JimmyVWine

Recently off Regal. We had the Plus Package but used OBC to pay for the overage. Between the three of us in our group, we ordered one Plus wine, (a Rose that was printed by name on a list.) Almost all of the other Plus wines were sold as generic blind guesses and we don't play that game. But we found plenty of good wines in the $14-$16 range, so our total bill at the end of the trip (paid for by OBC) was modest. Bottom line is that there really has not been any improvement over what the OP reported in the opening post, but circumventing generic wines is easy and not all that costly. And almost all liquor-based drinks fall within the Plus Package limits. There were some premium liquors that we wanted to audition to see of they should find space on our home bar, so we splurged now and again on sipping alcohols (mostly Scotch, Rum and Gin) and those came in around $18. But we could easily have avoided those surcharges had we wanted to. But I figured the extra $6 was worth the cost to see if a $70 bottle would be worth buying. Full Trip Report to come once I get my photos downloaded. But those are my initial thoughts on the Plus Package.

With the introduction of Plus and Premier there isn’t much of a need to run specials.

This statement betrays a misunderstanding of Post #16. If the gratuity is baked in to the basic compensation of the crew member but done in a way that allows the crew member to keep more of their income in their pocket, then the recommended gratuity should be paid for baseline service and not for outstanding service. Otherwise crew members who are exhibiting "perfectly fine, but not exceptional service" are not receiving the full compensation that is intended. See comment below.

The great thing about Plus and Premier is that the pricing is so transparent and that the packages are optional. Takes no more than a couple of minutes to figure out if your drinking patterns make one of the packages worthwhile. I don’t think that anyone ever anticipated that a package would be best for everyone. There are plenty of people who do not drink alcohol either by choice or medical concerns. It is hard to imagine that a package could ever make sense for a non-drinker. All that said, I have no earthly clue what a chi chi coffee is so I don’t know how to factor those in. Is that a regional name for something like an Irish coffee that has alcohol in it? Or is it a coffee consumed by a decorated PGA golfer who hailed from Mexico?

Tipping changes by region. When one travels around the world it is imperative to read up on the customs and practices of the region one is visiting. Do you bow or shake hands? Do you present gifts or not? What color of flowers are are welcomed and what colors are an insult. Are tips expected or is tipping insulting. “We don’t do that in my country so I won’t do it here” is self-centered and culturally insensitive. A world traveler must be nimble and flexible.

The AT MDR served way more people by 7:00 than the TD MDR did. There were, by definition, no flipped tables between 5:00 and 7:00 in the TD room. In the AT MDR there were. This is irrefutable.

I meant that in the micro sense and not the macro. As in: "I showed up at 7:15 and had to wait 30 minutes for a table" vs. "I also showed up at 7:15 and got seated right away." We're not talking about "the world" and instead are talking about 2 people who share the same space and time.

100%. They don't ask for your date of birth simply to send you a Birthday Card of a ship with balloons and confetti coming out of its smokestack! Everything you do and every choice you make is mapped over to your age, gender and geographic location in their data banks.

Many people seem to forget this part of the equation of TD!

True. And our "no wait" strategy was to always go to the Transitional MDR at 7:05 to beat the people who took the posted time literally. But we were on a ship once where the M'd was turning people away at 7:00, telling them to come back at 7:15. But then, this same M'd started seating people between 7:05 and 7:10, so go figure. Even still, we are now talking about shaving 15 minutes off of the process. Not enough to solve the problem.

I amazes me how people's experiences can differ so greatly. Like you, we have never waited for a table. And I mean literally, never waited. My hand has never once touched one of those UFO light-up things that goes off when your table is ready. I have never once headed to a bar to have a drink while we waited. The (very) few times that we waited 5 minutes for a table is when the M'd told us that if we didn't mind waiting, he could seat us at a beautiful table by the window. It never mattered to us, but he seemed so proud of his ability to get us a "prime" table that we went along with it and waited per his request. But other than that, it has always been a straight shot to a table. The one time we have had Club Class, we were of course seated right away at the same table with the same servers. But that feature wasn't materially different from our experience with regular ATD. Now, I am not doubting that others suffered long waits. But fool me once. If that is what I experienced, I would change my strategy.

On the newer ships, the World Market Place is way bigger than the old Horizon Court area. At least that is true with respect to square footage dedicated to the food stations. It seems as if the seating areas are larger as well. Not sure if the size ratio kept pace with the increased passenger load. But at least it trended in the right direction as opposed to the MDRs.

And the complaints from the ATD people skyrocketed. The Transitional MDR (early TD switching over to ATD) made the switch at 7:15. The newer, larger ships simply cannot block out an MDR from 5:00-7:15 for one seating of people. The math simply does not work.

Note to self: Next time you wake up and walk out onto your balcony in the morning and take a deep breath in, say out loud: "Ahhh! I love the smell of dimethly sulphide in the morning. Thank you, bacteria." 😉

I don't know if they still exist, but back in the day, we went to a resort in Maine where the salt water pool was really salt water, and may in fact have been pumped in from the ocean. And the pool on the QE2 was actual salt water. (Again, not sure if it was sea water. I do know that it was freezing cold). I understand what you are saying about today's salt water filtration systems. But there is (or was) such a thing as an actual salt water pool with water that had the buoyancy and taste of the ocean.

But there is a reason. The decline of TD as a preference cannot be countered with a commensurate reduction in size of an MDR especially when the passenger load of the newer ships is increasing. The square footage of the dining rooms is static whereas the number of people who want TD is not, and the overall total number of passengers is growing. As Princess increases the capacity of its ships, it does so by building up, not out. The size of the MDRs is not growing in proportion to the increased passenger load. By way of example, if you look at the Deck 6 Aft MDR on Grand (capacity 2,600) on the deck plan you can see how many cabins it covers, lengthwise. I count 15 when looking at the cabins on Deck 9. Now look at the Deck 6 Aft MDR on Regal (capacity 3,560) and it appears to cover the same 15 cabins in length on Deck 9, (factoring in the larger size of the suite.) 37% more passengers with minimal to no growth in MDR square footage. And the trend continues with the added decks on the Sphere Class ships though we don't know what the MDRs will look like yet. More people using up the same space means that the dining rooms need to flip tables twice, and maybe three times a night. They cannot tie up an entire MDR with a single flip of two seatings, (early and late). Anyone in the restaurant business knows that the way to maximize covers is to do open seating instead of set seatings. Using one, or even half of an MDR for TD would put unworkable downward pressure on the other dining venues. At best, a TD venue would have to have three seatings, probably 5:00, 6:45 and 8:30 and then see the torches and pitchforks come out as people complain that 5:00 is way too early and 8:30 is way too late. Some people long for the leisurely pace and congeniality of the old TD model. But the increased passenger load simply does not allow for that any longer. Princess knows this. They aren't stupid.

Disney has made the same conclusion and there are many parallels between annual passholders there, and frequent cruisers here. For example, the multi-repeat visitor to WDW already owns all the Mouse Ears they need. They own the T-shirts, the hoodies and the housewares. They go back to WDW over and over again to ride rides or go to festivals like Food and Wine or Flower and Garden. The cotton candy and Mickey Ice Cream Bars don't interest them the way they do for the first-time visitor, generally speaking. (And we can't speak any way other than generally.) Mapping this over to the Elite passengers on a cruise, do they pay more for huge group tours run by PCL out of buses, or do they book smaller, sometimes less expensive, private tours run by vans? And even for those who book excursions through PCL, what do you think the ratio is as compared to newbies? Heck. Lots of loyal customers don't book excursions at all and instead skip the ports that they have been to 15 times and hang out on the ship spending no extra cash. Are they as enthralled with buying their boarding photos, or the photos with the pirate, or their photos at formal night dinners as the new folks? Or buying "gold by the inch" at the sale counter on the sea day? The bottom line, (literally) is that the "been there, done that" crowd knows all the "hacks" and "secrets" to saving money on a cruise. The cruise line tolerates those folks, but it doesn't love them.

Did you personally draft and publish this information based on personal experience, or did you photoshop it and make it all up? 😆

Speak for yourself!

You know what else can be done? Connect with fellow cruisers in a Roll Call. Exchange information. Make each other Journey Mates, or whatever they call it on the App. Then make DMW reservations in advance for each night of your cruise. You get the same tablemates each night. And on night one, tell the Dining Room Manager that you would love to have the same table and same server each night, as you have a standing reservation for that dining room each night at the same time. Odds are very, very good that you will get that wish granted. PRESTO! Traditional dining experience with people you have connected with in advance instead of total strangers. Traditional Dining has its fans among the 300 or so people who post here regularly. It is far from the favorite way of dining for the 1 million other Princess cruisers who never use CC. Do you really think that Princess has not surveyed this and instead removed TD in the blind?

I agree that this is the way it should be. (And I'm not even in either group.) Elite/Suite should have a "Fast Pass" lane where they merge at the very front of the line in alternating, "zipper" fashion with the regular line. Princess is missing an important psychological factor here if they in fact have done away with this. Case in point. My wife and I love going to the Aspen Food and Wine Festival. There, they have numerous cooking classes and demonstrations conducted by the who's who of celebrity chefs. You have to reserve a spot for those sessions well in advance, but there is not reserved seating. It is first come, first served. For the most popular sessions, (Julia Child back in the day), Jacque Pepin, Thomas Keller, Mario Batali (before, well, you know), the lines would begin to form hours in advance. While standing at the front of one such line in our second year, we heard a woman call out: "Platinums! Platinums follow me!" and about 100 people were allowed in to the room and got all the seats in the first three rows. I asked what that was all about and someone said: "Oh. People who bought their tickets through the Amex Platinum program get to go in first." Now, a good number of people in that line were angry and frustrated at being bypassed by people who just walked up while they had been in line for over an hour. Did I get mad? No. I got an Amex Platinum Card later that year to use in the future. So the moral of the story is that Princess should make it widely known that Elites get special tender privileges, and that includes making a show of the fact that they are ushered right up to the front. Sure, some people will get mad and frustrated. But others will say to themselves: "I need to work on becoming an Elite." And therein lies the benefit to Princes.

Princess has all of this, and for Alaska cruises in the summer (don't do May or September), there will be lots of families on board. Also, as I am sure you have figured out, Alaska is a very port intensive destination so 24/7 fun and activities on the ship aren't really needed. You'll be off the ship from 8:00-5:00 many days, followed by dinner. So the ship needs to provide far less distraction and entertainment for kids than a typical cruise in the Caribbean. Even if price were not a consideration I would choose Princess over Disney in Alaska. I've been on DCL and have no complaints. But in AK, Princess reigns. And, of course, price is a factor, so that moves the meter even further over, especially on a port intensive itinerary. The Disney passengers who go on whale watching excursions in Juneau are boarding the same vessels as the Princess passengers. But they are just paying twice as much to arrive at the dock.

How do we know that they weren't planted?

And I am exactly the opposite. The ability to pull wines from my cellar and drink them on board for $20 is bargain. A week of drinking the equivalent wines purchased on board would cost me more than the cruise itself. I choose Princess largely because of its generous corkage program. I don't need them to mess around with it as it would only get worse.

Challenge accepted. The priority tendering already exists in the form of early, no ticketed transportation. Having your own system would imply that if a priority passenger does not avail herself of the early option, then when she walks up to the departure area, this "own tendering system" would necessitate a special tender ready to whisk her ashore ahead of everyone else in line, with no one else allowed to board that vessel. Picture in your mind's eye that scenario where a tender that holds 200 people departs with one person on it while 500 other people are in line waiting to board a tender. Now imagine what the scene would look like if, while that special tender was making its journey, one more priority person showed up and was allowed to board a private tender whilst they wait. Chaos and violence would ensue. Early departure with no waiting is sufficient. A private shuttle two hours later when there is a substantial line to go ashore would be obnoxious and cost inefficient.