HaveDogWillTravel

I’ve seen them filming and I don’t find it intrusive. At the champagne waterfall last night they had them wait until all passengers had done it first. The weather has been crazy nice. Hard to believe it’s all going to get crazy. So far my balcony above the bridge has been usable 24/7. Just a light breeze a juvenile masked boobie is flying above eyeballing my coissant

My opinion of this new plus/premier package stuff is that it has put passengers into a 2 class system. Those on the plus are reduced to beggars asking “can I please have a GOOD glass of wine?” “Can I please have a good wine glass?” We are sent scurrying around from bar to bar. Deck to deck trying to find a decent not even great glass of wine included in our plus package.

Stanley is on the Royal going to Mexico with McKinley. They’ve found some great new friends. Stanley will always have a soft spit for his first BFF Josephine from Crooners on the Ruby. Rizzi in Vines Lailen in Vines Delnah in Crooners Orazena at the Elite Lounge Chilling in the elite lounge

@KLM3164yes it’s an M6 on marina. It was windy during sail away but after dinner and a show it was not so I laid on the lounger star gazing. The tailwinds continues on this morning and the deck is quite usable. @dreaminofcruisin. I simply asked and Rizzi in Vines handed me the menu. I’ll be at more bars today and will be asking for menus. I will let you know if there’s any issue getting them. I know last week on the Ruby Josan in Vines told me he didn’t have a menu. They didn’t even have a QR code on the tables as his inventory was that unreliable. @CalLuvsCrusingTooive been through the casino several times and would like to play a little roulette. There’s a ton of slots and I mean a ton and very few tables. There are only 2 roulette tables and they are unfortunately right next to the smoking slots. Smoking is allowed in that area even on formal nights (same on the Ruby last week but the roulette tables were very far from the smoking slots) last night around 8:30 it was too smoky for me to play roulette. I’ll let you know how it goes moving forward. the internet is very slow. So loading this thread sucks if y’all keep quoting am]nd reposting all those bar menus lol. Brought on 8 bottles of nice wine and while not the Riedel Vinum Extremes I did pack on a couple of nice glasses. Although Rizzi in Vines insists that I take a good glass back to my cabin. I went to the Retreat Bar, Mermaids Tail and the Seaview bar. Yes there’s a menu but I didn’t take a photo as they didn’t have any of the wines on it. I was told they only had Canyon Ranch (all varietals). The cocktails were the normal offerings. I am sooooo glad I brought on my wine even though I did get the plus package. I’ll be removing plus from all my future sailings as it just doesn’t pencil out. I still get the excursion OBC, shareholders and FCD so I’m set. A coffee card and a few cases of water ordered precruise are way cheaper than plus even with corkage considered. I’d gladly buy their wine if they had any decent dry whites and roses. If you drink reds you’re a bit better off. The Sauvignon blanc under plus at vines is ok but I really cannot drink the same wine for 19 days.

The vines crew are incredible. Ashley the bar supervisor is a lovely humble person.

I am officially never leaving my balcony as long as the weather allows.

A big shout out to @mrsskyhookfor starting this live from. I tend to post bar menus. The first bar I went to at 10:45 am after an easy and fast boarding was vines. So here are the vines menus.

Wow that’s awesome! I really hope they make that SOP

This what the email said confirming they received my bid. It seems you can Decline after they accept your bid. But you won’t know the cabin number until you pay. For some categories, like M6, there are so few you kind of know where you’ll be. Others not so much. If I’m upgraded, then what? It's simple. You'll get an email from us with the good news up to 3 days before you sail, and then you'll pay for the accepted bid amount via one of the following methods: Pay through your Cruise Personalizer at princess.com Have your travel advisor pay through POLAR Online Call our Contact Center at 1-800-Princess (774-6237) You’ll see your new stateroom number when you log into your My Princess account. (It’s assigned based on availability.)

Great news. thank you for such a wonderful comprehensive review!

I’ve stayed in A729 and A727. I’ve visited L721 and L723. The balcony for L723 is nice but not as deep as A729. As far as the corner suites go A727 is much, much deeper (and is a continuous wrap around) than L721. L721 is so narrow the loungers only fit parallel to the ship wall and the side balcony does not connect to the aft balcony. My favorite is A728 or 729. I don’t have pictures of the lido deck cabins.

We rarely use ship tours as well. We either walk, use public transit/Lyft, book a private guide or rent a car. However last week in Vancouver we learned an important lesson. We rented a car and drove the sea to sky highway. (Beautiful BTW and highly recommended) We started our sightseeing a little past the sea to sky Gondola at Eagle Run near Squamish and worked our way back towards Vancouver sightseeing. The Enterprise folks warned us about rush hour traffic coming back into Vancouver so we started back a little before 2 well within the window to avoid the worst of it. At this point we were 45 minutes from Vancouver. Google maps and Waze showed clear roads. Well at around noon unbeknownst to us (who listens to traffic radio on vacation? We will from now on! Would have saved us a lot of trouble) someone drove the wrong way on the south bound lanes of the highway causing a major pile up with major injuries. We came up to the parking lot that the highway had become and after a bit we turned on traffic radio and heard the highway was expected to be closed until 9 pm. I still couldn’t believe the maps didn’t show this major accident! Looking at the map we saw VERY few options to get to the ONLY other road that would get us into Vancouver. And all of those options were entirely gridlocked. All said and done it took 3 hours to make that 45 min drive. Canadians are very courteous and folks were letting people in even though we all moved at a walking speed. It was all really civilized, no honking or yelling or any of that. Several times we were literally just parked for 10 or more minutes. We had a late sail away (10 pm) so we weren’t too worried about missing the ship but moving forward I am definitely going to check how many alternate routes back are available before heading out next time. I’ll be particularly cautious if we have an earlier sail away.

Last week on the Ruby to Pacific Northwest it worked great. DH streamed YouTube videos and I played wordle, read the NYT, read and answered emails, and surfed the internet.

The disappearing post is so frustrating so thank you for attempting this live from. I type my comments into my notepad. ‘Then go into settings and clear History for my browser (I use Safari) Paste my comments into CC and submit. I usually had good luck with that but even if it still disappeared I didn’t lose my comments. If it was being particularly onerous, I tethered my iPad to my phone once we got to port and use cellular to post. It would be pretty quick as I’d just have to copy and paste from my notepad. I hope you had a good night of rest.

Calypso bar is always open really early.

The aft bar has not been open even once since the restart. I do love that bar and have given up on hoping it would be open. I’ve sailed the Ruby a lot since last November.

This is from my notes on Pacific Northwest sailings. I didn’t get to them as we were in port on a Monday and 2 weren’t open. Then Costco was so convenient I didn’t make it to the highly rated Bridge and Tunnel which is closer to pier. I’m planning on going to them in a couple of weeks when I’m back up there again. Astoria Food and wine/beer stores South Bay Wild Fish House Wednesday-Saturday 12-7 pm Bridge and Tunnel 1390 Duane Street, Beer, wine & Spirits Brut Wine Bar and Retail Shop Tuesday- Saturday 1 - 9pm , 240 10th Street

We just did that for the first time last week. I loved it! The person who buys the 4 device plan shares their name, cabin number and birthdate with whomever they want to share the plan with. Then they use that info redeem (if I recall correctly). Anyway worked like a charm.

Wooohoo!! Thanks! 42%. After 7 days on the Ruby last week at 87% I am so ready for a low capacity sailing. So grateful for your post!

If it’s not too bothersome would you mind crew chatting and asking how many are expected onboard Tuesday when I join you? Thank you very much.

Easy to be lose track with all the title changes since restart. Maitre D is shorthand for Maitre D’hotel. They are the same.

See the officer board in post #30. The title Maitre D’hotel no longer exists. Since the restart the position is now called Director of Restaurant operations (DORO). They are no longer visible in the dining rooms. I’ve met some at the CC Meet and Greets. The restaurant managers now perform the duties we are used to the Maitre D’hotel doing……assisting with table selections, getting dining preferences met and so on.

I just got off the Ruby yesterday from a Pacific Northwest cruise RT out of SF. I bought 2 bottles of wine at the Costco there and when I brought them on board I told security I had them in my bag before the scanner. He literally said it didn’t matter. You can absolutely walk off with a bottle of wine. Nothing prohibits this at a port of call or at disembarkation. I’ve brought wine on without issue at port stops on many sailings. I really don’t think they’d care if it were 3 or 4. But worst case you pay the corkage with hopefully free OBC. On an aside we rented a car from enterprise in Astoria (great service and easy 10 min walk from pier) and drove out to Fort Clatsop, fort stevens historic area, the look out tower and the beaches. It was really really nice. The Costco is really convenient to this outing and I got 2 willamette valley Pinot Grigio rated 90 and 92 points from wine enthusiast (or spectator I forget which) for under $28. Drank them both are thought they were excellent.

I got off the Ruby yesterday. Here are the patters. I hope they post in order. Apologies if they don’t.

@travelin.sistersglad to see you on board again with your bears! I’m excited to board sapphire for my first sailing to Hawaii this Nov 2nd so I will be following along (as often as the WiFi on the Royal allows lol. I’m boarding her Tuesday) If it’s not too much bother would you mind terribly checking if the entire promenade deck is open for walking around? Or have they closed off the aft for crew smoking? Thank you so much for doing this live from!