Live From Discovery New Year's Cruise 12/28 - 1/7/22 10 day Sea of Cortez and Mexican Riviera

[CruiseRookieSteve]

So no Gold & White night on the cruise? I purchased a white fedora at a port stop just for the event 🤕

[CruiseRookieSteve]

Sunset as viewed from "Jazz On The Rocks" in Cabo San Lucas.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

Are there any other cruises that spend overnight in Cabo other than the New Years cruise? The nightlife is my favorite part of Cabo. Above photo is live jazz at "Jazz On The Rocks".

[CruiseRookieSteve]

18 hours ago, c-boy said:

  🎶   jazz and blues that's my gig 

Love jazz and blues too. Love the Take Five jazz lounge especially when the horns from the house band join in. Probably the #1 factor in picking Princess over Carnival.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

18 hours ago, c-boy said:

  🎶   jazz and blues that's my gig 

Love jazz and blues too. Love the Take Five jazz lounge especially when the horns from the house band join in. Probably the #1 factor in picking Princess over Carnival.

[XBGuy]

22 minutes ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

Love jazz and blues too. Love the Take Five jazz lounge especially when the horns from the house band join in. Probably the #1 factor in picking Princess over Carnival.

 

Arguably, the most popular jazz recording ever made;

 

Take Five.

 

If you would like to see Morello earn his pay, here is a video of a performance.

[elycelynne]

19 hours ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

I think there was an option somewhere in the booking checklist of what paper printed documents you want delivered to your cabin. We selected the Princess Patter and Important Documents and have gotten them delivered to our cabin every evening. You can also pick them up at the service desk. We've been on other cruise lines where the App was so clear and fast that there was no need for paper copy. But everything on the Princess App is implemented so poorly and hard to navigate that we believe the printed copy of daily events is indespensible. Restaurant menus are not available on the Princess App at all and display extremely slow on the cabin TV. We were on another cruise line and were able to quickly examin on our cabin TV the dinner menus for the entire week such that we could book in advance the Specialty Dinning on the nights we did not like the main dining room menu.

Just out of curiosity, what was the “another cruise line”?

[CruiseRookieSteve]

5 hours ago, Krazo said:

Thanks for the info. All looks good enough for my tin ear.

Just remember it is under "TV & Movies" on the TV, even though music is neither TV or Movie. I see they have 3 jazz stations in addition to many other types of music. My wife and I didn't bother with it as we seem to only like live music. If I did like pre-recorded music, I would just have put what I like on my mobile phone and brought along a decent mini-soundbar. 

[wallyj]

1 hour ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

Are there any other cruises that spend overnight in Cabo other than the New Years cruise? The nightlife is my favorite part of Cabo. Above photo is live jazz at "Jazz On The Rocks".

Yes, Princess and Royal Caribbean offer 5 night cruises out of LA that do overnight in Cabo. Suggest you B2B so you have a longer sailing.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

1 hour ago, wallyj said:

Yes, Princess and Royal Caribbean offer 5 night cruises out of LA that do overnight in Cabo. Suggest you B2B so you have a longer sailing.

Thanks for the suggestion! I probably never saw them as we usually don't consider anything under 7 days and really look at 10 days as the absolute preferred minimum length of a cruise.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

1 hour ago, elycelynne said:

Just out of curiosity, what was the “another cruise line”?

Carnival.  We were just on a 7 Day Mexican cruise on the Carnival Panorama a month ago using up FCC that were going to expire in January, just as we are using up Princess FCC to book this cruise as also expiring in January. We had no problem figuring out what events were taking place each day using their App. I have seen posts by other people that they had no problem viewing the events of the day using other cruise line Apps. The Princess App is really weird and I find it very difficult to use for find the daily activities. A lot of scrolling up and down and back and forth. I like Princess more than Carnival, but all their software, including that for the cabin TV display of events, menus, etc., could use a bit of work.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

11 hours ago, loge23 said:

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

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.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

Anyone win anything when entering their cabin? I never win anyrhing but I won $25 non refundable cruise credit twice.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

I love AJ Clarke on the piano in Crooner's every night, but if Princess expects it to end at midnight every night, they should specify till 12am in the Princess Patter, not until "late". Crooners is packed to the gills with hardly a seat to be had every night at midnight. In the Carnival Piano Bar "late" is an undefined term. It means until everyone has left the bar or 1:30am, whichever comes first. My wife and I are late night people and are disapointed there is no live music after midnight other than the DJ that is not our type of music.

[dianef]

Was wondering those on ship now,have you heard of any Covid cases and people being quarantined.Going in 2 weeks and Hope ship is sailing in a lower capacity and will try and be careful.

[LACruiser88]

7 hours ago, dianef said:

Was wondering those on ship now,have you heard of any Covid cases and people being quarantined.Going in 2 weeks and Hope ship is sailing in a lower capacity and will try and be careful.

We have not heard any talk of covid.  However, while returning to our cabin yesterday we walked past a masked-up (and wearing gloves) nurse carrying the dreaded swab test carrying case.  We are very familiar with that carrying case!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by LACruiser88

[BrandiGreg]

Has anyone else encountered an "overly-friendly" young man named Casey whom I observe frequently introducing himself to everyone and hugging them?  I'm all for friendliness to your fellow passengers, but I have an issue with unsolicited hugging of others in this day of Covid and flu season.  Also, unsolicited hugging may be seen by some as a violation of personal space.  So far, I have tried to stay clear of him.

[LACruiser88]

3 minutes ago, BrandiGreg said:

Has anyone else encountered an "overly-friendly" young man named Casey whom I observe frequently introducing himself to everyone and hugging them?  I'm all for friendliness to your fellow passengers, but I have an issue with unsolicited hugging of others in this day of Covid and flu season.  Also, unsolicited hugging may be seen by some as a violation of personal space.  So far, I have tried to stay clear of him.

Yes, he is with a group of autistic young adults.  Their "house mother" is with the group from NorCal.

[that]

59 minutes ago, BrandiGreg said:

Has anyone else encountered an "overly-friendly" young man named Casey whom I observe frequently introducing himself to everyone and hugging them?  I'm all for friendliness to your fellow passengers, but I have an issue with unsolicited hugging of others in this day of Covid and flu season.  Also, unsolicited hugging may be seen by some as a violation of personal space.  So far, I have tried to stay clear of him.

Yes

[loge23]

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.

[#55worktoplay]

Really enjoying the input on this review. Pictures are great, food looks pretty good too. 
 

I have never sailed Princess but my friend has asked me to join her so I thought I should read a few reviews. 
 

Good thing you have already passed Mazatlan as you wouldn’t want to be there yesterday or today I’m sure. 
 

Not sure Mexican itinerary would be one I would choose now.

[LACruiser88]

We had lunch again today at the Seafood Bar.  Luckily, we were among the first to be seated at 11:30 as they opened.  Our sushi was as good as it was a few days ago.

 

However, the bar was quickly overwhelmed with guests and they were deep in the weeds.  Our neighbors at the bar counter had been waiting for quite awhile for their orders when we departed.  There was quite a line of folks waiting for seats.

 

It probably didn't help that today we are experiencing some bumpy seas and it is much cooler and windy outdoors.

[seagunthera]

15 hours ago, CruiseRookieSteve said:

Anyone win anything when entering their cabin? I never win anyrhing but I won $25 non refundable cruise credit twice.

I also won 2 $25 onboard credits and 20 or so entries in the drawing tonight.  Need to look at the patter to see when that takes place!

[XBGuy]

2 hours ago, loge23 said:

I had a similar experience with the QR codes on the Regal in 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!

 

This may or may not work for you, but is easy to try.

 

On our last cruise on the Grand Princess we visited Vines fairly often.  At first we would just sit at the bar and banter with the bartenders.  One evening the bar was filled up and, so, we sat at one of the tables--in fact, it was the large Stammtisch table, but that is of no consequence.  Before being served I wandered around the room and looked more carefully at the bottles that were displayed around the perimeter.  I noticed a couple wines that were not on their printed list.  When the server came over to take our order, I asked about those bottles, and he told me that I could order them.  Over the course of the cruise I bought all those bottles--3 X Chappellet Merlot and 1 X Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel.

[CruiseRookieSteve]

6 hours ago, loge23 said:

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.

I think the QR Codes are great in concept but not in implementation.  Unlike paper menus, they just have to update one web page to reflect the actual inventory in the bar. If they put the effort into it, they could have the main bartender at each bar update the menu with what drinks they have available and delete any they run out of. This is something that can't easily be done with printed menus as every menu has to be reprinted.  But Princess doesn't bother to make sure the QR Code Menus are accurate which makes them practically useless.