CruiseRookieSteve

I was just watching a YouTube video about the Royal Caribbean Oasis Class Ships. They were saying that on one of their ships they have converted their jazz lounge to a non-smoking casino and might be doing this on all of the Oasis Class ships. That would be sad. Every ship I've been on with a jazz venue has been pretty well attended.

My wife and I will be on the Princess Majestic 28 Day Round Australia cruise in March 2023. I'll post what the status is of jazz on the ship. Maybe they will have it somewhere else since they don't have the Take 5 Jazz Lounge. I wish I had known the Majestic is heading for the US right after our Australia cruise. I probably would have booked that back-to-back. Unfortunately we have a lot of appointments in April so too late to make a change of plans.

Sad. I hope they have jazz somewhere on our cruise. A number of years ago Sydney had a few jazz clubs but they are all gone now. Has Jazz died in Australia?

Thanks! Both my wife and I got our Feedback emails today.

I checked most of the bars on the ship and I think "Good Spirits" had the widest selection of wines by the glass of any bar. They had the widest selection of wines by the glass on the bar menu, though the bar menus of all the bars rarely matched what wines were actually available. However, I did see a lot of open bottles of wine on the shelf at Good Spirits and they had every wine that I requested from their bar menu.

I missed that performance too. My favorite nights were the ones were the Take 5 jazz band were joined by a couple of horns from the House Band. We love jazz that features horns (especially the saxophone, but also trumpet, trombone and other horns). We would have loved it more if the horns could have joined them every night.

That was our favorite music venue (jazz) on the cruise, though Crooner's came in a close second. We are going to miss it on our March 2023 28 Day Round Australia cruise on the Majestic Princess. Even though it is a sister ship to the Discovery Princess and very similar, it looks like they have made the Take Five into a sports bar on the Majestic Princess. Though while watch a YouTube video of the ship, there does seem to be a piano in that room. Maybe they'll have some live music in there on some evenings.

Enjoy that cruise! We are doing that one on the Sapphire Princess starting March 4, 2024, a year after you.

Now that I have some great internet at home, I've finished uploading my photos, videos, and comments from the cruise at: http://www.cruiserookies.com/2022l28a.html I've even uploaded the full image resolution, about 8mb, of each photo. You can view those by just clicking on any photo on each web page. My wife and I are booked on the Majestic Princess for a 28 Day Cruise Round Australia starting March 7 this year. It appears the Majestic Princess is a sister ship of the Discovery Princess but some of the venues are different. I'm definitely going to welcome the Vines Wine Bar rather than the Salty Dog but am going to miss the Take Five jazz lounge and Crooner's. The Majestic Princess doesn't have either one of those. It appears they just have more casino instead of Take Five and a bigger photography area instead of Crooner's. Hopefully they'll use some of the other venues more and won't have less live music. They have a Chinese restaurant in the same place Sabatini was located on our ship. Good Spirits is located where Ocean Sushi was located on our ship. Much of the rest of the ship is laid out fairly similar to the Discovery Princess.

On older ships the only air vent in the room used to be near the bottom of the cabin door into the hallway. I'd put sheets of paper over that to prevent creating a wind tunnel out into the hallway. That has gotten a little more complicated on newer ships as they now seem to have vents in the bathroom and in the ceiling of the main room. Also very important to remember to close the balcony door before opening the door to the hallway to avoid a windstorm in the room.

I didn't know they could lock or ever did lock the balcony door. I usually like to leave my balcony door open, at least a crack, and turn the heat/cool to the neutral position (or off on older cruise ships). I like listening to the sound of the ocean and having fresh ocean air at night. It is one of the major reasons I like cruising. So, no, they never locked our balcony door on this cruise.

We just got off a 10 Day New Years cruise the Discovery Princess yesterday morning. The rate is definitely $20 per day at the cruise terminal parking lot. We dropped off our luggage first before heading to the parking lot. Really easy and fast to do. The porters collect your luggage at the drop-off. You may have to park a good distance from the terminal as it is a huge open parking lot, no parking garage. But shuttles are provided from the remote parts of the parking lot right up to the terminal entrance. We took the shuttle to get to the ship, but just made the long walk with our 3 items of wheeled luggage back to our car. Wasn't that bad. It seemed there were a lot less lines, chaos, and ramps to get on and off the ship in San Pedro than our prior cruise a month ago from Long Beach. It was very easy and fast both getting on and off the ship in San Pedro.

I think the QR Codes are great in concept but not in implementation. Unlike paper menus, they just have to update one web page to reflect the actual inventory in the bar. If they put the effort into it, they could have the main bartender at each bar update the menu with what drinks they have available and delete any they run out of. This is something that can't easily be done with printed menus as every menu has to be reprinted. But Princess doesn't bother to make sure the QR Code Menus are accurate which makes them practically useless.

I love AJ Clarke on the piano in Crooner's every night, but if Princess expects it to end at midnight every night, they should specify till 12am in the Princess Patter, not until "late". Crooners is packed to the gills with hardly a seat to be had every night at midnight. In the Carnival Piano Bar "late" is an undefined term. It means until everyone has left the bar or 1:30am, whichever comes first. My wife and I are late night people and are disapointed there is no live music after midnight other than the DJ that is not our type of music.

Anyone win anything when entering their cabin? I never win anyrhing but I won $25 non refundable cruise credit twice.