desertdwellingsailor

17 hours ago, DiRonT said:

We live parking at the port.  Most times we stay in a hotel within a mile or two the night before then have a leisurely breakfast in the morning...

We probably will stay Friday night at my wife's mother's house in Fullerton. Have to leave time for possible traffic jams but I'm thinking of leaving a little later to try to avoid the rush of people leaving and coming at the same time.

Forgot to mention. The other two things I want to do differently if I can. I hope to park at the port in San Pedro this time to see if it will be easier. We are driving in from Arizona. On our first cruise out of the same port the poor driver got lost both ways going to Long Beach instead. It was fun waiting forever after we disembarked. Might be nice to just walk to our car. Also, we had long lines embarking in our last cruise out of Vancouver and I've read that if we leave later the crowds might thin out a bit. Anyway, I'm trying to change things up a little. Same cruise line, same ship, so it is not that radical a change.

We have done two cruises in a row in a mini suite on the C deck of Discovery Princess. My wife wanted to do something different and I was thinking of trying a balcony room nearer the top decks. So we booked a cruise to Mexican Riviera in March on the same ship. I debated Marina deck or the one below. It is an experiment. I thought it would be fun on a warmer weather cruise to be one flight down from the pools and buffet. Might be too noisy but we aren't that affected by noise usually. I think the room we got is right under the soft serve ice cream place. I guess we have a couple months more to pay the bill but I am looking forward to trying it. Might be nice to easily come in out out from deck and quickly grab something from the buffet. Am I crazy? Maybe there will be more motion? I haven't been affected by the motion yet either. I think it is fun to try it and just see what we think.

2 hours ago, Cattiathecat said:

I’d appreciate any advice on dining dress code for males on the Princess Discovery that will be sailing out of LA to Mexican Riviera early October? Will my husband be ok in a day suit? Thanks in advance.

I wore a tie but no jacket on my two cruises on that ship with no problem. Khaki pants and brown dress shoes. There were guys there less formal and more formal than me.

12 hours ago, SargassoPirate said:

The Medallion and the wonky app seem to have only complicated booking and taking a cruise with Princess...

I love this discussion. True story. In October my wife and I went on our first Princess Cruise with her brother, his wife, and her parents. The rest of them had been on 5-7 princess cruises pre covid and they were showing my wife and I the ropes as newbies. But they were completely lost with the app which came naturally to both of us. We do have computer science degrees. 🙂

So, we had to help them get all the green lane stuff going and when we got on the ship and I used the app to have a coffee drink brought to me they were mystified. It was funny because they were trying to arrange everything and show us the ropes but the tech threw them for a loop. And it wasn't that they aren't smart. Her brother is a CPA and his wife a professional musician. But they were thrown by the new stuff like having to pick a time to embark which is nearly impossible in the app.

Clearly the user interface of the app and web site are poor. But at the same time the app has some good features. I like being about to chat with the crew from my phone instead of waiting in line at some counter. And I ordered a bunch of stuff from the app on my two Princess Cruises. And I like how the medallion lets the crew know it is me and makes embarkation faster.

Anyway, I totally get why people don't want to use an app and Princess could make it easier to use. But it has some value for me.

Bobby

3 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Sorry, but you have responded to a post from over five months ago.  With App changes and fixes, the situation involved would be rather irrelevant by now.  Another note is the OP's TA didn't know what they were talking about.  Anyway, not much point in pursuing a technical issue from five months ago that was possibly a data corruption issue and there is no need to use the Link a Booking feature.

Yes, you are right. My mistake. I should have looked at the date of the original post. Disregard my comment please.

On 9/3/2023 at 12:31 PM, kstrittm said:

I just sailed on the Discovery, and the bartenders and wait staff were far and few between.  I regularly waited up to 30 minutes to get a drink during Happy Hour times; dinners took over 2 hours every night.  I felt so bad for the staff - they were working their butts off; just weren't enough of them to support the 3800 passengers.  

We were on Discovery beginning of May. MDR was much faster than when we were on it in October. But we had a smaller party and didn't order as many dishes. We did struggle to get bartender/waiter attention at the bar during a busy time after dinner. Room service at busy time (watching glacier) was very slow and we went to buffet instead. But otherwise it was fine. Probably just avoid peak times and it would be fine. I was laughing to myself about the bartender situation. Would be hard to get very drunk if you cannot get someone to take your drink order. But I ordered room service drinks several times at off hours with no problem. Maybe pre covid you didn't have the peaks? Seems unlikely, but  I wouldn't know since I didn't cruise for 20 years prior to Covid.

On 4/3/2023 at 11:52 PM, SSCAF001 said:

Hello,

Sorry if this issue has been raised already. I have just booked my first Princess cruise a week ago and I cannot link my Princess profile with my booking on Princess Medallion app. I have no problem on Princess website to retrieve my booking. My TA tells me that the problem comes from the fact that my cruise is only due to sail in 2024. Could it be the reason? Thanks for your help.

Maybe you could tell us what steps you took to try to add your journey to the app and what error message the app gave you? Maybe take a screen shot and post it if it doesn't contain any personal information. (Or edit the graphic to remove personal information if you are comfortable with that.)

On 9/5/2023 at 4:53 PM, Ace_Caliente said:

Is there sherry available on board? I looked up some of the menus for Vines etc and couldn't find sherry, though to be fair I may have been looking in the wrong place. I also did a search on the forum here and the posts seemed to be discussing bringing sherry onboard and not ordering it. Thanks

It's funny that they don't have sherry. On our trip in May I was asking the bartender what types of whiskey they had and he said it was too many kinds to mention. Maybe you should switch to bourbon or scotch! 🙂

We got the same email. We signed up for a March 2024 cruise on July 1, 2023 and selected the Plus option. Our travel summary on the web site lists all the costs and features of plus. But in the app under packages it says Premier 80 and lists the new premier benefits as outlined in the email. We have not paid the final bill yet so we will see what we are actually paying then but it appears we were upgraded for free to premier without any notice. We were upgraded from plus to premier due to a promotion on our April 30th, 2023 Alaska cruise but it never showed up in the app that way. We really are fine with just the plus but if we get upgraded for free we won't complain. 

16 hours ago, Dbld777 said:

Yes, it won't even accept the same credit card number for a separate booking on the same cruise. I tried to put my credit card in for other family members cabins and it won't take it and says "invalid credit card number". Same cc number that I had just entered for my booking. 

They could make a more meaningful message than "invalid card number". How about, "card number already in use by another member of your party" or something like that?

19 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

I didn't enter a card for my wife separately. I did all the setup on my phone. I entered my credit card number and then checked the box for her to be an authorized user. That's it. I think people keep trying to do separate setups and the system doesn't like having the card entered twice.

I ended up removing the Visa from the app on my phone and adding it to the app on hers. It gave me the option of making me an authorized user. Then I deleted the mastercard. It did not give me the option of making her an authorized user in the app on my phone. Maybe she is considered the primary for purposes of the app? I made the booking, but this is our third cruise in a row using the app so maybe on the first one she was the primary and it stuck. Doesn't matter because it is fixed and I know what to do next time.

Is this for questions about the app? It works well for us usually but I could not get it to take my Visa card for my wife. I have the same one for me. I am not sure if I need to contact Princess or my bank. I put our Mastercard in there and it worked but the Mastercard keeps getting blocked when we travel so we want to use the Visa. I was trying to add it for on board purchases for her. Says it is an invalid number but it is not.

8 hours ago, Ombud said:

No idea about Ketchikan (Deck 6 aft). 

We had a nice time in Ketchikan last time except for one night we were in the middle of the floor and there was a lot of vibration from the engines/propeller shafts which seemed to be under us. On our first cruise we were in one of the middle rooms. I think it was the one with the flexible dining and we had some challenges getting the same table for our party of 6 and near the window. I think we had it maybe 5 five nights out of 7. You don't have to wear a tie although I did with no coat and khaki pants.

22 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Thread posted 12 hours prior to yours:

 

 

I saw that. I wanted to delete mine because it was a duplicate but couldn't figure out how. I was just looking at the Princess posts and missed that post the first time. I can be trained!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glacial-outburst-flooding-juneau-alaska-juneau-destroys-buildings-evacuations/

Not sure how this affects cruise visitors. We saw the Mendenhall Glacier on an excursion on our cruise at the beginning of May. (Discovery Princess out of Vancouver April 30). Looks like a bunch of water was suddenly released.

2 hours ago, PMGS247 said:

 

As others have asked I'm really curious what drives this big change.

 

Gigi's/Alfredo's now being covered by the 2x per cruise casual dining rather than free & unlimited is the only notable downside I can see. Even that's kind of offset by the fact that the 2x casual dining now opens up other places like o'malley's, salty dog, planks, steamers options for included meals as well.

I haven't followed all these threads but that is kind of interesting. I've been wanting a burger at Salty Dog but haven't paid for it because it seemed expensive. On the two 7 day cruises I have been on we only ate at Gigi's once each cruise so maybe on my next one I'll get a SD burger for my second casual dining meal. We have so far paid for plus and we were upgraded to premium one time due to a promotion but we didn't use our fancy meals at Salty Dog. Heading to Mexico March 2nd on Discovery Princess. Maybe a SD burger is in my future. I feel sympathy for everyone who is affected in a negative way by these changes. We all want to have an enjoyable cruise and who wants to pay for something and have what you paid for change? My previous two cruises were also on Discovery so I am curious how the meal situation will change.

On 5/10/2023 at 10:09 AM, outtoseacruise said:

Last week it looks like they flipped the switch on Discovery Princess and Starlink was spotted onboard.

This is so funny. I was trying to see if they would Have Starlink on our trip but didn't find anything about it. We were on Discovery Princess April 30-May 6 in Alaska and I didn't notice the Wi-Fi being especially good but I didn't know to check for Starlink. Maybe we were on the last cruise without it!

2 hours ago, ninka26 said:

Since the Itinerary was so drastically altered and this was to be a bucket list vacation, to say I'm disappointed is an understatement. We opted to get off and return home. What was offered, in MHO, doesn't even come close to being "enough". So much of my heart went into the planning of this cruise just for it to be crushed. This was my first cruise AND first cruise with Princess. The experience has left me with no desire to cruise with Princess ever again. 

I am so sorry. That really stinks. I hope that you have a better experience on a future cruise.