nukesubsailor

14 minutes ago, JSSpence said:

Apologies for all of my recent posts, I am knee-deep in planning.  We are planning a SB cruise for 2021, and our son will be nearly 10 at the time. We definitely want to do a land-portion prior to the cruise. Are there many kids on the cruise tour options? None of the itineraries I've seen so far are "perfect" so I'm starting to think about the DIY approach for the land. But I also don't want to keep my kid cooped up with just us, if there are typically other kids on the cruise tours that he could hang out with. (Note: I'm going to crosspost this on other boards for Alaska and family cruising). Thanks!!!

We have done 3 Princess land tours. There were no children of any age on any of them.  The DIY approach might be best with children as you can make stops when every you want.  Princess tours are on a tight schedule and the coaches only stop for a break a minimum number of times. and there will be lines waiting to use the facilities.

5 hours ago, MissP22 said:

They had dog sniffers in Cozumel on our last cruise there & I tested them with a wrapped up piece of old apple core in a napkin.

They missed it. 

What other regulation violations to you commit to test the enforcement efficiency?

On 10/27/2019 at 10:54 AM, registrar said:

Does anyone know if there are Magnifying Make-up mirrors in cabins on Regal?

 

We had one in our suite.

17 minutes ago, donswife said:

We were escorted onto the Caribbean Princess last October in Ft Lauderdale. This was very nice (and very awkward) because the line to board was seriously backed up due to scheduled coast guard inspection. Our escort took us past everyone in line.  Then it was funny, because he didn't believe that there were suites on the Fiesta deck. We had been in the same window suite previously, so we knew where it was!

We were not escorted to our penthouse suite on the Caribbean Princess last January in Ft. Lauderdale.  This benefit must be a hit or miss thing.

34 minutes ago, Anubi said:

Sorry if this has been asked; search feature was no help.

 

I know that someone usually posts the upcoming Princess cruises around this time of year.  I booked our Baltics from that posting last year.  😉

 

Have I missed it or has it not been posted yet?  

I too have been looking forward to seeing a cruise schedule beyond the spring of 2021.  I check nearly every day.  I have yet to see any such schedule posted on this forum or on the Princess website.

1 hour ago, Bwana Tom said:

My wife and I are booked on a b2b2b 3-leg cruise on the Royal Princess. We booked each cruise separately. We have shareholder, military & future cruise OBC. We are also Platinum members so we get free internet minutes adjusted based on the length of each leg. My question to you folks is: Will our internet minutes and OBC roll over from one cruise to the next, or do they expire at the conclusion of each leg of our cruise?

Thanks for you help.

Tom

It has been my experience on several b2b2b cruises that the unused free internet minutes and OBC carry over to the next leg.

15 hours ago, ecs66 said:

That sucks.  Love to hang out in the library.  It seemed to be quite full most of the day, so it doesn't make sense.

I just don't understand why Princess won't take my suggestion to fire Park West Galleries and convert the art area to library/game area with a bar.  They could call it the Peter Max Forgery Memorial Library.

22 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

What is a concierge lounge?  Is that something new?

 

And great pics.  Glad to see the WMP on this ship resembles the Horizon Court on the Royal class ship, and not what they did to the Caribbean Princess.

The concierge lounge is for the use of full suite guests only.  It is on all Royal class ships.

4 minutes ago, tjcletzgo said:

Can anyone tell me about trivia?  Is it free?

It is free.  Often held multiple times of day and evening with multiple topics such as movies or music.

6 minutes ago, lovin_retirement said:

We would like to have dinner at one or both of these on our 15 day cruise next month. Do you need to make reservations for dinner?

If so, how far ahead?

Thanx

We have never needed reservations and neither Planks nor Steamers was crowded when we ate at around 6:00 PM.

4 minutes ago, dides said:

Hi everyone, we arrived in Athens this afternoon and will board the Sky Princess Inaugural 7 day on Sunday.

 

I thought I would start the thread now so you can line up questions or photo requests in advance - we loved running around the Majestic Princess on her preview cruise in 2017 trying to find everything!

 

Feel free to chip in if you are also on the cruise.

 

Background: we are Sandra and Chris from London UK. Both still working full-time but addicted to cruises plus we also blog about them for fun.  We are Elite on Princess and are booked into a forward Premium Suite on the Sky - only our 2nd suite so we are by no means experts!

Really looking forward to trying out the new features including Take 5 and the re-designed Princess Live plus we hope to try out the Sanctuary if we can. 

 

Will do our best to help with requests so fire away!

 

Sandra and Chris

 

Near the end of your cruise, could you let us know if the al fresco dining at La Mer specialty restaurant and Alfredo's is a hit or a bust.  I know a lot of people are not pleased with that use of the promenade deck and the loss of the Crooners bar.

I noticed on the deck plans for the Enchanted and the Discovery ships that Crooners has been restored but on deck 6 so I believe Princess paid attention to all the complaints about having no Crooners on the Sky.  I wonder if the Sky will have Crooners restored in the future.  Thank you for your review of this new ship.

2 minutes ago, Cruzin Grandma said:

We generally pre-pay our tips so as not to have so many daily charges on our folio, however, on our up coming cruise we have a large amount of non-refundable OBC and would like to use that for tips.  Has anyone asked Passenger Service to charge your folio for the entire suggested amount at one time so as not to see daily charges?  I honestly do not want have to do the daily math to know how much OBC is remaining. Please do not let this escalate into a tipping debate or question my reasoning for this. Thanks in advance.

I doubt that the ship will change its bookkeeping program's daily accounting so that one passenger can avoid seeing daily charges.  Non-refundable OBC is used first to offset charges.  Your cruise personalizer credits and payments section tells you what the total gratuity cost will be for the cruise and how much non-refundable OBC you will have.  From that you can see if that non-refundable OBC will cover your total gratuity cost.  

There are things I would rather be doing on a cruise than auditing my folio every day.

The only variance to the menu that we ask for is that they use cheddar rather than swiss cheese in our ham and cheese omelets.  Other than that, if we are not in the mood for what is on the menu, we will go to the buffet.

15 hours ago, caribill said:

4 tables x 6 passengers = 24 passengers.

 

That is 16 short of being the top 40.

 

Any idea why there were only 24 passengers and not 40?

I don't know the reason for just having 24 passengers.  Maybe there were fewer Elites than usual on these cruises.  

The luncheon took place in the part of Sabatini's next to the windows.  To set it up they removed the bench seats next to the forward and aft walls as well as all the square tables.  They replaced all that with large round tables.

12 minutes ago, Kingofcool1947 said:

More like a king size bed.  I usually sleep alone, and it’s more than large enough.

We have a king sized bed at home.  The queen bed on Princess is not as big as our king.

1 minute ago, minniem said:

Did you notice if there was any dancing in the atrium or any of the lounges?

Yes there was dancing in the atrium.  We never went to the Vista lounge on this ship except for the wife during Bingo.

For some reason, Princess felt it unnecessary to put a bar in the Vista lounge.

12 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Do you know what the cutoff number of days was for the luncheon each segment?

Sorry but I didn't ask and the Captain's Circle host never mentioned.  There were 4 tables.  Each table had 6 passengers and one ship's officer.  The Captain sat at table #1.  I don't know for sure if the passengers at his table were the 3 couples with the most days but I would guess that was the case.  We sat at table #2 and we had 407 and 414 days.  The officers at our table, ( the Staff Engineer and the Chief Engineer ),  for the two luncheons were also 4 stripers like the captain.  I don't know if the other 2 couples at our table had more or fewer days aboard Princess ships.  The other tables had officers with less rank.

17 hours ago, PRINCESS Sweet Pea said:

Thank you for the good info!  I wonder if you could tell us more about the Entertainment and Bands on the Regal.  I see another thread on here.  We will also be sailing in a few weeks. 

We enjoyed all the entertainers that performed in the atrium and Crooners.  In particular, the brother & sister violin duo were great.  We did not attend any entertainment in the theater other than a performance by a large group of children from Halifax who did traditional Scottish dances.  That was fun to watch. 

I forgot to mention in my original post that the in-transit passenger process for those doing back to back cruises is non-existent at the Brooklyn cruise terminal.  We got a letter telling us to meet in Club 6.  No one else showed up and we finally were told to leave the ship.  We went through immigration just like any disembarking passenger then had to walk to the entrance to the terminal and get processed like we were boarding for the first time.  This terminal is the worst one we have experienced and that includes Port Everglades, San Pedro, Seattle, Vancouver, Whittier, and Southampton.

Just off the Regal last Saturday.  The term used on that ship was shuttle rather than tender.

Maybe it is just my years in the Navy but the term tender when speaking of a vessel meant a vessel whose purpose was to provide maintenance to other vessels.  And the vessel that took you from the ship to shore was called the liberty launch.

47 minutes ago, voljeep said:

what about a nice , long-sleeve, collared shirt ? ... no coat, no tie on formal night ?

I don't recall seeing anyone without a coat or tie but I just paid attention to those men sitting near me in the corner of the dining room.  I am sure their must have been some with nice shoes, slacks, and long sleeved collared shirt but no tie or coat.

That is what I had on plus a tie.  A tie is much easier to pack than a coat.

These are some of the things we noticed while spending the last two weeks aboard the Regal Princess.

The ship had a luncheon rather than a cocktail party for the most traveled passengers.

The luncheons are much better than the cocktail parties.  Menu was awesome.  Wine was good.

The cruise director saved herself hours of work in taping the Wake Show by using recordings of previous Wake Show crew interviews rather than actually doing new interviews.

I thought the recent practice of having an entertainment director was to free up time for the cruise director to be more creative and interface with the passengers.

We saw people turned away from the anytime dining room for attire that was very casual such as shorts or t-shirts.

Coats without ties and ties without coats were accepted on formal nights.

Ship security would not allow us to go ashore with post office issued mailing boxes that we wished to mail home.  I don't understand that and Security would offer no explanation.

The special main course dish offered in Club Class dining was often just one of the main courses on the regular menu with a different sauce poured on it.

The menu was repeated each week.

14 minutes ago, worldtraveller said:

If you do a Princess transfer do you have to collect your suitcases when you get off at the port or do they automatically handle it for you so you just have deal with your hand luggage?

You have to collect your luggage then take it to the Princess representative that will be in the baggage claim area.  Sometimes they take it from there and sometimes you have to move it to the bus.

As I understand it, Princess created the loyalty club in order to increase a passenger's desire to sail again on Princess rather than some other cruise line.  In short, the purpose of the loyalty club is to increase the profit made by Princess.

There has been a lot of discussion about the fairness of counting both cruise credits and days aboard ship as means to achieving a higher level in the loyalty club.  Most comments I have read tend to favor doing away with counting cruise credits.  People who pay extra to sail solo or in a full suite have a reason not to do that.  

I can see only one way to even things up so everyone has to do the same thing in order to move up in the Captains' Circle loyalty club.  Have only one metric and that is the amount of money you have spent with Princess.

12 minutes ago, JKulessa said:

Do you fly in the day before?  I didn't realize Princess would do transfers to hotels.  Any extra information would be greatly appreciated 😊

The Princess transfer to a hotel if you fly in the day before your cruise is part of the Princess extend your stay package which you buy.  It includes the airport to hotel transfer, the hotel room for the night, and the transfer to the ship the next day.

In the past, sometimes when we have flown in on the day of the cruise and had purchased the Princess transfer from airport to ship Princess bused us to the hotel where we waited for later arrivals before boarding buses to the ship.  Since then we have been bused directly from the airport to the ship.