chipmeister

Hi all. We're experinced cruisers but are doing our first Princess cruise in March. Running in to all kinds of questions, mainly regarding the Medallion App. As I understand, they are recently going all in on pushing many functions off on to it. Have a few questions I'm having a hard time finding answers to and hope some of you all have some insight. Here we go:

1) Dining. Is there any way at all to set it up on the website or is it all on the app? Gonna be a bit of a problem for my older mother who lives out of town and will

     probably have big time technology issues here.

2) As far as dining, is everything My Way now. We are traditional dining types and I have seen on several web pages that the have set times (early, main and late)

     but is that a function of My Way and needs to be set up through that?

3)  How soon can you set up dining? I have seen some places say as soon as you are paid in full, and others say that, but no sooner than 60 days.

4) We have my mom in her own cabin and her booking is (supposedly) linked with ours. Is there some place on the website that shows that and allows us to,

     for example, book shore excursions, set up dining, etc. We can't find this anywhere. We are used to being able to fully manage this on the cruise line website but

     can't find any indication we are even linked.

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Thanks all. I had a suspicion it was catering to European custom but it was the first time I'd ever seen it.

Thanks. I had never run into this before. We'll be 5 months out exactly tomorrow. I'll keep checking.

Does anyone know how far out prior to sailing that entertainment reservations are available? Just tried to book some things (sailing Symphony April 28) and get a page saying 'Sorry, we cannot reserve this right now". "Please try again on board the ship". Hovering over, popup says it may be too early or too late. I've never seen this before.

Quick question. We're booked on Symphony in April out of Barcelona. We noticed on our paperwork that it shows traditional early dining at 6:30. We're used to seeing 6. Just wondering if anyone who has done a Barcelona sailing, maybe on Harmony, knows if 6:30 is the norm.

Thanks. And we are ready. leaving Saturday.

Actually, since I have all you wonderful people here who have knowledge of drink package stuff, I'd like to ask one more question. Every time we have cruised, we think about doing the drink package but we have never committed. Anyway, I know that you are limited to one drink at a time with the package. So, how about ordering an iced bucket of beers at the pool? Been doing that for a while but wondering if the one drink at a time rule would eliminate this as an option. Thanks.

Thanks all. That answers my question.

Thanks everyone. I thought that might be the case. We'll pack a few bottles of both.

We've been toying with the idea of pulling the trigger on the Deluxe Drink Package this cruise. I see that soft drinks are included but I seem to remember reading that you can't just order them in the restaurant, or other venues as if you didn't have the package. It seems with the package, you have to have the cup with the chip and use the machines as if you had the soft drink package. Anyone know anything about this?

Anyone know if Harmony has body wash and/or shampoo dispensers in the showers? I was just thinking that I remembered when we were on Allure in August that it did not, unlike the other RCCL ships we'd been on.

My daughter is a waitress (poor college student). Her only wages are her tips, because her salary is $2.13 an hour, which gets eaten up in taxes (the government assumes she is getting tips). Back in the day, traditional cruising had fixed people you saw everyday, every meal, and you would tip them at the end of the cruise (or hide from them). Now you could have a different server at every meal, and they changed the salary structure.

I know that's true, especially as the lines like to push all the specialty restaurants. But in our specific case, we are doing traditional dining so we should have the same staff. We pretty much never do the specialties. If it ever gets to point where that doesn't exist, and specialties are the only choice, then i could see going with the auto since that's the only way to be sure everyone gets paid.

Well, this did get entertaining. And I seem to recall over the years, that tipping threads do tend to run away. But a few points did come up that I found interesting. For us, tips are tips, not salary (although it is a pretty lousy system that the cruise industry sets them up as salary). Crewmembers (just like a waiter in the restaurant down the street) need to earn them. Now before someone else jumps on this and thinks we're those people who are never satisfied with anything and make people jump through hoops for a shiny penny, we're the opposite. We are easy going, and fully appreciate the hard work that ship staff does for us. And again, we do tip very well. We know it's a hard life. But still, we tip for good service rendered. I can honestly say that in all the cruises we've taken (yes, we are experienced cruisers), maybe only once have we had what can be called less-than-stellar service. And even then, we still tipped that person the standard rate, we just didn't add extra. As to tipping the 'unseen, behind the scenes' personnel, my question would be, in the days before automatic tips became the rage (and that was not that long ago), how did those people get paid? And then you can get into the whole argument about service suffering because people already know they're getting their tips so why bother going above and beyond the bare minimum. It's a whole other issue but we have friends who have run into that exact situation with auto tipping. So several ways to look at it.

Thanks all, even those who chose to get a little pissy. And actually, yes, we are old school and we do tip in cash, and for what it's worth, very well. Just never liked the idea of tipping before service. And we also go on the many comments we've had over the years from crewmembers who told us they prefer cash. So no, we aren't monsters out to rip off the crew.

Is there any way to remove automatic gratuities online or prior to boarding? Or, does it have to be done onboard with guest services? Thanks

Thanks, figured it out. Odd thing was though, I linked the res . of the person with us and when I checked the calendar, non of her res. showed up. I had to go in and do them separately. Odd. But either way they are in. Over 2 weeks out Mama Mia was booked completely except for the 5 PM showing and most other shows were only only available late (10:30ish). So way earlier is better.

Hi All,

Getting ready to make some res. for shows, etc. on Allure and forgot how the system works. I see how to make the reservations. Onboard, how do we show that we have them when arriving at the individual venue. I don't seem to remember having physical tickets. Is it somehow encoded on our Seapass card? Also, I accessed the show reservations section of the website with my reservation number. However, I need to make show reservations for us as well as someone else on a linked reservation. Anyone have any idea how to do that? Thanks.

Hi all,

this is probably an little unusual but does anyone have a good resolution shot of Allure that you took, that you would be willing to let me use? I'd like to use it on a t-shirt I'm trying to make for myself. This would not be published anywhere or used on multiple items, just on one shirt for my personal use. I checked with a few of the design websites and they will not print anything if it's not a personal photo. And they apparently have some way to tell if a shot has been on the web in multiple locations. I had made one for our inaugural on Oasis with no problem but apparently they've tightened things up. It would be appreciated. Thanks.

Thanks everyone. As I got it from Royal, whatever seating/table you have, it's exactly like the old style dining. You will have the same table and same wait staff every night. I think I will miss seeing those big grand dining rooms but it all works.

Have a question about dining set up on Allure. I had 3 different terms being used. My agent said we were doing Dynamic Classic, my cruise voucher said main seating and my record on the RCCL site said traditional. So, I now know Dynamic is out. I did know they had also done away with the Adagio dining room so I was curious what was going on there. I now understand (correct me if I'm wrong) that they divided it up into Silk, The Grande, and American Icon. We have the traditional at 6PM so from what I read, we'll be in either Silk or The Grande each night. Does anyone know if that is something we can choose or how they assign it? Also, since we're doing the traditional, anyone know when the formal night(s) would be, if they still do them? I think I'm getting a handle on this all except for that. Thanks for the help.