akaCruiser

My understanding is that once a ship switches to offer the three options, they will assign one of the options to the three dining areas. So depending on which dining option you select, you will then go to the assign dining room.

I would avoid using cellular service, as your phone will pick up the strongest signal and as such it will be the ship and not the land cellular towers. You'll end up with roaming charges which will be a lot more expensive than using a chat app on the ship's Wifi. Otherwise you will need to wait until they dock and then you will have the ability to go onshore and be hooked up to the regular cellular service.

Formal nights on an Alaska cruise, is more casual then other cruises. I noticed that a dress shirt and jacket (no tie) for the men and a mid-length dress was the norm during the formal nights (2 nights at sea days). Some couples were a bit more dressed up, but the majority was more like smart casual.

When I sailed out of Vancouver last Aug 2023, we picked up the Medallions at the port. The line wasn't that long and we got them within 5 mins. Picking up the Medallions wasn't a big thing, as they had many agents ready to process the Blue lane. The longest time was waiting to be call up by number to board the Crown Princess, but even that was around 15 to 20 mins before we got onboard and was then able to head up to the Lido for Lunch.

The Princess website seems to go down when they refresh the offers. There has been a few times when you log into your account and the website error message is displayed if you try to pick flights via EZ Air. Overall, it seems that they do a lot of updates in the later in the day (Eastern time zone) around the weekend that then messes up the browser cache, which requires sometimes a restart of the browser to get it working again.

I'm disappointed that Star Princess is being delayed, but I'm glad that this will mean that when (if you can rebook) you board the Star Princess it will be fully functional and all services and activities will be available for the passengers (as compared to Sun Princess and only partial availability of some venues and shows when she started sailing). When I read the cancellation email, there was a couple of things which I thought that Princess could have done better. Firstly, the offer of OBC of $100 was not really a meaningful amount also the time in which you need to apply to a booking was a bit short time wise. The other thing was that for my booking the Princess Plus was discounted by 20% which I will not have for a future booking. I really was hoping that in place, Princess could either honor the discount for any future bookings and/or provide a discount of 20% for a future booking. I really wish that I could contact Princess and get them to up their cancellation offers a bit more, as I was really looking forward on sailing on the Star in August 2025.

If your goal is to avoid crowds (kids), then the month of March is not the best month. Instead I would suggest to either sail the prior month or the following month. As for the condition of the ship, it is a lot older than the RCCL Oasis class ships, but usually Princess keeps their fleet in good condition. Previously, I've been on the Island and Crown Princess without issues and I'm booked for the Caribbean Princess in Dec, so I'm not too worried sailing on older Princess ships.

Best days are port days and in the early morning or during meal times like lunch or dinner, that way you don't need to wait for a machine to be free. Also note that the machines in the laundry rooms tend not to like be overloaded, so for large loads you need to split them up into two washings. Similarly when using the dryer you will need to split your load as I found that the dryers are under power and tend to need more time if you put a full load.

I normally just bring USD, as any Mexican ports will accept USD. I also have a credit card with no exchange fees so that if possible I just use my credit card and have it billed back in CAD.

The process is firstly need to d/l app to your smartphone and then register for the CCL OBC perk, by submitting your stock portfolio details to show that you have 100 shares. This usually take a few days to confirm and once accepted, you than then submit your request for the OBC by providing your cruise details like date and cruise booking number, etc. If it available then you will get a pop up and email saying that it is being processed. If successful, you should get an email from princess with the updated itinerary with your OBC added to the folio.

Last August 2023, while we were on the Crown Princess, we originally asked for FCD, but when we asked about bookings in 2025, we got an offer on the Star Princess for a good discount when we added the plus package (20% off) and passengers 3 and 4 were free and $50 OBC. After that booking, I would walk by the Future Cruise desk a few days later and then spotted some last minute deals that seems to be interesting, but it didn't fit my vacation schedule, so I didn't inquire about them. I'm hoping when I'm on my New Years cruise, that they might have so deals for 2026...

Just submitted my request last week for OBC on my Dec 2024 cruise and got it a day after I submitted my request via the app. Now I got to wait until maybe the end of year for apply for my Dec 2025 cruise OBC.

Here's hoping that Coke Zero will be available on all the ships, as last August 2023 on the Crown, they didn't have it. Only had Diet Coke. I guess I'll find out in December... I'm glad that with the plus package that we can officially request cans instead of a glass from the fountain, but even last August 2023, most of the time I order a Diet Coke it was given as can. Only got a glass once and after that I avoid the rear pool bar, when ordering a drink.

Thanks all for you feedback. Wasn't looking to bring fruit off the ship, just was looking for a sandwich or small snack item like cookies to nibble on, on a 5 to 8 hour excursions in Europe.

Does anyone know if you can request for small packed snack box from the Buffet for the purpose of having it during an excursion? There were times that we would just grab a sandwich from International Cafe or just go to the Buffet and make your own meal, but I heard that if you request you can actually get a small meal box. Thanks in advance.