Kay S

My teen grandson goes directly to Swirls for an ice cream cone. Then he has one in his hand every time I see him on the ship.

Buffet food is designed to be served at all hours. A pan of something sitting out in a steam tray will tend to get dry. MDR serves you the food as it is plated in the galley, so it will probably be fresher looking. That said, there is no telling what will turn up at the buffet. The soup from the MDR one night might repeat at the buffet the next, and so forth. I did once see lobster tails on the buffet, but that was years ago and they were dinky, dried up things. The only thing you can't wear in the buffet is a swimsuit.

Some people are just weird that way. They are paying for something and they want to get the thing they paid for. 🙄🙄🙄

TMI 😶

Probably no hope for the Used Datsun Club of America...🙂

The "new" Princess is very adept at wringing every last cent out of you.

This thread requires the reader to have a sense of humor, which you obviously do and "someone else" doesn't.

Somewhere on this forum someone posted the menu a few days ago. I can't find it now. I know. I'm no help.🙂

You could bring your friends aboard to say goodbye and then there were those lovely streamers everyone threw at the sailaway.

My grandkids will be doing their last Teen Club cruise this year since they will be 17. They are veterans of the kids' clubs, and according to them, the Royal Class ships have better facilities that the Grand Class ships. They don't spend all their time at the club. I keep seeing them on board here and there with their new friends and always with an ice cream cone in hand.

I guess you haven't been to my part of southern California. 😁 When it's 110 degrees F outside, kids are wearing swimwear or basketball shorts or the like. Parents (if they care) slather sunscreen on the kids and let them play in comfortable clothes (not long, hot, jeans.) As to the subject of this thread, I have seen many little boys in the MDR in short pants. (I have also seen little guys in tuxes on formal night, and they are so cute!)

You can't get CC dining after you board. It's not available for purchase. It is a perk for Club Class mini-suites and full suites only. You need to book one of those cabins before you board.

As noted, menus are the same on all ships (with occasional minor differences.)

CC is a huge improvement over the new DMW circus. It's pretty much traditional dining of old. You walk up, you sit, you eat. The service is stellar (like TD of old used to be.) There is usually a special each evening that they don't get in the MDR, so you get a little taste of specialty dining. It's more expensive, obviously, but this is how Princess does it now. Pay for the food and service you used to get "free" in the MDR. For a short cruise, I would definitely go for it.

My tender story: a decade or so ago, we did an Iceland/TA with a stop in Greenland. It was cold. Fog, mist, ice and snow here and there. We took the tender to shore and looked around. Then we got right back on and returned to the ship. Turns out were on the last tender for awhile because fog prevented them from sending any more out for hours. There was a long line on shore hoping to get back to the ship, and they stood there for more than an hour, freezing. There is very little indoor shelter in that village, and the little store was shoulder to shoulder already. We were in the Piazza bar watching out the window when the first tenders returned with frozen, unhappy people. Someone was looking out for us that day, for sure.

Hahaha! Yes, you can wear your jeans. I don't think Alaskan cruises are any more casual than any others. I've done 30-ish Princess cruises, and I have not noticed not-Alaska cruises to be any more formal than any other. (Formal night--or whatever they call it now--isn't particularly formal anymore either.)

Ok, I did it again. I keep misreading this thread as "What is the item plugged into toilet?" I guess I need new glasses.🙂

The MDR tends to be open until 1 pm or so. If you can do club class, they will be open, too.

My experience has been that Carnival's tenders are much more accessible than Princess's, both on the ship side and the tender side.

We had several unique itineraries booked before covid, and Princess has not brought back any of them. I guess they wouldn't fill up the ships with young people looking for overworked itineraries to islands. My last Discovery cruise, I had club class, so we avoided the MDR mess, but so many other little things went wrong. In that vein, I guess customer service has degraded to not telling you they found your stuff. This is the new Princess. My FCC is nearly spent.

Did we ever figure out if Vines is being removed?

Princess doesn't agree, based on how they have been chipping away at loyalty benefits in their obsession to lure a younger clientele.

It has been a few years since I was on the Sapphire, but I seem to remember I thought the decor in Pacific Moon was pretty. I think we had tea in there one day.

I have had this happen for a brief period when they are doing something to the website.

I have found it will vary. It pays to look at all options. EZAir was a problem after the shut down. It took months to get the refund after the cruise was cancelled. (Your real problem will be the LAX traffic! 😁)