CAZephyr

Great idea! Hope it is true. We're in traditional column. Early/Late matters little to us.

I, too, do the math. You eloquently put into words what I consider when contemplating the package. Our last cruise spanned celebratory days: Superbowl, Fat Tuesday, and Valentines Day. I left the wine at home and ordered wine from the menu; I ordered single malt scotch at the bar or via Ocean Now, instead of, drinking what was available in the room; brought espresso infused drinks to the room with a pastry instead of buffet coffee. I am perfectly fine with a Blue Hawaii embarkation cocktail and less during the cruise. But, for celebratory occasions I will lean toward fun instead of fundamental.

Nice. Congratulations on finding an alternate Cruise Line that fits your needs. Cheers.

I think you will find that the internet is just slightly faster when in port while many passengers and crew are ashore. We were able to see our Gd perform in 720 res at an event in Florida in early May while docked at an Alaskan port. As passengers returned to the ship I notice a slow but steady fall-off to the point that we were unable to see other performances in her group. First there were slow freeze frames...then nothing, even at the lowest res, over the hour before departure from the port. You may want to test that at a port before relying on the ship's internet when it counts. The Medallion App stopped working toward the end.

Same with us. Royal Princess took Ruby Princess' place as the San Francisco based ship after we booked Mexico Riviera cruise last year. I was dissatisfied with our assigned location on the Royal Princess, so I cancelled the original booking and booked in a better location. The old booking number continued to be displayed in the Medallion App. After six calls to Princess, and the obligatory reinstalls of the software, the problem was resolved. I finally got a tech that took charge of the help ticket (I actually insisted on a help ticket number earlier in the process) and truly escalated the ticket. The old booking number appeared Thursday; the correct booking number appeared Friday without a reinstallation of the Medallion App software. So, that tells me the ticket finally got to the right level. I was able to make dinner reservations yesterday. On one of the (plus or minus) six calls, a tech suggested we wait until embark day to resolve. You may have to let them know that resolution is unacceptable....that you want to be able to make reservations, get your medallion, etc. ahead and have a smooth embarkation day. Good luck.

It fooled me. I see this now.

Restart your browser to refresh, then check Princess.com again. The availability of cabins on cruises seems to "zone out" if you go in and out of the cruise schedule lately. Unsure why. I restarted my Chrome browser and saw many cabins available throughout the ship for June 9 sailing.

Is your Medallion App on an iphone or android?

Thanks for posting. Good to hear you will stay in your original cabin. Nice that you live an easy drive, just over the hill. Hope you both have a speedy recovery.