beg3yrs

It is possible to pay for excursions with gift cards. However you must call Princess and pray for a competent CS person. If they don't seem to know what they're doing, HUACA (hang up and call again).

It was pale white.

Yep, they did. Our regular waiter insisted the puffs were real butter and I insisted they were tasteless (crap - but I didn't say that). The assistant restaurant manager for our area brought some real butter pats.

On the Discovery now and the three balls of puff in what used to be the butter dish is tasteless and doesn't even scoop onto your knife well. About half slides to the side and remains in the dish. I absolutely agree with the poster who said it has curbed their appetite for the dinner rolls. At least I'll save some calories.

Don't know specifically about the Discovery but other ships do supply paddles and balls. The balls though can be a little "tired".

Internet access on all Princess ships has been converted to Starlink. Performance based on geographic location is now pretty much uniform. Starlink satellites are now cross-linked too so previous reports of trouble if they're not in range of a ground station are no longer valid. Previous reports on other threads regarding the performance on the Sun Princess has IMHO been pretty much in line with all other ships in the fleet. Pretty good but not mind boggling. Read through some of the Sun Princess threads and you'll get the first-hand reports of actual speeds.

Yes, you need to contact AARP. Emails are NOT the gift cards. My emails look like this: That order number is part of your gift card number but isn't complete. Nor does it have a PIN. You must go through to "Get your reward" for the complete information you can print/save to a file and so on.

Well, that may make things more difficult on the ship. Be prepared to argue your case. Hopefully they'll accept the list. After all, demanding the original printout is kind of a belt-and-suspenders administrative procedure. Years ago I too simply used a list from and Excel spreadsheet and it was accepted. Heck, I recall handing them a handwritten paper with numbers which they used to credit my account. Things have changed so as I initially said, be prepared to make your case.

You should have received an email from AARP for each card you purchased. Each email has a link to the associated card. That link takes you to a webpage with your card number and PIN on it. On that same page is a link to "Print" the page. I always save to a PDF which is usually an option under the Print but may be on the same page. Anyway, you can print from the card page or print the PDF file you've saved. I once tried to give customer service a simple list of card numbers and pins. They would not accept that. They wanted printed pages. I had to go to the Internet Cafe and go through my emails (again) and print the cards onboard.

My TA is across the continent so unless we're visiting Florida, we can't run down the road and drop off the card printouts. As @Thrak said, you don't get physical cards, rather you get an email for each card which contains a link to get the official "card" which is actually a couple of pages. You can print them out like Thrak does and take them to your TA. OTOH in my situation I save each "card" in a dated and numbered PDF file and then cut and paste the numbers into a spreadsheet (warning: long strings of numbers don't paste well into Excel, place an apostrophe in front of the long number and then you're OK) including dates purchased, when and how redeemed and so on. For each redemption I copy the just the numbers I'm redeeming into a separate spreadsheet, encrypt it and then email it to my TA. I send him the unlock password either by phone or text message (I'm kind of paranoid about sending information that's that valuable over email). I also take printouts of the "cards" I will likely redeem onboard with me. I've had guest services refuse a list from a spreadsheet, they want the printouts.

The package includes 15 alcoholic drinks per day per person. Non-alcoholic drinks like specialty coffees and sodas are unlimited. After one uses their 15 alcoholic drink limit it is up to the discretion of the bar staff if you will be served more. If you are served more you simply get the drink charged to your onboard account. The days of taking a case of wine onboard are now limited. You get one bottle per person for cabin consumption at no fee. Anything over that there's a corkage fee. Last I knew it was $15 per bottle. "Corkaged" bottles can be consumed anywhere. This may have changed recently as with the advent of the "packages" the economics of bringing wine onboard have changed. IMHO (and I haven't done the math) it's only good to bring wine onboard if it's a high-end wine you must have and can't get on the ship,.

Not sure @dw64 is a captain, just retired from the airlines. Could have been a gate agent (which actually would have had more experience with TSA Pre-Check than a pilot). Regardless, I believe @dw64 is confusing Global Entry, which is absolutely tied to a passport and includes TSA Pre-Check with stand-alone Pre-Check.

Yes and no. You can send a message but the person who receives it is not notified. The app must be manually checked for a message. Of course ordering room service as well as Ocean Now items (drinks, snacks, etc) is available on the ship and not off the ship. Port descriptions are typically not available off the ship. Crew Chat is not available off the ship. Checking your folio is not available off the ship.

One of the most exposed balconies on the ship. Wear PJs and no hanky panky!

I don't know who at Princess told you that there was a ten card limit but my personal experience is quite different. I've recently sent my TA almost twenty nine GCs for an upcoming booking. They were applied without any issues.