Go-Bucks!

The ice tea in the dispensers is unsweetened and made from some sort of concentrate. It isn't horrible' date=' but it isn't very good.

 

Totally agree! I kinda get used to it, but it shouldn't be called "iced tea"; that gives it a dignity it doesn't deserve. ;)

 

I brought along a styrofoam cup and would get hot water and tea bags and brew a quart of tea. I then stored this in my fridge and poured it over ice in a nice mug to make my own iced tea. Much better, and really not much effort at all.

We order a pot or 2 of hot water from room service, along with a selection of tea bags. We steep our own and put the pots in the fridge to get cold.

Another option is to take some of the Cold Brew tea bags with you from home and make the tea with cold water in a pot.

I have sailed Princess mini suites and X sky suites several times. Princess is 323 SQ. ft. including balcony. X is 300 with 79 sq.ft.balcony. Princess offers a bigger room and that is all. X offers Butler,Full bottle Champagne on arrival, private dining room Luminae. Plus 1 comp. spec. restaurant on 7 night cruise and 2 spec. restaurants on 8 night or longer. You can get anything you want from room service and you Butler sets up with linens on table or balcony. Also fruit and flowers in your cabin. For me there is no comparison. X is far nicer but does come at cost.

You are comparing apples to oranges. A Princess minisuite is NOT a full suite, therefore you get no "suite" amenities. If you do get a full suite on Princess, they have many wonderful perks (you can find them listed on the Princess website).

I've sailed in Princess minisuites and full suites, as well as a veranda cabin and a full suite on X. I prefer the Princess suite amenities, but the X perks weren't too bad. Had no use for the butler, though; he was just a glorified room service delivery guy who required a big tip and he was full of misinformation (he told us we had to pay to eat in Blu, which of course wasn't true). :rolleyes:

Our sofa in the living area badly needs to be replaced. When you sat down on the sofa, the cushions fell into the bottom of the hide-a-bed part. The fabric was torn and worn on the corners where the wire springs showed through. It was not a pleasant place to sit for morning coffee or when we had visitors. We were in D728.

I was just on the somewhat-ill-fated Hawaiian cruise (Nov. 25) on the Grand and our sofa was by far the worst we've ever had. Most of our previous sofas have been a little worn or had cushions that sort of slanted downwards, but this last one (in Vista suite D736) was just a mess! It actually hurt to sit on so we had to put our bed pillows on top of the cushions for comfort and had to put the sofa pillows under the seat cushions to prop them up so we wouldn't slide forward! Lying down on it was miserable. And since we paid big bucks for a suite, we really feel that Princess should maintain the furniture better. We also had balcony furniture that was structurally ok, but the varnish/finish was peeling off badly. Very ugly and we got poked by some of the peeling pieces. Certainly didn't make any difference for us having a great cruise, but seemed pretty shabby for an expensive room. :rolleyes:

Never felt an earthquake. Can't imagine what it must be like, but I've been in very rough seas quite a few times; maybe it's like that?? ;)

If there's that much food, I'm surprised anyone would have room for dessert. But I guess you can always make room:). I'll be sailing on the Grand in '17, too bad that (at least now) the crab shack isn't offered - of course 2017 is sort of a long way off.

Just had my Crab Shack meal on the Grand on Dec. 6, 2015! It was held several times during our 15 day cruise in a section of the Horizon Court.

Sometimes a few of the college bowl games do get shown -- usually in a lounge or on MUTS but not in the cabins.

Was just on the Grand from 11/25-12/10. We had ESPN, ESPN2 and some other sports channel on our cabin TV! Got to see the OSU Buckeyes vs. Michigan game (great outcome!! :D), as well as the Big 10 championship game and many other college games on our 2 Saturdays. There were also NFL games on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays - all on the cabin TV's. Several NFL games were also shown on MUTS on game days/nights.

My question would be whether the servers at Sabatini's are part of the tipping pool that shares in the automatic tipping.

I'm guessing that they are not in the tipping pool because only full suites passengers can eat there. I wanted to give them a tip just to be sure in case they don't get any of the autotips. The service at breakfast in Sabatini's is far better and more personal than the MDR. They remember your name and what you like to eat/drink. And breakfast didn't take long to eat because rarely were there more than 6-10 people in there at the same time.

I love seafood and had a fantastic meal at the Crab Shack last week!! The crab was tender and tasty! There were 4 choices of "boiled" dinners, and I had the meal with King crab, Snow crab, shrimp, mussels, clams, sausage, corn and potatoes. The King crab was cut in half already. The appetizer said it had "popcorn shrimp", but there were 3 HUGE fried shrimp. The waiter kept asking us if we wanted more of anything, but we could barely finish what we had. Certainly a great buy at only $20! I'll definitely eat there again on another cruise. :D

I started reading this thread with interest because I just got back from a cruise in a suite and we had breakfast every morning at Sabatini's. We weren't sure how much to tip our wonderful staff of 4 servers and a maitre d' on the last day, so I did a search on CC but couldn't find any information. We had to determine the amount ourselves.

Unfortunately I don't see any specifics here either - seems like many posters are confusing this topic with having dinner in Sabatini's or meals in the MDR. I wish some of the people who have had breakfast in Sabatini's would post specifically how much they decided to tip; that will help me for the future. ;) Thx!

Fear not the Island will sell out, Princess cruises always do.

Not always. My last cruise, the one on the Grand where we had the fire, did not sail full to start with. Of course, after 500 people left it was much more comfortable. You could really tell in the dining room (many empty tables).

But . . . . it wasn't full to start with. CC posters often say the ships are "always full", but that's a generalization. Each sailing is different. :)

That is a normal speed.

Many cruises I've been on went 20-22 kts as normal speed. The Grand went 14-18.5 after the fire, which was decent, but not what we had been going before. All is well and we had a fantastic cruise!

I wondered the same thing.

 

B

No, but close. Fastest was 18.5 kts.

Ahoy Princess Grand,

 

We haven't received any recent reports on how the crossing to Ensenada is going with 380 less people on board... How about an update?

 

Talked to someone this morning who said that the purser's desk told them that 9 people left on our first day in Honolulu (before the announcement) and 402 people left after the options were announced.

So far we keep going at 17 kts and have had 2 sunny, warm, fun sea days. More Christmas decoratios go up each day - so pretty!

That's a little more complicated than how it actually works. You'll get a future cruise credit for 50% of the cruise fare you paid for this voyage. You can apply that to any future cruise you book before whatever the deadline they gave you is (end of 2016?). It doesn't matter how much you pay for the future cruise -- if your credit is $2,000 and you book a cruise for $3,000, you only have to pay the other $1K, plus the port taxes, etc.

 

Future Cruise Credits have to be created in specific amounts, there's really no way to do it as a percentage of a future, unknown fare.

This explanation was directly from the Future Cruise Sales gal, but when we went back later to book another cruise she said she had just gotten off the phone with corporate and they corrected her. It is like you explained.

So we got this cruise free (luckily in a suite) and had enough money from the refund and 50% credit to completely pay for a 14 day Med cruise in another suite on the Royal. Including the onboard credit we got, our total value was $11,200!

What a blessing! :)

What a glorious sunny day! We are indeed traveling at 17 kts but the starboard wake is much smaller than on the port side. We've had a windy (rocky) night and morning but my Seabands work miracles.

At least 2 suite passengers left cuz they came into Sabitini's yesterday morning to say goodbye to the staff. Today the purser staff told us that they're not upgrading anyone because of the work of moving people, changing stuff in computer and now they'll have clean rooms for next cruise.

We asked the Captain Circle gal how the 50% credit will work. We will get 50% off the next cruise up to the full value of what we paid for this cruise. So, say you paid $2,000 for this cruise and next time you book a fare of $3,000. 50% of that is $1,500 off. But if you book one for $4,000 or more, you get $2,000 off. Very cool! We're so happy that we got a suite this time. :D

That's great news! I think I'd take the airfare offer and stay in HI for a few days. What are you going to do?

You didn't get a choice of dates to fly home; you go today or tomorrow whenever they w ere able to book you.

We're pulling out now - 6:30pm hawaii time.

We are staying on the ship for the return. We are on our way to get a rental car for Oahu day 2. Hoping for a boat full of happy people on the way back. Maybe the complainer will choose the flight home option. :)

So funny!!! We said the exact same thing! If you complain now, you only have yourself to blame! :D

We're staying. Financially, both options were equal. But we feel confident that the Coast Guard has ok'd it. And we don't want an additional 6 hours of flying. The crew is excellent, our suite is fantastic, 2nd day in Honolulu was great, and we trust God to be with us. I think most people are staying. Will be interesting to hear a count later. I fully intend to enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Personally, I think Princess has handled this "first class", including the extremely generous compensation package. We'll definitely be booking a cruise with Princess for 2017! :D

Is the Jones Act the reason they're skipping Maui for Ensenada? Cuz I'd totally rather skip Ensenada than Maui. And I'm pretty Maui'd out at the moment.

Ensenada was already on the itinerary. They planned to skip Maui to give us an additional sea day because the ship would be sailing so slowly. But the story has obviously changed because we never left Honolulu last night. I woke up several times last night and could see the same port lights outside the balcony doors so I knew we were still here. Great port to be stranded in. :)

Still sitting in Honolulu. Must not have passed the Coast Guard inspection. It's 6:50am so maybe we'll hear from the captain soon. Definitely don't want to leave until ship is sea-worthy. Another chapter in the adventure . . . . . :D

Just got back from a fantastic day in Honolulu! Went shopping at Ala Moana mall, then to the Polynesian Cultural Center. That place was amazing.

Letter from the captain didn't surprise us - we're just glad the cruise can continue. Guess we'll be slowly limping back to SF, then they'll have to fix it at that time. We're leaving Honolulu a little late because the Coast Guard is finishing inspections.

Looking forward to Kauai tomorrow! :D

We were in D737, on the trip before you. Sabintini's for breakfast was wonderful, I thought the service there was better than any dinner dining room.

We're in the one on the opposite side. Sabitini staff is fantastic! One waiter sang us a Englebert Humperdink song today during breakfast. :)

We have power in our cabin. 😀No AC but that is okay. Have the balcony door open listening to the waves. Hoping GoBucks got power too. It is the back of the ship that is having the power issue.

 

I agree that the crew is fantastic! They are smiling and making the best of the situation. A couple negative nellies in the passenger, but they tend to stop talking to me as soon as I gush about how awesome the crew is.

Air and electric came back about 12:30pm. Gorgeous view of the volcanoe off the port side of my balcony right now! Getting ready to go to the pool. Not all bad! :D

Crew is being fantastic! And so glad the Capt updates us frequently. I love sea days so not a huge deal. Just have to do this cruise again to go to Hilo. I'm loving the Hawaiian immersion with Makani E; especially the hula dancing leszons. Lots to do on the ship.