EdmPair

A bit academic, but this is a partly a computing science problem. If you were Princess and sold a guarantee of a Obstructed Ocean View or better, which of those cabins do you marked sold? If you marked all sold and some buyer does NOT want a change and would buy but only as 'no upgrade', they would see all sold.

Also, numbers of cabins have been 'sold' with a refundable deposit. Those could vanish at any moment and many will. Princess can not risk loosing that sale by saying the cabin is already gone.

Building a sold/unsold map for customers would be an impossible task for a programmer to meet the needs of Princess who is really the client.

My 3 cents Canadian.

M

Although I can do without the birthday or anniversary singing we always celebrate something. :p It makes the waiters happy not to sing anyway.

I have a small amount of happiness when I hear the waiters in the MDR finish

singing Happy Birthday. I am glad there is not a song for any other celebration.

M

I had a birthday while on the Nieuw Amsterdam. A simple cake and card from the Captain showed up after we ate in the Italian Restaurant. There was NO room for more cheap cake. Also, I am certain the Captain used the rubber stamp to affix his signature. I was truly underwhelmed. I know my math and know how many birthdays there would be and knew it was just one more assembly line in the kitchen. I thank them for there consideration but would not check off my birthday again.

I am not surprised so many of the cruisers are celebrating one thing or another what with birthdays, anniversaries, new jobs, graduations, and retirements. And also not surprised some select that when not true. My last cruise was MONTHS after getting married, but we thought the cruise was celebration. I would think most couples would do about the same.

There are formal final deadlines to book but the practical deadlines are

1. Your passport

2. Getting plane tickets for the dates to arrive a day before departure

3. A single night hotel room

4. The cruise itself

A TA can speed some of those up but not with the passport. AND if you have a passport near expiry that is a problem too.

The end of August is not impossible but seems tight. Good luck.

M

I may have missed it, but looking at the 2014-2015 Cruise Atlas every Princess Alaska cruise I found goes to Skagway.

Look again. I was just off the Star Princess and it did Tracy Arm Fjord and Icy

Strait Point and not Skagway. This planned itinerary was not unique but it less common.

Then again, who really wants to be common.

BTW ... many years ago I was part of a big national conference in Whitehorse,

Yukon and we had a day of tour where I went to Skagway by bus over the White.

The conference was bigger than would fit on the train if memory serves and I lost

the lottery. I took a boat ride across the fjord to Haines. I fully enjoyed it but

remember both Haines and Skagway as 'tourist traps' dominated by cruise ships.

These big ships change the local economy and not always for the best. Skagway

in my memory has as many tshirt/magnet/postcard/tanzanite shops as Ketichan

or Cozumel.

Can you imagine how brave the person had to be to decide to eat a lobster/crab for the first time? :eek::D

It is not just lobster and crab.

Who was first to try strawberries? Or loganberries??

Or how do you get to eating artichokes?

But the ultimate has to be ...

Puffer Fish.

We are just off the Star from Alaska and had the most 'interesting' supper of

shared dining. We were placed with an elderly lady who found fault in many things

the staff had done. She was soft-spoken but was clear all the food is much better

in the Horizon Court but liked to meet new people down here. I have to say it was

awkward but we had one line which was later to be a good laugh.

"I would never have booked this cruise if somebody had told me it did not go to

Skagway."

Oh well. It was just one night.

(The update on by iPad app runs my sentences outside the screen so I had to

keep putting line returns to see what I was typing. Some 'upgrades' are not.)

Interesting. Sorry you were disappointed. I had Crab Shack on the same ship, Star Princess, in December and it was exceptionally good. Everything about it was good. (SNIP)

 

 

 

Added note: I was just looking for one of those crackers with snips online and couldn't find one. I might have to search one out and buy it for future trips!! LOL.

We are now off the ship and into free WiFi. The hospitality does dry up a bit the last morning. The provided cutters / crushers worked. I was more surprised the staff did not automatically give seafood forks nor seem to know what I was asking for. The clippers had the brand name Paderno and that may help you track down some to buy.

Also relevant is that Princess credited the up charge for us. I was not saying you should not try the Crab Shack but you need to ask some questions if booking.

Tries the crab shack on the Star currently in Alaska. Firstly, the have it in the back section of the Horizon Court under the children's program. The sound track is that of some kind of ball game upstairs. We were told this could not be changed. If they can find a more forward section of HC, this problem will be solved.

The food was disappointing for the additional charge. They served somewhat dry garlic toast as seen in most basic pizza joint only to group it with battered and deep fried shrimp and deep fried Hush Puppies. I had never seen nor heard of Hush Puppies before but they are deep fried corn bread or something close. This was the fare of a midway not a cruise ship.

The clam chowder was very good with whole clams in it. However, we did have to ask for a plate for the shells.

The main course was as ordered but not served very hot. The crab was good but as usual you have to jail break it to eat it. To get some of the crab out, I asked two staff for seafood forks. The first said they just had the regular table forks but the second knew what I wanted and went out of the room to get two. The shrimp in the same bowl were entirely over cooked and very solid. This is not surprising as the corn in the same steamer was cooked to a mush. This bowl was cooked a few hours before ordered -- it seemed. The potatoes were ok.

Dessert was a choice of three basic cakes served by the waiter. No garnish. (Other have said they had pecan pie. Perhaps an 8:00 reservation gets the left overs?)

If the rest of the food was as good as that of the HC and not interrupted by noise, I would consider trying again. It has been 24 hours so I have had time to ponder it all. Now that I am in Juneau, I can see crab on the boat is no bargain and if it is always served like this, why bother.

You can pay from $15 to $35 per leg to gty your seat in advance.

 

 

 

Not happy about this either.

That is $30 to $70 to get both your legs in the same seat. (Sorry.)

M

If your cow has milk which is ONLY 3.8%, she is not well fed. Most dairy cows produce higher grade milk. The dairies skim the excess off for cream and cheeses. Those products have higher margin.

My 3 cents,

M

Unfortunately all I've found on the various Princess ships I've been on, is either whole milk or skim milk; nothing in between. My personal preference is 1%, but I could handle 2% in a pinch. Whole milk now has the texture of heavy cream and skim milk tastes like the powdered milk (major yuck!) I had when I was stationed in Tripoli Libya many years ago.

I once found myself out of milk and in a small store. They only had one container of whole milk which is my preference and several of skim. I bought one of each and mixed at home. Here in Canada, the fiction of whole milk is 3.25% MF. The mix would then be half that. May help some of you.

The next one of each. The next ship and the next port.

M

If you take any big tour, there will be vendor for a hat like you want and AC/DC t-shirts. The vendors sell the typical nesting dolls and also the worst tourist 'stuff' you might imagine. Your guide will drop you at one shopping site or another. You can not go shopping alone.

Good luck.

M

You did not say which ship, but on most you can control it in your cabin. I have not found it too cold in the public spaces but that says nothing of your experience. I suggest the same clothing choices others have given. Pack to be prepared.

M

I'm curious, does anyone know if the wall between the cabins with the fire door is thicker then the normal cabin wall? I always thought that those cabins might be a bit quieter, at least from one side, if the cabin wall was thinker and had the extra insulation. But then again with the outside floor strip maybe not.

I do not build ship but do know North America building techniques for fire walls to some degree. The wall may be slightly thicker but mostly fire rating is done by changing the materials and details. Since ships do not use drywall or cinder block, I doubt the wall will be thicker. If you could look under the wall sheeting you will see things like fire caulking around every pipe and wire which had to be punched through the wall. Any air duct would have a solder coupling in a louvre in the wall so it would slam shut if heated up. Again, fire rating is more in the details and not the thickness.

Fire rating is NOT design for noise abatement and so I would expect a fire wall to be the same as any other cabin wall for that.

Later,

M

In other words, there are a great many worse fashion statements made by passengers than a happy colorful Aloha shirt.

Really? Name some.

For the record, I wear socks with sandals. Berkinstocks in fact.

I will wear an open collared long sleeve shirt over a t-shirt. I do not tuck it in and it is a light jacket layer like that.

Uncombed hair. Let the wind blow baby.

Heck, I will even wear grey tones and brown tones at the same time.

Not ready for Milan,

Martin

Port Talks or anything "free" at the spa; both just sales pitches and a waste of time.

We had port talks on a Baltic Cruise aboard Princess which was about the city history and sites. It was well presented information and closest I can remember it got to the sales talk was pointing out which area of the city has shops for the shoppers. I guess the key sites are given and you could then book a tour to see them but the talk was usually the day before so late to sell excursions.

If all your port talks are about sales, you need to change cruise lines. I have never done anything free in the spa so can not comment on that.

M

Not to sound gross, but I only get it sitting on the toilet for a few days. Sounds strange but I bet I'm not the only one (0:

I do not think it gross, just observational. I had the false motion feeling mostly on the toilet but sometimes other places too.

I actually hope to find out if I take a 90 day cruise if this effect lasts longer. It is not so much that I want the funny off-balance feeling as I want the 90 day cruise. :-)

I work in physical security including with merchants who deal in large quantities of cash. There is a cost to keeping that kind of coin secure. We sell really nice safes to big stores for overnight protection and a travel agent who pushes to get cash needs to have a comparable box or will not have insurance for overnight storage.

And then there is the 'cash exposure' which is how much risk you take of an armed robbery from peeps who want cash. The trend in retail has been to less and less cash and in Canada that means taking debit and credit for almost everything. The cost of credit card commissions is roughly what you save on the cash handling issues according to some retail security analysts. It is very close to neutral.

On a related note when I was shopping for a house many years ago, a realtor spoke of getting a payment in cash for a house the day before. She said it was 50% of this big house and knowing what I do, told me she was uncomfortable moving the money to the bank. Most of us would think of this kind of coin as a lottery win and I would NOT carry it all in cash.

My 3 cents Canadian,

M

This bridge cam photo is frozen as it has the same time stamp now as 48 minutes ago. Well, maybe cached is a better description than frozen.

Hope it all works out OK.

I consider it bonus vacation time! For just a moment, I am back on the ship.

M

(I do not mean to make light if you get it so bad you feel sea sick. I never have.)

Mostly they get the charges right. I think the advice to check every second day is a bit much. We did a two week cruise and did a check at midpoint and at the end. I want to toss a caution of what is meant by the end. If you disembark on a Saturday, the Friday night the service desk is FULL of people paying out their accounts. The time to check and challenge a charge is one night earlier or Thursday. (They claim all staff working there are equally qualified, but I find there are more and better people working during the day shifts.)

If I was doing a longer trip, checking the cabin charges once a week seems reasonable. Still, get a 'final' bill the second last day to check it all.

Bon voyage,

Martin

It is not just the water. Remember Carl Sagan pointed out we are made of star stuff. All the atoms heavier than about lithium are made in stars and only escape when that star blows apart in a nova. The gas cloud then condenses back to planets and here we are.

If you take up the science, water is firstly made biologically clean. This is the stage it can not cause disease as any virus, bacteria or protozoa is killed even if not removed. Water is then 'safe' to drink but except for some survivalists including military personnel drink this kind of water. It is often far from appetizing but is safe. (I tried some once. Yuck with a capital YUCK.)

Most of the posters here want chemically pure which you get by distillation (or even evaporators which do the same thing) or reverse osmosis (RO). Both take real energy and only evaporators can keep up with the needs of a cruise ship. The process is so good you have to add back salts after to get the taste people want. Alas, it is not the balance of salts you have at home so it does taste different.

As has been said, cruise ships pull in ocean water to evaporate to get new water instead of using the grey water stream. I suspect this is as much for public relations issues as plumbing issues.

My 3 cents Canadian,

M

Thanks for the info. I think I knew the general idea of this but not the numbers. The Big Muddy is huge compared to what LV has to cope with.