azbirdmom

Yes, for someone who loves salty greasy crunchy food and could care less about sweets this was devastating. We make do with the Lay's Maui chips when visiting. Not the same but still pretty ono.

Yay! You'll be warming the ship up for us as we will board as you are disembarking. Can't wait to hear about your experiences. Have a fabulous cruise!

Folks I've talked to there seem to recommend the Hawaii Community Foundation Maui Strong Fund. They have done a lot for the affected communities thus far and are continuing to help in several areas https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/strengthening/maui-strong-fund . In addition to contributing to them I've sent money to verifiable *****'s set up to support the employees of restaurants that we've frequented that were lost in the fire. I started out by sending amounts that we would have tipped on our next visits but for some I sent a little more. I think the best way to support the local economy is to plan a visit and shop local. Seek out locally owned stores. Book tours with locally owned businesses. Visit craft fairs and buy gifts for friends and family (everyone on our Christmas list got gifts from Maui last year). Tip servers well!

I rarely watch YouTube videos but oddly I watched the first one last Saturday. It started out in a lovely community that we have visited in the past - Puamana - and from there the gut punch continues. We've actually visited Maui twice since the fires, the first time staying down in Kihei and the second up in Napili north of the devastation area but you can definitely see some of the damage from the bypass. It's rough to see and I'm not usually emotional but I was every single time we had to drive through that section. And the scope of the devastation is just beyond comprehension. I pray every day for those who lost everything as they start the very long process of rebuilding. The residents need to be taken care of first and then long after that the rest will come.

In typical Princess fashion they take their time in assigning replacement ports. If you still stop on Maui you'll be at Kahului. There's still so much to see from there and I really do hope that Princess keeps its Maui stop as opposed to adding a second stop on Hawaii (as some of the earliest cruises following the fire had done). It truly won't be the same as visiting Lahaina used to be but Maui does still have a lot to offer cruisers.

Well they did put these theoretical values on the different items in the Premier package per the screenshot from the Travel Summary for our upcoming cruise so that would be a starting point. I have to laugh at the price they've put on the Premium Desserts - more than Specialty Dining? And this is per person? I have yet to have one of those but that's my choice and I won't be asking for a refund LOL.

They've shown "Dress to Impress" on other recent cruises of our's. But they don't say anything about what this means on the Princess website nor do they give passengers any advance notice about this in the pre-cruise emails. Everything continues to show 2 formal nights for a 7 night cruise. So I think you can safely expect that most people will have Smart Casual attire as that is what they packed although there may be some more on the Formal side.

I guess this is a classic example of not believing everything the YouTube bloggers say. I've seen a lot of bad info given on those, so much so that I don't bother watching them any longer. We've had Premier for our last two Princess cruises (last December and the next coming up in a little over a week). For both we were able to reserve our specialty dinners without paying. At check out you should see a $0 charge. The app has been known to act up at times but for us there has been no problem making our reservations in advance.

They work great! We were actually gifted our's from strangers we were chatting with as they were disembarking a ship we were about to board in Sydney Australia! At first I thought the one I had was malfunctioning as it wouldn't hold the Medallion but a trip to the Ocean Navigator desk yielded the tidbit that you need to put it in a certain position in the wristband. They are very sturdy and I use it when we were in port. On the ship I use the clip. By the way the small fit me but was a bit tight. I ended up using the large one as my husband wasn't interested in it but a medium would have been perfect for me.

We went there with Zealandier in December. Such a wonderful place even if one isn't a huge Lord of the Rings / Hobbit fan. Hope you enjoyed it.

Are you on the Enchanted? We are and made our reservations a few months ago, just one left to make onboard and that's our first night complementary specialty dining 😉

Failure to use is very different than being denied use of a specialty restaurant which is what the OP was asking about. You can't just say I'm not going to use this or that and get a refund as everything listed is part of a package. But if Princess promises 2 specialty dinners and wasn't able to fulfill that I would definitely be at GS asking for a refund. Now fulfilling it may mean that you get a reservation at 9 PM at a restaurant that isn't to your liking, that's the breaks. But no room at any specialty restaurant for you would warrant OBC. Up to you if you don't want to go down that path if it happens to you.

+1. Unlike other "perks" included in the Premier package these have fairly significant values on them. It hasn't happened to us yet but if I wasn't able to use the two specialty dinners because the venues were full I would definitely ask for a refund.

The Royal Princess added slots and a poker table to the Double Down lounge next door and it's supposed to be non smoking all the time. We were last on the Royal last December from Australia and the whole casino was non smoking. Loved it!

It's been our experience that the closet is saved for hard liquor. They seem to be more tolerant of wine brought onboard at ports.