JimmyVWine

Not completely. But it had rum, pineapple and coconut in some form or another and if you put those three things together in a cocktail, I’m in.

Take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. When you are on the ship and log on to the medallion Wi-Fi, all will be revealed. (And to be honest, your stateroom TV will serve you better). If you are looking for the app to be a panacea for all of your pre-cruise questions and wonderment, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I am not trying to rude. I am honestly trying to help you. But if you choose to look at this differently, there is nothing I can do about that.

I had a Tropitini (or 5) on Regal earlier this month. No one gave me a sideways glance when I ordered it, except my wife!

My advice (from a land-based vacation on the Big Island, not a cruise, and as someone who has a passion for wine)…spend as much time as humanly possible at Volcano National Park. Go with a local guide and not a ship excursion. And spend as little time as possible (measured in nanoseconds) tasting wine in Hawaii.

In our (limited for the reason stated below) experience, it definitely works, but unless you are in your cabin, it will always be faster to simply walk to the nearest bar. After using it once with success while lounging on the Sun Deck, we concluded that walking down the circular stairs down to a bar on Lido was much faster. Whether you are on Plaza, Fiesta, Promenade, Lido or Sun, you are rarely more than a minute’s walk to a bar and that will beat an app order every time.

So my memory of it being 27E in the restaurant seems about right. Glad you enjoyed it as much as we did!

You aren't "wrong". You are hedging against uncertainty. Based on reports here (including my own first hand experience), it is possible to get the Princess experience without paying extra. Same table each night. No waiting. Walk straight to "your" table. No need to even tap in. That was exactly our experience. But other reports from other ships reveal that it is not always like that. So you are paying extra to hedge against encountering the latter experience. That is certainly not "wrong". Bird in the hand, and all that. Perhaps someday all ships will work as smoothly as Regal is now. That is certainly Princess' goal, or so I assume.

I want to meet the person who hired him to be on the ship, rip that person's arm off and beat them about the head and shoulders with the bloody stump. We really wished that we could have done the full 21 days, or at least 14. But work schedules wouldn't allow. And our cats would have killed us in our sleep upon our return. As it was, 12 days away caused quite a battle for us upon our return.

In an odd, ironic reversal, October 12, the original Columbus Day, our family of Americans, two with Italian blood and one who married in, descended upon the shores of Italy. I doubt that anyone in Italy will want to declare a holiday in honor of our arrival, but that’s OK. Our ship would not dock until noon, so we used the time in the morning to have a late breakfast/early lunch as this would be our only real meal until dinner. (This was to be the day when “Lunch Rope Drop” became a thing.) Our activity for the day would be a Princess Excursion called “In The Steps of the Godfather” and we were to meet in Princess Live at 12:30 to start the adventure. Typically, (and by that I mean 9 times out of 10), our little group prefers to explore ports and nearby attractions on our own, but as part of my planning, I always scour the ship-offered excursions as those will give you great insight as to what the “can’t miss” attractions and activities are in the area. The problem I find with the organized excursions is that they often spend half as much time at the places I want to dive into, so that they can reserve time for trips to ceramics shops, basket weavers and Duty-Free Shopping. But here in Sicily, there was one thing in particular that I wanted to see, so I checked the excursion listing to see if perhaps my goal would be achievable. Not too far from the port of Messina, tucked into the hills of the countryside sits a small village called Savoca. And in the center of that town sits a tavern, or bar whose name is near and dear to my family, and which was featured prominently in the original Godfather movie. It was here that Michael Corleone, while hiding out in Sicily, introduced himself to the father of the woman whose affections Michael wished to reciprocate. “I'm an American hiding in Sicily. My name is Michael Corleone. There are people who'd pay a lot of money for that information, but then your daughter would lose a father instead of gaining a husband.” I know a number of people who have been to this bar and each has presented me with a photo, and one of my younger brothers has a water color painting of the bar in his kitchen. If I was going to be this close to the establishment, there was no way that I was going to miss going there and introducing myself to the owner. So just to get my bearings, I checked to see if there was an excursion to Savoca, because if there was, then that meant that I could probably get there on my own as well. And yes, such an excursion did in fact exist. Long story short, after much research, I concluded that the easiest, safest, and most sure way of making my pilgrimage to Savoca would be to book the Princess excursion. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Far easier and no more costly than if I tried to hire a private driver for the day. So off to Princess Live we went, and were soon in Bus #6 making our way through Messina, along the shoreline, and then into the mountains to the village of Savoca. Along the way we received some informative commentary from Gracia, our guide for the day, and were treated to an adventurous drive in a bus on a road with neither built with the other in mind. Once in town, we enjoyed a walking tour in the village that Francis Ford Coppola used as the stand-in for the real Corleone, Sicily and in turn, the village has chosen to honor the famed director with a modest piece of art that immodestly holds sway in the center of town. We strolled the streets up (and up, and up), through the town’s medieval walls, to the town’s main church which served as the scene for Michael and Apollonia’s wedding and reception. Along the way stopped to admire a wonderful terracotta mural. And as Gracia was explaining the meaning and symbolism of the mural, in what I choose to believe was a moment of pure serendipity, the artist who created it, Enico Salemi Scarcella, walked by, overheard the conversation, and took a few minutes to offer his insights as well. After our return down the hill back to the village center, we had time on our own, which we knew we would use to photograph and drink at Bar Vitelli, sit where Al Pacino sat (they have left that area in the exact condition as is seen in the film), and introduce ourselves to the owner. We were able to spend a nice half hour there before it was time to head back to the bus to make our way to the next stop on the tour. Back on the bus, we descended the same winding road we arrived on, and made our way up another twisting goat path to the excursion’s second town of interest, Forza d’Agro. Now, trying to be faithful to the name of the excursion, this second town had to have had some connection to the filming of the Godfather franchise. But no one could quite figure out what that was. As Gracia explained, this village was in fact used as a filming location for Godfather III when Michael takes his family back to their homeland. But there are two problems with this. First and foremost, Godfather III is a terrible movie. It is to the Godfather franchise what Jar Jar Binks is to the Star Wars franchise. Each should be stricken from the franchise canon. Or fired from a cannon. Second, Gracia was almost apologetic as she explained that the buildings and churches she was taking us to weren’t really visible in the movie, or were barely in the background, or appeared for a frame or two. So while the town was picturesque and worthy of a visit, trying to sell it as being a part of the Godfather franchise was dubious at best. Still, we were here, and the churches we visited were far older than anything seen in the New World. And seeing how we were here on Columbus Day, it seemed only fitting to pay our respects to some churches that dated back to that era. Indeed, the alter shown below was built right around 1492 and is original, at least according to our guide. And the rest of the town was quite nice, and I can see why it would be chosen as the backdrop of a movie filmed on location, even if most of the footage of the town’s buildings was left on the cutting room floor. We ended our stay with a refreshing local beer at a bar with outdoor seating an the center of town. Then we headed back to the bus for an 80 minute ride back to the port, with most of that drive hugging the Sicilian coast with some lovely scenery. Back on board, we cleaned ourselves up for dinner, had a glass of “above-the-Plus-limit” wine at Vines, and headed straight to our reserved table in Concerto with a raised glass salute to the hostess as we walked past the podium at exactly 7:30. After dinner, we rinsed and repeated our evening routine, having cocktails at Bellini’s, Crooners and the Wheelhouse, though not necessarily in that order. We went wherever the music was, using Bellini’s as our home base when the (loud) music was centered in the Piazza, and the other two bars when performers were appearing there. Happy to answer any questions that anyone might have. Next up, more ruins!

The MDR Staff was in their tuxedo-style attire on FN and wore vests on the DTI night. I have no inside information but I suspect that this is a slow evolution away from the use of the word "Formal" altogether. As noted in the quoted post, people are going to "wear if if you brought it". As much complaining as people do here about having to pack bulky clothes, and the cost of checking bags on airlines, I think it is safe to say that on a cruise with one FN and one DTI night, gentleman are not going to pack two entirely different suited combinations. Barring some wardrobe malfunction or unfixable spillage, whatever suit or blazer was worn on the FN will be recycled on the DTI night. As far as KV and SV were concerned, I advised them that the traditional "two Formal Nights" that they were accustomed to was now advertised as one FN and one DTI night. To the extent discernable, they wore their "more formal" of their two outfits on the FN, though I'd be hard-pressed to draw a distinction. They both looked fabulous both nights and turned heads! As for me, same blazer, same shoes, same slacks, different shirt and tie combo, neither of which I would hold out as being more formal than the other.

Day 4 in Kotor (Part 2) or “The Case of the Missing Jalapeño” As noted above, our port stay in Kotor was relatively brief, with a 3:00 sailaway that had us out on the Promenade until around 4:30. This allowed for a fair amount of time to enjoy the ship for the balance of the day, and this was also to be our night to dine in Sabatini’s. So this seems like a good place to provide a somewhat consolidated summary of onboard activities and entertainment. SV and her friends in Edinburgh are big fans of what she calls “Pub Trivia”. That may or may not be the official and recognized title of the event, but when she tells me that she is going out for Pub Trivia, I know what she is talking about. They head out to a local pub where some third-party vendor conducts a trivia night, and much drinking and frivolity ensues, with some teams taking the event far more seriously than others. Sound familiar? So when time and scheduling allowed, which was mostly late afternoons, we made out way to the Vista Lounge for shipboard trivia, and we were able to do so after our Kotor sailaway. In all, I think we participate in three trivia events, coming in second place twice and third place once. The only thing standing between us and some craptastic prize on this day was our failure to appreciate that it is the koala that has fingerprints that most closely resemble those of humans. Most of the rest of our nightly entertainment came in the form of choosing between, or rotating between various lounges where we could enjoy music at a volume that would allow us to converse, and put the Plus Package through its paces. The time and distance between KV and I on the one side of the pond, and SV on the other, for such an extended period of lockdown and travel restrictions made it such that reconnecting, and conversing was a much higher priority than absorbing all of the entertainment on board. Generally speaking, I offer the following observations and opinions. First, I don’t love the fact that the Piazza is used as a featured music and entertainment venue. When it is in use, it puts Crooners out of commission, as they cannot be employed at the same time, and given the choice, I would much prefer the atmosphere of Crooners to the cacophonous sounds of the entertainers in the Piazza. Don’t get me wrong, many of the performers were terrific. But most of the time when a 5-piece band would play R&B in the Piazza, the Vista Lounge was unused. I am not at all sure why it wouldn’t be a better idea to put the R&B Band in the Vista Lounge so that a more mellow vocalist could perform in Crooners. It just seems to me that the Vista Lounge was purpose-built for this type of entertainment whereas squeezing the band into the Piazza seemed forced, loud and disruptive of other venues. All the shops, plus Crooners, plus Alfredo’s, plus frankly, the first third of the two MDRs were overwhelmed by the bands. But as noted, at least the R&B Band (“Project 5”) was good. Best Whitney Houston cover I have heard from a cruise ship band, by a wide margin. One of the other Piazza performers was (in the humble opinion of our group of three) a complete train wreck, and that was the “Versatile Entertainer, Victor Rossi”. Seems that his versatility rested in his ability to annoy us in many, many different ways. SV’s assessment of the guy is that he is a mime who never learned the single most important feature of being a mime. Silence! When he pranced around the Piazza, we simply had to find solace elsewhere. The performers who called Crooners and the Wheelhouse home were Violinist Olesya; Pianist Antoni; Piano and Vocal Entertainer Tommy McPhee and Guitar/Vocalist James Naldo. The other Party Band that played in the Piazza and out on deck (and once in the Vista Lounge) was the Sunset Quartet. All of these acts were pleasing and talented, though we thought that James Naldo was in desperate need of additional material. Seems as if he did the same set over and over and over again. Tommy McPhee seemed to have a rather wide range, and we had no difficulty catching his act more than once. Gary Golding was our Cruise Director, and this was our first cruise with him on board. (Or maybe better said, this was his first cruise with us on board.) We enjoyed his personality and the way he organized events and his staff. The Assistant CD was Natalie (didn’t catch her last name) and she too was vibrant and entertaining. Beyond our experiences with trivia, we always enjoy the Game Shows that are conducted in Princess Live, such as Majority Rules, and try to make those as best we can. I will say, and this is our own fault, that with our preferred dinner time of 7:20, we were often unable to make it to events that started at 9:00. We could if we made a point of it. But otherwise we seemed just a bit behind the curve. No worries, though, as we were always able to find a good seat at Crooners or the Wheelhouse to continue our evening of conversing, drinking, and listening to music. With one drink order at the Wheelhouse, SVB ordered a Spicy Margarita and I ordered a Mai Tai. While sipping our drinks, I asked her how hers was, and she commented that there really wasn't any spice to it. She asked me how my drink was, and I mentioned that it had somewhat of an off taste that I just could not place. A few minutes later I sipped something through my straw that I knew was not supposed to be in a Mai Tai and came to conclude that it was a jalapeno seed. Upon closer inspection I confirmed that indeed, there was a muddled jalapeño in my drink. The bartender put SV's pepper in my Mai Tai. We laughed and the server quickly replaced our drinks. We did go to Club 6 one night for a late night of fun, though SV thought that the venue closed its bar too early and that no self-respecting Club should ever shut down before or at midnight. I suppose her opinion counts more here than mine, but on balance, she said that she preferred Skywalkers on the Grand Class ships to the Club 6 venue, though she conceded that Skywalker’s was often sparsely populated given its total square footage and perhaps the more cramped quarters of Club 6 might actually create more of a pulsating vibe. We didn’t attend any of the big stage shows, other than to see the late performance of a comedian on our last night. None of us are gamblers, but KV did take SV into the casino for a moment to show her around, and they spend a buck on some game with a claw that attempts to pick up prizes. It’s probably greased to the point of impossibility. That about covers my assessment of the entertainment. Happy to answer any questions. Coming up is our day in Messina/Sicily.

On point one, we saw one person on one day, and one person on the first Formal Night. This does not make a "trend", but it answers the question as to whether it was permitted. On point two, I forgot to discuss this, but I agree 100%. Take the one guy with shorts out of the equation and the dress on Formal Night was way more formal than I would have predicted. Pure guesswork here based only on what we could observe in the 90 minutes we were in the MDR, but I would say for men it was: Tuxes: 3% Suit or Blazer with Tie: 60% Blazer without Tie: 20% Collared Shirt with Tie" 12% Other: 5%

Jump to the 5:00 mark of this video for a view of the balcony and table. Looks more like 12x12. You could dine on wine and cheese, but not a full meal.

I was told many years ago when I first started booking cabins for three people and had difficulty finding Mini-Suites that would accept three people (when in theory, all should) that the reason had to do with muster station and lifeboat capacity. Each cabin has a preassigned muster station and each muster station has a preassigned lifeboat(s). When those capacities are getting reached, the booking system will shut out a MS from accepting three people even though every single MS has a bed (sofa) for a third person and some have dropdowns for a fourth. This was before the days of the Dlx B, but I assume that the same logic applies now that those cabins exist, and assuming that there was ever any truth to the explanation in the first place. I do not agree that it should be "first come first served". If a ship has 1,500 cabins and the first 1,500 people who book fill those cabins with two people only, then the ship sails with 3,000 people. If the cruise line holds back 250 cabins for bookings with three or four people and those cabins in fact get booked by parties of that size, then the ship sails with 3,250-3,400 people. There is no math or economics that can be applied to suggest that the revenue stream of 3,000 > 3,400. Especially as Princess is trying to market to families more than ever before. If, as the sail date approaches, 50 of the 250 cabins held back for three or four people remain unsold, Princess can always flip the switch and open those up, or add the sailing to the Drop and Go sale and put bodies in those cabins. But rushing to fill every cabin with two people as soon as the sailing is available for booking on a FC/FS basis undermines the marketing strategy of getting families on board and undermines the maximization of profit for the sailing. Sorry, but these are just facts.

Day 4 in Kotor or “Lady of the Rocks and Rock Around the Clock” Kotor, Montenegro is a place with which I was completely unfamiliar five years ago, and now I can say that I have been twice and enjoyed my visits immensely. One of the prime features of a port stop here is that you get two great experiences rolled into one. Maybe three depending on the time of year and how early of a riser you are. For not only is the Medieval city a UNESCO gem worthy of your time and photography, but the sail in and out is like getting an extra “Scenic Cruising” day added in, much like one experiences on an Alaskan or Scandinavian cruise. While geologically the Bay of Kotor is technically not a fjord, (my understanding is that geologically, the Bay is a “ria”) for all practical purposes the Bay presents in much the same way with stunning cliffs tightly enveloping calm, clean water. Our arrival was scheduled for 7:00 a.m., and it takes a full 90 minutes for the ship to traverse from open water to its ultimate anchorage, meaning that those who wished to take in all the sights of the sail-in would have to wake with the roosters and observe the scenery in the faintest of morning light. On my previous trip here we arrived in June when the days were their longest and the sail-in was bright enough to make the early alarm worth setting. But for this trip we opted to rely on the glory of the sailaway and slept in with the curtains closed for the trip in. A note on ship positioning. The best scenery will be on the Port side sailing in, and the Starboard side sailing out. As we had a Port-side cabin, we planned to grab seats on the Starboard side Promenade for the trip out. With the anchor secured and the announcement made that passengers were welcome to go ashore via tenders, we made our way to the International Café for a light breakfast and to collect our tender tickets. (Only the smaller cruise ships can dock in Kotor, and PCL doesn’t really have any of those anymore. Here is a photo of our fellow ship for the day, the Seabourn Encore which was allowed to pull up to the dock while we anchored in the bay.) The tender tickets were dispensed on Deck 6 at the Photography Shop. Unlike day in Santorini where we made a point of being early to beat the cable car traffic, here in Kotor we were exploring on our own without much of a set agenda, so we were a bit later than many of the early birds. I must admit that I miscalculated a bit and assumed that most of our fellow passengers would likewise make this a leisurely day and that there would be no rush to disembark between 7:00 and 8:00. Perhaps it was due to the fact that our port stop would be brief with a 2:30 “Last Call” for tenders, but it turns out that after collecting our tender ticket in the “Electric Ell” group (note to Staff: employ a spell checker. SV commented that our group was not aquatically themed, and instead was “Stranger Things” themed), we waited a full hour to be called to depart. No big deal as we had planned on a self-guided walking tour of the walled city and lunch as our activities for the day. As noted at the start, we had been to Kotor before on a longer port visit and hired a private tour guide for several hours to show us the area as we were completely unfamiliar with it at that time. In the interest of completeness, I will describe a bit of what we did and say during that earlier trip so that people have a sense of what there is to do in Kotor. Our tour included a drive to Perast, a lovely little town, from which one boards a very small boat out to “Our Lady of the Rocks” church. While out on the island church, we encountered a wedding, and it appears that grooms are allowed to wear shorts to their weddings. Start a separate thread if you want to debate and discuss. The tour also took us high up into the mountains for some spectacular views. From there we were treated to a guided walking tour of the Medieval walled city, and it was this last part that we hoped to repeat on our current visit. The city is all about churches and architecture, so we opted to explore at a leisurely pace and just take in the beauty and grab some photos. Unfortunately the weather was not up to par with our prior visit, with a mist and haze that filled most of the day until our sailaway. This caused me to keep my camera gear safely secured for much of the time, but I was able to capture some of what we saw, both inside and out, but nearly as many photos as on our previous trip when the weather was great. If you go and plan to enter one (or ten) of the many churches, do remember to dress appropriately. We didn’t encounter any strict dress codes, but neither did we see anyone who was dressed questionably. The weather was such that short shorts and bare shoulders would not have made much sense for the day. Tucked in one of the small squares in town is the old water well that used to supply 100% of the drinking water to the town. I had to get a shot of SV at her namesake Pizzeria. She thought this was cheesy, (pun intended) and did so reluctantly, hence her strained expression. If you do choose to roam around the city, do yourself a favor and find an online map and perhaps a self-guided walking tour guide. You really can cover this territory on your own, but at times the city seems like a corn maze. But all streets and alleys eventually reconnect, and you’ll find yourself in a main square sure enough. We tried to get lost and found it impossible. Also, if you are a cat lover, this is the place for you. Cats are everywhere and the locals take good care of the feral population. You will find the “Cats of Kotor” on every t-shirt, Christmas ornament, scarf, coffee mug, etc. throughout every shop in town. With the walking part checked off, it was time for lunch and a return visit to the coffee/pastry shop that our guide had recommended years ago. We assumed that in a city that had not changed much in 500 years, we could safely find a place we had visited 5 years earlier. My research directed me to a particular restaurant in a back corner of town, and we arrived just before noon. Unfortunately the man wiping down the outdoor tables advised us that they would not open until 12:30. We didn’t feel like waiting that long, and with a last tender at 2:30, we decided to find a different option. After a quick visit to the TripAdvisor app on my phone, I found a place nearby that was fairly highly rated that served regional food. We weren’t going to go back to SV’s Pizzeria. We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant called “Luna Rossa” within the Hotel Montecristo. Ordinarily I would shy away from hotel restaurants, but here at the Montecristo we were treated more like Counts than cigars. The charming and Medieval architecture and décor added to the ambiance, though the music playlist brought things down a notch. Not sure who they think their audience is, but the entire playlist consisted of Chubby Checker, Bobby Darin, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bill Haley. Nothing says “This is Kotor” more than listening to “Rock Around the Clock” while dining on local seafood. We were able to laugh it off and enjoy or food and wine. Yes, wine. On our prior visit our guide made a recommendation of a local wine that we bought, brought back to the ship and enjoyed at Sabatini’s. Lo and behold, Luna Rossa had the same wine, only in a more recent vintage. Don’t ask me to pronounce any of that. But if you see this on a wine list in Montenegro, just point and nod and you will be drinking a very good bottle of wine. I think the cost was around 27E. After lunch and some final shopping we ended out day in Kotor at Café Forza, the pastry and coffee shop that we had been to five years earlier. I can’t say that this is some sort of “secret find”, as it is very large and occupies a prominent spot in the main square. Can’t miss it. But sometimes places are big and crowded because they deserve to be, and that is how we view Forza. Sweet tooth and caffeine needs sated, we tendered back to the ship, collected one of our bottles of Whispering Angel, our wine glasses and a couple of towels and headed to the Starboard side Promenade chairs to stake out a place for sailaway. The weather started to improve a bit, and we enjoyed a lovely sailaway with great scenery through the ria that is the Bay of Kotor. Ship activities to be discussed in a follow-up post.

Sorry. I don’t understand the question.

Highly doubtful. Carnival uses a wholesaler for its wine purchases. It is one of the single largest purchaser of wine in the world. They don’t make grocery store runs. https://www.wine-business-international.com/wine/power-lists/wine-waves

The industry standard for a wine by the glass pour is 5 Oz, or five pours per bottle. On our recent cruise on Regal, every server we encountered nailed this.

Since we had a Mini-Suite under the Sea View Bar, we went up top one day to walk across the sea walk on the starboard side to see if it really was possible to lose any privacy due to people spying down below. Honestly, one would have to try really, really hard and strain their neck to see anything beyond the first 8 inches of your balcony while walking on the sea walk. In reality, few people use that feature, and those that do are transfixed on the water below. One would have to purposefully try to look into a balcony and even then you really see nothing. And as for looking into a cabin itself, that is simply impossible. Here is what the view looks like to a person walking in the sea walk.

There was one thing that I forgot to address that I jotted down, and I hesitate to add this for fear of turning this thread in an entirely different direction, but in the interest of full disclosure and information, I offer the following: As far as the MDR was concerned, (and we only went to one of them, Concerto), there was no evidence of any dress code being employed. Men were let in while wearing shorts, even on formal night. Collared shirts were not required. Please, I beg you, do not turn this into a debate about whether this should be allowed. I only offer my observation that it was allowed.

We travel with a very small travel size container of dishwashing liquid. The smallest of drops is sufficient for three glasses. And we have a rule that travels with us as well as is employed at home. "You never wash a wine glass on the same evening that you have been drinking." So each night we rinse the glass and leave an inch of water in it, and then the next morning we hand-wash them in the bathroom sink using a washcloth as the cleaning tool, and then give them a quick dry with a towel, allowing them to air dry the rest of the way. During the evening we always have a glass of water nearby. When switching wines, a quick swish with a small amount of water will do just fine. You can either drink the rinse water, or pour it into an empty glass. Whatever residual water is in the glass (and there really is very, very little) is not going to do any injustice to the new wine that makes its way into the glass. Would I do this if I was switching from a Montrachet to a Petrus? No. But from one Princess wine to the next, sure.

General Information About Dining on Board We’re still on our Sea Day, so I’ll chime in here with some thoughts about dining. In general, the food on this cruise was up to par with prior cruises. Yes, there was lobster (on the Dress to Impress Night) and yes, my table captain offered me extra lobster tails and I obliged until I got the side-eye from KV. There was escargot. There was Fettuccini Alfredo on the Princess Favorites menu. My all-time favorite dessert was offered, (the chocolate hazelnut bar that my family calls the Viking ship.) Norman Love’s name has more or less been purged from the menu (though I think I saw it on the Sabatini’s menu in relation to the chocolate overload dessert there), but his influence remains strong. But there were some differences, some subtle and some not, that deserve mention. No one thing that was infuriating. But enough to realize that changes are afoot, and not in the best of directions. For example, I previously mentioned the absence of the truffle pizza in Alfredo’s. Also, we found the morning pastry offerings in the International Café to be well below what we were used to. Not a single crème-filled donut to be had, at least when we were there. The sweets in the afternoon were less plentiful in variety, not in volume. It just seemed as if the number of choices had decreased. The Pub Lunch was mentioned in the Patter, and is served in the Horizon Court. In essence, it is simply a station in the buffet where you can find what would otherwise had been served in a sit down dining venue. So yes, the fish and chips and bangers and mash and mushy peas are on the ship. You just have to go up to the buffet to get them and the ambience is just different. The entrees in the MDR were what we have grown accustomed to. I did not walk out of any meal in the MDR bemoaning that things have gone downhill. Indeed, the red meats in the MDR were quite good. We are a “sharing” family and try to order three different things for dinner and then all taste each other’s food, so I tried a good cross-section of options. (Except on escargot day when we all order that like lemmings.) We used our Specialty Dining credit at Sabatini’s. We aren’t really “steakhouse” people and have always enjoyed the variety of courses at Sabatini’s. I have to say that our meal there was perfectly fine until it was time for the main courses, and there the menu fell flat. Back in the day, you used to be able to get a Veal Chop. And then that changed to a Rack of Veal. And then it changed to Veal Marsala. This in and of itself is a huge downgrade over time, and I must say that the quality of my veal was not even as good as the food I was getting in the MDR. Still, by the time the mains come, we have had so much food that this misstep isn’t the worst thing in the world. We just enjoy the atmosphere and the rest of the menu enough to keep going back. But for the record, the Proscuitto Wrapped Pork Tenderloin is the winning dish on that menu right now. We used the Horizon Court exclusively for late breakfasts/lunches (on Sea Days and in Messina where we did not dock until noon) and never for dinner. We did get trapped a couple of times between meals where were late for breakfast but too early for lunch. One day they had an area roped off while they made the changeover and I was anxiously awaiting the reopening as I much prefer lunch to breakfast. If you have ever been to Disney World and arrived before park opening, you know that that is known as arriving in time for “Rope Drop”. Well, as we sat at our table right near the strapped off area waiting for the area to reopen, SV commented to me that I was waiting for “Lunch Rope Drop” at a cruise ship buffet and that that was a sign that I needed an intervention. On balance the food at the buffet was fine, but nothing to get excited about. I have said before and will say again, if you think that the food at the Horizon Court is the best food you have ever had, you need to get out more and experience what “good” really is. And if you think that the food at the Horizon Court is the worst food you have ever had, then you need to get out more and experience what “bad” food really is. There was theming each night, and the offerings were varied. I was actually impressed with the quality of the salad greens and had more than a few salads up there. As was the case with the IC, we thought that the pastries in the Pastry Shop up top were not as varied or frankly as good as what we have had in the past. Each “sugar free” dessert we tried seemed to be “flavor free”, and there was just an overall lack of chocolate for our liking. To me, if a dessert doesn’t have chocolate in it, what’s the point? Yes, I understand the need for variety, but there were times when you could go to the IC or the Pastry Shop and not find a single item that contained chocolate. That seemed odd to me. The Trident Grill is another place where we found that variety had been scaled back. In past cruises there have been themes there as well, with the ability to get far more than just hot dogs and cheeseburgers. But on this cruise, that seemed to be pretty much it. If there were more options available, we missed them. All in all we were satisfied. I think that the MDR won for best performance by a dining venue and none of the things that were missing broke our spirits (except for the crème-filled donuts.) This was a port intensive cruise where we did a fair amount of dining in shoreside restaurants, so we didn’t need to be overly impressed with the food on the ship. But since all of our dinners were taken on the ship, it was good to see that the MDR provided everything that we asked for or needed. Very good food, excellent service and a fun time each night. Add in a couple meals at Alfredo’s and one night at Sabatini’s and I have nothing to complain about. I’ll miss some of the things I am used to that have disappeared, but I will enjoy finding other things to replace those, I trust. Happy to answer any questions about dining on the ship. Next up, our visit to Kotor.

We wondered about that. We had been CC in our December 2019 cruise on Regal and were on 6. But on this cruise we saw no evidence of CC being in the same place that we had been previously. Now we know why! I agree that the staff on Regal did a very good job from what we could see. Not rocket science and not sure why it isn't operating like this fleetwide. But at 92% capacity, the Regal staff delivered on all that was promised with DMW.

General Information About Drinking and the Princess Plus Package We are now back on the ship, getting ready for dinner, and tomorrow is our first of two Sea Days. So its seems fitting to use this space to discuss some observations and reviews of life aboard the ship. This was our first cruise using the Plus Package. We booked during the “Best Sale Ever” and I actually believe that it was. We got a mid-ship Mini-Suite cabin for the price of a forward cabin, received a Signature Dining experience included in the price, and were able to add the Plus Package for each of us for $40 per day. With $5 per day allocable to wi-fi ($10 for SV as she was not yet Platinum) and $15.50 per person per day allocable to Crew Appreciation, the drinks portion of our Plus Package came out to around $20 per day. And if you weave in the amortized cost of the Specialty Dining, it was more like $17 per day. Add in the fact that we would not have to purchase New Grounds Coffee Cards (which I know are not a thing anymore), or any other sort of coffee package, the alcohol portion of this package was driven down to more like $13 per day, or thereabouts. So it really was a good deal, even to someone who is always skeptical of all-inclusive packages. The bean counters do not create these packages so that the business can lose money. But here, I honestly think that the goal was to fill cabins, using the Plus Package as a loss leader. So how did it work out for us? In balance, very well. At the time of booking, Princess still had a fairly robust and diverse wine service program, and our family is wine-focused much more so than cocktails. We were certain that we could make this package work out. We recalled many wines by the glass that were well within our acceptability range that were priced within the Plus Package, so this was going to be easy. And then came the introduction of “Premier” which was cause for concern that prices would be raised, but in a live call with TAs Princess promised that no material changes were forthcoming and that the Plus Package would remain a place where one could find ample wines by the glass just as before. (I recall Rombauer Chardonnay, D’Arenberg GSM and Whispering Angel Rose all being $12 or less, and these wines alone could hold me over for a week.) But then…WHAMMMO. Premier was rolled out and all promises were broken. The wines by the glass program on Princess ships hit an iceberg. Collided with the Andrea Doria. Drifted into the Bermuda Triangle. What we experienced was the same as has been reported here numerous times. The Plus Package now includes wines by the glass in generic form and you have no idea if the Pinot Noir you are ordering is from Sonoma, Oregon, New Zealand, Chile or Transylvania. The wine program at this level is akin to going to a corporate cocktail reception and the bartender offers your “red or white”. It is, to me, embarrassing and unacceptable and I used those exact words in my post cruise survey. But at least I was prepared for this fate and now you are too. To combat the inevitable, I did some number crunching and did my best to figure out what our out of pocket (OOP) cost would be if we went along our merry way ordering whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, freed from the shackles and restrictions of Plus. This was a long-awaited vacation, and I wasn’t going to spend it counting on my fingers and toes what and how many we could order. It was inevitable that our snobbish wine habits would cause us to drift to the now-overpriced wines that fell outside of the Plus Package, but with the first $12 per glass already banked, how bad could the damage be. And in the end, the damage was not bad. Yes, almost every glass of wine we had on the ship exceeded the $12 limit with the exception of a Rose that KV found in a couple of venues that was “good enough”. And yes, almost all of the cocktails that we ordered were within the $12 range. One could easily go an entire week of ordering typical and specialty cocktails and never get out of the Plus Package. But living in Scotland, SV has an attraction for good Whisky and KV and I do as well. And there were times when we found liquors on board that we wanted to try if only because we had heard good things about them and wanted to give them a test drive, with the first $12 banked. Botanist Gin and Zacapa 23 Rum come to mind as two such choices. But if you stick with Hendricks (KV’s preferred Gin) and Goslings Rum (not my favorite, but well within my range of acceptability for a mixed drink, not a sipper), you won’t spend a penny extra. After all the number crunching, I concluded that our onboard spending for drink “overage” was likely going to be around $240, or $80 per person for the week. To that end, I purchased $300 worth of Princess Gift Cards on the AARP site for $270 and had them added to my onboard account as refundable credit. In the end, we ended up spending about $200 on drinks, and again, this included some experimentation at the higher levels for cocktails. The balance of my credit will roll over to my next cruise. Typically, we would select wines by the glass that were in the $16 range, only occasionally going higher. (The Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay at Vines was much higher. But worth the splurge a couple of times.) So my final math (roughly) is that when you add in the approximately $13 per day that the Plus Package cost us that is allocable to alcohol, and the $11 per day we were spending in overage, we drank for $24 per day, ordering whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. For us, this was a win. We did joke each day about how far behind we were when we got back to the ship after touring in terms of hitting our 15 drink per day limit. Honestly, and I don’t judge, I just don’t see how 15 (alcohol) drinks a day is or should be a thing. Even with experimenting with Dirty Bananas, frozen concoctions and whatever Tequila potions SV would try, we never got past 6 or 7, even on a Sea Day. So in her post-cruise survey, KV suggested that Princess offer the Plus Package in two different forms: “6 Drinks Per Day, Whatever You Want”; and “15 Drinks a Day With a Cap of $12 Per Drink.” We would have been very happy with the former. A word on wine service generally. There has been speculation (and fear) that along with higher prices came shorter pours. I am happy to report that the bartenders have a deft hand with the pouring and would pass the wine service courses that I have taken. There were many times when they poured wines into their own (crappy) glasses first, and we then transferred those pours into our personal wine glasses, and there were other times when they poured the wines directly into our glasses. Each and every time, without exception or failure, the pours were the same and came up to the point of my personal wine glass that was appropriate for the size of the glass. About 5 pours per bottle I would estimate. Never varied. Surgical precision. Well done. The only truly frustrating thing about the bar service was the inconsistent selection from bar to bar, and this applied with equal measure to alcohols as well as wines. If you took all of the liquor bottles on the ship and made one gigantic bar out of them, you would have one heck of a bar with a tremendous selection. But alas, some bottles were only found at the Princess Live bar. And others only at the Wheelhouse bar. And some only at the Sea View bar. So you do need to approach each bar with an open mind, or be prepared to hunt for your favorite choice. The same is true for wine as well, and this is irrespective of whether you are limiting yourself to the Plus wines, or are looking for higher end stuff. For us, we found the best selection of wines at Vines, (no shock there), but do talk to the bartender. Looking at the printed list is a bit of a waste. We were looking for a nice Pinot Noir one night before dinner and I don’t think there was a single one printed on the menu. When I mentioned to the bartender that I did not see any Pinots on the list, he reached back and pulled out three bottes to chose from and said that he had others as well. One of the bottles was a Belle Glos, so we were good to go there. As far as liquors go, the Princess Live bar and the Wheelhouse bar had the best selections for us. Fortunately those two bars are mere steps from one another so you can go to either without difficulty. We only ordered through the app once. While lounging on the Sun Deck on our first Sea Day, SV wanted to test out the process as there are no bars up on 17 unless you go all the way forward to the Retreat Bar, which we did on our second Sea Day. But on our first, we were back toward where the Teen Club area begins. So we placed an order on the app and it worked just fine. Took three times longer than it would have taken to simply walk to a bar, but KV and SV were reading books and I was watching an episode of Bridgerton on my tablet, so far be it for us to move! The server found us, brought the right drinks, and all was well. So the system works, but isn’t a necessity. (For those wondering, we were told that there were 3,200 passengers on board out of a total capacity of 3,500, so we were sailing at 91.4% capacity meaning that the crowding around the bars and lounges was pretty much routine, and with that, getting drinks was no problem at all. Ever.) And a word on straws. The paper ones on board are high quality. I did use my reusable silicon tipped metal straw on Sea Days and it handled my Dirty Bananas just fine. But the paper ones would have as well as long as you aren’t nursing your drink. We don’t. So to conclude this chapter on wine and drink service, I would say that we were satisfied with Plus, with the caveat that we knew going in that there would be overage payments for better wines, and adjusting our OBC for that fact. There were times when the wines we ordered were not available, including the first night in the MDR when the wine we ordered from the Premier section was not available, but our server brought over what he thought were two comparable selections. We wanted a Barolo that was not available, and he offered us a similarly priced Italian Syrah and a higher priced Italian Super Tuscan that I knew to be Merlot dominant, not something that KV likes at all. So we stuck with the Syrah and that became our standard red wine order in the MDR for the balance of the trip. Would loved to have had a Barolo, but that wasn’t happening. And there were times when we ordered cocktails with bottles we knew were on board, but just didn’t happen to be at the particular bar where we were at the time. If things like this will cause you to storm off to a Princess competitor, I can’t offer any guidance. For us, we just rolled with it. And yes, carrying on your own wine glasses will enhance the experience if you are a wine geek like we are. The glasses on board are pretty awful and we were stopped several times and asked where we got our glasses. We got some funny looks when we said: “Zara Home in Athens near Syntagma Square.” Like we were speaking a foreign language. Greek perhaps. In the end, with the Plus Package, we ended up ordering more drinks than we typically would on a cruise, not having to worry about a hefty bar tab at the end of our vacation. That shouldn’t be viewed as either a positive or a negative, but if forced to choose, I would say that a couple extra mood enhancers each day made the trip that much more enjoyable. Happy to answer any questions about this topic that anyone might have.

Funny you should ask, and that is part of the long, long story that I did not include. Because of Covid, her Master's program was stretched out. It was supposed to be August-August. While in the middle of that, she was accepted into the doctorate program at the University of Edinburgh, to begin in September. But the Masters program did not end for her until the end of October and she graduated in December. (See snow in the background of the photo in the first post.) So she could not begin the PhD program in September as she did not have her diploma until December. So she could have deferred a year. She freaked out a bit because she had already signed a lease for the next year, and she didn't want to live in Edinburgh for 10 months with nothing to do, waiting for the next term to start. So she went out and found a job. Like, a real job. Not in her chosen field, but one that uses her research and people skills. Turns out that she actually likes the whole idea of making money and paying her own way through life. So for now, she is working in Edinburgh with a deferral to get her PhD, but she is unsure if she will do that. If she is happy, then I am happy.