JimmyVWine

Right now they are charging for tests. $60 per person. It is actually a profit center. And the paid-for hotel and meals ends as September when the Cruise With Confidence plan ends.

But the demand for cruises is already high even with vaccination and testing requirements and passenger loads reported in trip reports seem like they are pretty much back to "full boat". So I'm not sure that there is any financial aspect to the "should we or shouldn't we" decision by the cruise line. I'm not saying that Princess won't make a change as soon as it is humanly allowed to do so. Of course it will. But I don't know that the bean counters are salivating at the coming of that day thinking that revenues will increase dramatically.

They are old, abandoned Yugoslav submarine tunnels. Tour boats go in for a looksee. They are dead ends. https://www.kotorspeedboattours.com/submarine-tunnel/

The attached file won't open. Maybe convert to jpg??

Is it even possible for a ship the size of Regal to tie up at the dock? Has anyone on a Grand or Royal Class ship ever not tendered?

Must be a supply chain issue with cobblestones! 🤣

With so many travel suppliers going to the wall-mounted toiletries and skipping the individual bottles, I have just gotten in the habit of bringing my own in small bottles that I buy at CVS. In fact, I checked into a hotel last night and the bathroom had one of those counter stands purpose built to hold 4 different small bottles of toiletries with a designated space for each one, and there was only one small bottle on it. (Hand/Body Lotion). It looked so silly and out of place all by its lonesome. The days are over when I will rely on a hotel or cruise ship to supply me with those items.

Hmmm. I provided a serious response to your serious question but I don’t see it anymore. Not sure how the question is in bounds but the answer is not.

Covid is demonstrating dose-dependent responses. So you have four scenarios: 1. Unvaccinated person transmitting to an unvaccinated person-worst case. The viral load carried by the unvaccinated person can be higher than the viral load transmitted by a vaccinated person. So the exposure dose is higher and because of the absence of the vaccine, the dose needed for contraction is lower. This was the pre-vax world and it was a you-know-what show. 2. Unvaccinated person transmitting to a vaccinated person. Viral load of delivery is high, but resistance to the virus is higher so while contraction is still possible and perhaps likely, there is a much better chance of a positive outcome. 3. Vaccinated person transmitting to an unvaccinated person. Vaccinated person is still capable of transmitting but the viral load that person carries is lower so the unvaccinated person has a chance of receiving a dose that is too low for contraction. But it certainly can happen and I think we are seeing this every day now. 4. Vaccinated person transmitting to a vaccinated person. Viral load being transmitted is low and the resistance of the recipient is high. Transmission is still possible but contraction will probably result in an acceptable outcome despite a positive test. And all of this varies as the variants evolve.

Will try to get to this later today. Flying today on several flights so I am just on my phone. My notes are on my computer.

I know that you like small, private yours. If you are interested I can give you the name of the guide we hired in 2017. I haven’t researched to see if he is still doing tours, but he was great and we had an awesome day both in Perast and Kotor. If that is if interest, I can move this over to your roll call so as not to hijack this thread.

Second vote for Alfredos.

But turnaround is fair play. In the 19th century native rootstock all throughout Europe was ripped out and vines were grafted onto American rootstock which was found to be far more resistant to phylloxera. So those magnificent First Growth Bordeaux are the product of grafting onto New World rootstock and have been for over 150 years! Further reading: https://daily.jstor.org/the-great-grape-graft-that-saved-the-wine-industry/

My preferred vessel is a red colored sports drink bottle. Dead ringer for Pinot Noir from a distance. Safe around the pool.

So the bottom line is that there really is no good reason to pack and carry bottled water on to the ship. Unless you have a specific brand of water that is your favorite, which is probably fodder for another topic entirely!

Also, bottled water is included in both the "Plus" and "Premier" Packages that you can add on to your base fare.

"Bridge", not "Bride". If you submerge your bride, you are likely headed for big, big trouble! 😁

There is much to commend about both of these statements. To me, the "Cruise Experience" is 3,000 people enjoying themselves, leaving their cares behind, enjoying all that life has to offer, loving the time they are spending with their travel companion(s) as well as the fresh air on the open sea. There is no one set of rules that will result in all 3,000 people achieving that level of Nirvana. Each person has to be allowed some leeway in order for all to achieve the level of bliss they seek and which for they are paying. Which brings us to the second statement. For reasons unbeknownst to me, at some point in time many cruise lines (including PCL) decided that on certain nights or in certain venues, cruise passengers should pretend that they are the Vanderbilts, Mellons and Carnegies and all dress up "Downton Abbey" style as if they were on a transatlantic crossing on a White Star or Cunard ship. I have no idea how or why anyone decided that after spending a day in St. Thomas or Juneau, passengers needed to or wanted to play dress-up as if they were having an audience with King Edward. But along came the statement in the cruise literature: "We kindly request that you..." Now, sometimes that is followed by "refrain from smoking" and sometimes it is followed by "adhere to the dress code for the evening." It always seemed odd to me that people who understand the former to be a "rule" and not a mere "suggestion" should find the latter to be a "suggestion" and not a "rule". To me they stand on equal footing. But that was then and this is now. Airlines started limiting baggage allowances and charging exorbitant fees for checked bags. The digital world necessitates that we pack more electronic than ever before. Business rarely require suits so many people have grown out of the last one they bought 10 years ago. (Guilty!) Tuxedos are rarely required for ANYTHING, and odds are that if you own one, the last 10 times you wore it was on a cruise. (Guilty again...until I grew out of it!) So the idea that one should add $1,000+ to their wardrobe just so that the can play: "Look at me! I'm Lord Crawley!!" while on a cruise in the Caribbean is silly beyond words. But it is incumbent upon Princess to bite that final bullet and eliminate the "We kindly request..." aspect of Formal Nights, (assuming that they still use that phrasing.) Just say in the Patter that professional photographers will be out and about the ship tonight so tonight is your chance to shine and look your best if that is your jam. (Though I doubt Princess will ever say "jam"). But you get the idea. I suspect that "Dress To Impress" is Princess' way of sliding into the future at the pace of the Mendenhall Glacier. But the lack of any enforcement of the requested dress brings me back to my comment about "rules" and "suggestions". If you started smoking in a place where you weren't supposed to, I have no doubt that you would be reprimanded as the "rule" would be enforced. If you show up at the MDR in jeans and a golf shirt on Formal Night and are shown to a table, then the "rule" is not enforced, and at this point it becomes simply a "suggestion." And when a rule becomes a suggestion, no one has any right to cry foul at another passenger. If you have a beef, take it up with the cruise line. But as far as the passengers are concerned, we are back to 3,000 people enjoying themselves, leaving their cares behind, enjoying all that life has to offer, loving the time they are spending with their travel companion(s) as well as the fresh air on the open sea.

I don't doubt that there were 500 kids. What I don't believe is that 100% of them were running amuck. It is simply statistically impossible for every kid on the ship to be misbehaved.

There actually is a bit more to Ancient Corinth, but yes, there are many ruins. I think Paul's lost letter to the Corinthians must have said something like: "Clean up your mess." But there are significant structures of baths and commercial shops. Corinth was a trade center given its strategic location, which is why the canal was built to cut down ship travel time. And if you get down to the canal level, you can witness an engineering marvel: The submersible bridge. Instead of building a bridge where ships pass below it, or a bridge that raises to let ships pass through, they built a bridge that sinks into the canal so that boats pass OVER it. First photo is the bridge as it appears when cars drive over it. The second and third photos show the bridge disappeared into the water with a boat passing over it, and the fourth photo shows the bridge after it is re-raised, soaking wet. When this happened, there were many minnows trapped on the bridge and the seagulls had a buffet feast! They were so smart. They knew what was happening and were lying in wait.

None that I can recall. The departure port of Athens is somewhat unique in that many of the people who board the ship there are spending as much of the day as possible seeing the sights of Athens. So the "crowd" really trickles in in dribs and drabs with no waiting around. So there isn't anything there to occupy your time. Of course, the city of Piraeus has an economy all its own and there is shopping and dining there. But that is a hefty walk from Terminal B. As you can see from Ken's photos of the port area, at no time does a crowd build up the way one would expect at Port Everglades, SF or San Pedro. The last time we sailed out of there we had already spent 3 full days in Athens before the cruise, so on departure day we headed to the port in a taxi at 10:00 and were on the ship by 11:00 without waiting in a single line. Straight shot onto the ship.

The rules for wine are the same as always, only the corkage fee has increased to $20. Each adult in a cabin can bring on one bottle free of charge and those bottles remain free as long as they are consumed in the cabin. If brought to a restaurant or lounge they are subject to the $20 corkage fee. All other bottles in excess of the initial free ones are charged a $20 corkage fee at the time of boarding. Those bottles will get a stamp affixed to them so that the crew knows that they have already been paid for. So if 2 adults bring on 10 bottles, they would pay for 8 ($160) upon boarding, charged to their stateroom account. They would identify which 8 should get stamped and which 2 would not. If the 2 without stamps remain in the cabin, no further fee is assessed. If the 2 unstamped bottles are brought out of the cabin, upon inspection the crew will see no stamp and will have you sign for the fee. That is how the system works as established and I have been on cruises where it worked like that 100% of the time on board. But there have been many reports, and I myself have experienced this, where there is no wine stamping/fee collection table set up at boarding. When this happens you carry your wine on board and you may or may not encounter the collection of the corkage fee once on board. Certainly if the bottles stay in your cabin you will not. But if you bring them to a dining room, the servers are charging the corkage fee fairly regularly.

Richard Branson has created a product for you. Seabourn and Oceania too. You can’t expect a Mass Market cruise line to cater to only a third of the “mass”. And I doubt that you have ever been on a Princess cruise that had 500 kids running amok. Until a few years ago it’s largest capacity ships held just over 3,000 people. No way did they ever sail with 500 who were unruly kids. If half the kids were unruly and the other half well-behaved there would have to have been 1,000 kids on the ship. Simply not possible.

I made the following observation at work the other day: “Before Covid, when a meeting, conference or dinner suggested “Business Casual” attire, that was an indication that you could dress DOWN a bit. Now when Business Casual attire is requested, people have to UP their dress.” Working at home in shorts, T-shirts and pajamas for a year and a half caused the return-to-the-office attire to be far more casual than ever before. I think this is true everywhere including cruise ships.

Oh, please. If Princess does not market to a younger generation (one that has children), it will not survive and there will be no Princess left to love. Every bit of marketing over the past year has been targeted to a younger crowd including the magnificent "Theme Park" commercial. I think that you need to trust that the clientele that Princess attracts will bring with them children who are raised to be respectful world travelers. I cannot imagine my life, or my daughter's life, without our cruising memories. From Formal Nights to event-packed days in port, these are among her most cherished memories from her mid-teen years.