Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Majestic Princess (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[harryfat1]

35 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Your discussion of socks and underwear is seriously funny. My DH would take 2 pairs of underwear and 2 pairs of socks for 4 days. He might even push the underwear to eight days. As he says inside out, front ways and backwards  plus normal equals 4 days per pair. As I am the one who sleeps with him he’s decided he prefers our cabin to sleeping on the couches in vista lounge or sky walkers therefore he packs +1. 
 

I’ve always said you simply cannot pack too much underwear. As Jack Nicholson said “never pass up a bathroom and never trust a fart”. The older I get the more I get it and the more underwear I pack. 
 

Really looking forward to your future installments. 

 

7 hours ago, Happiest when cruising said:

The sock part got me. We went on a 14 night Caribbean cruise and my hubby packed only one pair of dark coloured socks… yep, he wore them every night that he had to wear pants, so… every night as we ate in the MDR. 
 

 

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

Am I seeing a trend here - only the ladies are taletelling on their partners on their hygienic behavior (or lack thereof) ?  No guy is willing to come out and say their wives are -3 on their packing?😇

 

But yeah, I can see how men are less worried about what others think on multiple day wearing the same underwear.  Could even be a badge of "HE MAN" attitude as to roughing it with minimal number of underwear.

 

I used to pack numerous dark socks for the MDR dinners but also switching to the multi day usage as we typically come back from shore excursions in the afternoon and then shower and off to dinner.  In theory, our feet should be clean assuming we clean ourselves properly - I guess the degree of shower cleanliness can be a brand new topic onto itself...

 

Yeah, if you don't know what these are in the bathrooms on the Majestic Princess, then we need a new conversation.

 

BTW: I just noticed that these are in English and Chinese.  Are the rest of Princess ships' shampoo and shower gel also in multiple languages?  I assume only the Majestic has the Chinese translation as it was made for the Asian market.  Anyone else has pictures of shampoo/body wash from other Princess cabins?

 

 

[harryfat1]

So now that we have become good friends and gotten acquainted with each other’s hygiene (or lack thereof), let’s talk details of the cruise.

 

Medallion and the Medallion App – One can’t talk about a Princess cruise without referencing the Medallion app or the Medallion device itself. 

 

For those folks who are new to Princess, they provide to you this circular medallion device that replaces the traditional key card system such that it opens cabin doors from 6+ feet out. It helps the servers identify who you are if you are on the drinks package so you don’t have to sign anything as your smiley face shows up on their ipad when you walk up to any bar. 

 

For me, I like the medallion “coin” itself.  Very convenient.  Some people find it intrusive but I don’t care. It’s similar to Disneyworld’s magic band but Princess carries it further with more functionality.

 

The Medallion app itself needs a lot of work.  If you are an android user, when you are downloading the app, you will see it’s rated 1.5 stars our of 5 as of August 2022.  That’s abysmal rating reserved for new app programmers.  I wouldn’t typically download any app/games less than 4 stars unless it’s absolutely necessary.  

 

 

 

 

Princess will try to steer you using the app into saying you MUST use the app to make everything functional.  Not really.  You can do your pre cruise paperwork using the PC using the web based info like the old days.

 

The app itself worked about 1/3 of the time for us while on the cruise.  Other times we either use TV from cabin or actually talked to a worker to get things done (what a novel concept to speak to a live person – something my younger kids don’t appreciate as they kept fiddling with the app all cruise long).

 

I will talk about the functionality (or lack thereof) as we tried to use the app throughout the cruise. Just wanted to state the obvious to many folks on these board that the app needs major overhaul. I have read others that you can try to get tech support while on the ship but the few times I walked by during the beginning of the cruise, there was always a long line by the medallion area and I didn’t want to wait.

 

At any rate, my kids specialized their medallion “coin” order at $5/order.  My wife and I opted for the classic display as we ordered ours couple months prior to sailing.  About 3 weeks prior to sailing, I saw that Princess had charged my credit card so I know it’s getting ready to ship.  The following week, we received email saying the medallions will be sent via USPS and you can sign up to get text updates every step of the way.

 

Then it was an exciting moment when the medallions came less than 2 weeks prior to sailing.  Princess said if you don’t order yours at least 12 days out, you can pick up at the dock. But we are new to Princess for all intents and purposes so we wanted the medallions ahead of time to be excited for the upcoming cruise.

 

++++++++

Dude, stop rambling on about the Medallion, just show me what it looks like as I’m new to Princess and have no idea what you are talking about.

++++++++

 

OK, here is what the medallion looks like.  It has your name and sailing date (yeah, Harry’s actually my real name and not BOB).  Some people wear it as a lanyard, some as bracelet or necklace and some just shove it in their pocket.

 

 

The basic setup with Princess logo and white lanyard is free. As mentioned above, you can pay $5 extra to get various logo designs that suits you like nature/sports teams/horoscope and so on.  There’s a shop area on the ship that you can pay pretty hefty price for some jewelry upgrade like wearing it as a bracelet.

 

My wife has her own necklace that she brought with her to use instead of the standard white lanyard. I work for Corporate America so I’m used to wearing lanyard/badge all day long so it’s no big deal to me to have something around my neck the whole cruise.

 

She bought these magnetic clips from Ross for $1 each (pack of 6) and we just place our medallions on them for easy find whenever we leave the cabin. As the medallions are magnetic, they stick to the cabin walls very well as they are metallic. We use the clips to hang the daily schedule (Princess Patter). Yes, in case anyone is wondering, I brought home a complete clean set of daily schedule to post daily when I get to the day by day portion of the trip report.

 

[JimmyVWine]

8 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

OK, here is what the medallion looks like.  It has your name and sailing date (yeah, Harry’s actually my real name and not BOB).  Some people wear it as a lanyard, some as bracelet or necklace and some just shove it in their pocket.

 

Maybe it is my laptop, but it looks like your Captain's Circle level is Chartreuse.  How many cruises is that??  😉

[harryfat1]

4 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Maybe it is my laptop, but it looks like your Captain's Circle level is Chartreuse.  How many cruises is that??  😉

Haha, yeah, I have a special beta version of the medallion that changes color, depending on what you are drinking at the time to match color.

 

So if you are drinking Bloody Mary, the medallion senses it and changes to red to match the drink. Blue Hawaiian gets the blue hue and so on.

 

Don't tell anyone, though, as Princess is working on this secretly as they aim to roll out the Medallion Del Sol in the near future...🤪

[Lucky TGO]

Thanks for sharing some really nice photos.

Tony

[cr8tiv1]

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

So now that we have become good friends and gotten acquainted with each other’s hygiene (or lack thereof), let’s talk details of the cruise.

 

Medallion and the Medallion App – One can’t talk about a Princess cruise without referencing the Medallion app or the Medallion device itself. 

 

For those folks who are new to Princess, they provide to you this circular medallion device that replaces the traditional key card system such that it opens cabin doors from 6+ feet out. It helps the servers identify who you are if you are on the drinks package so you don’t have to sign anything as your smiley face shows up on their ipad when you walk up to any bar. 

 

For me, I like the medallion “coin” itself.  Very convenient.  Some people find it intrusive but I don’t care. It’s similar to Disneyworld’s magic band but Princess carries it further with more functionality.

 

The Medallion app itself needs a lot of work.  If you are an android user, when you are downloading the app, you will see it’s rated 1.5 stars our of 5 as of August 2022.  That’s abysmal rating reserved for new app programmers.  I wouldn’t typically download any app/games less than 4 stars unless it’s absolutely necessary.  

 

 

 

 

Princess will try to steer you using the app into saying you MUST use the app to make everything functional.  Not really.  You can do your pre cruise paperwork using the PC using the web based info like the old days.

 

The app itself worked about 1/3 of the time for us while on the cruise.  Other times we either use TV from cabin or actually talked to a worker to get things done (what a novel concept to speak to a live person – something my younger kids don’t appreciate as they kept fiddling with the app all cruise long).

 

I will talk about the functionality (or lack thereof) as we tried to use the app throughout the cruise. Just wanted to state the obvious to many folks on these board that the app needs major overhaul. I have read others that you can try to get tech support while on the ship but the few times I walked by during the beginning of the cruise, there was always a long line by the medallion area and I didn’t want to wait.

 

At any rate, my kids specialized their medallion “coin” order at $5/order.  My wife and I opted for the classic display as we ordered ours couple months prior to sailing.  About 3 weeks prior to sailing, I saw that Princess had charged my credit card so I know it’s getting ready to ship.  The following week, we received email saying the medallions will be sent via USPS and you can sign up to get text updates every step of the way.

 

Then it was an exciting moment when the medallions came less than 2 weeks prior to sailing.  Princess said if you don’t order yours at least 12 days out, you can pick up at the dock. But we are new to Princess for all intents and purposes so we wanted the medallions ahead of time to be excited for the upcoming cruise.

 

++++++++

Dude, stop rambling on about the Medallion, just show me what it looks like as I’m new to Princess and have no idea what you are talking about.

++++++++

 

OK, here is what the medallion looks like.  It has your name and sailing date (yeah, Harry’s actually my real name and not BOB).  Some people wear it as a lanyard, some as bracelet or necklace and some just shove it in their pocket.

 

 

The basic setup with Princess logo and white lanyard is free. As mentioned above, you can pay $5 extra to get various logo designs that suits you like nature/sports teams/horoscope and so on.  There’s a shop area on the ship that you can pay pretty hefty price for some jewelry upgrade like wearing it as a bracelet.

 

My wife has her own necklace that she brought with her to use instead of the standard white lanyard. I work for Corporate America so I’m used to wearing lanyard/badge all day long so it’s no big deal to me to have something around my neck the whole cruise.

 

She bought these magnetic clips from Ross for $1 each (pack of 6) and we just place our medallions on them for easy find whenever we leave the cabin. As the medallions are magnetic, they stick to the cabin walls very well as they are metallic. We use the clips to hang the daily schedule (Princess Patter). Yes, in case anyone is wondering, I brought home a complete clean set of daily schedule to post daily when I get to the day by day portion of the trip report.

 

 

I am beginning to think you are a secret intelligent officer and not the bean counter you declared at the beginning of the thread.  You are sending hidden clues and random trade secrets.  IN A CODE that is too small to read by most of the oldER cruise critic members.  

 

Your deductive skills are extremely well tuned.  You have captured the simplistic model of traveling men and have been diplomatic in your observation of women packing underwear.  

 

Please continue with your report.  You haven't even left the dock yet.  

 

PS:  That's a lot of ice for August.

Edited August 29, 2022 by cr8tiv1

[harryfat1]

46 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

I am beginning to think you are a secret intelligent officer and not the bean counter you declared at the beginning of the thread.  You are sending hidden clues and random trade secrets.  IN A CODE that is too small to read by most of the oldER cruise critic members.  

 

Your deductive skills are extremely well tuned.  You have captured the simplistic model of traveling men and have been diplomatic in your observation of women packing underwear.  

 

Please continue with your report.  You haven't even left the dock yet.  

 

PS:  That's a lot of ice for August.

Thanks for the compliment. Not sure if it's the deductive skills or more it's just simple mind noticing simple things. 

 

One of my favorite TV reporter/personality was Andy Rooney and his rants are classic.  I try to learn from the master as much as a Padawan can:

 

 

Haven't left the dock?  Ha, I haven't even left the house yet in the trip report.  It'll many more posts before we even get to the docks on day 1. 

 

Between work and being full time dad, my availability is much more limited on weekdays to post regularly but I will try to post something daily. Things get easier when I get to the "day by day" list of events as pictures explains themselves.  The introductory posts takes longer to write as I try to articulate my thoughts.

 

Grab a drink and get a comfy seat.  This isn't a sprint but more like a marathon and we are still in the first mile...😜

[cr8tiv1]

@harryfat1Do not worry about your time line/constraints.  A dear poster took MONTHS to complete a 15 day trip to Hawaii.  I was on the cruise with her and enjoyed going over every detail of her well written journey.  Of course, since it was a trip to Hawaii, I had to add in my 2 cents, trivia, photos, history, language lessons, and a sundry of other factoids.  

 

I promise not to do the same to you.  I've been to Alaska many times.  I avoid the Royal Class ships.  I will be a spectator along for a most delightful ride.  

 

Mahalo Nui Loa for taking the time to bring joy and humor to a world that seems to have forgotten what those traits are.

 

BTW....Hawaii won the World Series Little League Championship title today.  Wahoo!  Shaka brah 🤙🏼

[Tripmode33]

Reading along and enjoying. Love your photos. Elite Princess but doing our first on Majestic in November (Australia). Therefore looking forward to your thoughts on the ship. I'm a retired bean counter but prefer the smaller ships. Majestic will be the biggest ship we've sailed upon. As a side note, as Elite we have free laundry but still I'm a +2 for packing and hubby -2!

[JF - retired RRT]

11 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Your discussion of socks and underwear is seriously funny. My DH would take 2 pairs of underwear and 2 pairs of socks for 4 days. He might even push the underwear to eight days. As he says inside out, front ways and backwards  plus normal equals 4 days per pair. As I am the one who sleeps with him he’s decided he prefers our cabin to sleeping on the couches in vista lounge or sky walkers therefore he packs +1. 
 

I’ve always said you simply cannot pack too much underwear. As Jack Nicholson said “never pass up a bathroom and never trust a fart”. The older I get the more I get it and the more underwear I pack. 
 

Really looking forward to your future installments. 

Our DH's were cut out of the same cloth. Mine a now retired Ironworker (I was a sweet, innocent when we met...he changed that!)

[dickinson]

Just found this review.  Love it so far!  You are right.  Majestic is only ship (that I am aware of) with two languages on their shampoo in the shower.  I think Majestic spent only one season (maybe two?) in China.  Apparently that didn't work out so they had to try to change some of the stuff on the ship for the Chinese to what the Western world would want.

[phabric]

I am the Majestic now, August 27- Sept 3.  Enjoyed reading your review.

[cruisequeen4ever]

Yay, I’ve been wondering if you were going to cruise again! 

[Pluto_fan]

Add me to the many who are enjoying your report!  We are booked for Alaska one-way next June on Sapphire Princess, which will be our first Alaska cruise as well as our first time on Princess.  DH and I are both +1 packers (though I suspect he returns home with more than one clean pair 🙄)

 

Thank you for the time you are devoting to this report!

[harryfat1]

14 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

@harryfat1Do not worry about your time line/constraints.  A dear poster took MONTHS to complete a 15 day trip to Hawaii.  I was on the cruise with her and enjoyed going over every detail of her well written journey.  Of course, since it was a trip to Hawaii, I had to add in my 2 cents, trivia, photos, history, language lessons, and a sundry of other factoids.  

 

I promise not to do the same to you.  I've been to Alaska many times.  I avoid the Royal Class ships.  I will be a spectator along for a most delightful ride.  

 

Mahalo Nui Loa for taking the time to bring joy and humor to a world that seems to have forgotten what those traits are.

 

BTW....Hawaii won the World Series Little League Championship title today.  Wahoo!  Shaka brah 🤙🏼

Thanks again for the kind words.  Please do feel free to chime in and add whatever Princess/Alaska knowledge you have. As you can see, there are future Princess/Alaska cruisers that are reading this thread now and whatever tips we can pass along to make their vacation 0.02% better, that’s what this is all about,

 

One Princess cruise in past 20 years does not come close to making me a Princess expert.  Same for Alaska.  Just trying pass along our experience to future cruisers just as I have learned about Princess cruises on these boards the past 4 months after we booked this cruise.  Just contributing back to the boards from the info I have gathered and trying to fill in some gaps as a newbie Princess cruiser.

 

As for adding in humor to the writing, besides all my faults (which my wife will be more than happy to list them in detail), I get bored easily with my ADHD.  Such that it’s hard to read long trip reports so sometimes humor helps.

 

There’s old saying – treat others the way you would want to be treated yourself (Think the Twitter users didn’t get the memo) – such that I’m writing this the way I would like to read a trip report myself by providing detailed info/fair amount of photos/some background music so my ADHD doesn’t always kick in.  

 

You and others can be the judge at the end of this trip report to see if I was able to achieve this goal or not.  If not, please feel free to contact CC and demand a refund of your annual membership dues…😜

[harryfat1]

9 hours ago, Tripmode33 said:

Reading along and enjoying. Love your photos. Elite Princess but doing our first on Majestic in November (Australia). Therefore looking forward to your thoughts on the ship. I'm a retired bean counter but prefer the smaller ships. Majestic will be the biggest ship we've sailed upon. As a side note, as Elite we have free laundry but still I'm a +2 for packing and hubby -2!

Ah, fellow bean counter.  Always good to meet one as we all appreciate the usage of numbers on trip reports.

 

As for packing, it doesn’t take a statistician to see that all the ladies are on the + side and all the men are in the – side.

 

Although the men’s numbers are only as “claimed” by their partners but not independently verified by the poor dogs that have to sniff each men to see if their underwear are indeed 4 days old flipped forward/backward every which way…

 

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, phabric said:

I am the Majestic now, August 27- Sept 3.  Enjoyed reading your review.

Wow, I’m honored and perplexed the same time.

 

Honored in that you are reading my “blah, blah, blah” trip report while on a cruise.  Much appreciated.

 

Perplexed in WHY are you reading my “blah, blah, blah” trip report while on a cruise?

 

Shouldn’t you be out and about on the ship enjoying the Alaska scenery and food instead of reading some poor bloke talking about his past vacation?

 

Well, since you are reading this thread and you are still on the cruise, maybe you can tell us if you are a “minus” underwear packer and if so, perhaps you can take a picture of “Exhibit A” by day 7 of the cruise so we all can be educated on what one looks like?  Yeah, we are all thankful one can’t smell through photos.

 

Even better would be if you are doing a land tour after the 7 day cruise and tack on few more days of usage of “Exhibit A” beyond a 7 day cruise…😜

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

Yay, I’ve been wondering if you were going to cruise again! 

Thanks for reading another installment in the series. Glad to have you back.  Although my joke writing team is still a staff of one so there won’t be much improvement on that front.

 

We typically only cruise once a year as between work and kids school time, it’s hard to get away often as compared to some folks here on CC that cruises more often than I mow my lawn…🤪

 

We went to Disneyworld in 2018 and Japan (and of course Tokyo Disneyland & Disney Sea) in 2019.  Then Covid prevented more cruises until now.

 

As we all miss cruising, we are booked for Christmas week cruise in 2023 as that’s the only time it works for the family schedule.  We always loved the festive holiday decors on ships so it’s really nice to go away to see Caribbean Santa. 

 

The drawback is Christmas week is crazy expensive between higher cruise fares on top of outrageous airfares, Cheapo Dad needs to go to therapy after every holiday cruise from post traumatic shock after seeing the credit card bills…

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

3 hours ago, Pluto_fan said:

Add me to the many who are enjoying your report!  We are booked for Alaska one-way next June on Sapphire Princess, which will be our first Alaska cruise as well as our first time on Princess.  DH and I are both +1 packers (though I suspect he returns home with more than one clean pair 🙄)

 

Thank you for the time you are devoting to this report!

Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully there will be something helpful in this trip report for your upcoming cruise next year. Different ship but maybe some similar ports/glaciers. Feel free to ask anything as I’m just as a newbie Princess cruiser as you (discounting the cruise from 20 years ago).

 

Yeah, many of us men do the smell test to see if something can be worn twice so it’s not surprising he comes back with more than one pair of clean underwear.  Hey, one can barely smell anything 10 feet away so this can last another day or two…🤪

[cr8tiv1]

5 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Thanks for reading another installment in the series. Glad to have you back.  Although my joke writing team is still a staff of one so there won’t be much improvement on that front.

 

We typically only cruise once a year as between work and kids school time, it’s hard to get away often as compared to some folks here on CC that cruises more often than I mow my lawn…🤪

 

We went to Disneyworld in 2018 and Japan (and of course Tokyo Disneyland & Disney Sea) in 2019.  Then Covid prevented more cruises until now.

 

As we all miss cruising, we are booked for Christmas week cruise in 2023 as that’s the only time it works for the family schedule.  We always loved the festive holiday decors on ships so it’s really nice to go away to see Caribbean Santa. 

 

The drawback is Christmas week is crazy expensive between higher cruise fares on top of outrageous airfares, Cheapo Dad needs to go to therapy after every holiday cruise from post traumatic shock after seeing the credit card bills…

 

You have time to rethink this cruise.  You could save a lot of airfare by cruising to Hawaii instead.  Think savings in airfare AND hotel for a Caribbean Cruise.  Then I could really chime in!

 

I recall a lunch time conversation in the teachers' dining room or so very long ago.  What is with the focus on men and bathroom/personal habits.  Women have a broader topics of conversation!  "We" are definitely the classier gender.

[harryfat1]

OK.  Back to more trip reporting stuff:

 

Without getting too deep into what’s wrong with the Medallion app, let’s just go over how it was supposed to work if everything works as intended. 

 

The idea is you have the medallion "device” with you and then you whip out the phone and order all the food/drinks on the menu and the workers will know where you are with the medallion tracker and bring you the food/drink. The ultimate in laziness and relaxation of cruising if everything works as it's supposed to.

 

Here are some screen shots of the food/drinks you can order from the phone.  These only pop up on day 1 of the cruise and disabled after the cruise as I was trying to play with the app pre cruise and saw nothing so if you have an upcoming cruise, you will just need to wait until day 1 to see but at least this give you a glimpse on what the app will look like once onboard.

 

These are just some of the selection options. Not the 100% comprehensive list of what you can order from the app.  Didn't want to take that many screen shots - yeah, yeah, like I said, not a professional cruise reviewer. You get what you paid for in reading this...

 

Main menu to show what categories you can order your food/drinks:

 

 

If you press "Beverage" section, you will see a sub menu of various beverages available:

 

 

Under that there are more sub menus the drinks are shown in their sub group:

 

These are the popular frozen drinks section.  Although for Alaska, it's hard to drink cold drink when it's cold outside looking at the glaciers

 

 

More drinks:

 

 

And more:

 

 

For the beer fans:

 

 

For the coffee fans:

 

 

 

OK, here is something every RCI cruiser is envious of - FREE room service delivery of food instead of the $7.95 that RCI charges.  I believe the only charge Princess has is $3 for pizza. Nevertheless, far better than what RCI has to offer

 

 

And you can order desserts delivered to your cabin or anywhere on the ship 

 

[CruisinFinsUp]

Yay!! Cheapodad returns to CC!   And on Princess!!    

 

Following!   

 

( a fellow bean counter here too!)

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, harryfat1 said:

OK, here is something every RCI cruiser is envious of - FREE room service delivery of food instead of the $7.95 that RCI charges.  I believe the only charge Princess has is $3 for pizza. Nevertheless, far better than what RCI has to offer

There are charges for "upgraded" food, i.e. selections from one of the specialty restaurants.

[NownZen]

There is a trick to the food or drink ordering. The ship has to detect where you are. That has been pretty hit or miss. A companion ordered drinks 5 times and got a delivery once.  If you wear the medallion on your wrist or on the lanyard outside your clothes, it can often be found (you can actually turn your wrist and it will follow the direction the medallion is pointed). If you put it in your pocket or even put the lanyard directly against your chest, it probably will not work. If you try the location part of the app and it can find you it is probably safe to order something with a reasonable probability of getting it.

[EllieinNJ]

Getting such a kick out of your style of writing.  So clever and interesting.