PR-Texas

17 hours ago, waltd said:

Don't expect a down home type of turkey dinner.  

1 hour ago, Kay S said:

Another vote for the buffet.  You can pick out your own sides and don't have to settle for sweet potato mash with giblets. 🙃  You can also get a serving of gravy larger than a tablespoon.

The only down home type turkey dinner I've ever had is AT home. Restaurants just can't make Thanksgiving dinner like momma did.  And even in the US what is served varies by what part of the country you're in. Thanks for the suggestion about the buffet.  That sounds like a winner.

And no cleanup - whoopee.

I'm interested in this also.  We will be on the Royal headed back to Sydney from New Zealand.  Obviously we're not near the US but wondered if there might be an something on the menu for the US folks.

2 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

June 17 is the date Princess stated however it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve missed a deadline.

 

Considering that almost the entire fleet will be making dining reservations even if they meet the deadline that system may be overloaded. We're cruising in November and haven't even discussed when we want to eat or if we just want to wing it.

Personally I'd wait until June 19 or later. Almost the entire Princess fleet will be trying to book dining reservations on June 17 so I think the system may well be overwhelmed. And no need to book at all unless you want a specific time to dine. It may work better than I think but....

46 minutes ago, Earthworm Jim said:

 

Not disputing the accuracy of that statistic, but it surprises me. I could see most men very rarely wear a suit, but I'd have thought you need to own one for weddings and funerals.

Because of our age we've been to more funerals lately than weddings but I've seen fewer and fewer suits on the men and much more casual clothes on the women than in the past.  I'm thinking "formal nights" in Princess are just reflecting the dress that's common in the world.  DH is taking a sportcoat but that's partly so I can borrow it if I get chilly.

Not with Princess but we did an Alaska by Rail last Summer and the train was fantastic.  We just had backpacks inside the train but had 2 suitcases as luggage that were checked and loaded in the luggage compartment with the rest of stuff from our group.  Wonderful trip.  You will love the train.

I can't say about the tour to Alaska but I checked out the itinerary on our Australia New Zealand cruisetour before I booked it.  From the Princess website choose the cruisetour you're interested in and check the Cruise Details.  The Connoisseur Escorted cruisetours I looked at to Alaska had a fairly detailed itinerary including which meals were included on the land portion.

Good Luck. 

Here's a whole thread discussing this exact subject:https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3010695-formal-night-without-suit-and-formal-shoes/

Lots of folks have an opinion but I think CruiseRaider summed it up well.

Different question. Are the TVs on the Royal Bluetooth compatible.  DH likes different movies than I do.  At home he watches using Bluetooth headphones. Just wondering if the headphones we take on the plane will work with the TV in our balcony stateroom?

We're cruising on the Royal and from what I saw of the deck plans there's a laundry room on each deck.  We're doing a 20 day cruisetour to Australia and New Zealand.  The land portion is first so we'll pack less and do laundry on one of our first two sea days.  I'd much rather do my own than send stuff out and wait however long it takes to get it back. 

I want to dress up a bit so told DH that he has a choice of sport coat or tie. My guess is he'll go with the sport coat which is fine since I can borrow it if we stroll around the deck after dinner and I get chilly. I'll probably stick a tie in the suitcase for him since it doesn't take up much room but I doubt he'll wear it.  Our cruise is to New Zealand so don't know how "formal" it will be.

A note on excursion charges.  The price quoted on the Princess Cruise Personalizer is in AUD.  If you book before the cruise you will be charged the AUD rate converted converted to whatever currency your credit card uses.  We're US so when we booked excursions for our Nov cruise we actually paid in USD after the conversion rate was applied.  As discussed in another thread the price of excursions can and does go up over time so you may want to go ahead and book the excursions now even if you haven't paid in full yet.

Even though you don't drink much alcohol you might want to check out the Princess Plus option.  There's an entire thread discussing the pros and cons of getting Princess Plus.  The short answer is that for $60 per day per person you get gratuities, wifi, up to 15 alcoholic drinks a day plus sodas, bottled water, specialty coffees and teas, premium deserts, free room service delivery, ocean now, and some other stuff.  We don't drink but got Princess Plus for the non alcoholic benefits.  We also got it for the Pay it and Forget it aspect. 

Here's the thread:

Hearing about the ketchup with quesadillas reminds me to put Taco Bell fire sauce on my packing list. 🤣  Since Australia and New Zealand have really strict biosecurity rules we'll be taking prepackaged nuts and granola bars as well as chocolates for the crew. When our daughter worked on Disney Cruise Line she said the room stewards and servers were often too busy to get off the ship on port days so chocolates were really appreciated.

They make shelf stable Almond Milk Singles.  Hopefully if you purchased these you could bring several onboard.  Once opened if you didn't use all of it you could keep it in the fridge.  My daughter leaves several at our house so she doesn't have to remember to bring Almond milk every time my granddaughter comes over. 

48 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

 they are a great value add a lot to our enjoyment of our cruise. 

We'll be half a world away from our families so WiFi to keep up with them is important.  Lowering gratuities isn't something we would even consider.  We have six sea days so a fitness class or two might be fun.  Having OceanNow so we can order a water or soda delivered to wherever we are sounds like a benefit as does free delivery for room service. Will we use enough benefits to equal the cost of the package?  No clue.  Will I keep up with it.  Absolutely not. For us the biggest benefit is Pay it and Forget It.  We're on vacation.  

I'm thinking that we'll probably take one of the nightlights we have at home.   We won't be needing them at home while we're on the cruise.  My guess is we'll take a plug in always on nightlight and cover the sensor for the closet area.  Bright lights are not good when I'm half asleep. Thanks for the thread since nightlights weren't something on my list of stuff to take.  

1 minute ago, Teechur said:

They typically have one receptacle that will power an electric shaver but not a hair dryer. Fortunately, they offer enough juice to power an LED nightlight.

US or EU type plug? Never cruised Princess before so trying to avoid surprises where possible.

What type of plugs (if any) are in the bathroom on the Royal?  I've seen info about the plugs in the room but don't recall seeing anything about the bathrooms.

Thanks for the quick reply. I booked the final 3 excursions.  Fortunately since the excursions are quoted in Australian $$ the increase isn't quite as large as it would have been in USD.  Now we just have to wait till November to head to Australia.

Wish I had known this a couple of weeks ago.  Could have saved us some cash.

We're booked for the Australia/NewZealand cruise tour Nov 10-16,2024.  I've booked and paid for three of our excursions since it looked like they were getting full.  I just checked the other three that we're interested in and the cost has increased $40 to $50 pp from when I originally planned our budget.  I looked back at the ones we've already paid for and the price for them has gone up also.  I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd so I was keeping track of what we expected to spend.  Is this something that usually happens?  Should I go ahead and pay for the ones we want to prevent a future increase?

We're doing a CruiseTour with 6 days in Australia followed by a 14 day cruise around NZ.  I had already planned to pack less and use the self serve laundry on one of the sea days between Sydney and NZ.    I'll probably also do at least one load on the sea days returning to Sydney.  It will be nice to get back to Texas with clean clothes.

I don't want to sound harsh but if the cost of passports is a significant factor in whether you cruise or not then it's possible that you shouldn't be spending the money on the cruise in the first place.  We don't cruise often but have always considered the cost of a current passport as a necessary expense regardless of where we're cruising.

For us the biggest hassle of getting passports was finding/getting certified copies of our birth certificates.  Once we had those in hand getting the passports was easy and it eliminated any questions about whether they would be accepted.

Not having a passport can be a real problem if you are injured in Ensenada and can't get back on the ship.  Get the passport.  Much easier to travel with it unless ALL your travel is within the US on US flagged ships such as MCL Pride of America