JimmyVWine

Yes, but the Dine My Way functionality allows you to book the same dining room at the same time every day. That gets you half way to replicating the Traditional Dining experience. Once you are on board, if you liked your table and servers on the first night, you can ask the Dining Room Manager if you can have that table on each subsequent night. If that request is granted, then you pretty much have replicated the Traditional Dining experience all the way.

I see your hindsight and raise it. This is why I never have and never will use EZ Air. No marginal cost savings can ever be worth the peace of mind of me being in complete control of my flight arrangements, seat selections, luggage allowance, etc.

Welcome to the Captain’s Gala…

We did as well.

Most are. But there are a few at the bow and stern that are only partially covered or have little to no cover. But if you stick with port and starboard cabins, the answer is yes.

Check your schedule carefully. Some itineraries have very short stays in Kotor and others are longer. If your stay is longer, a private guide is well worth the cost. They are among the cheapest private tours of any place I have been. Maybe THE cheapest. It is great to get some local knowledge and a geopolitical perspective of a city and country that you likely know very little about. The guide will have a car and can take you to Perast and Our Lady of the Rocks and can also drive you to view points that rival those you see on the hike up the mountain without the strenuous hike itself. The Old Town is a labyrinth of streets and alleys and while it is not essential to have a guide, for the price they charge, it is worth it. But if your stopover is a short one, a self-guided tour of the Old Town is probably the way to go. Just do some internet research in advance and get a walking guide to the city that has a map and shows you where the highlights are.

My guess is $180. Two people will cost….you do the math.

These are the types of places that leave you guessing. Nice to know that Princess "Plus" has risen to this level in the Dining Rooms, bars and lounges.

Which is why it seems odd that you would think that someone's impression of entertainment on Royal 6 months ago will be at all reflective of how the entertainment will be on Royal 6 months from now. Every single entertainer will be gone by then, replaced by new ones, and the Cruise Director will be gone then, replaced by a different one. In my experience, the CD and Entertainment Director have more to do with the frequency and quality of the entertainment than the name painted on the outside of the vessel. The stage shows may stay the same, but for the most part, those roll out fleetwide, so no one ship is going to be better than another. As for service, as I noted earlier, that is more of a corporate culture. You are going to find the same level of service across the fleet as the servers move from ship to ship which is intentional so as to homogenize the product. If you liked the type of service you had on Majestic, you can expect that to be repeated.

This. Keep in mind that ships are not living, breathing things. They are a compilation of the people who serve on them and those people come and go, and get moved from ship to ship. A ship does not have great service or great entertainment. A ship, at any one point in time, has a great crew or great entertainment. But those crew and entertainers could be on a different ship next week. Or on a contract break next week. Base your decisions on the cruise line generally, as each line has an overall culture. But don’t choose a ship for a cruise 6 months from now because someone had a great cruise on it 6 months ago. By the time you board, there could be a complete turnover in the galley and the entertainment staff.

Princess allows each person to bring one umbrella on board free of charge at the port of embarkation. Each addition umbrella is assessed a $20 openage fee if used outside of the cabin.

I think the typical setup of large tables (round) is for 6. You will have to speak with a Dining Room manager to arrange a 12-top. If they can do it, it would probably be 6 consecutive tables for 2 pushed together, or a row of 2-tops and 4-tops in a row, pushed together. Could be tough with Dine My Way staggered dining, but you won’t know until you ask.

My post has everything to do with what you posted. You’re just not seeing it through your anger. How do you know that Harding does not have access to your information? Did you check a box notifying Princess that you do not authorize it to share your information with the shops on board? No, you did not because there is no such option. You have chosen one particular windmill to tilt at. But that’s fine. Enjoy your cruise. And if an unauthorized charge appears on your card from Radiqal, please come back and give us a report. But I’m betting that your molehill will not grow into a mountain. Done here.

Do you have any intention of doing business with Harding. Or Park West? How is Princess supposed to know in advance which companies you intend to do business with? Should there be a long list of check boxes for every vendor?

Or any travel agent for that matter. Brick and mortar travel agencies are a thing of the past. AAA has somewhat large storefronts, but that is because it offers other services such as drivers license renewals. Most travel agencies that still have a physical presence are staffed by one or two people at most and are supported by many other agents who all work out of their homes.

Seems like a bit of an overreaction. When you register your card, you are allowing charges to be run through Harding even if you never intend to step foot in a shop and Park West even if you never intend to buy art at an art auction. I’m not sure why Radiqal requires a separate authorization since it is not a direct to consumer company, but I don’t see it being any different than turning your card information over to any of the other third-party vendors on board.

Also keep in mind that certain pricing might come with perks that you could lose if you re-fare. For example, if you booked during a promotion where you paid $900 per person with gratuities and a free Specialty Dining meal included and the fare later drops to $800 per person, you can get the lower fare but you will lose the add-ons that you had before. So make sure that you do all the math because your new fare comes only with whatever perks are being offered at that time.

That’s the way I spell it!!

This is me too. I am a do-it-yourself-er. So I do all the planning and research, but I use “Hold” and get the booking to my CVP. Usually I don’t have to email. Within hours of hitting the Hold button, I get a call asking if she can assist.

Ken: Thanks for the detailed presentation. And a shout out to Esprit for weighing in on the last leg as that journey will be our next (and first post-pause) cruise. Nice to have two cooks in the kitchen. I promise to reciprocate, though because our cruise is the last of the season with that itinerary, there is no rush to get things up and running as a “Live”. But there will be a post cruise Journal to follow in hopes that it provides guidance to future cruisers. Pay it back and pay it forward!

Did they choose that name so that people would have to say: “I can’t believe that I have to take that Dam test!”??

The “business of cruising” is to separate as much money from you as possible while you are on the ship and sometimes off of it.

Like this: “I was on KP in the MDR with pre-booked DMW and the DRO told me that I could use the OBC that my TA gave me for a wine tasting but we opted to go to the PES reception instead.”

Maybe only 2 people opted for Premium? Could be a crafty sales tactic. When word leaks out that you have a great chance of winning and winning multiple times, maybe people will start busting down the door to upgrade/book Premium!

I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg, but if you use the Princess website to look at a deck plan, if you look up at the webpage address you will see that it always ends in a two letter abbreviation, with each ship being unique. The abbreviations are listed at the top of page 3 of this thread at post #51. Some people around here get very OCD about the proper use of the abbreviations when in fact if they took three extra seconds, they could simply type out the name of the ship. How much effort is it to type "Ruby" or "Crown"? 😁 Happy cruising.