Steelers36

We just had our first UBD on ISLAND. You can view the photos above to see what the meal was like. You can pre-order using Cruise Personalizer (Onboard Services), or you can phone once on board to book it. But phone early in voyage in case it is very popular and they get booked up. PHONE REQUEST You speak with someone in Room Service dept and they will ask about any food allergies. For main course, you elect either Turf (filet mignon), Turf (lobster - as in NE lobster AFAIK), or Surf & Turf. With Surf, you are to get two lobster tails. With Surf & Turf, you get one tail. I did ask if the steak was a different size if ordering Turf only versus S&T and she said it was the same. But IDK for certain. You are asked what want for the included cocktail. I will explain below what I did. WHAT YOU GET (in the order it happened). Waiter and Assistant (who does the "running" back and forth to bring food). They setup a table and cloth on the balcony, or just inside if inclement weather. IDEA: Get a towel or two for your balcony chairs - and perhaps a pillow or towel roll, so you aren't sitting on the deck chairs in possibly nice clothing. There is a bud vase with a single red rose and accompanying green/white. There is a half-bottle of champagne with flutes. There is a small plate (each) of hors d'oeuvres which we had with the first glass of champagne. They will also bring Reidel glasses for wine upon request. (I borrowed mine from the DR waiter for the evening not realizing Room Svc was going to send one and they actually sent two). There was a light and tasty crab quiche next. There was a salad next that was big enough that my wife and I would have normally just shared at a meal. You can see photos above. I bring my own wine on board. By this time, I was having my wine and my wife was having the champagne other than a sip I had at the outset. This was our plan as I had ordered Surf for her and Turf with Surf for me (thinking I would be giving her additional lobster). Then came the main course. We were surprised to see THREE lobster tails on wife's plate. Our waiter said it's normally two, but perhaps chef thought they were a bit on the small side. Well, these were like specialty dining lobsters with a tail and one tucked under smaller, so it seemed like my wife had SIX pieces of lobster tail. Instead of me giving her some, she was offering one to me. Now, don't count on seeing THREE lobster tails when you dinner arrives, but a healthy serving of TWO. My plate had a good-sized filet, considering I also had a lobster tail with two pieces. I cannot say if I had ordered filet alone whether it would have been larger, but it was large enough. It was a bit over the MR temperature requested, but not all the way to Medium in most of it. I am okay to Medium as well, so I certainly was not of mind to send it back. It must be a challenge to get meat temp perfect and get the plate to a cabin and so forth. What I will say is that the meat was of very high quality - better than CG filet I had on Regal and I would say what they serve for UBD would be same as for a Winemaker's Dinner or Chef's Table. I had a peppercorn sauce. You can ask for a typical steak sauce like that or red wine reduction or ... well just ask what they might be able to do. After dinner, came the dessert you can see in the photos above. It was not too heavy. Now, about that included cocktail. Due to the champagne at the beginning and having wine, I thought why not have a Bailey's with dessert. It's only a small serving as a liqueur and I knew the dessert was chocolate. Wife likes Bailey's too, so it turned out a good choice for us. IMO, better than a lot of drinking pre-meal. The two waiters packed everything up, leaving the rose in the vase. The bar dept charged the champagne to the cabin account and later that was removed and replaced with the $100 UBD fee. Considering it is $42 more than dining for two at CG (or equivalent SD steakhouse), I thought the value was certainly there in terms of the extras you get and the quality of the food.

I can confirm that UBD is being served per normal (course by course) on Island. And where Covid protocols are relaxed, as I understand it. You can ask on board when booking it, how they are doing it if in doubt and either go forward or cancel.

Pre-Cruise Suggestions Appoint two primary guests in your party. Using Booking Numbers, add everyone as Travel Companions. Each Primary Guest creates a DR reservation. Try the option to book for entire voyage and use the preferred time you want. Each Primary Guest will add either 5 or 6 Travel Companions to their reservation request. So, each guest will have a total of either 6 or 7 guests to book. Each Primary Guest books the same DR and same time for a PRIVATE table space. You should end up with one group at a 6-top and one at a 8-top. There is NO WAY pre-cruise to know, nor to get those tables in proximity. However, by selecting same time and DR, you can work with the DR staff on board to get nearby each other. Embarkation Suggestions Please advise which ship in case I can be more specific. See a DR Manager either at Embarkation Lunch time or immediately upon DR open for Dinner. Make your request and they will most likely figure it out. You can all be seated in proximity and even have same waiters since many waiter sections will contain a 6-top and a 8-top. You all can decide to mix-up the seating each night as well - no need to stay in same seat for duration of the voyage. Note that is is harder for them to accommodate a TD-style request if you are after a time "in-between" an earlier session and a late session. If you are after later dining, this will not be a problem at all. It will be harder I expect to be handled if you don't manage the Pre-Cruise steps and if all three DR's are open in the App to book. Sometimes, one DR is being held out of the App and is then available on board. This seems to normally be the DR with Club Class dining (which only takes a portion of the space).

Most certainly, they used to section off a slew of cabins. It would seem that, over time, those sections have been reduced and even eliminated as evidenced by our October and November voyages (at least on the ships mentioned). I might add that we had UBD on Island and the waiter was from Room Service department and was somewhat chatty, so we had a pretty good sense of the Covid situation since RS Dept knows all of them as they follow-up each day speaking with them about dinner and other food orders.

On Regal in early October, there were only a dozen cabins sectioned off. On Island these past two weeks, guests are isolating in cabins. I am not aware of any separate deck section.

I cannot speak to the situation on Majestic, nor as to what might have led to so many cases. My own logic tells me there were some other factors than simply a lack of wearing masks. We just spent 23 days on Regal and during the voyage, mask-wearing became personal choice for the crew. There certainly was nothing like 800 cases. We are just finishing up two weeks on Island tonight and there are very few cases on board. Again, mask wearing is few and far between (although a higher percentage than on Regal). Staff are also not required to wear masks and most do not. So, I wouldn't expand the Majestic situation to the entire Princess fleet as your 3rd sentence appears to.

It costs $20 for a single day. 50% less if your Captain's Circle Member Level is Platinum or Elite. This is double the normal best pricing for a full voyage, so if you think you need it for less than 50% of the days in the voyage, then you can be further ahead to purchase individual days.

Was the person in your group who became positive wearing a mask regularly?

Agree with information from @donswife.

The latter.

If it is a true 14-night cruise (not sold also as 7+7), then the limit is 1/pp. It is 1 btl/pp per physical segment and you can bring on the full quota at the beginning of your logical voyage.

I do not have an open booking to play with, but I do believe you can select one or both guest names when making air booking. Even if you were to move the teen to your cabin booking for EZ-Air purposes, you already indicated the other two are coming from two different cities. Imagine two friends meeting up for a cruise together and sharing a cabin. One lives in Toledo and one in Kansas City. They are going to need different flight arrangements. If they have changed the online interface such that you cannot do it as self-serve, then I would call in to Princess and use the phone tree selections to get to EZ-Air dept. But I think you can.

The old OCEAN apps are gone. The other old option is a website available on board ships. As posted above, the URL is <shipname>.princess.com.

That the OBC is good for anything normal.

Wow, that sounds like an entire basement. I have to ask a bit as to how long it took to grow to that size and if you ever expect to drink nearly all of it. When I began collecting wine, I wondered about building a cellar room and I got to over 200 bottles in a large fridge and I realized it was more than we could use and I always wanted more, or something new and it was just too much. So, I unloaded some and let it reduce in size, and now keep around 75 - 100 max and it seems like a lot. Wish I could see it as I am sure it would be interesting. I just have a hard time fathoming what to do with that much wine - unless it's about investing and re-selling in future. That isn't something even very possible in Ontario other than by quietly selling small quantities privately.

What does all of the above mean? It's back to Situation Normal in terms of steward services.

I understood it to be fact already due to one or more guests asking a PCL rep or CVP concerning their booking.

Gotta love those B2B souffle's!!

I have no expertise in the area you mention, but the printing engraved on the Medallion is so small, no one actually ever looks at it to read it. Crew often has smart devices that detect who is nearby and can address by name. Waiters get to know your name as well as room steward. What I do know is that a guest has a personal profile associated with their CC Member number which is the same number recorded in your booking. You can login to Princess.com and setup a Preferred Name in Captain Circle profile section. There is also the Profile info in the MC App. Since your teen still has a legal name by the sounds of it (let's say John for example), that is going to need to match in the ship security system with passport, etc), but could set the Preferred Name to Mary (for example), and that should be used for informal day-to-day purposes. My expertise ends there as IDK whether the Preferred Name is used to engrave the Medallion or not. But that isn't important anyway. What is important is what the ship's internal system indicates for guest name to ship personnel on their devices and in their system. Someone else may know more, but you can always call Princess and see if a rep can inform you as to how to get a preferred name used everywhere other than the legal booking purpose. You might also use the phone tree options to get to an OCEAN rep who work more closely with the MC App and they may know more about how folks are addressed informally versus for security purposes.

No (and same for Coral). My earlier post had "ex" which I had meant to mean "excluding" and not "example" and I probably didn't do it correctly). "Sometimes", Island has been known to host (for a price) a special dinner similar to a WMD by selling it in Sabatini's for an evening. IDK if this will continue, but typically done one the really long voyages like around South America or a WC, etc.

First of all, you did not receive a move over offer. Just to correct the record, a move over is when the cruise line offers you a full refund (typically) and a replacement cruise for free (typically) on either the same ship for a different date, or another ship whenever (subject to a time limit) .. because your sail date is oversold and they have to free up space. You received a downgrade offer since the cabin category is lower than what you had booked, so you didn't get a full refund (I wouldn't expect one either). They either realized they have a high demand for mini's or oversold them. What appears to be happening (based on other posts), is that Princess has realized they don't need so many - if any - of the reserved quarantine cabins which have mostly been located on D deck. So, they may have got some upgrades done via bids and, in your case, free up some mini's by offering downgrades. We don't know the math that goes on the Ivory Tower, but they must have figured out the best route to fill some D deck cabins while freeing up some mini-suites for other needs. A DB would have cost more than 50% of a Mx, so not a bad deal unless one was really counting on having the Mini.

I agree with you, @JerseyShore because if you want to understand exactly what a show is or what style of music an entertainer is presenting, you have to either go into Journey View or use the old Ocean Concierge app with the much better layout/design for the calendar. I agree with @Mike45LC in that I do not at all miss the ads and other clutter from the old Patter. Given what they are fitting in, it would take a 3rd page to give us more info and still lose the clutter. Another missing item is the profile of selected ship personnel. Now that did get repetitive for a longer voyage or a B2B, but it was sometimes interesting to read the background and a bit of the personal life of different personnel. Maybe they could have featured more staff, but that's all gone now. At least what we do get can be viewed at a glance for items of interest which is much better than scrolling through the App just to find something - let alone details.

Our Medallions from Regal and Island this past month look exactly the same as the ones I have at home, but won't know for sure until we are actually back home. 😉

You will be fine with the 23rd old as an adult in the room.

Same here on last point. And the only reason I was charged is because it was night one and I had forgot to pack a corkscrew and didn't have one yet. Didn't mind one charge.