PMGS247

Same. I believe this is why they write down drinks & room numbers while docked in the US rather than processing your cruise card. Enter into the system later. I could be wrong, I wonder how that could possibly be legal, but I read that at some point and it does match my observations on board multiple cruise lines. They all have pad & paper before setting sail.

App worked pretty well on my recent Oasis cruise. Amongst first to board was able to reserve most any time we wanted for any restaurant. Only challenge was the high demand Hibachi which I was ultimately able to get by continuing to refresh over the first couple hours on board. I have no idea about the Diamond concierge, sounds like additional reservations may be held aside for that route. If so that's an obvious first choice.

Accumulates on a daily rate on your on board account.

Most rates I've seen have been high 60's/low 70's. Watching a few of these discussions it does seem like the prices lean on the higher side for shorter cruises and perhaps also for more sea day/perfect day intensive cruises.

Well said. I'm sure if one were to conduct a study on those who cancelled their auto gratuities with the justification that they would rather pay their gratuities directly in cash to people who helped them, the % of those who actually ended up paying as much overall would be extremely minimal. There's no science on this as direct cash tips would be all but untraceable, but I'd bet my next cruise's auto-gratuities it's under 10%.

So what's the alternative? Shut down cruising again? That's the only option to truly stop spreading on cruise ships. Otherwise it's just buyer beware. Those who continue to opt to cruise are by definition, whether explicitly or implicitly, opting for a "learn to live with it" outlook. If not, they'd stay home.

Whenever I see the word "outbreak" I raise an eyebrow.

False negatives yes - very common, false positives are a different story - not common at all. Something like 0.5%. Not impossible, but back to back....that's a positive.

medallion is just a cruise card in a different shape if that's all you want it to be. App related functionality is entirely optional.

They are more accurate but the odds of two back to back antigen false positives is extremely remote. definitely curious that the ship's test is not picking it up, but I don't think there's any reasonable doubt this guy's got covid.

DW and I are slated to go to the beach club in a couple weeks and I was not aware that we needed reservations. I assume this is something you do upon arrival, or is there a way to do this in advance?

I'm sailing on Oasis on 7/15, a cruise I'm taking that I have rescheduled a couple times. First, due to Covid, second due to having to care for a dying cat who passed away the week we would have sailed (Mid-May). No disrespect to the production and this was nobody's fault but there's no way I'm going to put up with my wife balling her eyes out for an entire evening because of a theatre show lol

I was in the Bahamas in December and it was quite warm. Warmer than I expected. The forecast high was 83 and I was concerned that it might fall just short of ideal beach heat but I'm pretty sure it got to 85-86 and the sun just hits harder down there (at least for this guy from Pittsburgh) so it was pretty much ideal. Water was definitely on the chilly side but nothing you couldn't get used to relatively quickly. This was Princess Cays, not far from Coco Cay but only comparable for weather/beach/ocean - no pools. More of a roll of the dice at that time of year but it's certainly still quite likely to be hot enough for a beach day. I feel like "cold" would be a strong word but even the low end of the temp range, but it's all relative.

Many thanks for all your time and effort to post throughout the cruise. Very enjoyable to follow. I'll be hopping on board two weeks from today and as a result of this thread I feel better prepared and looking forward to it even more. Hope you had a great cruise and also that you've got another on the horizon not too far out! Seems like the first thing I do when I get back from a cruise is immediately book another. I've put down deposits during flights home. I suppose there are worse addictions to have LOL

Have people had much problems with bandwidth/connectivity? I've done the tests before and find them very easy but only done so from home. Situation will be different this time and I'll be taking the tests from a hotel room. Curious if people have been successful with hotel wifi and/or cellular connectivity LTE/5G. Acknowledging every place and connection strength is different, just curious if there's any notable experiences either consistently successful or noteworthy challenges.

I think pretty safe to say No on virtually anything pre-purchase vs purchase on board. Virtually always more on board. One technicality would be that you can purchase the package partially through the trip. I think the cruise still has to have 3-4 days remaining but they'll let you purchase it at the daily rate for just the remaining days, whatever that minimum number of days is. It would almost definitely be more per day at that point but you'd have saved a few days without it, provided you had the self control not to go crazy with purchasing a la carte in the meantime.

Yikes. Anyway...whoever said a week ago that the price surge was just a precursor to the July 4th "sale" seemed to be spot on. My cruise planner is filled with stuff that had gone up in price in recent weeks now suddenly back where it was 4-6 weeks ago, including the UDP coming back down to 207.99.

Good advice. We did the key so we should have the crown grill lunch and also UDP so should be minimal trips to the windjammer for the week. Need to make dinner reservations along with those show reservations as soon as we get on board. The advice on expect crowds is spot on. Exactly what I'm doing. Mentally preparing. No cruise is without its crowds and most of my experience on Princess is no exception to that, but this looks like some sort of next level. Having said that I've also read a number of accounts that say that aside from a couple notable and obvious exceptions, that the oasis class ships distribute people pretty well with the neighborhood setup and generally don't feel all that crowded at any given point in time in most spots around the ship. I'm setting the bar at the worst case and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Appreciate the on-going review and photos! I'll be on board 7/15. First Royal cruise. I'll reserve final judgment for my actual experience but based on this review and plenty of others I have a feeling I'll walk away saying the crowds are a bit much, but still, it looks like it will be a blast to experience the Oasis class. Can't wait!

There's 100% an ulterior motive. They're trying to rack up as much casino points as they can. It borders on operating their own business on the ship but ultimately I don't mind this as long as they're up front about it. If there's enough demand for 4 slot pulls then so be it. It's not like they're doing nothing to earn those points....a well run event is a lot of time & effort. If they're a good organizer and promoter they'll do quite well and people won't mind. The worst part to me is that they're coming in late and stepping on the toes of pre-existing slot pulls and creating confusion. It's definitely unethical and I'd be judging that person left & right without blinking an eye but I'm not sure there's a lot to be done. You just have to rely on the participants to make the right decision as best they can. Clear open & honest communication from the original organizer is all that can be done. Some may opt to bow out and not deal with the drama and some may stand up and say hey mine was the original slot pull, it is still being held, please take this into consideration when considering your options. Then let the proverbial chips fall where they may. Stay away from slot pulls if this type of occasionally inevitable drama arises and it's enough of a turn off.

I used to see $189/$199 on these. I got $207.99 on my most recent booking thinking I'd see be able to cancel/rebook at a lower rate but it's only gone up. The $208/$219 may be the new normal. As always, waiting is not necessary unless you're 100% sure that you're absolutely not willing to pay the current price. You can always cancel & rebook if it goes down, but can't get it back if it goes up.

I think the best advice is to pay as early as you're comfortable with the price. Based on my experience the early days pricing may not be the absolutely lowest that the fare bottoms out at, but it's a safer bet to toward the lower end of the spectrum than holding out on the chance that the cruise ends up with last minute deals. If I had no repricing options and didn't have a deep familiarity with the cruise lines tendencies to run certain specials at certain times per year I would book on the early side to snag the cabin I wanted and bank on the fact that in most cases the price I'll be getting at that time is going to be towards the lower end of the spectrum, even if it's not necessarily the absolute optimized bottom-out point.

Yep, overall I agree in theory even though dropping testing would increase cases...at this point to me it is what it is, people aren't generally getting seriously ill from this especially when you combine it with the vaccine requirement, but I can see why the cruise lines do it. The reality is cruising gets closer scrutiny in the public eye and attracts instant negative PR every time a ship comes back with a bunch of cases. It's not fair..this is happening everywhere it's just only tracked on cruise ships, but fair or not it is reality, and as a result there is a strong motivation to keep cases as low as possible. Hopefully this dynamic evolves and more logical thought can prevail, but we're not there yet.

Makes sense. Thanks. Entirely curiosity; I'd be in Divorce court so fast my head would spin if my wife and I ended up in this situation and anything other than "both cancel" was the immediate response 🙂

So that would be if the negative person elects to go, it classifies the positive as a no show. That's a lot riding on that negative tester given the policy below pretty clearly states the entire traveling party is eligible for a full refund.