cruise_critical

Afaik it's 24 hours prior to boarding date from my last cruise few months back. Also mentions it here: https://www.princess.com/en-au/plan/oceanready/ Complete no later than 24 hours before you embark^

How much % of your current booking would that $4k be? Going by past and recent pricing, if it's about 25-30% extra, then it is pretty much what it would have cost extra at original time of the booking. As for the room/perks. Room partitioning via curtain is nice to have, especially with my young teens. We also prefer mid-ship location for convenience, so that works for us. But the real benefit that we find worth while is the reserved dining as it's stress free with a more personal service. Not quite Coastal Kitchen in RCCL, but close enough. If you feel you see value in those, then yes it's worth it. If not, spend that $4k on something else like a Premier package if you weren't going to but both like to drink. 4 device per person internet, unlimited casual dining, and VIP seating in production shows are all awesome perks that we really found valuable as well.

correct. and the app even tell you how many got charged to your account and how many you have left for the day as a result. Just need to be careful as, if you and your partner go to a bar or restaurant, and order a few drinks over a period of time, they might be putting them all on your account, and not yor partner's and you might go over the limit without realizing. So it's defintely good to keep an eye on it.

If you can do without internet, on-demand lobster, alcohol, mocktails, soft drinks and barista coffees for 14 days, then everything else is included. No need to spend more, no bottomless money pit. If you think you will want internet and buy a lot of drinks while onboard, get the Plus or Premium package as it's a no brainer and is a better deal than any other cruise line period.

Just wanted to share a scanned PDF of the Teen Club's schedule on our last Royal Princess cruise. My two teen boys both went there every single day and had a blast. Both said the Princess teen club on the Royal Princess was much better than their past RCCL Ovation & Quantum cruises. Having their own private table tennis, foosball, arcade games, multiples of PS4 and XBOXs, private hottub & outdoor alfresco area etc. was a huge it. RCCL Teen Club is mostly just a seating area, so both found it boring. Security was also excellent as Princess had multiple employees inside, and a security personnel guarding the entry (RCCL doesn't). Anyways. Hope someone finds it useful! beach_house_royal_princess_december_2023.pdf

I was on Royal princess 13 night cruise just 2 months ago. Was our first time on Princess (we only cruised RCCL before this) and wife & Ioved it so we booked another later this year. Heck, even my 2 teens said it was much better than previous RCCL (Ovation of the Seas) cruises. Not sure if it would be like that for everyone but for wife & I (not very active lol) it was definitely a better fit. (premier package was a big part of it as well) Would love to do an Alaska cruise on Princess one day.

I was able to ask for cans of red bull and coca cola at the bars on my recent royal cruise as part of my premier package. I think there were few othe soda cans but can't remember what.

On my recent Royal cruise, embarkation lunch was nice, but other days weren't that great tbh. (we had reserved class dining as well). So we had lunch mostly at Ocean Terrace and Alfredos. (had Premier) It would be nice if Princess opened Crown Grill and Sabatinis for Lunch like what RCCL does with Jamie's Italian and Chops Grill on sea days, with a cheaper upcharge and smaller menu. But yeah, maybe they think it won't be that popular? I was on RCCL Quantum last week and Jamie's Italian was packed nearly every sea day lunch. But Chops Grill was mostly empty. Having a celebrity chef name does help for sure I think.

I've had an 9 night Ovation cruise to South Pacific in April 2019, 10 night Ovation cruise to New Zealand in April 2023, and a 13 night Royal Princess cruise to South Pacific just 2 weeks ago. First two Ovation cruises both had very sunny and calm weather for the entire cruise. Not even a drop of rain in sight nor any strong winds. Royal Princess cruise for past 2 weeks was great also. Couple of days had intermittent rain and mid-strong winds, but the swell wasn't high enough to feel tipsy on the ship, or stop people from going out on the ports still. Luck of the draw at the end I think. During my great time on the Royal Princess past 2 weeks to Fiji, Vanuatu etc, there was a cyclone hitting the upper QLD part of Australia from the east. So the cruises that were going up the QLD coast all had its port stops cancelled and instead went down south to Sydney. So yeah, I was lucky, but many others weren't even during the same period.

I did ask if I can have any other roll and was told for certain that it's not possible. Btw, the spicy tuna roll has no raw fish in it. It is a roll with rice, cucumber, avocado, crab stick, and has grilled tuna on the top with chili mayo) I think that is why they picked that one due to such non-raw nature. (easier to store / make / keep it consistent) It is quite delicious mind you. I really liked the sauce as it has a bit of a kick. As for just 1 type of nigiri, as long as you stay within the boundaries of what is included (salmon, tuna and ebi), I'm sure they will be able to accomodate it if you ask nicely enough. 🙂

Just got off the Royal. Wife & I were on Premier, and due to this, we often just sat at Ocean Terrace and order edamame by itself or just order the pickled vegetables and salad etc. to nibble on with some drinks. So there is no need to order the full set. You can subtract away. (obviously more useful with premier package for having no limits to number of meals)

Afaik, reserved class mini suites seem to be restricted to the mid-ship mini suites on Baja Deck 11. Don't think you can just pay more for it as I can only assume the number of pax is purposefully limited to keep the reserved dining (no wait walk-in) possible as promoted. But I would give Princess or your CVP a call to confirm for certain.

We are on one right now and for us it was defintely worth it for the nice mid-ship location and especially due to the Reserved Dining! The level of service is a step up, with faster food delivery (hence much shorter dining time is possible), daily special menu items, and anytime zero wait walk-in. For reserved dining benefit alone, all my future cruises will always be reserved class at a minimum now.

This is how the full set looks like. (photo taken today on Royal Princess)

You will see the embarkation time range (mine was 12:30pm - 3pm) displayed along with the embarkation QR code on your medallion app's home page about a week or so before the cruise date. However, we arrived there at 11am and was able to get in early no issues.

On my current Royal Princess cruise, Ocean Terrace was a fixed menu exactly as shown/mentioned above, but instead of the seaweed salad, it's a mushroom/greens salad with ponzu sauce. If you have premier package, since it is unlimited, you can just sit and order edamame, or just the roll etc. as many and as often as you like. (still stuck within the included items though) Alfredos allows you to choose from anything on the menu but in a fixed 3 course with 1 item from each course if you have the plus package. It becomes fully unrestrictive / no limits when you have premier package.

There are multiple dining rooms. I'm on a similar Royal Princess atm and it has the same 3 dining rooms. For this cruise, Allegro and Concerto dining rooms are for those who reserved a dining time. Symphony is for any time dining where no reservations required. So I assume it'll be similar for Regal. Breakfast is 7am to 9am Lunch is 12noon to 1:30pm DInner is 5pm to 9pm Which dining rooms open at what time for breakfast/brunch/afternoon tea/lunch vary based on sea/port days and is shown on the daily Princess patter. Dinner is open on all 3 every evening.

yes. and you can check how many alcohol drinks you've had / remaining from the app very easily.

Most alcohol/drinks will show a price. However, if you have the package that covers that amount, the full amount will be discounted once you add them to the cart. The cart will show the total amount minus the discount totalling to $0.

I'm currently on a Royal class with premier in a reserve class mini suite and no water is left in the room if I do not order them myself. So every morning, I just use the medallion app and order 4 x 500ml bottles of water delivered to the room. Gets delivered within 10~20mins. Can do that many times a day if you need more water. No need to go to the bar and do water shuttles. (I only order 4 just to make it not too inconvenient for the waiter) Can order soda cans, ginger ale or ginger beer, red bull, San Pellegrino sparkkling water bottles etc. All included and free for premier. Also can order most wines, cocktails, spririts, mocktails, baista coffees, premium tea etc. Only the alcoholic drinks count towards the 15 per day per person limit. If you go to the bar, you can also ask for fancy looking glass VOSS sparkling water bottles to take to your room (availability could vary by ship I assume). (or ask them at your table in the dining room etc.)

Technically yes, but not to the extent that I was expecting unfortunately. e.g., I'm currently on the Royal and with premier. Ocean Terrace has a fixed menu which is a small bowl of salad, beans, pickes, 2 salmon nigiri, 1 prawn nigiri, 1 tuna nigiri, and spicy tuna aburi roll (8 pcs). There is no other choice or selection that you can or are allowed to have as part of the plus / premier package. (anything differen is charged at ala carte rate) So you can have unlimited of what I've listed (even can order them individually, and not as a set) but nothing else on their menu can be ordered for free. (e.g. can't have any other type of nigiri such as hamachi, octopus etc, nor any of their other rolls or sashimi etc) Alfredos is better, as you can pretty much order anything and everything on the menu, as a 3 course set or in an individual manner as many as you want. (e.g. can just sit in, and order the tiramisu and nothing else, or order 3 pizzas and nothing else etc.) Same for Vines with their limited food menu.

Do they have red bull cans? also, alcohol cans? (e.g. bacardi cans, jim bean coke etc.)

Sometimes, if the connection to a power socket is too far, I just connect the firestick to a portable power bank and tuck it behind the TV while I'm watching it. Decent 20000mAh size power bank should last 5+ hours. But yeah, if lucky, the TV's rear USB socket might provide enough power or the firetv to function just fine. Then that's the easiest method.

I have two teen boys. So I registered them on the website. Can't remember exacly but maybe within few months of the cruise. Can't be done within 1 week of sailing either afaik. Login to your account, then go to Manage the booking, then Check-in tab. You'll see "Youth & Teen Program Registration" under their names. Then you'll see this:

I have an option to bid from reserve collection mini-suite to a premium suite also but I decided not to bid as I prefer midship instead of walking down all the way to the front of the ship on the Royal. I also have premier package, so I do get many of the Suite benefits already such as Club Class dining, reserved theatre seating, evening canapes etc. But if you are currently on a non-reserve collection mini suite and not doing premier package, then I would say it is probably worth it for the bigger room, reserve dining, priority everything, louonge access, specialty dining on embarkation day etc. Ofc, it depends on how much $600pp is relative to your current cruise price/length.