JimmyVWine

Why do you care that I care that you care?

I’m a firm believer that things like this should be raised in the moment as they happen and one should not presume that parental guidance will be lacking in the absence of a reminder.

If you have no intention of being on this or any other cruise during this time based on what you have read, why do you care if the OP keeps an eye on their 13 year old?

100% this. Doesn’t mean they can’t be coached. But my experience is as described. These aren’t bartending craftsmen. They are Princess drink makers. But this discussion reminds me of this classic:

Caribbean over the holidays?

Yes, I love Adagio. The Royal Class ships have no equivalent. That said, as much as we enjoy Vines, it appears to be a vastly underutilized venue and can be a quiet place before dinner. A blessing (because the mellow atmosphere is soothing) and a curse (because if it doesn’t generate revenue, they will replace it with a salty hot dog stand).

A poster in another thread half-jokingly warned us of the barrage of upgrade posts and threads that will be coming our way as Princess rolls out its new Upgrade Bidding module. I would respectfully ask that you create a single "sticky" thread with a title something like "Upgrade Bidding Discussion-Post all your questions and experiences here." and then remove or merge into this master thread any new threads that people start regarding upgrades. In the sticky thread, people can follow an agreed upon format. Something like: Ship: Sailing Date: Category of Cabin Bid On: Bid Offered: Accepted (Y/N): Without such a central posting location, I can see other threads quickly falling off of the first few pages as people start innumerable threads on their bidding experiences, and asking others what they bid and whether they succeeded. Once you read my post and take it under advisement, feel free to delete this thread if you wish.

While they didn't address this specifically, we do know that PCL has partnered with a third-party vendor to run this program. No idea what the fee agreement is, but if is at all based on volume of bids, then PCL will not want to pay the vendor for running the administration of literally hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to move from a BD to a BA. I also think that they have run some modeling to see if people can game the system to always book the lowest levels within a category and try to bid their way in to the higher categories for less money than it would cost to simply book the higher category. The business model here works for people wanting to pay $400 per person to move their chess piece around the board, not for people who want to pay $70 (or even $150) to move 47 feet closer to the mid-ship elevators. Just my thoughts. No real insight here.

You do know what a rhetorical question is, right? "Are Princess always THIS bad" [sic] is not a valid question. It assumes facts not in evidence. Maybe the better question would be: "Was MY EXPERIENCE on Princess representative of what Princess now offers?" The question as originally posed assumes that the entire cruise was an abject failure for all on board and did not take the first person experience into account. I'm sorry, but the following responses are all polite and valid in response to the question as framed: I don't think any of these responses is even close to being "bitchy" or impolite.

In the webinar, they mentioned that there isn't really any efficiency to bidding within a cabin type, (ME to MB as an example.) What they said is that if you are in a lower category of a particular cabin type and want to move to a better location, you should just pick up the phone and call your TA or Vacation Planner and if there is a cabin available in that higher category, you can pay to move into it without the uncertainty of bidding, and that the cost to move within categories is so small that it is not worth tying up the bidding process to include this option. For example, if an MD is $1,600 per person and an MB is $1,710, they want you to pick up the phone and pay the $110 per person to get that cabin instead of going through the process of bidding. After all, with a $110 price difference, what would your bid look like? $80? $95? For that delta, just pay the $110 and get what you want instead of playing games.

This Trip Report paints a rather different picture.

That's crazy talk. If you want the chair, you have to level up to the "Roll Out the Barrel" fare. That will be several tiers higher than Premier+.

The "no bottles" rule applies to both glass and plastic. It is the easy open/close system that is the problem, which is why the contract specifies "sealed cans". But at the end of the day, I think that your suggestion of giving it a try is on the mark. The cost of failure is low enough to run the risk.

Shorts are fine but even if you look like a geeky tourist, I would wear socks and shoes suitable for climbing wet, slippery stones. We did encounter fire ants and the socks were a game changer. Not perfect protection against biting bugs, but better than bare legs.

Rumor has it that Mr. Padgett is working on the rollout of "Premier+ Pricing". All the benefits of Premier, and they add a chocolate each night, a pad, a pen and a pat of butter at every meal. All for the low, low price of another $25 per day upcharge over Premier.

Extended balcony, mid-ship, lower deck such as Caribe. The larger balcony is worth it. The Sea Walk does not allow those walking on it to see much of anything in terms of cabins. And by the time you get to the Caribe Deck, they can't see anything at all. Here is a video that someone posted while on Majestic. Sky would be the same. And while there are lights that stay on at night to illuminate the walk, again, by the time you get to the lower decks, you will never know that they are there. I definitely think that the extra balcony space is worth it.

Also, in case you are planning on being in NYC for a day or more before the cruise, a couple of things to note. The Christmas Plaza on Bryant Park will be operational by then. I think it starts on 10/29. That is always fun. Though the rink at Rockefeller Center does not open until just after you set sail. Also, the NY Marathon will take place on November 6, so preparations will be well under way when you are there, (if you are going to be there.) That will cause street closures and lots of police barriers in certain parts of the city, mostly the Upper East Side and Central Park South.

No limit to the number you can bring on. No "unwrappage fee". And they taste way better than the ones that Princess supplies (supplied??)

Because wine bottles already have alcohol in them. No one is going to pour out a bottle of wine and substitute black current concentrate in its place, but they might do the reverse. The prohibition against bottles has nothing to do with the vessel and instead has everything to do with the content. They don't want 12 bottles of Poland Springs water to be carried on board when in fact it is really 6 bottles of vodka and 6 bottles of gin.

Adagio on the Sun Deck if it is open.

Suffice to say that Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Euclid and Archimedes are not on the committee that makes up the rule that allows people to ENTER Greece without a live test, but requires people LEAVING Greece to take one.

Checked the Roll Calls for PCL and every other mass market to medium sized ship sailing out of Piraeus in September and only found one Roll Call where this is discussed (RCCL Jewel 9/28) and the folks there are getting the same information as we are getting.

Ugh. The next PCL ship to depart out of Piraeus (8/27) has a Roll Call with 7 total posts, 4 by the same person. I was really expecting to see a lot of "What are you going to do about the testing requirement" posts with advice on where to go and when. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Seems like we should be seeing some first hand reports in Roll Calls or "Live" threads. Plenty of cruise ships are departing out of Piraeus right now.

I was thinking the same thing. A bottle tucked in a bag of other groceries might very well go unnoticed at the port security table.