warthog2608

DW's friends have convinced her to sail HAL for the first time and I was a bit nervous. But this thread has been fun and informative. I'm looking forward to our first sailing on HAL. I tweeted the same and Holland America Line responded and said they "...can't wait to show me what I've been missing", lol.

Exactly this! We love Good Spirits.

Yes, that is probably it. The Good Spirits had them stacked on the back shelf. The bartenders seemed somewhat confused and for some reason they wouldn't hand me a can but told me I had to order it on the app. Once I ordered it on the app it immediately showed up on their terminal and then they would hand me a can. When I asked about them on the last cruise on Discovery in December, no-one had heard of it.

We were on the Discovery in October '23. The Good Spirits bar had these Post Meridiem brand canned cocktails. I asked the bartender about them and he said you have to order them via the app. I found them in the app menu and ordered a couple to go. They are pretty handy as togo cocktails to enjoy in the cabin. When we were back on the Discovery in December '23 they no longer had them, and I couldn't find them on the app. Has anyone seen them on any other ships?

I live close to SF so that is my favorite port, don't have to fly anywhere. But we've flown into Long Beach several times and Uber'd to our hotel in San Pedro and it is easy. As far as the Grand vs the Ruby, done 3 cruises on each and it's a toss-up as to my favorite. I like the covered pool on the Grand, and the Skywalkers on the Ruby. If pizza is important the Grand has Alfredo's while they both have Slice. They both have our favorite hangouts; Good Spirits, Vines, and the International Cafe. I do love sailing under the GG Bridge and always get up early on disembarkation day to look at the bridge as we sail under. Well, I guess I haven't been much help! Looks like you have to list what's important to you as well as any sightseeing goals to make a decision.

For half a dozen medallion cruises I used to go get a cruise card. Not to use, just to fit my wall display. I have a frame, which I think was made for baseball cards, to display my cruise cards. For the first few medallion cruises it was no problem, GS just issued me a cruise card so I could put it in my display. Then things started getting complicated. The cruise card de-activated my medallion so I had to go back to GS and get a new medallion. I gave up after that. My cruise card collection has now become a medallion collection on the fridge.

'Nuff said! This sums it up exactly. Now we always have the plus package but I used to order a couple bottles of Bacardi.

We now know to keep our medallions hidden until we have a chance to scope out the lines. We learned this after the first time when we were directed to a long green line while the people who entered the terminal with us sailed past us in the blue line. Most of the time the green line is shorter though.

We got hit by a major glitch in the Princess EZAir system. We went on a Panama Canal Cruise, FLL to SFO in 2022. Princess EZAir made us reservations on Delta a couple months in advance. We paid to upgrade the tickets to Comfort Class. The Princess website showed our flights and we also got several notifications about scheduling changes. The trouble is, I couldn't seem to bring up the flights on the Delta website. A couple days before the flights I called Delta and they told me that I don't have any tickets! Delta told me that my travel agent (Princess EZAir) cancelled my tickets! Talking to Princess they told me that a "glitch" in their system cancelled my flights. The flights were still showing on the Princess website. Well Princess did some scrambling around and got us tickets on Southwest, routing through 5 airports. We were originally going to arrive the day before the cruise and stay in a hotel in FLL. The new routing got us to FLL the morning of the cruise. We didn't get any sleep the 2 days and we also lost our fees paid to upgrade on Delta and our hotel room. I'll never trust Princess EZAir! That was the first and the last time we'll use that "service". They should have at least refunded us our Delta upgrade fee as well as the hotel room we lost since it was 100% their fault.

Great review and pictures! We were on this same cruise with a crew - Wife & I (Elite), youngest nephew (Ruby), oldest nephew (Gold) and his GF (1st timer) I have been studying the crowd pictures to see if I can see any of us in them, so far no. I'm glad you got a picture of the ship's officers. I always take a picture of the officers board but somehow missed it this cruise. We were on the Discovery 2 months prior in October and most of the officers are different. It's interesting how the dining experience can vary so much from day to day, even in the same mdr. We ate in Ketchikan every evening, and always had great service and meals. Your worst dining experience would have been our worst as well, never had it that bad. Glad things improved for you. Looking forward to another of your in-depth reviews!

Just got back from our first cruise as elite. (Discovery, 12/19- 12/23) I'm sure I read here on Cruise Critic that the minibar could be exchanged for 2 bottles of wine. But when I called room service they were adamant that they would only give me 1 bottle of wine. I tried arguing to no avail. We had plus on this cruise and were traveling with another party who didn't have plus so our gifting them with the mini bottles was like manna from heaven. Did it used to be a 2 bottle swap, or have I been hitting the plus package too much?

We wanted to but the Princess person directed us to the green lane and we didn't have the option. Once we were in the green lane we were stuck there in a large group in a cordoned off long line. What Princess says often doesn't match what Princess does.

In June '23 we boarded Ruby Princess in SF for a 10 day Alaska. We were green lane but it would have been better to be blue lane. There were so many green laners that our line was huge while we saw blue lane people directed to another much shorter line and they were boarding ahead of us. There wasn't any elite lane. Looks like Princess hasn't gotten the new system quite worked out yet.

I brought a bottle of Dictador 20 year rum from Cartagena back onboard the Ruby Princess. It was taken by the person at the alcohol check in desk and I was given a receipt. That was the last time I saw that nice expensive bottle of rum. The last night of the cruise I got an apology card stating that my bottle had been misplaced. In lieu of the Colombian rum they gave me a bottle of some rot gut Australian rum that had an odor like the hotel room with the indoor pool. Misplaced eh? I'm sure it went someplace, someplace I'd like to be. Well, I learned my lesson. During a port call at Cozumel we took the ferry over to Playa Del Carmen to visit my favorite liquor store, La Europea. I bought a $180 dollar bottle of Havana Club 15 year rum. It seems I somehow completely forgot about checking in the bottle and just walked past the alcohol check in table. (Like the roach hotel, bottles check in but they don't check out) YMMV

Our Alaska cruise on the Ruby in July didn't have Starlink. The internet was slow and horrible! Do some Princess ships actually have Starlink?