preferred dining time but I kept checking the Celebrity website and the anytime option opened up. She grabbed it for us immediately which was a good thing as only late dining is available again. So if you would prefer anytime, you might want to ask about the waitlist and periodically check the website to see if they show it's opened up.

I sure hope it is. We may forego our traditional MDR embarkation lunch and go straight for Gigi's and Agnolotti on Sunday!

I wish they would just remove that language from the app because it just continues to confuse people. What matters are the timelines specified on the Princess website. If it says 2 days for your situation, then you can do the test any time two days prior to embarkation - the number of hours does not matter.

It seems like Skagway has come up with a solution that has allowed them to use the forward Railroad dock again. Someone on the Discovery posted the picture below this morning and they no longer need to tender folks off the ship.

Hmmm. I had thought that the Owner's Suites on the Royal class ships were all re-categorized to Penthouse Suites? These are at the aft of the ship and have wraparound balconies, some wider than others. I did check the deck plan for Discovery and see that there are two Owner's Suites, both on Emerald deck. If I had my choice of any aft suite I would pick ones on Dolphin, Baja, or Riviera decks for the larger balcony before I would select the ones on Emerald deck. Not sure what they would have changed inside to make these Owner's Suites. Generally on the older ships an Owner's Suite would have a dining room table with 4 chairs which is a nice addition but hopefully someone has stayed in these Emerald Deck suites and can answer your question definitively.

We were on the Caribbean Princess in late May / early June and experienced toilet issues. It started with delayed flushing which we told our steward about and he reported it. The plumber was going to look at it the next morning as it wasn’t urgent. Late that night the toilet would only fill and not empty when flushed. I knew enough to not keep flushing as that could cause it to overflow into the room. I wound up at passenger service at 3 AM and they immediately got a plumber ti check it. There was a blockage but it was all human waste. And he replaced a very old part which solved the problem. He did that all from the hallway and we didn’t have another problem for the rest of the cruise. We were in D625.

Shortly after I made this post, I submitted a request under the “Contact Us” / post cruise function. And today I finally received the folio I requested. So they do seem to respond to requests eventually.

Us too on the Caribbean Princess last month. And he asked for requests. When I mentioned giraffe he went out to the web on his own time and figured out to do it! He was a fantastic steward.

Thanks for sharing the news. I hope she keeps healing and that the rest of the nonsense that you've faced is resolved soon. Best wishes to you both.

If you're talking about the map that they auctioned off, have you taken a cruise since the restart where they do this? Haven't seen it on the three I've been on, and someone asked on our cruise in May and was told that they aren't doing this any longer.

Thanks for clearing that up. It seemed very odd to me as well. Maybe she took too much advantage of the drinks package and missed it? 🙂

I'll add a question! A friend just got back from cruising on the Ruby and said they missed Glacier Bay. She thought it was because NCL hit an iceberg there but that happened near Hubbard Glacier. Does anyone know why Ruby skipped Glacier Bay last week? Seems like a big enough event that someone would have posted here but then maybe folks were just enjoying their cruise.

We had a nice cruise on her at the end of May / early June. We did have a toilet issue but it was fixed and was fine for the rest of the cruise. Staff and crew were fantastic. The food was better than what we had on the Regal which at best was average. There was rust but we observed them painting and scraping while we were in port so they were trying to keep up with that. I was pleasantly surprised as I had been concerned prior to boarding given the reports. I don't doubt that others had poor experiences - especially if they had to deal with sewer smells or malfunctioning toilets the entire trip. I'm just saying that what we we had a mostly good experience on the ship.

Yes, I had mentioned on surveys that it would be nice to have a digital version in the email that has the final folio or post cruise survey link. But then both of those have been hit or miss since the restart.

I read the updates on this post then went to FB where the post pasted below oddly was the first one to pop up in my feed. I guess the good news is that the toilet paper is easily accessible and there is an actual door on the shower instead of a shower curtain. But yikes, this is tiny!

I've done it. Room service should let you pick a bottle of wine that is $40 or less from the room service list. We can usually find something but then we don't have expensive tastes. Won't tolerate swill such as the Club Class "wine" either.

There haven't been any logs of the cruise created since the restart. We were on the third cruise of the Majestic Princess last August and checked in with Passenger Service when we didn't get one the final morning. They confirmed that Princess would no longer be providing them. I have mentioned it on every post cruise survey since to no avail. I have them saved from every cruise prior to Covid and they are fun to look back on.