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It's our experience that bringing wine onboard while in ports in Europe is completely hassle-free: no corkage, no storage. As far as a limit, I don't know but we carried 6 onboard at one port. 

2 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

After checking out the MDR lunch menu and the buffet, we opted for Alfredo's.  Again!  We have had lunch there 3 times now.  The pizza's have been very, very, very good!

 

Onions, capers and black olives, muy rico!  They ran out of anchovies onboard.

Made our own last night and we were telling our guests that the pizza on Princess at Alfredos (and its's successor) is on par with the best this NYC native has ever had. Looks delish, enjoy!

On a another note - those pics from San Antonio reminds me of Long Beach CA.

Thanks for all the updates!

Danny (Boy) will be breaking out the St. Patrick's Day tunes tonight!

I see that Danny Rembadi is onboard! Danny's terrific - his sing-a-longs are a lot of fun and he can play a terrific Spanish-style guitar as well.

One of my all-time favorites of cruise ship performers!

Great to see he's back! 

Have fun!

On 3/8/2023 at 12:57 PM, LACruiser88 said:

No gas, they are just pumping the air out.  That helps but not much.  They really should invest in Corvin's, but I don't see that happening.

We love that Embruix! It's our go-to at the Vines.

Hard to find that particular label at home.

4 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

A few facts about Montevideo, Uruguay.   Nestled between the continent's two giants, Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America.  More than half of the country's population of three million reside in the capital of Montevideo.

 

It was extremely hot and humid today.  After about an hour of strolling thru the main pedestrian promenade we rushed back to the a/c on the ship.  Of course this was after buying 3 bottles of Argentinian wine at the modern and air conditioned super market.

 

Interesting country - kind of a bastion of stability nestled in between two notoriously unstable countries.

Very liberal, open society as well - becoming very popular with ex-pats lately.

Didn't realize that the Sapphire cabins were still "old style" - with the old bump-out TV stand. Looks great though. Looking forward to a wine update!

Wow, rough start!

Had a similar experience boarding in Barcelona last fall.

Shake it off, relax, and have a great time!

2 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

Here are a few photos of our room.  The 3 mirrored doors are nice.  One is the bathroom door, the other two are closet/shelves.  There is also a safe in the closet and a mini fridge under the TV.  The room has very high ceilings and crown molding.

Whoa! Be careful getting in and out of that!!

Bon Voyage, LACruiser's!

Travel safely and have a great cruise - I'll be reading along!

First Princess cruise in 1992, aboard the late, great, Star Princess.

The itinerary was Venice to Athens, but it included memorable ports such as Rhodes, Santorini, Crete, and Izmir for Ephesus. Also Istanbul and a once-in-a-lifetime (especially now) cruise in the Black Sea to Odessa and Yalta. 

We did it all: a moonlit gondola ride with the singer and accordion player aboard - old women popped out of shuttered windows as we passed by! A Russian military rag-tag band greeted us in Odessa with Stars and Stripes Forever - brings tears to my eyes even now. Disbanded soldiers sold off their gear in a park in Odessa - the city was stunningly beautiful but racked by decades of USSR neglect. We sat on the portico at Yalta where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt once sat. Unforgettable!

The ship was gorgeous - a young waiter, Bong, greeted me by name and asked if I would like "a Beefeater martini?" the second time I ever saw him - that continued throughout the cruise. Service was Italian family-style - everything was brought to the table in large platters/bowls and the waiters served you from there. There was table-side pastas every night. 

There's been dozens more since then, on multiple lines but mostly Princess. I don't complain much about the changes because that cruise was just unsurpassable in every way. 

Great to see Ossobuca back! The last menu was similar to the take out menu at any local pizza place around here. Good to see them adding some pizzazz instead!

On 1/31/2023 at 4:58 AM, ski ww said:

Couldn't agree more. I guess only time will tell. The post cruise surveys, do they read them & fix what the guests are telling them is wrong with the brand/ship??

I suppose that process has been effectively corporatized as well. Most of the questionnaire is just numerical values (the fill-ins). The written comments are filtered down to fit into the same criteria as the fill-ins. The whole thing is fed into a computer and someone makes a report out of it for the quarterly meetings. Anything that possibly comes out of it has to be almost unanimously documented on the surveys. Of course, all of this is super-ceded by a hotshot young new Marketing exec that Carnival poached from Proctor and Gamble!

On 1/30/2023 at 6:28 PM, iceman93 said:

I'd love to see their definition of the target market for each brand.  Just as an example, I was very surprised when a friend of mine went to work for Princess (in the group that developed the medallion) and told me Princess was explicitly above HAL in the CCL pecking order in terms of prestige and sophistication.

Interesting take. We primarily sail on Princess but would have thought the opposite about HAL and Princess. I guess both lines look like Tiffany compared to Carnival! 

Disappointing article - sounds like any other corporate boilerplate statement.

I've been of the opinion since before the COVID disruption that Princess (haven't sailed on HAL in decades) seems to have lost their direction as a brand. Factor in the ill-effects of that disruption (supply-chain issues, labor shortages, an empty til) and we have, well, we have what we have now. 

Princess, in particular, seems to be a follower of trends now, not a leader in any. Their much ballyhooed rollout of "Medallion Class" was a curious way of matching the needs of the customer in a way that "elevate(s) the guest experience. Personally I have no problem with it, but the long lines at the internet help desk aboard suggest that many people do. "Who is the customer"? 

We still sail on Princess but we're tired of all the changes and we really don't see the benefits of Princess anymore being a distinguishing factor in choosing a line - save perhaps for the itineraries. Part of this is us - we're not getting any younger and many of the changes that Princess is bringing on are obviously geared towards a younger demographic. Can't blame Princess for that, but they're really not very good at reaching that demographic either as compared to some of their competitors. They seem stuck between generations.

Frankly the whole experience of cruising is changing too - too many mega-ships, imo, clogging up the works. Too many ships at what used to be idyllic ports. Just too many people - except crews. I wonder of the labor shortage aboard these floating cities is due to the well running dry or is it like college football now - if you don't like the program, you just transfer to another ship/company.

Good luck, Jan - you'll need it. 

16 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Sounds like how I think a Martini should be made. Put ice in the shaker. Pour the Vermouth over the ice and then strain it out before adding Gin.

I was at a dive bar on Marco Island years ago. Asked for a "very dry" martini. The bartender took the vermouth bottle and shot one back over his shoulder; "dry enough?" he asked! Just right!

A) 1992 The original Star Princess: Venice to Athens via the Black Sea including Istanbul, Odessa and Yalta. Unforgettable. A close second: 2020's Emerald from Long Beach RT to Hawaii and Tahiti.

B) Would love to take a Southeast Asian cruise.

C) Land-based? Bordeaux (St. Emilion and the Medoc), Beach (St. Jean de Luz), and Barcelona (train from San Sebastian to Barcelona) - all independent.

     Cruise-line land tour? Highlights of Spain 2022, a Princess tour prior to Med and TA cruise (Regal).         Five stars!

D) 32 on Princess out of 53 total.

4 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

To all those on the cruise, wish you safe travels home.  We had a great time!

 

Until the next one (March 5th, Sapphire, 32 days, Buenos Aires to LA).

Good one! Around the horn and up! Safe travels!

1 hour ago, Bimmer09 said:

They've had to hire a lot of new staff, some of whom don't look happy at the amount of work they have to do or aren't getting the training they need to enjoy the work more.

We are used to bantering with the staff at meals (like in the Siwa and Sadudee video) but have had many cruises where we bonded with the dining staff and asked for the same team at each dinner. On this cruise the dining staff were rather perfunctory and the personality was muted. They are perhaps stressed by having so many inexperienced staff to train. One Philippines server expressed that to us when probed. We didn't request any particular waiters this trip.

 

 

We noticed this on the Regal in Nov. as well, although we did find a regular duo in the MDR that we liked. But staffing, or the lack thereof, is a common gripe on these boards lately. On our cruise, it was apparent that they were woefully short-staffed. They even had to close the Symphony DR Kitchen because they (according to staff) couldn't staff it properly. That meant the over-worked waiters and Asst. waiters had to use the back stairs to the kitchen on 6 to get all the orders. Just what they needed.

Another thing we noticed was the staff's general inability to understand or speak English. This we never noticed before. Clearly, English isn't the majority of the staff's first language, but I recall staff members telling us, years ago, that the ability to properly speak and understand English was imperative to getting hired onboard. I guess the shortage of available help has changed that requirement. We're not sticklers for speaking English - heck, I grew up in Brooklyn so I have my own unique dialect anyway, but the lack of this ability was very noticeable on our last cruise. Ordering room service became a kind of fun entertainment in seeing what we ordered versus what showed up!

But why is the staffing such a problem? Is it just a residual problem from the lockdown? Or is it a bigger problem? So many mega-ships are on line now and that must surely strain the available labor pool. Some staffers on the Regal intimated to us that they are increasingly picky about what ship they will work now. Poor management on a particular vessel gets around quickly amongst crews and the red flag goes up. Apparently, the Royal is on some crew members Bad List list now because of abusive management (allegedly). We asked about some favorite crew members from past cruises - the vets onboard know everyone! We heard more than a few times that "that person doesn't work on cruise ships anymore". Maybe they get enough funds from the cruise gigs to start up a little business in their home countries, or they just find reasonable alternatives at home instead of leaving everything for a few months to work almost non-stop at sea.  Maybe some found these reasonable alternatives while the ships were out of service for so long. Either way, it's a problem for cruise lines these days.

Happy Cruising all!

15 hours ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

Good Spirits bar has the widest selection of wines by the glass. Might even be as many as Vines Wine Bar had, but unfortunarely no flights. My biggest complaint on this cruise is that the bar menus brought up by the QR codes in each bar are highly inaccurate. A lot of drinks are listed that are not available, but they often have several drinks, including wines, not listed on the menus. The bar staff haa no idea why their bar menus don't match their inventory.

I had a similar experience with the QR codes on the Regal in November. Problem is that they don't put out menus anymore at the bars. I had to go to the bar and look for myself what bottles they had opened. At the Vines (on the Regal), there were maybe two or three of the old-style wine menus with the wooden covers available but you had to ask. The QR codes were useless as they didn't have any of those wines. Additionally, there were wines not listed on either list available - but only the servers knew this!

Also, there were no flights available - I think that's gone for good along with, alas, any new Vines venues.

15 hours ago, LACruiser88 said:

Bar tip:  In our opinion, the best bartender on the ship is Valentino at the Salty Dog Bar.  

With the absence of a Vines on the Discovery I was wondering where you guys would go for you pre-dinner ritual!

11 hours ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

The Langmeil Valley Floor Shiraz is quite good. They have it at Crooner's and some other bars by the glaas. They have my favorite Italian wine, Amaroni, at the Crown Grill Bar by the glass. Grgich Hills Estate is always good. They have his Merlot by the glass at the Crown Grill Bar. Grgrich is the winemaker that made one of the wines that won "The Judgement of Paris" that put Napa on the map in the 1970s. He played a cameo role in the movie "Bottle Shock".

Cruisers to Dubrovnik, Croatia should try the Plavic Mali wines there. Croatia is where Mike Grigich is originally from and heavily influenced his wine-making skills. I recommend the excellent D'Vino Wine Bar in Dubrovnik, just off the main pedestrian walk through the old town there. Cheers!

A little off topic, but wanted to share that we did a Spain land tour this past Oct. prior to a Med/TA cruise. It was a week in Spain: Madrid, Toledo (from Madrid), Valencia, and Barcelona. The three hotels were all excellent, the tours were wonderful and nothing very early (thankfully), and the included dinners were all good and lots of fun. We had an independent tour guide, who was fabulous, and a full-sized coach for the 18 of us, so plenty of room to stretch out - and the driver was with us the whole time. We were very impressed - as good as any other pre/post tours we ever took on Viking.

We were on the Enchanted last February. The Salty Dog was where the Vines was on other Royal class ships, so every time I passed by I would just sneer and mumble something nasty under my breath. No matter though, no one was ever there to hear me anyway. No wonder they closed it. Great use of space there, Princess.

On the older ships that have one, it's in the Wheelhouse, kind of as a pop-up which is at best what it is. They used to sell a burger created by a chef, Ernesto Uchimura - the Umami burger, which was quite good. Not sure that's still the case though. 

First impression looks like a lot like the Edge-class ships from Celebrity, particularly the upgrade "Suite" sections. The Princess-style has been changing for quite some time anyway. Royal-class ships are different from the Coral/Island and the latest Royal class ships are even different from the Royal/Regal generation. 

Aside from the wood tones and atriums, basically everything else has seen significant changes. Now, the wood tones may be gone as well - everything looked grey, modern - similar to the overall feel of an Edge-class ship. Is it an innovation on Princess's part or a reaction? Kind of a big difference there. 

Safe to say that for many of us, the Princess brand is morphing into something else now. Good or bad opinions of all that are entirely up to the beholder. But, the fact is, they had to change - let's just hope they get it right but if not - no worries - there's plenty of competition out there.