TheMichael

I'm going to blow your mind here: what if the influx of new cruisers have told Princess they hate it when they get something great for lunch in the MDR, only to find that it isn't available the next day? Restaurants on land don't vary their menus much, and good ones still have tons of regulars, so I'm wondering whether this might be particular to the "seasoned" cruiser base who has centered their cruise experience around the MDR for as many meals as possible. I think it's spot on when people suggest that new cruisers don't seem to have a problem with a static menu - they treat it like a good land restaurant, and either zero in on something they like, or if the menu doesn't interest them, go to a different restaurant. Not a huge deal for them, lunch is the most flexible meal, and the ship has variety, so the MDR alone doesn't have to. Of course, this works for the cruise line, who can streamline the kitchen's lunch service. A consistent menu comes out faster, making people happy to get their food quick, and turns over tables. It doesn't really affect the cost of lunch service other than reducing spoilage, which is the best thing to be able to reduce.

Nah, to hit the nail on the head, over half the kids would have had to refuse to vote.

People from other countries are fascinated by why we'd do some of the things we do and (especially) elect some of the people we elect, while we've "normalized" a lot of it here. And Canadians get a lot of US news, so their curiosity is even higher. I recently sailed out of Galveston on a ship that hung a giant Lone Star flag in its public atrium on embarkation day on a ship with an average age of about 68, and held my tongue the whole time, even when vaguely baited - whose mind would I think I'd be changing?

I remember when you could go to Las Vegas and get a shrimp cocktail with whole, large shrimp for 99¢. Then it became shrimp fragments for $1.99, and nowadays good luck finding it at all for less than $8-10. I think you can chalk it up to both desire to increase profit margin to please investors, and overharvesting, er, "supply chain issues."

Yes, everyone has their threshold for "spontaneity." Mine is, I show up in Osaka for 10 days in Japan with the only thing certain being tickets for baseball games in Tokyo and Sendai.

Early in the cruise, yeah (or they'll ask, "TheMichael?") After they've seen me a few times they practically start making my drink when I walk up.

With the EZ Air protection, you don't have to bet the cruise (or at least the whole cruise). Not exactly sure how they handle timing in the event of a missed embarkation, but if they'd fly me to the first port stop right away and cover my meals and hotel as I play there while the ship is doing sea days, it might actually make me want to gamble with same-day flights. 😄

The difficulty varies according to how easy it is to take all of your own luggage off the ship with you. The "express walk-off" folks can go first because they don't have to wait for bags. I think it's called "self-disembarkation" or "self-assist" on some other lines. The other choices have you put your luggage outside your room the night before disembarkation, then baggage handlers schlep them off the ship so you can pick them up just before customs, and for that you're assigned a "group" that theoretically corresponds with the order the baggage handlers put out the bags. You go sit at a designated place on the ship and wait for your group to be called.

They use your phone's facial recognition for that - the info, at least on an iPhone, is kept solely on your phone, isn't shared with any app provider, and uses an infrared projector/camera combo to "map" your features for authentication. The app asks the phone, "is this user legit?" and the phone does the scan, matches it to its "map" and tells the app "yep" or "nope." I know that on our HAL Alaska cruise, we needed to "smile for the camera" when we embarked, and again at least once when returning from port. Not sure how much true "facial recognition" was involved there. Princess's current "facial recognition" is when you buy a drink or espresso, the bartender looks at his tablet and sees the photo you added to your Medallion and says to himself, "I recognize that face."

That was the same last week as well - for all intents and purposes there really was no Customs, and that's the primary reason disembarkation moved so smoothly. Maybe the Governor kicked out all of the US border staff. 😄

I wouldn't call that "the opposite." In fact, depending on when your elevator arrives and how many people want an elevator on the floors between your start and destination, you might still arrive at your destination quicker by waiting for your own elevator than if you'd come along on the single guy's ride in the "old-fashioned" elevator. This technology has existed for some years now and has been used in situations like hospitals and hotels (the Hilton I stayed at last week used it), so at this point it's essentially the "2.0" (or even "3.0") version of a tested technology. Most of the "whatabouts" have been considered and either incorporated, or disregarded as edge cases.

If they said that, they don't know people very well. 😁 Some folks may show up in the elevator lobby, see someone pressing "16," and not even bother to press it themselves, or show up as an elevator is opening and just get in (either asking where it's going or not, possibly depending on the amount of drunkenness involved).

I've seen that system in certain places (hospitals!) for years, and once I got over the "well, THAT'S not the way I'm used to" feeling, I wondered why everyone doesn't do it. (There are a couple of reasons why, for example, Las Vegas hotels wouldn't, primarily due to safety concerns.) I can see it being a game-changer on cruise ships, where the elevator "milk run" is a pretty frequent thing. Advantages include not only the aforementioned "express" service and prevention of kids/drunks hitting a whole bunch of buttons, but also knowing which elevator you're going to take. No dashing across an elevator bank to get to it before the door closes - or worse, not being able to see which has opened because the signal light's out, and missing "your" elevator entirely. And no elevators opening on middle decks only to reveal they're packed so full you can only get on if you're a 80-lb. contortionist. For the issue of a lobby elevator with too many people getting on, I'd expect it's the same solution as it is with "dumb" systems - people board the elevator until it's full, then after the doors close, whoever's left presses the button again.

Our recent trip on Regal featured some "mashup" bands, with one composed of almost all of the ship's musical entertainers (including the violinist and steel pan player!) for a wide variety of music from pop to Latin to classical. The other, on the last night, was a "Tribute to Rock" that also combined the "party band," the theater's band, and others, along with guest vocals on some songs from crew members. It was a good time.

If you're not there in time for MDR lunch, Allegro will be closed as well, since it's an MDR (it's the only one that has been used for lunch at least for the past few cruises).

If it's the same one as our cruise, I thought his close-up show in Princess Live was even better.

We were on the Regal a week ago, and embarkation-day lunch (as well as sea-day breakfast/lunch and disembarkation breakfast) was in the Allegro. If you forget the name or it changes, just look for the dining room with the crowd gathering outside the door. 😁

Having recently been on a late-season Alaska cruise that did not use the Inside Passage, the motion barely registered with me coming back to Galveston, so much so that when someone asked in the bathroom, "you enjoying the rockin' and rollin'?" I thought he meant music.

I'm only half-Canadian myself, but I did grow up there. (My other half is...wait for it...Texan.) I think they announced 1900-some Texans aboard ours. This one wasn't quite as party-ish, probably had an average age approaching our recent HAL cruise with habits to match, which made things easier for us since we could plan to avoid, er, certain behaviors.

A new era, I guess. Might push me over to Virgin sooner. All of the Princess ships I've been on so far have jogging tracks though. Not much used by kids.

It was open more than I thought it would be - I have a vague memory of it being closed for arrival in Victoria and not reopening again for the remainder of the trip between there and Seattle. My memory could be faulty though. I think they were right - Natural Woman is more of a "singer's song," and if you can nail it, it's the one to do. I also enjoy a few drinks, but I don't get a lot out of being drunk, and a coffee buzz is sometimes just as appealing to me. Don't know if you were at the close-up magic show, but there was a momentary "highlight" when a drunk guy wandered in with his family during a trick. Fortunately, he settled down shortly after they were seated, but I felt bad for the family. Princess does straddle that line, with none of the rides and things that families gravitate towards, but enough diversity in events to be interesting. I'd like to try Virgin Voyages - almost-all-inclusive, adults-only, and as usual with all things Virgin, different.

Alaska cruise? We went in September and I'd go again - also, I definitely liked being able to get from home to the port in just a taxi. (Pro tip for Seattle: taxis are usually cheaper - sometimes significantly so - than Uber/Lyft.) If you're going on Discovery, it's a nice ship. Bigger and so familiarly Princess, but nice. I've been saying since I was in my 20s myself that if someone young were to take up the mantle for that kind of music they could make a killing. He hit one clam in the finals that made me (sharp intake of breath), but other than that, all he's lacking is some experience. When it comes to singing competitions, especially one with some solid singers, someone really needs a "second gear" in their voice to succeed. A couple of the finalists had a "kind-of-second-gear," but you were the only one who could really let go and not sound self-conscious about it. I'd say the theater was about 4/5ths full. Believe it or not, a not-insignificant number of Americans don't care for football all that much! We had just one initially indifferent MDR server, but it turned out that he was just tired from the 5/6pm onslaught (we usually eat late) and just needed some "opening up" to start smiling again. All of the Carnival brands (Princess, HAL, and of course Carnival itself) offered me free cruises for proof of my MGM status (we took HAL to Alaska on the casino match deal), so there may be some possibilities for you with the others as well. Loved HAL, which was more of an "old-fashioned" experience. Haven't found a cruise I want from Carnival yet - the deal is for "up to balcony" but everything either comes up "balcony unavailable" or is one of the shorter "booze cruises" for which they're becoming infamous. I think I'm holding out for something in the Mediterranean.

Considering the port is in a Houston suburb, it's a safe bet that a large number of passengers would be Texans fans. The Texans were granted to Houston by the NFL after the Oilers left town, once someone (that is, the taxpayers) put up the money for a new stadium.

Didn't get to go to the Crown Grill last week, and it looks like the Nolan Ryan beef is only available from Galveston sailings, so I missed my chance to try it for the foreseeable future. (They're definitely trying to appeal to Texans for that port in a way they don't try to "hook" the locals at others I've been to.)

We also had dinner at Gaido's (the restaurant) that night and it was indeed fantastic! The hotel would actually be kinda perfect if it were better maintained.