vampiress

what do you think a roll call should be? and how would you keep chatter separated int he threads?

personally i feel 1 thread per cruise seems appropriate for coordination amongst guests for excursions/dinners and also for introducing yourself. splitting those into separate threads would seem to remove the chance of finding people on your cruise to interact with.

my first cruise we mustered on the promenade deck with out life jackets. this made sense. i felt that the script was well done and made sense.

my second cruise, we were in the smokey casino, it smelled super bad. the crew members had no amplification, there were multiple muster spots in the same big room and it was hard to understand when 2 people were giving the same spiel amplified in the same room.

my last cruise my muster was the theater, they used the amplification it was good.

i'm ok with muster as long as long as it is done well. my second cruise i didn't feel it was done well. even if i have cruised many times, it s a small amount of time for me to think about what to do in an emergency before i go have fun.

i need the natural light. the inside was ok while our night light worked, but i forgot more batteries and the last 2 nights were problematic for me. complete suffocating darkness is not my cup of tea. insides are ok if you don't need the natural light. at a minimum i prefer a window.

i have a balcony booked this time because my last cruise with a balcony i got a migraine and sick form the storm we sailed through. the seas were so rough. i don't normally get seasick, but with the migraine i was a gonner.

hoping for smooth sails and enjoying the balcony this time. work has been stressful, so this was a splurge.

in any case, enjoy your cruise! that is the important thing.

good to know to purchase wine in town if i want some. we booked the wine tour since we knew nothing of ensenada and don't speak spanish.

ah, i'm glad the nasty is gone.

i found it very interesting that this was an issue. as an abled bodied person you don't always think about that. i have a friend who has mobility issues and it is definitely something more on my radar now.

did you report the issue while on the boat or reach out to princess directly? it might be something they would want to consider smoothing out the next time the ship is being refurbished. i would think it cold be problematic for the stewards carts and luggage as well.

i'm also shocked they didn't have some staff acting as traffic directors at the elevators, especially since everyone is so new to ship. most of the other cruises i have been on, there was someone pointing out alternative routes away from muster and/or trying to keep the elevator traffic calm and orderly. this is another suggestion i think should go to the cruise line, it seems like such a simple fix that would benefit everyone.

length + width + depth is where the larger number comes from.

This was the first hurricane to hit Florida in 11 years.

what? they get hurricanes every year. florida is a large state though, i had my mother calling to check on me once for a hurricane down in miami, but in orlando it was a perfectly lovely day. so not all hurricanes will affect all cruises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Florida_hurricanes_(2000%E2%80%93present)

*sigh* ok hurricanes affect florida every year. they are not seeming to count the keys as florida, which is silly. also they don't seem to count if te eye doesn't touch land, which is odd. so i guess technically it has been a while, but misleading at best.

hmmm i'd be surprised if any drinks contain gluten aside from the obvious alcoholic ones, but you should ask to see labels if you are super sensitive.

ah good to know. i just noticed the "suggested" boarding times and as super curious and it seemed to be cutting it a bit close to when you needed to be on ship. i'm in LA, so i'll probably get there around 10:30 and hope for the best. thanks!

my last day at work with a printer is the Monday before the cruise, i hope they assign our cabin before that. if i print the boarding pass before my cabin is assigned, they can figure it out at the port, right?

i was there. the comedians are all over the place on the cruise. there are many shows. we had bad weather, and i got sick, so i didn't get to personally interact with them that much, but ate at tables next to several of the comedians for most meals. there were meet and greets, you could have paid for a picture time with the jokers. they mc'd many of the activities. they made announcements to the boat. if you are a fan, you will have fun.

ha i just posted in the other san diego thread, the trolley/bus is what you want!

https://www.sdmts.com/schedules-real-time/trip-planner

get a $5 day pass and you can transfer between trolley and bus. last time i was in Sd we found a good parking spot and left the car and took the trolley/bus everywhere.

very walkablle, but also, check out the trolley, a day pass is affordable and it goes all over https://www.sdmts.com/schedules-real-time-maps-and-routes/trolley

i <3 balboa park

i'm stalking my cruise. i'm so excited!

can't you check in at the 24 hours and let princess do their thing? or will the bag processing mess up your spot in queue?

neato! this looks legit! not that i din't want to trust you, but that's some sensitive info to put into an app that wasn't immediately branded a .gov

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/mobile-passport-control

there is some fun stuff to do in long beach, i wouldn't venture into los Angeles or hollywood, becuase you will lose all of your good tourist time in transport.

long beach has the queen mary, which may not be interesting since you just got off a boat, but it is beautiful and interesting to tour. also the long beach aquarium is very nice. they also sell packages where you get to go on a small boat tour of the port and then to the aquarium. i enjoyed the port tour, it was neat to see the scale of the port and the ships being unloaded.

the federal bar is one of my favorite places to eat in long beach, it's by the transit center. it is in an old federal bank with high vaulted ceilings. good food and drinks.

I am not surprised. Princess brochures also say "London" as a port for their cruises despite the fact that many of their ships get no where near London. Tokyo is another example. No Princess ship has ever docked in Tokyo, they dock in Yokohama which is a considerable distance from Tokyo.

 

Princess has a reputation of never making it clear where their ships are docking so you can hardly blame people for their misunderstandings.

oh i don't think that's a thing to blame on princess. think oft it in scale. disney is not in either orlando or los angeles, but people not from california are less likely to know lake buena vista, or anaheim.

others have already explained princess uses san pedro, but the port of LA and Long beach are in the same general area and not far from each other. a quite lyft or taxi between the two.

oh that's so weird. glad it is fixed for you.

weird. are you copying and pasting your user name? sometimes that adds a space you don't expect. also is the capitalization of your password correct?

their website is not as well done and user friendly as it can be. i keep getting 404 errors on pages because it logs me out and i have to logback in but it's not obvious.

the refer a friend says specifically that the cruise can't be booked already

:( i i wonder if this changed.

otherwise i'd love to be referred by someone. username at gmail

the "i don't need it so no one else needs it" attitude irks me to no end. i understand that you don't need it, but on the flip side, cellphone communication is ubiquitous now. as other cruiselines perfect an app, it will be weird when princess doesn't have a good one with basic features. i will say they do get points for having it be a free option, even with less features.

i will say i had no sounds on my notifications, but it was super nice to see the notification when i got a message when my BF and i were at opposite ends of the ship and needed to coordinate something.

The NCL & Princess demographics are vastly different & many Princess passengers don't want to listen to audible alerts for push notifications.

 

It's less convenient to not have push but I prefer to occasionally check for messages whenever my wife and I need to locate each other...and I'm glad that Princess isn't paying $$$ to add push. :)

the demographics for the cruise lines and your personal preferences doesn't seem relevant to my point that push notifications can happen for wi-fi using apps. notifications don't have to be audible and can be turned off.

The biggest problem with push notifications with an app like this is that for them to truly work as designed, you need an internet connection. Push notifications use either Apple or Google as an intermediary to deliver the notification. This way your phone isn't constantly polling a bunch of servers for update. A service can simply push the notification to Apple Push Notification Service or to Google Cloud Messaging depending on the platform you use and then Apple or Google push the notification to your phone. Without a data connection this isn't possible. Alternatively, they could create an app (at least on Android) that runs in the background and checks a server every couple of minutes for an update. It would use quite a bit more battery but it could deliver notifications. Apple is allowing more stuff to happen in the background now than it used to but I still don't know if this could be fully accomplished.

the norwegian app had push notifications and used the ship wifi. it can totally be done, they just don't want to spend the $$$ to get a developer to do it.

i grew up watching the love boat. it is sad to see her demise.

likewise when i saw what happened to the norway, the first cruise i went on.

yeah. i'd say 73% at least. it was a charter and they gave away lanyards when you boarded, so that had something to do with it.

i don't carry a purse on ship, women's clothing has woefully inadequate pockets.

i don't want to have to think about it.

i didn't wear it off the boat, that's a bad tourist trick.

i did try a bracelet type holder, but i had large wrists and the bracelet was too tight :(