CruzeQueen2

@FirstTeacher I just returned from my trip on the Crown, August 15th.

I booked several cruises for 2024 with the Future Cruise desk while on board. Can and Sylvain were both most helpful. One of the agents suggested that I look at the printed list of deals that were applicable for sale prices, while on board. There were two different lists. One for solo travellers  and a second list of 50% off fares. 

I purchased and applied Future Cruise deposits for each one and left an extra FCD in my account to play with later! Yes, new FCDs are now good for one year (only) from purchase date. Previously they were good for two years, but that has changed!

Happy shopping. As noted above, it never hurts to ask. The Future Cruise sales guys - Can and Sylvain were excellent on Crown last week. 

@moonjelly Ask to speak to Claudio Guiliani, the Director of Restaurant Operations. If he is on board at the time of your sailing, he will look after you very well. He is that good! IMHO

Enjoy your trip. If he is there, you are in good hands. Bon voyage!

Delay due to issues with refueling barge. They left at 1:46 am or so.

1 hour ago, SuzieQ521 said:

 

We were on the Royal in May (Emerald Deck) and our mattress was wonderfully firm.

 

Not looking forward to our November Crown sailing with the notoriously saggy mattresses...

My bed on the Crown, August 2023, was fine. I was worried after reading so many complaints on this board. I slept well, no issues.

4 hours ago, cheezenip said:

@Jeter02 How early can you check into your mustard station (want to beat the crowds) before going back to the stateroom to watch the drill?

Go to your assigned station, as soon as you board, then watch the safety video on your device or in stateroom. Once they scan your medallion, you are almost done. Must watch the video at some point, though. 

FYI - The rollout of the new program starts on August 15, 2023 on the Crown. We are still operating without the new charges, and without the menus on the TV.

The operator on the Room Service line has taken my orders via the phone very efficiently on this cruise. Apparently, the room stewards had the information to respond to guests who asked them! No printed message in cabin, though. No menus on TV.

Using the phone on this sailing is still free...just NOT available on the TV. I was informed today that the menus on the TV were to be discontinued, fleet-wide as of July 31, 2023.

Room Service food and delivery has all been good.

2 hours ago, chamima said:

 

Ordering on the phone works great when you know what you want and what is available.

If seeing what's available isn't possible (via the TV or a paper menu) then how does one know what the choices are?

@chamima The response to that question, when I asked them, was - the operator on the phone at RS will list the options and answer questions for the caller. Yes, they are prepared to list item options verbally. 

For previous Princess cruisers, we know what options there used to be. Basically, I knew what I wanted from memory, and the operators on the phone at RS are very helpful. Wow, right? 

For new cruisers to Princess, I guess they will ask about something and they will get  responses from the phone line. That's how it is...for now, on the Crown.

All good here on Crown. Staff is wonderful, ship looks fine. No propulsion issues that affect our speed nor missing ports.

My bed is fine as well. 😆

FYI The numbers for the MTG are NOT low. I found out from the Loyalty desk - 1900, 1800 and 800 for top three. Oh well. Sorry not exact numbers, just the ball park. Very high.

I post them here in pescadoamarillo's blog, since there was speculation about low number of days on Alaska cruises sometimes qualify for MTG invitations. NOT this time, on Crown.

Happy sailing, nevertheless. All good.

I ordered room service as well, via the phone yesterday. It came quickly and was hot and fresh. Ordering on the phone will suffice for now. The TV menus may return as the new roll out proceeds.

I'm going to ask for the numbers that get you to the party -  at the Loyalty desk on Crown now. It doesn't look like I made the cut...for the MTG this time and I have more than 159 days. More, by one hundred and thirty days or so. LOL Just under 300 days, haven't looked for my exact number. Oh well! Not nearly enough - but I'll keep adding to my count. I have been invited twice previously. Both on Alaska sailings, of course.

@HaveDogWillTravel So true! I was lucky to be offered 6 various condiments, but alas, I was enjoying the conversation so much with my table mates, that I forgot to ask for the chutney and the raita. Well, I guess next time I will bring my little list so I don't miss out!

Further to the topic in this thread, the Crown does not feel that it has removed the TV room service menus in error. It was intentional albeit short-sighted and somewhat unfair to people that have come to rely on the TV method of ordering. Too bad, so sad. Gone.

We will survive this change, but without warning...it sends a message to those of us who cruise with Princess. Anything can happen and be changed at their whim and will. Whatever and whenever they deem it in their best interest. Done

I will more than likely continue to cruise with the brand that I have come to enjoy, but I will also look at other options in the future. Why not?

14 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Bizarre. I wonder if this is a glitch on Crown or is going to be the new "standard" fleet wide. That would be a major slap in the face to a lot of folks. On our last cruise we ordered via the TV a number of times. Yes, I have a smart phone that works quite well with the app but it was easier for us to both see the TV at the same time and is obviously a much larger screen for our less-than-perfect eyes to peruse.  Did they tell you outright that ordering via the TV is being discontinued?

@Thrak Basically yes. This is the way...

I have forwarded my findings to another  "FNB" staff member on another ship so that they will know that this has happened here. He also finds this move not quite right.

Wow, just wow, I agree. @HaveDogWillTravel

I am currently on the Crown Princess. My bed is fine, Sabatini dinner last night was perfection. Every bite, fabulous service.

Today when I went to order something from room service, I couldn't find any menus on the TV. I called Room Service on the phone. They were polite and offered me the usual list of room service items that I know about. When I asked where to find the list on the TV, they told me I could use the app, but I explained, I don't have a smart phone (full disclosure).  They told me I could chat with Guest Services, or dial 6000.

When I went to the GS desk, I chatted with two staff members. They also suggested I use the app. But they also agreed that I should be able to see a print version of the offerings, somewhere. They also knew that this has been suspended. Not there, not on the TV! Imagine my surprise and dismay. Things change. In an instant.

I am reporting this here as my first hand experience of what happened today. The official roll of the new plans for this ship starts on August 15th...

So after all of the speculation here on using the TV, as before, to order room service, I can tell you today, there are no menus to be found there. 

I am only the messenger.

I ended up going to have chicken korma for lunch in the dining room after all and enjoyed the korma and some lively conversation.

3 hours ago, zackarykeef said:

Food: Ah, the food. Honestly, it was pretty disappointing overall, and the main reason why we likely won’t sail Princess again in the future. I shouldn’t say won’t…I will likely try the new Sun/Star to see what a larger, newer Princess ship is like, as I only have this sailing on the Crown to go off of. However, I don’t think I’ll get my husband back on Princess due to the food alone. I've found every other line I've sailed (save for Carnival) to be much better.

 

I was looking forward to the food after reading plenty, especially as Princess is supposed to be a step-up from Carnival/RCCL/NCL. We also loved our recent cruise on Celebrity with the food being a stand-out, and many seem to think that Princess is on-par with or better than Celebrity. Living in Miami and moving from NYC, I would consider us foodies, and we both love to cook and cook well. Eating is important to us 🤣

 

We reserved our dining on the app ahead of time, all for the same time at a two-person private table in the Da Vinci dining room, along with two specialty meals in Crown Grill and Sabatini’s. We were seated the first night with our servers Kim and Arman, who were fantastic. We requested them for the rest of the trip, and were given our same table nightly. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the front of house staff at Da Vinci. Dinner timing and pacing was always great.

 

However, the food overall was…meh. Again, I think this comes down to just being outdated. Plating and garnishes were outdated, choices were outdated, etc. I understand some people are stuck in their ways, but things like cherries jubilee, chicken cordon bleu, etc. are not elevated or modern anymore. The plating really was lackluster, and it just wasn’t exciting. I know it is all Carnival Corp, but it didn’t seem much different than what I remember on Carnival cruises years ago. Lower quality, mass-produced, and very commercial. I understand it's a lot of people, but I don't feel this way on other lines, even though it's mass-produced there as well. For a cruise that had so many “Alaska” features nightly, the fish/seafood really wasn’t that good. Meats were better (the short rib was great), but again, boring overall. We started ordering the vegetarian dishes around day 7, and they were much better! Highly recommend the Indian/Asian veg dishes.

 

The buffet was…small. Very small, as many have mentioned. So small it’s cramped. Choices didn’t really change, and everything was lackluster. Breakfast was extremely redundant, and I’m not sure we could find real eggs anywhere…even the omelet station seemed to use fake eggs. The worst part about the buffet were the hours. It was like a game of hide and seek trying to figure out which of the 3 stations were open and when. One side would be closed, so they would tell you to go to the other…only to get there and have them say “Oh, now this side is closed, and we just opened the other, so you have to go back.” It was really frustrating, and more time was spent trying to get your food than eating it.

 

They also had one afternoon of a dessert buffet, and I was yelled at for trying to take something because it was “only open for pictures.” What? Again, outdated. I thought this was a thing of the past. I don’t think we need time dedicated to taking tons of photos of averagely decorated cakes.

 

After tiring of the buffet breakfast, we decided to try breakfast in the main dining room one morning. I feel Princess definitely caters to the older crowd here, as you need to be up at the crack of dawn if you are to make it before breakfast ends. The food wasn’t any better, and it was the slowest meal we had on board by far…almost 2 hours for omelets and toast. We were sat at a table with others, and all anyone could talk about was how long it was taking.

 

Crown Grill was fine. I expected better from the raving reviews, but…meh. I'll admit our steaks were perfect, but I could’ve done without everything else. The scallops in the main dining room were better, and my bone-marrow roasted potato didn’t seem any different than a regular baked potato. Unless it was included, I would skip it next time.

 

The highlight was Sabatini’s. This meal was actually incredible, and had our meal not been toward the end of the sailing, we would’ve went back. You get a lot of food, and everything was delicious. The osso bucco was on point, and I would highly recommend a meal here.

 

We didn’t eat at the Salty Dog Gastropub, but the menu looked good. We just didn’t want to pay for something else to be let down. The Salty Dog Grill upstairs was fine, but the wait times were ridiculous. Always 30-45 minutes for a hot dog or burger and fries, and you had to be given a pager for when your food was ready. I don’t understand this, as you would think that a place that only does these few foods would be producing them constantly. They weren't any better than the burgers or hot dogs on the buffet, which could be obtained much more quickly (so long as you found a side that was open).

 

Princess does shine with their pizza and desserts. Slice upstairs had amazing pizza…loved the thin crust. I am not much of a dessert person and tend to think most cruise line desserts are underwhelming and overly gelatinous, but Princess does a great job. I think we enjoyed almost every dessert we had, save for their one signature dessert, the love boat dream, which was a let down (but the lychee/rose signature dessert was great!). We didn’t get any of the included “premium desserts,” as they seemed too large and sweet, so I can’t comment on that.

@zackarykeef I'm on the Crown now and so far, only two days, I have to agree with you about Sabatini. Wonderful in every way! I am also interested in food - period. I followed a reliable source for trying the fish/branzino for the first time. I was NOT disappointed. I will try the Osso Bucco next.  Thank you for taking the time to share so much information and your overall impressions. 

My bad! Sorry...I know the question was about Royal. Got it!

@augies On the Majestic, juices are at the Wakeview bar, deck 16 aft. I think I read this is the same for other Royal class ships. Hope this helps. 

41 minutes ago, augies said:

Where is the juice bar located on the Royal?  Thanks.

8 hours ago, [Big Z] said:

I know I'm not the OP, but I too was on this cruise and had reservations for every dining room and of course, perspectives may vary. 

 

I had reservations for either 7 PM or 7:40 PM, private table for 2. 

 

Botticelli can get really crowded if having to wait because of it's location (aft) so one night, we were halfway up the stairs waiting to get in. 

 

Da Vinci's wait wasn't too bad, from what I can recall. I'll admit, the way it worked out reservations wise, we dined there the least. 

 

Michelangelo (Deck 5) was typically the quickest, except one night where we were waiting for quite awhile (I think it was they didn't have place settings ready).  Also, for us, it was the one dining room we had issues with particularly having our wait staff having to handle a party of 17 (not a typo), which left us basically abandoned (and they didn't get any backup) and also in this dining room, there is one waiter in particular that would literally spend 15 mins talking to a table of regulars while everyone else around them is working and trying to serve patrons.

@[Big Z] Thank you for the details! 

@zackarykeef Thought of another question - Which two restaurants did you visit for your specialty dining? Which one did you enjoy the most, and why?

I believe the two options are Sabatini on Deck 16 and Crown Grill, deck 7. Are there any other venues for specialty dining?

Did you find any differences in the Main Dining Rooms that are worth noting? E.g., staff at the door and longer, or shorter lines...I have made reservations, and am hoping for a good outcome.

Thanks again!

@zackarykeef Thanks for taking the time to share so many details about your trip. Happy to hear that you slept well on your comfortable bed!

Would love to know if you were happy with the wine choices with the Premium package. Did you get many photos and were the photographers around the ship during the day, outside for example?

I am not new to Princess; but haven't sailed on the Crown for awhile. 

TIA

25 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

In the Webinar, Princess said they would be emailing all booked passengers with the info and upgrade options. If booked through a TA, the TA will get the email and forward it on (though it's possible it would still come directly from Princess as well - that often happens with "important" emails). As a TA, I have nothing official from Princess either for my own bookings or for my client's bookings. While I have discussed this with clients that have asked, I have not reached out to inform those that have not yet as I would prefer to defer to the official Princess communication. Hopefully it will come this week!

@ceilidh1Thanks for the new wine list for Vines. I'm sailing soon, so won't see those new wines till September. Appreciate you sharing the info, as usual!

My next cruise ends before the new plans start on the Crown. Since there is no Alfredos on that ship, I'm ok with free room service with my Plus fare - for now. Last sailing, I upgraded some of my wine choices for the little bit extra cost. Works for me.

@ceilidh1 Thanks for the latest/new list for Vines!  The variety of wines looks just fine for me.

Less than a week and I will be trying some of these - nice to see the labels included with the Plus fares. From all the info posted, I think that I will be having free room service one last time- as my cruise ends on August 15. Of course, when anyone opts to pay for Plus or Premier fares, room service will still be included, as usual. 

6 hours ago, milogurd said:

For those planning on going to Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau:

 

Top Alaska tourist attraction Mendenhall Glacier to hit capacity for visitors by late summer

https://www.ktoo.org/2023/07/08/top-alaska-tourist-attraction-mendenhall-glacier-to-hit-capacity-for-visitors-by-late-summer/

 

As Mendenhall Glacier hits tour capacity, Juneau visitors are opting for the city bus

https://alaskapublic.org/2023/07/24/as-mendenhall-glacier-hits-tour-capacity-juneau-visitors-are-opting-for-the-city-bus/

 

Getting to Mendenhall Glacier using Juneau's Capital Transit public (city) bus:

https://juneaucapitaltransit.org/how-to-ride-to-the-mendenhall-glacier-visitor-center-with-capital-transit/

@milogurd very interesting reads! Thanks for all three links. Very helpful, too.

4 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Put on your Spock hat.  Look at what PCL has done.  You do agree to this point that using Ocean Now on the Princess App incurs a 1-time charge for delivery to wherever.  You also agree that phoning RS incurs a delivery fee.  It is illogical that using the cabin TV to place a food/drink order is somehow going to bypass the new service fee policy.

The only way I see to bypass a service fee is to visit the venue or bar and place/collect your own order.  Or hail a passing waiter.

Or purchase Plus or Premier package.

30 minutes ago, notatubaplayer said:

Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan was easy and fun.  Did the train in Skagway and that was awesome.  If you didnt want to do other excursions in Juneau a quick trip to do the trails at Mendenhall would be cheap and easy.  The waterfall hike would be really easy with kids.

@notatubaplayer Did you take a public bus to Mendenhall? The other bus option that I know about is $45 per person shuttle you there and return. I think you get to jump onto any "blue" bus of that company to return. From reading along here, I think that allows you to choose how much time you wish to spend at that location.

Since you mentioned "cheap and easy", you got my attention. Thanks!