Kayakbride

Regal doesn't have much of a Promenade deck. The only wide spot with chairs is in the middle, where smoking is allowed. There are narrow walkways behind the lifeboats but really not a pleasant place to walk. You will find the Sports deck to be better, although very few comfortable chairs up there.

We really disliked the Royal (sister to Regal) because it was too big. There are no stairs at midship and the elevators were always too crowded. If you are aft or forward, you can always skip the elevators and run down the stairs to dinner or the theaters, but that's impossible if you score a mid-ship stateroom. The balconies are too small, and people on the Sea Walk could see into our stateroom unless we kept our curtains closed. Our next two cruises after the Royal were on the Star and the Grand, and we really didn't miss the Royal amenities.

I got off Golden this morning as well. Agree Horizon Court was amazing, nice and bright and flow really good. I was in a balcony C739, second from the aft and had no plumbing problems and did not smell any foul odors. I thought my cabin and surrounding areas were fine, I didn't notice any stains or tatters--it's not a brand new ship. I think considering its age, she's in excellent condition.

By any chance is Princess@Sea with Messages working yet? I was told we could get free wifi Princess@Sea on our smartphones but unsure about messaging other passengers yet. They are adding ship by ship in 2015. The Golden Princess is listed as being operational with Princess at Sea, but not the messaging. They don't have a list of dates for the Messaging roll out.

Most TAs have too many clients to check everyone's booking frequently for price reductions.

 

You need to do it yourself.

Travel agents do not get notifications of lower prices on cabins already booked, unless Princess is offering a move over or an upgrade for certain cabins only. Typically, those notices are within a month of sailing well after the penalty phase has kicked in for cancellation. By then, it makes no sense to cancel and rebook for a lower fare, particularly because Princess actually INcreases the price in the last days if the cruise has sold out or is expected to sell out. They price based on supply and demand, much like airlines. The fewer seats available, the higher the price. It is best to book early to secure your preferred stateroom, then watch for promotions up until the cancellation penalty phase (or final payment, if you pay ahead of that date). If you see a promotion that is more advantageous than the one you booked, call your travel agent and let him or her know.

On my most recent Princess cruise, I booked early and got the best promotional rate of all that came after. Then, as the ship was close to selling out, I was offered an upgrade from balcony to mini-suite for a nominal fee.

My daughter was offered a last minute (7-days prior to sailing) move over in which her entire fare was refunded, and she got a free 10-day cruise instead of only 7 days. She had to sail Quebec to NY instead of NY round trip, but it was entirely worth it, considering they moved from interior to balcony as well. That's real magic, and no way to predict, no matter how closely you watch the fares.

My first cruise was Mexican Riviera on the HAL Noordam. It was lovely and elegant but I was shocked the cabin steward went through my things to my out my nighty at turndown. My now-ex told the steward that once was enough. We took three kids and MIL for our second cruise in the late 80s where my 12-year old daughter won the big stakes progressive bingo. That was on the brand new Navigator of the Seas in the Caribbean. Fast forward to the pat five years and a better traveling partner and we've cruised to Scandinavia and Russia, two California Coastals, Hawaii, Oz/NZ all on Princess. Our Danube river cruise with Avalon and our Alaskan cruise is coming up next month. While not our first cruise, by far the most memorable was our wedding cruise sailing from San Pedro around Cape Horn to Rio. It was two 14-day B2B cruises and Capt. Thomas Kent was our officiant. Since we had made many new friends during the first two weeks, we were delighted to see the wedding chapel on the. Star Princess fill up with lovely guests. All of our Princess shore excursions were wonderful custom tailored and exclusive to Princess. My only regret was that the wind came up and Capt. Kent wouldn't let us go kayaking in the Beagle Channel. They gave us our money back and we did the ships Ultimate Tour instead and came home with enough goodies (fluffy robes, chef's coat, personalized note pads from the printing room, And professional photos backstage with the dancers in costume and with the Cap'n up in the bridge. There were other goodies (like pins, hats, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries..) We had to buy another duffel bag to get them all home.

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When we were on Carnival my Dad enjoyed the bean bag toss activity. He asked if Princess has one and I haven't seen it listed in any reports. I've seen that they have various trivia games which he also likes. Should we look for a bean bag toss in the Patters?

There was one on the Diamond Princess on our January cruise to Hawaii. We were at sea extra days due to a man overboard situation, so they brought it out for variety's sake. I guess you just have to ask the Cruise Director.

I was also on that sailing and was so thankful that my husband could not join me this time. He has been touched by suicides of family members and it is never easy to hear of another one. As one person earlier mentioned, suicide is a selfish action. I believe it is often used as a way to punish others (in this case, we heard from his co-workers that the crew member's wife was the problem). As the father of a small child, he had to be pretty angry and thoughtless to leave the child fatherless. It is very sad.

Think of the cost to the people in Hawaii who depend on our custom for a living, for the crew members who have to carry the sadness, and to the many elderly gentlemen Veterans who were en route to Pearl Harbor for one last chance to pay their respects to the soldiers who died there as heroes. Those Vets missed the chance to visit the USS Arizona and will likely not get another chance, simply because one selfish person was a coward. I have been to Hawaii before and will probably get another chance to visit Hilo in the future, but even among those whose one and only Hawaiian trip was marred by this understood it was a tragedy out of Princess' control. Very few people were complaining and the Princess Theater was standing room only for the memorial service. The 250 servers who were co-workers were in attendance, as well as many other officers and ship's staff. The co-workers later released a wreath of flowers into the sea.

I spoke with one of them (a member of the same department) who told me Princess indeed provides several layers of counseling which includes trained supervisors and the ship's Medical Officer for every crew member. Some of the victim's co-worker friends knew he was having personal problems at home, but did not know how upset he was. The co-worker I spoke with also told me that crew members do, in fact, have regular opportunities to communicate with their families by phone and internet.

The cost to Princess (and ultimately to the consumer) was enormous. Not only did they have to spend extra fuel for both the Grand and the Star to retrace the area in a grid pattern for two days, but they are also offering a "voyage goodwill" credit to all of the passengers on those ships. The taxpayer is also footing the bill for the Coast Guard's participation, and who knows what the cost is to the container vessel that assisted in the search for the first 24 hours. For anyone to suggest suing Princess is just ludicrous.

As to the notion that passengers were confined to their cabins for a head count, well that is just silly. In the wee hours of the morning, the Captain asked that we not interfere with the initial preparations outdoors in the dark, but we were never confined, nor was there any head count by cabin. At breakfast, we did hear that some people thought they had been confined but an announcement was made that that was not the case. The Captain made regular announcements every few hours to let passengers know the progress of the search and rescue/recovery mission. His tone was respectful and his leadership skills much in evidence.

I hope that readers will understand that Princess did everything it could, obeyed the Maritime laws governing these situations, and should not be blamed for the action of one unfortunate soul. Likewise, blaming imaginary passengers for being "rude" to servers is also not going to bring him back. I have never seen anyone display rudeness to the staff. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention, but I sure heard a lot of "please" and "thank you" going on.

For a while, our farthest geocache (over 6000 miles) was called Airborne in Santorini. We reached that cache by traveling on the Regent Seven Seas Navigator in 2007. But last December we bested that distance by taking the Star Princess to Ushuaia (over 7000 miles). It certainly adds a level of excitement to finding the cache to know that you've got to get there, find it, and get back before the ship sails. Love it!

We tend to rely more on printouts that we bring from home than from our gps - enabled iPhone or iPad. Not being supergeeks, we aren't always sure how to manage the wifi or 3Gs signals. As a backup, we can program the coordinates into our Garmin Oregon, but that seems so old fashioned now that we have the iPhone. Just imagine, we used to do this with just a lat/long enabled Magellan GPSr from 2001! No maps, no hints. What I love about the iPhone app is the feature that finds the nearest cache, no matter where you are. What I love about the iPad is the HUGE display (using the iPhone app...there isn't a dedicated iPad app yet).