jeffdal

In my fairly extensive experience there are always LGBT meetings. Almost always daily, usually at a time and place where Princess is most likely to make substantial revenues from the bar tabs. That sometimes means meetings get scheduled in a crowded bar at happy hour where it's difficult to figure out who's there for the meeting and impossible to set up a specific space, more often in a lounge where folks gather around a table or two. Sometimes really well-attended, coupla dozen or more, sometimes not. And like Swiss Dave says, sometimes the group decides to re-schedule.

 

Princess is very queer friendly. Passengers' attitudes, I think, might vary depending on the length of cruise and, most probably, departure port. (Sorry, Galveston, if I'm stereotyping.) Hubby and I boarded our honeymoon cruise wearing matching "Just Married" T-shirts and felt like the stars of the Royal's maiden trans-Atlantic (same cruise as sfoak was on :) ), getting lots of congrats from pax of all orientations, then celebrated our 1st (and 40th, but who's counting?) anniversary on an Alaskan cruise and were serenaded by the headwaiter and his new husband.

 

Have you checked out the LGBT board?

All is good when you sail of out Houston on the Emerald. :) The first night had a hosted LGBT mixer that was well attended and every day it was listed in the Patter at either Wheelhouse, Crooners or Explorers. We ended up making several friends and had dinner with them each night.

On the Facebook page and Twitter they recommend calling. I did and got a new password in minutes.

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Ultimate Dance Party pic!

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Yup Frozen last week. Watched The Faul in our Stars too.

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Wednesday - Roatan

When DH & I woke up' date=' the Emerald was in the process of docking in Roatan. The temperature was pleasant and the cloud cover helped with that. During the morning it would sprinkle, and then rain, and then clear up with the sun back out. Docked behind us was the Carnival Dream. There was a third ship however it was docked across the bay, and I could not see which one it was.

 

We had nothing planned for the day except to get off the ship, look around and take pictures. This is the first cruise we have taken where we did not plan shore excursions, and we loved it!

 

I've read that people don't like the area that was built around the cruise ship dock, but we had fun exploring all of the shops. After that we walked to the beach, got several good pictures of the Emerald, and then thought about eating at Fat Tuesday, but passed on that.

 

After a couple of hours on shore, we headed "back home", had lunch (where I had a very boring chicken sandwich from the grill...I should've had pizza), and went to the Thermal Spa. I forget when it started to rain, but sometime early afternoon the rain started. It was off and on, sometimes light and sometimes a down pour. Soon, it was time to watch for any pier runners and we would be off for Belize (or so we thought). According to the Pattern, all aboard time was 5:30pm. As we pulled away from dock, it was apparent that the sea and mother nature, were not in a very happy mood.

 

Our evening consisted of seeing the comedy/magic show, which we both enjoyed, dinner, and checking out the nightlife. As the evening progressed, the sea got more topsy-turvey.[/quote']

 

We were one of the pier runners in Roatan. We stayed at Mahogany Bay and went down the beach as far as we could get from the cruise herd. Found a great spot, had fun in the water, then ate at a nondescript bar and restaurant that was indoors but part of the compound. They had free wi-fi (or wee fee) so we ate/drank (Honduran beers) and checked in with the world. It started to downpour and we waited for it to end and went back out. There were about 50 people on the beach. We stayed until the crazy storm came and then made our way in the wind and rain to Fat Tuesdays.. where we danced and ate until it was time to go and then made a dash for the boat. Since we were cold, we promptly headed to the Lotus Pool to get warm.

 

I am not a big fan of corporate owned manufactured chain experiences but we had fun and made the best of it.

I called and they gave me a temp password over the phone. Said not to change it for a few days. I signed up for the contest.

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I really wish there was a visible security presence on the ship last week. We needed to flag someone down when a guy walked up to us during MUTS and was belligerent beyond belief. We tried to ignore him, which made him angrier ...and we were trying to watch the movie and not disturb anyone. Luckily, he ended up walking away.

Last Tuesday night at Skywalkers got a little crazy and there was a brawl and two women were removed from the night club. (This was on the cruise with 600 children and a reported cruise population average age of 34).

We joked the rest of the cruise that they were taken to Princess Jail and we would caution each other not to do something crazy because you might end up there.

Is there a jail or detention facility on board?

Thank you:)

I guess I should call. It does not work for me. :(

I get "Your email address or password cannot be found. Please verify your name and password and try again"

It would be great to look but I can't login!

Still not working. Wow. That contest must have screwed things up!

Still can't log into the site. That contest must have shut the site down!

Same problem but it's fixed now but now I cant log into site!

I saw them setting up for it with fun tablecloths but no menu. :(

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Anyone know how to get a listing of flash sales that TA's get?

Yes' date=' from our experience the Lotus Pool was kid-free. The Wheelhouse Bar was kid-free except on the day we missed Belize. Families playing games during the afternoon then. Also, checkout Skywalkers and Asiago's (across from Sabatini's). During the day both were occasionally used for activities but other than that they were nice quite spots.[/quote']

 

Terrace pool is also adults only and the deck was kid free too. There was a passenger who would remind the occasional kiddo who jumped in.

But keep in mind that sale fares may not be your best deal. By booking at an unpublicized past-passenger rate rather than the highly touted sale fare available the same day, we saved about 25% on our cabin for our upcoming Canal cruise, even taking into account the sale's OBC.

Are the unpublicized past-passenger rates found by logging into Princess.com and doing a search?

Is there a good source for flash sales without having to contact your TA?

My first impressions of the Emerald' date=' was that she was a lovely ship. Very beautiful. I loved the Piazza area, as well as the color scheme throughout the ship. All of the different areas (restaurants, clubs, etc) I thought were tastefully done.

 

[b']Sailaway[/b]:

There was an announcement that we were a bit delayed in leaving during to the fuel to being completed. Soon, though we were underway....however just as soon as we started to leave, DH and I turned to each other and said "are we going back?" The Captain made another announcement that due to a medical emergency we had to re-dock and disembark a sick passenger. Soon, though we were back underway. By this time, it was dark.

I felt so bad for that passenger but it was good we could go back easily to have the ambulances pick him/her up. It looked like we were about 100 or so feet away from the dock when we had to go back. We were watching the sail away but after that decided to go back to our stateroom and get ready for drinks and dinner. We luckily got a window seat and got to watch our sail into the channel and look at Galveston Island lights along the way

I will echo the statements of generally poor dinning service on this cruise. The dining room service was slow at best and the service we received in the Crown Grill was down right terrible, but we never had trouble getting a table for anytime dinning. We did have a line once for dinner that was long, curling past the piazza but it moved swiftly and we were seated within 15 minuets. We never went to the buffet, with so many food choices on board I don't know why so many people eat there.

 

Even though the food/drink side of the ship was down the cruise staff was great. Lots of fun events and always helpful and smiling. Our stateroom attendant was outstanding.

 

So many kids on board, didn't have any trouble with them (other than the family that decided to bring 5 small kids to the comedy show and sit behind us) but I don't think I will book a holiday cruise again.

 

Even with missing the ruins and having our Cozumel excursion cancelled we had a great time on this cruise and would like to do the itinerary again.

 

As far as the Houston port goes we drove up at 12:00 and we were sitting in the dining room for lunch by 1:00. So no trouble for us but I can see how any problem in the channel would cause big delays.

We missed the second comedian because our dinner service was so slow in Michelangelo (the one night we ate there). Of course, that was the night nobody came by the table to check to see how things were going. But we enjoyed the dinner and our company so it was all good.

There were two toddlers in the second Maitre D wine tasting. One toddler was so cranky the mom finally took him outside. But if I was a toddler, I would be cranky too in the dining room for a wine tasting.

JeffDal, can we get a report from you? Your posting during the week were so upbeat and that's what I want to hear before heading out on the Emerald in a couple weeks.

Sitting at my desk and I can't stop rocking! :)

Yes, I had an amazing time and so did everyone in our group. I was really really upset about Belize. Almost had a meltdown. It was the reason why we booked the cruise and were looking forward to seeing the ruins. But, I realized quickly there was nothing I could do about it and we set out to have a great day of activities on board with our friends.

Here are some thoughts:

Houston Port: We got there right at 11AM and dropped off our luggage then circled back to park. We thought they could have done it better with the lay out but that process took us all of 15 minutes. We got parked so close to the terminal (probably since we ordered a cover for the car) that I could have just rolled my luggage up to the terminal. There was a line to go through security but again took us five minutes to get through. We got to the waiting area and overheard that they were boarding ahead of schedule and after registration we waited about 30 mins. I was seated and had a menu in my hand at DaVinci dining room at 12:20PM. The boat left late but that was after waiting for traffic in the channel to clear up and an emergency that caused us to go back to the dock after sailing.

Service and staff: Service was slow, morale was low and there were lines at bars. One of our friends said "who pissed this staff off". We heard several times that the cruise before us was a constant downer... so it may have been that.

Lots of kids: Whew! Wow! 600! But, I am not around kids and teens that often so my two favorite words were "adults only" and I found the Lotus pool and the Terrace Deck pool to be my favorite places. Most kids were well behaved but once in awhile there were some annoying, running packs of kids or one screamer ruining the entire afternoon at the Neptune Pool. While at the beach at Mahogany Bay there was a kid blowing a whistle and all it took was my buddy yelling out loud "will the kid with the whistle please stop"... and it stopped. It was interesting that the Captain did two announcements about guidelines for kids and we got two notices in our room about rules, etc. Friends of mine told us that the delays in room service were blamed on so many kids placing orders.. LOL. When there were children and teens who were super polite or pleasant, I would often compliment them.. Wow, that officially makes me old.

Food: It was hit or miss but there were some standouts on the menu. Tenderloin, prime rib, souffles, soups, scallops. Everyone at our table liked the turkey dinner. Afternoon tea was fun. Tapas and sushi at Vines were awesome too. Room service breakfast the balcony and daily fruit delivery to our room was nice treat. Trident Grill hit the spot and the pizza was fine. Horizon Court the one time I went for lunch was terrible so I never went back. Pub Lunch was lots of fun.

Stateroom and ship condition: I thought the ship looked great. Lots of fun spaces. Stateroom was much larger than I expected and the closet space was excellent.

Other highlights including maître d wine tastings...did both of them offered on cruise. The warm Lotus Pool. Chilling out at the Terrace Pool. Enjoyed my spa services... I went for acupuncture twice and it was great. The Ye Olde Pub Night at Explorers. Live band at Neptune Pool. Movies under the stars. Dancing past midnight at Skywalkers with a great DJ.

I want to do another!

We also were on this cruise. It had bad and good points.

 

We have done 4 Princess cruises and 3 on Carnival. We did a b2b on the Carnival Miracle last November - on the drive home yesterday we compared the 2, Carnival won hands down. The entertainment, the food, the ship & the crew.

 

The Emerald just seemed "tired" to us. Like they were just going through the motions. Paint chipping in places, seating all over the ship was “well used”, no bounce left in the cushions.

 

We had our first aft cabin, and had a problem with loud music from a neighbor, we called and the response was "Is it really that bad? Well we couldn't sit and enjoy our balcony. We did call and ask for assistance, so yes, we thought it was that bad.

 

We had balcony dining one evening - it was not as wonderful as the reviews I had seen led me to believe. I ordered my steak medium and the husband wanted medium rare. And both arrived rare, almost mooing on the plate. And the lobster, which I will admit I have not had many times, was tough and rubbery. The dessert was to die for, but the rest of dinner was mediocre at best. The servers were good, pleasant, as was the photographer.

 

Our dinner in the Crown Grill was fun. We sat at the counter and watched the chef's cooking. We enjoyed the banter with them and between them as the evening went on. Was 2 ½ hours for dinner, time well spent.

 

Overall, good cruise, hated to miss Belize as we were looking forward to visiting it again. But as the old saying goes, any day cruising is better than working.

LOL... "any day cruising is better than working" is what we kept on saying last week on the same cruise.

Our balcony neighbors were loud too. I think because they were yelling into the cabin And someone was smoking near us!

Just got back from Emerald Princess from Houston. I was surprised to see a nice number of tuxedo's. I wore a dark suit but may consider taking a tux in the future.

And I had pricing much cheaper than a friend and he has loyalty status. We were comparing prices the other day.

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We boarded around 12pm at Bayport and were in group six. Aloha deck and no special status.

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Had a wonderful time on this cruise. Bummed about Belize but made the best of it. The Houston port was so much better than what people made it out to be.

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