geoherb

Yes, it was easy to blame Covid for the cutbacks. I think Princess discontinued the pillow chocolates so that people would not ask for the evening turndown service.

On short cruises, it's a conundrum. You need to do the math. You may be able to trade your entire minibar for 20 Perrier waters. (According to room service last month on the Caribbean, though, Perrier was not an option, only club soda.) And then buy your morning specialty coffee. That would give you four waters to drink the rest of the day. I think it would work out better than trading for two coffee packages and only drinking one a day.

The official policy in the passage contract is: "All checked and carry-on luggage will be scanned and any prohibited items, including alcoholic/nonalcoholic beverages will be removed, confiscated, and discarded."

I've done it three times and tried to sign up for it again last month on the Caribbean. It's $95 with wine on the pre-Royal ships. They charge an extra $25 for the crystal curtain on the Royal and post-Royal ships. The Royal and newer ships offer a Winemaker's Dinner that's $40. One complaint most people have about the Chef's Table is that there's just too much food. The Winemaker's Dinner is a more reasonable amount of food served with good wines. Here's the menu from last year on the Majestic. Our favorite celebratory dinners have been Ultimate Balcony Dinners. Someone mentioned that Princess may be starting them up again soon.

It was kind of the captain to make the announcement once. On a Holland America cruise, we were woken by announcements in our cabin about a helicopter rescue several times after midnight. The first announcement was about avoiding the open decks. The people in the affected cabins had already been moved to the theater. A second announcement came later to let people know that the helicopter did not have enough fuel and had to turn around. They made a third announcement when the helicopter was coming back, and a fourth announcement after it left.

My first stop on the Caribbean Princess last month was to guest services to request a refund for the transfer from LaGuardia. I waited five and a half hours for the shuttle bus. The purser wrote down my name and cabin number. The credit appeared on my OBC the next morning. It was disorganized chaos at the airport. An earlier shuttle bus picked up some passengers. But the "Princess" reps weren't doing anything to ensure that people boarded the bus according to when they checked in. The only reason I was able to catch the shuttle bus I did was because four of us waiting upstairs by the luggage carousel as instructed decided to move downstairs instead and wait by the curb.

At least your amount was significant enough. They charged me $12.98 on the last night of my cruise back in December. It took six weeks to get a future cruise credit--and that was only because I was on the phone with a customer service rep about a problem booking another cruise. I'm still waiting to hear back from Princess regarding my complaint about that booking.

I used to enjoy when late traditional dining was at 8 or 8:15. We made many friends through traditional dining. On my last few cruises--which I've done solo--I started eating earlier because the other people who go late aren't asking to share a table. We had the same problem as a couple when we had anytime dining for the first and only time in 2002. On my cruise last month, I did eat several times with many of the same people at breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining rooms. I probably would have run into them more often if I had kept the same dining room and time. But I made a fixed reservation for 6:20 in the Island Dining Room and then took whatever was available if I decided I need to change the time due to the activities happening a particular evening. I ended up eating in all three main dining rooms. The app worked fine for me in changing my reservations, but I ran into people who had problems with getting it to work for them. One friend ended up making a standing reservation in the Palm Dining Room through a head waiter.

The only time we had bad tablemates was on a short cruise (4 nights) with a boring couple who did not want to have a conversation. Making things worse was the fact that it was a table for 8 with just us and that couple. But we managed to endure. If it had been a longer cruise, we would have asked to change tables. I've only been taking Princess cruises since 2001. Even 20 years ago, men could make it into a dining room without a coat and tie. I did not sail on Princess when passengers were expected to dress up every night. I did sail on Holland America when they had semi-formal nights in addition to smart casual and formal nights. On semi-formal nights, they expected men to wear jacket and tie. We took sports coats and tuxedos on those cruises to accommodate the dress code. Thankfully it was before the airlines started charging baggage fees. We used to have a large checked bag apiece along with a rolling garment bag for our tuxedos and sports coats and dress shirts.

I never noticed the chair hogs in the piazza. The chairs were being used by people when I was there and not just being held by a book or sweater. There were usually plenty of places to sit over in Vines during port days. Many days I would stop by the International Cafe when coming back from being in port.

They weren't biting, but they were a nuisance. I wish I had purchased an inexpensive head net. I saw several people wearing them around the lake.

I don't mind some of the cheap gimmicks, such as Princess prizes, as long as they're optional and help keep the price of my cruise down. I will miss traditional dining when DH is able to cruise with me again. Before they did away with it last summer, it was always so popular that they had to use two dining rooms for early traditional dining.

It will be the same time as the other side of the dining room. On the Caribbean Princess last month, the dining room was open from 11:30 until 1:30 on embarkation day.

On the Caribbean Princess last month, the Coral Dining Room was open from 11:30 until 1:30 on embarkation day. I missed it due to the shuttle fiasco at LaGuardia. Fortunately they repeated the menu for lunch one day later in the cruise.

The official policy is that only wine is allowed at embarkation. Whether they enforce that policy or not is arbitrary.

I was on this cruise as well. My cabin was midship on the Riviera Deck. I could hear the fog horn going off every 90 seconds some nights. The cruise reminded me of the one I took to Alaska last summer on the Majestic. We did not see the sun for the whole week on that cruise. My internet refund came automatically on the last full day of the cruise. I prepaid $80 ($5 per day) and received credit for 10 days ($50). My friends who had Princess Plus and Premier received their refunds a couple of days before those of us who prepaid did. I wouldn't recommend this cruise for people who don't like sea days. Unlike you, I thought it was fairly calm the whole cruise. The rough seas the captain mentioned when canceling our port stop in Nuuk never materialized. Princess should really consider putting a more suitable ship on this itinerary, but it seems stuck on sending the Caribbean Princess. The Island or Coral would make more sense--with indoor pools for those cold days at sea and fewer passengers to tender in Nanortalik and Qaqortoq.

Ship: Caribbean Princess Class: Modified Grand/Caribbean Deck: Riviera Cabin #: R343 Category: IC (inside) Port/Starboard/Bow/Stern: Starboard/mid-forward--very convenient to the middle stairs/lifts Connects With Cabin #: n/a Accessible: no Quiet: no--underneath the Neptune Pool. Pool deck hands moved chairs around the pool beginning at 6:30 a.m. every day. They started restacking the chairs every night around 10:30. Balcony Size: n/a View: n/a Privacy Issues: n/a Wind: n/a Soot: n/a Problems: only the noise from being underneath the pool. Otherwise, it's a great location for someone who likes to get up early.

It would also be helpful to know the difference in price at the time of booking between the category booked and the category of any successful bid.

Teams competed in one trivia on sea days where the scores accumulated. Gareth, an assistant cruise director, led those trivias. Instead of the usual question by question approach, he gave out papers with 20 questions. He graded them between sessions and posted the scoreboard to let teams know how they were doing. The last few trivias, though, he stopped posting the scoreboard to keep it suspenseful. He did not show the final scores until after announcing the winners and giving out prizes. In addition to the top three teams, Gareth gave prizes to the best solo player, the best duo team, and best team name (Who gives a ship?). My team started tied for second place, slipped to fourth place after the second round, then gradually came back to take first place in the fourth round and hold onto it. The contest was very close, especially since we did not know how the other teams had done the last few rounds until the last day.

I posted the Patters from the cruise in a separate topic. Sorry that the internet did not work well enough for me to keep posting them daily while on the cruise.

Here are the Patters from last month's cruise on the Caribbean Princess to Greenland and Canada. CBPatters001.pdf CBPatters002.pdf CBPatters003.pdf CBPatters004.pdf

I went to the free wine tasting on my Caribbean Princess cruise last month. They had one plate of the cheese, crackers, and fruits per person. The wines tasted fine--nothing tasted like it had been improperly stored.

I was on the cruise before yours. I noticed some of the bar servers would ask for a cabin number instead of scanning the medallion. I'm betting that's the source of some mistakes.

I never made it past 7 alcoholic drinks in a day when I had Princess Plus. I saw a couple of guys on that cruise be told by a bartender that they had reached the 15-drink limit. One was visibly drunk and fell off his barstool shortly afterward. The other looked fine. I never started drinking alcoholic drinks until lunch time, when I'd have a glass of wine in the dining room or a beer at Alfredo's. I'd have a drink at the early evening cocktail event, a glass of wine with friends at Vines before dinner, a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and a drink or two with friends after the show at Crooners, Club 6, or the Crown Grill Bar.

The official rule is no.