HaveDogWillTravel

A727 (and A726) are fabulous very wide full wrap around balconies. They give full side views and aft. The only down side is the door out is on the side so going out and in your cabin is really cold and windy while at sea (unless the wind is in your favor). Once you turn the corner it is wind free in the aft. I loved it for scenic cruising in Alaska. It would be best if they could get the corner and mid suites on the same side so they can open the balconies up. With the port/starboard rooms they will have to keep going into the hallway. It depends on how close (friendship wise) the two groups are. Will each group have access to the others balconies when they have to knock on their door to use it? The folks in the corner cabin get the best scenic sailing days view but on sea days the mid ship suite is best. Even though I had sailed the corner suite for Alaska I chose the mid ship one for Panama as it was always usable.

I’ve sailed to Alaska many times and I sailed the Sapphire to Hawaii last month. You’ve picked a great destination on a great ship congratulations! I also sail forward facing and aft facing suites almost exclusively but for Alaska I’d pick the aft facing every time. The grand suite is really special and you will not regret it. The forward suite balcony may or may not be useable at sea. It’s really up to the weather at that moment which is why you hear conflicting reports. But the aft facing suite is almost (but not entirely) guaranteed to be windless and useable. While sailing out of Skagway the aft is facing north for hours upon hours as you sail down that lovely fjord. Check the University of Alaska northern lights webpage. If the KP factor is 4 or more set your alarm for 1 am and start looking for them from your lovely windless north facing balcony. I’ve seen them twice on 2 different sailings in May. MDR breakfast, lunch and dinner will be delivered to any full suite cabin upon request. But the Grand suite has a dining room table with 4 chairs inside in addition to your balcony dining table. If you experience any difficulty getting thru to room service on your phone (MDR can’t be ordered on the ap) call guest services and they can usually get you someone. If it (or any issue comes up that isn’t easily resolved) continues to be an issue, use the medallion ap Crew Chat feature to ask the Guest Services director to give you a call. It was Dean Haan last month and he was simply amazing! He really ensured every day of our 15 day Hawaii sailing went beautifully. In the 120 plus days I’ve sailed princess since the restart the ap on board has worked well the vast majority of the time. I can understand why someone would complain about it if their one and done sailing had issues, but I’ve got a lot of sailings to compare and have fallen in love with it. The crew chat means never, ever standing in line at GS, love checking my portfolio every day on it!, the locate your shipmate feature is priceless. The Order Now feature can be wonky sometimes (hint always double check the delivery location before ordering). But honestly over all my sailings it really has worked great far more than not. I sailed 20 days in Alaska this year alone and the internet worked fine for what I needed (texts, sending pics and emails, browsing internet) when I needed it. If it didn’t I just put down the iPad and tried later. I’m in Alaska with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world 24/7 so I simply didn’t stress out about internet. Speaking of scenery, this year I splurged on a pair of Nikon monarch 7 10 X 42 binoculars and am so glad I did. I can’t believe it took me this long! The experience was night and day from my old less than binoculars that I’d been using. Food is subjective so no one can really predict how you will feel about it. My experience has been 90% good to great. On the Sapphire last month I had the best lobster tails ever on a ship. (On my aft facing balcony with a gorgeous Hawaiian sunset show) I usually don’t even order them as I’m from the east coast where my mom gave me lobster as my first solid food (not really but you get the idea). If anything isn’t to your liking simply request something else. Have a great cruise!

I agree with @CruiseRaider Since I pay auto grats and no additional cash is expected or required taking the time to know what a favorite crew member is missing from home or what their child loves as a special treat from the US so they can surprise their loved one when they get home is a lovely personal touch. It shows a level of caring and interest and humanity. Whether or not a person double tips in cash or not is entirely up to them. But making an effort to surprise a favorite crew member with a personalized small treat that you have already discovered they truly want is a nice way to say thank you. This is not instead of cash it is entirely separated from cash. I don’t think the average person who sails once or twice a year would get to know a crew member well enough to do this. I sailed on the Ruby pretty much every month for 8 months between Nov ‘21 & June ‘22 (many times with @CruiseRaider) After the first cumulative 30 days or so the crew started to open up about what they really missed. And yes Spam was on that list. Jelly belly’s for a son back home, (the photo months later of him enjoying them was very sweet), pork rolls from port, I think once it was garlic chicken that @Cruise Raiderdiscovered was a big favorite of our absolutely amazing restaurant manager. And sometime it is special chocolates or spicy Doritos. You just get to know what certain crew like organically after spending so much time together. During that time when all crew wore masks all the time, silicone face shields and extra 95 style masks were a huge hit. I had crew thanking me every time they saw me on board for those, even months later.

If it happens to be Josephine (Jo) give her a huge smile from Jacqueline please (if you remember). I know she just started on the Emerald and her last contract was the Ruby. She’s simply the best person, so caring and truly nice.

Thanks for doing the live from. Do you happen to remember the bartender’s name?

Any update on this?

Now that is some serious good news. Thank you for posting it💃💃

No problem. I was hoping there was a post of a travel summary showing the $15 limit. I like others have been told by my CVP that my limit would be $12 even after Feb 20th. Thanks so much for letting me know. Much appreciated.

Thank you for trying to be helpful. As you see in my original post I am aware of how to get to the upgrade option that shows this. However this is not what I was asking about. I am simply trying to find out if @dog‘s post about the travel summary listing drink limits is true or not. The travel summary is a completely different document as I’m sure you are aware. And it’s been posted several times that the drink limits are printed on this document.

Agreed. Even Parducci and Clines have some lovely (weeelll nice is maybe a better word?) budget wines. There are so many reasonable choices.

Thanks but as I originally posted I am able to see this and am aware of it. I was simply wondering if what @dogsaid is true. Are there people with travel summaries showing the drink price limits? As @wowzzand I have posted we have not had this on our travel summaries in the past and I currently do not have it on any of my 8 upcoming booked cruises.

I’m not sure what yours means. Mine has a dash 50 which probably refers to the $50 rate I paid. @wowzzi understand what the package includes. I was asking @dogif someone had actually posted a screen shot of the travel summary showing the $15 drinks price as they have posted several times that this is now in our travel summaries. It is not in my travel summary so was wondering if this is a vocabulary error on @dogpart or if indeed some people have a travel summary listing drink price limits.

This is what all my travel summaries show. My travel summaries have never listed what the Plus package includes…only that I have the Plus package. The only place my bookings show the $15 included is when I try to upgrade in the Payments section of my Personalizer. My apologies if I missed it, but did someone actually post a screenshot of their travel summary that showed the price of the drinks included? Thanks 😀

That is a nice itinerary. Thanks for sharing.

That’s really good to hear thanks. We have a week in Istanbul at the start and a week in Greece at the end and I really don’t want to pack more than 8 days of clothes.

Yes the person I’ve been talking to at Windstar sent it to me as a pdf. I’m attaching it as 2 pictures as it’s the easiest way right now for me to share here. thanks @zentravelerand @r&rdfor the insight on laundry.

Not me! We will have spent 6 days traveling by the time we board. I’m hoping sending that much laundry first day is ok. Would it be better to send it spread out over a few days?

Thanks again to all for first hand experiences. We have the all in package included in our booking. Since there’s a perfectly fine list of gins, vodkas, bourbons listed as included there is no need to lug on hard alcohol. The list of whites and dry roses on board is underwhelming and I am glad to hear that at least some folks have been able to bring on some wines of their liking on the up and up. I'm glad to hear that smoke has not been an issue. We changed to just the 8 day cruise without the land part. We added an independent week in Istanbul at the start and an independent week in Greece at the end. So I also added the laundry package while on the ship. That’s a nice option at a reasonable price.

My friend bought them this past Monday. She finally got them late last night -Wednesday.

If you read the RC carefully you’ll realize it’s only a couple of posters who’ve gone over the deep end. I agree it’s annoying. The other 99% of posters are the usual happy easy going kind.

Yeah, yeah and yeah! What a wonderful bit of news. Now if we could only get a smoke free interior.

Thanks for the feedback. @Ski Mom 2and @zentraveler I was told by a Windstar rep that legend has smoking only on aft deck 8. The itinerary is so port intensive I’m sure the wine situation will work out. thanks again for sharing your experiences 😃

I’ve read thru much of the first 8 pages of the WS boards but haven’t found answers to a couple of questions I still have. We are planning an October sailing Istanbul to Athens potentially on Legend. I’ve read the passenger contract and found the pdf some lovely soul on CC posted about drink/laundry/WiFi/etc packages. I’ve read the WS FAQs. I found a wine list in one post but it wasn’t legible. And I’m aware of the official alcohol and smoking policies. My questions are about actual on board experiences. 1. I know there’s no smoking any where inside but where on the open decks is smoking allowed? I’m worried on a small ship you just won’t be able to get away from it. (Ugh upper aft bar on Celebrity was less than desirable for all the smoke & until recently aft facing private balconies usable at times on Princess due to crew smoking on the aft facing promenade) Especially if there’s someone with a cigar. (Again aft bar area on Queen Mary destroyed by cigar smokers) Smoke really permeates far and wide even under sail. I know it will depend on the specific passengers on any sailing. I could get lucky and have very few smokers on board or get unlucky and have a lot. Knowing where the smokers are allowed will help me decide and also just some anecdotal experiences might be useful. 2. I find it so strange that I am not allowed to bring on more than 3 bottles of wine for an 11 day sailing. The policy doesn’t allow extra even if you are willing to pay corkage. I like more uncommon white wines that are rarely stocked and if I drink a more main stream white (but never, never Chardonnay ugh) it really has to be a mid to upper range one. If I drink, I want it to be lovely not just something I won’t spit out. Is there really no way to bring my own wine on board? And I don’t mean sneaking it. I would never do that. I just want to walk on board like an adult with some nice wine. Thanks in advance for any help or insights you may provide.

The Sapphire had no smoking on the aft promenade either. I sailed her the first 2 weeks of November. Just the small section on starboard aft as usual. What a relief

I sailed on the Royal in M108 in October and loved it so much I booked it for this month as well. The deck furniture is padded teak and was never tied Dow like in the sky video. I brought my own zero gravity lounger on board and would star gaze nightly. It’s really dark on top of the bridge! On a 12 day Mexico riviera sailing RT out of SF I was able to use the balcony 24 hours a day for 9 days. The other 3 days the wind kept me inside. There’s a wind vane you can see from the sliding door that you can use to see how windy it is. Also when it’s really bad the door becomes exceedingly hard to open even though it is facing the side. Best sail aways and sail ins ever. Definitely bring headbands if you have longer hair. 88039276-D0BB-45E2-8647-5E6922BF8512.MOV