californiagirl

Add me to the list of recommending hip surgery. In 2019 my husband had both hips done 8 weeks apart. He had to do stairs the day after surgery as our home has 5 levels. (The week following the second surgery I booked us into our Marriott timeshare in an accessible room.) One week following the second surgery he could do the stairs. Three months after surgery he was walking 3-5 miles daily. Seriously it was life changing for him. He lost 25 lbs and has kept it off. His only regret was that he didn’t do it sooner. With the anterior approach the surgery is nothing like it was years ago. I wish you the best. Arthritis in the hip is painful with every step.

My experience was that I always received a fountain soda in the dining room. As a Diet Coke drinker there is a definite difference in flavor between fountain and canned Diet Coke. The servers didn’t bother to charge again for refills. Even with buying the soda package since the dining room glasses are so small and sometimes takes awhile for a refill I always ask them for Diet Coke no ice and a separate glass of ice only. I then combine them.

Got it! Thank you Coral. I bid for the forward facing club class mini. That would be AWESOME if we got one of those! I know there are only 4 and the layout is totally different than any other mini, not to mention the huge balcony. 🫰🏻

You could in November 2014. I was cutting back on my soda consumption then (I don’t know what I was thinking! 😂) I only drank one per day so I didn’t buy the package. I prefer fountain over canned so I would buy a fountain glass/cup of soda at any bar.

Thank you Gottagocit. I wonder if their intention is to push people into the plus and premier add ons. If that is the case since I don’t drink alcohol I will just buy my sodas by the glass and get all canned Diet Cokes in my mini-bar set up. I don’t want to pay extra for things I don’t need. I don’t get the smoothies or juices.

Gottagocit don’t bite my head off…I’m just the messenger sharing info!! I agree if all you want is coffee that is a ridiculous price. The price of the soda package is much higher than it used to be. When we first cruised Princess in 2002 the cost for unlimited soda for a 7 day cruise $21 or $3/day. That was a good deal. It’s now $15.32/day. If the soda package goes away and all they have is the zero alcohol package then I will buy my soda by the glass.

Mine WAS marked as a no upgrade (booked directly with Princess) and they still upgraded me. But as I said earlier we were given 48 hours to decline. Another wrinkle. I received an updated upgrade bidding email today. It offered club class mini-suites for as low as $100 pp. I used the chat feature to find out where they were located. She checked and came back and said our sailing is sold out! Not sure why they would send the bidding email then. I wondered if the sailing was sold out as I first tried to look at available cabins online. The sailing was listed as unavailable. I went ahead and bid on the club class mini anyway. Either way I’m happy.

I just replied to the other thread about this. Bottom line I was able to purchase the soda and more package just a few minutes ago. There is a new coffee package. See the photo I posted in the other thread.

I was able to purchase the classic soda package just now. We sail 2/25 on Discovery. I was worried because I’m a big time Diet Coke girl. I was going to buy it onboard with OBC but didn’t want to take the chance of it suddenly going away. There is also a package called zero-alcohol drink package, see photo. I’m not sure if this replaces the coffee cards. I don’t drink coffee so I never paid attention to coffee cards or prices.

Yehootu we did have the opportunity to turn it down. The email said we had 48 hours. To keep the upgrade the email informed us to do nothing further. I hope this helps. 😊

Buckeye I wondered the same thing. When we booked I discussed with the princess rep whether or not we wanted a meta upgrade. We have done that before. I decided against it since I really wanted the port side and a high deck. She confirmed the booking was listed as no upgrade. With a meta upgrade I couldn’t have controlled the location on the ship of a mini-suite upgrade. I know that if a mini-suite was available in an area I liked I could have switched cabins after receiving the upgrade. Prior to cruising on Royal class ships the mini-suite was our default cabin of choice. Especially E730 or E731 on Grand class ships. However the deluxe balcony cabins on Royal class ships have worked well for us. The mini-suites have been generally so much more money. Mainly my husband likes a sofa. It will be nice to have a tub.

I just received notice of a (free) upgrade from deluxe balcony to mini-suite! Our booking was listed as no upgrade. We wanted to be on a high floor, port side so when we received the cabin bidding email we looked at it but didn’t bite, The upgrade is to the Marina deck, slightly forward, port side!! Doing the happy dance! 👏

We received our medallions today for our cruise leaving in 10 days. We were not charged when I ordered them several weeks ago. If charged for our next cruise we will pick them up at the port. I have to say though it does get us excited and makes the cruise seem real…however not $10 worth. 😂

Yes the area is very small. Last September boarding was delayed about 45 minutes. The elite, platinum, suite area was combined and so small many of us were standing outside the designated place. I was standing by the door when they gave the thumbs up. I had the pleasure of being the first to board!

Thank you so much for your info and pictures. I really wish we could prebook the Sanctuary prior to boarding. I would even pay a premium to do that. If Discovery had an adult pool area like Regal I would not consider the Sanctuary. However her adult pool area is lined with cabins so there is no view of the ocean. I did this cruise last year on Majestic and I LOVED her Hollywood pool area. First world dilemmas. 😊 Thank you again.

Thank you for your reply. Again great pictures. I last cruised in September. Since then Princess has rolled out new menus. From reading on CC some (maybe all?) menus are one page including listing desserts. Also the always available fettuccine has been replaced with lasagna. The only thing I will miss is the fettuccine. I really enjoyed a small appetizer portion some nights. I think it’s on the new menu one night. When did you book the Sanctuary? Did you have several choices for lounge chairs? I really don’t like hurrying up there immediately following boarding. I like your idea of booking it half days. We may do what you did and book it for our Cabo day if it’s available.

Thank you for your review and pictures! Were they using the new menus?

As I said we are going to arrive when we originally planned. Thanks for all the input.

Having lived in SoCal nearly all my life we refer to the entire area as Long Beach. Yes, I’m aware of the different locations…Discovery Princess out of San Pedro. (It’s also called the Port of Los Angeles.) We have cruised several times on Princess from this port. What is unusual is the email listing boarding times by deck. The option on the app to choose a boarding time never became available for us. When I boarded last year on this same cruise, same port boarding times were done on the app. I think I arrived at 11ish and waited briefly before boarding.

Today I received an interesting email from Princess. It instructed us that they would be boarding us in by deck. (We are sailing out of Long Beach at the end of the month.) In all our cruises we have never received a notice of this kind. Not sure why they made the change but are going to board when we had planned…around noon. We want to be onboard in time to eat lunch in the dining room.

I’m interested too. We sail her at the end of the month.

Our cruise at the end of the month will be our first with elite status. Is the procedure different for elite passengers? The entire time we were platinum our friends, traveling with us in different cabins, were always able to board with us. The check in personnel - at different ports directed all of us to the platinum lounges.

The adult pool is covered. The main pools are open. It was adults only on my Mexico in Feb 2022. I think I read on CC that in Alaska kids were allowed in the adults only area.

Just to clarify was fettuccine Alfredo available every night?

Let me begin by saying we are long time Princess cruisers and generally really enjoy our cruises. However I understand much of what the OP stated. Just because my experience is different doesn’t mean their’s is any less real. We have a terrible PVP. After a significant problem last summer where he was completely useless, I will NEVER use him again. The prior comment about someone’s PVP liking them better has nothing to do with it. As in any industry some are better than others. Live chat has come through the most for me but some issues can not be corrected by going that route. For whatever reason Princess definitely has a communication problem. It’s is ridiculous to expect paying customers to wait endlessly on hold or to expect them to make more than one phone call to resolve an issue. We are 18 months past the return to cruising and Princess should have their act together. If I am paying extra out of pocket for a meal then I expect the service and food to be outstanding. Our experience in Crown Grill has been that it’s pretty good and generally a notch above the main dining room, but has never come close to true fine dining. Hence we don’t bother with it anymore. I would have been very disappointed with the bed. The new beds are wonderful and not to get one would have been unfortunate. We don’t expect perfection and with very few exceptions have had outstanding service. However along with poor communication Princess has a problem managing expectations. They are promising the moon and falling far short. They are nowhere close to a luxury cruise line yet they try to promote themselves that way. Just my $.02.