NownZen

It is too big to go into one of the ports.

The card reader has a range of a couple of inches at most. It would be hard to get close enough to have an effect on the pacemaker. The bluetooth is the only longer range part of the medallion (that is what unlocks the door as you approach) but everyone already has that in their phones and the level is too low to cause a problem. The thing they might be warning about is the magnets in the medallion. Those are used to hold it in the wrist bands and on your refrigerator afterwards. I do not know what a safe distance for that is.

This is a very interesting mathematical optimization problem. The difficulty is deciding what to optimize. The traditional dining optimized the use of space by having just the two sittings. But that was hard on the staff as everyone needed to served at the same time. The staff requirements could be minimized by having a constant flow of people into the dining room so they would have a constant load of serving people. To do this, you would aim to have the dining room fill up two hours after opening at which time the flow of people would be balanced by the flow of people out. It would then stay full until about 4 hours after opening and then empty at 6 hours from opening. This helps the staffing but requires 6 hours for dining room staffing rather than the four hours for the traditional dining. This would work for getting the same tables at the same time but would not accommodate any time diners. Throwing in people without reservations into the reservation mix really does complicate things. It would be interesting to see the details of the algorithm.

We have done this cruise twice. The second time was specifically for Elua (Leiloa and Tiki Dave). We were so busy that we would look at the Princess Patter and have to decide which choices we would skip. There were many interesting lectures such as the series on Highway 66 then and now. The naturalist was good. I never did get a nap. Tiki Dave is a very accomplished musician and puts on performances in the lounges. The two of them do regular sessions in the Piazza where you can dance, either line or hula. Great fun. I am looking for a hole in my schedule to do this again. By the way, these trips were out of San Pedro.

Since there is no mag stripe reader on the lock, it has to use either the medallion Mifare Plus CSN or the bluetooth interface. The key card will also be a Mifare Plus.

It is not Princess. The medallions have a bluetooth interface in them. That is FCC approved in the US. All other countries have their own approval process which you have to follow before you can deliver in those countries. I live this and know the nuisance level.

Before we got our new refrigerator we made sure that it was made from magnetic stainless steel. In any case, there is always double backed sticky tape.

Of course. But the credit card readers now use the chip. It does an encrypted transfer that cannot be stored and played back. The same for the contactless RFID cards. If you have a credit card with a magnetic strip, erase it. Those are easy to steal the number. A few years back in order to push the chip cards, they mase a rule that the merchants would not get reimbursed if a card was stolen.

No, the problem is that the variable reservation time makes empty tables. Whether you look at them on a paper list or a computer, they are still unavailable.

With the magnet in the medallions, they stick nicely to the refrigerator.

That was true for the old mag stripe cards. It is not true for the RFID cards. The medallion reads as a Mifare Plus card so I assume the door card is the same.

An issue with the flexible booking times is that it will generate a lot of empty tables that are unavailable at times. For instance a table booked for 6:30 will be unavailable from say 5:15 to 6:30 as there is not time to finish a meal. Tables booked for 7:00 will be unavailable after maybe 5:30. This leaves a large group of empty but unusable tables.

I wore a suit at work for many years. Never liked it. Do not even have a suit now. I was rummaging in the back of the closet for something while packing for the next cruise and found a pair of dress shoes. I tried them on and remembered how much I disliked them. Threw them out.

The Sistine chapel photo ban is because a Japanese company paid for some restoration in exchange for photo rights. However, in my visits, people were taking pictures right and left. The guards would go around saying no photos in several languages but not doing much else. The special group exit is only available to groups and those who say they are with a group, or others who wander through it. The guards are government employees and not highly motivated. If you have a chance, there are very early morning tours (extra cost) that get you to the Sistine chapel when it opens. When we did this there were about 20 of us for the first hour so we could sit in various places and look in detail. Later in the day there were maybe a thousand people and you could move through by just lifting your feet and letting the crowd pull you along. The other fabulous thing to do there is to tour the crypts under St Peter's. It was an old Roman cemetery and there are wonderful tombs to tour. Narrow passageways in the excavations but you can see what is supposed to be the grave of St Paul (directly under the altar). Those trips generally need to be reserved up to a year in advance and only small groups are allowed.

Also now includes South America according to an update email from Princess yesterday. It says at least the first three days.

We would feel a little more kindly if she was not ranting about how mistreated she was that they would not change the rules for her. She felt she was (is) special.

Friends a few month ago on NCL were escorted off the ship by the hazmat crew after everyone else left and then they took them to the taxi line. Since they were the last ones, it was a long line and much harder when you are sick with covid. There is no testing requirement for flying in the US.

You misunderstood the wording. The medallion has a serial number and that is all. The ship's computer (and before that the Princess web data base) has your details (room, credit card, account balance etc). When you present the medallion that code is passed to the ship's computer where the relevant information is sent to the requesting unit. For example, your picture at a shop or getting on board. Anything going the other way like charges also goes into your account accessed by the serial number. This is done so that to change, replace, etc your medallion all they have to do is to change the serial number that links to your account.

You WERE asking to change the rules. There is no other way to put it. You call it good business, it may well be illegal for the cruise line to skirt immigration rules. I do not think anyone here saw this as a bad experience with a corporation, rather a bad experience with a guest who wanted the rules changed.

The medallion IS a card. It has the same information on it as the room cards. It has a serial number. All the rest of the information is in the computer referenced by the serial number. This is why you can still get an old style card if you want. This is a very trivial thing to even think about.

Our doctor refused to do so before our cruise. He said there were a lot of side effects and you needed to see what the severity of the infection was.

We have never been asked for an ID when getting back on the ship. The cruise card (and now the medallion) scan brings up a picture. We do however, carry a copy of the passport with us .

The alcoholic drinks are not free. There are nibbles if you want.

The internet is up and down and depends on where you are. The Dec 2 cruise may be in a reasonable area but I would not count on it. Sometimes they take your passport. That is done in places where they handle the immigration checks so you do not have to. I was not thrilled when it first happened but I understand it now particularly after standing in long lines in places where we had our passports. For example, entering Brazil on the Amazon, we stopped at a town and the immigration official came out and went through the boxes fo passports and left. In Japan it took maybe two hours to get back on the ship.

The original Royal Princess was the R8 then the P&O Adonia and now the Azamara Pursuit.