DrOfBytes

They also tell you to keep your phones on ship time and not allow them to switch to local time if you are crossing time zones.

"Activities, reservations, and port arrivals and departures are on the ship’s time. Please make sure your phone is not set to "automatic" for time changes, as we'd like you to stay on ship time throughout your sail.  

Please refer to the Celebrity app, as it is always set to ship time."

I don't think the crux of the OP's question has been fully answered yet. It sounds like "eyelovcrusin" is asking if there has been any onboard experience with only one person in the stateroom upgrading. I'm sure all of the folks responding about calling Celebrity and having success have been helpful to other people. Personally, I'm also interested if upgrading only one person in a stateroom is possible while onboard even without a medical reason. Maybe the bartenders have a backdoor in the system to make this possible? Maybe not. I'm happy for those who were able to call and get one person upgraded for their personal situations. Cheers!

I'm wondering how many of the sick, and presumably hospitalized on land have no travel medical insurance to cover their hospitalization.  One would think that under the circumstances these patients would not be charged for this.  Has there been any announcements on this from the government of Japan or by Princess?  Recovery from the illness is, of course, the most important thing right now, regardless of who pays. 

The captain said that was the best day in Fiordland all season weather-wise. It was beautiful! 

We're on board the Majestic Princess.  We were prevented from docking in Port Chalmers (Dunedin) today due to thick fog.  I wonder how often that happens?  The captain said we only had a small window to pull in to port since it has to coincide with the tides and we missed our window.  Of course, there are a lot of disappointed passengers (and crew!).  We had booked the Taieri Gorge train trip.  I guess we'll have to plan another trip to New Zealand some day!  Weather looks decent for the Fiordland National Part tomorrow at least.  Really looking forward to that.

We're just sitting outside of port now going no where.  The crew had to scramble to come up with activities to do today on board the ship.  An unplanned sea day!  We'll make the most of it.

For our upcoming cruise out of New Zealand on Majestic Princess (booked in the US), all of our Princess OBC was converted at 1:1 to AUD, including FCD and shareholder benefit.  I'm wondering if they will do the same to our TA OBC, which won't post to our account until the 2nd day of the cruise.  Anybody have experience with this?

We're boarding a Princess cruise next week out of New Zealand where the ship uses AUD currency.  We are from the US and booked the cruise in the US.  Our Princess OBC was not converted at the "going rate" but rather a 1:1 exchange.  For example, $300 OBC became $300 AUD OBC.  Our OBC was FCD and shareholder benefit.  Unfortunate, but apparently how they are doing it.

If you're not pressed for time, I would consider renting a convertible, buying a GyPSy App and let the App be your guide for this drive.  That's what we did on the Road to Hana and we thoroughly enjoyed it!  Our ship was docked over night, so if the drive took longer than expected we were not at risk for missing the ship.  You never know what can happen on that road.  We came upon a landslide that had the road shut down in both directions.  However, crews were on it quickly and had the road cleared before too long.  Whatever you decide to do, enjoy your trip!  We have wonderful memories of that trek.

Would anybody be able to venture a guess on the odds of being able to cruise in to Fiordlands in early March?  I've seen several cruisers post that their ship had to bypass this beautiful place due to weather events.  We're scheduled to sail there on March 8th aboard Majestic Princess. I'm from the US and have never been to Australia or New Zealand.  I have no idea of what to expect weather-wise there that time of year.  Thanks in advance!

On 1/8/2019 at 4:06 PM, Shiprobbo said:

During our cruise, Crooners was in use as the Platinum/Elite Lounge in the evenings and as such tended to be very full.

@Shiprobbo Was Crooners reserved for Platinum/Elite every night, all night?  I'm neither but would like to visit Crooners from time to time in the evenings on our upcoming Majestic cruise.

Same for us.  We have an Australia, New Zealand cruise booked for March 2019. We have $200 from FCD credits and $100 in share holder benefits and they are in AUS dollars.  So I also feel like we lost money.  But apparently that's their policy since that's the stated currency of the ship.

We usually book inside cabins ourselves. The one time we didn't was our Alaska cruise and I think we made the right decision there. It was great to sit out on the balcony and watch the beautiful scenery, glaciers, wildlife, etc.

We are on Royal in about two weeks and we booked a balcony there as well. This is probably a once in a lifetime Mediterranean cruise for us, so we didn't want to miss anything. For example, the scenery on the passage into/out of Kotor is supposed to be magnificent.

Take a look at Princess' own list of "Top 10 cocktails":

http://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/food-and-dining/beverages/top-10-cocktails/

I had an AIBP on our last cruise but it was on Royal Caribbean. Nevertheless, I chose to tip the bartender an extra $1 each time I got a drink. I got attention immediately while approaching the bar and (this is subjective) I think they poured the drinks stronger after they "got to know me". But no need to tip if you don't want to. I don't think anything is customary when it comes to tipping. It's always a personal decision.

When out at sea I would get a Sprint text message stating "Welcome to Cruise! Calls $2.99/min..." so there was ample warning when higher rates applied.

Thank you for your update. I also have Sprint Global Roaming and even after reading your update I'm still leery of having my phone connect to the ship's cell tower even if I do get a text saying that I'm connected to their tower. I'm afraid of background apps sending/receiving data before I have a chance to go to airplane mode, or not noticing the text message and not going to airplane mode at all. That apparently wasn't an issue for you. Am I being paranoid?

Other people on this thread have mentioned they had apps that wouldn't work with the free 2G. Did you have any apps not work on 2G? You mentioned several things that did work, which I'm glad to hear about.

The best news about your post is the text messages letting you know if you're connected to the ship's tower or not. Good information!

Look no further than right here on Cruise Critic. Here are their pictures of the Royal Princess, for example, including 360s. I assume most if not all of the other ships have similar photo sites.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/photos/ships/royal-princess-400/wheelhouse-bar-229690/

Hopefully the above URL will actually get posted since it's their own site.

From reading various posts, it sounds like you are seated at beach chairs and have an assigned waiter at Mr. Sancho's. What if you want to move to the pool and use the swim up pool bar? How does the waiter deal with that? Does he get angry that you might be giving cash tips to the pool bartender instead of him? Will he still wait on you if/when you return to your chairs? Just want to test the etiquette here. I'm thinking of the AI option here.

I've never had a package before either. If you have a drink package and a waiter/waitress brings you a drink, do they still bring you a receipt to sign? My guess is that they would not, but curious how it really works. Putting a receipt in front of your face with a tip line on it could be a way for them to potentially increase their tips, even though the 18% gratuity is paid up front. I don't mind tipping a bit more either if I'm getting good service. Bring cash?

Happy Hawaii by Abba

Just came off the POA. For anybody interested they said they are no longer doing the pub crawl.

7 days until our Hawaii Pride of America cruise. I'm sure it will be over too soon.

OK, not a lot of information on the pub crawl so far. It sounds like they still have it. Does anybody know when it starts and ends, approximately? Just wondering what other things (e.g. shows, sail away party, dinner reservation?) we may miss if we attend the pub crawl. Then again, if we visit enough bars, we may not care what we miss! :D

It looks like they charge $7/pp for the hotel<->pier shuttle. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.

We have booked a sunrise bike ride with Maui Sunriders Bike Co. We chose them because we wanted to ride down at our own pace instead of in a group. There are other company's that offer "on your own" rides. They received good reviews on TripAdvisor and were very economical compared to other companies. We have up until 4:00 pm to return the bikes in Paia which is the end of the ride. We ride 19 days from now.

We spent a couple nights at Marriott through NCL and found it to be a good idea. We checked into NCL desk on arrival, had a flower lei greeting (included). Took care of most of our paperwork there, then day of trip the bus took us to pier. Left our tagged luggage in our rooms, next saw it in our cabins. Checkin at pier was a breeze.

These benefits are only available if you book through NCL, otherwise you get no special treatment. We didn't think the price was out of line considering the convenience it afforded

Sounds nice! We'll be there pre-cruise for one night through the special package offer NCL was running, but we booked through a travel agent. Not sure that will qualify us for the benefits you mentioned. The travel agent did say that NCL will provide for our transportation to the pier.

I didn't know NCL had their own desk there. That's nice too! Does their bus leave at various times for the pier or is there one set time they will take everyone? We're thinking of trying to board around noon if possible.