JimmyVWine

Just curious. When ordering drinks, do you inform the server that you have the Plus Package and should not be charged, or do you just tap in with the Medallion and expect that the system will get it right? ( don't mean that in an accusatory manner as if you did anything wrong. I just don't know how to phrase it any differently. I am wondering if the error rate decreases if one verbally announces that they should not be charged. We shouldn't have to do that, but I will if it helps.)

Just checked. I found one shop in Edmonton that has the 2011. No shops anywhere in CN that have the 2006. Price is $65 (Canadian).

For our sailings out of the U.S., we will be doing the same. Not sure that I have found a great solution for when we sail out of Southampton or around the Med. Need to build in sufficient time and budget to hit up nice wine shops in an unfamiliar places.

Ditto. I have Plus in October and banked $250 of OBC to account for the overage of the three of us. Still not worth the cost to pay for Premier. $250 for 3 people for 7 days comes out to roughly $12 per day per person, way less than the upgrade. That allows each of us to exceed the $12 limit 3 times a day at $4 per glass or 4 times a day at $3 per glass. Seems about right.

Just performed a "sanity check" to make sure that I wasn't losing my mind, and went to the website of one of my favorite wineries. Here's what they have on their website: The Winery All winery visits are by appointment only. Please email either my sister Xxxxx or me (Xxxxx) to arrange a time. Please recognize that since we have no employees, we're not always able to accommodate requests. And we're pretty much completely unavailable from mid-July thru mid-November due to bottling and harvest.

Can you get a glass of Cab in Vines that fits within the Plus Package? And if you can, I don't think the server can "select for you" as I think there would only be one option. So per force, you will "have whatever is open."

The recent leap in Princess’ wine pricing coinciding with the rollout of Plus/Premier pricing may have a significant impact on how much wine is brought on board and how many people opt for the packages. The wines included within the Plus program offer little to people who consider savoring good wine to be an integral part of their vacation. Instead those wines are geared more toward the: “I don’t care. I’ll have whatever you have open” crowd. My fear is that when Princess sees the number of corkage fees collected increase, it will step in and limit the number of bottles per cruise. One daily corkage fee plus daily gratuity plus daily internet is still less than the cost of upgrading to Plus. And your wine quality will improve dramatically.

In wine service, servers are never going to stop someone from tipping 20% on an expensive bottle, but it certainly isn’t expected. Good wine service is adequately tipped out at $5 per diner per bottle. So at a table for four, that comes to $20 for one bottle and $40 for two bottles which is the equivalent of a 20% tip on a $100 bottle. The service provided if the diners order a $500 bottle is no different except under extraordinary circumstances. Servers don’t (or shouldn’t) expect the windfall of serving diners who break the bank on wine. Now, one might say the same thing about different priced food, and to a degree that is true. But the price difference between the cheapest entree and the most expensive pales in comparison to the price range on the wine list. If you add in $5 per person per bottle, odds are that your overall tip will remain in the 20% range. And if you order a $500 bottle and are afraid that your overall tip will seem too low percentage wise, just write it out on the restaurant’s copy of the credit card slip for the server to see: “Food @ 20%=$40. Wine @ $20. Total tip $60”. If your total bill is around $300, you are right at 20%. If your bill was $200 for food and $400 for wine, this is still a fair amount and any server at a fine dining establishment that sells $400 bottles will get it. People taking cruises don’t really have anything to complain about. Life is good. In answer to the original question, I offer a different perspective. Many times my tip is not based on what effort I think the service provider is expending and instead I ask myself: “If someone came along right now and offered me the opportunity to relieve me of my present burden, how much would I pay that person to do just that?” So when I unload all of our luggage from the cab and am balancing and rolling and dragging it all around, and I ask myself how much is it worth to me to NOT have to do that, THAT is the amount that I tip. We usually have enough luggage to justify a $15-$20 tip. I don’t care if the porter is carrying it 2 feet or 2 miles. The point is that I don’t have to deal with it any longer. At the start of my vacation I am giddy and generous!

Interesting that Whispering Angel is no longer available by the glass and that there is no Rose’ available by the glass whatsoever. “I’d like a glass of Rose’” is a far more common phrase to hear than “I’d like a bottle of Rose’”.

Yeah, I was going to mention that. A roundtrip drive out to the heart of wine country, (St. Helena in Napa and Healdsburg in Sonoma) is going to run you between 85-100 minutes each way on a weekend and 20-30 minutes more on a weekday. Kind of hard to do any meaningful winery visits with the time left over. Maybe a couple of hit and run tasting room stops, but not much more. An alternative would be to seek out tasting opportunities in SF itself. https://www.sftourismtips.com/wine-tasting-rooms-in-san-francisco.html

The wineries I am referring to do not have "Wine Educators". During crush, it is "all hands on deck."

One basketball per person can be brought on free of charge. Additional basketballs will be assessed an inflatage fee of $20. If you upgrade to Premium the fee is reduced to $10 and you have a chance to get that fee waived if you are the lucky winner of a door-opening prize.

It depends. Many small, family run operations close during harvest and crush, or strongly urge visitors to pick a different time. They call it “crush” for two reasons: what is happening to the grapes and what is happening to the employees. The winemaker and owners are more concerned with the production side in early October than they are with the customer relations side. Usually if I am invited to go out to Napa in October to pay a visit to a winery, it is to work the harvest and not to taste. That said, if you stick to the large producers like Mondavi, Beringer, Phelps, Caymus, Silverado and the like, they will have a division of labor such that the hospitality side won’t shut down during crush.

This is important and probably colors my view. Neither Princess nor EZ Air can do for me what the American Airlines Platinum Desk can do and in less time.

See above

I guess the solution is to pair up with the people with whom you spoke and amend your reservation to a party of 4 or 6 or 8 and create your own shared table. The app lets you add "shipmates" and once you do, you can add them to your dining reservation. If the staff won't pair people up, then they have to take the initiative and do it themselves.

The situation described by the OP could never happen if the flight arrangements had been made independently. Indeed, every single thread on this board that addresses a snafu with EZ Air would be obviated if flight arrangements were made independently. Booking one's own air travel is so easy that it makes no sense to sit on hold and wait for assistance from EZAir and then hope that they get it right. Indeed, there isn't a single thing that EZ Air provides that independent booking does not. Why add an extra layer of complexity when there is absolutely no upside?

Yes, but the Dine My Way functionality allows you to book the same dining room at the same time every day. That gets you half way to replicating the Traditional Dining experience. Once you are on board, if you liked your table and servers on the first night, you can ask the Dining Room Manager if you can have that table on each subsequent night. If that request is granted, then you pretty much have replicated the Traditional Dining experience all the way.

I see your hindsight and raise it. This is why I never have and never will use EZ Air. No marginal cost savings can ever be worth the peace of mind of me being in complete control of my flight arrangements, seat selections, luggage allowance, etc.

Welcome to the Captain’s Gala…

We did as well.

Most are. But there are a few at the bow and stern that are only partially covered or have little to no cover. But if you stick with port and starboard cabins, the answer is yes.

Check your schedule carefully. Some itineraries have very short stays in Kotor and others are longer. If your stay is longer, a private guide is well worth the cost. They are among the cheapest private tours of any place I have been. Maybe THE cheapest. It is great to get some local knowledge and a geopolitical perspective of a city and country that you likely know very little about. The guide will have a car and can take you to Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks and can also drive you to view points that rival those you see on the hike up the mountain without the strenuous hike itself. The Old Town is a labyrinth of streets and alleys and while it is not essential to have a guide, for the price they charge, it is worth it. But if your stopover is a short one, a self-guided tour of the Old Town is probably the way to go. Just do some internet research in advance and get a walking guide to the city that has a map and shows you where the highlights are.

My guess is $180. Two people will cost….you do the math.

These are the types of places that leave you guessing. Nice to know that Princess "Plus" has risen to this level in the Dining Rooms, bars and lounges.