arctickitty

@Anastas617 the way I understand it is there isn’t a blanket fee for room service, but some items have a charge. The cost of some of the for-charge items may be waived by your package. If you don’t have a package, the basic food items like burgers, salads, soup and desserts are free, listed as “complimentary” in the app. There is also the breakfast card that you can hang on your door at night to have breakfast ordered for you. There is no charge for this service.

Regarding the hot chocolate mystery and also the chocolate cookie flavor mystery… I went to the International Cafe and asked if hot chocolate is included in Princess Plus and the staff member looked up my account and tried it and said yes. And since I have been previously unsuccessful at ordering anything with the chocolate cookie flavor I ordered the iced chocolates cookie drink off the New Grounds menu…and it tastes like a cookie.

Regarding questions about how drinks are charged or comped when ordered via Ocean Now (room service) I have some screenshots to illustrate how to check your order. This shows a free (comped) beverage order of tea and a lovely mocktail. You can also see that with an order you can see if it has been placed, is being prepared, and is being delivered although in reality these buttons are not perfect as we’ve had some orders show up before the “on the way” button had lit up. But for whatever reason they want money for hot chocolate. These figures are visible in your electronic shopping basket before you check out (click order button). You can see that the service charge is automatically added to a non-free item but not to an included item because the Princess Plus package already included the service charge. This shows a theoretical food order with only complimentary items. This shows a theoretical good order with both free and for-fee food items. Note the lack of a charge for the pizza. I thought the pizza costs money but it doesn’t seem to at the moment.

This was my theory as well. Regarding the hallway tables, one has disappeared from our deck but a new one appeared along with a red biohazard bag and a stateroom attendant cleaning that room while wearing an N95.

We will have to go look for that!

Kristoff was back in action in full force making announcements, opening and closing the show, and hosting the Yes/No game show. I’ve not attended a game show anywhere before but we were walking past Explorers and Kristoff just lights up a room so we popped in and watched. It’s very healthy to laugh so much. I think he is funnier than the professional comedians. The assistant cruise director Matt is not as polished but he was really good at tricking the contestants in the game. I haven’t heard who is replacing Kristoff but Special Someone has dared me to go up and ask him and tell him my “followers on cruise critic” would like to know. I do know he is from South Africa, single, has two beagles, and has been with Princess for 6 years. Matt is also from South Africa and has been with Princess for 4 months and has 2 cruises left. Besides Kristoff, I have noticed that while all of the production dancers and singers are very talented, a few of them just light up the stage more than the others. I wish Princess would a do a program like at a traditional theater so you could learn their names and read a bit about their backgrounds. They could do this in the app even if they didn’t want to waste paper by printing it. At times in the shows they announce the names of the singers and I’ve tried to remember them but haven’t retained much. My favorite singer I call dread-hawk because he wears his dreadlocks in a Mohawk and when he ambles onto the stage he lights up the whole theater. I think they said his name is Des. My favorite dancer is Hannah and I don’t know if I’m just prejudiced in favor of her because she teaches the dance fitness classes or not but I think she has an edge on skill above the other very skilled dancers and a brighter and fuller stage presence. We have seen 3 production shows so far and they have wowed us beyond what we expected. Every aspect of the shows has impressed us: singing, dancing, choreography, live music, sets…. There are more performers on stage at a time than I’ve seen on Princess before and they work together so well. Encore had the production singers and dancers, the orchestra, the string duo, and a guest soprano. The disco show and Sweet Soul Music have had the singers and dancers and orchestra. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an additional onboard mystery, spotted in the afternoon on the promenade deck. I have my own theory on this but we are curious what others think.

There’s actually one on the dessert menu tonight!!

Crown appears to not have the ice cream sandwiches in Coffee & Cones as they only have soft serve and the regular coffee drink menu but not the solid ice cream.

First hot chocolate of the cruise! It was delicious and not as sweet as I feared it would be. I believe this had Grand Marnier and Kahlua in it. Special Someone asked me what else is on the list of things to experience! We’ve mostly run through my to-do list so happy to work on y’alls’. (He wants the room service chocolate cake for breakfast). (That’s a legitimate pre-workout snack).

My experience on this cruise is that the costs are clearly labeled in the app. There are some food items with a charge such as pizza and cheese plate. The drinks of all types have their prices listed and when you put it in your basket, it totals it and then subtracts the package you have. In this way I could see that the drinks were getting deducted from being charged even when we ordered more than one at a time. You can also check your account right in the app.

The waiter definitely gave him a funny look but he loved it and all the people around us said they want to order a volcano, too. It was delicious with their real ice cream, a whole banana, strawberries, crunchy jimmies, and lots of fresh whipped cream.

We’ll have to try the room service cake and see what we get… Yes, crew chat is another useful feature of the app. We used OceanNow to have Special Someone’s suit picked up the first morning. Dry cleaning at home costs more $ than it does on board, plus we used OBC. We figured we’d have enough sea days to get it back in time for the first formal night and we did. We used Ocean Now to have it picked up and messaged Crew Chat a few days later when it hadn’t come back yet. It magically appeared after that chat. Also wanted to tell you all that the morning after we sent out the clothes, our steward/stateroom attendant called to ask if the one jacket was missing a button. It was, and we hadn’t thought of that or thought they’d notice it, but we thought it was a good attention to detail on their part that they noticed and checked on it. They then annotated it on the laundry slip.

@Eleanor Rigby 14 I definitely swam out to it during the surf lesson. I was scared beyond belief but I made an angry face and marched into the ocean pretending it was the start of a race. I agree that a coffee drink in a ceramic cup is so much better, but I tend to not sit still much when I’m out and about and they won’t deliver the ceramic cups on Ocean Now. We haven’t tried hot chocolate yet but we will! We were told they don’t have the syrup to make any of the mint chocolate drinks on board but I could ask and see if that’s changed.

@Bettybopp66 Thanks for the reminder! I have advised Special Someone that when he doesn’t like the dessert menu but does have room in his belly, he is to ask for a Volcano and see what happens. Sounds like he is game.

For me the mystery isn’t so much the appearance of the tables outside the doors (the one also had a biohazard bag) but the changes in the names on several doors, eg we didn’t have a neighbor and then we did and now we don’t. The next cabin from there was blank and now has a name.

Next I want to talk a bit about our experiences using OceanNow, the service on the Medallion app to order conceivably anything anywhere. As mentioned by EmmaCruises, you cannot use OceanNow in a laundry room. It is still true that if you try, it will say “service unavailable in this location.” It works for room service almost all of the time It doesn’t work as well out on the open decks. We have Princess Plus and haven’t been charged for ordering multiple drinks at the same time You can see if you’ll be charged for something before you place the order (it will show the total and then subtract your package). You can order San Pelligrino but not Perrier You can order the small bottled waters If they don’t have something in stock you ordered they will either substitute and bring it to you or come and talk to you in person. When we ordered Maker’s Mark we saw in the app that they changed it to Knob Creek. Yesterday Special Someone was continuing his quest to drink beer around the world and they didn’t have one of the beers he ordered and they came to the door and asked if he’d like a Guinness instead. You can customize if you want a drink neat, on the rocks, blended, etc and for many drinks you can customize what garnish you want. When you’re done with a room service tray, there is an option in OceanNow to have it picked up. We use this every time and it’s fast service. I think I’ve seen far fewer trays in the halls on this cruise than any other and I wonder if it’s because people are using this feature. You can also order extra towels, pillows, hangers, etc…. We used it to order bathrobes and got them, but when we ordered hangers we didn’t get them. We folded up our extra clothes instead of asking for hangers again. We have yet to reach the limit on how many specialty coffees you can order at one time. Our specialty coffee orders have been about 50-80% accurate. Their lattes are coffee-weak and they don’t consistently add the extra shots that you can request so we started ordering double espressos and adding them in ourselves. You can add flavored syrup to a latte but not an americano. We have worked our way through the syrup menu (I think) and our favorites are caramel, coconut, tiramisu, and vanilla. They also have lavender, butter pecan, cinnamon, chai…. they told us the ship doesn’t have the mint chocolate on board so you can’t get any of the mint coffee drinks. I’ve ordered the chocolate chip cookie via OceanNow and in person several times and gotten a plain latte every single time, no explanation. You can get your latte hot, iced, blended etc but not an americano But if you want it blended it has to be after 6am because the blended drinks are made by a bartender and they don’t start work till 6am (yes, they came to my door and told me this when I ordered a blended latte at 5am) They have blended drinks on the menu in the IC that they don’t have on the OceanNow menu but you can get any flavor latte blended. So you can order a latte with coconut syrup or caramel for example and order it blended and get the same thing as the blended menu options in the IC. But they don’t have the cherry syrup on OceanNow so you can’t get the Black Forest. This is a tangent about the coffee but the espresso at Coffee & Cones doesn’t open until 11am so the IC gets very busy 9-11am. Additionally, they don’t have a blender at Coffee & Cones so you can’t get the blended drinks there, only IC or room service. The bar menus on OceanNow are very extensive. Different bars have different menus but the OceanNow list seems to be the longest. I’ve ordered some drinks on OceanNow in order to try them and not have to figure out which bar has them or not. We’ve had some really fantastic burgers for breakfast thanks to OceanNow. Yes, so read that right. Burgers for breakfast. I had the idea our first port day to order a burger and a fruit plate. You can order up to 3 additional toppings on your burger so I selected extra lettuce, extra tomato, and some mayo. It also came with extra onion. They left the bun open with the burger with cheese on one side (you have a choice of cheese or no cheese but not the type of cheese) and the veg on the other. The mayo came in a little dish. So did the ketchup another day we ordered it. It was a perfect breakfast combo of produce, carbs, fat and protein to fuel us for a busy day. Another good favorite has been the Greek Salad. It’s not as good as what they serve in the MDRs but it has real feta and big chunks of bell pepper and good olives. I didn’t see it at first but on the burger if you scroll down you can choose a side: coleslaw, fries, or chips. I got the coleslaw once and it came in a tiny condiment dish but it was delicious. Mayonnaise is one of my favorite food groups. The fruit plates have been fresh and beautiful. One even came with a strawberry! Well, that’s the random OceanNow observations I have in my head at the moment. I’ve been using my stabilizer muscles on the treadmill as I walk and type as the ship heaves and hos. Reading and posting on Cruise Critic is one of my favorite things to do to pass the time during lower intensity gym work. Having the free balcony upgrade has made room service make more sense. There’s no way we would have used it as much with an interior room. I would have gone to the IC for our coffee. For me it’s helpful because they can deliver it while I’m putting on my compression gear or doing yoga. We also wouldn’t have used it for drinks like we have without the Princess Plus package. We do not live extravagantly at home and generally dont even travel as extravagantly as this cruise, but we like to try new things and try everything so the package has made that possible. We are not forcing ourselves to order things “to get our money’s worth” but just having a good time while the good times last. Happy to answer any questions on OceanNow. I haven’t screenshotted everything but I’ve taken a good number of them and will post them eventually. If there’s something specific you want to see from the app (or any other features of the app) let me know. It’s an easy thing for me to do when I’m lying down “stuck” on my leg pump or when I’m doing an easy workout (which I need a lot of…we were lazy yesterday and I only got 13,000 steps). We can also take “requests” of things to try if you have a favorite I haven’t mentioned! Or something you are curious what it is like! Mention it and if it fits into our sea days, I’ll give it a whirl.

Kristoff is baaaaaaack!!! His smile was out in full force at Zumba and so were the passengers. I like Hannah the production dancer’s classes, too, but I’m glad Kristoff is back. Kristoff seems to be doing the same songs in each of his sessions but in a different order, mostly different genres of Latin music. Hannah uses a lot more pop songs with female vocalists eg Cher & Christina Aguilera. Yesterday for one song, Hannah told us it would be a bit “show girly” and she hoped we could embrace it and make sure to shimmy our cha-chas. For any male who thinks shimmying your cha-chas is only for females, they need to go see Kristoff shimmy his cha-chas and wiggle his hips and pump his booty during his Zumba classes. He has a straight up and down build like a Roman column but he has full access to all of his rotations. I really must get up earlier so I can get there on time and get up to speed. For those who like dance classes, Hannah is teaching a Latin dance class today at 1pm. For me that conflicts with ukelele class, but I bet it would be fun! On the subject of mysteries, on about the fourth day of the cruise a little table appeared outside the door of a balcony room on our deck. As expected it would pile up with room service plates throughout the day and one day there was a red biohazard bag. Later the same day the little tables appeared at two other balcony rooms on our hallway. All three tables are still in place, but two of the rooms no longer have names posted. Additionally, when we started the cruise, the room to one side was empty. During the port days, a name appeared. But now it’s gone again. There are other rooms I’ve noticed names appear or disappear. The final mystery is that in the process of searching for a open laundry room, Special Someone noticed that our original room on the Plaza deck now has a name listed on it, when it was blank before. Our theory on that mystery is that it’s a lecturer or performer. Hopefully it doesn’t flood on them!

Quick post this morning as we lost an hour so I am “behind schedule” but I wanted to post an update on Zumba etc and most importantly Kristoff our missing cruise director. He is back! He wasn’t at dance fitness yesterday and Hannah the production dancer said she didn’t know who would teach today, but he appeared at the white & gold love boat party. I hadn’t said anything because I didn’t want to start something, but he’d been missing for about a week. I did not take my own dare at the sailaway parties to ask the assistant cruise director WHERE’S KRISTOFF??? but last night Special Someone did take the bait to go up to Kristoff and chat with him outside Explorers and Kristoff confessed he was feeling “much better now.” Zumba is on the schedule and Kristoff is the one with the Zumba certification so that means he will teach Zumba today or they magically got another instructor so that means I need to go and find out. This is Dancersize with Hannah from yesterday: This was the lowest attendance I’ve seen all cruise.

@JustVinney regarding doing a live, you can do it however you want, a lot or a little. I’ve read a lot of live froms and cruise bloggers who post the full menu and patter every day and give a blow by blow as it’s happening. I generally don’t want to spend that much time during my trip online so I don’t make any promises to do so. I did a live from my last cruise when I didn’t even have internet! I posted highlights during the ports and travel days and then did the blow by blow when I got home. So you can have your own style, make it your own, make it work for you.

Good morning @Hogladyrider The bikes did come with locks. Alfie showed us how to use them and they did work as intended. The two times we wanted to leave the bikes and walk we found bike racks. The two times we stopped to eat we just parked them on their kickstands and kept an eye on them. There are tons of companies that rent bikes in Lahaina but Alfie with Beat Any Price Rentals provides a one-on-one personalized experience.

Good morning @JustVinney It has generally worked for doing Cruise Citric which has been about 90% of my internet usage on this trip. A few times it hasn’t wanted to upload pictures right at that moment and yesterday afternoon it paused a few times but it mostly works. It seems to be able to do about a 3 second video upload but not more.

I think I’ve forgotten to tell you about how we got the bikes we rented in Lahaina. I think I did tell you we met some guy (Alfie) at his house and got them from his driveway. A good ways into our ride, I was enjoying myself so much that I asked Special Someone how he found and selected the bike rental place he chose. We’d seen dozens of rental bikes lined up at different companies after we’d picked up our bikes. So how did he find the guy with a garage? Special Someone: I clicked on it Me: You clicked on it? Special Someone: Yeah, I clicked on it Me: What’s our bike rental called Special Someone: Beat Any Price Rentals Me: You’re joking me Special Someone: no I’m not Me: there’s no way, you’ve got to be kidding me Special Someone: no, I’m serious, that’s what it’s called Me: you rented our bikes from “Beat Any Price Rentals?” (I take off his sunglasses to see if his eyes are truthful) Special Someone: here, I’ll show you the receipt: Me: (peers at Square receipt on his phone) reads: Square receipt from Beat Any Price Rentals. Wow that’s crazy. Folks, 10/10 recommend. https://www.beatanypricerentals.com

IMG_1348.MOV I’m sure that no one but me is aware that we’re not following my usual posting pattern of me posting just the highlights during the trip and then telling the stories afterwards. This is because I really dropped the ball on my journal this trip and I’m worried that I’m going to forget everything that I didn’t write down. We felt like having a rest day today so whenever there’s been open time, I’ve been writing up Maui before I forget it. Here’s some more cattle egret footage from Kaanapali.

Where were we? Oh, that’s right. About to eat tacos in Lahaina. This food truck park had Thai, Filipino, fruit, poke, and some others, but everyone was eating at Tacos y Mariscos las Isletas. The chips were fresh and delicious. The red salsa was hotter but both were yummy and they told us to ask for more if we needed it (we did). I thought we’d get fish and shrimp tacos but Alfie said his favorite was birria and since the theme of the day was to blindly trust some guy we met online, we compromised and got fish and birria. Special Someone also wanted a California Burrito, which I didn’t know was a thing, and I thought it would be wayyyyy too much food but remember, I said, fine, just make sure we have enough room for a fruit bowl. Haha. Not. The tacos were incredible. The burrito was yummy but the tacos were better. Get the tacos. Special Someone was impressed how packed they were; much bigger than typical little street tacos. By the time we got done with all that, fruit was not even something we could think about. Special Someone sensed I still needed more of a break from the sun so we went to one of the malls and wandered around without a plan. The Friends of the Library have a little bookstore, which is cool. We went in Hilo Hattie’s and ABC to see what they were and also went in a bunch of stores looking for cuff links but didn’t find any. I’d never been in stores like Abercrombie before and we came out and I said blech, everything is beige in there, it’s too perfect. (The search for cuff links has been happening because most of Special Someone’s stuff is in storage from him moving before he went away for work and he has no idea where they are.). Probably covered buried in a snow drift. We also went to Foodland to get some aloe for my sunburn, success. I still felt half dead from the heat and eating too much but Special Someone wanted to get back in the saddle so I gave it a shot and immediately felt better. We rode back to Kaanapali the same way at first, Front Street to the highway to the beach path but when we got to the Hyatt we took the right fork and got on the Hyatt’s beach front path (not allowed to ride the bikes there, Alfie told us to walk them). Goodness Gracious have I never seen a resort like this before. I don’t know how to describe it but it was like this place was all pumped up on steroids it was so fancy and intense. I’ve never stayed in a resort but have walked their grounds from time to time but I just hadn’t ever seen one like this. If I wasn’t self conscious I would have walked around with my jaw dropped and my mouth hanging wide open. It made the Marriott in Nawiliwili seem tame by comparison. We had a bird detour at one point and watched a cattle egret eat a lizard. That was pretty amazing; it was only about 2 feet away from me when it did that. I am sorry to report that I didn’t take any pictures of the lizard meal except in my mind. (Later I looked in my bird book and we understood why these birds aren’t afraid of lawn mowers: they eat the bugs that landscapers turn up! We’d seen one in Honolulu unphased by a riding lawnmower and thought it was strange for a bird to be comfortable with such noise. In Kaanapali we’d seen one literally following around a man using a weed whacker and I’d thought wow, what a fearless bird, but now I get it. What a hungry bird. When we got to the Sheraton, we started looking for Black Rock so I could jump off a cliff. It wasn’t obvious how to get there and we took a lot of wrong turns and went in a lot of places we probably weren’t supposed to be, but we eventually found the beach that led to Black Rock. I saw it and while it wasn’t very big or very physically imposing, I wasn’t too enthused with the idea of jumping off a cliff anymore because, quite frankly, I don’t want to die. I used to have a debilitating fear of falling and getting hurt and falling is still my #1 fear in life but I’ve been purposely working on it for a few years and making myself do things that force me to push past it, but once we got to the beach, Special Someone noted the time. I said, I think we can make it, but he thought we’d be cutting it too close and didn’t have enough time. I started to think it through and then agreed we didn’t have enough time! So I was off the hook! Without having to say I was too scared! Or saying I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to be wet for the return ride and standing in line for the tender. Well, what a tender line! We returned our bikes at 4:30 and walked around a bit and went to look at the tender line and it was down the street and wrapped around and back up again. So, as it turned out, we would have had plenty of time for me to jump off that cliff, but I was glad I hadn’t because my compression would have been wet for that entire wait in line. They seem to still work when they’re wet, especially if I wear several of my layers, but they don’t work as well and then also they’re not quick dry, so that would have been a very, very long time to stay wet on dry land. Anyway we did like the others and went and sat under the banyan tree and listened to people argue about whether it was one tree or many. We eventually got in line. A lot of people on board were cranky about how long it took to load, but there’s a simple solution to this problem: if everyone got on went to the farthest seats and sat down, things would go much more quickly. But nope, people like to spread out and pick their seats and leave the last 4 people to climb over them like we did. It’s ok, we’re limber enough. And then the crew started loading mobility scooters and the passengers started getting really cranky. And then the crew started loading some of the shoreside gear like the mats and signs and some of the passengers got incredibly cranky. It was a lovely if bumpier ride ashore. Back at the ship, the cranky passengers had to wait for the crew to unload all the gear and scooters and then they got a titch pushy but then I heard an “ooooh” like “ooh and ahh” and I looked and saw a whale. So I sat my butt down and looked out the window and saw a mama and baby out doing their thing and I had a wonderful time watching them. It was about 6:30pm when we made it aboard.

@Sunviking90 it was tons of fun. You could ride way more intensely than we did or take it much slower. You can reach some nice looking snorkeling areas with just a few miles of riding. Special Someone may have acquired the spandex while he was away but I haven’t seen the full getup yet. I’ve been resistant to it because I have to wear all the compression so I’m like what’s the point?