Northumberland

Hi Paul,

Good point.

I actually got a list of officers from someone who recently returned from a Royal Princess cruise that they posted by name & rank.

I will need to confirm those officers are still on board when we get there, but it's a good place to start.

Also, need more cruise critic members who are on the cruise to sign up before this "Meet & Greet" get's off the ground.

So far, our head count is only 9 people out of a possible 30+.

Al

We are on the Royal Princess March 30th cruise and I'm trying to arrange a "Meet & Greet" for those on the roll call that are interested.

I was told by Princess that they would provide a space at the bar next to the casino either at 10:00 A.M. or 11:00 A.M. on the first sea day. They will arrange a cash bar and dry snacks.

I need to confirm a head count no later than 2 weeks prior to sailing.

We are booked for a Southern Caribbean cruise in a few months on Royal Princess. We had booked an inside stateroom on deck 15 just under the Horizon Court buffet.

However, we had recently ready on a cruise critic thread that we had made a bad choice due to noise from the buffet at all hours of the day or night.

So, we request a change to an inside stateroom on deck 14 midship with no noise issues.

Subsequently, we received a free upgrade to a balcony to Aloha deck 12 forward just a few rooms behind and one deck below the bridge.

Not to worried about a little motion.

Anyone been in this area of the Royal or Regal Princess with some words of wisdom?

98 days for us.

It will be hard to wait as we have just gotten into a Polar Vortex. Cold from the Arctic coming our way and staying through Christmas and New Year.

I hate winter.

I think OP is saying that there are very few people signed up on the Roll Call. He is hoping to get more thru this post.

Thank you Paul. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

There are 16 cruise critic members signed up to the roll call for this cruise.

However, I've found more people who have responded to other threads that are on the cruise, but haven't signed up to the roll call yet.

The more exposure we get the more participation we will get. I hope. :)

Maybe we should start calling them “IFFY”

 

 

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I think your on to something.

We were on a cruise in September and got an EFFY gift card for a cheap necklace that we thought would be a nice souvenir for our 10 yr old granddaughter.

We gave it to here upon our return and later that day got a call from her.

She was crying because the stone fell out and got lost before she got home.

Never again.

Hello fellow cruisers.

For those cruise critic members that are on the upcoming cruise and have not yet registered in the roll call.

I'm attempting to arrange a "Meet & Greet" for cruise critic members and ships officers.

Currently, 16 members have signed up. Some are couples or groups and some my be sailing solo.

Too date we have 7 people committed to show up for the "Meet & Greet".

If you go to the roll call, you will find details under my post from yesterday.

I hope more people sign up and help make this a great event.

I think those who have been at a "Meet & Greet" event before know what I mean.

I think the value to the people cruising should be based on what you would have purchased if you hadn't received the OBC. A $100.00 is a $100.00 no matter what the cost to the vendor.

A checked my booking on the Princess website this morning. Our OB was adjusted and showed up under the credits & payments tab of the booking. We also received a revised booking by email from our TA yesterday which also shows the revised OB. I'll bring printed copies with us just to make sure everything runs smooth.

This may cause me to get flamed but oh well...Why is it that all of you think that it is ok to hold a cruise line up for money because the ***** will not be available on your cruise?? The ***** or lack thereof truly has no impact on whether or not you will enjoy your cruise...I'm a techie and would like to try the new technologies the ***** provides, but to insist that the cruise line give me money because it is not going to be on my cruise is extortion plain and simple

 

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You are certainly entitled to your opinion and I don't consider myself a greedy person, but it was suggested to me that if others are getting perks like an additional OB because a cruise feature has been removed after the cruise was booked and paid for, why not me. If they weren't offering this to others, I wouldn't have enquired in the first place and I still would have enjoyed my cruise. However, if I'm watching other's get something and I've not even checked it out, then I'm the fool for not asking. If I'm not entitled, then all they have to say is no.

We got a couple free upgrades too. I didn't think about that when I sent my TA an email last night. Oh well, I'll wait and see what she replies back with. Can't hurt to try!

Well, I contacted my TA and they called Princess and got us $100 SB credit PP for us and our friends along with the free upgrade. I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

We're on the Mar.30th cruise.

Not sure if we should bother requesting as we already got a free upgrade from an inside to a balcony.

Hi myfuzzy,

Thank you for your guidance. I'm going to give it a try and hopefully, we'll have good response. If not, we'll enjoy the cruise anyway.

We've only been one the one M&M on the MSC Divina from September. It was very enjoyable and we met some wonderful fellow passengers and crew members. We even wound up sharing a dinner table for the majority of the cruise with 2 lovely ladies we met at the M&M. I don't have any experience setting one of these up, but Im giving it a try for our cruise on the Royal Princess in March. We have 16 groups in our roll call some have already shown an interest in attend. We're looking forward to it.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the correction and thank you for your service,

Al Graham (Northumberland)

I can't speak to other cruise lines and how they arrange the "M&M" parties, but with MSC there was a link on the roll call which allowed you to register. MSC was sent the list and your invitation was sent to your stateroom upon arrival. I understand Princess is arranged by a Cruise Critic member after you get on board.

We'll be on the Royal Princess for the March 30th cruise. It was explained to me that there isn't an online registry. All who are interested get together on board and appoint a representative to approach the Princess staff in order to arrange a meeting place. Here is the explanation from Cruise Critic.

Hi there,

For Princess cruises, there is no automated web-based sign up. The members on the roll call discuss and decide if they want to have a meet and mingle, and if so, one member contacts Princess to set it up. I have a lot more information on this if your roll call needs it, but didn't want to send an overwhelming reply if this one will suffice to explain. Just let me know.

JoanP

Community Support Specialist

CruiseCritic.com, A Tripadvisor Media Group site

It's unfortunate that other cruise lines don't see the value of "Meet & Mingle" as MSC does. It's not a great deal of work or expense for the cruise lines and it creates some good will and as a former salesman, I believe it great PR. Meeting the officers is a wonderful experience and getting to know other cruise critic members that are sharing the same cruise is great.

Our first experience with a "Meet & Mingle" party was on the MSC Divina in September. MSC sponsor the event, provide accommodations for the event and supply snacks, drinks and have officers of the ship join in, including the captain. I was disappointed to learn that Princess isn't as accommodating. I was told that they will supply a meeting place, but that's about it. Are other cruise lines as indifferent as I'm told Princess is?

As we have only been on one previous Princess cruise which was 18 years ago, I can't compare the service level yet. I'll have a better feel for that after our second cruise in March. However, I can reference the cost from then to now. Back in Feb. 2000 our first cruise was a 7 day Southern Caribbean out of San Juan with 2 days in San Juan prior to the cruise. Flight, 2 nights hotel & cruise cost $9000.00 CDN. Now a 10 day cruise of the Southern Caribbean from Fort Lauderdale along with 3 nights hotel in Florida & flight cost us around $5000.00 CDN. My expectations on the ship won't be as high as they were on our first cruise. So, I shouldn't be disappointed if the service level isn't as good.

I believe the quality of the food is somewhat subjective. We've sailed on Princess, RCCL & MSC. The only cruise line that disappointed us was MSC. It wasn't that their food was not good as much as it was prepared more for european tastes. We talked to many people on board from europe that loved the food served, but we disliked it except for the pizza, which was the best we ever had on any ship.

Our last cruise in September was on the MSC Divina. We met 2 lovely ladies from Florida at the Cruise Critic "Meet & Mingle" gathering on our second day. They invited us to join them for dinner for the remainder of the cruise. My wife & I were traveling alone and were assigned a table for 2. So, we happily joined these 2 ladies and also met another couple from the Eastern US who were sharing their table. We all got along great and had a wonderful time with them.

We had the same interior IA mid ship Riviera deck to Aloha deck forward.

Maybe being on category IA is the secret to improving your chances of an upgrade.

In any case, I wish you luck getting an upgrade on your cruise.

Hi voljeep,

We didn't receive any notice from Princess or our TA about the upgrade. I had signed in to the Princess website to check on excursions and happened to notice a change to our stateroom number and description from inside to balcony. Then I signed in to our companions booking and saw that they had also been upgraded to a balcony right beside us. That was a real bonus.

Hi 1Emerald1,

Yes, we joined the roll call back in October when we booked the cruise.

We were originally booked to an inside stateroom on deck 15. However, about 2 weeks ago we arranged to relocate to another inside stateroom on deck 14. Then yesterday, I was checking to see if excursions were ready for Martinique and noticed the upgrade for us and our traveling companions. So now we have side by side balconies. It was a nice surprise. Hope to see you on board.