_rusty_shackleford

They do actually list out the available wines now by label so that's nice. Every bar I go to (haven't been to Vines yet) seems well stocked. I'll see if I can get some screen grabs of the wine menu shortly.

So about last night... Confusing to say the least. Dinner service was the worst I've ever had on a ship. 2 hours from seated to finishing main course and we didn't stay for dessert, assistant server told us the only wines we could get in the dining room were the Plus options (refused to bring anything else even when I said I'd pay the difference), and brought me a late harvest dessert white wine when I asked for a Carmenere because he said they were from the same maker. They clearly seemed overwhelmed so I'm not sure if this a staffing or training issue since we haven't been back to full capacity for that long. Food quality still seems pretty good overall. Unlimited juice bar: make sure you have unlimited time to wait. One poor guy who is working his tail off but there's only one blender and they have to wash everything out between orders. It is pretty good though so there's that. The jazz band was really good though. Definitely plan on seeing them every night. Trying a different dining room tonight to see if that makes a difference experience wise.

I don't see the coffee package in the app, but I do see it available if I access the Cruise Personalizer via the web vs the app. There might be hope for you yet!

Can absolutely confirm your OBC applies to Plus/Premium. Was very simple to do in the app as well!

I will happily share if I see or hear anything. This community has been good to us with info and such. Happy to give back and be a part.

No mention of the coffee package. This is really like a mini-Patter letting people know what's going on for the first few hours onboard.

There are a quite a few areas where you will get no service due to either geography or latitude and/or what you doing get will be quite slow. It was fine for light browsing/posting to CC forums when we were there but I would certainly not count on it for any video/streaming or VPN activity.

And now for some actual news: they're handing out paper flyers with some basic info: bars, dining options, stateroom ready times, etc. There's this part for Plus/Premier as well. We've got a ton of OBC credit to use so I will let everyone know if upgrading uses that as soon as we're on.

A little cruise haiku to get things started here: Many people few seats Lounge is full it's almost time God I need a drink

I have no idea how this will translate, but we sailed the Royal in September for a 14 day Alaska. Part of this was COVID I'm sure, a lot the itinerary and school being in session. We asked the kids club staff how many they were expecting. They had 14 total under the age of 18 out of a sailing of roughly 2300 passengers or so. Clubs will be open but there may not be many other kids their age on the sailing.

We did hiking (a couple of excursions, a few on our own) in Skagway (Chillkoot hike and float as well as the Laughton Glacier Hike a separate time) and have done our own trails in Whittier and Sitka. This time around we're doing a guided hike to Mendenhall in Juneau (have done the helihike before) and trails in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. We've also done the smaller boat to get nearer to glaciers. Neat, but expensive to the point I wouldn't do it again. We both would highly recommend the guided hikes for Laughton and Chillkoot for sure. Well put together and excellent guides.

My wife and I were on the Royal last fall at the tail-end of Alaska season. It was our first Princess cruise and we both thought the food was very good overall. The buffets in Horizon were every bit as good and sometimes better than Carnival's MDR. Things like smoked salmon were on the buffet every morning. It's almost funny because we thought our meal at the Crown Grill was one of the lower ranked ones all week. Sabbatini's was very good. I'd say you're good to go!

On our Alaska itinerary this past September I'd say the majority dressed up but certainly not everyone. Those that did ranged from an Oxford shirt and khakis, to a sport coat, to a suit and tie/long dress, to tuxedos and gowns, and even a few kilts. I didn't see anyone bat an eye or make a scene at all.

Please feel free to reply with any questions you think of. I've only done the one Princess cruise so far but perhaps can offer that kind of 'first timer' advice since my first experience was fairly recent. The only big thing we're doing differently on our next couple is waiting to do Princess Plus until we're onboard so we can use our OBC. From what I've read you can use OBC for it, but we'll see if that's true/how long it lasts if so.

Finally I can be useful(ish?)! We just did our first Princess cruise (15+ Carnival) in the fall. Definitely recommend! First of all, major step up from Carnival. Ambience, clientele (part of this may be because it was a 14 night Alaska, so factor that in), food. We had a blast. Booked 2 more this year. Princess' buffet was on par with Carnival's dining room, if not better in my opinion. Great selection (we had things like smoked salmon available at the buffet everyday), excellent Filipino dishes like tocino. Hard to describe if you've never been on Carnival, but enough for us to decide we'd easily pay 150% over a comparable Carnival cruise. Staff were great as well, but honestly we never have had a bad experience with Carnival staff either. One thing we found odd was there's no built-in way to do 'traditional' dining (same table and waitstaff every night). Usually the host/hostesses can accommodate if you favor that like we do, but you may need to wait for a table with your staff to open up. We had no issue with being able to do this. Crowd skewed older than we're used to on Carnival, which I guess is relative, but my wife (32) and I (33) were easily among the younger crowd. That could have been the length and itinerary as well. Either way, neither of us are party animals and got exactly the peace and quiet we were hoping for in our cabin combined with lively bars and common spaces. Others mentioned Princess Plus. Definitely worth it if you drink. If you value the internet at $0 like we do, it still only takes 3ish drinks to break even with the other benefits. The Medallions made life pretty darn easy. Borderline creepy since they can certainly track your movements throughout the ship but it has its benefits as well. We are not really theatre types so can't comment on the shows, but their live musicians were very talented. The last night of each leg of our 14 night they had all of the musicians in the main atrium playing a show. This was far and away the highlight of the cruise. It was really well done, and neat to see everyone circling the atrium on multiple levels to watch. The brought the gosh darn house down. According to the music director they normally do this in the theater but recently (COVID spacing? Who knows) moved it to the atrium. I sincerely hope they've decided to continue doing that. Please feel free to reply with any specific questions. We were on the Royal Princess.

This is basically us. We're on the Royal right now, first time on Princess. Have sailed Carnival many times before and have loved having the same dining staff every night and getting know them over the cruise. We were/are very disappointed to learn that having the same dining time every night does not guarantee the same waitstaff. Carnival allows both your time dining and "traditional" and we sincerely miss having that ease. Princess will of course allow you to request to be seated with a particular pair of servers but you have to do that nightly. I'm sure it's more of a logistical challenge to try to do both but perhaps having one dining room reserved for those who want the same staff and time every night would help. I can't imagine we're alone in that mindset even if we aren't the majority.

It's been Colin Salter every night. We haven't been yet so I can't comment on his performance.

We do have lotion in our cabin. We're in a deluxe balcony so I'm not sure if that's standard for all rooms or not. I would think it is.

Really appreciate this and it hits home. I grew up in a tourist town (Clearwater Beach, FL) and although my parents didn't work in the tourism industry I was too young at the time to appreciate what a difference it made to my friends and neighbors. Now that I'm old enough to reflect and understand one of the highlights of cruising for me is being able to give back and support local economies in ways I otherwise wouldn't be able to. On that note, if anyone who sees this finds themselves in Juneau, Deckhand Dave's is THE place to eat. I'm not going to say it's the reason we came back but it's darn sure something we aren't going to miss either! Local fishermen, fresh catch, local business, and high school/college aged workers. Reminds me of where I came from and how much it matters.

Fortunately for me a glass of Pinot Grigio is the ideal peace offering for She Who Must Be Obeyed. Do you have any suggestions on what to do there? None of the excursions appealed to us very much (we've done whales and glaciers before).

Got you covered. I won't be able to give you a culinary review (I'm just common balcony rabble) but if they're feeling generous enough to let undesirables such as me take a picture of the menu I'd be happy to do that. Do me a favor and tag me in a reminder post on the 9th in case I forget/get distracted by the buffet/wife can't stand another week with me and has me thrown overboard.

I'd be happy to let you know as we're doing this sailing roundtrip. Any particular dining room/location you're interested in knowing if it's open or not?

I've had issues with CC as well. I would go to quote/reply, it would open the box for me to type, but wouldn't let me post or add pictures. I've had to reload the page 2-3 times sometimes to get that to work properly. Hope you guys had a good day! For those of you keeping score at home it is stupid beautiful outside. We did the Deadliest Catch tour and thought it was neat. Definitely worth doing at least once. Last time we were in Ketchikan it was like 80 degrees and I was convinced everything I knew about Alaska was a lie so this is a downright glorious day. Started out overcast with a little drizzle but right now it's 60 and sunny.

Actually the Wi-Fi has been decent so far. Enough for me to make a few posts here, web browser, and stream (very low quality) YouTube. My expectations were low given how far north we are and this has been better than I thought it would be.

Certainly, here you go. We had Alfredo's for lunch at embarkation but neither of us had dessert. Sure sounded good though so we'll be sure not to miss it. Seems like almost everyone on Carnival boards is most concerned with who the cruise director is whereas on Princess boards the interest seems broader. Any special reason?