azbirdmom

It's been messed up the last couple of days. Sometimes it will let me log in, sometimes it won't. And I've had to refresh some of the cruises that I'm watching to get pricing to appear. They seem to be doing something with the website...

Yes and it's a nice location to read a book or, in the case of Alaska, to see the glaciers in an enclosed space.

When the pricing for Princess Plus and Premier changed in February one of the perks they added was free Medallion shipping. At that point anyone without one of these packages would either have to pay $10 for shipping or pick it up at the port.

Well that stinks! I hope that it isn't too much of a hassle to get your money back. And yes, you are wise to save and take the paperwork. Every time I reserve an excursion I save a new Travel Summary to a folder that I create on my desktop which contains all of my trip documents. I also keep the emailed receipts from Princess. It does come in handy when you need to support the necessity of a refund, etc.

There's no restrictions at all about going out when at sea. If the wind is howling you may not want to go around to the front but you may find a spot on the side of the balcony that is less windy. The only rule is that you need to keep the curtains in your cabin closed at night when the lights are on in the cabin. That's to keep the lights from interfering with navigation. When we would go out there at night we would simply turn off the light in the living room area (on the side of the ship, where the sliding door opens) and step out. Hope you enjoy it!

On March 14th we received the "Emergency Notification" below when Princess cancelled some of our excursions for an upcoming cruise. And as of right now we don't have our refund yet. I think they have a bit of a backlog on refunds again.

It wasn't locked because the two stewards were on the balcony. But we did find that we had to close it hard and lock it when the wind was howling, otherwise it would whistle. At least we figured out what to do to eliminate the noise.

What an ending!

We LOVED it. We've actually been in the same cabin on two different Royal class ships - the Majestic and Regal - and think it's the best cabin to be in if you're not in a full suite. The cabin itself is sort of like a shrunken down full suite with two rooms. The bed faces forward and with the curtains open you have a spectacular view. In Alaska we did have the misfortune of being there during an "atmospheric river" which limited our time outside. But the weather cleared a bit for Glacier Bay and it was amazing. Some neighbors on their balconies thought we were on a public deck and asked how they could get to it. We said bring wine and you can access it LOL. The only thing is that if you are the least bit prone to seasickness you will feel every wave up there. So if you think you may be affected take precautions! They do. At night they are tied up under the railings and they will put them out during the day. Remember that you are right over the bridge. As one steward said if they don't tie them up they will get complaints from the bridge because when they will make quite a racket when the wind pushes them around. We actually had them tied down during a storm that came up after we left Glacier Bay and I made a video of that (see attached). Just the videos I've posted, no blogs. I did do a "live from" of the Majestic cruise (August 9, 2021) and it was the third cruise that Princess sailed following the restart of cruising. Wifi was awful so I think most of the tread is people not on the ship asking questions that I and others struggled to answer. I tried! We've been to Alaska many times and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. By the way you said you will be there in September. If conditions are right you may get lucky and be able to see the Northern Lights and your balcony would be the prime place for viewing since you won't have light pollution up there. It has to stay dark above the bridge so that would be a bonus if it happens. IMG_4649.MOV

If you are asking about Texas Holdem, they have one electronic table just like the other ships in the fleet. They also have draw poker machines and I believe a live dealer at an Ultimate Holdem table but not completely sure about that one.

Yep! Very clunky design.

Just curious - did they also change the view on the TV screens near the elevators? The excuse that I got from some staff onboard when I commented on the JourneyView display was that it worked well on the TV screens. I usually replied that most people don't carry a screen that large around with them to different venues on the ship.

Good to hear from someone actually on the ship! You've got a great attitude. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time onboard.

Actually that was a quote by JC as in John Chernesky, former VP of Marketing for Princess. He said it during a Medallion webinar to TAs and others like me who listened in. It was an inappropriate comment to say the least given the state of the app at that point in time.

I sent a request a week ago Sunday and it was processed Monday morning. I too received a booking confirmation right after that and I have to admit it freaked me out a little because this is a casino cruise. And I had finally gotten everything fixed on it. Happy to see that it was just the extra OBC that generated the new booking confirmation.

Yes, it should be free if you have the new Plus or Premier package. You should see Medallion shipping as a line item on the Travel Summary and under packages on the Medallion. I'm holding off on completing my Medallion order as the cruise it's trying to charge me shipping for isn't until later this year and I'm hoping that they fix this bug at some point. $10 isn't going to break me but it's more of a principal of the thing situation.

Oh my gosh they have finally listened. I've mentioned how clunky JourneyView is on 6 post cruise surveys and have mentioned it onboard too. It's nice to see that they have fixed this.

Exactly what I heard. It's the cruise industry equivalent of a timeshare presentation. You get some perks for listening but have to go through the (possibly) painful experience of listening to the sales pitch. By the way hope you are feeling better!

I have not had any problems getting SHOBC applied on any of my casino comped cruises. I do pay to upgrade from the comped category, don't know if that makes a difference.

Would need to see the itineraries to check where they visit but if they are equal I would go with #1 because you would get to Australia a couple days before the cruise. You will have traveled a long way and you need to not only acclimate to the new time zone, but also if something goes wrong you have a little cushion. Lots to see and do in both Sydney and Melbourne. Have not been to Perth so can't comment on that.

If it's comped casino cruises our favorite TA wants nothing to do with them. There seem to be more problems on these bookings than the normal ones and TAs get little to no compensation for them. So she would prefer to not be involved in them.

Thinking that you are talking about casino reservations and yes, it seems that the fastest and possibly only way to resolve these is to write an email to the executive group (elliott.org has a good list to use). I've had to do it twice for two different cruises and both times they were things that the folks who answer the phone should have been empowered to resolve. Actually I think that when Princess booked casino comped cruises in-house things were much better. But now that function has been outsourced and off-shored and it's been awful. Last fall when they first started I gave them a break thinking that there was a learning curve but things have not improved.

Glad you are feeling better but how unlucky to get Covid on two cruises. You definitely did the right thing and likely saved others who may not have gotten through it as easily as you from falling ill. Hope you can enjoy some of your cruise very soon.

New video from the shipyard posted today by the Princess VP of Sales (shorter than yesterday's). https://www.facebook.com/PrincessVPSales/videos/611524473740243

Nice summary @snoozecrooze ! Will add one more screen shot of the suite lounge which does have a bar (to answer one of the other questions that have come up recently).