ScottsSweetie

Will DEFINITELY figure this out for the next time. Do they take US$ or do we need pesos?

Perhaps either of these is true - I forgot about that. When the people in the theater were reminding us to have our S&S cards out for scanning, she asked me if she had to turn in the card as she left the ship.

Hmm - good question. If it's in the heat of the summer (with the much smaller window on this coast) and I want to spend time in the sun with bar service, I'd say no. In cooler weather, since I understand the Firenze will be doing the 4/5 day routes, I might choose this one because it is newer (but only if it is not more pricey).

I'll leave the detailed cruise reviews to others, but wanted to give a few thoughts and impressions on our cruise. These are my experiences, yours may vary. BAR SERVICE - non-existent. If you want a drink, you are going to stand in line at the bar. The bartenders are hustling, but every venue is severely understaffed (or not large enough to hold adequate staff). I don't know if staffing for the Firenze is not complete, or staffing shortages are an issue corporate wide, or if this staffing is purposeful - but it is definitely not adequate. And speaking of bar service - SUN DECK - The Firenze has a unique layout in regards to the sun deck. Deck 10 is Lido with the pool and tv screen. They have one bar here (where typically you would have Red Frog & Blue Iguana). Deck 11, which can be reached by stairs is an enclosed deck (all comfy chairs, the library, the deli and a bar). There is no access to Deck 12, where the loungers line the sides of the deck. You must go inside the auto doors and up the interior stairs to reach this area. I'm guessing this is the reason why there is no bar service on this sun deck. Really disappointing. Takes the vacation out of the vacation when I can't get served a drink from my lounger. Again, is this a cutback thing, understaffing thing, or just awkward design where it gives them an easy out? INAUGURAL - I was surprised to find that there were really no special activities. We received in our room a pair of sunglasses (turquoise colored with Carnival Firenze stamped on the arm) and a waterproof phone case as a gift. Nothing else marked this cruise as different from any other. DINING - We did no specialty dining on the ship. We expected issues with it being an inaugural cruise, but were pleasantly surprised with great service with the exception of the last night, where it was excruciatingly slow. The food was typical Carnival food - some great, some good, some meh. The Guy's Burger place has an italian version of a burger (but they have no pig patty). One evening in the dining room DH witnessed (behind me) an officer berating a server during the dinner service. This type of thing should never happen in the middle of the room - take it private. The breakfast buffet never seemed crowded to us, even on port days. Pro tips - go to the buffet line farthest aft - most people seem to just come in through the pool deck and get in the first line they see. Also, though the omelet lines inside were never long, there is an omelet station at the Chicken Shack on the aft pool deck that seemed to be unknown to most! ROOM - Our steward introduced himself on the first day. Instead of am hours + pm hours, we were told he works 8am - 8pm with a lunch break. We were not given a choice of cleaning times per my usual experience. We just made sure to put our snoozin' sign out when in the room and had no issues at all with our cleaning. ACTIVITIES - We attended the Captain's Toast - I recommend that you go - there is a short performance by the Playlist Cast that is great! The rock band on Firenze is great - we attended some of their sets most nights. There is just no point in playing trivia as a casual cruiser, as many other people playing are proud to announce that they have just cruised in the last weeks / months - and they are the ones who end up winning. How is it fun attending a trivia game that you just attended and you know all the answers? I don't get it. Embark was awesome - walked right in the door and right up to a table for passport check then right onto the ship. Disembark was a nightmare. Our ship apparently had to slow our last evening (overnight) for a pod of whales to move out of the way, and then I heard we had two ambulance pick-ups early on disembark morning. These are unforeseen and can be forgiven. However, I cannot understand how priority disembark does not mean that. We met in the theater at 8am and it was close to 10:30 by the time we got off. There was a couple behind me in the theater line with a BLUE card - how did they even get in there? When we got off and picked up our luggage (zone 2), we noticed people getting luggage in zones 11, zone 17, etc. The ship was calling additional people to get off before priority disembark. I read on the inaugural facebook page that people were getting off as late as 12:30. I was surprised, and it was a nice touch, to be recognized at the past guest party as a milestone cruiser (my 25th). They recognized all levels of milestone and we had one milestone of 100 cruises! My HUB app somehow moved a day ahead during the cruise. It was cumbersome, but I could use it as long as I remembered to move it to the day prior. We had no plans in Puerto Vallarta except to take a taxi to the Malecon. Upon disembark, we went to the authorized taxi stand and were told it would be $25.00 for the 4 mile trip. I told her that was too much and she would instead get nothing. We walked the small beach right next to the port and had a nice ship day instead. Would love to hear if this was your experience - $50.00 round trip (not including tip) to the Malecon?? That's all, folks!

Lee is awesome.

We recently tried Princess for the first time out of Los Angeles, and thought I would contrast and compare here for you. Food/Drink - Princess DR food was excellent. Their buffet was horrible. Their pizza is great. Their burgers at the grill were not good. I give the food edge to Carnival because there are just so many options available. Also, dining reservation have to be made ahead of time (and we waited between 15 and 46 minutes each night after our reserved time for a table). Much prefer the Carnival system of YTD. Also, almost no draft beer on the ship. Entertainment - The production shows that we saw on Princess were arguably the best we have ever seen at sea. There was comedy only the first two nights (7 night cruise), and we do enjoy the comedy clubs all week on Carnival. We felt like there were not a lot of options for activities after 9:00pm or so, and we like to be out and about, so for us Carnival takes the edge there. Other Activities - DH enjoyed a couple of the enrichment talks (which I refused to attend, as it was about SHARKS). They have a Captain's talk with the Captain and one of his first officers which is very entertaining. General - Discovery Princess is a beautiful ship and the largest I have ever sailed on. Despite having around 3900 passengers on this week the ship never really felt crowded, unlike some Carnival ships close to capacity. Lots of families on this particular sailing. I kept looking around for all the old people that are supposed to be on Princess - DH said if I couldn't find any then we must be them, lol. Their public area restrooms are much roomier than Carnival's. Overall we enjoyed our cruise but I don't think Princess is our new line.

After many cruises finally found the right opportunity to try Princess! Here you'll find my impressions and thoughts as an experienced cruiser but a Princess newbie! We booked this cruise less than a month out. I booked an inside guaranty - we were assigned (48 hours before the cruise) E110, which is an obstructed balcony room. Score!! Embark seemed to go smoothly - arrived at 1:00pm and on the ship in no time at all. Checked in at muster station and watched safety video on cabin television - easy peasy. DH receives a phone call while in our room from Anita at San Pedro Port Security (please be sure you have luggage tags with phone numbers attached!). Our bags have been left "unattended" and are just sitting on the sidewalk. WTH?? We checked our two bags with a porter and gave him $5.00 for said bags but apparently he never put them on a cart. She said she would speak to the head porter to "see if he could get our bags on board". DH decided to get off the ship and he found her right outside - she told us our bags had been handled. Obviously we were on edge until they actually showed up, which they did in a timely fashion. Crisis averted! Medallion App - we tried ordering drinks from our chairs on embark day - worked like a charm! We tried it the second day and our drinks showed as delivered but were not delivered to us. That was the last time we used that service - if we have to go to the bar to complain that we didn't get out drinks we'd rather just go there to start with. Food / Drink - Everything we ordered in the Dining Room for dinner was very good. Hot food was all served hot. The buffet food, quite frankly, was terrible. We rarely eat at the buffet on Carnival because there are so many other options, but we both got several buffet items that we did not finish eating - I refuse to use calories on food that is just not good. The burger from the grill was also not cooked well. The pizza, both from Slice and GiGi's was extremely good. We were quite disappointed that there is no draft beer to speak of on the ship. The Salty Dog bar had 4 taps - three of which had no beer the week we were on, the 4th was a cider. When comparing this ship to the Panorama, which is our other option for this route, Carnival has a brewery on board with lots of draft options. This is a biggie for DH, as he does love a good draft beer. Then, the biggest issue in dining is the reservation system. I made reservations for the entire week before we left home, so that was handled. However, I have no idea what they are doing in seating people. On Monday night, our reservations were for 7:20. We got to the DR and got in the back of the very looooong line - we were seated at 8:06. On Wednesday, reservation at 7:40 - we entered the DR at 8:00. This was consistent every night but the first. Entertainment - Both production shows we saw were stellar - the best we have ever seen on a cruise! We also saw a Michael Buble tribute and an illusionist - all were entertaining. No problem finding seats when arriving 10-15 mins before showtime. Ports - In your room you will find a slip of paper notifying you that the Medallion App can be used for payment at certain restaurants and establishments in both Puerto Vallarta and Cabo (and the charges simply added to your onboard account). Don't believe it. We tried to use it at several places in PV - they will say "the device doesn't work". Don't even bother. This would have been great if it worked as advertised. We did not try it in Cabo. On Cabo day, just as an FYI, we received tender ticket numbers 702/703 around 8:30. Our numbers were called before 9:00am. Don't be This Person - On Thanksgiving night (which also was Dress to Impress night for us), we observed the waiter visiting the table next to us advising an elderly gentleman that they had no dark meat to serve him (menu read "turkey breast"). This man begins to verbally abuse the wait staff. The manager is called - he advises that he will send someone to the buffet to see if dark meat is available there. Also asks what he would like if no dark meat available - he advises nothing at all. The man continues to talk to his table mates about how ridiculous that they ran out of dark meat, so anyone dining after 8:00pm was not able to have dark meat. If the captain wanted dark meat would they tell him no? And just on and on. The DR Manager returns and reports that there is no dark meat to be had on the ship - only breasts were ordered so they never had any dark meat. The man gets out of his seat and storms off yelling, "you have lost a customer, this is ridiculous". Turns out that the man cruises all of the time, the DR Manager has known him for years, and the couple who had been sitting with him had apparently just met him that day somewhere in the exclusive suite areas. The couple was very upset on his behalf, but the DR Manager said he'll get over it. We saw him at dinner the next night and, if I heard correctly, he told someone that it was his 17th cruise this year. General Thoughts - On Cabo day (Thursday) it was announced that the ship was experiencing an outbreak of a "gastrointestinal virus". On Friday it was announced that the numbers were increasing. Welcome back, Norovirus! I visited several public restrooms on the ship and they are much roomier than the same on Carnival. The ship was beautiful and we enjoyed our upgraded balcony. Lots of families on this cruise (including multi-generations). I kept looking around for all the old people that are supposed to be on Princess - DH said if I couldn't find any then we must be them, lol. We were told around 3900 passengers on board for the week. We will definitely sail Princess again, but will be picky about the route. We felt like there were not a lot of activities after the production show ended (and we always attended the last one). Carnival has much more options and is a more lively ship after 9:00pm and we enjoy it a lot more. I would definitely sail Princess on a port intensive route, and am planning on Princess for my 10 day cruise/land Alaska trip, but I don't think they are our new cruise line just yet. Happy to answer any questions.

As promised, I am reporting back after my Thanksgiving week cruise. We cruised out of San Pedro on Saturday, 11/16 (arrival time at the port 1:00pm). I had a bottle of wine and a bottle of sparkling rose in a beach bag carried on my shoulder, and we had an 8 pack of Bubbly and 6 loose cans of coke in our carry on. After going through the x-ray machine, no other inspection was taken on any of these things. No one asked to see the bottles or cans to verify contents.

I love to people watch on formal (or whatever they are called on each line) nights. My favorites are the couples where the woman is decked out in a long formal gown and her guy is next to her in a short sleeved polo and jeans.

I'm not advocating for or against taking kids - just telling you what their current advertising is.

Have you seen their newest advertisement campaign on tv ads? The new ads are literally saying don't bring the kids to Vegas. I guess they've decided it's not family friendly after all. I have cruised often but never on Princess (first time next week). I can assure you that the advertisement depicted above with all of the young people with kids has not been my perception of the typical Princess passenger. I think the current TV show is also trying to convince us that there are lots of young people on the ships. It will be interesting to see what changes Princess makes going forward to capture a new (or expanded) clientele.

Thanks for all the responses! I have not been able to procure a boarding time (have read the threads here with instructions but I don't have those options available on this awesome, wonderful app 😏). We don't plan on showing up to the port until 12:00-12:30 so hopefully the rush will be over. We will definitely have all paperwork including passports, medallions and luggage tags.

I have filled out all my information on the app. Both profile pictures show a checkmark and reflect that we are in the Green Lane. All required information has been filled out. How do I get the QR code that is mentioned for boarding? And, under the "suggested" area on Wellness Check, am I still required to upload a copy of my covid vaccination record even though that requirement has been dropped? Or is it possible that I won't get a QR code until I have a room assignment? If I can't figure this out I can just show up for boarding on Saturday with all my paperwork, right?

I noticed it was sold out a few weeks ago, but now the Princess website is showing rooms in inside, ocean view and balcony categories. It would make sense that they are still selling rooms because I still don't have my room assignment!

One more question please - as there is no Vines on Discovery, where would be the next best place to get a great glass of wine? I believe some have mentioned the bar at the Crown Grill? Will different bars have different wine lists?