JimmyVWine

That DEFINITELY is the case. People who booked under the “old” Plus Package get treated the same as people who booked under the new package EXCEPT for the items listed as “New” in the promotional materials which are the special desserts, the fitness classes and the juice bar. You won’t get those unless you upgrade to New Plus. But you get everything else including the $15 drink allowance. This has been well documented.

If this Alaska cruise is a once in a lifetime experience (or at least something that you probably won’t do often), itinerary trumps EVERYTHING. Five years ago I might have said that your cruising style was not a perfect mesh with Princess. Doable, but not perfect. Now, I would say that you are a very good fit. Princess has become more casual since the restart. Jeans, sweatshirts and tennis shoes are more common now than in past years. With the demise of Traditional Dining and the decrease in shared tables, you don’t need to be concerned about being seated in the dining room with others wearing jackets and their finest Harry Winston jewelry. You be you. On the first formal night (which will be a Sea Day so no worries about showering after an excursion) you might want to level up from jeans and a sweatshirt. But no need for a jacket for a man or a dress/gown for a woman. Long sleeves for men and a pants outfit for women is pretty common now. As for entertainment, I always find that to be too specific to judge. One person’s hilarious comedian is another person’s “I walked out after 5 minutes”. So I can’t really weigh in on that.

I guess this isn’t what has been established. It is possible that they never had the cake in the first place and sent you what they considered to be the best substitute. Or they could have once had the cake and ran out of it. Or they had it and made a mistake and delivered the wrong thing. Nothing in this thread answers the question and without speaking to a human, you will never know. Remember that this isn’t something that gets provisioned. It is made on the ship. So they can always have the cake if the pastry department decides to make it. But even then they have to make them in sufficient quantity to accommodate everyone who orders it which can be tricky.

We host a Halloween party most years and have a theme for each party. One year our theme was “The Love Boat”. We decorated several rooms in the house. We had a Pirate’s Cove, Coral Dining Room, Acapulco Lounge and a railing with a full moon in the background for photos. Our costumes were very similar to these (only I opted for white knee socks): Two of my brothers were Gopher and Doc. So if you want to make a splash at the Love Boat Piazza Party, there is always this.

Big difference is that the packages in Alaska are prominently promoted in the mailers that Princess sends to all of us and are are bookable on their website. You don’t have to receive a sketchy cold call to book one.

The FAQ section of the package details contains the following: What if I’m not of legal drinking age (21 years of age or older)? Guests who are under 21 will receive the Zero-Alcohol Package, previously called Coffee & Soda Package. This package type will be assigned prior to sailing based on age of guest. Since a minor can only get the Zero-Alcohol Package, it stands to reason that he cannot upgrade to a pricier package but there is no restriction in you doing so. In truth, you already have different packages.

You can bring on as much wine as you like without fear of incarceration. You simply have to pay for the bottles over the free allowance. And the luggage tags still say $15 and not $20 so the cost has been applied inconsistently. Expect to pay $20 and if it turns out to be $15, just nod and smile.

With the Plus Package you get 15 drinks per day. C’mon! You’re only half-way there! 😁

Sorry, but I am skeptical of someone who joined CC for the purpose of making their first post to cheerlead a telephone offer that many have reported to be a scam.

This. We were on the inaugural cruise of the Disney Magic in 1998. The first voyage of Disney's first cruise ship. (The Big Red Boat doesn't count). It happened by accident as we were booked in late July, early August at a time when the ship was scheduled to commence service in March. And then that got pushed back to April. And eventually to the end of July. So while we expected to be four or five months into the routine, we ended up being first and it was a very shaky cruise. Especially in the dining department. Palo was terrific, but the effort to get a reservation was a nightmare. Wasted 2 hours of my first day on board in a line. We did get some prints suitable for framing, but I would never consider those fair trade for the quality of the cruise itself.

Maybe bring along a Bose Bluetooth speaker and play music that will drown out the intolerable noise created by others?? 🤣

There are a lot of paranoid people who detest the idea that their every move is being tracked and that Big Brother is watching over them. I tend to think that the idea of being GPS tracked by the medallion system might be a turnoff to some and I'd hate to think that some would eschew Princess in favor of another line over this issue. So I don't think that precision is unwarranted here and I thank Thrak for that precision.

I don’t think that is right. I think it is an RFID transponder that gets its location picked up by a series of radio frequency sensors.

Perhaps have some on board and distribute them on request. Space in a cruise ship cabin is at a premium. I don’t want counter space taken up by an appliance that I have no interest in using. Don’t care whether it produces tea or coffee. I’m not making either so I’d rather have counter space to place my Bose speaker so that I can play music softly, but apparently still at a level that it will disturb people from Santa Fe.

I think Princess just anticipates fewer headaches with booking on board. With pre-booking, want to hazard a guess at what percentage of people will complain about the location of lounger they are pre-assigned? The current system is probably the second worst method possible. All others are tied for first. I do wish that they could implement a system that eliminates the B2B advantage. Seems bizarre that a person who is one of the first 10 to board should get shut out.

We can always come up with exceptions in an attempt to swallow the rule. But if we stick with the definition of “music played at a polite, conversational level”, it is by definition not intrusive. And if one scans the area and sees no neighbors to intrude upon, then by definition there can be no intrusion. And yet some think that a volume that is not loud enough to hear by people not around to hear it is too loud. How very odd.

I just printed out tags for our next cruise, and I tried all of the methods on this thread to see what would work best and to report back. Using Edge instead of Chrome got me the proper size tags and it didn't matter if I printed directly from the screen showing the tags or if I printed them after selecting the "Print Luggage Tag" command, or if I saved them as a PDF first and then printed them. All gave me the long tags with no customization needed. However, if you print directly from the screen instead of using the "Print Luggage Tag" command, your printout will have a header and footer that you may not want. The header is a date and time stamp and says "Luggage Tag: Princess Cruises" in small type and the footer is the URL Coder of the web page. Using Chrome, the tags started out as the short ones irrespective of whether I printed straight from the screen or if I printed after using the "Print Luggage Tag" command, or if I saved them as PDFs. But this can be fixed. Use the "Print Luggage Tag" button. When the Print dialogue box opens, look to see if the Print Preview of your tag is filling up the page, or is much shorter than that. If it is the latter, then in the dialogue box find the dropdown for "More Settings". Open that up and go to "Scale". It is probably set to "Default". Change it to "Custom" and then enter a number that will cause your tag to fill up the length of the page, or nearly so. For me, using the number "145" does the trick. Not sure if this will be the number for everyone, but play around with it until your tag gets to be the size that you want.

And is the same true for conversations? Are people not permitted to speak in your presence? If music is played on a balcony at a conversational level or lower, how is the music the culprit, but the conversation is not?

Of course playing music from a speaker on the Lido Deck is both silly and inconsiderate. But there is a certain irony to all of this given what is played at high decibels on MUTS. "Hey! Turn of that speaker! How dare you play the Commodores at that volume when I am trying to watch this Lionel Ritchie Concert Video on MUTS for the 23rd time!"

Good information. My order is always the same, and always boring. Double Espresso. That's it. So I have never tried for iced, no foam, half skim, half almond milk, Chai Peruvian Blend with a twist of pith-free lemon rind, slightly bruised. 😄

1. Not really a hard thing to imagine happening. Your incredulity is surprising. 2. Of all the things to make up and post here, this would be a weird one. I'll save my whoppers for something far more controversial! 😁 3. The most recent time it happened (and it has happened more than once), the playlist that was on was mostly James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

We bring a Bose Bluetooth speaker out to our balcony all the time. The volume is set low enough so that it wouldn't bother anyone else, but I can't say that it would be impossible to hear. But we always look left and right first to see if our neighbors are out there. We have never been asked to turn down the volume. We have, however, been asked to turn the volume UP so that they could hear the music better!

I rarely see any line in the Patisserie area of the Buffet, but I only get espresso there in the afternoon. Not sure what sort of line forms there between 7:00-9:00 a.m..

The beds that pull down from the ceiling fully recess into the ceiling and come straight down. A hinged third bed rests in a position 90 degrees from what it will be when someone is lying in it. It gets pulled down from a perpendicular state to a parallel state. But as mentioned above, I don’t think that is the situation with Balcony cabins.

“Sorry. But medallion or no medallion, I am going to have to cut you off.”