VibeGuy

Oh. I have. At Peace Arch. I had a photo in my phone of my front page. Cleared in 30 seconds. My companion was travelling on an expired passport. Same.

Bistro SLM and the Salty Dog Gastropub both had licensing deals with name chefs. Rudi is an employee. My cynical side says they don’t want to pay to renew the licenses with French Dude and Ernesto Whatshisname, same as dropping Curtis Stone when the agreement ran out. Further into my cynical side, even with the less-than-ideal circulation of the SLM space (speaking for Discovery), I suspect they can jam it every night with the popularity of Sabatini’s, regardless of location. I actually like the idea of creating a unified offer between Gigi’s, Bellinis and Sabatini’s. Deeper still into my cynical side, I don’t think the deal with Salty Dog of Hilton Head is purely coincidental. I think they have a solid brand that has an appeal with about a 50 mile radius and among east coast golf vacationers and that’s about it. Either Princess went looking for them, so as not to have to spend much on a rebrand, or someone went looking for the intellectual property counsel at Princess and said “Uh, ‘scuse us’. Isn’t the former Trident Grill already branded as Salty Dog on some ships, leading to some confusion between the gastropub paid venue and the topside burger stand?

In a first for Cruise Critic and the Princess forum in particular, the first two answers are correct and call out the one odd exception - Skagway tours that go into BC or Yukon. Note that *independent* travel from Skagway into Canada does not require a passport - it’s just an agreement with the tour operators / rail line to speed border processing with the limited available resources. One minor note: the answers provided apply to US nationals with original or certified copy raised-seal government-issued birth certificates. Those issued by the hospital or from outside the US don’t count. There will inevitably be a barrage of people saying you *should* have one for a wide range of hypothetical situations that essentially never apply to Seattle closed loop sailings. If something happens and you get offloaded in Victoria, you can literally walk or roll onto a ferry and be in Seattle in a couple of hours with no passport required.

It’s not inside the port boundaries.

If it triggers an email to the booking that you reply and attach your proof to, I could see it working.

And the hot is rarely so hot as to be impressive. It’s tempered down to “hot shower”.

And a reveal at long last. Sweepstakes for a $3400 Princess gift card - enter by placing an order via the Whataburger site or their app.

Requiring people to hold the stock after the award of the shareholder benefit would violate securities law. If Carnival Corp wanted to tighten up how far in advance you could apply for the benefit, that would be legit, but they’ve actually let the lines go the other direction with people able to apply before the previous written 90-day policy.

GEO satellites get parked where the paying customers are and there’s just not a lot of paying customers in the middle of the Atlantic so signal strength is marginal and bandwidth is limited. So the fallback position when there’s no MEO asset (the default on Princess) is worsened by geography. It’s a combination of astrophysics and business. The MEO satellite system Princess uses is O3B and they have wildly oversold their capacity. To try and maximize capacity into the busy shipping lanes and government users in the Med, they concentrate bandwidth into those areas at the expense of users in less populated areas like the middle of the ocean, by beam steering. This especially affects maritime users who are trying to lock on a moving target from a moving platform, and the target is minimally throwing RF their way. O3B knows they have a problem and is launching another constellation of better MEO satellites. They were first delayed by COVID and then delayed by economic sanctions against their very Russian launch partner. They’re now partnered with SpaceX for launch capacity and are only like three years behind schedule at this point, relying on a direct competitor for rides to space. They have got two of the next eleven birds up and have launches scheduled every few months for the rest of the year and in to 2024. Which is a long way of saying that Princess can finally live up to the promise of the best WiFi at sea by 2019 standards sometime in 2024. Starlink is not a panacea but could dramatically improve things. Adding it to the existing fleet and integrating it so that data in and out takes the highest performing route based on real-time conditions isn’t exactly the same as plugging it in to home WiFi. I’m surprised to hear it being installed at Princess before Aida and P&O and Costa are finished because they are, by far, even more impacted by SES’ abject failure.

Eggs, lettuce/leafy greens, frozen potato products, poultry and cooking oils were disproportionately skewing food costs for every foodservice operation in North America but the National Restaurant Association thinks we are in a downward trend at the moment. I would not be surprised to see at least a dollar of that delta be on just those five commodities. Fuel has to be just killing Cunard/Costa/AIDA/P&O with the situations there and their particular mix of itineraries and hardware mandating cleaner, scarcer fuels in a challenging environment for LNG and low sulfur diesel/MGO in Europe. Carnival used to have a fairly sophisticated hedging strategy for fuel - I wonder how much of that they’re really able to do with their cash and credit picture these days.

I feel for the people who scream “SCAM” about every new thing that comes up - Princess Promotions, the Payee-Managed disbursement portal for ANZ refunds, the resumed move-over offers. Hell of a way to live.

Weird that Adora gets new ships. One would assume the 30% equity partner has to contribute capital to such things.

Oh, not just *F* - premium transcon and intercontinental F. The separate-check-in-lobby stuff. See also the usual Arabian Peninsula suspects. Separate check-in lobby with seating, private security screening lane that dumps you directly in the lounge. Not *frequent* fliers necessarily - high-profitability segments. When they were giving it away on the domestic Flagship transcons I got spoiled. I’d even fly out of MIA. *shiver* I’m salty about Alaska restricting lounge access to paid F with at least a 2100nm same-day segment length. I’m merely pointing out that some travel companies are back to systematically putting on the dog for high-transaction-value customers and I think it behooves Princess to get out in front of this as they improve all aspects of the full suite experience.

Like, there’s a literal reason (APHIS rules) that they can bring out danish, but not tea sandwiches. Off-site check-in gives Princess a lot more control over the situation. I might actually be feeling unattractive pangs of *envy*. Heaven forfend. Princess is lousy at identifying and coddling high-value customers before boarding - not just relative to peers, but relative to the travel industry as a whole. There wasn’t a single port where suites or Elite status does anything meaningful between the kerb and immediately prior to the gangway. If you’re really dropping coin, even the big airlines are taking better care of you at their major hubs. See also Flasgship First check-in which is about the most civilized travel process available. Or how an increasing number of luxury properties are doing away with check-in desks. Princess isn’t under a government mandate to screen prior to boarding so there’s no reason they can’t move this into the offsite facility if it takes off. At the per diem of suites these days and the relentless increase in the number of Elite customers entitled to a boarding lounge, it’s the same thing the airlines face - they’ve had to build something nicer than the membership lounge for the really top tier business. As Orwell said, some animals are just more equal than others, and I’m all for coddling the stuffing out of the animals paying for full suites.

Bottomline is a leader in this space and their ethics and competency should be seen as unquestionable. They handle check disbursements for companies much more august than Carnival Corporation.

For guests who cruise a week or two a year and are comparing to land vacation costs, cruising remains a terrific value. Carnival as a brand is the most poised to benefit from this kind of price comparison because of their diversity of home ports - the savings of driving four people to the pier vs flying them to the pier is a competitive advantage. I think cost pressures are certainly a factor and I’d rather see ten points in occupancy than just ten points in revenue, but the operating margins can absorb some further stress from fuel and labor. Almost everything wrong at Carnival Corp is due to the debt and will be for a decade to come.

Directly out front on the sidewalk, or, if you’re doing stuff in downtown/Pike Place Market, use the skybridge to connect to Western Avenue and they could meet you there.

Because they can’t get the jar open with just one claw!

I’d be very interested to hear what happens at the terminal when you’ve checked in this way - my fervent hope is their shuttle drops you in to the secure side and your next stop is the gangway. I would never ever pay extra for early boarding as sold on Carnival and HAL, for example, but the equivalent of being able to use the corporate terminal at the airport rather than the scrum of the airline desks *is* something I value. I don’t need reservation tweaks, I’m not trying to find the perfect lounger in the Sanctuary (or my vacation will be RUINED) or a complimentary danish, but a comfy seat and nobody (staff or other guests) yelling and not having to schlepp my hand luggage or deal with people who can’t queue for bag drop? The single best check-in I’ve ever had on Princess for a full ship was in San Juan, of all places. Arriving passengers were welcomed inside regardless of their scheduled check-in time, into an air-conditioned area with chairs for everyone, a short distance from the kerb. There were clean restrooms and helpful people from the line and I vaguely recall concessions or at least vending. One row of seats at a time were called to go through security, hit the Duty Free, and then complete check-in. It was so well-organized and pleasant. I miss that.

Does anybody think about the poor lobsters, trying to open a jar of pickles with just one claw? Of course they don’t. (yes, the cold seafood display (especially on ships with Café Caribe) was a thing of wonder)

Given that there are fewer than 60 full-suite guests on any sailing and they can offer a substantially better experience than the in-terminal one, I very much think this is a step in the right direction, especially with Sun having more suites and more of a ship-within-a-ship experience. Having Princess shoreside employees to fix any last minute glitches rather than contract pier staff, not having any rent-a-cops yelling at your most valuable passengers when they’re queueing for security, opening early enough for guests coming in on the first wave of flights? Perfection.

Yes. It’s the other end of the building where the Walgreens is. Across the side street from the Holiday Inn Express.

Yup. The space in question has been controlled by Princess for a few years now and was formerly used in part to demonstrate Medallion technology to industry and press. Here’s the view from Google Street View from a month ago. Note the sign. And the logo on the right side of the upper windows . . .

So one moved off sell in the last 24 hours. Still six out of 21 saying buy, now three out of 21 saying sell what you own. Such a ringing endorsement.

Interesting. The written policy is that full comps are not eligible and I’m aware of people getting denied over it. Congrats.