iamaqt2

Right next to the Casino on deck 6. It's in an enclosed area behind glass doors.

I never saw her and I spent a couple of days in the Sanctuary. But it doesn't surprise me that Princess would comp a cruise for them. It's a super cheap way for Princess to get a ton of free advertising to a younger demographic. While older people may not "get" the concept, this is very much how advertising works among Gen Z, Gen Alpha and younger Millenials. Some of these content creators have hundreds of thousands of followers. Imagine what it would cost Princess to mail flyers to that many people, and how many would actually look at it instead of chucking it in the recycle. This reaches directly to the demographic Princess is actively trying to get a market share of. Edit to add: I was aware there was an actress onboard, and did see her briefly elsewhere on the ship. Did the person in the Sanctuary have short dark hair?

They made sure to immediately send me my invoice so I'd be sure to remember how much I spent for sub par service in all the extra cost areas I booked. Maybe they should have sent the survey first and the bill second.

Just finished a 10 night cruise and no annoying light.

Be sure to call room service right away to set up you preferred day and time!

We were in Skagway. We did find an amazing team of servers in there one night and requested them, but unfortunately their section was booked. I made it a point to drop off a comment card at guest services complimenting them. But no, we didn't try any of the other dining rooms as we had already made all of our reservations for Skagway pre-cruise.

I believe they may have asked because I had a forward facing balcony on the Lido Deck. While underway most days opening it was not an issue. But the final day with rough seas it created a huge sucking wind tunnel that sounded like banshees were trying to enter the room. No way would we have been able to have the door open. In fact it was very difficult to open as it had a vacuum effect holding it closed.

Day 10 Final Sea Day and Overall Impressions Today the seas were pretty rough. I don't get seasick, but I'm sure there were some people who weren't feeling so hot due to the motion. Spent a lazy morning in the cabin after buffet breakfast, which was absolute chaos, then began the dreaded packing process. Skipped lunch and had a very small snack at IC as we had dinner reservations at Sabatinis. Grabbed some pre-dinner drinks at Good Spirits and played a few hands of cards. Didn't grab any pics of menu or food at Sabatinis as it was very dark in the restaurant. But our server told us the menu had changed within the last month and there were some new items. Overall the food and service were good. The Ossobucco over risotto was a standout and the lobster tortolloni was a dud. Overcooked lobster, undercooked pasta and served lukewarm. The panna cotta would be better without the blueberry jelly on top. Returned to room to finish packing and called it a night. Seas finally calmed down sometime overnight as it wasn't rocking anymore at 4 am. Had one final breakfast in the MDR which was very busy, but was ironically the tastiest breakfast the whole cruise. Had late disembarkation and it was very quick and easy with facial recognition and no passport needed unless pulled aside. Overall impression was this was a pretty good cruise. Main entertainment and food were good, the ship is clean and new, and really liked our stateroom. The not so great were the buffet layout at breakfast and the horribly long line to get a specialty coffee. Also the app was clunky at times to get food and drinks delivered. The really bad was how overwhelmed the staff was. There were simply too many passengers for the staffing on this voyage. I gave up waiting for a beverage server in the lounges and stood at the bar to order because it took so long to get a drink. Then once seated with the drink, if a server even came by immediately ordered another knowing it wouldn't come until after I'd already finished. Service in the MDR was bad to downright awful. It was some of the worst I've ever encountered. Many nights it took 2+ hours to get through service for a table for 2. Also, much of the entertainment outside of the theater was extremely repetitive. Trivias, game shows, and the same songs repeated by the musicians over and over. It was very hard to find anything new after day 4. We still had a fabulous cruise and 2 more on the books, but Princess needs to up their game in the service and entertainment department.

Mine were served one course at a time. Timed out almost perfectly between plates, but I would have enjoyed a little more lingering.

No, it was open and fully usable the whole cruise except the last day and night when we encountered fairly rough seas. It was very nice out there.

You do not have to rent the cabana for the full week. It can be done for just one day. I booked on a port day, and it wasn't terribly busy, but sea days are very busy, so as soon as you board head directly there if it's a high priority. The cost was 240 for the full day, and I got 2 bottles of wine, and a mini fridge with water and soda. Or I could have had my choice of a bottle of spirits and mixers. The Sanctuary also has a dedicated food menu that you can order from. The Ultimate Balcony Dinner can be booked and paid for in advance in your Cruise Personalizer. It costs 100 for 2 people. But call Room Service to make arrangements as soon as you board as they are the department who will handle it. I believe you can also book it with them once you board.

I hope you feel better soon. I have a feeling quite a few might be going home with an unwanted souvenir. Heard on another board someone asking for cough syrup. I don't think there's a cruise going these days that escapes unscathed.

Cabo San Lucas Overnight Day 2 of 2 Today we did absolutely nothing but lay out on the Lido deck and soak up some sun. Half watched The Greatest Showman and did some day drinking. Normally I don't like blended drinks, but the blended margaritas from The Mix were some of the best I've ever had. Tonight was the last formal night, and we didn't feel like getting very dressed up, so smart casual was good enough. Also there was no Gold and White Party they advertise as happening on the 2nd formal night that I saw. Didn't snap any pics of food or menu, but it was Beef Wellington night and it was decent. Hubby and I commented that this cruise is some of the best food we've had since the restart on any of the lines. Yes there were clunkers, but those were in the minority. And while the food has been great, service has been a huge issue. So much so that we've asked twice to be moved in the MDR. We aren't difficult or fussy, but when it takes over 2 hours to serve a party of 2 who just want wine service and already have the meal chosen when you sit down, there's an issue. We found a pair of servers who were fantastic, Inyoman and Sameer, and requested to sit in their area, but they were fully booked. I can see why. After dinner I had my heart set on seeing Spotlight Bar, the final Production Show. I was exhausted, and nodded off once, but overall really appreciated the modern music and tale Princess envisioned with this. The Tinder date moment cracked me up.

Even though the cruise is officially over, I'll finish this out, as internet got really bad towards the end of the cruise. Cabo San Lucas overnight. Day 1 of 2 Today we decided to make the ship our port for the day. Rented a cabana in the Sanctuary and did the Ultimate Balcony Dinner for 2. That is it. Relaxed and ate good food while enjoying fantastic service. Highly recommend the balcony dinner, and the cabana rental was nice, but cost to value ratio is just not there. We chose the surf and turf for our main entrees. Everything was very delicious, except the steaks were lukewarm while the lobster was piping hot. And the dessert was beautiful, but the mousse had weird powdered milk flavor.

Day 6 Mazatlan This port is all about adventure for me. We booked an independent Stone Island tour with beach break and added on a 30 minute ATV ride on the beach. Our tour was great. We got a catamaran boat tour to see the bay, a sea lion, humpback whales, and bird rookeries. Afterward we got a tractor drawn wagon ride to take us to Restaurante Casa Cardon with an open bar and lunch included. The drinks were bottom of the barrel awful, but the included lunch was pretty good. I got the grilled chicken plate, and the chicken was well cooked and seasoned and had a really nice hint of woodsmoke taste. Riding the ATVs on the beach was a blast, and we saw a shipwreck from the beach. Came back, grabbed a couple of slices of pizza at Slice, a couple beers from the bar and had a late snack before cleaning up for evening. Stood out on our balcony as we pulled away and our ships horn blew as we passed the Koningsdam. Then they blew theirs back at us three times while people on board whooped and hollered. It was pretty amazing as the sun had just gone down and all the ship lights were twinkling as we sailed by. Now funny story, I read the wrong day planner and thought we were going to the comedy show (from the night before). But it turned out it was the Illusionist David Gatti. My husband has sworn off cruise ship illusionist shows as they tend to all be exactly the same and I can't disagree with him. I said we're already here, lets just watch it anyway. But tonight was something special and it was a truly fantastic show. Even my husband was impressed. After the show we bounced up to Gigi's for salad, Agnolotti and a calzone for dinner because nothing in the MDR menu appealed. Called it a night.

Puerto Vallarta Pro tip, when walking out of the port to the transport area, skip these guys. I was quoted 30 bucks for 2 people for "private" transport. I kept on walking. I know they're all trying to make a living, but that's highway robbery. I walked on out of the port to the gas station across the street and still overpaid at 15 bucks. I could have ridden the bus for 2 bucks, but time is short on port stops. Pay the gringo tax and move on. We vacation here frequently, so hopped a cab to Zona Romantica for some breakfast birria tacos at the best birria stand in Vallarta, Tacos de Birria Chanfey. Unlike other types of tacos, birria tacos are very much a breakfast taco. Afterwards walked on down to Los Muertos Beach to park on a couple of chairs at Si Señor Beach. I absolutely love the Vallarta beach scene, even though I know it aggravates a lot of people. It's anything but relaxing with a non-stop parade of vendors, but the food is amazing, it comes to you, and you can get a massage right on the beach. Which is exactly what we did. I was actually joking with my hubby that after getting my Shrimp on a stick and donuts, that if the empanadas came by I'd hit my Vallarta beach bingo blackout. I've been here weeks before without hitting all 3 in a day, and it magically happened in a few hours! After landing back on the ship, we cleaned up for dinner and went to Bistro Sur la Mer for 7 pm dinner. Had the bisque for app and the filet and fish for mains. Food was very good, but no room for dessert. Didn't make it to any shows as we were exhausted from a long day of eating and drinking 🙃 Called it a night.

January 1, Sea Day Recovery Day Basically this was a do nothing, lay by the pool, and take a nap kind of day Drink service from the app by the Retreat Pool stunk. Waited an hour then went to hunt down my missing drink. Bartender gave me attitude and said I must have sent it to my room, and one of the Sanctuary servers pointed out my missing drinks sitting in the queue on the tablet next to the bar. Thank you Honeymade for not letting him gaslight me. Marginally cleaned up for dinner in MDR, and called it a night after that. Had the beef satay, Caesar salad, fruit salad, and lamb shanks which were delicious. Dessert we asked to try the new Love Boat Dream. It's really awful. Bring back the old version please Princess. Beautiful to look at, nasty to eat.

Yikes. I must be camped on a router lol.

Today the ships wifi has been absolute trash. And running a speedtest at midnight while people are sleeping, it hasn't improved. Will post updates tomorrow while in port on my mobile data.

Day 4. Loreto, Mexico New Year's Eve. Got Breakfast in the buffet then headed down to the Vista Lounge to pick up tender tickets. Waited about 10 minutes til our number was called. Very smooth tendering process, it looked like 4 lifeboats were running. Weather was beautiful and water was smooth as glass. Took about 15 minutes to shuttle over. Loreto is a very small walkable town. Decorated with tinsel and holiday decorations for New Year's. Checked out the tree lined pedestrian walkway near the mission and settled on having the local specialty of Chocolate Clams for lunch. Did a little booth shopping then headed back to ship around 2:30. Line to queue for tenders was long, but moved fairly quickly. Relaxed on the Lido for a bit and took a dip. The pool was almost as warm as the hot tubs and not refreshing at all. It was time to get cleaned up for the evening festivities, and then headed down to Good Spirits for pre-dinner drinks and to show off how fantastic we looked. 😉 The New Year's Eve dinner Gala menu looked fantastic. We ordered the Warm Cheese, beef carpaccio, shrimp and saffron bisque and the oxtail consomme for starters. Both of us ordered the surf and turf medium rare and I also asked for appetizer size of the truffle risotto. Our server brought everyone in our section 2 lobsters unasked and told us not to tell the other diners. The risotto came out full sized but that's ok, because it was the best thing that landed on the table and my husband and I ate all of it. We skipped dessert as service had been painfully slow and we wanted to catch Jeffrey Allen doing his Elton John tribute. We've seen him before and he's just bloody fantastic. Now we were told that people celebrate New Year's two ways on the ship. The traditional way in the Piazza, or one heck of a party up on the pool deck! I want to party! It's New Year's Eve!! Princess had provided party hats and headbands, placed festive banners all over the ship, and really got everyone in a great celebration mood to ring in the New Year! There was an ice sculpture of 20 22 & 23 on the pool deck and at the stroke of midnight they pushed 22 in the pool and slid 23 up to 20. Everyone was singing and dancing and I stayed up til the music ended and they moved it inside, then called it a night because while the spirit was still willing, the old bones said ¡No Mas! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Day 3: Lazy sea day Today we had almost nothing planned and had rented loungers in the Sanctuary for half the day in the afternoon. Breakfast was room service on the balcony. Fruit plate and muffin breakfast sandwich with a latte. Other than a couple of small hitches the app has worked extremely well for ordering drinks and occasionally food. After cleaning up, headed down to the Theater for day 2 of Leo Rossi's Enrichment series. Another fantastic presentation on his time with Fleetwood Mac. Afterward came back to our room to get ready for our afternoon in the Sanctuary and to do lunch up there . Having never done the Sanctuary before, I wasn't sure what to expect other than a higher level of dedicated service and a nice quiet relaxation space. It's definitely a beautiful space, but it was quite funny to hear the Lido pool music heavy bass spilling in over the new age zen they were playing. The servers were quick to offer a menu and service, but like everywhere else on the ship, the actual delivery left a lot to be desired. We ordered 2 salted watermelon margaritas and our lunch. The server informed us it would be about 20 minutes for lunch but they'd get started on our drinks right away. After 30 minutes of waiting we asked about our drinks and they apologized and said the bar was very busy. We got our drinks after 40 minutes and our lunch after an hour. So even if you pay a premium for service, don't expect it to be any better. Lunch was very tasty though. Got chicken salad, citrus plate, salmon and avocado, honey almonds and chili edamame. Around 3 pm saw some whales and dolphins from the bow and then the servers came around with afternoon tea. Finger sandwiches and small desserts. Nothing on the main dining room menu appealed to us, so we decided to have dinner at Gigi's. Understaffing here was heavily apparent. Uncleared tables, slow service, and one passenger started clearing tables and the maitre d about lost it when she told him he was understaffed. He ran her off, while I silently agreed with her and stared at the vacant dirty table next to me my whole meal. It was like that when we were seated til we finished our dinner After dinner we attended the Living Room Battle Game show which was a lot of fun and audience interactive. Arrrrrmondo MC'd and was very funny. Afterwards went to listen to AJ Clarke the piano entertainer in Crooners. Very hard to get a seat anywhere once entertaiment has begun. He was very good, but we left early to get good seats in the Vista Lounge to see the late night Enrichment Presentation Fleetwood Mac the Lost Concert. Called it a night.

He's a character, that's for sure.

🤣🤣🤣

Continuing Day 2: At 11 we went to the enrichment presentation Knights of Rock by Leo Rossi. He's a fantastic speaker. It was a really great presentation on being a roadie and stage hand for the rock bands of the seventies and particularly for Fleetwood Mac. He also gave a very moving tribute to his son that didn't leave a dry eye in the house. We plan to attend all of his presentations. After the presentation we headed to the MDR for lunch. The menu looked really good. The Thai hot and sour soup was particularly delicious. We also had the tomato mozzarella salad, the soy-glazed prawns, the carbonara rigatoni which was excellent, and the mixed grill plate. Hubs missed the fact there was a veal kidney on there and the look on his face when he ate it was priceless. Dessert was an unremarkable apple turnover which was dry, stale and mostly tasteless. Service was very slow and lunch took about 90 minutes. It was super busy, so not surprising. Tonight was Officers Gala night, so we got gussied up and headed down to Good Spirits and the Piazza to listen to music and watch the Officer introduction by our CD Armando. Headed to dinner in MDR and ended up at a new table, still nice location with much better serving team. They were actively working together to take care of their section. I forgot to take a picture of the menu thanks to those pre-dinner drinks. But we ordered the walnut-crusted goat cheese salad, the mango mimosa soup which was absolutely fantastic, the bacon potato soup, and we both had the beef tenderloin medium rare. The meat was cooked perfectly and was tender and delicious. We skipped dessert to head to the Vista Lounge to see the comedian Miguel Washington. He was hilarious.. my 24K Margaritas told me so. Headed over to Take 5 to listen to the jazz ensemble for a bit, then called it a night as my drink package had gotten quite a workout.

Day 2 woke up very early having gone to bed so early. The planners looked like some promising entertainment for the day. Decided to have an early breakfast in the MDR. Got there just before opening and about 20 other people were already lined up. Service was super friendly and fast. Which was a nice surprise. But there were very few people to attend to at 7 am. Had the fruit plate which was very good and the Salmon lox bagel with cream cheese which is my MDR breakfast go to. Always have to order extra cream cheese. Hubs had a ham and cheese omelet and 2 hash brown triangles. The hash browns were hard as a rock and inedible. I always forget they're only good from the buffet.