sunviking90

I don’t remember, but that does ring a bell. I have it printed out at home. I do use regular limes, not key limes though. They’re a little scarce in Vancouver!

A few more comments: had our 4th dinner in the MDR last night and DH and I were both commenting on how pleased we are with the food. I’ve had lamb 2 nights in a row (along with mint sauce, yum) and it’s been great. DH has enjoyed the fish dishes he’s had. We have been cruising since our 20’s over 30 years ago, so we have realistic expectations and have seen and accepted the declines in food, but we are pretty happy with everything so far. Last night I had the BEST key lime pie! I sometimes make my own with an authentic Florida recipe and this was almost as good. Planks and Steamers is now open on this ship and it is $14.99. Last night was Planks, and we were told it will be open every 3 nights. Tonight Steamers will be open on the other side. We may try Planks one night as we will have “just” enough OBC left to cover.

Currently on the Emerald Princess and very happy! We were on her last November after her dry dock and everything still looks as fresh to me. We are in a balcony stateroom and the carpet is new, the bedding is firm. Yes the ship is older and we all know Princess stuck with their 1990’s decors a little too long, but the ship is lovely. We were happy to see an additional $180 usd credit in our account for port refund. Nicaragua was on the original itinerary but had already been dropped when we booked, but apparently that is what it is for. We have a standing reservation for 5:40 every evening in Botticelli and have been given the same table and told it is “our” table, which I like. Food has been quite good. Hazelnut Bar last night has shrunk a bit, but maybe that’s ok? Lunch in the MDR has had huge lineups from 11:45-1:30. I think this is a direct result of the new room service charge, with many who would otherwise order lunch (and don’t like the buffet) are heading to the MDR. The ship will have to adjust to the higher demand in the MDR for lunch. We don’t recognize any crew from our last time in the ship, but all that we have come across are great. Overall they seem to be a more experienced bunch than we met on the Crown in June. I’ll be happy to answer any question, but may not be fast as we don’t have wifi, but use an Esim in port only.

We are at an LAX hotel hoping to board Emerald tomorrow and it’s been rainy and slightly windy here for an hour or so.

We are on this cruise. Just changed our flight from Sunday afternoon to tomorrow at 6:15 am from YVR. Really hate early AM flights, but I’ll feel better to be in LA early.

Agree.

This is surprising. We literally bought our shares 2 weeks before our cruise last January and only submitted the purchase transaction statement. I have it saved to my files and that’s all I’ve used ever since, most recently for our April 2024 cruise.

Sapphire Princess is our favourite! A little new than the Grand too.

A lot of great advice already, but I do want to add a vote for the Grand. It sounds like many in your party are excited about the scenery and the Grand will cruise through the lower part of the inside passage on your last day (between the mainland and Vancouver Island). This is beautiful scenery and we always see whales on this last day too. The Royal Princess is too large to take this route and will take the route to the west of Vancouver Island, meaning you will see mostly just open sea on the last day.

Yes, this is what we do too if we occasionally use the buffet. The hand washing is especially important as it will help protect against noro too which most sanitizers won’t. Not a fan of gloves in this case either as any of us who used to work in medical/dental fields can tell you a lot of cross contamination can occur if not following correct practices. Hands can be washed.

I am also retired from the dental field. Those habits stay with you. I also wonder about the stewards entering the cabin. We always do a Lysol swab of all the high tough surfaces, but then the steward is entering our stateroom daily and unlike us, probably not washing hands each time. We can only be sensible and then cross our fingers.

This is a great reminder to all of us that Covid hasn’t gone away. We have been on 10 cruises since the restart and haven’t caught it on a ship yet. DH did catch a nasty respiratory virus while travelling in London before one of our cruises tho. We caught Covid last summer while at home and still not sure how. I think our general cruising habits help, as we tend to keep to ourselves and avoid crowded areas like the Piazza and buffet. We also use the stairs exclusively. Less guilt for the desserts. We leave Monday for a 19 day cruise and I guess I’ll be packing a few of those N95s that I thought I no longer needed for crowded times. Sigh.

I have the silver metal bracelet. I agree it fits very small. My wrists are tiny and I had to exchange mine for the larger size as the smaller one fit, but wasn’t comfortable. I liked the looser bangle fit. It is pricey, but I have worn it on 6 cruises so far and generally wear it all day, every day. I switch to the lanyard if we are ashore (tucked away 😜) as the medallion is only held into the bracelet by a magnet, and I don’t want it to get lost ashore.

No elevators here either, but can’t resist the bread and desserts. We keep saying we’ll tell the waiter not to leave the bread basket, but we always take it anyway.

I’m glad you’ve found a resolution. I did want to mention that Air Canada has non stops from Newark to YVR currently.. Your cruise is almost 2 years away, so schedules could change but they’ve flown this route for a few years.

I actually did tell them that, and was told that with these cruises it HAD to go to the agent I booked the current cruise with. No choice in the matter. As I knew it would it made more work for me, as I had to contact the agent to request a booking summary sent, etc. I would have preferred to have the booking myself.

@Steelers36, I booked a short coastal cruise while on board recently. They told me the booking automatically went to the agent I had booked my current cruise with. The onboard agent was new and showed me the booking screen and I saw the commission (10%) portion that would go to my agent. So, your agent would still get their commission. I actually would have preferred not to have that agent involved as it was a one time thing on my part (they had the best price), but that was what I was told.

You could catch the HAL Eurodam on May 2 for a one night cruise to Seattle. That was the only yvr-sea cruise that matched your dates that I could see. I personally wouldn’t bother with that and you’d still need to stay in Vancouver for 2 nights first. Someone mentioned taking the Princess transfer to SEA and I agree that is your best option.

The same one posted above, csteinke@princesscruises.com These are also available at Elliott.org. If you don’t hear anything, just keep emailing every few weeks and mention your previous emails to customer relations with no reply. Oh, and my reply wasn’t actually from him, but from customer relations. I guess it was passed off by his office and someone said “take care of her so she stops bugging me” 😆

We had some issues on our cruise to Hawaii in January. I got acknowledgements only and nothing further from my initial emails to customer relations . I emailed Lorna warren and Collin steinke and still nothing. This was over a few months. I finally emailed Collin Steinke ONLY in June and got a reply with a resolution immediately. I’m thinking emails to multiple people may be blocked, but not sure. Good luck!

Most ships that have ever been in the UK or Australia have some kettles on board. I requested on on the Crown in Alaska last month and they provided it. Since the Regal has spent the summer in the UK they should provide one if you ask.

My thought is that this is really a temporary thing until they transition to the new changes. We’ll see. They will need to add a fee activation somewhere on the tv ordering and that’s probably what’s being sorted right now.

Someone had this on their door on our Crown cruise in June. Their cabin was right by the entrance to the stairs/elevators portside. We always book starboard cabins but this was a guarantee and we were portside. I was so glad it was there as we kept wanting to go the wrong way when we got to the top of the stairs. We just said “head to the sign!”. (Yes I know about the coloured dots on the carpets 😉)

@GoDucksNationhas reported that there is still a charge on the Royal as of a few weeks ago, and that was the case for us in February. It has not been removed. There was no charge on Discovery in May and also on Crown in June. I suspect this is more a case of something related to the payments (token machine, washer/dryer token acceptance) being broken with no rush to fix rather than a coming fleet wide change.

Was your last cruise on a HAL ship by any chance?