skrodle

I believe that's what is in use on Royal and Regal. I haven't heard that it's filtered down to the rest of the fleet yet but it's my thought that it probably will do so. The cost of the system would probably soon be offset by the saving in regard to printing all the unwanted photos.

Something I learned from doing the Ultimate Ship tour is a lot about the photo department. I think that its pretty much on every passengers mind "why develop (and yes, they are developed on photographic paper, not printed) on all these photos, that seems so wasteful and would save them so much money"

the truth is they actually LOOSE money when they print less photos. The bean counters have figured out the magic numbers, and when the photos are up and available, it is an impulse purchase, thus they sell more and make more money. They can charge much more money for an actual photo than for a digital file, and people who look at digital files are less likely to ask for it printed.

On avg they sell about 18-25% of photos on display. If you like photos you see but something is wrong, they have people on ship who can retouch your photos for you (saw this in action on the UST). And like someone else mentioned, if you cant find your photo, they have them all digital, and you can have them look through the files to find yours. We have done this a couple times... one night on formal night our photog took like 15 pics, but only 2 were up, we wanted to see they others. They were able to pull them instantly.

when we disembarked from our last cruise, at the port was a table at the cruise terminal with "confiscated items" and saw several appliances including coffee makers and rice cookers. I would not bring a keurig.

something that I learned on Ultimate ship tour is room service has a separate Galley on Deck 9 or 10 (Cant remember, but its not where you would think, and its pretty small)... it doesnt come from MDR galley or Horizon galley like I had assumed... this is why the Room Service Menu is so limited (and also why you can get a Caesar there but not always in Horizon)

Second question, there is a map change to the deck plan on Nov 15, 2015... I dont see any differences... anyone know what the change is on Island?

Hi all... we are looking to book a Full Transit Panama Canal, and looking at a Full Suite on the Island.

Deck 9 and 10 are both available, i know on Grand Class ships some balconies are fully covered/partially covered... Does anyone know if on Island there is any difference between deck 9 and 10? And for full transit is it better to be higher or lower? (if other decks became available..)

thanks for your input

On our grand med cruise, the captain had the ability (all the crew was talking about this) of getting into Mykonos at Midnight vs the 7am port time as originally planned. The crew LOVES Mykonos, great night life there... The crew explained if "they had been good" the captain would get them in early so the crew could get off and have fun in the city.

Well they were good, and we got in about midnight and we were able to walk off, there were taxis waiting (apparently they saw the ship pull in) and we went into town. Probably one of my best nights ever on a cruise...

Got up the next afternoon and had lunch in town, it was nice, but very similar to other greek islands. Food was really good though. But the nightlife was FANTASTIC! I would book this again if I knew the captain would be doing this.

waiting to hear back from TA on pricing for a 14 day panama canal cruise in april... its over my 40th birthday!!

i just had a suite, and we had friends who traveled with us in an inside. They were able to check in and get room cards with us avoiding the line and embark and disembark with us. we never had a tender so i am not sure how that would work. also for room service we were able to order for all of us... so like breakfast is an expanded menu and for lunch/dinner it is from the MDR, but just because there was 2 of us, we could still order room service for 4

the only thing they could really could not join us for was breakfast at sabatinis

I am booked next week on the Crown for my 3rd Princess cruise. I am thinking about booking a 3 nt cruise in November on the Golden. Does it behoove me to wait and book on board next week or book with my TA now ?

we got an on board deal for a 4 day cruise in February for our cruise we were just on... it was 33% off and only a $3 deposit. They then let us transfer it to our TA who was able to discount it another $100..just wait till you are on board and see the FCC first thing... we went right after muster and there was no wait

Great!!!

 

How were you notified about the offer?

 

I wonder if this is something that Princess does often while on a cruise?

 

Tom:)

i had read several reviews on here that they were offering it, and I asked the future cruise consultant on board if they were still doing it. My TA accidentally applied a FCC to it because she couldnt believe I only had a $3 deposit on it!! She removed it though so I could use it for another cruise...

just have to share my happiness.. on our recent alaska cruise on the Golden they were offering a great deal for 33% off Coastals and a $3 deposit and a $25 OBC... so we got a S6 Aft suite for a good deal on a 4 day cruise.

I asked my TA to look it over and she was able to drop it another $100 and keep my OBC.

I love princess and how they work with TAs and how good of a deal this cruise is. I will be Elite in April!!! WHOO HOO!

Really? I just got off the Star on Wednesday, after 11 days that included three visits to the Future Cruise Consultant, and I never heard or saw a word about that. Did I miss something?

I had read about it on here, and when I visited the consultant I asked him about it and he was like "oh here"

i had seen some patters from over the summer where it was advertised, but they never advertised it on our 7 day Golden cruise... but I just asked and got it ;)

I have been on many Princess cruises but always book with my cruise planner. While I do buy FCC's on the cruise, I have never booked another cruise while on a cruise. Are there any additional perks booking while on a Princess cruise?

Sali

right now they are doing a 3-3-3 promo if you actually book onboard, $3 deposit, 33% off the price of the cruise, plus OBC. its for select 3/4 day cruises from Florida or LA... got a great deal for a costal in Feb.

if you were trying to book d105 or 104, it must be booked in combination with d101 or d100, so you must book the two rooms, it says that on its website. So unfortunately, no, there is no recourse that you have unless you want to book the two rooms and then pay single supplement on each cabin.

it looks like they are trying to get good use out of spaces that normally dont have anything going on in them. On our last cruise to alaska, they used Crown Grill as Crab Shack for lunch, which I thought was such a nicer venue than a section of the buffet... seeing sabatini's in any form open for lunch would be great

Thanks so much for your positive review. We are sailing on 9/18/14 on the Golden Princess on a Coastal with a stop in Santa Barbara, so I posted your review on our roll call. This will be our 5th cruise on the Golden, one of our favorite ships.

we booked the 4 day coastal with Santa Barbara for Feb on the Crown on this cruise.

the only thing I dont like about the Golden is no thermal suite (which I only recently discovered on the Caribbean) and that the sauna is outside by the pool, not inside with the changing room. Other than that, I loved the ship.

Billy Hygate the CD... now he was a bore.... but thats a whole 'nother thred ;)

Thank you Jackie! So it sounds like rain will be possible, as usual, with Juneau the best chance. We lucked out before and didn't get any rain but I can't hope for that again. That would be tough to watch MUTS in the rain!

MUTS was a disappointment on this cruise... no true MUTS... they only played shows during the day... all but one night the screen was dark after 6pm...

the night was so nice in Victoria I totally could have watched ANYTHING if it was playing... but alas... no

Thanks for the review. FYI, the bullion bar is Alaska only...

i was afraid of that... it was so good. when we were on the Sapphire before it moved to Asia they were testing a ramen bar, so I thought the bullion bar was the US version of it...

How much was the rake?

15% rake with max of $8

Hey there-

Just got back from our trip and wanted to post my review. Let me know if you have any questions :)

THE SHIP

The ship is beautiful, it was my 2nd time on her, and 7th time on a Grand Class ship. I think (aside from a few things) she may be one of my favorites. They definitely were doing good up keep (saw lots of painting, varnishing, etc) and just overall was still pretty.

The room was quite nice (B751), it felt like we were in a very large hotel room. The balcony was spectacular. We had a couple problems with the room in the first day, but they were resolved quickly. The cabin is not over the top elegant, just nice, which was fine. The jacuzzi bathtub was fantastic and the bath salts were so nice (took lots of baths). I was disappointed that the other bath products were no longer the eucalyptus products, I thought for sure they would have saved those for the suites. The mini bar was a nice touch, as were the evening canapes (although they often did not deliver what I ordered) but it was fine. Room service breakfast was awesome and being able to order room service from the main dining room was a plus. I feel if we had more sea days I would have spent a lot more time in the room.

The food was above average from past cruises. We ate in several places. Starting with Crown Grill, since we were in a suite, we got the first night free there. I had not been in crown grill for 3 cruises, because our last 2 times there (on different ships) had been so dreadfully slow. On our last cruise we had friends who ate there and it was a 4 hour dinner for them. This was not the case on the Golden. Service was spectacular. Our waitress and Maitre'd were fantastic. The food was really good, and I was impressed that one of the desserts was from the new Norman Love Chocolate collection that is supposed to start this fall on the Royal. They are already running several of the desserts on this ship. I had the peanut butter bar... omg SOOOOO good!!

Other things to note about the food: My last cruise on the Caribbean the pizza had gone down hill, here it was just as good as I had remembered. The ice cream bar now does a Bullion bar from 11-1 which was a nice touch (different broth - chicken/beef/fish) and several veggies so you can make your own soup. Trident grill now offers a Smokehouse BBQ menu from 6p-10p that has ribs, bbq chicken, and pulled pork. There were about 8 different items, and about 5 of them were offered every night. The pulled pork was awesome.

Main dining room was, well, the main dining room, not mind blowing good, but not bad. I only had one thing that was not good (a crab quiche) other than that everything was nice. Here again they had the Norman Love chocolate dessert, the Hazelnut bar, again FANTASTIC. I cannot wait until the whole fleet has these and they have all the offerings. It was noted on the menu that all the chocolate now in their desserts was Guittard Chocolate as well.

Breakfast at Sabatini's was awesome. The servers were wonderful, the Maitre'd was really nice, but the food... wow! Worth the suite. The fresh orange juice, the doughnuts, and the poached egg on potatoes with hollandaise sauce... wow! They could totally offer this as a $10 upcharge and I would pay for it every day if I wasnt in a suite.

International cafe was good, I went there mostly in the morning to get doughnuts for the room before we went to breakfast. They were some of the best doughnuts ever. The cronut that people have been raving about was good, but does not live up to the hype. The other doughnuts were better.

Bar Service was spectacular. We were on the all inclusive package and it was much better than my last experience with this. Last time on CB it was a total booze cruise, everyone had it, and service was atrocious. One of the nice things they are now doing is when the 3 of us went up to the bar to get a drink, they would only run one card since all three of us had stickers. Made the process so much more efficient. Last cruise this was taking 1/2 the time!! Our server in Crooners (Goce) was awesome, knew our name after 1 time and had our card number written down so he could run it for every drink order and we wouldnt have to present it.

Spa was good. It was the typical Lotus experience. I have a love/hate relationship with the spa. I like their service, I just hate everything else. We had booked online our appointment. When they dropped off our bill it was different from what was quoted on our confirmation. The girls began to argue with us so that kind of ruined the whole experience. They corrected it, but it just was a sour note. And the service was supposed to be 55 minutes, but I swear every time we book a service it is 5 minutes late, and ends 5 minutes early. Thankfully they did not try to sell us a bunch of Elemis products (which I actually wanted, but found for cheaper on Amazon). Next cruise I just need to talk to the spa manager ahead of time and let them know of my expectations. Because the actual treatment (pedicure) was amazing.

We also did the ultimate ship tour. Holy Moley! this was a great experience. Ours lasted 3.5 hours, an hour longer than quoted. But it was so cool. I know there have been several threads on this topic before, but I was very impressed. My favorite part was the laundry tour. The officer who runs laundry was fantastic. He takes such pride in what is a horrible job. He runs a tight ship (no pun) with his crew of 20. I just made sure to thank every one of them. It seemed like a very thankless job, but the pride they put into their job was phenomenal.

THE PORTS:

So this is gonna be a little short....

The three alaska ports of Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchican were all pretty similar. If you were not doing an excursion, and just walking around the port town, they were kind of unidentifiable from the next. All had the same Diamonds International store (but they have sales tax here, so I didnt see the allure) and they all had the same slimy sales people (especially our Port Shopping host Todd, OMG was he every a slimy sales man!).

We did whale watching in Juneau with Harv and Marvs. This was great. Only 5 of us on the boat and we saw so many whales. We were super close to some. We also rented a car to go birding and saw a huge lack of birds (btw Alaska, not the place to go see birds). We did drive to the campground for Mendenhal Glacier. This had a MUCH better view of the glacier than the visitors center. The camp ground was super cute and if you like camping in freezing cold weather, this would be for you! lol. We also saw 2 beavers here building a dam right along the road at the campground, they were like 2 feet from our car.

Skagway we did the train. Train was cool. Neat to see once. As part of our tour we did panning for gold, it was cute, would be great for kids. And we had lunch at the Skagway in. It was not good. We actually walked out on it since it was at the end of the tour. I could write a whole other post on this one.

Ketchican was ok, we just got off and had an early lunch. Great King Crab here. We did not want to do any tours here since we were only in port for such a short time and didnt want to get up so early and feel rushed.

Glacier bay was ok. I actually wasnt as impressed as I thought. I mean it was good... but I wasnt BLOWN AWAY!

And Victoria was nice, just wish we had more time there.. I had been there once on a reposition cruise and spent all day there. We went into town and had some drinks. Cant wait to go back there.

So there yah go... let me know if you have any questions... happy to oblige. It was a good cruise over all... the cruise was better then the ports though... I liked Alaska, but I dont know if I need to go back. As far as nature-y places go, I like Yellowstone and Grand Tetons better... Next two cruises are to mexico... I cant wait for the sun!

working in sales myself, I know what they are up against and the goals they have to meet. I am always polite, and I have bought 2 things post treatment, one that I really enjoyed, and one that I had bought on land before and wanted.

My last treatment they didnt even offer to upsell me on any products and it was nice. I definitely know that I am going to pay more for a service on the ship then I would on land, it just like going to a 5 star resort... several resorts I have stayed at the prices are way price prohibitive. For example I just booked a 55 minute pedicure, I love that one at Lotus, and it is $55. At a cheap nail place near me, I would pay probably $30, but it would not be as long, I wouldnt be in a beautiful ship, and I wouldnt be able to then just go relax by the pool.

I do like the tip to write it on my sheet before hand to not upsell. Ill try that on this cruise.

We been taking the 15 day cruise from San Francisco to Hawaii for many years. Our last trip was November 10, 2013 on the Grand in a mini suite category ME.The price I am quoting includes the Princess travel Insurance on both trips. We are booked to cruise again April 29 2014 on the Star, same ME category, just the ship has changed ,otherwise it is the identical cruise.Except for the price nothing has changed.

November $4541.84

April $6906.84

Difference $2365.00

This is a very big increase,over 2000.00 more in less than 6 month,what is going on :mad: Unless there is a price reduction I will cancel and feel very sad. Don't tell me to book a cheaper cabin, I am trying to compare apples to apples and not different cabin categories.Have you also seen a big increase or does that apply only to the cruises to Hawaii? :eek:

P.S. government fees and taxes are also included in the above prices

have you priced it out with a discount travel agent?

Just saw a post on a Grand Roll Call thread that said the mid-ship stairs were posted for crew use only (ala Royal & Regal)... Can someone else confirm this?

 

Thanks

So interesting story... I had heard all the complaining about the central staircase on Regal/Royal, and it was making me re-consider booking a future cruise. But then when I saw that the Grand did not have one, I had to laugh. We were on the Grand for a 12 day cruise and I honestly did not even notice it.

I think people like to complain when there is something to complain about. I notice that a lot around here ;)

What was this tour called? Just looked at the 8 that are available for our cruise and I don't see a jeep tour.

it was 5 years ago... they may no longer contract through princess any more... but I think this is tour operator we used... it was so amazing.. one of those memories that i tell everyone about when I talk about that cruise

http://dpauls.com/sightseeing/international/sid=1012

hope that helps