Emerald Princess - 23 Dec -Panama Canal full transit

[Essiesmom]

Wrong thread

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Essiesmom
Oops, wrong thread...

[mrell345]

Nice weather this morning, great day for the pool.  Though they were singing the weather outside is frightful

[IndyKid]

On 12/24/2023 at 8:13 AM, mrell345 said:

Ok, whoever had the brain fart to install the motion activated lights under the bedside tables and outside the bathroom should rethink the idea.  Not fun at 2 AM when you need to use the bathroom and those bright white lights come on.  Bring a small roll of painters masking tape with you to cover the sensors at night.

My only complaint 2 weeks ago on the Caribbean Princess was that the one outside the bathroom kept shutting off when I was bent over getting something from the enclosure where the safe is. I'd have to stand up, back up and wave my hand to get it to turn back on! 

[greenie082756]

On 12/24/2023 at 6:13 AM, mrell345 said:

Ok, whoever had the brain fart to install the motion activated lights under the bedside tables and outside the bathroom should rethink the idea.  Not fun at 2 AM when you need to use the bathroom and those bright white lights come on.  Bring a small roll of painters masking tape with you to cover the sensors at night.

They didn't have that on the Discover inside cabin and we were keeping the bathroom light on and the door ajar. We just want to make sure we don't bump into something we are not familiar with.  Hopefully these lights won't be a nuisance for us. 

[EDVM96]

4 hours ago, mrell345 said:

8 AM pyjamma party in the piazza this morning so everyone is in PJs

I have friends on board on this sailing. So it's first hand info (these are definitely no picky people!).

 

Not so nice stories they tell me. 😳

The pyjammas haven't been delivered by the cabin steward in 2 days now. No fresh towells - 2 nights in a row. They had to ask another(!) cabin steward to fix this.
Dishes not taken away from the cabin.

MDR restaurant service a disaster so far (and they tried 2 different dining rooms).
Food ordered. After 30 minutes, they came with the menu again instead of the food.
No wine with the main course. Just too slow service. Overchallenged and listless.
Bottle of water ordered. Bottle came - without glases. Another 15 minutes.
Beef filet came well instead of rare.
The lobster was like rubber.

No fresh pepper or parmesan offered when the food came.
This is NOT Princess standard.

On the other hand ...
- the ship itself is is in very nice condition.

- Xmas singing was much fun.
- everything allright at Vines Bar (the most important thing lol).

- they still have a great time on board
 

[mrell345]

16 minutes ago, EDVM96 said:

I have friends on board on this sailing. So it's first hand info (these are definitely no picky people!).

 

Not so nice stories they tell me. 😳

The pyjammas haven't been delivered by the cabin steward in 2 days now. No fresh towells - 2 nights in a row. They had to ask another(!) cabin steward to fix this.
Dishes not taken away from the cabin.

MDR restaurant service a disaster so far (and they tried 2 different dining rooms).
Food ordered. After 30 minutes, they came with the menu again instead of the food.
No wine with the main course. Just too slow service. Overchallenged and listless.
Bottle of water ordered. Bottle came - without glases. Another 15 minutes.
Beef filet came well instead of rare.
The lobster was like rubber.

No fresh pepper or parmesan offered when the food came.
This is NOT Princess standard.

On the other hand ...
- the ship itself is is in very nice condition.

- Xmas singing was much fun.
- everything allright at Vines Bar (the most important thing lol).

- they still have a great time on board
 

So far we have had excellent service in the room, the food and dining room service has also been excellent.  We have always had the offer of pepper and gotten our drinks in a timely manner.  My only complaint so far has been the bartender at the aft pool was taking care of servers orders and ignoring people waiting to order drinks.  For the dish pickup I have noticed things left out for a while but I did notice in the app there is a section to notify the staff dishes need to be picked up.

Edited December 25, 2023 by mrell345

[EDVM96]

2 minutes ago, mrell345 said:

So far we have had excellent service in the room, the food and dining room service has also been excellent.  We have always had the offer of pepper and gotten our drinks in a timely manner.  My only complaint so far has been the bartender at the aft pool was taking care of servers orders and ignoring people waiting to order drinks.

Yes, good to hear. They just had bad luck so far it seems. 😄

[mrell345]

On thing to point out, the stewards these days have more to do and more cabins to take care of.  A few years ago we would leave to do something and if there were used towels in the room they were always replaced when we got back, I swore the steward was hiding around the corner and checking every time we went out.  These days they usually come in once in the morning and once in the evening.  If you want extra towels you need to ask.  Not the stewards fault, it’s Princess with their thousand little cuts.  They are working hard.

Edited December 25, 2023 by mrell345

[EDVM96]

I totally agree.

[mrell345]

Wine tasting $35PP

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by mrell345

[mrell345]

Santa

[mrell345]

It’s definitely getting humid outside, I opened the balcony door and went outside, when I came back in all the mirrors in the room were fogged up

[Thrak]

5 hours ago, greenie082756 said:

They didn't have that on the Discover inside cabin and we were keeping the bathroom light on and the door ajar. We just want to make sure we don't bump into something we are not familiar with.  Hopefully these lights won't be a nuisance for us. 

 

On our last cruise they didn't have the lights although I was prepared with a bit of painter's tape. We have had the lights a number of times before. The light in the hall doesn't bother us other than it timing out when we don't want it to do so. The lights under the bedside tables are annoying as any movement of the ship will cause the hanging blankets to activate the light. If you don't have tape just put the little bolster pillow in front of the light at night. Not a big deal.

[mrell345]

[mrell345]

It’s definitely getting humid outside, opened our balcony door and within minutes all the mirrors in our cabin were steamed up

[nini]

3 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

On our last cruise they didn't have the lights although I was prepared with a bit of painter's tape. We have had the lights a number of times before. The light in the hall doesn't bother us other than it timing out when we don't want it to do so. The lights under the bedside tables are annoying as any movement of the ship will cause the hanging blankets to activate the light. If you don't have tape just put the little bolster pillow in front of the light at night. Not a big deal.

Yes, I just put a throw pillow on the floor in front of the bedside light.

[Honolulu Blue]

@mrell345: thanks for continuing to share these newsletters.

 

A few random comments about your day to come:

 

• Cartagena is an interesting city. I've been there twice and will be heading there in a few weeks (not on Princess)
• Nice to know the Emerald has a library, board games and specific hours for gaming. I'll be on the Emerald in a few months.
• I don't recall any future cruise presentations on my past cruises on Princess. The ones I attended on Carnival were mostly packed.
• The night's theme seems very clear
• 90s music trivia doesn't seem to fit the crowd that I would expect on a cruise line this. But I suspect I'd like it. I won a 90s music trivia contest some years ago - again, not on Princess
• I can't recall seeing a seeing eye dog notice on any of my cruises. I wonder what brought this on?

Sorry for the distraction. Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

[mrell345]

First view of Cartagena this morning

[mrell345]

Norwegian Gem is in before us

[mrell345]

Some people getting off Norwegian Gem by an ambulance with luggage this morning.  Did not see a stretcher and they were all walking so hopefully nothing too serious

[mrell345]

Haven’t been looking for them but just found a duck

[mrell345]

9 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

@mrell345: thanks for continuing to share these newsletters.

 

A few random comments about your day to come:

 

• Cartagena is an interesting city. I've been there twice and will be heading there in a few weeks (not on Princess)
• Nice to know the Emerald has a library, board games and specific hours for gaming. I'll be on the Emerald in a few months.
• I don't recall any future cruise presentations on my past cruises on Princess. The ones I attended on Carnival were mostly packed.
• The night's theme seems very clear
• 90s music trivia doesn't seem to fit the crowd that I would expect on a cruise line this. But I suspect I'd like it. I won a 90s music trivia contest some years ago - again, not on Princess
• I can't recall seeing a seeing eye dog notice on any of my cruises. I wonder what brought this on?

Sorry for the distraction. Enjoy the rest of your cruise!

There are music trivia events almost every night and they are different eras

[mrell345]

I wonder if the tourist stores here have Boxing Day sales?😎😁😎

Edited December 26, 2023 by mrell345

[mrell345]

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Edited December 26, 2023 by mrell345

[mrell345]

We did the hop on hop off bus tour today, about an hour and a half run around the city.  The double decker busses (and all the other tour buses) picked up the passengers on the pier next to the ship.  We were dropped off downtown but there was another bus there that brought us back to the port.  When you enter the port you are dropped of on the other side of the port zoo and shopping complex which you have to walk through to get back to the ships.  On the other side of the complex there is a shuttle bus or a short 10 minute walk back to the ship.