stevenr597

However, these ships are not flagged in either the United States or Great Britain. Much of the crew depends on tips which they send home to their families. One is hurting them, not the cruise line.

Different lines, different types of cruising. NCL is more mainstream. Princess, like Celebrity and Holland America are regarded as being Upscale. Princess is more traditional cruising. The Regal is one of the "Royal Class" of Princess ships. We have sailed on it many times and will be taking a Tran-Atlantic on it in several weeks. Would go with Princess.

Would one go to a restaurant, notice a price increase because of inflation, and not leave a tip?

In most cases, especially if you visit a port in which there is a number of shops selling alcohol, there will be a desk when you arrive back at the ship that will take the alcohol, and send it to your room, usually the night before you are expect to disembarck. In ports where there is limited selling of alcohol, the ship may not bother with this process. In St. Thomas, many stores will offer to send the alcohol directly to your ship, and again it is usually at your cabin the evening before you disembarck.

My travel agent, who gave us the "Plus Package" as a gift informed me that Princess Views the "new additions" as a modification of their original package, and they have charged extra money for this. Hence they do not feel that individuals who purchased the ""Original Plus" as a lesser price as not losing anything. However, despite this explanation, I do believe that they should have made it retroactive, in place of the negative comments they have generated in respect to this.

Not only the quality of the bean, but how long its sits in the coffee dispenser on board. Fresh is best.

As long as they have that marvelous area in the Buffet filled up with deserts, as well as the International Cafe in the atrium, I have no problem.

Actually, I believe that you made my point. Princess and other cruise lines (Celebrity comes to mind) have had no problem in reducing benefits (unlimited drinks to 15/day) without a refund, but in the case of Princess Plus, they have extended benefits, but have not made it retroactive to individuals who already have pre-purchased the plan in advance.

We have also been sailing for many years, and it appear that the “nickel & dining” is definitely on the increase. And even with that, if they want to add more benefits, but charge more, one can argue in favor of this, but not to grandfather in the individuals who have in good faith purchased this before the “upgrade” is just poor policy.

Princess should fire whoever is in charge of customer relations in respect to their decision to not grandfather those who have already bought these packages into the added benefits they are no being denied. Similar in a way to celebrity reducing privileges to their Aqua Class. The cruise lines may save pennies, but it will cost them big in good will.

Good point. If it is what one wants. We always book a Mini-Suite, club class, when we book Celebrity we go Aqua Class, but it may make more sense to book a standard balcony on one of the luxury class liners.

One could argue that it would make more sense to book on a “true” luxury liner such as Oceania, Regent Seven Sea, Crystal, or Seaborne, then to pay a lot more for the “Ship within a Ship” concept.

It does appear that the bidding system could be quite complicated in practice. Could be that Princess had a higher bid which they also decided to accept and the computers or whatever does the bookings shuffled the individual with a lower bid to a peripheral cabin of the same class. But in the end, the passenger got what they bid for and requested. Enjoy!!!!

Have to disagree, it would confuse the "muster station" arrangements. God forbid if there was an accident, the wrong family might be notified of such. I would absolutely clear it with Guest Services and have my change recorded and noted.

What I am saying is that before one attempts to switch rooms, they should notify Princess that this is permissible. If I came back to my room and saw a note acting me if I would switch cabin’s, I would report this immediately to Princess.

I am not sure if Princess would approve an upgrade without their consent. Always raises the question if there is an accident, they wish to know who was in what room.

Depends where the mini suite is located.

I do wish that Princess would see a six pack in one of the shops.

We keep getting notices from Princess is we would like to “Bid Up.” Considering we had selected at the time we booked, a reserve class mini-suite, we have always politely declined.

We will be crossing from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale this October.

It will most likely be a rain event. The cool waters off the Pacific Coast should rapidly downgrade to a tropical Storm when it nears California.

To tell or not to tell. That could indeed be a problem with Covid. I would hope that the Captain would suggest “wearing masks in croweded conditions” without actually going into the specifics of Covid. I do know that on several cruises, because of Norovirus, the Captain reinforced the importance of washing hands.

So so sorry to hear about your brother. I do hope that he makes a speedy and complete recover. Sad to say that Covid, like Norovirus, Influenza, Parainfluenza, Rhinovirus and a host of other illnesses will continue to be with us. In addition, a cruise ship is a “closed circuit” in that if one becomes ill, he or she cannot ‘check out’ and go home. Make sure that you wash your hands. Make sure that you are up to date with all necessary vaccinations. Take an N 95 or KN 95 makes and make sure that you now how to wear it properly. Hopefully, the Captain will be on top of any problems and inform the passengers of what measures to take. Make sure that you follow them.

We have this, and it works great, but I was questioning whether there is a plan to use while at sea.

Thanks