Kay S

Maybe electric kettles are not a fire hazard when they are in British waters. 🙂

Yes. There might be a private event happening from time to time, but most of the time, the place is empty.

Alfredo's or Sabatini's? One is free, the other not. All ships are Medallion ships now. I think you mean "Royal Class" ships, which both Royal and Discovery are.

Hahahaha! We ate at Bistro Sur la Mer on Majestic. The app would never let me make a reservation, and the place was nearly empty every night. I finally stopped at the desk and asked if they could squeeze me in and voila! there was a cancellation! The place was still half empty and the food was weird.

I know people whose idea of heaven is a buffet. 🙂 One thing Princess has going for it is a good buffet (on the Royal class ships) with lots of choice. Some food is good, some not. I think they do the best Brussels sprouts and any variety of meatball. DH likes all the soups and curries. When you go out in your leggings, you might put on an extra bracelet or two. Princess is not strictly casual. The shows in the theater are sometimes fun, but you won't see much in the way of production, and they are short. They do comedians a lot. So, for food, I think you will like Princess but entertainment, not so much.

I always like the kids' clubs. I hope they are as good now as before the shutdown. Remix is the club for tens. My gkids had fun there at that age. There was no running amok under pain of no more cruises. 🙂

Sounds like the ideal vacation.

The lobster you get on formal night is dinky, maybe four bites worth. I guess you can ask for seconds or thirds. They were doing a big prawn with some kind of steak and calling that Surf and Turf. Frankly, I liked the prawn much more than the lobster. I think the last time I did a formal night, there was one small lobster tail served with risotto that tasted like rice paste. I don't know if the lobster you pay for in the Crown Grill is any better since I've never ordered it.

That's the plan.

Room service and wifi--sounds like my experience on the Majestic months ago. Sorry things haven't improved.

I'm not getting my hopes up. With the Salty Dog pub (and its upcharge) replacing Vines on some ships, I think the handwriting is on the wall. Princess passengers like pub lunches? Hey! Let's charge them for it. All part of the plan to erase Princess' traditions (especially the free ones.)

Well, until we get the full story of the ship and its itineraries, we can but speculate.

I have very seldom seen lobster tails in the buffet, but when I did, they were so dried out they were inedible.

"Ship within a ship" is fine and dandy, but who's going to be sailing in all the other cabins? They have to fill the ship, and the expensive suites alone won't do it. Families with kids. That's their goal. Lots of them. The advertising for that will commence soon enough. Carnival kid cruises without the drunks throwing punches.

They do not care what we think. They are going after a new customer, and the sooner they are rid of us old-timers, the better they will like it. Why do you think they keep chipping away at Elite perks? They want to be "Classier Carnival" with huge ships filled with families who don't vomit in the elevators. That's about as "traditional" as they are willing to go.

That is doubtless going to happen, but there are far more cabins with 3/4 berths that there are suites, so I predict the number of kids will increase accordingly.

Maybe he'll share?

"Bladder buddies." 🤣 I haven't done embarkation at the new SF terminal, but I did do a port stop there after cruising resumed. It's about a hundred times better that the old barn down the wharf where Princess used to dock. I hope things are running smoothly, but there are worse places to be stuck in line than the bay at San Francisco. 😉

We are focused on the "wealthy" here, but that's only part of it. They can't fill megaships with wealthy customers, so what about the rest of it? Kids. Families. Lots of kids to fill those 3rd and 4th bunks in all those cabins. Princess is doing a smoke and mirrors thing here, saying "Ooo look at the shiny thing," but ignore all those kids, please. I read about the "Classier Carnival" theory floating around. That's the goal. Thousands of families with a nice wall between them and the rich folk.

Good luck with this. It probably doesn't matter if you rant or not because Princess will put you off forever. They can play the long game, and they don't care if you never sail with them again. They have a new business model where they want to attract people with kids and fill up their new mega ships. They want to be the "Classier Carnival," kids everywhere but with fewer fist fights in the buffets. Losing business from the occasional wronged party does not move them in the least.

I have done a few aft balconies on that ship class. I don't remember ever being bothered by smokers. Maybe it was the direction of the wind or something, but I didn't realize there was a smoking section there until I chanced upon it.

It's been awhile since I took teens on a cruise. Just before the lockdown we did a short one on the Regal. The kids were 14-15. They alternated between Remix and hanging out on deck with the friends they met there. Alaska is port-intensive, and they won't have much time for socializing anyway. Besides, I told mine they wouldn't REALLY die from boredom and being bored builds character. 😁

My situation exactly. I used to love Princess and I was happy to accept the FCC at the shutdown. I didn't know, of course. that they would change so drastically (not for the better) when they came back. Our first post-covid cruise was on the Majestic, and dining was a disaster with the malfunctioning app. There were other little annoyances, too, taking away perks, etc., but they added up. At that point, I had done a couple of HAL cruises and decided it was a good fit, but I had to use up the FCC. So we have two cruises booked (because the FCC would not apply to just one of them) and we will just have to make the best of it. Princess broke my heart when they turned on their Elite customers, and they sadly do not care. Princess has left me, so I'm leaving it.

We were due to do a two-week transatlantic a couple of days after they hit "pause." That's why we have all this FCC to use up. I live in California, and we shut down earlier than most. We did do a cruise shortly after the restart (first cruise ship to dock in San Francisco, as it turned out) on Princess and then a couple more on HAL. I have become a big fan of HAL, BTW.

I will watch this. We sailed on the Diamond a few years before this, and it was one of my favorite ships. I think everyone has learned what not to do now, 20/20 hindsight, but at the time it was, literally, uncharted territory.