DnD_Cruisin
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Posts posted by DnD_Cruisin
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Slight variation on the previous questions.
We have 2 cruises booked:
Ruby - Mar 2018
Crown - Dec 2018.
Can we purchase FCD(s) on our Ruby cruise and apply to Crown cruise?
Our final payment for the Crown cruise isn't due till mid Sep so it definitely won't be paid in full right after Mar cruise.
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A little OT but does anyone know if you can buy cigarettes at duty free and take them to your cabin or do they hold them like liquor until the end of the cruise
You can take them to your cabin and smoke on the cruise. Just remember to declare the packs you have remaining on the end of the cruise on the declarations form.
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I have to say I have found this thread enlightening to say the least. I personally wouldn't smuggle booze on. Not because I am more moral or better than those who do. It's just a PITA to have to run back to the room for refills.
Plus... if caught you are still left with having to pay for drinks anyway. Meaning you are screwed if you hadn't budgeted for it.
OP - In the grand scope of things I think you made the right choice.
Happy sailing!
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Personally I really like the idea of 1/2 bottles. We spend next to no time in our cabin unless there are 4 or more sea days. So in the past we rarely drank more than 1/2 of a full size bottle anyway. On CCL it's $95 for 750 mL of Crown and $23 for a 375 mL on Princess. All and all a pretty decent price for a cruise ship.
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What "more" does Princess have over Carnival?
I'm asking because I'm taking my first Princess cruise in October (28 days). I've been on Costa, HAL, NCL, and Carnival, with my last two cruises on Carnival. What I have come to like for evening entertainment (rely on, really) on Carnival is the dedicated comedy club and the festive, participatory piano bar. Princess has neither of those, and I admit that I'm a bit anxious at having committed to a 28-day cruise!
The other aspects of cruising that stand out for me are: a good (and affordable) thermal suite; I'm not interested in specialty dinning (I'm vegan, and "specialty" equates to fancy meat & seafood, and dairy-rich sauces); oh, and I love trivia, though I'm not especially good at it!
For us more is: Ocean Medalion, fridge in every cabin and better west coast itineraries.
I agree that the comedy shows on Carnival will be missed but we tend to spend more time in the casino than at shows. So not as big a loss for us.
The overall vibe seems to fit our style better. Not to say we will never sail on Carnival again (going on a quickie in Nov) but looking for a something different as our cruising needs have changed with becoming empty nesters.
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I would just like to say that I love Princess! We took our first Princess cruise in April (European Capitals) and it was wonderful, just wonderful. I thought I didn't love cruising before but Princes made me really love it and we have two booked within the next year now. DH and I are empty nesters now and finally able to travel and really afford it. With 4 kids it just wasn't possible for many reasons before. Now we are 6 grandkids in and so loving our travels and working our way to Elite on Princess! I seriously check the Princess site daily for possible bookings. It's not that my job is stressful or anything. I just need that quick distraction daily! :')
~dancing around the room singing "I love Princess"~ right now...ahhhh!
I was very happy to read this. We are making the switch to Princess after years of going on Carnival. When taking the kids Carnival was a great cost effective choice. But now with it being just the 2 of us we wanted a little more. We'll get to try our first Princess cruise next March.
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Oh My God! You mean, Princess, as a business, is trying to increase their revenue?! What is wrong with Princess?! I just don't understand why they are trying to be even more profitable. I guess I should go to another cruise line because I'm sure they aren't trying to increase revenue on the backs of their cruisers!
Ok, kidding aside, I personally probably won't use many of the mentioned option with this but I am certainly not upset nor concerned about anything to do with the medallions. You never know, I might actually use some of the options that are meant to improve my experience but I am not going to judge this before it even takes place. I look forward to hearing from others who will experience this before me (my first ocean medallion cruise won't be until my Royal cruise in January 2019) to get real experiences, not panicked prejudgments of this.
I totally agree.
We were trying to decide between Princess and Holland America because we wanted to upgrade from Carnival. It was this new program that swung us to Princess. Like you we'll have to wait a while (Dec 2018) to experience it 1st hand.
As a tech nerd I can envision endless possibilities of how far they can expand it in the future. IoT is coming to all facets of our lives. From smart homes to vacations.
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Works for me. If they are that afraid of the Medallion technology then they would be better off sailing another line. Of course Carnival Corp. has said they eventually want to roll the tech out to all of their lines. Not my problem. I'm not afraid of the new tech.
I am with you on this. I just don't understand the paranoia.
Plus I've read both RCL and NCL are working on similar tech. I'd bet that within 10 years every ship at sea will have some variation.
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Great news! Thanks for showing us all how good people handle a bad situation! I hope we meet on a future cruise I'll be glad to buy the 1st round!
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I actually won the mother in law lottery. :D
I did as well. My wife would tell a different story LOL
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There's a reason for that :')
LOL ... Yeah I guess we could add that to the list of oxymorons. [emoji12]
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OP - In the midst of this terrible tragedy it's refreshing to see your fantastic attitude! I would hope that if faced with the same situation we would aspire to handle it as you have.
I wish you continued safety and that you return home to find no damage.
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Mid October?!
Wow. That's within 30 days of 1st intended use. I know I tend to be overly risk adverse but IMO that's insane.
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Medallions have not yet been rolled out for public use. It's likely that there is some technical testing happening on the ships that have had their installations. If you do get a response that they have had a problem before the first Medallion cruise later this year, it had better be from a Princess employee or a contractor.
That said, the technology used in the Medallions should be very resistant to being disabled by external fields whether magnetic, electro-magnetic or whatever.
I would have thought they would have rolled out the Compass software by now. With the 1st Medalion cruise under 90 days away. Not a lot of time to remediate any bugs in the Ocean Ready aspect of the app. I've been an IT PM for 20+ years and I would be very uncomfortable releasing too close to the initial use date. No amount of testing can guarantee what will happen when end users get a hold of a new product. Case in point: Who anticipated users would use CD trays as a cup holder?
Considering the angst and lack of technical expertise I see in threads about this new tech, I hope they are also ramping up CS staffing. The phone lines are going to be lit up for weeks.
I would have to concur with your assessment on magnetic impact on the medallion. Considering the investment made that should have been a very high design requirement. But who knows for sure.....
I guess we'll find out.
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Only if you are making phone calls... Medallion function access via a smartphone is done over the ships intranet connection which is totally free. All Medallion ships are having massive connectivity upgrades to get rid of the system drops currently experienced. The Medallion uses a combination of two different technologies to interact with the ship. Nothing is stored on the Medallion except for a unique identifier that is scanned by sensors around the ship. I don't know why anybody is freaked out about having their name on the thing since it is on the current cruise card. It is my hope that all the people who are raving about privacy and are paranoid about the Medallion technology will absolutely refuse to sail on the Medallion cruises. That wold be cool as it might bring prices down for the rest of us who actually understand technology.
The technology used by the Medallion is:
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
Near Field Communication (NFC)
Like!
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We did this cruise on the Miracle in Jan 2014. At the time we were early 50s. We definitely brought the average age down.
Because it's pretty darned cold no one was out on Lido during trans-pacific portions of the cruise. This meant EVERYONE was inside. Common areas tended to be very crowded.
The good part to that was we met a lot of people and had some fantastic conversations.
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Not ready to quit, yet, but cutbacks are starting to wear. Like table cloths - sounds petty, but I had to chase my plate all over the table whilst cutting my entree. Does anybody think Carnival really cares what we complain about? Has anything ever been reversed because it was so unpopular?
Just out of curiosity, do you use tablecloths at home?
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I beg all Princess cruisers who want to try a Carnival Cruise, only travel on the newest of Carnival ships. You may think that the fantastically cheap deal you see on a Carnival ship is too good to miss, but don't do it unless the ship is very new. If you doubt me, you are tempting the beast. :evilsmile:
Ok I haven't been on Princess yet but I wholly disagree about new CCL ships vs old.
I love the Fantasy class ships. They are primarily used for shorter cruises. So I don't mind the lack of balconies because we are never in our room, except to sleep.
They are old and lack some of the "new" things but most do have the funship 2.0 upgrades.
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I'll stop cruising when they pry the sail n sign card from my cold dead fingers ...
Or....
If they ever run out of rum 🥂
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As a 7 time Carnival cruiser I would have to say your review is spot on to what we have seen on Carnival.
We are making the switch to Princess next year for many of the reasons you denote that Princess is or does better.
Thank you for this post!
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After 20 years working in an office with strict dress codes (and the dry cleaning bills to go with it!) The Mrs and I were firmly in casual mode when we cruised.
Now after a number of years working from home, in shall we say very casual clothes, we'll be dressing up on formal nights on our next cruise.
But to be honest ... We are doing this for ourselves. We could care less what others choose.
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Maybe, but...
Ever few days there is a thread here about a problem with the princess web site.
"I can't log in, is anyone else having problems", etc.
Very frequently, for a commercial web site.
So, princess might be getting a great design from the former-disney folks.
They still have to implement the medallion back end, and roll it out to
ships; as well as install all the necessary hardware and wiring throughout
the ship(s).
It remains to be seen how adept Princess will be at doing this.
I wouldn't try and correlate the web services to this. Different hardware, services and vendors.
However the overall gist of your post I do agree with.
Not just for Princess but any company rolling out a program as sophisticated and complex as this. It is a massive undertaking with the added complexity of being on a mobile platform in a harsh environment.
You can count on bugs and issues in the systems upon the initial roll out. They have been testing, on the ships this tech was deployed on, for months. This isn't the same as when the primary end users (us) start to use it. All the planning and testing in the world can't fully predict how users will interact with the product.
Examples from the early personal computer days: people thought the mouse was a foot pedal (as on a sewing machine) or the CD tray was a cup holder.
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I would think the rfid mechanism would simply replace the magnetic card mechanism.
No one will really know until the first revenue cruise.
My guess is you are correct.
IMO the cost to retrofit the existing mechanism would be greater in cost and time.
But as Tom and others have pointed out... We won't know till Nov.
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Future Cruise Deposit - Should we get this? Quick FCD/FCC 101 please
in Princess Cruises
Posted
I assumed as much. Thank you for confirming.
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