mariakitty

I would love to know more about the new Alaska-themed menus in the MDR. What types of seafood were added?

Glad you had a wonderful cruise :-)

Maria

Take a taxi to Alaska Brewery. You get free beer samples and they are very friendly. Juneau also has some interesting shops and a really fun bookstore. I don't know the name but it is on the Main Street. We are planning a helicopter ride to one of the glaciers for something different.

My husband's request would be a better beer selection, particularly craft/micro brews. Budweiser is fermented rice water! :D

A bigger, better arcade for kids

Heated pools

Blankets for the balcony

Better balcony furniture

Cheaper drinks package (I can dream right?)

Past passenger discounts

Have more traditional dining OR have better early dining times in traditional (5:30 is ridiculous!) - I think the idea that traditional diners use up ATD are highly exaggerated on these boards since the MDR is usually full in my experience.

Add Portland to the list and I would also agree! :p

Yes definitely add Portland. We would cruise MUCH more is this was a home port. :)

More west coast cruises during school holiday times. Princess is marketing more to families yet school holiday itineraries are very limited IMO. I want to cruise but taking kids out of school isn't an option for us.

I'm looking forward to seeing thre actual menus online. We are booked for Alaska this August and I hope to eat a lot of seafood!

if your child requires a seat (and on the rail excursion they would) then I would assume you would be require to pay the child price ticket. If you could clarify why a 2-year old should go for free that might help, ie) riding on your lap. I wouldn't be surprised if the charge for toddlers is to discourage their participation but this is purely speculation on my part.

We have sailed both the Star and the Grand, and while I would sail on either again, the Star would definitely be my first choice. The Grand is showing her age these days and the lack of central staircase was a disadvantage for us and caused bottlenecks elsewhere.

Princess actively markets to families so to be turned down for the kids program would certainly seem inappropriate and a deal breaker for us. We need the flexibility of allowing our boys to attend cortina activities and skip others, after all this is a vacation! Hope this isn't something fleet wide.

I was considering an appointment to have my hair styled for formal night and now I definitely will. Any idea if they do cosmetology (makeup specifically) as well?

I'd support getting rid of room service altogether, Princess could save a lot of staff costs that way.

They've already implemented costcutting which make the whole Princess cruise experience less special than it used to be so why not get rid of room service?

I still like Princess, booked late at firesale prices its great value.

Unless pax are confined to their cabin for Noro reasons do they really need room service with all the other options there are to eat on the ship?

Not only do I completely disagree with getting rid of room service, i would seriously reconsider cruising with a Princess if this happened. I want my morning coffee and croissant before getting dressed in the morning, and depending on our activities I like relaxing on the balcony with a bite to eat rather than going to the buffet or elsewhere. This is Princess...if you want to pay for every service and amenity separately may I suggest another cruise line.

I have been trying to get on all morning and a few minutes ago got a database error. Seems ok....for now. I'm using ipad2 with safari.

This is wonderful! I like how it covers before, during and after the cruise. I will be printing one for both of our boys. We sail at the end of August. :)

As new platinum members we are looking forward to this perk. We are now taking my mother in law on our cruise, who has never sailed Princess. Can she attend the platinum party with us? She isn't a drinker and might not even want to attend, but I'd like to know what options we have.

We have also booked a cruise this summer that was a 1-2-3 deal (free upgrade, free OBC, Free excursion). We paid the price of the lowest mini category but now have highest mini category. I didn't think the upgrade was ever advertised as buy an interior and get an oceanview or balcony. It sounds like your friend got lucky.

As far as pricing, if you look at any cruise the prices change quite drastically from one date to another. We are saving hundreds by going a week later on our Alaskan cruise. A quick browse of the princess website will show you pricing by date.

Since you are going in July you could cancel your cruise and choose another, or maybe move to the less expensive date? I Hope you have a wonderful cruise. :)

I have seen several posts here and in other threads that there is a problem with traditional dining guests using anytime dining, resulting in longer wait times for AD. Is this just anecdotal information or is there data out there that proves this is true? This just doesn't make sense to me, for a couple of reasons. 1. We always select TD, but most cruises we are on a wait list to get it, presumably because it is so popular. In fact the cruise we are taking in August is the first time we got immediate confirmation of our seating selection as we booked very early and wanted late seating. 2. The TD dining rooms are always packed - it is rare to see an empty table or sparsly populated tables. Wouldn't this indicate the TD diners are attending TD?

In my observations I don't feel TD diners are the problem with AD lines, more likely it is due to activities and time preferences of AD diners causing certain times to be busier than others. Personally I don't like AD, so don't blame me for your long lines! :-)

Thank you all so much for the speedy replies. This is very helpful information! I will definitely flag both cabins for for no upgrade and keep my fingers crossed we aren't moved. :-)

Our family of four (2 adults, 2 kids) is currently booked in a mini on the Ruby in August. We love the mini and it works well for our family. Now my mother in law would like to join us (yes this is a good thing!) and we have offered to cover her fare for an inside cabin. This brings up a few questions we haven't had to deal with before:

1. Since our party is 3 adults, 2 children, can we book one of our boys with grandma? This would help us even out the cost of the fare by avoiding a single supplement. Just wondering if there is an issue putting a minor child in a cabin with a non-parent. BTW my husband and I are the parents of both children.

2. If we can book one of the boys in grandma's cabin, can he actually sleep with us in our mini? Can we send both boys to grandma's for a night or two if we wish?

I don't know how picky princess will be on how we divide cabin assignments once onboard and we don't want to do anything against the rules. This is only our 2nd cruise with the kids so we are still learning. :-)

Thanks in advance!

Beautiful images of a beautiful ship! Can't wait to cruise on her in June.

I haven't been on the Ruby yet (booked for June 2015!) but I can answer some of your questions.

Pizza is served on deck in front of the main pool. There is also a bar and a grill for hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. all of this food is part of your cruise fare. My family loves the pizza in particular and is an easy grab to go lunch.

The beverages served in the buffet that are complementary include water and iced tea. Maybe lemonade too? My kids always score free milk as well. I am sure someone else will correct me if I missed anything, but basically anything else has a fee. The drink dispensers are always available (usually one side of the buffet closes while the other is open).

We don't watch many of the shows in the Princess Theatre so I cannot address this.

I'm not aware of any self serve ice cream, but there is Scoops that offers ice cream much of the day.

Have a great cruise!

Maria

It has been awhile since we used the coffee card but hubby definitely wants one next time. Are they still punch cards? And if there are punches left can they be used on another cruise?

So sad. It feels like there has been a lot of tragedy lately. :(

Yes you will have your assigns dining room and table number on your cruise card. Something to think about is the table size. We prefer traditional dining and like meeting other cruisers so we generally request a larger table. You can do this in the Cruise Personalized. Also keep in ind if you don't like your table mates you can request to be reassigned by the Maître d. We have done this one time, but in our 10+ cruises we have met so many great people while dining. Enjoy your cruise!

I believe through Super Bowl is usually played on MUTS.

Merlinite - greetings from GP! We are neighbors :)

We had been planning an Alaskan cruise for our 15th wedding anniversary next June. Yesterday the mini was over $1900pp and today with the sale it was $1600pp plus over $300 OBC. I also applied for the Princess Visa and earned points for another $50 OBC. I figure we will use the card to pay the cruise balance and earn even more credits. So happy!

We were on the Grand in March with our sons, 9 and 10. They loved cruising (it was their first time) and had plenty to do.

We did enroll them in the kids program, and they were both in Shockwaves. Everyday there are different activities, like painting tshirts, video games (ps3 and wii), movies, snacks, etc. there was a pizza night, card night, a pajama party, and ice cream party, and an environmental presentation where they learned about keeping the oceans clean and they "adopted" a whale. They even got a whale plushie. My youngest loved the program and asked to be taken everyday. Our oldest didn't enjoy it as much and preferred being in the cabin on his computer, however he has mild aspergers so he isn't quite as social. He actually talks of the kids program now that we are off the cruise!

Outside of the kids club we watched MUTS, swam, used hot tubs and of course a few excursions. In your cabin you will have a kids channel with popular movies that repeat through hype day, which we found helpful when we needed some down time. Some of the movies included Kung fu panda 2, despicable me 2, maybe a wimpy kid movie? They change daily and there were some cartoons too I believe. Also, there is ping pong and board games/puzzles at the indoor pool. We never got to play ping pong as a large family was using almost the entire cruise! My boys also loved shuffle board.

If you have more specific questions I would be happy to help :)