TrixieBel

On 3/23/2024 at 5:46 PM, 81Zoomie said:

great wine store at Martin Station,

As a Sydneysider, it’s so cute to see you get the names of places just slightly wrong… 😊 Loving it. And totally hooked on seeing how it all goes! 

Yes there is bag drop at the terminal. You can drop your bag and go off elsewhere

6 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

It's a gated community.  You need to have a medallion hooked up with one of the 20+ cabins along that strip in order to be there legally.  I know you were making a joke, but at least the extra loungers outside the cabanas are padded, unlike the sanctuary.

Except it seems CanadianBurger was able to just walk into the area as he said the doors weren’t actually locked… 🫣

6 hours ago, loge23 said:

We're also booked on a Cabana Mini Reserve on 9 for Oct. 

We've been watching just about every vid we can on You Tube, here, and FB. There is one on FB which is pretty good of room #9244.

There's that anteroom which has glass doors that can be open or closed - when open it's open to the common deck. But there's no place to just openly watch the sea go by while enjoying your AM coffee or PM champagne. The edge is a high glass partition so the best you can do is look through the glass. There's also the prospect of your neighboring guests drifting by your cabana - so basically, no balcony like we're used to on conventional minis. 

Pretty odd design, imo.

If you’re in one of those you can open your gate, take a few steps forward to a comfy seat and sit and watch the ocean and sun?
 

I feel like I’d like those cabins. I’d get my nice cabin. A big indoor / outdoor area of my own. A sun lounge outside that I didn’t have to get up at 6am to “reserve”. And a relatively private larger deck area to relax with drinks. 

13 hours ago, cali-croozer said:

Hi there. We're in a similar room on our next cruise. Regarding outlets,  are there just the 2 at the desk. We are trying to figure out where we will plug in my husband's cpap.  Thanks, in advance. Enjoying the post. 

You may find there’s a “secret” outlet right under the bed. If the bed is split as 2 singles it’s more accessible. 

1 hour ago, Stosh68 said:

I wonder how much this has to do with beginning of "election season".   

 

Gone are the days where you could put up lawn signs, bumper stickers or where a pin supporting your candidate or cause without having wo worry about your car being keyed, house trashed or being physically threatened or worse.  Agree to disagree is a forlorn attitude to a certain percentage of the population and verbally and physically confronting people is becoming more and more common.

 

I can see Princess just not wanting to have to deal with it, and it's just easier for them to ban everything than for them to have to become the arbiters of what is or isn't acceptable, especially when 95+% of the crew aren't from the USA and don't know, care or want to involved in anything political involving guests.

 

It's easy for us to say, sure no "Vote for XXX" signs.   I see plenty of Canadian flag stickers on doors, and nobody gets offended by that.  But what happens when somebody puts up an Israel or Palestine flag sticker that we all know will "offend" a percentage of the population?  You can't possibly expect Princess to have a list of acceptable and unacceptable country magnets.

 

I'm not saying I agree or disagree, I've never decorated my door, but I've considered it for future cruises.  I'm just saying I can understand why Princess would say no door decorations and say it's because of a fire hazard, because it's easier to give "fire hazard" as a public reason instead of "We've found that more and more people have stopped acting civilized over material put on doors, and we're tired of having to get security involved over a bunch of upset Karen's and Kevin's.    

 

 

Pretty sure “election year” is not a huge thing for this global cruise company. As a reminder, there’s many countries where Princess ships are sailing where it’s not currently an election year. And where many people sailing on the ships aren’t American. 

8 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Hi.  Where do you accept the cruise contract on the web version?  All I can do is update my personal details & cruising history…

 

the new app is crap 

Go into your account and Manage my Booking. Then scroll down and find the link that I’ve pointed the red arrow at… 

23 hours ago, Okahukura said:

A photo of the Retreat pool area. And of the confusing toilet lock. You press a button to open and close the door. But that does lock it. You have to choose this option as well. And if you don’t you may get a bit of exposure you weren’t anticipating. 

The person in the pool swinging chair with their feet in the water had their shoes on… 🤢

(I am definitely reminded to never put my head under) 

18 hours ago, Esprit said:

but not of loads of food dishes!🙄

I want the food…. 🤗🍲

On 3/3/2024 at 3:31 AM, Princessfan20 said:

Still waiting for someone who is on the Sun NOW to confirm "how awful the Cabana Minis are" like many have been suggesting here.

 

 I find it surprising that there almost no post of current passengers on the Sun, in a Cabana Mini, who have complained yet, expect for some on these boards who are going off a partial picture of the cabin or cabins from another cruise company's ships?

There’s a woman on board who was upgraded to one of these on this first sailing. She has posted on F..B about not enjoying the experience of this type of cabin. However she is travelling alone and is not someone who normally sits out and sunbathes. So I could see how this wouldn’t suit her. 
 

As a couple who enjoys spending a morning sitting out reading our books. With the occasional dip. This type of cabin, with direct access to the comfy seating and the spa pool looks like something we could enjoy. 

On 3/1/2024 at 12:18 PM, 555 said:

So far I haven't heard an explanation about it. It does appear that the lounges could be used by anyone in that section.

Maybe the access door at the ends is blocked unless your medallion is programed to open it?

Yes. The doors out into that area will only open to people with the access on their card because they have a Cabana cabin. 

On 3/2/2024 at 10:03 AM, alyssamma said:

I'm in Dec, but since that is in the middle I would assume tender also.

 

I don't understand why Celebrity can't give a straight answer about this so I can properly book excursions.

For my sailing it tells us whether each port is a tender port when we go to the option of looking at the daily schedule. Maybe you haven’t found that section to look at online or in the app yet. 

1 hour ago, skennarshead said:

Hi Cool Cruisers,

We'd like to register for the Meet & Greet thank you.  Our names are John and Fay Binns from Lennox Head, NSW.  Looking forward to meeting fellow cruisers on March 16.

 

Hi there. This was my general question about get togethers on the Royal. To register for a specific get together you should find the page for your specific sailing in the ROLL CALLS section of this site. 

We had an invite for the Chefs Table Lumiere on the Majestic last year. What an experience! Honestly was the finest, fanciest, most filling, and most fun meal we’ve had. Definitely no regrets. 

13 hours ago, Charlie_and_Tracey said:

Has anyone been able to log into the website that had a previous account with Princess. My Wife and I have 12 cruises total and we are about to embark on 13, but we cannot see any of the data on the website, it constantly says login attempt was unsuccessful.  I've reset the password several times and I have tried contacting the Princess Technical department with no luck.  Anyone else have this issues? Thank you for any help!

 

 

Reset the password. They changed the requirements for passwords and some symbols that could previously be in your password are now not allowed. 

7 hours ago, Ombud said:

Our 4/6/24 M&G was going to be in Take 5 until we had over 180 participants,  then we were moved to Symphony Dining Room this month. At least we know before we embark! Found out the day before the M&G on the Enchanted Transatlantic that we were moved to Vista Lounge (also 180)! Events Coordinator had an urgent msg waiting for me when I got onboard 😁

Impressive number! Hope it goes smoothly. 

32 minutes ago, EDVM96 said:

DATE:    March 16, 2024 VENUE:   Wheelhouse Bar TIME:   10 am - 11 am

The Royal Princess March 15 Meet & Greet

Thank you…. That makes sense given it looks like a generally quieter, less attended venue, on the Royal. 
 

We had a great turnout of ship’s officers at the one on the Majestic. Will be interesting to see if there’s such a good turnout by officers in a more public area. It was so interesting being able to ask questions of engineering officers etc. 

Can anyone who has organised or attended a CC get together on the Royal let me know which space it gets scheduled into by the events officer/liaison? 

We are sailing on the Royal in 2025. When we sailed on the Majestic in 2023 I organised the Cruise Critic get together and it was in the Solarium lounge area at the bow just past the adult pool. That was a great place to have it. On the Royal that area doesn’t exist.

1 minute ago, NavyVeteran said:

I have cancelled several excursions on Australian cruises and lost money because of the change in exchange rates between Australian and US dollars between booking and canceling the excursions.

Yes. It can go either way depending on the exchange rate. I recently prebooked two specialty dinners for our cruise and my credit card was charged (USD converted to AUD). Then I cancelled both dinners a couple of weeks later as we had decided to cancel and rebook the cruise under a better booking deal. The amount refunded to my card for the cancelled dinners was AUD$30 more than it cost me to book them. The exchange rate was good to me.. ☺️

37 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Sounds odd to me - even for Princess.

The person on the end of the line seemed quite confident in what they were saying. 😎 We like to eat late, which I know is unusual.  We will wait and make our bookings after the final payment is made. 

3 hours ago, 20165 said:

Hi, we have the princess premier option and when we go to book our 2 speciality dining options on the app, it wants to charge my credit card.  Is that normal and will i get a credit or am i doing something wrong??  

Thanks

 

This happened to me. I called the help line. They said that it would happen if our cruise wasn’t fully paid. It’s not. So my choice was to pay for the dinner up front and then go to guest services once on board to get a refund as OBC. Or, not book until after our final payment is made. 

1 hour ago, At Sea At Peace said:

OOOPS #4 – Mast Grill - Precooked Burgers Into Warmer (Long Time)  🍔

 

Last Ooops, but a repeat from Silhouette 10N in December.

 

Precooking hamburgers from 10 to 11:30 for serving from then until 1+ is absurd.  A hamburger, or trays and trays of hamburgers, simply do not belong being cooked that far ahead and stored in a warmer and never even put back on the grill.

…

There are no shortcuts with food and food preparation for quality items, preparation, cooked to temperature, sear and taste; nor safety. Hospitality officers should pay attention to the 'food uneaten' and they'll get a clue.

 

This is terrible practice and a food safety issue. 🤢 

5 hours ago, Thascales said:

Hi all,

Never sailed on Princess before so just wanted some advice. 
We’ve booked a Princess cruise and the premier upgrade means we have two specialty meals available to us.  
When I go to book it on the app, it tries to charge me rather than letting me use the premier upgrade. 
Anyone  one know how we can book it without having to pay? 
 

I had the same problem. Be careful as I used the advice to do via the web where it showed no charge. It still charged me. 
 

When I called Princess I learned that it was charging me because we were not fully paid up. It won’t show up free until you’ve fully paid the cruise and not just the deposit. 

On 2/16/2024 at 8:35 AM, greg898 said:

I have a 2025 booking that I want to move to a new balcony category that's showing $100 higher than my current category on the website today. However, the overall price of the cruise is $1000 more than when I made my initial booking. Princess is telling me I have to pay the full $1000 to get the new category. Does anyone know if there's any way around this? It just seems ridiculous to me since the incremental price different for them is the same whether I'm in my current balcony or pay the $100 to move and then they re-sell my old one at the new fare.

 

Say my original fare was $3000 for the cabin and today it's $4000 with the higher cabin being $4100. Princess will still be getting $7100 in both scenarios whether I keep my cabin or upgrade it.

You don’t say how much deposit you paid… Sometimes the economics can work out for you depending on how you want to play the game of booking.
 

We’ve had a Club Class Minisuite with Premier Package booked for a sailing on a $25pp non-refundable deposit. Latest offer on Princess showed we could book a Penthouse Suite for just $100 more on a $98pp deposit with just the Basic fare. We’ve cancelled the mini and forfeited the $50 deposit in favour of the Penthouse. Will upgrade to the Plus drinks package later. We aren’t huge alcohol drinkers and don’t care about the majority of the Premium perks we now won’t get. And, we will now get some different perks from being in a full suite. Worth it for us. But others might make different choices! 

On 2/13/2024 at 10:57 AM, Sea Hag said:

It definitely is a bottomless money pit - as long as you keep throwing money into it. We don't book packages. The math for plus or premium just doesn't work for us. We also don't spend much on board either, in fact I refer to us as a couple of freeloaders. We don't do many excursions, and we don't do specialty dining much either. We only do specialty restaurants if they're included in a promo. We have a wonderful time on our cruises and don't feel deprived at all. We find that there's plenty to do on the ship without paying extra, and we enjoy getting off the ship and just walking around. I don't know if you'll be able to have a good time without all the extras. Only you know that. If you can't do that, then you'll either decide whether to pay whatever or just not cruise. It's a tough decision, isn't it.

Do you get wifi? Can you just pay for wifi without having to get one of those packages? I’ve been trying to find out - but nothing on the Princess site or app clarifies this…