Onboard Royal Princess?

[Idratherbeatsea]

Has the Maitre D kept late traditional dining at 715?

 

Whats playing on Muts?

[Luvtennis6060]

Did anyone get a medallion on the current cruise?

 

Cindy

[echoshipmate]

On the recent 49 day south America cruise, late traditional was at 7:45. So many MUTS hard to recall all of them. My highlights were Bohemian Rapsody, MaMaMia, Green Book, Rich Crazy Asians,, hopefully someone else can chime in.

[ceilidh1]

3 hours ago, Luvtennis6060 said:

Did anyone get a medallion on the current cruise?

 

Cindy

On royal right now. We have medallions. They are operational but are being used alongside cruise cards as they transition. Both medallion and card required to get on and off ship at the moment.

 

second seating is at 7:45pm

 

Cant say I’m impressed with royal to be honest! It has been one issue after another since we got on - not sure if it’s a new batch of staff or that they just don’t care!

[Idratherbeatsea]

2 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

On royal right now. We have medallions. They are operational but are being used alongside cruise cards as they transition. Both medallion and card required to get on and off ship at the moment.

 

second seating is at 7:45pm

 

Cant say I’m impressed with royal to be honest! It has been one issue after another since we got on - not sure if it’s a new batch of staff or that they just don’t care!

Greetings fellow wet coaster. Not happy with 745. They shouldn't allow the Maitre D to change time. DW is going to be upset. Don't think I will tell her yet.

[#1Nanna]

3 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

On royal right now. We have medallions. They are operational but are being used alongside cruise cards as they transition. Both medallion and card required to get on and off ship at the moment.

 

second seating is at 7:45pm

 

Cant say I’m impressed with royal to be honest! It has been one issue after another since we got on - not sure if it’s a new batch of staff or that they just don’t care!

What type of issues are you referring to? We will be on her May 4th, just curious. 

[ceilidh1]

2 hours ago, #1Nanna said:

What type of issues are you referring to? We will be on her May 4th, just curious. 

Mainly small things that, by themselves, would not be a big deal....but when there is one thing after another after another it gets pretty tedious!

 

kids soda package was not showing on card on day one. Took paperwork to passenger services - they wouldn’t even look at it. Told me they had to email corporate and someone would get back to me Monday. It’s now Monday night and still nothing. In the meantime my TA followed up and let me know the ship received the confirmation Sunday morning - yet still no package or follow up. We are being charged for drinks right now and o suspect it will be another fight to get the charges taken off.

 

The coupon book that is meant to be in your room wasn’t there. The only thing we use it for is buy one get one specialty restaurant on embarkation. I asked passenger services twice and was promised it would be sent to room. Nothing came. I asked steward - she had no idea what I was talking about. Finally found one on a stewards cart and asked if I could have it. It was now 8:30pm and crown grill had no more tables! 

 

Got charged $65 for something we didn’t buy. Did get charge removed but more standing in line to do so.

 

Elite amenity kit kit has only half the items it used to contain. According to steward, this is how it is now.

 

Requested bathrobe arrived day 3 of 7 day cruise - and came with no belt, so is useless!

 

Pre-purchased medallion net as I got an email saying I could apply my elite minutes to receive discounted price of $59.99. Found out on board that the discounted price was $52.

 

Ship is beautiful but the layout is ridiculous. No walk around outside deck and it’s so hard to get from front to back as many decks don’t go all the way through!!! We are constantly having to go up or down to get anywhere! Hot tubs are luke warm. Pools are cold (and tiny). I can’t imagine why this ship was chosen for Alaska- no real outdoor viewing areas and no indoor pool??? I am booked on it in September and next March and will cancel both on my return!

[ceilidh1]

3 hours ago, Idratherbeatsea said:

Greetings fellow wet coaster. Not happy with 745. They shouldn't allow the Maitre D to change time. DW is going to be upset. Don't think I will tell her yet.

We have early seating which is 5:30 and haven’t made it to restaurant yet. It’s just not a good time!

[Georgie562]

9 hours ago, Idratherbeatsea said:

Has the Maitre D kept late traditional dining at 715?

 

Whats playing on Muts?

 

[#1Nanna]

5 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

Mainly small things that, by themselves, would not be a big deal....but when there is one thing after another after another it gets pretty tedious!

 

kids soda package was not showing on card on day one. Took paperwork to passenger services - they wouldn’t even look at it. Told me they had to email corporate and someone would get back to me Monday. It’s now Monday night and still nothing. In the meantime my TA followed up and let me know the ship received the confirmation Sunday morning - yet still no package or follow up. We are being charged for drinks right now and o suspect it will be another fight to get the charges taken off.

 

The coupon book that is meant to be in your room wasn’t there. The only thing we use it for is buy one get one specialty restaurant on embarkation. I asked passenger services twice and was promised it would be sent to room. Nothing came. I asked steward - she had no idea what I was talking about. Finally found one on a stewards cart and asked if I could have it. It was now 8:30pm and crown grill had no more tables! 

 

Got charged $65 for something we didn’t buy. Did get charge removed but more standing in line to do so.

 

Elite amenity kit kit has only half the items it used to contain. According to steward, this is how it is now.

 

Requested bathrobe arrived day 3 of 7 day cruise - and came with no belt, so is useless!

 

Pre-purchased medallion net as I got an email saying I could apply my elite minutes to receive discounted price of $59.99. Found out on board that the discounted price was $52.

 

Ship is beautiful but the layout is ridiculous. No walk around outside deck and it’s so hard to get from front to back as many decks don’t go all the way through!!! We are constantly having to go up or down to get anywhere! Hot tubs are luke warm. Pools are cold (and tiny). I can’t imagine why this ship was chosen for Alaska- no real outdoor viewing areas and no indoor pool??? I am booked on it in September and next March and will cancel both on my return!

Wow!!!  That does indeed sound very frustrating! We have been on the Royal Princess before and love the ship. Sorry you have had such a rough time hopefully it gets better.

[caribill]

3 hours ago, Idratherbeatsea said:

Greetings fellow wet coaster. Not happy with 745. They shouldn't allow the Maitre D to change time. DW is going to be upset. Don't think I will tell her yet.

 

The Maitre D' did not change the time.

 

The time in the Personalizer never represented reality. It has rarely been correct in the past and continues to be rarely correct.

 

No matter what it says in the Personalizer, the times are only place holders for early and late seatings.

 

I had one B2B a few years ago where pre-cruise the Personalizer said both segments had late seating at 8:00 PM.

 

Turned out on the first segment it was 7:45 PM and on the second segment it was 8:15 PM. Well, the average was 8:00 PM.

[Griller]

6 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

Mainly small things that, by themselves, would not be a big deal....but when there is one thing after another after another it gets pretty tedious!

 

kids soda package was not showing on card on day one. Took paperwork to passenger services - they wouldn’t even look at it. Told me they had to email corporate and someone would get back to me Monday. It’s now Monday night and still nothing. In the meantime my TA followed up and let me know the ship received the confirmation Sunday morning - yet still no package or follow up. We are being charged for drinks right now and o suspect it will be another fight to get the charges taken off.

 

The coupon book that is meant to be in your room wasn’t there. The only thing we use it for is buy one get one specialty restaurant on embarkation. I asked passenger services twice and was promised it would be sent to room. Nothing came. I asked steward - she had no idea what I was talking about. Finally found one on a stewards cart and asked if I could have it. It was now 8:30pm and crown grill had no more tables! 

 

Got charged $65 for something we didn’t buy. Did get charge removed but more standing in line to do so.

 

Elite amenity kit kit has only half the items it used to contain. According to steward, this is how it is now.

 

Requested bathrobe arrived day 3 of 7 day cruise - and came with no belt, so is useless!

 

Pre-purchased medallion net as I got an email saying I could apply my elite minutes to receive discounted price of $59.99. Found out on board that the discounted price was $52.

 

Ship is beautiful but the layout is ridiculous. No walk around outside deck and it’s so hard to get from front to back as many decks don’t go all the way through!!! We are constantly having to go up or down to get anywhere! Hot tubs are luke warm. Pools are cold (and tiny). I can’t imagine why this ship was chosen for Alaska- no real outdoor viewing areas and no indoor pool??? I am booked on it in September and next March and will cancel both on my return!

We just spent 49 days on Royal. A very senior age group voyage, we were some of the not so aged passengers and had to adjust to a slower pace. We now realize this is probably typical of a longer cruise.

I have to agree with the points you made,

Passenger Services are awful, they have little understanding of problems reported to them and do whatever they can to stonewall passengers.  You can't tell them about the problem then go away, they make you stand there while they disappear for a half hour to ask the supervisor, then they come back with an irrelevant answer.

Hot tubs are at best warm, and some of them the jets were not working. Pools were cold, so never swam in them.

We never got bathrobes, gave up asking. our second steward was otherwise great first one was difficult to work with, seemed frightened of her supervisor, used to hassle us about getting out if the cabin so she could service it.

After really pushing for it we eventually managed to  change cabins due to excessive noise (C203) which was due to crew  not noisy passengers and for the next 6 weeks everything   we should have had delivered to our new cabin actually went to our old cabin, there was still someone else listed on the LCD panel outside our door as occupying our new cabin right up to the end, our shipboard account was compromised,  various things.

Yes the Elite toiletry kit is minimal now. We take our own stuff now anyhow, better quality even though we buy it all in Dollartree.

Medallions did not often work to open cabin door lock. Never tried it on anything else, didn't want to risk it.

Buffet had some very good items , some very strange dishes with  weird inappropriate  combinations of ingredients, many dishes left out on the line so long they got dried up or soggy and mushy, some dishes only barely warm, however you could usually find a table.  Much like a Golden Corral in many ways.

Same layout buffet was much much better on Regal and Majestic. Buffet counter servers spoke little English so no point asking them anything.

 

Breakfast service for juice etc was inadequate and there is no selfservice for this on Royal.

Main Dining Room was understaffed at lunchtime on sea days resulting in poor service

If you ordered anything in the Buffet then it was hit and miss whether you or someone else would get it as some of the waiters didn't seem to differentiate between passengers even those who looked totally different,  male/female, Caucasian/Asian.

Main Dining Room deck 6 midships was nearly empty after 7.30pm when it became Anytime, service was great, food less so.

We bought Medallion Net internet online in advance, but when there was a problem Passenger Services said that because we bought it online they could not and would do nothing to fix the accounting problem, so it cost us $129 in extra charge on board to get the service we had paid for.

Taking into account what we paid  generally we enjoyed the cruise but if we had paid top dollar for it we would have been very unhappy.

[ceilidh1]

2 hours ago, Griller said:

We just spent 49 days on Royal. A very senior age group voyage, we were some of the not so aged passengers and had to adjust to a slower pace. We now realize this is probably typical of a longer cruise.

I have to agree with the points you made,

Passenger Services are awful, they have little understanding of problems reported to them and do whatever they can to stonewall passengers.  You can't tell them about the problem then go away, they make you stand there while they disappear for a half hour to ask the supervisor, then they come back with an irrelevant answer.

Hot tubs are at best warm, and some of them the jets were not working. Pools were cold, so never swam in them.

We never got bathrobes, gave up asking. our second steward was otherwise great first one was difficult to work with, seemed frightened of her supervisor, used to hassle us about getting out if the cabin so she could service it.

After really pushing for it we eventually managed to  change cabins due to excessive noise (C203) which was due to crew  not noisy passengers and for the next 6 weeks everything   we should have had delivered to our new cabin actually went to our old cabin, there was still someone else listed on the LCD panel outside our door as occupying our new cabin right up to the end, our shipboard account was compromised,  various things.

Yes the Elite toiletry kit is minimal now. We take our own stuff now anyhow, better quality even though we buy it all in Dollartree.

Medallions did not often work to open cabin door lock. Never tried it on anything else, didn't want to risk it.

Buffet had some very good items , some very strange dishes with  weird inappropriate  combinations of ingredients, many dishes left out on the line so long they got dried up or soggy and mushy, some dishes only barely warm, however you could usually find a table.  Much like a Golden Corral in many ways.

Same layout buffet was much much better on Regal and Majestic. Buffet counter servers spoke little English so no point asking them anything.

 

Breakfast service for juice etc was inadequate and there is no selfservice for this on Royal.

Main Dining Room was understaffed at lunchtime on sea days resulting in poor service

If you ordered anything in the Buffet then it was hit and miss whether you or someone else would get it as some of the waiters didn't seem to differentiate between passengers even those who looked totally different,  male/female, Caucasian/Asian.

Main Dining Room deck 6 midships was nearly empty after 7.30pm when it became Anytime, service was great, food less so.

We bought Medallion Net internet online in advance, but when there was a problem Passenger Services said that because we bought it online they could not and would do nothing to fix the accounting problem, so it cost us $129 in extra charge on board to get the service we had paid for.

Taking into account what we paid  generally we enjoyed the cruise but if we had paid top dollar for it we would have been very unhappy.

Thanks for posting your experience. I was starting to wonder if it was just bad luck on my part! I am usually very low maintenance and rarely complain unless it’s something major, but the constant issues are annoying! Half way through the cruise and still nothing done about the soda package- another trip to front desk today!

 

 

Heatd lots of complaints about tendering being a nightmare yesterday. We had a shore excursion so ours was ok - still took an hour and a half from the time we were told to meet until we were on shore but at least we were sitting in the theatre. Supposedly the regular lounge was standing room only for a very long time!

[Idratherbeatsea]

9 hours ago, caribill said:

 

The Maitre D' did not change the time.

 

The time in the Personalizer never represented reality. It has rarely been correct in the past and continues to be rarely correct.

 

No matter what it says in the Personalizer, the times are only place holders for early and late seatings.

 

I had one B2B a few years ago where pre-cruise the Personalizer said both segments had late seating at 8:00 PM.

 

Turned out on the first segment it was 7:45 PM and on the second segment it was 8:15 PM. Well, the average was 8:00 PM.

Point is that the Personalizer should be correct. In my opinion.

[Griller]

I forgot to mention that Matt O'Brien was the CD on Royal during our recent 49 day S America voyage and he is a lot of fun, a very active CD, very very energetic, we felt  he really wanted to do his best to make it a memorable voyage, and he succeeded in this as far as we and our entire group were concerned.

Matt's team of Andrew, Catalina, Phil, Dan and Justenn    were also very friendly and engaged well with the passengers, they had many activities from morning till night, they did have just a few epic fails with the incorrect answers they had to some of their Trivia questions but it stayed fun for the most part.

Its nice when the CD crew actually know passengers by name like they did us, specially on a ship with thousands of passengers, even if only a few hundred take part in CD organized events.

The shows and other entertainers  were also reasonably good, Secret Silk in particular being a great show, we went to see it 3 times.

On the negative side we didn't have a lot of time in the Vista Lounge for Trivia as the Art Auction tended to monopolise it, and of course Effy were annoyingly over - promoted as well, we don't care if we never hear the name again, it was hard to get away from Effy this and Effy that for the whole 49 days,  just too too much Art and Effy.

[Georgie562]

Current Royal cruiser,

are they giving straws with drinks or do I need to bring my own ?

[PescadoAmarillo]

14 minutes ago, Griller said:

...just too too much Art and Effy.

Thank God it was just water in my mouth when I read this. Yep, I totally agree.  Art and Effy Princess are definitely cruise buzzkills.

[ceilidh1]

29 minutes ago, Georgie562 said:

Current Royal cruiser,

are they giving straws with drinks or do I need to bring my own ?

I have had straws with all of my cocktails. Kids soda hasn’t been getting them but they give them on request as well!

[ceilidh1]

35 minutes ago, Griller said:

I forgot to mention that Matt O'Brien was the CD on Royal during our recent 49 day S America voyage and he is a lot of fun, a very active CD, very very energetic, we felt  he really wanted to do his best to make it a memorable voyage, and he succeeded in this as far as we and our entire group were concerned.

Matt's team of Andrew, Catalina, Phil, Dan and Justenn    were also very friendly and engaged well with the passengers, they had many activities from morning till night, they did have just a few epic fails with the incorrect answers they had to some of their Trivia questions but it stayed fun for the most part.

Its nice when the CD crew actually know passengers by name like they did us, specially on a ship with thousands of passengers, even if only a few hundred take part in CD organized events.

The shows and other entertainers  were also reasonably good, Secret Silk in particular being a great show, we went to see it 3 times.

On the negative side we didn't have a lot of time in the Vista Lounge for Trivia as the Art Auction tended to monopolise it, and of course Effy were annoyingly over - promoted as well, we don't care if we never hear the name again, it was hard to get away from Effy this and Effy that for the whole 49 days,  just too too much Art and Effy.

I agree - the cruise staff are doing a great job. CD is still Matt O. We are meant to have Secret Silk but rumour has it that it’s been cancelled. Tonight is colours of the world. I’ve seen both shows so not too bothered. We had AJ Jamal and a magician ( didn’t catch the magician) at the theatre the past two nights.

[caribill]

3 hours ago, Idratherbeatsea said:

Point is that the Personalizer should be correct. In my opinion.

 

That would be extremely difficult.

 

Voyages are open for booking up to two years in advance of sailing and when the booking starts, people make their early, late or anytime choice.

 

That far in advance it is a total guess about what time fixed seating will be scheduled.

 

In addition, it appears with a couple of exceptions, the times in the Personalizer are the same for all Princess ships in all parts of the world at all times of year. Reality, for example,  is that dining times on Med cruises are usually later than in the Caribbean.

 

Nobody at Princess has taken the task of figuring out what the dining times may be on thousands of voyages on the different ships up to two years in the future.

 

[Griller]

1 hour ago, ceilidh1 said:

I agree - the cruise staff are doing a great job. CD is still Matt O. We are meant to have Secret Silk but rumour has it that it’s been cancelled. Tonight is colours of the world. I’ve seen both shows so not too bothered. We had AJ Jamal and a magician ( didn’t catch the magician) at the theatre the past two nights.

As far as Secret Silk is concerned we were told one problem is that the puppets are Jim Henson Company products, and that for example if  the horse - which we were told costs $70,000 -  develops a problem then it has to be sent back to the supplier in the US for repairs, no fixing it on the ship is allowed.,   the second time we saw Secret Silk last month  there was no horse, but the third time the horse was back in the show. We don't know if it was the same one or not. How many can they have at that cost?

And of course like any production show it can't be put on in rough weather in case of injury to the cast, and Secret Silk also has pyrotechnics.

All factors which may lead to cancellation on any particular night.

What a great show though!  We also like Magic To Do out of all the other Princess  shows, think that was on Regal.

 

Edited March 26, 2019 by Griller

[lolane1]

16 hours ago, caribill said:

 

The Maitre D' did not change the time.

 

The time in the Personalizer never represented reality. It has rarely been correct in the past and continues to be rarely correct.

 

No matter what it says in the Personalizer, the times are only place holders for early and late seatings.

 

I had one B2B a few years ago where pre-cruise the Personalizer said both segments had late seating at 8:00 PM.

 

Turned out on the first segment it was 7:45 PM and on the second segment it was 8:15 PM. Well, the average was 8:00 PM.

 

Seriously, if it's just a place holder for first and second seating, it should say so or they need to add a disclaimer saying that times may vary from the cruise personalizer.  I am booked on the Royal and 7:45 is just too late.  I absolutely would have booked early but that time was ridiculously early and also not reality. Too late to change now.  Both times have a long waitlist.

 

I hate anytime dining, but does anyone know what would the crowd issue be like around 6PM and also of getting a table for two?

 

Bummed.................

Edited March 26, 2019 by lolane1
spelling

[1emerald1]

23 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

On royal right now. We have medallions. They are operational but are being used alongside cruise cards as they transition. Both medallion and card required to get on and off ship at the moment.

 

second seating is at 7:45pm

 

Cant say I’m impressed with royal to be honest! It has been one issue after another since we got on - not sure if it’s a new batch of staff or that they just don’t care!

Just a thought, do you think maybe the Captains Circle desk may be worth a shot?

[Griller]

46 minutes ago, 1emerald1 said:

Just a thought, do you think maybe the Captains Circle desk may be worth a shot?

On our 49 day recent voyage on Royal the CC host Carla had a waaaay long line every time she was open for business.  Also as we only had 700 odd days we were not in the running for MTP so never did get to speak to her.

Anyway I think the problems are not anything she could do anything about. 

When I mentioned the buffet problems to the Maitre D' he said that one problem is that the experienced galley workers are not coming back for more contracts and they have a number of inexperienced workers with poor language and other skills.

The Chef in charge of the buffet did not seem to have everything under the control I have seen on other ships, the basics were there OK but there was a lack of finesse, one example was toast put out which was toasted only on one side, when this was mentioned to the toast guy behind the counter he just shrugged.

Unripe melon and pineapple put out, all sorts of lack of attention to detail.

That was never the Princess way BITD.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Griller

[1emerald1]

9 minutes ago, Griller said:

On our 49 day recent voyage on Royal the CC host Carla had a waaaay long line every time she was open for business.  Also as we only had 700 odd days we were not in the running for MTP so never did get to speak to her.

Anyway I think the problems are not anything she could do anything about. 

Yeah, it was just a thought.  I remember reading another post where the passenger made a request from his steward and was told no, but the cc girl took care of it immediately.  I don’t remember what the request was.