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It was a very cool experience, but I thought it was overpriced. I went because my friend's brother was working as a crew member for Philips Cruises and got us tickets for 1/2 off. The 26 Glacier Cruise takes you into College Fjord. The Grand Princess will take you around College Fjord the evening of arriving into Whittier. You're basically seeing the same thing on the cruise ship, except up close. Most of the tables on the catamaran aren't near windows, so you might find yourself standing up a lot and going outside. You're pre-assigned a seat at a table. If you want good pictures, it's best to stand outside because the catamaran's windows are tinted. But it is a 6 hour cruise, so how much standing do you really want to be doing? Not sure how adventurous you are, but I would have just as happy hiking another trail in Whittier. We actually got off the ship at 6:00 a.m. and hiked the Portage Pass Trail, arrived back at the ship at 10:30, ate/showered/got ready, and were still able to make it to the 26 Glacier Cruise boarding at noon.

If you are joining the 26 Glacier Cruise in Whittier as an embarking passenger, it would be best to arrive in Whittier early to check-in for your Princess cruise before boarding the catamaran for the 26 Glacier Cruise. I was on the Majestic Princess this summer as a transiting passenger in Whittier on a B2B Voyage of the Glaciers cruise. I took this excursion and when we returned to the terminal at around 6:30 p.m., check-in had already ceased, which is why I recommend checking-in for the Princess cruise before boarding the catamaran for the excursion. Can't say for sure what the check-in times are for embarking passengers because I wasn't one. The pier for the 26 Glacier Cruise is right next to the cruise ship pier and its literally a 1 minute walk.

Princess can't even get a functioning App. What makes you think that they will be successful in implementing this?

I misunderstood your reply in Post #461.

Everyone needs to take a chill pill with the Green/Blue Lane thing. As a Californian, it's like a road rage incident. When Princess first announced of the "simplified boarding process"--their words not mine-- in July 2023, the new protocol would be that a boarding pass would appear on your Medallion App 10-12 days before departure. That is still the case with the Princess Cruises App. 10-12 days before departure, a boarding pass icon will appear. It will show your Green/Blue Lane designation. If you don't see your boarding pass or lane designation, it's because it's still too early. Be patient. I'm Blue Lane for my cruise on 01/07/24 because I didn't have my Medallion shipped to me.

So apparently Medallion Pay has a website: https://medallionpay.com/ The T&Cs of MedallionPay as outlined by Radiqal, LLC are below: https://medallionpay.com/terms/customer/ So, there's a completely different set of T&Cs governing MedallionPay, so passengers shouldn't be forced to provide a credit card for use with Shoreside MedallionPay.

If this is the case, the Princess is being managed poorly. Crew contracts have firm end dates. Why is Princess letting crew contracts lapse with no replacements? (Rhetorical question.) It's not as if there's a mass munity of crew which came as a surprise. Still not an excuse and were way past using the pandemic as an excuse. That came off as strong, but it's stuff like this that make me wonder what JP and and those sitting around the board room are focusing on. It's certainly not the guest experience.

I think Princess understands the single supplement conundrum more than other cruise lines. We always book guarantee rooms, not picky about cabin location. Our friend that books solo guarantee almost always gets an entire category upgrade on Princess. Us on the other hand, usually only gets a location upgrade.

The Future Cruise Desk onboard the Princess ships has a list of sailings with reduced single supplements. The only reason why I know is because we have a cruise friend that travels solo and we try and be mindful of his budget so he can cruise with us. Have to admit the majority of the list was for interior cabins to Alaska and had a 25% SS. One that did catch our eye was the 22 day World Cruise Segment from Dubai to Rome in March 2024.

Nope. I'm in my mid 30s and because of remote work as a result of the pandemic me and my friends have been able to spend plenty of time on cruise ships. Most of the retired of jealous of us because according to them they actually had to show up to work.

And the retired have too much time to spend on cruise ships.

If you click the Boarding Pass button, there it will state your lane color. In your case it should be Blue Lane since you didn't have your Medallion shipped to your home. The "All Set!" just means that you completed the required upload of pre-cruise personal data for check-in into the App. No idea what the verbiage for those that haven't completed this is. IMO, it's a way to get more passengers to fully complete the personal info data entry prior to arriving at the port so the port agents just have to verify passports and hand out Medallions and not have to manually enter all the passenger data themselves. (Nothing wrong with the latter either since that's what the port agents are paid to do.)

Medallion doesn't have the same ring as "Geriatric." ....The Platinum, Elite, and Geriatric Lounge. ...Suite, Elite, and Geriatric guests have access to priority water shuttle service.

Some have reported the minimum bid going down by a whopping $5 closer to sailing. I personally haven’t experienced that. I always book guarantee and the bids drop only when you get a comped upgrade to a higher category. For example, I booked an Interior guarantee and the highest category I could bid on was a Standard Balcony for $150pp. I got a comped upgrade to Deluxe Obstructed Balcony. After the comped upgrade, I could bid all the way up to a Mini-Suite and the minimum bid for a Standard Balcony dropped to $30pp.

It's no wonder why JP's ex-employer, Disney, axed him. He has megalomaniac technological ideas and has no idea on how to implement them. I can attest the My Disney Experience App has worked wonders after his departure.

JourneyView is now called Ship Schedule and is under the Journey tab. The scroll in Ship Schedule is much faster and smoother (vertical only, no horizontal), like scrolling a webpage on a browser on a phone or tablet. The port guides (as outdated as they are) are also under Ship Schedule on port days, but when tapped, an error message appears. Ocean Compass (ship map), is now called Explore the Ship Map and is also under the Journey Tab. What I don't see is function to add companions not on your booking. I assume the interface will change once on board the ship. I have to say the color scheme of the Princess Cruises App is much easier on the eyes than the various shades of blue used on the Medallion App. I wish there was a status bar/wheel that would tell you if the App is processing or crashed, when opened from scratch. Now, its only a blue screen with a white Seawitch. This would help those with slow Internet, so that they don't automatically assume the App has crashed if it's just slow to load.

What I'm surmising here is that Princess has turned into the Carnival of the "premium cruise lines." They're way cheaper than the immediate competition, so passengers should not complain and just look at the bright side. How is Princess to improve if all they hear are gleaming reviews, when it's not reality?

The App is lying about it's age. The Princess Cruises App just released today, 12/27/23, and yet, in the Apple App Store, it's showing as being 4+ years old. Did it go forward in time?

January 2024 on the Emerald Princess shows correct USD prices for Sabatini's and Crown Grill.

Travel Summary is under the "Luggage Tags" button. It will open up the "Luggage Tags & Travel Summary" page of your Cruise Personalizer on the Princess website. The App is programmed to open up the Princess website for these functions. The same goes for Shore Excursion bookings.

The developers need to reset the auto-logout parameters for logins using username/password combo. The timeframe set is far too short. The Medallion App never logged out automatically; logout had to be done manually.

The new tier should be called "Geriatric"

It's about perception. Someone with a degree from Stanford or Harvard can ask for higher wages than someone with a degree from the University of Phoenix (no offense). The perception of pedigree allows a person/business to charge more for their goods, even though it's only perceived. It's the same reason why Louis Vuitton can charge thousands for a handbag and some no name brand can't. There's a lot of buzz in the business/finance/entrepreneur community over X because of the award from Forbes.

On a cruise, the passenger spends the majority of their time on the ship. Time spent shoreside is very short. A review of the ship is warranted. Princess wants to change it's image from catering to the mature to being multi-generational. They aren't doing a good job of attracting a younger generation. The current demographic of cruisers only have so much time to keep Princess afloat. Yes, things can go awry on a cruise, but it's about how the cruise line handles these situations. No cruise line is perfect, but I don't feel like Princess is doing enough to mitigate these situations. Lack of crew, understaffing, lack of training, and inability to attract talent, IMO, is the culprit. It's no different shoreside. If a business can't attract talent for a particular position, they offer higher wages and/or benefits within reason. By doing this, the business attracts and retains talent.

I have a strong affinity to X as well. X has always been more expensive than Princess, but the difference in has become more and more evident at the present. I think part of it is due to the recent award from Forbes Travel Guide. Now they have pedigree.