Live Island Princess FLL to LA

[jeno]

If anyone has gone to specialty dining on this cruise, what was your impression?   We are on the 111 day world cruise and hoping for some variety from the MDR. 

[Margarita Jane]

Will be on the TA and wondering about the laundry room. It’s been awhile since I used the laundry room….What is the charge to use washers and dryer? Can you charge the fee to your stateroom? Are there soap dispensers? 

[ftwtong]

If anyone has any pics of MDR menus, I would love to get an idea of what that is looking like. We will be on Island in June. Thank you for everything you are sharing. It is very helpful and gets me excited about our trip!

[MissP22]

On 5/9/2022 at 11:26 AM, PatriciaF said:

We like the service and the extra entree option in Club Class.  But unlike our 20 days in Club Class in 2019, the service isn’t perfect.  My husband only drinks Diet Coke and it was on the table within minutes of us sitting down, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Same with my morning coffee order.  But the long break in working may be the biggest reason.  I would think the service will be very polished by then.

 

We've never don't club class but have always had waiters that have our drinks ready when we arrive or at least get them very soon after we sit down.

[crimlarks]

On 5/9/2022 at 7:16 PM, Margarita Jane said:

Will be on the TA and wondering about the laundry room. It’s been awhile since I used the laundry room….What is the charge to use washers and dryer? Can you charge the fee to your stateroom? Are there soap dispensers? 

The cost for the laundry room washers and dryers is $3 per coin. One coin for a good sized load of wash; one coin for 60 minutes in the dryer. 4 washers and 4 dryers in each laundry room. You use your medallion to pay for the coins. There is a cost for soap and dryer sheets, but we just brought our own Tide pods and bounce dryer sheets so I didn’t pay any attention to the cost for those. 
The laundry rooms are pretty small. Not really any place to hang around in them, so we just went back to the room while the machines were running.  There are ironing boards and irons also. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by crimlarks

[caribill]

On 5/9/2022 at 5:02 PM, PatriciaF said:

It is scheduled for tonight in Princess Theater.  The production shows were the formal nights.

 

What other Production shows are on the Island?

[Margarita Jane]

@crimlarksThank you for laundry room info!

[rideev]

Are they still doing the Princess Pop Choir?  That has been my princess cruise high lite!

 

[crimlarks]

19 hours ago, rideev said:

Are they still doing the Princess Pop Choir?  That has been my princess cruise high lite!

 

 Nope - I’m guessing Covid protocols killed that

[MissP22]

19 hours ago, crimlarks said:

 Nope - I’m guessing Covid protocols killed that

Along with some other events that I can't quite understand. 

[Cuedon]

This is more LA to FLL at this point, but.. wow, are there all kinds of issues on the Island right now.

 

There appears to be some kind of systemic issue with the DMW system; a lot of people who are booked for private tables aren't getting them, and one couple I was speaking to said that, after two days of 30min+ waits to get into the MDR via reservation line, they canceled their reservations and got in faster as a walk-in. The maitre'd trying to explain why it was evidently impossible to get a private table despite having a reservation kept changing the reason mid-explanation too. 

 

MDR food is consistently slightly off. My walnut and goat cheese salad turned into olives and gorgonzola; the bananas foster was raw bananas in syrup; the potato sides keep coming out as different kinds of potato dishes. 

 

Plumbing is also messed up-- no hot water leading to low water pressure, and once the pressure was fixed, I discovered my shower drain's outflow was woefully low. Other people reported non-flushing toilets and I met somebody whose shower head fell off.

 

Only production show so far was the one like "Think You Can Dance?" or something. Everything else I noticed so far was billed as a solo performer... Obscure enough labeling that I only noticed they were the theater performer by looking at their venue.

 

Internet is pretty messed up but in a good way-- I somehow have full internet access this morning without having paid for it? Woke up to alerts going nuts. 

 

There's also a surprisingly high number of blues for a TransCanal, making this a particularly poor showing for Princess. 

[MissP22]

18 minutes ago, Cuedon said:

There appears to be some kind of systemic issue with the DMW system

DMW system ? What is that?

 

If your AC is working in your cabin, you should consider yourself lucky at this point. Many cabins have only partial AC. 

You would have thought that many of these problems would have already been solved since it's the second trip through the canal this season.

[kb4683]

1 hour ago, Cuedon said:

 

There's also a surprisingly high number of blues for a TransCanal, making this a particularly poor showing for Princess. 

Sorry, what does this mean?

 

Oh, got it -- blue "cards" 😀

Thank you

Edited May 16, 2022 by kb4683
To answer my own question.

[Cuedon]

2 hours ago, kb4683 said:

Sorry, what does this mean?

Lots of first timers on board who might think this is normal for Princess, as opposed to people who've been there a few times who know that the quality of service/experience is typically better. 

[kb4683]

17 minutes ago, Cuedon said:

Lots of first timers on board who might think this is normal for Princess, as opposed to people who've been there a few times who know that the quality of service/experience is typically better. 

Thanks for the answer.  It dawned on me right after I posted my question.

[beg3yrs]

5 hours ago, MissP22 said:

DMW system ? What is that?

 

Dine My Way

[UT-Volsfan]

Concerning the issue with the Dine My Way system (DMW) losing reservations, we found on our back to back cruise in March that the Princess system did not know how to carry dining reservations over from one booking number to the next one. Reservations disappeared for multiple parties on the first day of the 2nd cruise.  They would show up then get overwritten with somebody who had booked it just for that cruise.  We had made a conscious decision to book a table for two and were not happy to be told it was not available.

 

We were told by dining room matre d that this is a known issue in the DMW system.  Took them 2 full days to get our reservation corrected. Never did hear any kind of apology, but it did get fixed. 

[Margarita Jane]

@Cuedon Any updates on your cruise? Sounded pretty awful from your post on Monday. 

[hbrand]

Just thinking about the pools on the Island Princess.

Are they heated and ware loke 85 degree ?

Greetings, Harold

[hmatt]

Ready to sail on the Island May 26🤗  Read earlier reports of some rooms not cooling very good and if anyone has had trouble with their air? Also how is the buffet,?we always eat there, except when we have a dinner or two in the steak restaurant, can’t seem to recall the name right now!  Hopefully your cruise has been healthy and fun, if anything anyone can think of anything that stands out good or bad please post. Got off the Enchanted two weeks ago and the cruise was great.

thank you

[Cuedon]

3 hours ago, Margarita Jane said:

@Cuedon Any updates on your cruise? Sounded pretty awful from your post on Monday. 

I suppose it honestly depends on what you're accustomed to, and what you'll tolerate. 

 

From what I can tell, a lot of the water issues have been resolved, the dining issues (for me, at least) are resolved, getting INTO the MDR is a lot faster too. Whatever they're doing on Lido is probably going to be resolved by the next leg. 

 

One issue I heard (no problem personally) is that a lot of rooms have poor or nonfunctional AC... There's a lot of blues on this trip though, so that might be from a block of people leaving their balconies open and causing the thermal systems to kill themselves. 

 

One interesting issue that I heard from somebody in the MDR near me (who spent the entire dinner complaining, after opening with how she's not a complainer...) is that a lot of rooms have nonfunctional safes.

 

Internet is still weird, in that I can use it for free on my phone. (There was an email a few days back noting that it'll be free for the Transatlantic since it's expected to be terrible, so a moot point, I suppose.) 

 

In the buffet, anything not on those minidishes is still crew-served. 

 

Masking is encouraged, but realistically, under 10% of people are, so... Up to you. Sanitizer stations are still all over the place. 

 

Entertainment is weird; a lot of the mid-day events are ones I haven't seen before, like "Word Tennis" (It plays kind of like Concentration or Shiratori.) or Rock the Room... Which was like what you get if you took mixed music trivia and split the entire room into two teams. I heard that one of the comedians was their very first time performing the other day. Reviews on him were 4 good, 1 'okay for a first timer', and 1 awful. 

 

Casino is awkward, but that's an effect of it being really, really small. Rumor mill has it that they might have budgetary issues this trip. 🤣

[Cuedon]

On 5/10/2022 at 8:55 AM, ftwtong said:

If anyone has any pics of MDR menus, I would love to get an idea of what that is looking like. We will be on Island in June. Thank you for everything you are sharing. It is very helpful and gets me excited about our trip!

Are you still looking for menus? This set is for formal night #2:

 

https://ibb.co/s9bLHpz
https://ibb.co/0JkhLbN
https://ibb.co/xDpwbrN

[MissP22]

7 hours ago, Cuedon said:

I suppose it honestly depends on what you're accustomed to, and what you'll tolerate. 

 

From what I can tell, a lot of the water issues have been resolved, the dining issues (for me, at least) are resolved, getting INTO the MDR is a lot faster too. Whatever they're doing on Lido is probably going to be resolved by the next leg. 

 

One issue I heard (no problem personally) is that a lot of rooms have poor or nonfunctional AC... There's a lot of blues on this trip though, so that might be from a block of people leaving their balconies open and causing the thermal systems to kill themselves. 

 

One interesting issue that I heard from somebody in the MDR near me (who spent the entire dinner complaining, after opening with how she's not a complainer...) is that a lot of rooms have nonfunctional safes.

 

Internet is still weird, in that I can use it for free on my phone. (There was an email a few days back noting that it'll be free for the Transatlantic since it's expected to be terrible, so a moot point, I suppose.) 

 

In the buffet, anything not on those minidishes is still crew-served. 

 

Masking is encouraged, but realistically, under 10% of people are, so... Up to you. Sanitizer stations are still all over the place. 

 

Entertainment is weird; a lot of the mid-day events are ones I haven't seen before, like "Word Tennis" (It plays kind of like Concentration or Shiratori.) or Rock the Room... Which was like what you get if you took mixed music trivia and split the entire room into two teams. I heard that one of the comedians was their very first time performing the other day. Reviews on him were 4 good, 1 'okay for a first timer', and 1 awful. 

 

Casino is awkward, but that's an effect of it being really, really small. Rumor mill has it that they might have budgetary issues this trip. 🤣

It still sounds like a lot of problems I can live without considering there are other choices for a Panama canal trip.

[crimlarks]

Well, we just got off the Island Princess after 29 days on board, and B2B Panama Canal cruises.  Yes, the MDR dining reservations got messed up - we supposedly had the same 2 person table for all 29 days, but after the turnaround in LA we still had a reservation for a 2 person table every night, but it wasn't the same each night.  After 2 nights of that we decided to just eat in the buffet for the rest of the trip. Which was probably better because believe it or not we actually ate less eating there.  We both gained weight on the Fort Lauderdale to LA portion of the cruise, and didn't want that trend to continue for another 15 days.  The first 2 nights in the main dining room were total chaos, with HUGE lines waiting to get in (and this was at our 5:40 PM seating - when we got out after eating it was even worse.)  When we got seated in a 2 person table that was over in a little corner next to a 6 person table (felt like we had been bad children and were being made to sit in the corner) we decided no more MDR for this trip.  In the end we were glad we went with eating in the buffet for the rest of the trip.

[crimlarks]

We didn't have any of the other issues described here - no problems with the AC, the safe worked fine, no issues with water pressure or temp.  The big difference between the first segment (FLL - LA) and the second (LA - FLL) was the fact that the cruise was only about 50% full on the first and 80% on the second. So more crowding.  But overall we'd give a thumbs up to the cruise and especially the crew who were fantastic.  Our regular waiter in the MDR, was great.  We ran into him working in the buffet during the day on the second segment and he talked about how short staffed they were and could barely keep up in the MDR.  I'm sure when the cruise was only 50% full it was fine, but sounded really stressful for the MDR staff once they had higher capacity crowds.  Loved the pizza on the Lido deck - had that several times, and the Grill up on 15 had great hamburgers, shredded pork and coleslaw sandwiches and fries.  Man the fries were good - we just got a basket of those one day and split it.