sloopsailor

We make reservations for a two-top in alternating dinning rooms to give us variety in décor. We're not that concerned about having the same wait staff learning out preferences since we typically change them up from day to day, again for variety. For example, one night in Concerto, the next in Symphony, a third in a specialty, and again in Concerto or Symphony, etc. We also prefer to have a different table location every night to enjoy different perspectives of the room. Being seated at the same table for the entire cruise can get a bit boring after a while, especially on longer cruises.

I'm like you. I don't worry about what everyone is wearing, and don't even notice. That is NOT the reason I am dining there. If what someone else wears ruins a person's dinner, then they have some serious issues they need to see a therapist about.

The bed on our Reflection cruise was by the window, which is what we deliberately selected. All the Solstice class ships have alternating bed positions.

The dining staff is usually shown assisting with storage of incoming food provisions, or preparing lunch for passengers coming on board, typically in the buffet or poolside grill. True, I am only watching the many TV shows on how cruise ships function and don't have first hand knowledge that an actual crew member or management could share here, but this is what has been shown and is all I can go on at the moment.

If you say so. All I know is what the Hotel Manager, the 2nd most important person on the ship, described on several of the many shows I have watched. They must not know what is going on in their own departments! 😇 Seriously, the entertainment staff are in a different category with different contract arrangements than the ship support crew such as kitchen, housekeeping, etc. They typically don't get involved in turn around tasks. Perhaps those are the people you have seen.

And all available crew who don't have the above duties to perform are assisting in re-provisioning the ship with an unbelievable amount of food and supplies. I've watched every TV show on cruise ships I run across and turnaround day is the busiest day of the cruise for all the crew. None get any time off on the most complex day of the cruise. It's simply amazing that they can get so much done in just 8 to 10 hours. My admiration for how hard they work on turnaround day is huge.

The threats mean nothing in actuality. For every person who will never patronize cruise line "A" again, the cruise line most likely gains a replacement customer who won't patronizes cruise line "B" ever again, and so on and so on. All that happens is people replace each other, and none gain any loyalty points on any cruise line, which in the end only saves the cruise lines money by not having to dish out loyalty rewards to those never-satisfied customers. 😉

Worked fine for me. We're sailing on Royal Princess on March 12, 2023 and I was able to make all my reservations in the two MDRs that are scheduled to be open, and in Sabatini's and Crown Grill for our anniversary and my birthday. Got the times we wanted for every reservation with no issues. I did have to charge the specialty restaurants at time of booking, but no big deal. No different than charging the cruise deposit in advance. As someone else said, scroll through the times to select the one you want.

My wife and I are booked for the March 12, 2023 Hawaii cruise out of San Francisco on Royal Princess to celebrate my 73rd birthday and our 39th anniversary four days later. This is our 10th cruise and the 2nd on Princess. We booked this cruise about 1-1/2 years in advance, which we typically do to get exactly the room we want and to hopefully get better cruise fares. On this cruise we are paying $7,299 for our Mini-suite, Princess-Plus included. The other rooms in our category are currently listed for $10,118, so we're saving almost $3,000! Today I had some time to kill and out of curiosity searched the booking pages for rooms that were still available in case we wanted to move to another location. It seems that the ship is almost empty as of today, about 8-1/2 months out. There are entire decks that have hardly any rooms booked. Is this normal? Are people waiting longer than before to book their cruises? And if not enough people book this cruise, would areas of the ship be closed off if the ship is not full? And might Princess cancel the cruise do to lack of interest? Thanks.

Reading a couple of recent Royal Princess Alaska cruise logs, it appears that the shows on that ship are typically at 7:30 and 9:30 on those cruises. The authors have posted images of the Princess Patter for each day which include the show times. I would expect the times to be similar on Grand Princess. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2849510-live-from-royal-princess-sailing-may-2-2022-for-12-nights-rountrip-from-vancouver-to-alaska/#comment-63135483 https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2855743-royal-princess-may-28-2022-alaska-northbound-live-report/?source=122648

A related question: If we have reservations but need to go at a different time, do they hold a table empty waiting for us to arrive at the reservation time, or do they fill tables on a first come basis based on reservation time? I wouldn't want to have a table held empty for us if we couldn't arrive at that time for some reason.

We got transferred from Ruby to Royal for our Hawaii cruise in March 2023. They matched the cabin category - no up or downgrades. Our cruise friends are now in a connecting cabin, but other than that the location and category is pretty much the same. What did change is the itinerary. We had been scheduled for Hilo, Honolulu, Kauai and Maui in that order. We are now scheduled for Maui, Kona and two days in Honolulu. The Royal is too large for the discontinued ports.

What are the typical times for the shows in the main theatre on Royal Princess? Does it make any difference what region the ship is sailing? We're trying to figure out dinner reservation times. Thanks!

While not a production show, are they still doing the fountain "dance" shows in the evenings?

Like I said, I did that. That's the first thing I tried. No luck. As can be seen in the screen shot, it doesn't take me to the ship selection page. It's stuck in a loop.

On our Royal Princess March 12, 2023 cruise (ship swapped from Ruby), we stop in Maui (7:00-6:00) and Kona (7:00 6:00), both tender ports, and overnight in Honolulu (7:00 am day 1 - 4:00 pm day 2). It was originally to be the Ruby, and we were to stop at Hilo (8:00-5:00), Honolulu (7:00-11:00), Kauai (8:00-5:00) and Maui (7:00-6:00). All were docked ports. We lost Kauai and gained a shorter second day in Honolulu. Personally, I wish they hadn't messed with the original schedule by swapping ships. But at least we get to try a different class of ship that we have never sailed on - which hopefully will be worth it. As for why would anyone do so many sea days for only three ports - some of us love multiple sea days more than an busy port schedule. My wife and are doing this cruise to relax. We've done too may port intensive cruises in the past and are looking forward to slowing down a bit.

I did. I can't get past the action shown in the screen capture below. Every time I hit "Go" it returns me to this same page. I've tried going directly to the roll call forum pages and from the Princess forum page. I used to be able to log onto it, but no longer. I guess tomorrow I'll have to contact the Cruise Critic help desk.

I haven't tried to log into the Princess Roll Call area for a couple of months. Now when I try and hit "GO", nothing happens other than the message shown below. I am a member of Cruise Critic - otherwise I couldn't post this query, so I shouldn't have to "register", correct?. So what might be the problem? Has the log on process changed recently? Thanks for any help!

Our ship has been swapped for our upcoming cruise. The Medallion app information is now all screwed up. After almost a month the old ship is what comes up on the app, but with the original ports PLUS all the rescheduled ports it will now visit. The original booking number still shows, not the new number. I thought this was supposed to update automatically. I can't figure out a way to delete that cruise and start over with the app. I've been on hold for almost 45 minutes last week and gave up waiting because I actually have a life to live other than listening to canned music and repeated announcements about things I am not calling about. Right now, Princess is not making a good impression. Any suggestions other than wasting more of my life waiting on hold??? Thanks!

On our upcoming cruise my wife and I will be celebrating a 72nd birthday and a few days later a 38th wedding anniversary. According to the Celebrations section of our Onboard Activity Reservations page there is a "complimentary gift" notation for each event. What might this be? Thanks!