booklady26

I was able to make both main and specialty dining reservations this morning. This might just be for Platinum and Elite CC members, as it still 6 months away.

Okay, I know NCL charges sales tax even on beverages ordered on a drink package while docked in US ports. It's not the couple of bucks on my room charge that annoys me, but just the fact that they collect it when their competitors do not. It seems very petty to me. Anyway, we just came back from a great week on the Escape. There was a Guest Advisory note in the Freestyle Daily on the day we were traveling from Puerto Plata to St Thomas which stated the following: "Norwegian Escape will navigate through Puerto Rican territorial waters this morning. To comply with local regulations an 11.5% sales tax will be added to food & beverage items between 7:30a-8:45a." We didn't even visit Puerto Rico. Are they kidding???? Did they really report every coffee sold in Starbucks that morning to the PR government along with the tax payment???

We're CC Elite and could always make reservations as soon as we book without waiting for final payment. In January, I booked the Enchanted for March 2/2025 and made reservations the day after I booked for both MDR and specialty. Final payment isn't due until December. I booked the Sun in July 2023 for a November 2024 sailing and I'm still not able to book Have any other CC Elites been able to book the Sun for sailings beyond this spring or early summer?

Generally, shows are 7 & 9 PM. We always make our dinner reservations for 7 or 7:15 and never have a problem getting a decent seat at the 9PM show. No show reservations are taken, but I don't recall the last time a show was SRO.

We were on the Joy a few weeks ago. My husband had the PH 2 nights with our dining package. No surcharge.

We were on the Joy the week that Footloose stopped. You still need reservations for Elements which should not be missed. The Beatles cover band performed in the theater the first and last nights and were quite good. They also did 2 shows in the Cavern Club, which is tough to get into because it's so small. The magician who was featured in Elements also did his own show. Although I'm not a fan of magicians in general, his performance in Elements was really fascinating and I'm sorry we missed his solo show. The only disappointment was the tribute to Sir Elton John. I knew we were in trouble when we entered the theater and saw an empty stage with only a keyboard. How can one do an Elton tribute without a piano??? The singer was good but to me it was just a guy singing Elton songs with a "modern" twist. Not at all what we expected and were disappointed. My comment was "we passed up the Beatles Sgt Pepper show for this????"

I just had the same conversation about the CC discount. They would not apply it to the reduced price, not even to the "undiscounted" price of $15 pp/pd. They quoted me the same $400.80 including 20% gratuity with a 15% CC discount that I had originally had and cancelled to get the lower price. I just booked the upgrade directly in the cruise planner for $335.60 including grat but without the CC discount. It's still cheaper than what they wanted to charge me including the discount. Go figure.

Speculation only, but I had read that Royal Caribbean was turning their little used jazz clubs into enclosed casino smoking areas. Maybe Princess is doing the same thing? I wouldn't mind that. I always find Princess casinos to be too smoky. Their casinos are too small to have designated smoking/non-smoking areas with no separation. The smoke just drifts all over. I also find it interesting that a number of posters on this thread love Take Five. I have rarely seen more than a few people in there at any time, whether it's early or late in the evening.

Thanks, Keith. I'm so glad to hear that since the choices up to $35 are really limited since the ala carte prices have increased so much. Couldn't even get a decent steak in Cagney's if that were still the case!

Is there still a dollar limit on the entrees for the Latitudes dinner? The NCL app says $35 but the website no longer mentions any limit other than the fact that upcharges may apply to some premium items, which I assume are things like lobster, filet mignon, etc, which are shown on the menus..

I booked a cruise with the Princess Premier package on 3/30 and I have been unable to make specialty dining reservations or order medallion shipping without being charged to my credit card. I even tried the online version and had the same problems. I know from other posts that this has been an issue for many people. Well, I did my daily check of the medallion app this morning and saw that the dining credits included with the Premier Package are finally available. I was able to make 2 specialty dining reservations as well as order medallion shipping without being charged. The only thing I could see that still needs fixing is that under "packages" it only shows what's included in the Plus Package not Premier. But since I had the specialty dining credits, I'm thinking that this is just another "glitch" that needs fixing. Thank goodness our cruise isn't until December so there's plenty of time to get the app working properly before then.

Thanks for this. I was able to log in with this link, however, the same problems still exist for me. It still wants to charge for shipping medallions and specialty dining is not an available option.

I've had problems since i booked my December cruise on 3/30. Being Elite, I could make the MDR reservations, but the app wanted to charge me the cover charges for specialties even though I have the Premier package. Now I get the "no reservations available" message. Tried to do the web-based version and get a message stating "this booking has already been claimed", so I can't access that. Besides the dining fiasco, the app does not show any of the packages included with Premier. It's directs me to purchase wifi, beverages, etc. And it wants to charge me $10 to ship the medallions, which is free with any package. It apparently doesn't recognize that the Premier package was purchased. Tried calling Princess, they couldn't help. My TA told me that I wasn't his only client experiencing problems and that Princess told him that I should wait until the bugs are fixed. I noticed that there was an updated version of the app available last week, so I deleted the app and reinstalled the update version. That's when I started to get the nothing available message. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that Princess realizes that the dining reservations system is completely messed up so they've just shut it down until it's fixed. What a mess!

I too have this issue with the app. However, I did not book any specialty restaurant reservations because I saw that they were going to bill my credit for the charge. The same is true for the medallion shipping charge. We purchased the premier package when booking and it's confirmed in the Princess travel summary but the app does not appear to be aware of this. We have 2 dining credits and free medallion shipping. among other things with the package, but when I go to the "Packages" section, it tells me that I have none purchased. For the past few days, when I try to "book" specialty dining, I get a pop up message that says there are no reservations available. I find it very hard to believe since our cruise is in December. We are CC Elite and can book these anytime. I called the medallion help desk who had the same issues when they went to book items manually for me. Supposedly they were going to escalate the issue to IT but that was 3 weeks ago. I have logged out of the app and logged back in. I have even deleted and reinstalled the app. Nothing. I called my T/A who said that several people are having issues and Princess has told him that they are aware of these issues and the "glitches" are being worked on. They told him that his clients could go ahead and book what they want and then visit guest services onboard to request a refund. I don;t think so. I have sailed on 2 medallion cruises in the past year and have had no issues. This is really annoying because there is no other way other than the app to book these things. I just hope it gets straightened out well before my cruise as I don't want to have to spend my vacation time arguing with guest services about these problems which are the company's doing not mine.

We booked a cruise with Princess Premier. Not only am I being charged for medallion shipping, but when I went to make specialty dining reservations, it wants to charge my credit card for the dining fee instead of applying the dining credit. It's also asking if I want to purcahse a wifi package, which is included in the Premier. I don't think the app is recognizing the Premier package that was purchased. I called Princess on Friday and after a very short wait of just a couple of minutes, a very nice gentleman tried to help and he was stumped as well. The booking does show the Premier Package included but he was having the same problems I was with the charges. He sent a ticket to escalate the issue and took my phone number and said he'd call back when it was resolved. This was only Friday afternoon, so assuming it wouldn't be worked on over the weekend, it hasn't been 24 hours yet.

I'm sailing on the Silhouette next week. I was checking the X app this morning to see if there were any changes or updates to the daily planner and MDR menus. The first night's menu still has the pork chop, spaghetti Bolognese, etc, but it also now has "Aged Prime Rib of Beef". That's the first time I've seen it since I first started checking about a month ago. I know that the menus are subject to change up to boarding and frequently do. But the fact that the rest of the menu is the same except for the addition of prime rib makes me wonder (and hope) that maybe enough people complained about it and Celebrity actually listened. Anyone else noticed this about their upcoming cruises?

In January 2020, right before covid turned everything upside down, it was selling for over $130 a share. $75 is still a long way off those highs. CCL and NCL are even worse, at about 25% of their pre-covid highs. Investors hear cruise line executives say how strong bookings are and they expect companies to be making a profit, but they aren't. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on the cruise lines to raise prices and cut expenses. But I wonder if this is going to backfire on them. My husband and I are avid cruisers. Next week, we are our taking our 84th cruise vacation. This one happens to be on Celebrity, but we've sailed on numerous lines. For the first time in many years, we have no cruise booked after this one. I think the prices are absurd and the "upscale" experience is being severely eroded. After looking at the MDR dinner menus for our upcoming cruise, it looks more like diner food. Charging for an additional lobster tail is something I'd expect of Carnival or RCL. Frankly, I've never ordered more than one and sometimes I choose something else entirely, but that isn't the point. It's the dumbing down of the experience that bothers me. I'm sure we are not the only ones who are rethinking where we will spend our vacation dollars (or pounds or euros).

I was on the Sky Princess 3 weeks ago and had prime rib, rack of lamb and surf & turf with filet mignon and lobster tails in the MDR. I told my husband that we should have ordered more lobster while it was still free and a couple sitting next to us chimed in and commented that wasn't it terrible that Celebrity was now charging for extra lobster!

Unlike most other casinos (land based or on a ship), Princess slot machines do not issue tickets when you cash out. If you're lucky to have money left, it goes into your account. You can cash it out at the cashier window at any time.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I have to say that while I don't like the cutbacks, I can understand the financial reasoning behind them. What really bothers me is that the cost of cruising has skyrocketed. I'm going on the Silhouette in 3 weeks. We were supposed to take the same cruise a year ago but cancelled due to covid concerns. I was going through some old paperwork last week and realized that we're paying close to $2,000 more for this year's cruise at the same time of year for the same cabin category (plain old verandah). We're paying a lot more and getting less.

We were on the Seashore a few weeks ago. Our stop in San Juan was in the evening and the deck party was held that night along with a buffet dinner by the pool. If you're in SJ at night too your party might be then as well. Sounds like a blast for Halloween.

My husband & I were also on the Breakaway 5/8-5/15. I woke up yesterday (Monday) feeling pretty lousy and hubby had a runny nose and cough. We took tests this morning and we're both positive. We're vaxed and boosted so we're not overly concerned. We've taken 3 cruises since November on Celebrity & Princess. Masks were not required on any of them. Crew were always sanitizing surfaces all over the ship, even in elevators. NCL's idea of keeping things clean were having the washy-washy ladies outside of the Garden Cafe that half the people ignored anyway. Very often tables were not even wiped clean after people left. I often had to take an extra napkin to wipe it before sitting down. NCL did not do a good job of keeping passengers safe. By the way, we commented on this to each other during the cruise long before we felt the first sniffle and laughed about coming home sick. Ha-ha!

Thanks. I follow about or six major cruise lines but have never seen any with a stop at Amber Cove other than Carnival owned ships (incl Princess & HAL). But given the Escape accident, the switch makes sense.

I'm sailing on the Breakaway on Sunday. Our first port was to be Puerto Plata, DR, on Tuesday. I just noticed on my vacation summary that it's been changed to Amber Cove. Isn't that Carnival Corp's semi-private island in the DR, similar to NCL's Harvest Caye in Belize? Is NCL paying the competition to use their port or have they hatched a reciprocal agreement with Carnival to share Harvest Caye with their ships?