jeromep

I get the impression that Princess has been wrestling with the question of covered or open pools for many years now, and between the outcomes of new ship design, along with the changing winds of consumer demand, combined with the impact of the past 3 years, I'm not certain that it was Princess' desire to run their Alaskan cruises on ships that have uncovered pools. But with ship sales to other lines (Star, Golden) and the lack of covered pools on all the Royal class ships (except for Majestic), they are in a bit of a pickle until the new Sun Princess and any future sisters arrives. Let's hope there are sisters for the Sun Princess. And who knows if they will make the new Sun Princess a west coast home ported ship so that it can do the Alaska run or the Hawaii run. That might not be in their plans for the new builds. But I don't think it is impossible since they home ported the Discovery on the west coast.

Good tip, if there is a concierge lounge on your ship, let the suite concierge do the work for you. That is what they are there for. Of course, I suspect that you'll get better and more complete features in the app as your sailing gets closer. Everything depends on the sailing, but last time we took advantage of the complimentary specialty dining on embarkation evening we found that the Crown Grill (in our case) was nearly dead. We did call the dine line after we got on board to secure a reservation for our party, as it was 5 people, but once we got there we discovered that we could probably have just shown up and been seated. It was not busy at all. The complimentary specialty dining is a nice suite perk, however the reason it is only provided on the first night is also functional for the cruise line. First, it is my impression that specialty restaurants are not heavily used on the first night, again varies by sailing, and it also helps to get some passengers out of the MDR. What better way to spread your pax out than to encourage your suite passengers to have specialty dining embarkation evening and get them out of the MDR flow, get some usage out of the specialty restaurants which will may be underutilized that night.

Yep. That is exactly how it works. Totally based on a random number generator deep down in the computer system on board. Right time and place to unlock your door, and you get a prize.

I'm going to give you a like just because you are honest about your tastes. Nothing wrong with Boons.

Hold on, who is sitting in bars getting drinks. Aren't we all wandering around with our phones and medallion and ordering drinks to come to us. Sitting in a bar and "nursing a tonic and gin" is so 20th Century.

I feel mostly the same. I'm also smack dab in my 40s (gee, when did that happen, I don't feel this age), and my memories of the Love Boat were that of a little kid. I've watched a lot of the episodes as reruns on TV Land, MeTV, and the other rerun networks and the shows are great fun, although very campy. You get lots of those moments like, "hey that's the priest from MASH," or "what's Florence Henderson doing here... again?" Nothing they have done recently has caught the original spark. I haven't read the whole thread, but I don't think anyone has mentioned the Love Boat remake in the late 90s that stared Robert Urich. I thought that one would have caught on, but it didn't. I also think that his illness was taking its toll on him and might have impacted production. Sometimes you really do only catch lighting in a bottle once.