vampiress

ok no need to be pedantic, it is common parlance to refer to laws and regulations as the same thing.

its just like flying, homeland security needs the manifest before the ship leaves, BUT they may make some exception for known delayed passengers where they have the information for them based on the discretion of the captain and dhs. 

practically, as a fellow cruiser, i recommend boarding between 11am and 2pm for a 4-5pm sail away.  this is the time frame i always aim for and i have always had a satisfactory boarding experience.  i normally aim to get to port around 11 because i want to be onboard to have lunch in the dining room.

i have never made it to a K&K because they are earlier that i want to leave my cabin and people, lol.  i swear on all of my cruises they were 8:30 or earlier, and i like to try and sleep in a little.  i do bring my knitting and a small wip bag to carry it around the ship with me and knit while waiting for shows.

this was quite the popcorn ride of a thread.  this will have no effect on me as i pack my own soap and shampoo because of sensitive skin and color treated hair.  fascinating what inspires people to be upset.  i did enjoy the small container of lotion, but i understand the cutback on packaging. 

i guess, the way my logic works is, this is the industry trend, all hotels and lodging is going to this model, the dispensers will improve as they become more ubiquitous.  we do use too much plastic as a whole, and while i think there are bigger places to start, this is a logical progression, and industrial and commercial packaging is some of the biggest sources of plastic. i'm sure some of the impetus to make this change is cost savings, but also pressure from the industry reforms and people looking to reduce their plastic use.  the cost savings are likely not immense as the cost in time to maintain the new bottles adds cost back.  i expect the biggest driver for this is pressure to align with others in the lodging industry.

there is still security and then after security someone will scan medallions, confirm passports and room charge account.  but it was a nice process.  i felt since the moved security first, there was a long line at security, but hardly and line inside.  we were early, around 11am, they had just started boarding so still giving out boarding group numbers, and i barely had time to use the loo before our number was called.  

oh, is this new? because my recent mexician riviera cruise on the royal did not have this.  but it was playing constantly on the default channel when you turned on the tv.  seems easy enough to turn on tv, go do something and when you come back it is done.

i'm not an expert on medallion, and i had the iphone xs and 11 pro max.  so we were on the most recent ios and made sure all apps were downloaded and current.  even on the latest phones, i found the trivia part of the app was a little sluggish and sometimes needed to be restarted.  so many thigns, not necessarily your phone are likely contributing to the issue.

I work on software for my company,  technology is super hard when there are so many variables like type of phone, operations system, currentness of apps, and hardware capabilities. some of this could be poor app resource management and some might be just being beyond the hardware's capabilities.  my guess is it is a bit of both.

On 12/23/2019 at 11:33 AM, shealea said:

For some reason I'm just not getting the workings of the Medallion. I understand that I use it to get in and out of my cabin and for purchases onboard and for getting off and on the ship. 

This is where I'm confused. I understand that I can download the app to my iPhone. I DO NOT want to buy wifi minutes and I'm really worried about getting any charges for use of my phone on the ship. I don't want to accidentally be hit with charges from my phone tapping into the ships phone services. 

How do I avoid this? Please, if you would be so kind, explain to me how it works. Do I put my phone on airplane mode? Does that keep me from my phone tapping into the ship's phone services? 

And if I don't plan on buying wifi minutes, how would this app benefit us?

I feel kind of silly that I'm just not 'getting' it!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for any help!  We have never sailed on Princess and we're excited to try this line. We are doing the Mexican Riviera out of LA. 

its like using the wifi on an airplane.  board ship, put phone in airplane mode, and then turn on wifi.  this will allow you to use the ships INTRAnet, intra meaning internal.  this will incur no charges. just using the INTRAnet, you get ships services, electronic patters, checking your portfolio, passenger to passenger messaging, but there are no alerts for it so you only see the messages if you look. 

to use the INTERnet, the web outside the ship, that is where you have to pay, and it will be obvious when you click there that you need to pay.  you can safely click ont he itnernet options to see how much they cost with out purchasing them or getting any charges.

to long didn't read version:

when on board, put phone in airplane mode and then turn on wifi.

as for regular phone:

in most ports once the ship is docked you are close enough to receive mobile service, and if you have a plan that will work.  no one he can answer that for you, you will need to work with your mobile provider to see how much the charges are for your different ports.  you might want to look into having an international option added for your cruise.

i had a move over offer, and didn't even come close to using all of my on board credit.  i received mine surprisingly quick, i want to say within a month.  but barbecue they send in a  nondescript envelope, i had to look for it.

if you don't get in in 2 months, ask them to resend it

concur with both above, this is how they have dealt with my dietary restrictions.  the head waiter suggested i try to MDR for lunch when i could, but that if i asked in the buffet, there is a head chef there i can talk to to help me find foods i can eat.

i was just in Quebec for work, and uber works there, and i believe you can schedule an uber.  otherwise, as state above, you hotel should be able to help call you a taxi.  i've been asked if i need one at every hotel i've stayed at in Quebec. (granted its a relatively small number, but all 10 places asked me if i needed a taxi)

is your flight form Quebec directly international?  i ask because i always have to fly to toronto or montreal from Quebec before getting back into the US, so maybe your flight is actually domestic and you can shave an hour off your time.

8 hours ago, Ombud said:

 And yes, I've ordered off menu - broccoli stuffed baked potato with cheese sauce 

oh my gosh, its never occured to me to ask for that.  new goals next cruise.

i'm wondering, everyone who complains about the MDR menu, are you just reading the descriptions and not even bothering to try something new to you?  i'll admit, not every dish i have is one i like, i find they make their food a bit too fussy for me.  but i have a personal rule when i travel, i try things i wouldn't dream of ordering when i was picking up the check.  i know if i truly don't like my meal, they will bring me something else. 

i'm fine with sugar shakers.

i'll happily take anyone's blue bags, i use them for grocery shopping as we don't have plastic bags for free around here anymore.

i really find the food comments super interesting.  i've not liked my mdr dinner before, but mostly chalked it up to not liking that style of dish.  sometimes i find the food too fussy, i'm a much simpler diner, and prefer quality showcased ingredients to heavy saucing and lots of "stuff" put together.

my favorite game to play is imagining what the meal will look like from the description.  i have never won.

honestly i miss silly perks, like playing cards. 

i'm worried about the little pocket maps they give you on embarkation.  i love using them to do my own scavenger hunt.  i find even on shops i have been on before, there are still areas i keep finding on the ship.  i take the room pen and mark off once we have visited an area.

i was recently on a medallion cruise.  i don't understand the fuss about not using medallions.

the door locked when i was approaching it, i would see it unlock while i was a few steps away.  it does lock as you walk away.  i did some testing to find the perfect spot to hang out lanyards so we didn't trigger the door (the edge of the bathroom wall by the light switch to the bathroom)

we played the deck trivia in the app because we like trivia.

you do not need to do anything in the app unless you want to. you don't have to interact with the wall panels unless you want to.

i had an excursion i was on the same cruise as idahospud.

i pre-ordered my excursion online.  i'm glad i did as they sold out of most of them the first day.  in my room the tickets were in an envelop on the desk. there was in large letters on the ticket what time to meet in the theater.

once you go to theater, they have someone at the doors directing you to a couple of rows for each excursion.  we were given a sticker of a certain color and a number.  i think i was yellow 2.  so all of the yellow 2s sat together.  they called them in some order and you were led to either the front or midship tender depending on color.  its actually very similar to disembarkation with colors and numbers.

as we exited the tender on the docks, just outside of the princess, the excursion guys were making lines, they were looking for your sticker color and number combo, but there is also a big number on your ticket, like G1005  so they have that number too.  it is really easy to find them, you literally stumble over them leaving the velvet roped area.

they ask you to stand in line while they collect everyone form that set of tenders, then they walk you off the docks, through the shopping area to the bus.  make sure you tell them you have to use the bathroom or not, the bathrooms are by the bus area.

then enjoy excursion.

6 minutes ago, ecs66 said:

I think I read that if you're connecting to internet for wi-fi-calling, you need to turn on airplane mode.  Airplane Mode shuts off cellular for talk/text.  I'm wondering how seamless automatic switching between wi-fi and cellular can happen in that case.

 

Maybe turn on Airplane Mode, turning off cellular, and then go back and turn on cellular...?  That way, both would run concurrently.  Is that how you had access to both?

i'm utterly confused by your question.

ship anchored near cabo, close enough to get cellular.  i just turned off airplane mode.  the phone would choose which signal was stronger, ship wifi or cellular.  if i wanted to force cellular i turned off wifi.

wow this thread is a rollercoaster!

what a really fun idea.  you are a cool mom.  have a blast.

and for the record, i'm available for surprise cruises 😄

i love the ship's water.  i also love seltzer.  yes you can bring on as much seltzer as you want, just be warned you have to take it on with you.  sometimes the porters will take it, but likely you have to just carry it on yourself. i recommend a small roller with nothing else in so it is easy to have your water checked by security.  they opening mine and looked in the cases

i've yet to attend a tea.  i meant to, but we went extreme relaxation on this last 5 day cruise and missed most things as we did a lot of naps and sitting on the balcony.

as of last week, the royal has slots and the slot was pre-populated with a card that said this room was equipped with power saving lights and to leave this card in the slot.

i was in port onboard, once i got off the ship my phone switched to using the Mexican mobile provider.  so while you are on board the ship the medallion wifi is always working., they do not turn it off in port.  i am not sure about cellular at sea, i didn't try to use it.  i do have a smart phone, and my mobile package with tmobile does include wifi calling.

i don't fully understand your use case, cellular at sea is expensive and you can incur charges anytime your phone downloads data at all.  i've never tried to use it, but i have read horror stories of people who left their phone cellular on and incurred a bunch of charges.

we were just on the royal, and catalina from argentina made a new form of trivia that was super fun.  it was guess the word/spelling when all of the vowels were taking away.  for example *x*mpl*.  you had to have the word and the spelling correct.  it took a bit of time as each team had to go down to turn in answers.  we missed most oft he trivia this time as we were doing other things.  i thought the scheduling on my last cruise was not great as many things were at the same time and clustered together

2 hours ago, ecs66 said:

Is Medallion internet available for wi-fi calling while the ship is docked?

yes, in cabo when i was in my room with cellular turned on, the wifi took precedent because it was a stronger signal, but when i moved to a place where wifi was less strong it would switch to cellular.  basically if you are on ship, the wifi is stronger so it will win unless you explicitly turn it off.  i had cellular coverage in mexico so i left both on and let which ever was stronger take precedence and it was seamless to me except when i was expressly watching to see which was being used.

Just off my first medallion cruise.  i was pretty pleased.

embarkation, they changed the order of things in los angeles, first you go through security, then you check in.  security was easy, we had our medallions, touched the medallion point, it turned green.  didn't have to show anyone anything else. Security checked out my cans of soda.  then in the next room you go into an area with a bunch of people checking you in.  we had our medallions, i think there was a different line if you need to pick up your medallion. so in the check in they scan your medallion again, and you show your passport.  we were there somewhat early and they were still doing onboarding groups.  the numbers went really fast.  i will say all in all, we were through the whole thing and on ship in under an hour.

onboard, i had prepurchased the internet package, which didn't work until around 12:30, but once hey flipped whatever switch, i was able to log in and internet as needed.  i was oncall for work this day, which is why i had the internet package.

we liked to enjoy a drink or two a day, and we used the medallions with no hassle.  the bars tended to like to use the medallion, waitstaff tended to use the room number.   i kept an eye on the room charges, and they all seemed accurate, nothing i had to dispute.  on every previous cruise i had a charge to dispute.  so i'm happy i wasted no time in line at the desk,

one last thought about the medallion itself, the door functionality was great.  we were in a  cabin at a bend in the hall so we could see our screen as we walked up and it would unlock easily while we were in view of the door.  i brought magnetic hooks, and i hung them up by the bathroom door instead of next to the room door to make sure we weren't triggering the door.  it worked great.

the apps i am less pleased with.  it wasn't real clear why you would use your medallion at the big boards.  i did see some kids playing a game, but i couldn't figure out how to do that myself.  the trivia on deck was fun, but a little bit laggy and buggy causing you to miss questions when you restart the app.  it also doesn't ever show you what the right answer is. i wasn't able to figure out the other app games, and i don't gamble so i didn't try those games.

but the real frustration is the patter.  there is very little information about any of the activities on either the printed patter or the app.  the way the app has the schedule is difficult to read.  the printed patter is so minimal now, if a show is happening twice, it's hard to tell as it only shows at the first show time. it seemed that neither was the best resource.  we still carried our paper patter around.  staff also seemed to have trouble finding things on the app schedule.  i think i'd prefer a list view to compliment the schedule view they have, and better descriptions of what the activities are. 

and the find and chat functions are great except there is still no push notifications for the app, so it is useless to try and coordinate with your shipmates.  i sent my partner a message and he didn't see it for 2 days. so knowing where someone is is useless if you can't message them and they get a notification of the message, at least in my experience.

all in all, i liked the medallion, i found it unobtrusive.  they are at a good first step and i can see building upon this to really smooth out the kinks.

i love the monster ship show! 

everything i'm bringing to wear next week is skulls, bats, crows or ghosts.  🙂  for me everyday is halloween, but i'm going to live it up on the cruise.

i will also suggest hitting up your dollar store, there are some super cute hair clips or headbands that can be used for custumes and take up practically no space and weigh next to nothing.