jeromep

Aw, just have a few more adult beverages while you work. Most of us can't do that at our regular jobs. This is a unique opportunity.

You bring up a good point. I know a couple who road trip travel quite a bit. More so now that they are both retired. The wife was an elementary school librarian so she had summers off and they found time to drive to many, many, distant destinations here in the west, and keep in mind that the distances between places out here are measured in hours of driving and hundreds of miles on the road. I asked the husband about their travels and someplace in the conversation they mentioned looking for Applebee's while on the road, and dining there most nights while in transit someplace. I was shocked. Why would they seek out Applebee's? Especially while traveling where you could experience new foods. Simple, consistency and a relative assurance that the food would be prepared reasonably well in a sanitary manner. And yes, they did like the food there. McDonald's fits into the same category, they are consistent, you basically know what you are getting when you order something while away from home, and it basically tastes the same as if you were at McDonalds at home. Plus kitchen procedures are wrote in all McDonalds, so are sanitary standards, which means that there is a good chance that the food is being prepared in a predictably sanitary kitchen.

I'd say most of the Pacific Northwest has had a great day today. It is the warmest day we have had all spring. Full sun and 80 degrees east of the Cascades. The coast appears similar, although cooler.

Beds and food are always highly subjective. However, the "Princess Luxury Bed" is very good. The linens are excellent and we feel the mattresses are about the best we've experienced in any lodging situation. I like a firm bed, not rock hard, and these are quite a bit softer than I'd choose for my everyday usage, but I always woke up easily and had no feeling of being worn out or any pressure or pain points that I couldn't explain. However, hotel beds wear out and get used by all types and sizes of bodies, and wear out pretty quickly. You'll read reports here of beds that are made up to be the "Luxury Bed" but the mattress is well past its prime. That is the gamble you take in any hotel situation. Just to add and stay on subject, I've never had a bad meal on Princess.

It depends on the sailing. On our last cruise it was kind of difficult. We had Premier and two comped specialty dinners and one embarkation night dinner as a suite perk. Embarkation night dinner was the easiest one to book. The remaining two were more difficult. We used the Concierge to book those next two dinners. I don't know if they pulled strings or we were fortunate, but it was nice asking them to do it and them getting back to us with what was available. We ate at Sabatini's three times on that cruise. Ironically, we were never able to get a decent dining time at Crown Grill, so never ate there. Crown Grill on that sailing was very popular and full every night. Bistro Sur la Mer was still the seafood concept for specialty dining on that cruise (Discovery Princess, July 2023), and was nearly empty every night. We thought the menu looked ok, but it never struck our fancy. It would have been an easy walk up and dine situation, too. Looking forward to trying Catch on our next cruise. Not long now, not long.

I look forward to your insights on the "repositioning cruise" that is ahead of you. I can only imagine a future where I'll have 30+ days to take a long cruise. But things can change. I also never expected that I'd ever sail on Majestic. We have an Alaska cruise scheduled on Majestic for later on this summer. I have followed some of the lore around the Majestic since she was commissioned and honestly thought her whole life would be spent in Asia and Oceania, never to serve on the west coast, and my chances of trying her out were pretty slim. Well, that also changed.

My most recent cruise was on Discovery and yes, they were handling the griddle as I would expect. They were doing periodic scrape downs and periodic water sprays (which immediately creates steam) and scrapes. I had many a burger from the grill on Lido and felt that the food prep area was being handled as well or better than any local burger joint. Not only that the food was prepared in front of me and was plenty hot. I have no problem agreeing to disagree, especially since food is so subjective. On one of my late night walks I happened to notice that when the grill was closed they had a dust cover over the griddle surface. That was also rather impressive considering that I'm not aware of any restaurant that puts a dust cover over their griddle when they are closed. This makes sense considering that the grill on Lido is basically open to the elements, but it also shows conscious attention to detail.

Much smaller ship, and older than Discovery. Island is a Panamax ship, so it is narrower than your typical modern cruise ship, built specifically to fit through the old locks at the Panama Canal. It is missing some of the things most Princess cruisers really crave, like a full International Cafe. Since your trip is very port intensive, I don't think you'll be too displeased with the smaller ship since it is basically a place you have breakfast and dinner each day and a place you sleep. You'll have most of the same Princess style entertainment and shows in the evening. And since it is a smaller ship, fewer passengers, which also means fewer crowds. I was on Discovery last year, and while it is a beautiful ship, you can really tell the difference in the number of passengers on board compared to sailings I've done on smaller Grand class ships.

I agree that eating in port is a great way to find and try different cuisines, but depending on the port, I'm going to be very guarded about where I dine. There are some disgusting commercial kitchens out there, and the cleanliness of the kitchen and the staff running it are going to be directly related to a combination of factors, including how much the kitchen is regulated, how well managed it is, and the cultural and societal cleanliness standards the staff have regarding food preparation. As for flat tops, I regularly cook on a Blackstone. They are carbon steel and are supposed to be seasoned and retain a patina in order to be non-stick. While a good seasoning routing is best, in general, the more you use them, the better their nonstick qualities become. Throughout the summer when cooking on it, you bring it up to high temp, then back it down, do your cooking, remove the food, then bring it up to high temp again, and you scrape the surface while spraying it down with water, pushing excess oil and debris to the catch bin. Then you add a light coat of oil to the whole surface, let it smoke, wipe it down again and turn off. Generally speaking a flat top in a restaurant should not ever be "stainless steel" clean in appearance. And considering that at max temp you can get the surface of a flat top up to somewhere between 800 and 1000 degrees, no bacteria or virus can survive on that surface for any length of time. A griddle is inherently sanitary when it is cooking because it is very hot. I don't disagree with the sentiment. I can't say I've ever run back to the ship for lunch and then run out again... well, actually there was that one time in Juneau many years ago..., but that was about being practical. Choose a line to stand in at an eatery in the port area for an undetermined amount of time or a quick walk back to the ship, then through a very quiet security line to get food that we are generally certain is properly prepared. Agreed! That is exactly where I'm coming from. I grew up with this little chestnut in my brain, good old advice from mom, "want to know the condition of the kitchen, visit the restroom." Well, every buffet that I've frequented in my area is this and more. Most of the buffets where I live are all "Chinese" and I've seen more buffet faux pas occur on land than on board ships. Children running wild around warming tables. People thoughtlessly taking dirty plates back to get more, dropping serving utensils on the floor, sometimes just putting them back, sometimes having the sense to not do that, but then stand there with the spoon or tongs in hand held to the sky like some kind of awkward statue of buffet liberty or a student trying to hail their teacher. And let's not forget the lack of buffet table maintenance, nobody wiping down countertop surfaces or cleaning up little messes. Sure, I'm not a fan of self-serve buffets on ships, but the same behavior that we've all witnessed on board is often times worse on land. I was going to say something similar, that is almost exactly how I feel.

Same here. On a port day, I'm more than happy to eat on board and have Lido deck pizza, or a decent burger. I may consider the buffet, but Lido deck food is just fine. I'm generally back on ship on a port day because I'm either done with the port, in between excursions, or find the ship less crowded than the port (a welcome change).

I went round and round to figure out how to tackle this statement. First, there are many galleys on board. If you take a good look at your deck plan you'll notice that on most shops there is a void on deck 5 and 6 adjacent to the dining rooms at those locations (also I'm referencing the general deck design for Grand and Royal class ships). This would be the location of two large galleys, one on deck 5 and another on deck 6, serving the immediately adjacent dining rooms. There is a void area near Sabatini's and Crown Grill, and other casual dining locations. Same goes for Worldfresh Marketplace. This is all kitchen and crew spaces. Princess uses a lot of raw ingredients, very few prepared items. All bread and pastries are baked from scratch. Beef comes in as cryovac sections in boxes (similar to a grocery store or local butcher). There is a significant amount of prep work that occurs below decks. Prepped, raw, foods, meat, vegitables, etc., then make their way up to kitchens near dining or serving areas for final preparation. The foods that supply the specialty restaurants are mostly different than those that supply the MDR, unless we are talking about flour, sugar, spices, and other commodities; and final preparation of foods for specialty restaurants are done in the kitchen that serves that location. The ships are large enough that if all food came out of one central galley and was transported to the various dining areas, most of the food would arrive cold and it would take an army of staff just to schlep prepared dishes around the ship. So, whomever you spoke to that heard that food came from one central kitchen from was mistaken. Is the cover charge for specialty dining worth it? I used to unequivocally say yes. These days I'm more guarded. Sabatini's is generally excellent and highly consistent. That is going to be your best bet. The reports of the food quality, quantity and presentation coming out of the The Catch are also excellent. Crown Grill (and Sterling's for that matter) are up and down. I've always had mixed feelings about Alfredo's/Gigi's. It is basically good pizza, but sometimes they are chintzy on the toppings, and sometimes it is perfect. I was fine with dining there when it was included, but now that "casual dining" is cover charge without a package, I advise that you look and see what is coming out of the pizza ovens before I'd commit to dining there, at least not without it being part of a package.

I noticed your comment about the Piazza on the Caribbean Princess. Everything is relative, I guess. Compared to the Royal class ships, the Piazza on the Grand class ships is quite small. On the other hand, I still remember my first cruise on a Grand class ship and the Piazza seemed so large. It helped that there were like 1000 fewer passengers on board.

All cabins have fridges. They are not stocked unless you are in a full suite (not mini-suite) or are Elite in the Captain's Circle. There are some bottled/canned beverage packages you can purchase which would stock the fridge for you. I've never had to ask a cabin steward to keep ice in my fridge, but mine always have. If your cabin steward isn't refreshing your ice, you can ask them to and they will keep you stocked.

I can't speak about hotels the area, but I've done Uber/Lyft in many different cities and have found that, especially in urban areas, specific destinations, like ports and airports, have a great deal of coordination and instruction built into the app for the driver to know exactly where to go if you pick the correct destination Some destinations will ask you to specify even further once you select the destination as to what part of that location you are going to, if that is applicable. The rideshare driver will be able to find you because you will upload your photo to the app, plus you will find the rideshare driver because the app will display the color, make, and model of the vehicle they are driving along with the license plate number. The Uber app even has a "beacon" mode that will turn your screen on your phone a particular color and some line of identifying text which the driver can look for. You just turn on the beacon mode and hold up your phone and that could help the driver find you in a crowded place. Really, the rideshare services have thought of everything and have an excellent product.

I agree. I work for an organization that is standing up a small call center as we speak and knowledge base software is essential. And yes, we will fill the knowledge base with our straight forward policies and rules. There is no doubt in my mind that the rep the OP talked to read the exact same text that is on the web site, and on all the printed material you are going to encounter that talks about formal night. In fact, I'm a little surprised that that one member of the community hasn't come on the thread with a copy and paste of the web link to the formal night "rules" that is published on the Princess web site. They usually come by and post that whenever there is a discussion about dress code or formal nights. In practice formal night is a lot like boarding group times (which I think have gone away, not sure). It is a suggestion that is clothed to look like a rule, but since nobody enforces it, it is barely a suggestion. Have a great cruise.