jeromep

I don't have a photo, but the layout is similar; just split the bed and put one or both of the end tables between the beds, and you have a twin setup.

I actually really want to try this specific cruise, but haven't had the time or opportunity to do it. However, like another poster commented, there are some negative comments about the itinerary and the ship floating about on the Internet. I'd rather try it than just dis it. I tend to be a ship rat, so I pay attention to what is going on in the world of new builds and ship classes. The Pride of America is an oddball ship, a one off that was built for another cruise line that went bankrupt before they even finished the ship. And so to sail RT Hawaii, a cruise line needed to find a ship which was built in the U.S. that could then be flagged in the U.S. with crew that have legal status to work in the U.S (so green card or citizenship). All of this work to be legal for the PVSA. NCL purchased the empty hulk of the ship from the domestic shipyard that laid the keel, then had it towed to Germany where a shipyard there finished it. This meant that the ship was not fully constructed in the U.S. and technically couldn't be U.S. flagged (based upon the PVSA regulations), but they got Congress to write an exception for it, and slipped that into some appropriations bill, for sure. Now the ship was U.S. flagged it could do RT Hawaii sailings. I think what turns me off on NCL as a cruise line is the nickel and diming, or rather the prevalence of fee based food options and middling included food options.

Fair enough. Sounds like a partnership broker of sorts. May also act as a travel agent to coordinate the link up between your resort memberships and the cruise lines. I looked at the site and the pattern I see is that the cruise lines they work with are Virgin Voyages, MSC, and Royal Caribbean (and Celebrity which is owned by RCI). I don't see any of the Carnival Corp. brands listed. Princess is owned by Carnival Corp. I'm not surprised by the brands I see on the site. RCI's business model is very much into penetrating markets and always growing. They have to, they have some of the most physically large ships at sea, they have to fill those cabins, so they have broad partnerships. MSC is more European than North American, however they are making a huge push into the North American market, and again, partnerships benefit them in getting new customers in their cabins. Virgin Voyages is a brand new mega ship line, so they also are looking to get their name out there and people into cabins, so having partnerships doesn't surprise me. Virgin Voyages is also a "no kids" line, very adult oriented, so fits well with a casino membership program. Carnival Corp. brands are much more insular. My status with Princess does not translate to any other Carnival Corp. brand. If I were to start cruising with HAL, I'd have to start at the bottom rung in their membership program and cruise my way up. Another observation is that most Carnival Corp. brands do not do a lot of co-branding or themed cruises. I've never seen Princess partner up to do a theme cruise, like a Star Trek fan cruise, or a 80s music cruise, or Star Wars fan cruise. I'm not aware of much like that on HAL. I think I've seen a bit of that on Carnival. Each cruise line at Carnival is essentially operated as its own company with its own management style and they tend to do things their own way. For better or worse. Do you have a travel agent? If not, this would be a good time to find one. I think you'll have a better experience getting perks from Princess if you are working with a travel agent than working direct with Princess. Also, the condition of the customer support lines at Princess is kind of shaky right now. I've had 3 different Princess Cruise Consultants (or advisors, not sure what the official term is) assigned to me in the past 3 months. I worked to book a cruise through the 2nd advisor I had and he was hard to get ahold of. Two or 3 days to answer email. At least a 24 hour turn around on phone calls, and I could never get him on the phone during the business day. Haven't bothered to deal with the most recent person. Your specific inquiries about your casino status and getting comped cruises from Princess would probably be best handled by a travel agent, not directly with Princess.

I respect your opinion, but food is subjective. On every cruise I've been on, food, or rather its appearance and taste, has varied from day to day and venue to venue. I've been on cruises where the buffet was atrocious at almost every meal, but the MDR was almost always stellar. I've been on cruises where the MDR was good some nights and terrible on others, and the buffet was the same, good some nights, terrible on others. I've even been on cruises where the only really great food on board was from the pizzeria and grill on the Lido, and everything else was just edible matter. It has never caused me to write off a cruise line entirely. I chalk up these experiences to travel in general. I've been on non-cruise vacations where I couldn't find decent food anyplace, not the airport (usually never the airport), not high end restaurants at the destination, not low end places at the destination. And then the opposite is true of other vacations. One of the best pasta dishes I've ever had was in coach on an Alaska Airlines flight. It was piping hot, the pasta was cooked just right and the sauce was savory and excellent. It only cost $6. And it was served in a black plastic bowl with a foil lid. I've not been able to replicate it in my own kitchen. Frankly, the things you said that you loved, are probably the biggest reasons that we cruise and mostly with Princess. The ships are great, the staff is great, the medallion is great, and their embarkation and disembarkation process is stellar and quite sane. Any one of those items not being up to par would make me more likely to not cruise a line than the food, or a couple not so wonderful meals on a cruise. I've always seen cruise food as being the worlds largest catering event. I've had lots of catered food in my life; weddings, a few parties, a number of business conferences and trade shows, and the common thread is that the food is ok, but never stellar. I see the food on board a cruise much the same way as food at a conference or trade show. You have kitchens that are feeding 3000-6000 people every day, so the menu has to be somewhat limited, and you have to put up a lot of the same thing over and over that day. When you are doing steak for 3000, there are going to be a lot of gaps in its preparation, quality issues related to hot hold and cold hold of prepared items which can't be easily resolved, that a regular restaurant doesn't necessarily deal with when you are preparing steak one at a time for each order. I've done the kitchen tour on Princess and the on board kitchens are both spotless, but also totally different from the kitchen at your local Applebee's. The quantity of food they are slinging each day, combined with the scale in which they have to prepare it does impact what comes out of the kitchen. We shouldn't pay mid-high market prices for bad food on a premium cruise, but there are limitations in how cruise food is prepared which some executive chefs can get past, and some do not. Just my errant thoughts. Happy cruising.

Everyone I know that gets discounts for gambling is an existing Princess cruiser and is an active spender in the casino. You have to get yourself established first with a casino use track record before you'll see any discounts or benefits, at least of the magnitude you are suggesting. Princess does not have any reciprocity agreements with land based casino resorts and their member programs. Princess is a great line, and they have a great product. I'd recommend buying your first cruise and establishing yourself in the casino. I suspect that after this first cruise, they will make some offers to you after the cruise has ended for your next cruise.

We had an aft corner suite on the Ruby many years ago now, I think it was D737, and the balcony was huge, fully covered (as the Grand class ships all have galleon sterns, so each deck cantilevers out above the deck below it, from the water line to the top of the ship). The aft suites on the Royal class ships are mostly uncovered as the stern of the ship slops the opposite way from waterline to the top, leaving those balconies almost fully exposed to sun and the elements. If you want a great balcony with a suite, you'll want an amidships suite, I think they are category S4 on Riviera deck, or one of the suites that are at the front of the ship.

I was going to say the step up couldn't be more than 2 or 3 inches tops. It's enough to really stub your toe, but it is not even close to a full step height. You'll want to turn on the light in the bathroom entry alcove to see where you are going if you are visiting during the night.

Princess is effectively a no smoking line. There is generally one cigar lounge or bar that allows smoking, and there are some designated outside areas that are for smoking, but you cannot smoke in your cabin or on your balcony or anyplace that is not specifically designated for smoking.

I guess I live in a different world, but I have in-laws in the Atlanta area, and my wife has friends and extended family in a wide range of places, like Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Louisville, Nashville, Philadelphia, SoCal, etc. We live in Eastern Washington State, so we aren't near any major airports, but to be honest, it is only a day's travel, including drive time to an airport, plus time wasted in the airport waiting for the flight, and then the flight itself, to get anywhere in the U.S. for us. No place is really tht far, just a waste of a day involved in air travel. But whenever we are planning vacations, cruise or otherwise, we always figure at least 1 travel day on the front and back end of a trip due to all the time it takes to actually get someplace. That said, you'll only have a travel day to get to the Pacific Northwest, and a whole travel day going back home. Be certain to figure a travel day and overnight lodging before and after your cruise to make the whole experience more comfortable and enjoyable. While a great deal of the appearance of SE Alaska, what you would see sailing on the inside passage on any Alaska cruise, is very similar to the appearance of the Washington Cascades or the Olympics, we still like cruising to Alaska because it is actually so very convenient for us to do an Alaska cruise that is RT Seattle. We live 2.5 hours from Seattle, so a summer drive over I-90 Snoqualmie Pass is easy and relatively quick. If you intend to do a Voyage of the Glaciers, which are one-way southbound or northbound, you will have at least one very long travel day with a number of plane changes. Voyage of the Glaciers either starts in Whittier and ends in Vancouver, BC, or starts in Vancouver and ends in Whittier. To be honest, if I'm doing this cruise, I'm going to make it a cruise tour and include a land portion of the vacation in Alaska at one of the Princess lodges. I don't have any strong feelings about any of the lodge locations, all will be beautiful, you'll just have different scenery and different lengths of trip from Ancorage to the lodge and back again to meet the ship. However, I think starting your vacation with the land tour first strikes me as the most logical. You'll end your vacation in Vancouver and your flight home will not be as long as your flight there. Vancouver is a pleasant metropolitan area, and very picturesque, so you may want to add a day or two there to explore. If your vacation time is more limited you may want to consider the RT Seattle cruise option. Sea-Tac is a major airport with lots of connections. I did some poking around and Alaska Airlines offers direct flights between Charleston and Seattle. I have a gag I always tell people about Alaska Airlines. They have many convenient hubs, so long as you consider Seattle convenient, because Seattle is their hub to everyplace. I've flown the SEA-ATL flight so many times I can't count them. And I've done the SEA-BOS and SEA-PHL flight a few times, too. The direct flight will make your travel day experience a lot better and you'll be less fatigued in spite of the time difference and the hours on the plane. Seattle is, or used to be, a beautiful city, depending on who you talk to and where in the city you are visiting. Seattle Center is a nice tourist destination and a trip to the top of the Space Needle, while expensive, will give you the best views of the Puget Sound, Mt. Rainier, and a good chunk of northwestern Washington. All Princess cruises depart out of Pier 91, which is on the far north side of Elliot Bay. You will have to take a cab or Uber/Lyft to get there. If you are flying in on embarkation day you can get an airport transfer from Princess, but that is a very long travel day and with air travel the way it is right now, you really do need to pad your travel time accordingly. It is very industrial in the area of Pier 91, and also houses the southern access to the Magnolia neighborhood (which is beautiful and very suburban in nature in spite of it being in Seattle proper). The other pier, Pier 66, also known as the Bell Street Pier, serves a number of other cruise lines including NCL. The cruises out of Seattle are all 7 days RT. Some include Glacier Bay, some include some of the other fjords that have glacial activity. We are booked on the July 2, cruise on the Discovery Princess. This cruise is Endicott Arm and Dawes Glacier. We've done Glacier Bay a number of years ago. For this cruise we wanted some different scenery and we wanted to sail on a new ship. The vibe on an Alaska cruise is totally different compared to Caribbean. You will probably sail in the summer, but you'll find that people are more bundled up more of the time. Alaska in July isn't necessarily cold, but it is never tropical. Seattle and Vancouver can get quite warm in the summer, but not necessarily hot. I recall our day in Juneau started out cool and misty, and by mid-day it was 75 degrees out and sunny. This is why the clothing advice for cruising Alaska is "layers". Your morning will start out cool and maybe harsh, and by mid-day you are stripping off layers because you are too hot. The vibe on board ship is also more subdued. Plus most port days are very active for most cruisers, so night life can be a bit of a downer. The cruise staff do all the activities, but a significant chunk of people have had dinner, watched a show and then turned in for the night. That means more space for you in the night club or for the late shows. We always book at least a balcony room. When not in port, we do like to have our cabin be our retreat, and your balcony is the best location for watching the shore pass or for glacier viewing days. We did a special glacier viewing balcony breakfast on our Glacier bay day. It was great. We had plenty of food in our room, turned on the channel with the park rangers narrating, and were able to pop in and out of our cabin to the balcony. Go out, look at things, get cold, come in to warm up and repeat. The round trip Seattle cruise is very busy considering most days are port days, with only a few sea days, and the port times are sometimes rather compressed. So, the crowd on board is pretty laid back, but the schedule isn't. Be prepared to be busy or feel scheduled. There is probably a lot more to share.

That is what I would expect the Love Boat Dream to look like. I am totally unfamiliar with the one that has the "curves".

One of the reasons that getting cruise lines going again is so hard is because the whole of the cruise business is basically a fixed expense for the company. Whether or not there are pax on a ship, the ship still costs you money. You still have to crew it and you still have to feed and water the crew, along with other support items, like crew medical, and crew operational support, like laundry and housekeeping. Wonder why cruise ships usually look great in spite of them operating in the same salt water environment as their freight carrying cousins, who usually have visible surface rust and a certain amount of allowed corrosion? Because the crew is always painting and cleaning. So, you have the staff to do the painting and cleaning, you just have the added expense of the gear you need to do the painting and cleaning. I saw some of the photos of the active Princess fleet when they had them at sea or off the coast of the Philippians during the shut down and they were pretty rusty. They had moved to skeleton crews to keep the ships running and they weren't doing the exterior maintenance they normally would do. While this was all surface rust and easily solved with an angle grinder and some paint, it sure did indicate that they were running the ships at the most minimal staffing possible. Ships that are laid up and not operating turn to garbage pretty quickly, so keeping the ships moving and in operation was key to getting them going again when cruising restarted. Port charges are basically fixed, you have to be in port or at least at a moorage, which is also an expense if you are not moving. Depending on where you are ported or moored, you may also have to burn fuel to generate electricity to keep everything going on board. So no savings there. So, unlike a store, which may close down early some night because there are no customers, and they can save a few bucks in labor and electricity expense, a particular sailing that has a small number of guests isn't so easily canceled as the ship is already scheduled for the ports it is visiting and is already staffed and ready to go. Just because one week's sailing isn't very popular doesn't mean that the next week's sailing won't be totally full. It is a game of averages for the cruise lines. Some sailings have tremendous margins, other sailings they are scraping by or loosing money. The goal is to have a lot more sailings that are profitable than those that are not, which is what keeps you in business.

Ohh, good idea. I think I still have my Safeway apron from eons ago, when grocery store clerks wore aprons and ties. I might still have my name tag; and I bet where I find my name tag I'll find a Safeway issue blue polyester tie and a box cutter. I'm sure I'll be a hit in the MDR on formal night all dressed up appropriately. 😉

That's not weird, that is just good taste. Eggs Benedict with Tabasco or Frank's Red Hot is great!

On the Royal class ships the buffet area is many times larger than on the Grand class variants. I think what I enjoy most on the Royals is the dedicated pastry shop or bakery. There is a bit of a rebranding going on from the older Royals compared to the Royals from the Sky onward. The Horizon Court and Horizon Bistro are being rebranded into the Worldfresh Marketplace. Not sure I see too much of a difference in the food, but decor is better with the newer branding. As for food, you'll generally find that whatever is on the menu in the MDR for that evening will be replicated for the buffet, if it can, as not all MDR dishes translate well to chafing dishes and warming zones. And then you'll find lots of other variety. A couple of different meat preparations, vegetables, different starches, sauces, salad bar, soups, it is too extensive to really list. There is usually a theme each night that is in conjunction with the MDR, or possibly in addition to the MDR offerings. I like just about all of Princess's pasta preparations and actively look forward to them. I wouldn't avoid the MDR on account of your husband. If you let the maitre'd know of your dining needs for your husband, they will be able to put whatever food he wants up ever night, and then you can have both table service and get a plated dinner form the regular menu. We cruised with a very picky 22 month old who would only eat chicken strips and fries and maybe some diced fruit. The dining room put up whatever we thought she would eat, and it was always off menu, so don't be afraid to do the same for your husband.

Packages? No, not like other lines. As others have said, if you book ahead of the cruise, you have to pay at that time. I honestly don't recommend that if you have OBC. Your best bet is to plan on getting on board as early as possible on embarkation day and use the app to make reservations or call the Dine Line. I recall Dine Line could either be very busy on embarkation day or nobody was answering, but we eventually got through. Things are better with the app when you are on board. My experience with specialty dining has been mixed. I've been on cruises where getting reservations early was absolutely necessary, and I've been on other cruises where you could just walk up and get seated. It has to do with where you are going and the pax mix, and that varies.

Don't forget, Premier gets you a higher dollar limit on beverages. I believe Plus includes beverages that are up to $12, and Premier raises the beverage cost limit to $18. Wow, and $18 drink! I hope it comes in a gold encrusted glass or something. haha

Tipping is such a hot button, unfortunately. A little story that seems relevant. Seattle increased their minimum wage to something like $15 a few years back. There was a bit of a stair-step into the increase over a few years, but it was a huge increase over the former minimum wage in the state. Once the full $15 had been implemented a number of restaurants, especially higher end ones, started placing a 20% "service fee" on their bills as a line item under the food. Washington has a sales tax, so that was a taxable charge. Supposedly the service charge was placed there to account for the higher wages. The big question I had was, why not just raise your prices to account for the labor costs and call it good? A few restaurants removed the tip line from their credit card receipts... for a while. But some well meaning, if not a bit ignorant, customers asked to have it come back so they could tip. I don't live in Seattle (thank the heavens), but when I am there and am dining, I don't tip. I know how much the minimum wage is, I know there is likely a "service fee", I can tell that the cost of a meal out is much higher than at home, so in my eyes, the bill is the bill and it all washes out. I had hoped that the mad dash to have increased minimum wages would have broken the American tip culture, due to higher prices and the workers supposedly now earning a "living wage", but that hasn't happened yet. I'm not quite sure the psychology that keeps it going. Seriously, you tip after the service has ended, so how does that get you better service. Doesn't make any sense to me. As far as my behavior on cruises; I've always left the auto-tip in place. It was made apparent that the service staff on board were paid on a tip differential basis. I'm not against that if it is made clear and all the players, so the business, the employee, and the consumer, are all on board. I don't think that tip differential compensation is a great way to compensate employees, but on the other hand it does work for some industries. I think we are starting to see the transition of the mass-market cruise lines to a more all-inclusive model, like the high-end lines which do not have tipping. This means higher cruise costs across the board because the cruise line will be taking responsibility for the compensation. I think that Princess Plus and Premium are the beginning indicators. We'll see how they evolve that as time passes.

Correct! I wish I could give you a "thank you" and a prize.

Suites are in an entirely different class of lodging. Once you book a suite, you have a very hard time going back to smaller cabins. Even a Club Class Mini Suite isn't nearly what you get with a full suite. The extra space you get in a suite, and some of the extra perks are very nice. It does feel like suites don't get quite as many perks as they used to say 5 or 10 years ago, but I guess things change.

That makes a lot of sense. Boy that Share thing crashed and burned. I sure missed Sabatini's when those venues were changed to Share. I didn't dislike the Share food that much, but it wasn't a good replacement for Sabatini's.

My CVP has changed 3 times in as many months. The one I have now isn't nearly as friendly, and feels kind of pushy. I've never had pushy. This has really turned me off on the CVPs. I'm searching for a local travel agent to take my booked cruises and future ones I'll go through them.

On the Grand Class ships, Sabatini's is a much nicer location for suite breakfast than Crown Grill. Much lighter and brighter atmosphere. Much more appropriate feeling in the morning than the dark woods and darker environment of the Crown Grill.

I get the impression that Princess has been wrestling with the question of covered or open pools for many years now, and between the outcomes of new ship design, along with the changing winds of consumer demand, combined with the impact of the past 3 years, I'm not certain that it was Princess' desire to run their Alaskan cruises on ships that have uncovered pools. But with ship sales to other lines (Star, Golden) and the lack of covered pools on all the Royal class ships (except for Majestic), they are in a bit of a pickle until the new Sun Princess and any future sisters arrives. Let's hope there are sisters for the Sun Princess. And who knows if they will make the new Sun Princess a west coast home ported ship so that it can do the Alaska run or the Hawaii run. That might not be in their plans for the new builds. But I don't think it is impossible since they home ported the Discovery on the west coast.

Good tip, if there is a concierge lounge on your ship, let the suite concierge do the work for you. That is what they are there for. Of course, I suspect that you'll get better and more complete features in the app as your sailing gets closer. Everything depends on the sailing, but last time we took advantage of the complimentary specialty dining on embarkation evening we found that the Crown Grill (in our case) was nearly dead. We did call the dine line after we got on board to secure a reservation for our party, as it was 5 people, but once we got there we discovered that we could probably have just shown up and been seated. It was not busy at all. The complimentary specialty dining is a nice suite perk, however the reason it is only provided on the first night is also functional for the cruise line. First, it is my impression that specialty restaurants are not heavily used on the first night, again varies by sailing, and it also helps to get some passengers out of the MDR. What better way to spread your pax out than to encourage your suite passengers to have specialty dining embarkation evening and get them out of the MDR flow, get some usage out of the specialty restaurants which will may be underutilized that night.

Yep. That is exactly how it works. Totally based on a random number generator deep down in the computer system on board. Right time and place to unlock your door, and you get a prize.