MacMadame

So this is how statistics can be misleading. The *average* may be 1 in 10,000 cruises (though that seems low - a crew member on reddit says it's more like 1 in 30) but an individual's risk could be higher or lower than that. Your own risk depends on your health but also what the itinerary is. A itinerary in an area with high-tech medical care has a lower risk since you are more likely to be naer a port with a hospital that can care for you until you need to go home, for example.

They push them because it's upfront revenue and it's a known amount so easier to budget for and manage. At least that's why most companies have packages. 😄

I booked every night at the same time with the idea that once we have a better idea of onboard activities, we could change a few nights either by going to an alternate venue (SD, buffet) or changing the time, particularly on Port Days with a later return time. Also, 5:00pm is a bit early even for us. Your post I was responding to said "earliest times" not 5:00pm exactly. We're booked for slightly later than that. Anyway, I think Princess trying to guess which dining we'll want now that there are new choices is a bad idea. It will make what is going to be messy even messier IMO.

Given that the price of cruises go up over time, it's hard to say how much of that difference is for Premier and how much is the normal raising of prices that always happens, though.

The last funeral I went to, the dress wasn't that much different than Princess' formal nights. 😉 IOW, we saw people without ties, women not wearing dresses and even some in jeans. We would have seen shorts but it was March in NJ so too cold. 🤣 That said, we're going to get dressed up for our 3 Formal/Dress to Impress nights. Definitely a suit for dh and possibly one of his fun ties and an extra fancy dress for me.

I know! I don't even change shoes or purses as much as some of them do when I'm on land. We don't plan to do carry-on only for our upcoming cruise though. It's a bit too restrictive for us. But we will use the self-laundry option about halfway through the cruise. We're going to be gone from home for 20 days! I don't think I even own that many changes of clothes and Mr Mac most certainly doesn't.

Princess told me it was 90 days a few months ago. (I tried at 97 days and was Denied!) It was via email if people want to see it in writing.

No. I'm one of those people and dh and I are discussing what we want to do but we are leaning towards Anytime Dining. I wouldn't be happy to just be moved to TD at 5:00.

Also, if you go to the boards of other cruise lines, you see a lot of the same complaints. You don't even have to be an expert. Just read here and learn from other people's experiences. 🙂 Because finding a good TA is not straightforward and a bad one can be worse than none at all.

Tattoos are never simple! 🤣

I'm guessing that the staff would figure that out soon enough. At least I hope so because my goal on our upcoming cruise is to try every vodka martini they have. 🤣

Canceling reservations should be a matter of selecting all the cruise bookings with MDR reservations and then updating the database to remove them. This is a simple script that can be written and tested in less than a day. It might actually be less work than doing it cruise by cruise. That said, from what I have seen of Princess IT, I have no expectation that canceling our reservations won't be a total mess. 🤣

Sunsets.

I just checked mine an hour ago and they are still there.

Since CVPs are considered TAs by Cruise Critic (Personally, I consider them Premium Customer Service), I can't give you the number but you should be able to find it on the Princess website or by Googling There is also a form to "request a CVP" though that hasn't worked for me. You may have also gotten an email from a CVP when you booked and it might work to call them.