gooch47

We felt that they had been instructed to say that to avoid a crowd at the dining room.  It doesn't make sense, does it?   Perhaps they didn't know, but I doubt it.

Never been herded to the buffet, but it is often strongly recommended, LOL.  And have on occasion been bald faced lied to when we asked if there was a dining room open.

Did you check the toilet brush?  We had a stinky one once.

I had to snicker a little at this post.  We got ours in 2010 and every time my husband gets sick he STILL blames it on the Yellow Fever vaccination.

I just saw a thing on Facebook where a guy needed to change two names on a group airline reservation when two people couldn't go.

He'd call in every day and change a couple letters on the names claiming it was a spelling error.  Eventually the entire names were changed.  He claimed it worked.

Your mileage may vary, LOL.

Not sure if this is an issue, but Convention Center Boulevard was down to one lane in each direction in early December and looked like it would be that way for quite a while.  We left the ship late so didn't notice any traffic problems, but early with everyone trying to get off at once might make a difference.

Not to add to the confusion, but the couple next to us at Le Bistro said they used their coupons there on two different nights.

We had lunch with one of the ship's engineers once and he told us a story of an elderly couple with early stage  Alzheimer's.  One or both of them kept flushing towels down the toilet.  I think he said they had to remove all their towels and replace them with paper towels which weren't much better.

How old is the POA?  Not relevant, just asking.

7 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

They would learn quick enough if they had actually got the Stern look, that is the one they have seeing the ship leaving without them and they can only see the Stern of the ship filled with people waving.

LOL.  I really didn't use the word "stern" correctly, did I?

On 12/18/2018 at 11:29 PM, OCruisers said:

NO!  No fun watching someone for one reason or another in an unfortunate situation. 

But sometimes they deserve it.  We took a tour once with a young couple who was so self centered they were late, sometimes by a long time, after each stop.  And sure enough, when it came time for the ship to leave that port we watched them from our balcony as they wandered up to the ship at least a half hour past when they were supposed to be back carrying a large number of shopping bags.  They were allowed to board.  The next day, the same thing.  Same couple, still holding up the ship.  They got a stern talking to from several ship's officers that day.

I agree it has to be done, but why does it have to be done right outside our cabin when I'm trying to take a nap?  I think they schedule it around my schedule.  Just kidding, but it does seem that way.

We used to cruise with Princess exclusively.  We now tend to go to NCL because of the discounts we get through our land casino play.  We've also used RCCL, same reason, but those ships seem more like Amusement Parks than cruise ships.  Same with our latest cruise on the NCL Breakaway.  The decor on the Breakaway seemed bland to us, too, especially two of the MDR's.  I remember commenting on the NCL Epic's MDR that it reminded me of a high school cafeteria.

Anyway, we are currently looking for our next cruise and are pretty sure it will be back to Princess.

Strange.  On our Breakaway cruise the end of November we got two free dinners at Moderno and also at Le Bistro.  We are both Platinum staying in one cabin.

19 hours ago, jagsfan said:

If you ever sail among the Hawaiian Islands, look for decorated coconuts. I bought one and mentioned it was for my granddaughters. 

The clerk said she could mail  it for me.  

She gave me a magic marker so I could write their address. She slapped some stamps on it and told me to give it a week or so. 

My daughter said my granddaughters were playing in the front yard when the mail carrier got out and handed the older one the coconut. 

Said “go show this to your mom”.

My daughter said the girls were over the moon.

i never ever would have thought of mailing a coconut.  

 

I'm a little surprised this is allowed considering the worry about introducing pests from other places.

9 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

Any time you are in a tender, look for the "seating chart" for its use as a lifeboat.  Then, take that image and transfer it to the seats and people around you.

 

That cramped middle coach seat on your flight to the cruise will seem like the wide open spaces.

Similar to our experience on a tour bus in Japan.  The double seats intended for two were intended for two Asian people, almost always much smaller than us obese Americans.  There was no way that bus would hold the number it was supposed to.

We bought postcards at the Curacao Liqueur factory.  The salesclerk graciously volunteered to buy us postage and mail them for us.  She just needed the money for the postage.

You guessed it.  They never arrived home.

I forgot to mention Teppanyaki in all my comments about our cruise just before this one.  Strange to say, but my husband had the best FIlet Mignon we have ever tasted there.   And our "chef" was fantastic.

Depends on whether you take a tour or not but I felt very uncomfortable walking around outside the port at Roatan.  But we've taken tours there that we enjoyed.

Same for Jamaica if your cruise goes there.

Just as a followup, we ended up taking a regular extension cord.  It wasn't confiscated and we left it out (visible) in the cabin a few times so our steward saw it and left it alone.

We were on the previous 11--day Breakaway cruise.  I agree that food service was slow at times but we sympathized that with that many passengers you could almost expect it.  We were quite happy with the MDR food.  We only went to the buffet for one lunch and wished we had browsed more before picking our few items.  There was, in my opinion, a huge selection.  We did not enjoy Margaritaville.  Personal preference, I suppose.  

Our only big complaint was the smell in the casino.  Nauseating.  And our Cabin Steward could have been more efficient.  Maybe just overworked.

Did your mini-suite have a bathtub?  I thought they did.  We just had a balcony cabin but were quite satisfied with it.

We arrived quite early for embarcation and as Platinum level were among the first groups to board.  No complaints.

Thanks for the review.  We were on the same cruise, but we've been to these ports many times so just stayed on the ship except for Harvest Caye.  I'm really sorry we didn't try Ocean Blue.  Both my husband and I got sick after eating at Moderno.  Terrible indigestion, but it might have been that we just aren't used to that much protein.

Nah.  I did it by accident.

Our DIL is severely allergic to onions.  Even a small amount of onion powder is very bad for her.

Each night the Head Waiter would meet with her after dinner and discuss the next night's menu and they would make selections based on the normal ingredients and what could be substituted or prepared just for her.  She had no issues at all until the last morning when she ordered off the menu an eggs benedict variation that included spinach.  The spinach had sauteed onion in it.  One taste and she knew it was bad, but that one taste was enough.  Who to blame?  Unfortunately only herself.  She made a bad assumption.

I've posted about this before, and even got a story about it published on the Princess web site, but the best one we had was leaving Tauranga, New Zealand.

We were on the first ship to return to Tauranga after 9/11.  When we arrived, there seemed to be an awful lot of people on the dock, but there was a ferry landing there so I just thought maybe that was it.

But when we left, there were literally thousands of people on the dock and lining the hills around the port, all waving and yelling, "Thanks for coming."  There were also a lot of small boats that followed us out of the port.  It was all very emotional.

I've always wondered how room stewards decide which room to do next.  Not the Epic, but the Breakaway a couple weeks ago.  It seemed like our cabin was always one of the last he would do, even though we were always up around 8:00 am for breakfast and always ate dinner at 5:00 or 5:30.  We were faithful about turning on the green "make up  the cabin" light.  We'd come back to the cabin at 1:30, and still not made up.   Back at 8:30 after dinner, still not made up.  It almost seemed like he would start at one end of his assignment and wouldn't move past an undone cabin although that seems impossible.  We thought perhaps he was assigned too many cabins.  We almost always leave an additional tip for room stewards but not this guy.