shellbeachjim

As for timing, for our cruise departing on July 29th, we received the email with link to the coupon book this week. So about 3 1/2 weeks out. Not sure we’re going to use any of them. 

Shipwide_Savings_June_2022_Color_FINAL.pdf

3 minutes ago, Purple Gallinule said:

We have booked a Mexican Riviera cruise in late Jan 2023 on Discovery Princess. The best flight for us is on Southwest to Long Beach airport. Does anyone on this forum know about transportation from this airport to the Long Beach port? Does Princess offer transfers for any airport other than LAX? What would a cab cost?

 

We are really looking forward to this cruise, but have not faced these transportation questions before. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Princess doesn't sail from Long Beach. I'd probably look at Lyft or Uber from the airport to San Pedro. Also the airport website states the flat rate for a taxi is $45.

https://www.longbeach.gov/lgb/airlines-destinations/transportation/

14 hours ago, Potstech said:

Have you brought up your concerns to Princess and if so what was there response?

Every survey I mention this. The response is always the same - crickets. 

On 6/20/2022 at 2:53 AM, MissP22 said:

Why don't you just refuse a medallion and insist on a cruise card instead? 

On 6/20/2022 at 8:11 AM, ALWAYS CRUZIN said:

Sounds like the correct answer to the problem for sure.

It’s a bigger problem than just my medallion. Prior to the pandemic, Princess put out a press release which said they issued over 300,000 medallions the previous year. Each of these contain a battery and electronics, neither of which should be thrown away to end up in landfills. A simple solution would be for Princess to have a collection box during disembarkation for those passenger who don’t wish to keep their medallions. Princess created the medallions and should have a system in place to properly recycle them. 

Personally I would rather not keep them. If Princess would have have a recycling box when you leave the ship, that would make me happy. The medallions contain a battery and electronics, so in California they should not be thrown away to go into landfills, but should be properly recycled. Princess foisted these on us, so they should be responsible for providing proper recycling of the medallions. 

32 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Can't answer your specific question...but just be aware that even if there *is* a physical port there it just might be locked out through programming.  I've seen various threads that mention this possibility.

In addition, you may not be able to reach the HDMI port. Some televisions are so close to the wall it's not possible to access the port.

1 minute ago, Coffeehound510 said:

If we wanted to change it, we would just call the dine line or stop at Sabatini's or Crown Grill and get it changed.  That should still work when the medallion app doesn't 

There, I fixed it for you... 😇

2 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Anyone applied for Global Entry recently? How long does it take? A friend said he waited a long time for an unterview but I also hear that some locations take walk ins.

We have a tight connection in Newark on our return from Quebec so we just applied for Global Entry.

My wife just renewed hers. She did the interview over Zoom. Hint: check on Saturday or Sunday morning and you might be able to get a Zoom interview the same day. That's what worked for her.

5 hours ago, coo359a2 said:

We might have been on the same cruise - 7 June to 13 July 2010 - Ocean Princess with Captain Stefano Ravera. Neither rain, sleet, snow or icebergs kept up from getting into   ports.  We for sure followed the rules to keep from meeting up with any polar bears.

Yes, that was the one. Captain Ravera loved his ship - "The Beautiful White Lady". Norway is amazing and it should be on everyone's short list.

We went to Ny-Ålesund (also on Spitsbergen) on the Ocean Princess in 2010. Brrrrr. I found it fascinating, but there really wasn't much to do other than wander around the town. I did enjoy this sign near the edge of town.

We did this prior to our Grand Princess cruise out of San Pedro in April. We tested on Friday prior to our Monday sailing. No issues with our check-in.

I just checked the schedule and the Preakness is showing up as a live event. 
 

The sports channel on the ship’s television service is Sport 24. 
 

https://sport24live.com/home

You can check their schedule on the website, but you’ll have to perform some time zone arithmetic to get the local time correct. 

I can't speak for the Discovery, but the daily special dish was offered to us nightly on the Grand last month. Well, there was one waiter who didn't offer it, but told us when we asked (we only had him the one night).

1 hour ago, Happiest when cruising said:

I’m glad you enjoy it. We all find value in different things. My point was that it isn’t a different dining room. I guess I couldn’t see the napkins well enough to notice a difference, although we were seated very close by. 

My response was a bit tongue in cheek. I don’t think the napkins make a heck of a lot of difference - unless of course Princess started using cheap paper napkins in the dining room. The newer ships (the Majestic for example) do have a more defined area for Club Class than the Grand, although it’s still in one of the main dining rooms.

1 hour ago, caribill said:

 

 

The plates should also have been a different design from those used in the regular dining room. Certainly worth the extra cost for CC for this feature. 🤣

 

The napkins are also different. We enjoy club class and it’s now the minimum level my wife will let me book. 🙀

11 hours ago, Ronnieslady said:

Maybe they let them come back early because they were so short handed & that is why all the cases. And did they quarantine all their friends that they were around.  
 

We talked to a few of the quarantined crew members and they were not allowed to come back early. Also, some had to quarantine if they had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive.
 

I wore my mask whenever I was moving about the ship. I can’t say that of most people on the cruise. The mask wearing was sporadic at best. 

As far as I’m concerned, they should ban smoking in the casino. The smell coming out of the elevators on deck 6 was just awful whenever the casino was open. We had mostly good dinners in club class, although there were a few misses. There were also a number of crew members who were under quarantine when we boarded which definitely caused some service issues. 

3 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

They did not have some of my favorite cabernet selections onboard, but I brought on my private stash so did not suffer at all!

There was no Zin by the glass. The only California Cab by the glass was the Rodney Strong and was not available. We survived - usually with the Ancient Peaks Renegade. Our private stash was all bubbly - we were celebrating birthdays and anniversaries with our travel companions, so it seemed appropriate to bring a few bottles along.

Thanks for doing the "Live from..." for the cruise!

4 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Wow! And you can still log onto cruise critic and post pictures like this one at that low of a speed. Interesting.

Amazing, isn’t it? The image is 366KB, and took several seconds to upload. I didn’t put a stopwatch on it, but probably about 20 seconds. Our cruise ends tomorrow so we’ll be back home to normal speeds. The slow internet is annoying, but in the end doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of our cruise. 

As a follow up to my post yesterday, here are the latest speed test results while in port in Ensenada. Basic DSL when first introduced years ago was 384Kbps. 
 

4 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

Mom and I had our final sea day lunch in Club Class. 

 

 

 

You missed a bet, the farfalle was wonderful! 😋

1 minute ago, HBCcruiser said:

It was mostly Cold and Cloudy out today. Let’s hope it warms up tomorrow. 

We’re in the Sanctuary and the only thing I can say is “Brrrrrr…”

We’re currently on the Grand, and the speed is terrible. We’re on our way back from Hawaii, the day before Ensenada. Here’s the speed test I just ran. I’d say this was typical for the entire cruise. This isn’t dialup speed, but comparable to when DSL first became available years ago. 
 

1 hour ago, HBCcruiser said:

I tried walking up front and almost got blown off the ship! No sanctuary until the wind calms down.

One of our travel companions texted us that it was very blustery in the Sanctuary today, so we’re passing on it too for today. The winds yesterday in Maui were bad enough - and the ship wasn’t even moving. We plan to be up there tomorrow.