Wanted to preface this with my wife and I are currently on our second princess cruise, first was Alaska about 9 years ago, so we are far from experienced cruisers.
embarkation was a little time consuming. Due to norovirus outbreak on previous cruises the ship underwent a deep clean. Scheduled group arrivals were in 30 minute intervals starting at 1:00. Ours was 1:30 we arrived at 1:15 and asked one of the employees if we were too early, and he said to just get in line. No one was checking arrival groups. There were 3 lines I could see, people who had their medallion, people who didn’t, and disabled. They allowed the disabled in as they arrived. We stood in line outside the processing room in the medallion line for about 45 minutes unmoving. We found out later that they made the cruisers who were on the ship previously for the first half of the 14 day cruise option to completely leave the ship for 4 hours for cleaning. It seemed like loading up previous cruisers and allowing the processing room to completely empty before filling up again was the reason for the delay. Once in the processing room it was about 30-40 more minutes to board.
We received a notice to try to use our own restrooms and wash hands often to prevent illness. Besides that they have a crew-member stationed at each buffet station serving.
as far as our experience so far. We’ve enjoyed it. Food is on par with what we experienced on our last cruise, although we had the crown grill first night and presentation was lacking. Just a chunk of meat and a potato on a plate. We ordered the asparagus and mushrooms as a side and it was delivered on a seperate plate. We placed it on the steak plate to take a picture so it didn’t look so sad. Flavor was there though. It has also been a little odd that we have been solicited to buy souvenir shot glasses at each of the meals we have had in the formal dining room.
We have the drink package and it’s a little unclear how they handle the drinks. Sometimes on our app it shows the drinks as “package discount” and sometimes it shows as a charge with a “complementary” as an additional item. We have been assured by guest services that both those mean it’s part of the package.
Our highlight of the ship so far has been hanging out with Asheesh at crooners bar. Super friendly and knowledgeable. He even went to the kitchen to get fresh peppers for my wife’s spicy marg! If anyone has a suggestion for an inexperienced cruiser on how to show a crew member special appreciation I would take it. Tips given at the bar seem to be shared. And I would assume a envelope with a name left at the end would be as well.
Any questions I’ll try to get back!