eatdrinkfly

I just was onboard today for a tour & lunch and she looks beautiful. definitely fresher than the Coral was when I sailed on her a few years back. from the staterooms that i toured it looks like a lot of the rooms have the new beds in place.

I agree that the fitness center with no windows isn't my favourite, but that's not a deal breaker for me. and as a trade-off, it is one of the larger and nicer looking gyms for a ship of that size, so I'll certainly use it.

i was impressed with how large the bars & lounges were... i'm used to ships where there's a bar and then a handful of tables and thats about it. loved the retracting roof on the pool - that will be great for Alaska sailings.

basically my visit made me very excited for my cruise on the Island next year.

I'm in the midst of posting loads of pictures on my travel instagram account eat.drink.fly if anyone wants to check out some pics.

my 2 cents, having sailed the Escape twice.

Cagneys - we didn't eat there, so no opinion.

Teppanyaki - food is good, atmosphere is fun, i could skip it as a couple, but with a group it's a must-do.

Moderano - pretty good. pineapple is great but nothing else blows me away. fun for kids.

Food Republic - this was a miss for me. a lot of food was just okay, and it got pricey fast.

Bayamo - LOVED. eaten there twice, both times great

Pincho - also a LOVE from us. we ordered from there while sitting in the wine bar a couple times.

La Cucina - always enjoyable, good solid option. nothing particularly inovative, but the ingredients and recipes tasty.

Le Bistro - we really enjoyed this, but we like french food. some others in our party found it a little adventurous for them.

no, you would still get it on a transferred booking as long as your rate code is combinable with the group.

the thing to keep in mind is that TAs will not have a group taken out on every single sailing, so if they don't have a group, you don't get the group amenity.

you can ask your TA if they have a group taken out on it, or if it's far enough in advance, they may be able to create a group around your booking.

I've stayed in 1624 on the Equinox and 1632 on the Silhouette and both were great. no noise or specific complaints in regards to the location. we loved that it was so convenient to the stairs - super easy to pop down to Blu for breakfast & dinner.

the smoking is on deck 12 on the port side (so i could see how possibly it could waft over to the odd numbered cabins) although it's glassed in mostly, so i wouldn't think it would be a constant concern, you'd probably just get the odd whiff of it at worst.

I booked on the Island for next year because I wanted to see the new Ocean Medallion program in effect and I read through a LOT of comments/complaints and reviews while deciding on this cruise.

I came to the conclusion that the things people complained about wouldn't bother me, so we proceeded.

And the allure of getting to use the new technology tipped the scales in the Island's favour.

Buuuuuuuut... I'm scheduled to tour her next week, so I'm going to take a look for myself, but it would have to be something really drastic to make me jump ship, so to speak.

that sucks. the skytrain is so fast and easy to get to the airport from the cruise terminal... it's too bad the cruise lines don't tell anyone that because they want to sell their transfers... but at the end of the day, from a customer service standpoint, they should be giving people all the facts. skytrain is faster than driving and a fraction the cost.

I have searched threads but was not able to find anything on this. We booked a 2018 cruise directly with Celebrity a couple of weeks ago - the cabin automatically included the Classic beverage and $300 OBC, no other options. I have only booked one other cruise with Celebrity and did it all online. But looking at a warehouse travel site we recently joined, I see they have the same cruise, same category listed for substantially less than our booking. It appears it does not include the perks. However, the price is much much less than the "value" Celebrity assigns to our perks and also includes a nice cash card plus a speciality dining perk. My question is will they be able to transfer the booking, keeping the same cabin, just eliminating the perks to get the better price for us? We have paid a deposit and the balance is still outstanding. Also, if I transfer the booking, what can I do on the Celebrity website - book excursions, specialty dining, etc? Or will these things have to go through the travel company after the transfer? Thanks in advance for any info!

you can transfer the booking to an agency if you made it in the last 60 days and you are only in deposit.

alternatively if you're only in deposit, you can just cancel it and get the deposit refunded and book with the agency with the better deal.

if you do it that way and want the same cabin, ask the agency to waitlist it for you before you cancel the existing booking and then when it comes back into Celebrity's inventory the agent can grab it.

you will still be able to do everything in the cruise planner as normal, except make final payment online, you have to contact the agency for that.

hope that helps!

And by the way, it is the Canada Line, not Skytrain. If you follow the signs to Skytrain, you will end up in the wrong place.

technically it's both. it's the Canada Line of the Skytrain.

the other Skytrain line leaving from Waterfront station is the Expo Line.

:cool:

i think if Princess thought their clientele were incapable of embracing new technology based on age alone, they would have tested this program on Carnvial instead. lol.

but i find more cruise lines are going away from classifying their guests by age in general and instead by their desires and travel style. which is why you see more families in Princess advertising lately.

Princess feels that their guests are early adopters of technology, which generally is true of a higher percentage of younger people, that certainly does not exclude anyone older from that category.

i was wondering what the delay was!

i saw her when i came into work, but usually the ships are gone or just leaving by the time i'm headed home...but my coworker on the late shift said she was still there when she caught the train.

glad it wasn't a medical emergency.

And my point is that Princess is very much banking (literally) on the fact that your viewpoint is in the minority. Longtime Princess cruisers are going to continue to book. And if the ***** enhances the experience, fine. But this isn't about enhancing the experience of Platinum Members. This is about attracting new customers who will see the Princess experience as being different, technologically superior and overall "cool". No company spends hundreds of millions of dollars with the expectation of the reaction being "if it's there, it's there". An initiative like this can only get greenlighted if the proposal can show a positive return on investment. That +ROI can only come in three ways: 1) Savings in overhead; 2) Existing passengers spending more money; and 3) Attracting new customers. "If it's there, it's there" doesn't fit any one of those purposes. Thus, Princess cannot be hoping and expecting that that type of reaction will be the norm. If it is, then ***** will turn out to be a huge failure and heads will roll.

this is basically my husband and i.

we're on the younger side for princess (under 40) and we're very much lured in by exciting new technology.

i saw a comprehensive presentation on the Ocean Medallion program and it excited me and had me sold on experiencing it.

i absolutely love the idea of ordering food & drinks via an app, being able to pre-reserve things on the fly, super personalized service and not having to line up for embarkation. etc.

it addresses a lot of the "problems" or drawbacks of cruising to me... waiting in lines, waiting for service etc.

i was told that based on the success of the *****, eventually all Princess ships may have it and it would expand to other ships in the Carnival umbrella. and since it's the same company developing it that does the Disney Magic Bands, it's probably going to show up on Disney ships too... so it sounds very much like the future of cruising.

The Island is going in for a routine 10-day dry dock in November. The wiring for the Ocean Medallion will be done then. It doesn't require a major refurbishment.

 

I was on the Island for nineteen days last November. I didn't notice or experience crowding or anything I haven't on other ships. The redesigned buffet is really, really nice and well-designed. It's open and easy to get around. Yes, I think the redesigned aft of the ship is ugly but overall, I think she's still a lovely ship and I wouldn't hesitate to sail her again.

thanks Pam. i often read complaints about overcrowding on ships and generally i don't feel impacted, (NCL escape is often sighted for that, and i've sailed her twice with no complaints)

i am interested to see what else is done at dry dock besides the ***** wiring. i understand that alone is a pretty major undertaking as the entire ship is fit with sensors.

We're booking an Alaska southbound for 2018 and we had decided on the Island Princess because we really wanted to see the Ocean Medallion program in action.

But now I've been reading posts and reviews about the Island being crowded after the last refurb and it's making me second guess our pick. (I've previously been on the Coral and loved it)

So I'm curious to see if people think the new Ocean Medallion positives will outweigh the negatives of the Island... any opinions?

I'm also assuming that to get the Island Princess ready for the Ocean Medallion, it will need a pretty major refurbishment again... so, perhaps they'll address some of the issues created by the last refurb.

Wow, this is a large question. Search Princess cruisetours. If only going one time, I would select the tour with the most complete and longest land portion you can afford coupled with sites you wish to see. Any ship is good, but personally I would not book the Island Princess. The Island had a major renovation which removed large public areas and replaced them with cabins for around 200 extra passengers. The Island also does not have an International Cafe.

Interesting... we were looking at a cruisetour next year specifically on the Island because it's the only Alaska ship that will be using the Ocean technology.

Our last cruise on her was Nov 2015, the Daily shows that it opens at 11:00, and we were there for our first Dog Fish 90 before 11:30.

Food service did not start till 6:00, and this is what is listed in the Daily.

EW

For some reason the daily showed that food service didn't start until 6pm, but we ordered lunch there twice. So the daily was incorrect (sailed 24MAR2017). If the Gastropub is open for bar service, they were taking food orders.

Have been unable to find the answer to this so far...is the Gastropub open for lunch on embarkation day?

i don't believe so. it was open most other days for lunch though.

the truffle fries and burger in the Gastropub. well worth the $12.

book it now.

we just did it last week and booked it about 3 months before we sailed. it was sold out about 2 months in advance of our cruise.

there's such a limited amount of space on the yachts and you don't want to miss it. it's the best excursion we've ever done, hands down.

as others mentioned, explain the situation and they'll do their best to accomodate you.

we requested to sit in the same section because we loved our server and a few times we had to wait, but they gave us a pager and we went for a drink, not a big deal... maybe the longest wait was about 25 minutes.

i'm always envious of those that get window tables... i've had 22 nights of Blu dining (plus 22 breakfasts!) and we've never once been lucky enough to score one. on our last cruise, please were lined up before the doors opened in order to snag them.

Was tuna still on there?

If I remember correctly it was an entree twice and an appetizer twice.

My favorite meals!

yup! i remember at least 2 appetizers and 1 main of tuna - might have been 2 mains but i can't recall exactly.

we were on the same cruise in Aqua and agree wholeheartedly. the Blu experience made our trip.

i've done Aqua before but this time the staff on the Equinox and new menus really knocked it out of the park.

we also dined at Tuscan Grill which we regretted (got sucked in by a 30% off offer - not a great meal) and Murano which was fantastic (was a free meal gifted to us) but in the future we wouldn't bother with any specialty dining and just stick to Blu.

massive thumbs up from our crew.

just got off the Equinox yesterday in Aqua and there *ARE* indeed new menus.

the waiter told me that Blu runs on a 14 day rotation of menus and they now have almost 50% new items on them.

so it's not completely different from my last time in Blu in 2015, but i saw many old favourites and lots of terrific new items.

our group of 4 felt that the menu on this last cruise was better than in the previous cruise. tons of seafood dishes and a few classics with an update.

if you were assigned category 9, then go online and make a fake booking to see which category 9 staterooms are available.

call your travel agent back and tell them you want to swap to that room and for them to call celebrity to make the change.

as others mentioned, you won't be able to move beyond that category 9, but you can move within the category at no charge.

your agent may not be aware that they can do this because "officially" the line is that you can't move once assigned a guarantee cabin.

hmmm... i'm interested to try the world class bar.

we found the molecular bar drinks to be way too sweet for us and often only took one or two sips before discarding them.

i'm more interested in classic cocktails without a lot of sugar added, so it sounds like it will be up my alley.

we rented bikes in key west and it was awesome.

we were able to get around the whole town easily, went to the beach, saw all the sights and then dropped off the bikes and hit a bar before going back to the ship. it's super flat, so it's not a challenging ride at all.