Princess; 'check in' from '1pm to 4pm'

[LittleFish1976]

Can anyone help me understand what's going on here?

 

I'm boarding the Grand Princess in Melbourne in October (first Princess cruise). I understand there are no boarding times or boarding groups any more. However, on the Travel Itinerary for me that I find via my booking on the Princess website, it says 'check in' is from 1pm to 4pm.

 

This seems rather late if that's for the whole ship. I would assume that I've been given this slot as I have no status with Princess. I did think that a mini suite had some early boarding advantage.

 

How would you experienced Princess cruisers make sense of this? Can I really not turn up until 1pm? Doesn't this look like a Princess-imposed 'group' for boarding time?

[Ondine]

I notice that as well, am on the same cruise.  I assumed that perhaps they are taking longer to get organised as this is the first cruise for Melb this season so maybe more paperwork and working out the gremlins re restocking and border force etc.  I am sure it not anything to do with your status.

I am doing b2b and the time for the following cruise (28th) is the usual 12.00 - 4.00.  We will have to wait for the 11 day mark to see what the app tells us.  I thought they might go back to the olden days when you boarded according to your cabin location.

[LittleFish1976]

38 minutes ago, Ondine said:

I notice that as well, am on the same cruise.  I assumed that perhaps they are taking longer to get organised as this is the first cruise for Melb this season so maybe more paperwork and working out the gremlins re restocking and border force etc.  I am sure it not anything to do with your status.

I am doing b2b and the time for the following cruise (28th) is the usual 12.00 - 4.00.  We will have to wait for the 11 day mark to see what the app tells us.  I thought they might go back to the olden days when you boarded according to your cabin location.

Thanks Ondine for sharing your knowledge about this. It just seemed a bit odd. I had hoped to have lunch on board; I'm only on for the five days.

 

I notice I've just received the information from Princess that the covid protocols no longer apply to our cruise - that should save them a bit of time at the port, surely! They didn't send me any notification that the package inclusions had changed though!

 

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Can anyone help me understand what's going on here?

 

I'm boarding the Grand Princess in Melbourne in October (first Princess cruise). I understand there are no boarding times or boarding groups any more. However, on the Travel Itinerary for me that I find via my booking on the Princess website, it says 'check in' is from 1pm to 4pm.

 

This seems rather late if that's for the whole ship. I would assume that I've been given this slot as I have no status with Princess. I did think that a mini suite had some early boarding advantage.

 

How would you experienced Princess cruisers make sense of this? Can I really not turn up until 1pm? Doesn't this look like a Princess-imposed 'group' for boarding time?

Only the "Reserve Collection" mini suites (aka Club Class) have priority boarding, plus full suites, Platinum & above, and current ($95) premier package passengers.

[Ondine]

Hopefully there will still be the elite/platinum lane in operation.  They have never been strict with boarding times in Melbourne while I have been sailing.  Only sailed Princess, P&O and Carnival though.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Sometimes they have to start boarding later than usual in Melbourne. It depends how late the ship docks and on the Border Force people. On the cruise we did in March out of Melbourne, still under the boarding group system, Group A boarding wasn't until 2pm.

 

Boarding appears to have gone back to the old style, turn up when you like but at least they're giving you a start time now - in the past it was just assumed to be around 11:30. There are no slots any more. I suggest turning up about half an hour early, you never know they might start check-ins early even if you have to wait in the terminal for a bit before getting on to the ship.

[LittleFish1976]

44 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Sometimes they have to start boarding later than usual in Melbourne. It depends how late the ship docks and on the Border Force people. On the cruise we did in March out of Melbourne, still under the boarding group system, Group A boarding wasn't until 2pm.

 

Boarding appears to have gone back to the old style, turn up when you like but at least they're giving you a start time now - in the past it was just assumed to be around 11:30. There are no slots any more. I suggest turning up about half an hour early, you never know they might start check-ins early even if you have to wait in the terminal for a bit before getting on to the ship.

Thanks Julie. Good advice.

[OzKiwiJJ]

25 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Thanks Julie. Good advice.

Hopefully you'll make to the MDR before 1:30pm. They should really extend that to 2pm or 2:30pm if they're not starting boarding until 1pm. I get quite grumpy if I don't get my MDR embarkation day lunch! 

[LittleFish1976]

2 hours ago, arxcards said:

Only the "Reserve Collection" mini suites (aka Club Class) have priority boarding, plus full suites, Platinum & above, and current ($95) premier package passengers.

I do have a club class MS so hoping it still has some benefit.

 

The package will still have the benefit of a few drinks unless they make more changes between now and October! 

[OzKiwiJJ]

32 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I do have a club class MS so hoping it still has some benefit.

 

The package will still have the benefit of a few drinks unless they make more changes between now and October! 

I doubt they'd ever remove drinks from the Plus and Premier fares. There would be no point. But if you want good quality drinks i.e. wine then it's a different story.

[LittleFish1976]

8 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I doubt they'd ever remove drinks from the Plus and Premier fares. There would be no point. But if you want good quality drinks i.e. wine then it's a different story.

I don't know how they get away with the shabby wine. Good thing I don't mind a cocktail.

[OzKiwiJJ]

10 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I don't know how they get away with the shabby wine. Good thing I don't mind a cocktail.

Probably because 80% of the passengers will drink any old wine. It's not bad wine if you just want a white wine or a red wine but if you know your wine varieties then it's pathetic and very limited. 

[Ondine]

22 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Sometimes they have to start boarding later than usual in Melbourne. It depends how late the ship docks and on the Border Force people. On the cruise we did in March out of Melbourne, still under the boarding group system, Group A boarding wasn't until 2pm.

 

Last season some of the embarkations from Melbourne were held up by Border Force because of disembarking covid positive guests.  These guests had to be disembarked after all other passengers had left the ship.  Hopefully we won't have this problem again.  Fingers crossed.  Some cruises went smoothly while others were chaos.  Having TV channel reporters meeting the plague ships didn't help either.

[OzKiwiJJ]

53 minutes ago, Ondine said:

 

Last season some of the embarkations from Melbourne were held up by Border Force because of disembarking covid positive guests.  These guests had to be disembarked after all other passengers had left the ship.  Hopefully we won't have this problem again.  Fingers crossed.  Some cruises went smoothly while others were chaos.  Having TV channel reporters meeting the plague ships didn't help either.

The scheduled Group A arrival time for the cruise I mentioned was 2pm so not necessarily Border Force. As it turned out the ship was late arriving due to a medical emergency and a rescue at sea so it was chaos. We turned up just before 2pm and the queue was back to the carpark entrance and starting to loop back through the car park. For some odd reason they wouldn't let anyone onto the pier until they were cleared for check-ins which was over an hour after we arrived. We had to schlep our bags the length of the car park to drop them off, and it poured with rain. If they had at least let people through the pier gates we would have been able to drop off our luggage and shelter undercover.

 

On another cruise where the ship was just visiting for a port stop so no disembarkations our arrival was delayed by fog then it took another couple of hours or more before we could leave the ship. 

 

[Ondine]

Oops I was on that "Rescue at Sea" one but was doing B2B so it didn't really affect us.  (Well I do believe that I caught Covid while hanging around in the terminal for 2 hrs waiting to reboard).  It had been a bit chaotic the night before with passengers trying to rebook flights etc.  Border Force and Immigration arrived as soon as we docked to check out the wayward mariners we picked up in Bass Strait.  We made good time from Auckland to make up for the bad weather and then had to hang around for hours off Wilson's Prom for the medi vac.  Always hard doing a medi vac there due to the helicopters running short of fuel if they have come from Melb and needing to refuel at Sale.  Then of course I woke to the silence of no engines at 1.00am and a helicopter flying around with a search light picking out the distressed mariners in the wild seas.  They were so lucky, the rescue craft crew was brilliant.  I saw the video on the police website a few weeks ago.  Not for the faint hearted.  The crew deserve a medal.

Sorry you got caught up in the madness on land.  We were pitying the incoming passengers.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, Ondine said:

Oops I was on that "Rescue at Sea" one but was doing B2B so it didn't really affect us.  (Well I do believe that I caught Covid while hanging around in the terminal for 2 hrs waiting to reboard).  It had been a bit chaotic the night before with passengers trying to rebook flights etc.  Border Force and Immigration arrived as soon as we docked to check out the wayward mariners we picked up in Bass Strait.  We made good time from Auckland to make up for the bad weather and then had to hang around for hours off Wilson's Prom for the medi vac.  Always hard doing a medi vac there due to the helicopters running short of fuel if they have come from Melb and needing to refuel at Sale.  Then of course I woke to the silence of no engines at 1.00am and a helicopter flying around with a search light picking out the distressed mariners in the wild seas.  They were so lucky, the rescue craft crew was brilliant.  I saw the video on the police website a few weeks ago.  Not for the faint hearted.  The crew deserve a medal.

Sorry you got caught up in the madness on land.  We were pitying the incoming passengers.

The main issue was that it was badly organised. If there had been a way of getting rid of our baggage immediately we arrived at the end of the queue it would have been much easier. Luckily we'd had a very nice lunch at a restaurant near our apartment hotel before heading off to the port.

 

At least that time there was a genuine excuse for the delay. When we did the Hawaii/Tahiti cruise out of Sydney in 2019 we had a similar delay. Border Force would not let anyone enter the terminal until they reached zero count and four idiots decided that they didn't have to leave the ship, which had just come from Auckland. It took an hour before they tracked them down. Luckily said idiots decided to order drinks from one of the bars and that triggered an alert! Of course it rained then too but we were just undercover at the OPT. In both cases there was no information passed down to the passengers waiting to board and that was really annoying. 

[LittleFish1976]

23 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Probably because 80% of the passengers will drink any old wine. It's not bad wine if you just want a white wine or a red wine but if you know your wine varieties then it's pathetic and very limited. 

I very rarely drink when I'm not on holiday due to medical issues so when I do drink I want it to be really special. I really care what I'm drinking so it will be interesting to see if the wines onboard live up to the wine lists I've seen advertised for the Grand.

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I very rarely drink when I'm not on holiday due to medical issues so when I do drink I want it to be really special. I really care what I'm drinking so it will be interesting to see if the wines onboard live up to the wine lists I've seen advertised for the Grand.

Wines under the package, or by the bottle? 

[LittleFish1976]

40 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Wines under the package, or by the bottle? 

Under the package. I'm travelling solo.

[Tripmode33]

2 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I very rarely drink when I'm not on holiday due to medical issues so when I do drink I want it to be really special. I really care what I'm drinking so it will be interesting to see if the wines onboard live up to the wine lists I've seen advertised for the Grand.

Definitely try Vines on Grand. Wines by the glass under the package much nicer than any other wine menu onboard. Nicer glasses too and if you promise to return them, can take into MDR with you.

[LittleFish1976]

29 minutes ago, Tripmode33 said:

Definitely try Vines on Grand. Wines by the glass under the package much nicer than any other wine menu onboard. Nicer glasses too and if you promise to return them, can take into MDR with you.

Thank you for that suggestion. I have already clocked that Vines might be the place to go and that taking a glass into the dining room from there might be necessary! I've read various comments about better and worse glassware; are they using plastic wine glasses in some venues?

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Under the package. I'm travelling solo.

These were the wines available by the glass everywhere on Grand except possibly Vines. We tend to prefer a pre-dinner cocktail and have wine with our meal so I forgot all about Vines.

De Bortoli Willowglen Brut is an inoffensive sparkling wine. We preferred to pay the extra for the Pirie Vintage Brut from the Premier list.

 

De Bortoli Willowglen Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is a basic dry white. 

 

Brown Brothers Moscato is a classic moscato which suits those who like that style of wine. I'd pair it with a creamy dessert.

 

De Bortoli Willowglen Chardonnay is too oaky for our tastes. We tend to drink unoaked or lightly oaked chardonnays these days. 

 

Masterpeace Rose. A very pleasant rose and the only "white" we found enjoyable without buying a bottle. 

 

Lock and Key Pinot Noir is reasonable. We preferred the one they used to have on the Premier list, Devil's Corner, but it's no longer available.

 

De Bortoli Willowglen Shiraz Cabernet.

De Bortoli Willowglen Cabernet Merlot.

I can't drink Cabernet Sauvignon as it gives me headaches so I didn't try either of these.

 

Masterpeace Merlot. A lovely soft merlot with chocolate raspberry notes. Great with the Princess Love Boat dream dessert.

 

Note: most of the Willowglen wines are more commonly seen in 4 litre casks!

 

 

Pirie Vintage Brut. A pleasant sparkling wine.

 

Framingham Sauvignon Blanc. I can't drink this variety either so didn't try it.

 

Leasingham Bin 7 Reisling. When we tried it it was from the 2017 vintage and was starting to go a bit flabby. It didn't really go with seafood. However there is now a 2021 vintage but I don't know whether Princess has that one. If they do it should be good.

 

Shaw & Smith M3 Chardonnay. Another chardonnay with too much oak for my taste.

 

Eddystone Point Pinot Noir. I didn't get around to trying this unfortunately. 

 

Katnook Cabernet Sauvignon. Untried but Katnook wines are usually very nice.

 

Henschke 'Henry's Seven' GSM. One of the nicest reds available by the glass. A classic GSM. 

 

Famille Perrin Cote du Rhone Rouge. A very enjoyable Cote du Rhone. A bit lighter than the Henschke so suits lamb rather than beef.

 

De Bortoli Noble One. Always a good drop when you want a sticky.

 

Unfortunately when they upped the prices of the wines by the glass the difference between the Plus limit and the Henschke and Cote du Rhone became larger. 😪

 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by OzKiwiJJ

[OzKiwiJJ]

10 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Thank you for that suggestion. I have already clocked that Vines might be the place to go and that taking a glass into the dining room from there might be necessary! I've read various comments about better and worse glassware; are they using plastic wine glasses in some venues?

Plastic glasses poolside for safety. I didn't notice them used anywhere else. 

 

Did you say you had booked a Club Class cabin? If so you should get the good wine glasses there - we did on Coral. 

[LittleFish1976]

4 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Plastic glasses poolside for safety. I didn't notice them used anywhere else. 

 

Did you say you had booked a Club Class cabin? If so you should get the good wine glasses there - we did on Coral. 

Thanks. Yes, I have booked a CC cabin and the Premier package so hoping there's a decent drop. Agree with your assessments above. I've read about people taking their own glasses on Princess which made me wonder how bad they were.

 

I thought I'd also seen they list a French champagne by the glass for Premier - do they really stock it?

[Tripmode33]

4 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

 

Katnook Cabernet Sauvignon. Untried but Katnook wines are usually very nice.

 

 

I can recommend the Katnook.  We have only had the Plus Package, not Premier, but happy to pay the $1 extra for the Katnook over the poor selection of reds offered under Plus.  (Masterpeace Merlot under the Plus was the only red we enjoyed of the limited Plus range.)

The Vines on Grand excellent, but sadly not so on Majestic which is our next Princess cruise.