JamieLogical

That was in Rudi's, not the MDR.

Ha! It was definitely small! The whole bathroom was small. I am pretty sure my husband's knees will touch the door when he sits on the toilet. I will definitely have my fingers and toes crossed for a winning upgrade to a mini-suite!

I wasn't in one of the Reserve Class wrap-around balcony mini-suite, but I was in one of the fully front-facing mini-suites and we were definitely never instructed that we couldn't use our balcony.

It is called Private Internet Access and the coupon code from La Lido Loca was just "LaLidoLoca".

Actually managed to buy our gift cards and finish making final payment while waiting to board our plan in FLL, so it's all official now.

It was a decent cruise overall. The app was useless for ordering anything, but the app doesn't even exist on other lines so once we got over the frustration of trying to use and just pretended it didn't exist, we were no worse off than we would have been on any line. The food was more good than bad. A few misses, but we didn't go hungry. We really liked the casual dining venues, but can live without the specialty dining when we go back in August. Service and crew were generally great. The only real service problems were the fact that only one person at guest services can handle gift cards which created a big bottle neck with those people with 800 partially gift cards none of which were printed out. Also I felt like the woman at the shore excursion desk was very unsympathetic to our situation and made it seem like we were just idiots because the cruise line had given us the wrong shore excursion ticket. But that all worked out okay in the end. Drinks were certainly good. The ship was a vast improvement over the Emerald. We never had any issues with the internet. I didn't have much luck in the casino, but I rarely do on any cruise ship. Overall, definitely a decent experience. You just learn to avoid and work around most of the mild issues. Not like in the Emerald where the only way to avoid the issues would probably just have been to disembark the ship! This upcoming August cruise was a decent price and is an amazing itinerary, so we decided to stick with it. Still have to actually buy our AARP gift cards and make final payment later today once we are settled in at our friends' place in Brooklyn.

We didn't go to the buffet for lunch on the last day, so we maybe just missed it.

Well, they made us get off the ship at about 9:20. There was still a line for customs, but it mostly moved quickly. The real challenge came when we got out of the terminal and were directed over to the ride share pickup area. It was underneath the parking garage and no one could get cell service. I finally found one specific spot I could stand to get signal and hailed an Lyft, but then the poor Lyft driver couldn't find us in the winding maze they have the ride share people drive through. I would say it took us a about 35 minutes for our Lyft driver to find us. It was a huge relief when he did and we were on our way to the airport. We breezed through security with no line and now we are patiently waiting for our 1:20 flight.

The disembarkation instructions they gave us with our luggage tags said that.

This morning we got up at 6:00. My husband went to the buffet for coffee and breakfast while I took my shower. Then I packed most of my backpack stuff while he took his shower and he packed while I went to the buffet. This was the best buffet breakfast so far! They had beef tagalong that I was able to put over my very fresh fried egg. Also there had a wider selection of cheeses than they have had on previous days. I was very pleased. I headed back to the room where we loitered until 8:00, which is when we need to be out for the room stewards to turn over the cabins. We were just wheeling out luggage to our door when our room steward knocked and asked us to leave. Perfect timing! On the way out, I asked if if would be possible for us to sneak a peek at a balcony cabin and he said no problem and pointed us towards one that had already been cleaned and the door propped open. I was able to scope out the bathroom situation. It is VERY small, but I do think a slightly better layout than on the Emerald. I *think* I can make it work for our August cruise, but still plan to bid for an upgrade to a mini-suite. We headed down to the Piazza, letting everyone go ahead of us on the elevators, as we were in no hurry. They had made an announcement that all the bags were already delivered to the pier really early, while I was still at breakfast, but then made an announcement that they were pausing disembarkation because of a delay while we were back in the room. The Piazza was packed when we got down there and the line to disembark was not moving. They announced that the delay was due to the facial recognition system being down for customs and so there was a long delay in the terminal. That is still going on right now, so for those of you embarking today, you may be a little delayed in boarding as it seems we will be late zeroing out the ship.

Yesterday was our last sea day and the final day of our cruise. In the morning we had room service breakfast delivered, but showered and dressed quickly so we could make it to the MDR around 8:30, since it closed for breakfast at 9:00. I asked about a build-your-own omelette and they said that was fine, so take note! Also, eggs Benedict was not on the menu for the day but someone at the table next to us ordered it and was accommodated, so I guess the moral of the story is the menu in the MDR for breakfast is merely a suggestion and you can feel free to order whatever you want? Also, while we did in fact accomplish toast at both of our MDR breakfasts, both times my toast was very hard and not at all good. My husband ordered bagel this time and asked for it to be toasted and it was a little toasted, but not enough for him. Also the toast and bagel were cold, so difficult to butter. Oh well. I think we will likely stick to buffet breakfast on our August cruise. Usually I am the one pushing for MDR breakfast, because I prefer a sit-down experience over the chaos of the buffet, but it's hard to justify rushing to get there early and taking the time for sit-down service if the food isn't as good. After breakfast, we went back to the room so my husband could do more testing of his travel router and work situation. He was able to do a WebEx call with one of his coworkers and get the travel router working with the new VPN service he subscribed to (shout out to Tony at LaLidoLoca) for recommending the VPN service. Meanwhile I worked on typing out my extensive blog about our stop in Costa Maya and posting my ten thousand pictures. After we had finished up all of that, it was time for drinks and games! I had run into our server from O’Malley's on our way back to our room the night before and mentioned that I planned to see him for lunch the next day. He recommended we get there very early and play our games so we would have a table, because lunch would be very popular on the last sea day. So that is exactly what we did. My husband got our first round of Rossinis from Good Spirits a s we set up our game. I got the second round. It worked out perfectly as the line up for lunch was growing before they even started taking orders! I had the onion soup, which came with yellow cheese this time instead of white like it had at dinner. I also had another delicious burger. My husband got the onion rings tower and the stew again. He really loves that stew! While we were there we were discussing whether to upgrade to Princess Premier for our August sailing, since having a the unlimited casual dining has been the most useful part of the package for us. We decided to total up how much everything we had ordered from casual dining for the week would have cost us and it worked out to less than $15/person/day. We had ordered separately several times that we could have shared (like when he got pasta and I got pizza at Gigi’s). We had also each ordered dessert our first time at O’Malley's that we could easily have lived without. Though we will definitely still order the tiramisu from Gigi’s every time! So I think we could be more frugal with it and we do at least get two casual meals included with Plus. I think we will have more than enough OBC with our $250 shareholder benefit to cover any casual dining we decide to do. After lunch it was nap time, though I set an alarm so I wouldn't sleep away too much of our last day. I got my coffee and met up with my husband in Crown Grill Bar for some more games. Princess Live was open so I was able to get my coffee there, though there was a long line. We played more games and drank some drinks and had a nice, relaxing afternoon. We had one last drink from Crown Grill Bar once they opened and then we did decided to check out Crooner’s before dinner. After reviewing the menu, I was sad we hadn’t made it there earlier in the week! At least now we will have a new venue to look forward to on our August sailing. We had a round of drinks there and then headed to Amalfi for our second and last MDR dinner of the cruise. I had the seafood medley, which sounded good, but the sauce had a flavor that was a little off for me. Then I had the spinach and ricotta ravioli, which was very good. And I had the crab risotto which was delicious. My husband had a Caesar salad (no offer of anchovies this time) and the lamb shank, but asked for the sides that came with the meatloaf instead of the yams that were listed with the lamb. He said everything was very good. We decided to skip dessert there and headed to the Gelato place for dessert. I decided to pay the $1.50 to build my own sundae of a scoop of chocolate, Oreo cookies, and chocolate sauce instead of one of the giant monstrosities included in the Premier package. My husband tried a slice of the chocolate cake. After dessert, I decided to try to take care of the casino-ing. We had a bunch of OBC still on our accounts. Some of it was my gambling budget for the last day, but some of it was just leftover stuff that I needed to cash in. Unfortunately, my husband and I had separate accounts, so the $55 he had leftover will just have to be sent via check. After getting all that sorted and doing a little bit of final gambling, I headed back to the room to get packing. BTW, the only casino offer I ended up with was $150 of freeplay on a cruise sailing by December 2024. Not a super appealing offer as it is for new bookings only (not worth canceling/rebooking our August cruise since the price has gone up more than $150 since we booked). We already have October and January cruises booked so very unlikely to be able to squeeze in another cruise before December! I got our bundles packed, but it was a little late to get our roller bags out for pickup. I was surprised Princess expects you to have them out before dinner! I don't know about everyone else, but I wear clothes to dinner. We held off on packing our backpacks until the morning. We just watched a little Back to the Future, set our alarms for 6:00am and got to bed. Day's Drinks: 2x Champagne & Chambord from Good Spirits 2x Clover Breeze from O’Malley's 1x Americano with Bailey's from Princess Live 1x Vodka & Ginger ale from Princess Live 1x Floradora from Crown Grill Bar 1x French Martini from Crooner's 1x Vodka & Gingerale from Amalfi Dining Room

On US sailings at least, arrival times are completely meaningless. Show up anytime after about 10:00am.

How is leftover refundable OBC handled? My husband still had $55 on his account. Does he need to go to guest services or run it through the casino?

Half an hour between appetizers and mains is reasonable. 70 minutes is not.