Cruise Raider

They work well .. Also, the OP might consider a hot water bottle. I know a lot of people have success with those and the water from the sink usually gets nice and hot.

ugh! Sorry .. 😞

If it tries to charge you, go back in later and see if it recognizes your package. You should see a note on top on the page that shows you have dining credits available. If, not you will see a charge of $70 or $78 dollars but a balance of $0.00 when hitting the reserve button.

From what I’ve noticed, it gives you the option only on the pricier cabins .. not inside or obstructed cabins unless you click on the Plus, on the first screen.

I like the lotion and hand soap but never would think of using the body wash or shampoo or conditioner, especially after what @Lady Arwen noted about the mold. Ick!

Ours was proved before they changed the ports of call once. We were to disembark in San Francisco, our home port, but it was completely taken off the itinerary. So, there’s always that …

A couple of my booked cruises have gone up but mostly, my bookings are just the same as when I booked them.

We used to always eat dinner very late and even had been known to go into the anytime dining at 9:00 PM. We just didn’t understand how anybody could eat at 5:00 PM. Now that we are seniors, we just can’t imagine eating as late as 7:00 PM. 😆 We have actually moved on to having dinner at home around 3:30 PM. We do go to dinner at 5:00 or maybe at 5:20 PM on cruises but usually, we just skip it and eat a nice lunch instead. So, I totally get what you mean!

And use sterile gloves.

If you like an oaky/buttery Chardonnay, you may want to bring your own if it’s easy to do. It’s been every hit or miss over the last year. I was so very happy last year when I got Rombauer, then I found Hartford and the Mer Soleil in the bottle with the yellow label and the Kendall Jackson Private Reserve, a nice Beringer, so those were all great but I sometimes struggle as they’ve gone to only the Flowers on the premier package, which isn’t that great IMO. On the Plus package, it’s all Canyon Road, which is total ICK!

We also aren’t invited regularly to the MTP parties. We booked the two identical 5 night cruises offered out of San Francisco offered last month, not a B2B. There was a 10 night cruise in between them. The first one had many more passengers that had more days than us but we were invited to the second one.

I’ve not heard anyone that needed an accessible cabin complain about getting an unwanted upgrade. There’s just too few accessible cabins and they are usually filled with the aging population of cruisers.

Thta is the real treat!

I wasn’t going to go there but up when at a table, it seemed like a competition on who had more days, etc when we attended the luncheons. I don’t believe anybody is any better than any other human being so just hate going there. ‘Boorish’ is the perfect adjective! I want to converse about things that actually matter and I hate complainers! Look at me complaining about complainers. 😆 I recognize the irony! At the cocktail party, we truly had heart to heart conversations about others lives and that why we loved it so much. It was so much more intimate than the luncheons we’ve attended, albeit, there were only 2 and we really did felt so privileged to be able to be invited.

We also used them in the past and they were great. Now, we always just purchase the plus or premier packages.

We’ve been to two lunches and one cocktail party. At the risk downplaying how lovely the luncheons were, I actually preferred the cocktail party. It was so much more comfortable but still very elegant. it was a special party indeed. We had so much more time to visit with a few of the officers, as well as the future cruise staff. The nibbles were outstanding and the conversation, even better! I am delighted to receive an invitation to attend either, but just felt so much more comfortable engaging in meaningful conversation at the cocktail party rather than being seated at a pre-assigned table where the conversation might be a bit strained. Perhaps we just had great conversationalists at the cocktail party!

No more coffee cards available. 😔

We choose our cabin very carefully and twice, we’ve received an unexpected upgrade, one we loved (inside to a balcony) and one, we got back in time to get our desired cabin back. But, I always have my CVP mark my cabin as ‘no upgrade’ as usually the rooms leftover are not the most desirable ones and are in noisy or bad locations.

I believe port fees and taxes are strictly regulated and are returned to the passengers if not used for these purposes. Of note, we’ve had small to not so small amounts returned on many recent sailings via our folio. I believe the amount collected is an approximate amount and probably over estimated as it is easier to return some $$ than to try to collect extra, which has also happened in the past in my experience.

The lowest I’ve ever seen while on a cruise was just over 200 days but that was back during the reduced capacity sailings after the restart. There were only 800+ passengers onboard. We were recently invited to the MTP cocktail party on a short sailing out of SF. We are surprised being invited out of SF as so many passengers seem to have a bazillion days onboard these sailings. I think the cutoff was somewhere around 400 days.

Sorry .. I participated and I’m really trying to stay on topic! I need to do better!

That is so interesting and sounds extremely plausible! We never dig too much when it comes to how they get paid so, we just heard they were paid an overall salary and can keep what we tip them in person. Your description sounds so much more insightful. It’s just so unfair to those staff members when their gratuities are removed because it may not even be someone that was an offender that is blamed! We always run into that rare bird that doesn’t offer the best service .. to us, that person is an outlier and won’t even allow it to impact our overall score on our survey. Everyone is entitled to have an off day or maybe even an off month. I think about what all those poor crew members from Ukraine had on their minds .. still have on their minds and have to keep up those smiles when they are hurting on the inside.

They are paid a particular salary that comes from the crew appreciation that is paid from passengers throughout the entire fleet. If people remove it, Princess will be forced to raise the Crew Appreciation that we all pay. I don’t understand why anybody would remove it unless they get terrible service, though.

I only have one more wish .. I hope that Princess will keep and maintain the deck plans for all ships, not just the ones you have booking for as is shown in the old app but only when you are not onboard. I think I will mention that to a couple of future cruise consultants a that we keep in touch with. I like to know, when booking on a new ship, where the doors are located in relation to the bed position. Those schematics could most definitely be provided in the future cruise office when booking on a new ship as the old app has them available. Other than that, we’ve now cruised 3 times using only the new app and I’m pretty happy with it. There does seem to be a bit of trouble for us with the app registering that we’ve watched the muster drill video but never are we hassled about it.

Bravo! 👏