atobols

On 5/25/2022 at 9:30 AM, carlosalonsor said:

I've been watching the official page and they seem to be releasing tickets randomly and not at midnight (Italy time). 

If anyone have any clue at what time they release the Colosseum tickets please advice!

The tickets are released at exactly 30 days prior to entry.  I wanted tickets for 9:30 AM on July 9th.  I'm in California, which is 9 hours different than Rome.  I had to wait until 12:30 AM (PST) on June 9th to get tickets.  My husband was on one computer and I was on another trying to get 4 tickets the second we saw them.  We didn't get tickets for 9:30 but did get tickets for 9:35.  The tickets are gone in less than 30 seconds after release.  You have to be really fast!

I did a load of laundry on our January 2022 cruise on Majestic.  I brought my own detergent and the washers were normal top loading washers.  

We made a reservation for breakfast at Mons Calpe Suite for breakfast.  Eating a meal there gets free cable car ride up and back.  You also get to skip the line by going in the exit door and getting right onto a cable car.  We plan on buying nature reserve tickets when we get to the top.  I can copy and paste the exact wording from the reservation confirmation email if anyone is interested. Our plan is to do breakfast at 10AM, buy our nature reserve tickets and then walk down the rock seeing sites as we go.  It should only be a little over 5 km walk and take us about 4 hours to do it.  That's our plan based on what I've read and the people I've spoken with.  Having never been there, I'm open to suggestions.

Our first Princess cruise was when our kids were 10 and 12.  Electronic devices, movies on the stateroom TV, and the kids club were their favorites.  I would advise taking your own cards and travel games if you want to be sure there is something you can play together.  Everything on the ship is variable.  We've now been on 5 Princess cruises with our kids and every cruise is different.  They loved the naturalist for Hawaii, they hated the naturalist on board for Alaska.  Sometimes the comedians are hilarious and pre-teens loved it, our last cruise had a boring comedian.  One time there was a magic show my boys loved. 

With COVID and cruising being so unpredictable, I wouldn't count on the cruise line to provide entertainment outside the kids club.  We've done two cruises with Princess since the restart.  The entertainment crew was obviously struggling on both of them due to sickness, under-staffing, and last minute changes.  There probably will be something your kids enjoy but I have no idea what that might be.  We'll be doing another cruise in less than a month and while I know we're going to love it, I also have no idea what to expect based on our last two cruises.

ETA: Alaska specific things my boys enjoyed.  Eagles - we loved watching them and looking for them in the trees while docked.  We also went to the eagle sanctuary.  Whales - we took binoculars and watched them off the ship from our balcony, also went on a whale watch excursion in Juneau.  Glacier Bay - NPS rangers come on the ship and they bring junior ranger books so the kids can get their badge.  Salmon berries - we went to a national park that had something to do with totem poles, my kids had no interest in the totem poles.  What they did love were the salmon berries at the edge of the bay.  The park ranger took my kids out there, pointed out the berries and picked some for my kids to eat.  There was a crowd of about 10 kids out there picking and eating salmon berries.  That was the highlight of the day for my kids.

One of the reasons we love sailing from SF is that the port is small and easy to navigate.  We drive there and park so we tend to overpack when we don't have to fly.  We always take one huge suitcase, three carry-ons, backpacks, and a dive bag with scuba gear.  We have lots of bags and two teenagers so carrying on for us would be a hot mess. We pass everything but the backpacks off to the porters and then walk into the building.  As long as you're not there in the chaos of the previous cruise trying to get out, it's actually really calm and organized.  We walk on, head for the MDR for some lunch, and then our room is normally ready by the time we get out of lunch.  

If I didn't have so many bags or children, I would just carry on and head for the dining room.  

Eight days ago, I applied for SHB on our June 2023 cruise.  The credit showed up on my account this morning.  

I sent one in 10 days ago and it showed up about a week later.  I sent another one in yesterday and it's not there yet.

19 minutes ago, ImperialLady said:

We will be going to Alaska on the Crown the last week of August. How do most people dress to eat in the dining room on regular nights and on the dressier ones?  We are hoping to pack as light as possible with jeans, tops and tennies. Would nice, dressy jeans, sparkly blouse and flats be acceptable on the dressier nights?  thanks

That will be fine for Alaska.  Alaskan cruises are more hiker chic than business casual.

We were on the Ruby in November 2022.  My sons have hit the point where they are taller than me.  They thought it was hilarious to take my magnetic hook off the wall and hang it on the ceiling where I had to jump to reach it.  I can confirm that walls and ceiling are metal.

I have two teen boys.  They wear joggers or shorts to the dining room.  They watch to see if other guys are allowed into the dining room wearing shorts and then they'll wear them after they see it's being allowed.  My boys will either wear joggers and shorts with a T-shirt on normal nights.  On formal nights they will wear fitted joggers and a button down shirt with a collar.  For shoes, they wear their Keen sandals on normal nights and Vans on formal nights.

We had an aft premium balcony on the Majestic.  We had always wanted to try one and were thrilled to get one.  It turned out that we weren't fans of once we tried it.  Soot was an issue.  We couldn't leave anything out there to dry because it would be covered in black spots.  It would get on the chairs so we had to wipe them down before sitting on them.  It also got on the bottoms of our feet and we tracked it everywhere.  The exhaust was stinky and there was one afternoon it was blowing directly on us. We had a 4 person room and the two extra beds blocked the balcony door.  It wasn't a terrible experience, just not what we had dreamed it would be when booking.  I'm glad we tried it but we'll be sticking to mini-suites after that experience.

Overall, I think Princess has pretty bland food.  The Indian and Mexican dishes are particularly disappointing. I have found that the hottest sauce available is tabasco and I'm not really a fan of that.  I take a small shaker of cayenne and a bottle of habanero Yucateco when we cruise.  It makes certain dishes much more enjoyable.

59 minutes ago, TiogaCruiser said:

I’m glad we both have short wetsuits.

I wouldn't have been able to handle it with my shorty, but I really don't like cold water. My husband and 15 year old son were fine.  We went scuba diving a couple of days later in Cabo and I found that to be much more comfortable.

We booked a tour going out to Isla Coronado.  We did some snorkeling (gear and wetsuits were included) and then we did a tour around the island to see the dolphins and sea lions, then we went to a secluded beach area where we had lunch and did some relaxing on the beach.  We were there in December and the water was pretty cold.  I really needed that wetsuit!  The boat ride was chilly and the waves made for a pretty bumpy ride.  It was warm and comfortable once we hit the beach area.  My family enjoyed all of it.

We tried both on our cruise in December.  I normally eat vegetarian, but every six months or so, I am up for a good steak. I had high hopes for Crown Grill being able to deliver a great filet.  I found it to be a big letdown.  Everything looked good but it didn't have a whole lot of flavor.  I thought the side dishes were better than the main proteins. My husband and our two teens had a slightly higher opinion than I did.  They said they would return if given a free meal, I wouldn't.  We preferred Sabatini's because it was easier to taste and share everything on the menu. We didn't love everything at Sabatini's but it was tastier overall.

I've sailed from Ensenada up to San Francisco on one cruise and San Francisco up to Alaska on another.  I don't recall ever being able to look over and see the coast on sea days.  I'm guessing it might have something to do with staying far enough away from the coast for the casino to be open.

We cruise with our two teen boys.  We have had luck making phone calls using Discord from person to person on the ship and with making wifi calls to people back on land.

I told my husband and teenage sons they had to wear pants for dinner.  They crabbed and complained about being forced to wear pants when others weren't doing it.  I really paid attention while in the main dining room on our New Year's cruise out of LA so that we could make an official call on if pants were required.  There were lots of men and women wearing shorts and T-shirts, even on formal night.  I gave up the fight after seeing that, they are now free to wear shorts on casual nights.  It makes packing for a family of 4 so much easier.

1 hour ago, back to the islands said:

Who did you go out with in Loreto, atobols?

This is the tour we did.  https://www.toursloreto.com/all-tours/coronado/

We had cruised on the Ruby over Thanksgiving and were excited to cruise on the Majestic over New Year's.  In comparison to the Ruby, the Majestic was better in some areas and worse in others.  The food was a major improvement over the Ruby.  We ate everywhere except at Harmony and it was all good.  The Ruby had an amazing party band and three different solo/duo singing acts which were all amazing.  The Majestic was really lacking when it came to music.  We finally got a good guitarist/singer on the last three days of our cruise.  I think his name was Cameron Duncan, but I'm not positive.  The headlining entertainment was good.  I saw two comedians, one magician, and the singing impressionist.  The singing impressionist, Tricia Kelly, was very good.  The cruise director, Kevin Tugwell, and his staff were all really good.  If they were running something, we knew it would be funny and entertaining. 

For excursions, we did snorkeling through Princess in Puerto Vallarta.  The snorkeling wasn't amazing and the water was a little on the cool side.  Wetsuits were not offered for that excursion.  I get cold in water pretty easily.  I would have been more comfortable in a shorty wetsuit.  We did a private ziplining excursion in Mazatlan and that was wonderful.  I have two teen boys and that was the highlight of their trip.  We will definitely be ziplining again.  In Loreto we did a private snorkeling excursion.  A full wetsuit was provided and it was cold.  That snorkeling trip was better because there was a greater variety of fish but that water was cold. I only lasted about half an hour before I had to get out and warm up.  In Cabo we did a private 2-tank scuba dive.  That was a surprisingly good dive.  The water was warmer than in Loreto. I wore a full wetsuit, but I was comfortable the entire time we were in the water.  We saw a large group cow nose rays, got up close to a moray eel, saw a lobster, and had some sea lions swim alongside us.

We got home from our cruise yesterday evening and all got COVID tested this morning.  Thankfully, we all got negative test results and we're all feeling healthy.  It was a very enjoyable cruise.

We went to a life aboard the sea chat yesterday.  It was led by the cruise director and one of the assistant cruise directors.  They said every turn around they are getting between 40 -100 new crew members.  They get boosted at the airport and then have to go into quarantine on deck 9 for at least 5 days.  If any crew member had a cough or stuffy nose, they automatically go into quarantine.  Even if they test negative, they stay in quarantine.  Crew members are tested weekly.  

33 minutes ago, leet102 said:

I see there is only one Showtime, at 10:30 pm.  Is that due to low attendance?  Did anyone go and how was Improv night?

The improv is tonight and we plan to attend.  Last night was a musical comedian and he was on at 7:30 and 9:30.