Whimsy

I do know it was mentioned there was a limited amount sold in each CAT and on each sailing...does anyone have anymore info on this...?

That was true. I have groups booked and some were able to take advantage and then it was sold out in some categories.

I would choose the Crown for the extra day plus more ports. Balconies will be larger than those on the Regal too!

If you are trying to build up loyalty level the double credit would be a nice perk. Not sure I would do it for one night if I didn't need the credits though.

I'm sure the Maitre'd will be happy to help you all dine together. I have a similar situation with a group, most are traditional fixed and now others want to join. The latter are waitlisted. I told them to hold tight and if they don't clear the wait list to talk to the Maitre'd once on board.

As for dining in the Horizan court I don't feel that was an acceptable alternative. I would suggest asking the maitre'd to switch you all to a reserved time in anytime dining before I would take all my meals in the Horizan court.

We were on the Regal for the first time in December. I loved the flair bar by the pool. The bartenders were very good and they kept you entertained. We are not buffet people but the buffet was laid out very well. The gelato shop was very nice after pizza at Alfredo's. While there are pros and cons to every ship and class it was a very nice ship and we will be on her again in November.

I have someone going on an Alaskan Cruise tour with Princess for 2 weeks. She is wondering how carrying her cans will work on the transport of bus to the lodges and Princess rail car. She is not comfortable with sending them ahead to ship and has to take quite a bit due to the length of time of the trip. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thank you!

Your travel agent can request distilled water. If you booked yourself just call Princess and they can help you. There are refrigerators in the cabins. You may want to request an extension cord or bring one yourself for the CPAP machine. They will supply them but sometimes they bring a huge industrial type cord and it's very bulky.

They were on my cruise in December on the Regal. Enjoyed Gelato a few times!

Thanks! I want a covered minisuite/vista suite (if i can afford :) Can I ask, I like coffee in the morning, what's the closest place to get coffee. I'm a little picky and like a dark coffee w/ espresso shot and a little steam milk, is there anywhere to get that on the ship. After going to starbucks so much, I enjoy strong coffee :)

Coral has an international cafe with a coffee bar. You will be able to get your coffee drink there. I suggest buying the coffee card if you like specialty coffees. A good bargain for the coffee lover.

Thanks everyone for the awesome advice...Coral Princess southbound with a land add-on to start looks like a fantastic plan.

 

 

 

Is the upgrade from balcony to mini-suite worth it? Aside from the extra space (not that important to us), what else do you get for the move up?

I like the extra room and the full bath of a mini suite. We just had a balcony cabin on the Regal but have mini suites for the next 2 cruises. I really misses the larger bathroom and full tub.

We have a group doing a southbound cruise tour FB4 on August 9. It's giving us a taste of everything, 2 nights in Fairbanks, 2 nights in Denali, a day on the domed train and 7 nights on the ship. The pricing was attractive for that time, families back to school and hoping the weather will still be decent...weather is always a crap shoot. We are going on the Coral Princess. Great viewing area on the ship and live the size!

Princess is offering a new itinerary this fall, Amber Cove, Dominican Republic, St Thomas and Antigua. 2 new ports we haven't visited. Extra sea day too!

When does your travel agent come back? Can you put the cabin on a 3 day hold and buy a little time until she comes back? She can see what she can do for you compared to what you have on hold.

We were on the December 6th sailing and had to have maintenance come in to look at our air as it was too hot. O few others in our party had to do the same. I never found it to be too cold anywhere but I think everyone tolerates temperatures differently.

Absolutely! I think my group would happily jump on any cruise with new ports in the Caribbean!

I didn't like the small balconies on the ship. I like the design of the other Princess ships that give you larger balconies. We we had a deluxe balcony cabin, daughter had a balcony cabin next door. I got a small sofa and about 2 extra feet, she got more drawers and shelves. I have a mini suite next time, I'll be thrilled to have the full size bath again but the balcony is still small. What were they thinking??

We bring our own. I even bring a small supply of foaming hand soap and throw the rest away at the end of the cruise. I don't like using the bar soap.

Mistake and can't figure out how to delete.

Sorry, I didn't notice you since you were behaving like a gentleman. :D She was drawing all the attention.

 

I was trying to resolve an charge on my bill. I actually had to bring my laptop down to show I had paid it before boarding but didn't yell at anyone even though I was inconvenienced with 2 trips. The lady told me when I came down they had it resolved but she hadn't had a chance to call my room. I told her I understood and we both exchanged a knowing look about what caused that delay! I was so thankful for the wonderful week I got to spend with my daughter, her husband and our friends I forgot to look for stuff to gripe about.

Edited to fix a mistake in my sentence

Sorry, I didn't notice you but if you were carrying since you were behaving like a gentleman.

I was trying to resolve an over charge on my bill. I actually had to bring my laptop down to show I had paid it before boarding but didn't yell at anyone even though I was inconvenienced with 2 trips. The lady told me when I came down they had it resolved but she hadn't had a chance to call my room. I told her I understood and we both exchanged a knowing look about what caused that delay! I was so thankful for the wonderful week I got to spend with my daughter, her husband and our friends I forgot to look for stuff to gripe about.

Oh how I wish that were true.

 

She, my friend, is still on the ship! She was doing a B2B.

OMG!!! Those poor people! :eek:

How did you know that? Was she raving she was on for another week? I missed that part.

I seriously could barely converse with the person at the desk as the raving lady was directly on my right. I was in the Elite/Suite line so was on the far left and she was right there. You mentioned she was yelling at a lady, I believe it was a man when I was there. He was trying to reach a superior to talk to her. He mentioned it was for safety reason, that they cancelled the class. She was raving she wanted them to reschedule things in the Piazza or something. She turned to the other ladies and kept ranting that she was going to write to Princess, how she was not going anywhere and was going to keep demanding they accommodate her. She reminded me of a two year old throwing a tantrum. I'm old school, if she would of been mine I would of gave her a spanking right there and told her now she had something to cry about!

You are not embellishing anything about the incident, it was awful!

Just off the Regal yesterday and had a deluxe balcony. There was a little ledge in the shower for shaving but it was still very small. I cut my legs twice while shaving. There was a curtain, no door. I would think a door would be dangerous, if the ship rolled you could fall into the door I would guess.

I grew up in a home with a very small bathroom and our previous master bath had a very small shower. Those cruise ship showers still win the prize on being the smallest!

I would rather be in a small cruise ship shower than not on a cruise at all!

Here is my detailed Review with overall opinions. And remember, they are just that.. my opinion. You may have a different opinion based on your experience

 

The Hilton Marina Hotel

 

I've already made some comments about this property so only as a "final" review I will say this. Staff. Now, the staff we encountered and had interaction with were great. My concern would be the lack of staff overall. They did everything they could to take care of any concerns we would have had the first night (remember we were very "with the flow" the first day) but even on the 2nd night they were short staffed so the original story of "It was supposed to rain all day so we decided to staff lightly" didn't pan out. We ended up using our complimentary dinner certificates for two cheeseburgers that I must admit were pretty tasty. So the food is good, but getting it out to you is a concern. We would stay here again however for next year I may actually try the Hyatt Pier 66.

 

Overall Rating: B-

 

Embarkation

 

Aside from the grumpy lady we already discussed, whom by the way we never saw again the entire cruise so "yay for us" LOL Embarkation was as smooth as I could have wished for.

 

We arrived to the port, purposely, very early. Left the Hilton at 9:45am, made a quick stop at the corner Walgreen's and were standing in line (the correct end of that line I will add) waiting to board. I believe I mentioned we were on board by 11:50am and were told our rooms would not be ready until 1pm which is a first for us with Princess. Other's seemed to be surprised by that as well. However in the grand scope of things, this wasn't a huge concern to us nor to anyone else we spoke to.

 

Lunch in Alfredo's was fantastic and after lunch we made it to our Suite, Cabin B734 which you have seen pictures of already. More on the suite later.

 

Overall rating for Embarkation: A- I'm subtracting points for the room not being ready as expected.. but only "style" points. :cool:

 

Baja Deck, Port Side, Owner's Suite B734

 

So most of you know already we have this suite booked for next December as well. We always try to cruise for our Anniversary (this year we were in Cozumel for our special day) and next year we actually Embark the Regal on our Anniversary.

 

The suite is fantastic. We spent as much time in the living room portion of the suite as we did the bedroom. I had no issues operating the two TV's independently of each other (yes, if I intentionally tried to change the TV in the bedroom with the remote from the living room it would work) but this wasn't an issue as long as the one remote couldn't see the other TV.

 

I do wish you could access your ship account from the TV but why complain about something you can't have and knew that going into it. As many people "rave" about the Regal.Princess.com app, I struggled with it. Many times my Iphone wouldn't even allow me to bring it up. I did go to the Internet Café an the young man there helped me set it up but the next day, still had an issue. So we resorted to the old fashion way of doing things: Carried a copy of the patters with us and used Guest Services for any account questions I had.

 

Back to the Suite. Sorry for digressing.

 

The Suite came with a full arrangement of flowers. Beautiful flowers including two "Birds of Paradise" which I simply love because we had a full bush of these in the backyard where I grew up. I only mention these flowers because I saw a string here once about the lack of flowers for either Suite passengers or Elite passengers. Can't remember which but in either case, we had flowers. We also had a nice orchid flower in the bedroom and bathroom. Added to this were the dozen roses I purchased for Dawn and the arrangement I purchased for the room. So the room had a very nice fragrance to it the entire week.

 

The mini-bar set up was nice. I was able to exchange some of the offerings given for something we liked with no problem whatsoever. The ship sent us a complimentary bottle of Champagne (a full 750ml bottle, not one of the split sizes) so we were going to drink that at Sail-Away but in the end it wasn't delivered until later that night so we saved it for our Anniversary.

 

The Balcony was tremendous. Loved being able to get a "side of ship" view along with the "aft" view. Nothing better than getting up early in the morning with a cup of coffee and the view this suite offers. Ditto for the evening sans the coffee and replace with a cocktail. The view, the sound of the water.. just perfect.

 

Breakfast in Sabatini's I mention this here because you only get this if you are a full suite passenger. First off... overall rating here is an A+++. Service, food, everything about it was first class.

 

So why did we only use it twice? I'll tell ya ;) If you want to play nice and not be a total butthead on Sea Day's, then you can't eat in Sabatini's if you want a chair by the pool. I refuse to be a chair hog (more on that later) so on Sea Day's, Sabatini's wasn't an option for us. The other days it just didn't mesh up with our schedule. However.. the two days we did use this perk.. we LOVED it. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

 

SOOT Okay, here is what everyone has been waiting for. Right? You've allowed me to ramble on to this point but now you're finally glad I'm getting to the point of talking about the infamous "soot" issue. So here it is.

 

Soot is an issue. However, it was not such an issue that we felt we couldn't use the balcony as some have mentioned in the past. I've seen people say it wasn't an issue whatsoever and I've read others say how it just "ruined" their cruise. This wasn't the case for us. For the most part.

 

Of the seven days we occupied this suite, there was soot on the balcony almost every day however it was very light. Our cabin steward, Renan, did a fantastic job of keeping the suite balcony clean and available to use the entire week.

 

But let's talk about the one day when it was an issue. Not just for us but apparently for everyone who had an aft balcony and this one day happened to be Friday, our Anniversary.

 

It didn't happen until the evening. We had come back from our evening enjoying the ship and planned to sit out on the balcony with a cocktail. A perfect ending to a fantastic day. That is until I sat down on the furniture outside and immediately could feel the grainy nature of the soot. It was horrendous. I jumped up from my seat and could see the black streaks on the cushion, then looked down and saw almost the sand like nature of the decking. Soot was everywhere.

 

Well, this ended our desire to spend anytime on the balcony that night. Obviously. So the next morning when we finally saw Renan (he informed us they had been called to a meeting to discuss the soot and he was aware it was an issue) he came into the suite to check the balcony out and you could tell how upset he was for us. We brushed it off and simply asked that he clean it up when he was able. Later he told me it took him about an hour just to clean the balcony. I have a picture of it that I will try to post later for you but along the wall of the room, on the outside on the deck, is.. for the lack of a better term, a drainage gutter. After he cleaned this up, that gutter was near black with the soot that he had washed off the wood deck.

 

 

So my overall rating of the Owner's Suite is a "B". It looses a full grade because of the soot. When you spend that kind of money for a cabin, you should be able to use all aspects of that cabin to its full extent. This simply was not the case with our balcony. Yes, I will mention this to Princess when I fill out the review but in all honesty, what can they do about it? I would have thought some time with a model of the ship inside a wind tunnel would have informed the designer this was going to be an issue and I refuse to believe they knew about it and simply overlooked it. But seeing as this is the 2nd of the Royal class ships, I would hate to see what the soot issue looks like on the Royal if it was addressed and improved for the Regal.

 

AND.. yes, we have already decided we will cancel our Owner's Suite for next December in lieu of.. just a standard old balcony. Now, in all fairness.. not just because of the soot.

 

The amenities given for the suite and our ability to use them simply can't justify the expense. We are not yet "Elite" with Princess and it's nice having "Elite" benefits that come with the suite but again, not at that expense. For example, the Suite comes with "Priority Reservations for the Specialty Restaurants" Well, so does being Elite. So our priority does not take priority over any passengers with Elite status. So even when we attempted to book the Crown Grill for three nights out of seven, we were never able to get the time we wanted. I would ask for 6 or 6:30 and be told 7:15 or 7:45. I understand the six o'clock hour is in high demand so I never fussed about it. But on Tuesday when I asked in person if we could get a later time (they only had 5pm for us on Tuesday) I was told they were overbooked and this simply wasn't possible when also trying to "accommodate walk-ups"

 

Accommodate walk-ups? I've spent ONE MILLION DOLLARS for this suite (I'm exaggerating but you get the point) and I'm told "can't help you" because I also have to try and accommodate walk-ups... I felt like the guy in Ocean's 13 trying to get into the Asian Restaurant. That won't mean anything to you unless you've seen the movie but if you have seen the move you know the feeling he has when he's told "I simply can't accommodate you and those tables are reserved" when there was nobody in the restaurant at all.

 

Let me give you two positives about the suite we did use, on more than one occasion: The Suite Breakfast Menu (simply fantastic) and the ability to have anything delivered from Room Service off the MDR menu. Can you say "Fettuccini Alfredo and Crème Brule"?? :cool:

 

Moving on. Because I simply didn't think I would spend that much time going on about the suite (which we did love, but wouldn't book again).

 

Culinary

 

Here it is: Overall Rating gets an A+.

 

The Buffet is great. We enjoyed the layout, the hot food was hot, cold food cold, selection was tremendous (although we did seem to have "Flavor's of the Orient" available more times than I would have expected. And I thought their Beef Lasagna was as good as any lasagna I've ever had from a buffet. I must have helped myself to four or five servings during the course of the cruise.

 

The buffet also does a great job during breakfast. Ordering an omelet is as simple as it gets. I never had it delivered to our table, choosing rather to wait for it to be cooked and my number "called" when it was done. The selection of breakfast items was bigger and better than any I've seen before, another reason why eating in Sabatini's for breakfast only twice didn't bother me in the least.

 

Crown Grill was fantastic. We reserved three nights but only ended up there two nights. We cancelled Saturday night only because of a scheduling conflict and ended up having room service from the MDR. The steaks were always cooked perfect, the Black and Blue French Onion Soup is, in my opinion, to die for and the lobsters are pretty dang tasty as well.

 

We only ate in the MDR one night (Friday night) to celebrate our Anniversary. This should tell you how good the other food outlets are. And, on this one night the MDR was outstanding. I had both the Lobster and Shrimp (it was the 2nd formal night) AND the Beef Wellington (which was cooked perfectly).

 

Alfredo's can't be beat. The food and service is fantastic.

 

The Poolside grill does a "good" job. I say "good" because it is what it is. Cheeseburgers, Hot Dogs, Pizza. We ate from this grill on several occasions during the cruise and never had anything we didn't finish.

 

Although we wanted to try the Crab Shack, we didn't due to conflicts with other dining options we had planned.

 

International Café was perfect. Coffee there was never a disappointment, food always exceptional in our opinion.

 

All Inclusive Beverage Package Overall rating: A+

 

We will purchase this again. Our current reservation for the suite next December was booked under the Sip & Sail promotion and we will lose this benefit when I rebook into another room. However, I will then purchase the AIBP because for us.. it worked.

 

I was going to keep track to determine whether or not we actually came out ahead or a little behind financially but after abusing the package the first three days, I didn't feel it was necessary to continue tracking anything. Yes, we lost a little speed as the cruise progressed and of course on port days. But when you consider coffee's in the morning, bottled water (there were many bottles of water consumed) along with all the morning adult beverages, drinks by the pool, before dinner drinks, dinner drinks, after dinner drinks, Crooner's Lounge, Wheelhouse Bar... I could go on.. trust me.. the "simplicity" of this package was well worth it to us.

 

We never had a problem getting a drink, never thought "service" was slowed down because we had the package and in fact, many times with half a drink still sitting on the table, the server would bring us another round based on their experience serving us the day before. Both of us were also able to order two drinks (one for each of us) without the other person being there as long as we had both cards to show. So this prevented the need for both of us to get up from our pool loungers to get a drink. We would take turns doing so and this wasn't a problem.

 

Chair Hogs

 

They were out in full force this week. Dawn and I went outside at 7:50am on the first sea day to find nothing but a wave of blue/white towels sitting on nothing but empty chairs. Of all the loungers available around the pool.. at least 95% of them were occupied with towels. There were only a handful of people actually sitting in chairs.

 

Later we spoke with someone who had walked by the pool on their way to the gym who said at 6am fully 50% of the chairs already had towels on them.

 

Really people?

 

The Regal Princess Overall rating: A+

 

Many reviews have been written about the ship, her staff and the lack of a center stair case (HA.. you thought that was going to slip by didn't you). Actually, I'm not going to mention anything about the stairs. I say this because of my hip issues, the stairs were only used when absolutely necessary and I never felt waiting for an elevator was any worse on this ship than any other ship we've sailed. We heard people complain about not having these stairs but I'm going to cover "people" in just a bit.

 

So we loved this ship, can't wait to sail her again next December and quite honestly, when its time to book our next cruise, unless there is an itinerary that makes it impossible for us to book the Regal, will do so in the future.

 

So in closing my review I have two last minute things I want to write about. They are:

 

Staff & Tipping You probably have already seen me mention Liudmyla, our Concierge Attendant who is also a Guest Services Desk Attendant. If I could get reassurances that she would be the Concierge Attendant for next December, I would keep the suite. She was that important to us. She handled every single dinner reservation request or question we had, she called us almost daily to check in to see if there was anything we needed or she could handle for us. When we asked her to come visit us at the Guest Services Counter, where she happened to be working on Saturday, and we give her the tip envelope we had for her, Dawn and I both saw the look in her eyes and the emotions tied to that tip. And she had no idea how much we had just given her. The shear fact that we had tipped her was enough for this look of appreciation to overcome her.

 

The same can be said for Renan, our Room Steward. We invited him into the room to chat with him and to give him his tip. The same look of appreciation came over him as it did with Liudmyla.

 

So, whether you agree with the auto tips or not (and by the way, we pre-paid our tips and had no intention of taking them off) and whether or not its anyone's business other than the person getting the tip and what's written into their personal employment contract on how to handle cash gratuities given to them (I don't think its anyone's business by the way) the look both Renan and Liudmyla gave us said it all. They appreciate more than words can express the thought and act of receiving the tip.

 

And these two, especially, deserved the extra tip they received. They both worked extremely hard for us and I'm sure they did for others as well.

 

And lastly....

 

Passengers of the Regal Princess

 

You know where I'm going with this.

 

First there was the woman outside before even getting on the ship. Yes, we had cut into the line but not on purpose and certainly not by design. When informed of our error, my wife advised the lady we would move as soon as I returned from taking a picture. She didn't want to move before I returned because she knew I would be standing there wondering why my wife left me. But even after being told this, the woman couldn't stop. To the point where my wife finally decided she had to say something back.

 

There was the woman inside the show room yelling at the handicapped gentleman to sit down when he was simply trying to make his way to a seat. This really chapped my hide but another gentleman sitting much closer to me took it upon himself to say something to her for me.

 

There were other instances, more than I would like to admit, of this type of behavior throughout the trip. But I'm only going to mention one more.

 

Saturday morning, standing at the Guest Services Counter.. this special person stood there.. berating the employee and demanding immediate satisfaction to her complaint. Regardless of how many times the employee tried to explain the issue was out of her control and she was sorry and that a more senior officer of the ship would contact her to discuss her concern.. that was not good enough for her. She continued and continued.

 

Then felt it necessary to remind the employee that she was... yup, you guessed it... ELITE. And had over 20 cruises under her belt. And how would YOU (the employee) feel if this was YOUR cruise and this had happened to you and she wasn't going to move from that desk until this issue had been resolved to her satisfaction. Oh, I forgot to mention she had four other ladies with her. All with the same concern but none acting up as she was.

 

I had had enough. I approached the desk, asked her to take her complaint back to her room and wait for the Sr. Officer to contact her. That this employee had done everything she could do for her and to continue this "scene" was doing nobody any good, specially herself as with each word she uttered was falling on ears that could no longer hear her. You know this didn't sit well with her but in the end, she did back down a little and I had walked away. I don't know if she ever got resolution to her concern or not but by her actions, I'm hoping she did not.

 

And I must apologize to all of you as I didn't let you know what her issue was. You see, it had rained on Saturday morning and some outside activity had to be cancelled. When the rain stopped, she was not satisfied that someone had not gone outside to "dry" whatever area of the ship needed to be dried so this outside activity (I think it was a class of some sort) could be reinstated and her cruise could continue. She seemed overly concerned about why her class would be cancelled but others scheduled for later that day had not been.

 

I can't make this up my friends. She was complaining about the rain.

 

The positive: We met so many friendly people who didn't have a care in the world. They were so happy to be on a cruise, to be cruising with others who felt the same and went out of their way to be considerate to their fellow passengers and who made this a very special vacation.

 

Sad how the so few can make such a large impression. I Hope you agree.

 

So that's it friends. If I didn't cover something you had hopped I might, please ask and I will do my best to answer your question. Want my opinion about something, ask and you shall receive.

 

Were you on this cruise and had a different experience? Please let me know. That's what this is all about. To share our experiences.

 

Just keep it friendly please!! :cool:

I was on the exact same sailing. Calm seas, perfect weather.

It was my first time with the AIBP and I was skeptical but I have to say I really liked it. I will not purchase it for our upcoming Alaska cruise as it will be port intensive but I will be buying it for our cruise in November that has 3 ports. Even on port days I felt it was worth it for the few glass of wine at dinner. after dinner drink, coffee at the IC in the mornings.

I know the EXACT woman you are talking about at the passenger service desk! I was there that morning as well and was totally shocked and appalled by her behavior. I heard her yelling those exact words, yelling about being Elite and having over 20 cruises. She was upset because they cancelled her Zumba class. She was horrible and if Princess wanted to ban her from future cruises and needed a witness I would eagerly testify. Seriously, if you wanted to Zumba put your music on and have at it some where on the ship. You should of have offered her your aft balcony and maybe she would of

"worked it" right off the aft, into the sea! I can't believe those ladies stood by her, in her nasty frame of mind. I just couldn't help thinking, we had a wonderful week of weather and calm seas and you want to end your week this way? I had seen her one day in the spa and she was going on and on about how she couldn't change into a robe because she had to go to Zumba class.

It was a wonderful cruise, great weather, good service, fantastic food. My only complaint? They made me get off the ship yesterday! The nerve!

We were on the same sailing, Dolphin 711. Never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Not being all the way aft probably kept us from noticing. I would of been alarmed too, if I saw red embers!

Your travel agent or princess can link them.