patrickmoran

Selecting an arrival time is meaningless in my experience with 4 post-covid cruises. Show up when you want and join the queue.

I cruised on the Regal (Nov 21), Emerald (Dec/Jan ) and the Majestic (Jan 22) and on each ship the wifi was fine and Medallion worked as advertised. The wifi on the Regal in April was horrible. I could do email, FaceBook and post to CC (never tried pics) but could not download Prime content or TV shows I had recorded at home. Loading the newspaper was painfully slow.

I was on the Emerald for a 10 day New Years cruise. I thought the condition of the ship was fine. One of my favorite ships.

The problem is not limited to the Emerald. I was on the Regal in mid-April for a Med cruise. slow and could not download anything. P seems to have made a change in March and really messed up their internet service. Went from being fine in November, December and January to super frustrating. Worst internet at sea!

Post-Covid, the wifi on P sucks. Don't know about X now. Cabins on P's Regal are smaller than X's unless you book deluxe balcony or higher category. Drinks on P are much cheaper though if you are planning on including a drink package won't make a difference. No Martini Bar though Vines is nice on the Regal.

P's system does this occasionally. My guess, P gets a new IT contractor or makes an "upgrade" to their system and it seems to lose info, gets squirrelly, etc. I put in the info, saved and off I went to the site. A bit of a pain but no worse than other sites have had me do over the years.

Generally P's cabins will be smaller than X's (no love seat) unless you book a deluxe balcony or higher. Also the balconies are quite small on P's new ships. Post-Covid, except for the Gold Margarita, you may be disappointed in P's drinks. No Martini Bar.

Working off Covid-related credits for cruises and airfare this Fall. After that I plan to take a hiatus until prices return to a reasonable level. Probably some car trips in my future next year.

Get on the ship for as cheap as possible and spend the savings on extra excursions drinks, etc.

Looks like Honningsvag (for North Cape), Norway is as far north anyone goes these days.

Emerald through the Canal. Favorite ship on our favorite itinerary! We were on the E in January (10 day PC cruise) and ship was in great condition. We will be aboard again in September for the British Isles cruise. The food at the buffet was disappointing, especially desserts. It was the same on the Regal in December and the Majestic in late January. The MDR food was good. I was on the Regal in mid April and the buffet food was much better.

Hope springs eternal! P hopes people will suck it up and pay ridiculous prices.

Are you asking about only the drink package? At this point, there is no real advantage to the premium drink package. 90% of P's cocktails and beers cost less than $12. We'll see if P raises their drink prices dramatically on June 1st. Celebrity did that a few years ago when X introduced their premium drink package. You won't pay for the toddler unless he/she orders a steak.

I booked Paul Gaugin cruise for December 2023. I will cancel my March 2023 Crown cruise.

There no charges for food from the IC

How was the wifi performance?

paper

I recently got off the Regal in Rome. Our last day was Livorno. Everyone was off the ship all day. To provide the pre-fly Covid test P had the room stewards in the hall at 6:30 am to 8am. The steward handed handed me the swab and swabbed my nose. He put the swab in a container and took. Documentation of test result was in cabin by dinner. P had a good system on the Regal.

Never got to show. Told to get test. Now P's policy says those using the past infection exception to test will have further evaluation by staff before boarding. So maybe not much time wasted getting embarkation test.

When boarding the Regal in Barcelona in early April, staff ignored the test showing recent Covid infection and made me get pre-boarding test. That delayed my boarding by 40 minutes. I had tested negative before leaving the US to make sure I wouldn't have any problems. That test was not within the required testing frame because of my travel schedule.

I am interested in your impressions of the walking tour of Koblenz. I am interested in visiting the Marksburg Castle but that tour conflicts with the walking tour.

Best Guess: the Crown will continue service until its next scheduled maintenance (~2 yrs?) unless problem become progressively worse. This happened to one of P's ships several years ago. People complained and the ship sailed for quite awhile without the propulsion fix.

What time was dinner? Did people share tables? Our September cruise shows being sold out so I imagine we'll be sharing based on previous Viking cruise that we've been on.

i have not seen any deals post-covid (4 cruises). I am Elite and get free laundry and usually "spend" $35-50 per week using laundry service. Before becoming Elite, we used the self-serve laundries. I would bring detergent. They worked well.

Wear what your comfortable with. Don't worry what the others will think; you'll never see them again. I gave up coat tie on formal nights long ago. Nice shirt and pants now. Never been turned awy.