Torfamm

I have had a server in Vines charge us for five glasses and give me a full bottle of wine to take to our cabin

I’ve had to ask, but they have had them when I requested one. I remember that I saved it and reused it during the cruise

Do you mean that people can’t agree on what time to make your reservation without having only the two options available with fixed dining?

That’s good to hear. I need to check in for an upcoming cruise but have to wait till we disembark our current cruise to access it. Why the old as well as the new app restrict that is beyond me. It seems like managing future bookings should be possible even onboard.

I think you’ve stated the problem as clearly as possible. We can’t expect that we’ll get the same experience as in the past unless we’re willing to pay for it. I’ve mentioned before that my first cruise - 7 days in a tiny cabin with a dinner-plate sized porthole to Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica from Miami on the Carnival Mardi Gras in 1982 cost over $1000 per person. That’s about $3,200 in today’s dollars. That cruise was closer to the experience on luxury lines than to today’s mass market cruise lines and the price reflected it. The same has happened with air travel over time.

They are still open but have no beach at the moment due to storms last fall washing away the sand according to their Facebook page.

What concerns you?

Adding that was great but no, it isn’t what I was talking about. As with the old app, it’s not possible to manage future bookings when you are on a ship and connected to MedallionNet.

They sell cans of Pringles chips and other snacks in the shops on most ships. It’s also often possible to find a shop while off the ship and purchase snacks for the next day.

No one has said that the MDR isn’t used much. I simply said that the number of passengers who eat there every single night is limited by the availability of other dining venues. Lots of people, maybe even most, eat at specialty restaurants, the buffet, or casual dining during a cruise.

You can make reservations for a shared table. There is just no way to request that it be with the same people each night unless you arrange that as a group.

Private tables for just your party are still available and you can reserve for the same time, in the same MDR for every night if you like. Generally, you can even ask for the same table. The only thing not available is asking to be assigned to the same table with the same group of strangers for the duration of the cruise. I don’t know the exact numbers, but there’s no doubt that many, if not most, passengers take advantage of specialty restaurants, casual dining, the buffet, etc for dinner at some point in their cruise. That would mean empty seats in traditional dining. In the old days, when there was no option for dinner but the MDR, traditional dining was an obvious choice. Creating that system made dinner easier to manage. On today’s cruise ships with many options, things are more complicated.

There was no charge for the shuttle when we were there in November. It was originally available for purchase but a letter announcing that there would be free shuttles was delivered to our cabin during the cruise.

There haven’t been any Princess ships with traditional dining in a long time. You can request a shared table, but not that it will be shared with the same group of strangers every night.

There are still spa port day specials. You may not be getting the flyers advertising them in your cabin though. They usually have them posted at the spa. I definitely would like breakfast in the MDR to be offered later than 9:00! Unless I’m on a port intensive cruise with lots of full day tours, I usually only go on the day I’m leaving the ship.

Not everyone uses the app some in fact claim they put their phone in safe and others don’t have smartphones Definitely true, but it’s always going to be easier to keep the online schedule up to date than reprint the activity sheet if there are changes to times or venues. The same goes for airline or train schedules, movie theaters etc.

Yes, you can connect to wi-fi there

I don’t think we’ll ever see the return of old style fixed dining with assignments to shared tables. The number of people who eat in the MDR every night is too small to make that practical. We’ve been able to get the same private table for our party for the whole cruise about 90% of the time if we ask once onboard

We both receive pretty frequent surveys from the Ocean Players Club Waves program. Smoking figures into the questions on many of them. The issue is definitely on their minds. They just need to act. The decision to allow smoking to resume in the casino after it was prohibited after the restart was a huge mistake

To be fair, update the app should make more sense than a printed activity sheet

I’ve seen it too, I can’t imagine why it doesn’t happen all the time.

Smokers are already accustomed to not being able to smoke in public places and many won’t smoke in their own homes or cars. Smokers haven’t stopped staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, visiting bars and theaters, traveling by planes, trains or busses or attending sporting events. There is to reason that the casino on a Princess ship would be any different.

Another option is to cruise with Celebrity. This is a Princess wish list though 😉

My list is - #1 Get rid of indoor smoking Update the app to give me the ability to manage future cruises while I am on a cruise Show the menu for each day of the itinerary in the app rather than one day at a time Make the spa menu and booking available in the app onboard Offer RT Bermuda cruises from New York Get rid of the baked Alaska parade, especially the napkin waving Offer OBC or a discount on the Plus/Premier package as an Elite benefit instead of the minibar of random items that must be traded Offer a discount on the Plus/Premier package as an elite benefit rather than only a discount on stand-alone wi-fi Offer “to-go” cups for coffee in the buffet

You may be able to walk from one ship to the next ship or you may need to get a taxi or Uber. You can search to see which terminals the two ships will be using here https://pevvesseltraffic.broward.org/webx/