Astro Flyer

The Apple iOS app updates in the past month

Another update for Apple’s iOS only a week after the last update.

It's gone from my mobile devices & desktop.

Hopefully the deck plans will be available sooner than for the Royal Princess which weren’t available until booking day in early March 2012 for the first cruises the following year. And we’re still waiting for the new ship’s details that were promised over 3 months ago at their VP of Sales webinar but no mention since then. Disappointed by the confirmation of the name but not surprising as the actions by the current management team don’t care about tradition. Having ships’ names that require a dictionary to learn the meaning isn’t great. Last year’s survey about ship’s names had Sphera & Radia as the new names & the class Sphere.

Thanks for noticing my typo before it was too late to correct it.

In one of the midship dining rooms lunch is available between noon & 1:30 and at Gigi’s Pizzeria there is a multi course table service meal for no extra charge. Other options are the grill & pizza venues on Lido deck or at the International Cafe on deck 5 in the Piazza. We go to these dining locations to avoid the busy buffet.

It’s seems that when fixing one problem it creates two or more problems. 🥴 Soon it will be 5 years since the MC app was implemented yet it’s still an unreliable work in progress! And now with the creator as their president not much has improved for too many passengers…sad.

Update for Apple devices.

We’ve greatly enjoyed the UBD on any size of balcony including the smaller 9’x4’ on Royal-class ships many times. That’s one foot of less depth than standard balconies on their other classes of ships. Once when sailing from Santorini in early December it was too cold & windy and we still greatly enjoyed the UBD inside looking out the closed glass balcony doors. Others will feel differently but for us all of them have been great…from 9’x9’ to 9’x4’. ‘mattnday’ the UBD would be my first choice followed by the Chefs Table & the Winemakers Dinner…happy anniversary. Although don’t expect Princess to do anything special…nothing was done for our 50th.

Buried a couple of pages back it's being discussed & affecting everyone including those who had already paid the 50% rate. Also on the sticky at the top about the app it's being discussed. It's either another app glitch or Princess is reverting to making full payment & to get a 50% OBC on the ship.

It's the same active ingredient so any side affects are the same as the brand names. It doesn't make her sleepy & she can even have wine at dinner without putting her to sleep. She generally takes it at night so if there's any sleepiness she doesn't care.🥱😴

My wife uses the generic version…Meclizine works great to eliminate her motion sickness & costs much less than the brand names (Bonine & Dramamine Less Drowsy). We also get lower deck mid to mid aft cabins to have a more stable location. Although decades ago got an upgrade to an oceanview cabin as far forward as possible on an upper deck for an Alaska inside passage cruise & it was smooth on that cruise.

In addition to that corded one I’ve also been happy with these TESSAN adapters purchased from Amazon…one, two or three packs. European Travel Plug Adapter, TESSAN International Power Plug with 2 USB, Type C Outlet Adaptor Charger for US to Most of Europe EU Iceland Spain Italy France Germany https://a.co/d/1wEXkgG

The harm for my wife’s motion sickness tendency is being moved from the lowest balcony categories (Emerald deck midship BW/DW) to be upgraded to a balcony on an upper deck forward cabin. That’s why we mark our midship obstructed view balconies as no upgrade & even though that’s just a request we’ve never been moved from those cabins.

These are from a Sky sideways interior cabin (desk & under bed using adapter for European socket) which as I recall were the same as in our Discovery balcony cabins…the nightstand lamps have USB ports. We also bring a non-surge protected corded electrical adapter to provide additional sockets & USB ports.

Effective 9/6/22 free upgrades will become rare, or even nonexistent with their new Bidding for Upgrades program after already becoming less likely with paid upsells.

We were in Discovery’s E409 and this is what the lights shining down from the Skywalk looked for us. In the first photo it’s illuminating to shades over the outdoor dining area of Gigi’s Pizzeria. As visible is the new composite material railing which replaced the previous varnished wooden railing that required regular varnishing.

And there’s another issue…if more than $25 the refund is by check which took 8 weeks in April instead of the previous 3 to 4 weeks. Some have reported that getting refundable OBC is taking even longer to refund…many months.

As I recall the most recent posts were about a month or so ago & hopefully now that you see the UBD being available maybe that’s a good sign. 🤞 On our Spring cruises to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary we tried to get a UBD…nope. 😟 Then tried for a WM Dinner…nope. 😟 We had to settle for the Crown Grill which was tasty. 😋 Good meal but not as specialty as a UBD for our anniversary.

I’ve read posts from passengers who have been able to pre-book the UBD only to learn onboard that it was unavailable. Hopefully that’s not a problem with these future reservations but until staffing returns to normal it’s questionable. Diamond’s cruises were canceled on short notice due to insufficient staffing so they’re still experiencing staffing problems.

Buon Viaggio! 🥳🎉🍾🛳 We sail Solstice for our first Celebrity cruise in December from LA & looking forward to reading about your onboard experiences.

Our refundable OBC check from our cruise ending in early April was received about 8 weeks later. Previous refund checks showed a return address of only Bottomline Technologies but has now added “For Princess Cruise Line Ltd” to know it’s not junk mail.

You get your luggage tags by signing in to your cruise on their Cruise Personalizer webpage. Since implementing MedallionClass there are no boarding passes. Instead they use the Medallion for boarding & you should complete the process on their MedallionClass app or on their webpage. https://www.princess.com/ships-and-experience/ocean-medallion/

You can take food back to your cabin from all food locations except from the main dining room & Alfredo’s Pizzeria. On Discovery I could order an Alfredo’s pizza from the app to be delivered to my cabin for $3 per pizza.

Sadly it’s not only the casino department who neglects to pay on time because there have also been numerous reports of EZair flight cancelations due to that department failing to pay airlines…awful service from both departments & it’s inexcusable.