phroggie

If one made a booking online for a specific cabin, how does one specify "no upgrades"?

Totes agree. For those reasons I so love those cabins right above the bridge. (Yeah, those cabins I can't book.) Since they're out of the picture, for next summer's cruise I picked one of the cabins (most forward on the port side) by the pool on the Sun deck. The corridor with windows is kind of unique on a cruise ship. And those couches by the bar are somewhat of a consolation for not having the loveseat.

Last summer we were in cabin M104 on Discovery Princess for an Alaskan cruise. I can describe the cabin in one word: flippin' awesome. OK that's two words: totes flippin' awesome. No, that's three words and I'm ripping off Monty Python. Anyway, it's a large, roomy cabin and a great sized balcony if you don't mind it being mostly exposed to the cabin above so behave yourselves. I also loved how it's in that cul-de-sac which meant almost no traffic outside the door. It also was convenient in case the captain needed to ask for directions: I could just shout them down to him. I tried to book one of those cabins on next summer's Caribbean cruise but the policy has changed and they're only available if three (or more?) are booking. Bum-mer. And when I claimed I have a split personality which counts as three they wanted to charge the other one a separate fare. These up-sales are getting ridiculous. Regarding access to the balcony, worry not: it was accessible for the entire cruise and if you don't believe me I included a picture taken from the balcony. (BTW: it was taken at 22:45 about six days before the summer solstice and about 6˚ south of the Arctic Circle. That's the midnight sun Ella Fitzgerald sang about.) However YMMV and on the drive home, along the Baja coast, they tend to drive the boats as fast as they can. If there's a 20-or-so knot wind out of the north they may indeed lock them. Enjoy. I usually follow Discovery Princess on the bow cam and also she can be seen from a webcam in Cabo. (She was there earlier today but has since started the drive back to LA.)

As memory serves me, last summer (2023) on Discovery Princess in the buffet, in the same alcoves as the self serve coffee dispensers there was a self serve hot chocolate dispenser.

An observation and conjecture from what I'm reading: When port security confiscates something, it's stored on the ship (as opposed to the port). So it seems that one can appeal the decision to Guest Services and retrieve the item.

The Secret Silk, on paper at least, appears to be a cut above the average show. (Rock Opera doesn't really rock and it's not really an opera.) How does one find out on which cruises it appears?

This is not an authoritative answer, it's just based on something I think I heard somewhere. I'm just posting this in case you don't get a better answer on this forum. You're probably better off Googling sites that are more specific. As far as I know, the heated meals arrive at the table factory packaged and sealed. You need to arrange in advance of sailing (so they can order them) and to coordinate with the MDR. And I would assume that this applies to three meals a day since they gotta feed ya somehow and to keep it simple it's done in one place/deck. (Though guessing from the day that you posted this, you're not asking for yourself. 😉)(A certain line that John Goodman says in the Big Lebowski comes to mind.)(BTW, I would guess that someone kosher AND vegetarian is S.O.L.) The Zim line was completely kosher (with a rabbi on each ship to make sure) but they discovered half a century ago that freight doesn't complain about poor service and discontinued their passenger service.

This is the 21st Century. Anybody judging you because of the shoes you're wearing probably inspired one of the characters in Succession. Being limited in what I could bring, for our 2023 Alaskan cruise I brought only the shoes I was wearing: a pair of black Saucony running shoes. These worked for everything: airports, walking around Seattle, the decks, dining rooms, hiking to Nugget Falls, hour long sessions on the elliptical machine, everything. The longish cuffs on my suit pants even managed to cover the more garish parts of the shoes. Wear what you want as long as it's useable in emergency situations.

Last year, when I booked an obstructed deluxe balcony for two people, I wasn't aware that I was acting in "bad faith". I selected the cabin I wanted and (depending on your view) either paid a small premium for the option or missed out on a discount. Princess (or least their website) had no problem booking it and taking money for only two fares. The fact that there was a loveseat was a pleasant bonus. And, BTW, wife says I'm great at picking cabins and I will continue to prefer to do that and pay a reasonable premium. If Princess now has a policy where deluxe balconies, obstructed or not, are not given out to parties of two, they should make it clear on the website (including the chat window personnel) instead of doing (virtual) bait-and-switch. Thankfully, this there are some wonderful people on this thread who are helping to clarify the situation in ways that Princess won't.

We really enjoyed the jazz trio that played nightly in Take Five. Every night was different, some with "themes" like Latin, Dizzy or Cool like in the pix.

It didn't give me a chance to select the cabin. It went straight to GB when I selected the option to choose-my-own. Since I hate getting phone calls, I've avoided contact with Princess's carbon based life forms so noPVP. It worked fine for my previous cruise. It was for an obstructed deluxe balcony on an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Enchanted Princess. Since I'm not plunking down a deposit and the booking expires today, I'll try again tomorrow morning.

A few days ago I booked a cruise for July, 2024. I specifically selected the choose-yer-own-cabin option (because cabin on our last cruise was awesome). In spite of this the booking became a Guaranteed Booking. Yuk. Is selected your own cabin not an option anymore? Am I booking too early? Did I catch the website on a glitchy day? And the live chat was no help.

We're currently on Discovery Princess. My wife brought a strip like LACruiser88 has. No problemo. (And it's not like she's hiding it: it's out in the open.)

I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure that only longshoremen are allowed to take the provisions off the trucks and bring them through the gangway. A similar situation would apply to luggage. A slow-down or other sanction could scramble a ship's turnaround. Hopefully the tips we pay will be incentive enough for the union to find other actions to take that won't have such a direct impact on their members.

Which ship/day? If is was Discovery Princess on Wednesday, from the bridge cam it looked like it tied up at RRA. Were they tendering due the the rockslide hazard?