beg3yrs

Here's another take on the white: After all they're stickers applied to the medallion so, it could be they start out white and are printed with either the standard or custom designs. That takes INK! And we all know that ink is expensive. The the new design is predominately white, it takes less ink and therefore less money. Yet another example of Princess cost-cutting.

The bar must be very magical as the same gentleman is at two different tables simultaneously.

I'm not sure about Android or Google phones but the iPhone hot-spot requires a cellular Internet connection to provide the WiFi connection for your devices. It does not provide a WiFi-to-WiFi hotspot service.

Turning on airplane mode will disable ALL radio-frequency communications including the WiFi. Go into your settings and turn on the WiFi. Once that's done the Fire will scan for available WiFi networks. One of them will be the ship's WiFi. It will likely contain the ship's name (Royal) but I can't be sure. Your Internet Cafe manager or the Ocean Front people should be able to help you connect to the correct WiFi. From there use your Silk Browser to access the local website, "login.com" and you should then be provided with the means to completely login.

You evidently haven't read the preceding posts. I have both an older Kindle e-Reader and a Kindle Fire and you can't just say "Kindle", you must be more specific. Kindle e-Readers do not connect well to the ship's WiFi as they won't go through the authentication protocol with the antiquated browser. Kindle Fire devices do connect to the ship's Wifi with no difficulty at all.

Your partner can also purchase 5 every month. That helps when you have a big cruise and the corresponding big final payment.

DW is lactose intolerant and finds lactose-free milk at the coffee bar in the IC on most ships. Sometimes they're out but usually it's available. Her comment though is that it's full-fat and at home she drinks non-fat lactose-free milk. We don't know if it's available elsewhere as she only takes milk in her morning coffee.

Ruh roh! This is how it starts. Six to seven day cruises aren't enough. You just learn the ship layout and then it's time to pack and get off. OK, so we'll try a 10-day cruise. Oh that's better but hmm ... that two-week cruise looks nice. That was good and we started to get to know the staff. Next thing you know you're booking month-long cruises and salivating about world cruises. It's a slippery slope but at least when you hit the bottom, you're on a cruise!

I'm curious because we're on the repositioning cruise on the Regal on March 23 of 2025 (only the FLL leg) and was wondering if there would be a series of cascading changes. Looking at the website, the Regal is only available for seven day cruises on January 5, 12 and February 9 in 2025 plus the repo cruise on March 23. Lots of holes in the calendar there. EDIT: And as I look again, there are now seven day cruises on 2/17and 2/23. Possibly they're still getting all the affected passengers situated with revised bookings before they release the new dates and itineraries to the general public.

What was the specific date that was cancelled? Any idea why it was cancelled?

We visited Geiranger on the Pacific Princess in 2018. Made it into port with no problems. What a spectacular cruise in the fjords too. Definitely the most scenic we've been on. Notice I said we made it into port without problems. Leaving that evening we were having dinner as the ship started sailing out. All of a sudden it felt like the brakes went on HARD. I was surprised we didn't spill our drinks. Seems the anchor was jammed in some rocks on the sea floor. I don't understand why we were already in motion when they found that out. Anyway with some moving back and forth they actually broke the rock, hauling up the anchor with a large part of the rock still attached. Definitely a new experience for me.

That high-powered high-quality Princess IT Team strikes again!

Don't be fooled. That small herd of beef up on the mini-golf course was actually a few passengers who were staying on for their last segment of a B2B2B. I have seen fresh salmon being loaded on the ship at Alaskan ports. So there's one exception.

It's not the Jones Act. It's the PVSA or Passenger Vessel Services Act. The Jones Act has to do with merchandise / cargo, not people. I suppose after indulging on the ship for too many days some passengers could be considered cargo.

You're on an excursion so it's likely you won't be supervising your move. Regardless, the housekeeping supervisor, your old steward and new steward (they're not always different) will work with you to make this relatively painless. We've always been able to leave our hanging stuff, stewards will take them on a hangar trolley along with your suitcases to the new cabin. Your hanging stuff will magically appear in the closet in your new cabin. I've heard that for some cabins you can leave your stuff in drawers and the stewards will just move the drawers. Of course that's if you have compatible cabins. We've done cabin transfers multiple times and never had that convenience. We found that packing up is actually quite simple. Realize you're not packing for travel so it's different. We simply start at one end of the cabin and just put stuff in suitcases by area. That way when you unpack a suitcase you don't have to reorganize things and you aren't moving things very far in the new cabin. For example, one suitcase starts with bathroom items and non-hanging closet items. If there's more room, move to the next closest area in the cabin. Typically DW and I work from opposite ends of the cabin so we're not running into each other. Easy peasy and unpacking is just done in reverse.

Wow ... up until today I thought you were a big time Xbox player.

My experience is the only time I see my preferred name used is on the screens around the ship when you have a birthday or anniversary.

Thank you for all the reports. We're booked on this itinerary (Emerald 9/2025) but it's never too early to learn and plan!

That seems to be the app predominately used by the crew as well. Not only for personal use but they use it to message each other for job and ship-related issues. Not being an IT guru, I do wonder if Princess leaves this WhatsApp capability open because it benefits Princess more than it costs. I then wonder if the "Thingamajiggy" for WhatsApp is the same one that allows iMessage to function ...

Like @SCX22 said, you pay for the convenience. That said, DW and I did the 17-day Connoisseur tour in Alaska in 2022 and for not having to do much planning, it was great. Yes, the "company" is owned by Princess. The lodges are owned by Princess, even the rail cars and buses are owned by Princess. You'll also see that Holland America has properties and their own buses too. Since it was 2022 and everyone was just coming out of COVID restrictions, I have to say services were hit and miss as there were so many staffing issues. They even closed their Copper River lodge early in the season so they could shuffle the staff to the other under-staffed lodges. However we did find their dining options to be excellent. Food (and everything else) is expensive. The tour leader took care of everything, he was great. Definitely a Princess employee too. Our tour was a mixed bus / rail tour with only one day of the ten land days being by rail. Honestly, I felt the one day was enough though. In our case, we didn't have any experience doing an Alaskan land tour and letting a company handle it all for us worked out well and we thought it was worth the extra expense.

@Charles4515is generally correct but there are reports (and I have experienced this as well) that iMessage actually does work on Princess ships as long as you're connected to their WiFi. There seems to be an unacknowledged exception for this kind of messaging. WhatsApp seems to work as well. All that said, I wouldn't stake my livelihood on this as it's not promised and probably could be closed off at any time.

We were on the Sapphire in January. Rounded Elephant Island heading for Antarctica and out of nowhere we ran into 100 knot winds and big waves. The wind could have been higher but that's the highest the ship's anemometer goes. Anyway, the Sapphire rides rough seas like a champ! According to Captain McBain, that extra beam she has over the other Grand class ships makes a big difference. And yes, nobody wanted to be outside either.

My experience with Singapore (which is likely more restrictive) is that your proof of prescription isn't necessarily the script (which the pharmacies keep anyway or is often electronic) but the drugs are in packaging (usually the bottle) from the pharmacy clearly marked with your name and the contents.

Wow, only 45 minutes between the two start times? Assuming it's a 30 minute show, it's kind of hard to empty the theater and fill it up again in only 15 minutes. Are you sure the second show isn't at 9:15? IIRC when we were on the Island last year the second show was at 9:15.

I agree with BamaVol. You'll probably change your clocks the night you embark. I think Princess avoids changing clocks on the last night cuz not everyone will get the message and there would be too many people off an hour during disembarkation.