mevs904

We had a fine experience on a previous Royal cruise however, we do prefer ships with a full promenade deck, especially for Alaska.

On our Mediterranean cruise last summer we made an advance reservation for around 8:00 (can’t remember the exact time) in the 6 Aft dining room. We had a very short wait the first night of the cruise and after that they told us to walk right in every night and our table was waiting for us. Although we booked a table for two we were seated next to a delightful grandmother and her teenage granddaughter. We enjoyed each other’s company so much that we both secured those reservations for the rest of the cruise and just walked right in for the rest of the cruise. Each night we looked forward to seeing each other and talking about our day’s adventures. It was similar to our traditional dining experiences where we really enjoyed our table mates. (We always thought Princess did an excellent job matching us up with other people.). The bonus was that we had great servers who got to know us. We also looked forward to seeing them each night. It was very much like a successful traditional dining experience and we would love to have something similar on our upcoming Caribbean cruise.

We bring our leftover H20 Spa lotions from our Disney cruises. We love those products. I believe that Disney now uses wall dispensers, but they were very generous “in the old days”.

Interesting. Did you request a kettle on the Enchanted? We were on her for a Mediterranean cruise in June and there was no kettle. Not a problem for us because we prefer to get our coffee and tea at the IC.

Thank you, Teechur. This is exactly how I feel. Loyal Princess customers and shareholders should not have to go through unwanted third party apps just to get the benefit that we were promised when we invested in their company. It feels like Princess just doesn’t want to be bothered with applying the benefits from statements that we sent to them directly so they’ve pawned off the task to a third party. Like you, we’ve taken some wonderful land tours recently and have also booked our first Viking cruise. Our March Princess cruise may be our last.

Well, I tried to use the Princess email address that some posters were successful with. They weren’t happy with the format of the first document so I resubmitted it as they directed. Following that I received a response telling me that I had to use Stockperks. We have a close family member who recently lost over $9000 that was taken electronically out of one of their accounts so we’re being extra cautious about our financial information. Fortunately for our relative, they were able to recoup their loss. They still don’t know how the money was taken. Anyway, Princess has disappointed me. At this point, after considering this situation and looking at the stock performance I’m thinking that buying Carnival stock was not the best idea.

I sent an email to the SBPCL email address on February 1st and at this point I haven’t received any kind of acknowledgment that my email was received.

We have never been impressed with MDR lunches and don’t care for dinner type selections at noon time so we usually go to the sandwich and salad sections of the buffet and are very happy. We also enjoy lunch at Alfredo’s/Gigi’s. We find both the menu and the atmosphere in the dining rooms to be uninteresting. If we can get a sandwich or salad at a table where we can look outside we’re happy.

After hearing that you and a few others have used this approach we did this too yesterday. We will look forward to seeing a web version in the future.

We received and took a Move Over Offer for a Mediterranean cruise last April. We received the offer 2 days before we were supposed to fly to Rome. As a previous poster mentioned Princess got back to us immediately after we expressed an interest to their email. The representative who called us couldn’t have been nicer. We did a little research before we emailed them back and located the same itinerary two months later in June. The rep booked us on that cruise in a balcony cabin that was one notch above what we had, but in the same location that had picked for the first cruise.We kept all of the perks that we had and because we had booked our flights with EZ Air she booked us on new flights. The flight fare was a little higher than our original booking but Princess covered the difference. It turned out to be a tremendous success as the weather in June was much nicer than it would have been in April. We already had quite a bit of OBC so we really didn’t spend the cruise fare that was returned to us a refund OBC. As they promised, we revived a check in the mail about 6 weeks after we returned home…over $9000.😀 As other posters have mentioned, you need to respond very quickly if you are interested.

Getting back to your original question, we booked this same itinerary with EZAir last summer for our Enchanted Mediterranean cruise. We flew from JFK and our flights were perfect. We flew Delta to Rome and American from Barcelona back to JFK. Both flights were nonstop, left at convenient times, and were significantly less than if we had booked the flights ourselves. We also used EZ Air for our Baltic cruise a few years ago and flew round trip out of Newark. We’re very satisfied with EZ Air for international flights, but we book our own flights domestic travel.

My TA got back to me and they won’t let her add proof of my stock holding to my account. Like a few of the posters who have responded here I am not comfortable giving specific information about my brokerage account to a third party app. Like most people, I have experienced security breach incidents that have caused me to get new credit cards and to be given free credit monitoring. The latest incident involves an information breach at my health insurance company. I will try the SBPL email route that was offered by a previous poster. If that fails, I will consider dumping the stock. The perks and the stock performance aren’t that great. I can chalk it up to a bad investment and put my money elsewhere.

We have sailed on both ships. Although we were not terribly impressed by the Caribbean Princess we do love the full promenade deck and larger balconies. Yes, the Enchanted is newer, but we were very put off by the loud piazza, especially when they had loud bands performing there. The atmosphere in Sabatini’s was ruined by the noise and we made a point to address it in our survey, asking them, “What on earth were you thinking?!” Yes, a new ship can be nice, but it is not necessarily better.

We took Harv & Marv and it was great. We will book them again if we take another Alaska cruise.

Yes, it will be in all of the dining rooms. Since it will be on the second formal night fewer people will be dressed up. It is not mandatory to dress up and recently fewer men seem to be wearing tuxes and suits, but still wear a nice shirt and perhaps a tie. It’s fine that you’re looking forward to steak and lobster night, but in the interest of managing expectations be advised that the lobster may not be the quality that you are accustomed to.

Definitely Coral. We enjoyed her so much on our Alaska cruise that we also took a Panama Canal Cruise on her. Following the Panama Canal cruise we booked the Coral for a South America/Antarctica cruise, but then Covid hit and it was cancelled. In addition to the great promenade deck the Coral also has forward mid-level observation decks that many passengers don’t know about. They were a perfect viewing spot when we headed into the Panama Canal in the early morning before dawn.

Well, for our cruise last summer I gave a redacted brokerage statement to our TA and she handled it. That was before the Stockperks app. We’re trying the same thing with our upcoming March cruise and are hoping that she will be able to put it through. I don’t like hearing that people using Stockperks are being asked for their account numbers or that they are being subjected to unwanted solicitation. The benefits that we’ve received so far from being a shareholder don’t come close to making up for the value that the stock has lost since I purchased it. It has not been a good investment.

We will be on the Caribbean Princess in March and are mourning the fact that there is no Alfredo’s/Gigi’s on the ship. We will miss it, especially the minestrone that we had on the Enchanted this past summer.

This is also what we do. At the end of the cruise we get envelopes from Guest Services and give extra cash to our cabin steward (who has been excellent in all of our cruises) and to our dining room servers if we’ve had the same ones throughout the cruise. As far as bar drinks are concerned, an 18% gratuity is automatically added to the cost of your drink, but if there is a particular bar tender who has frequently served us we give him or her some extra cash at the end of the cruise. We have sailed on Disney many times and like their system for addressing gratuities.

When we took the Regal Baltic cruise a few years ago we used Alla Tours which was similar to SPB tours and based in St. Petersburg. We took their tours in St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Rostock/Schwerin. Each of the tours was excellent as was the customer service. According to their website they are still operating. Under normal circumstances we would use them again, but since they are a Russian company, sadly, our consciences wouldn’t let us do that. You may have different feelings on the matter. They were an excellent tour company.

Another vote for Harv and Marv. We loved our excursion with them and similar to Norris we only had six passengers on the boat. Our captain got very excited about a pod of orcas and we followed them as they headed toward an island that was full of walruses. Saw great whale activity too. We saw the bigger boats that were loaded with people and we were so glad that we were with Harv & Marv.

Carol and Norris, thanks so much for your informative and enjoyable review. We have loved all of your reviews, particularly the ones on the older ships as we prefer those to the Royal class ships that don’t have a full promenade. Wishing you good health for the remainder of the winter. Stay warm and well in Chicago!

We received a Move Over offer in April 2023 for our 14 Night Mediterranean Cruise on the Enchanted. We took the offer and they booked us on the same itinerary for late June on the Enchanted. We received the same accommodations and benefits that we had for the original cruise, a balcony mini-suite specialty dinners, OBC, etc. It was the best move that we could have made. Since we had EZ Air the Princess rep rebooked flights for us at no extra charge. The weather in June was much better than our originally scheduled April cruise and we received our cruise fare back in the form of a check approximately 6 weeks after we got home. The fare was originally credited to us in the form of refundable OBC, but we didn’t use any of it because we had other OBC. Thus, the nice check upon our return. We were very appreciative that the “Move Over Fairy” found us and would do it again in a heartbeat.

We were on an Enchanted Mediterranean cruise for two weeks this past summer and had no complaints at all about the food. The food at the buffet was consistently fresh and varied and our meals at Sabatini’s and Gigi’s were excellent. We also enjoyed our dinners in the MDR. We have never been impressed with the quality of the food at the Crown Grill on our previous cruises so we didn’t go there on this cruise. Perhaps the fact that the food supplies on our cruise were from European markets made a difference.