BabySarge

We were on the Emerald Princess in January and February and found no need to use anything other than the medallion, a smile, wave of the hand, and the basic please and thank you when ordering our drinks from the bar staff. Pretty much every lounge we went into still had at least one or two roving servers asking if anyone wanted anything to drink. Only place it might be more difficult would be by the pool area but even there with a bit of patience you could still flag someone down. While my DH (79) does have a smartphone and mostly knows how to use it he still prefers, even at home, to use it as a paperweight; he is an absolute whiz with the TV remote however and was able to order room service for himself just using that.

Bon Voyage. Happy Sailing. Wishing you smooth seas and plenty of daily rum rations 😁 to enjoy!!!

"I'm not against people making fashion statements, but beat-the-Joneses is not one of them." Trust me, wearing our medals is NOT making a fu%^ing fashion statement or about beat the Joneses. At least not for me it isn't.

Wear them, hold your head high, and walk tall. You earned those!! The only reason I don't wear my medals is because I have never been able to figure out how to do so on the specific types of evening gowns/material I wear. As stated, it's easy for the gentlemen as they wear tuxedos, dinner jackets, or suits with jackets but with a gown or even fancy blouse and long skirt the material is so much thinner and less structured.

Island Princess is one of the ships that has only recently (within the last two months or so) come back into service after being in floating storage since May 2020 +/- and I am sure there are some kinks with the ship and crew that need to be worked out before everyone finds their groove again. Is she a ship with all the new bells and whistles - no; do I miss the International Cafe and Vines which she does not have - absolutely; but she's still a nice, little ship that can go to some fantastic ports and itineraries that other, larger ships cannot. Travel, cruising, touring, life, etc are what you make them and after the last 2.5 years I'm going to make the most of every opportunity I can get to travel, cruise, tour, etc. and food is soooooo subjective I won't even comment on it. DH and I have done a total of 88 days onboard the Island Princess since 2015 with the most recent being 58 days around South America in 2020 just before the shutdown. Is she my "favorite" ship to sail? No, unless you ask me that question when I am sailing on her then of course she is 🙂 Does she have her flaws - absolutely, but are they things I can ignore because I am on a cruise and getting to go to fantastic places, meet wonderful and interesting people, eat food I don't have to cook or clean up from? You bet they are. No two people are always going to like the same things. Maybe our standard are lower than others but I can honestly say that we have never had a bad or subpar meal on Princess. Now, is the beef stroganoff as good as I make or the clams with linguini as good as my sister in law Joan makes it - hell no, but I certainly have never gone hungry or not been able to find something to eat on any cruise I have ever been on.

Worth the read. They dropped us at a hotel and left: What happened when I tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of my cruise (msn.com)

My secret packing tip is to use dry cleaning bags. I fold our clothes rather than roll them and I save my dry-cleaning bags to layer between the clothes when I pack them. Sort of like making a sandwich - first I put a dry-cleaning bag inside the case, then a layer of folded clothes, then a dry-cleaning bag, another layer of clothes, and so on. I stuff the socks, knickers, and other small, assorted things along with the shoes around the sides. If we are taking tuxes/suits/gowns I will leave them in the dry-cleaning bags and layer them in that way. I also avail myself of the irons and ironing boards if needed. Make sure to check the bottom of the irons first and do a few test swipes on the board before you use them on your clothing though as they are used by many and not always cared for.

Your best bet may be to not cruise if you have these types of concerns regarding the room stewards.

If my memory is working this morning, and there is no guarantee on that, each little box of detergent from the machine in the laundromat is $1.25 and you have to use a token to get it and that token is not the same as the $3.00 token you need for each load of laundry and each load in the dryer.

I would have to say that it really depends on how busy the laundromat is to be honest. In the pre-COVID days when the ships were sailing full and you could have two or three people waiting for one machine to free up I would think that waiting 15 - 20 minutes would be more than reasonable before removing someone's clothes from a washer and setting them aside. If the laundromat isn't super busy you might want to wait a bit more but I wouldn't feel bad about not waiting longer than 15 - 20 minutes to take someone's things out if they had not returned and the machine was needed. Probably same time frame for the dryer, maybe a little bit shorter actually say 10 minutes, with the only difference being once I removed the items from the dryer I would fold them and not leave them in a heap, but that's just me.

The reason the Purex all in one sheets were discontinued is that there were tons of complaints from consumers about the product leaving grease type stains on the clothing after using. Which is why I stopped using them myself although I did think the idea was brilliant. Now I just take my own laundry pods and dryer sheets in double zip locked baggies. Laundromat Courtesies: 1. Empty the lint filter in the dryer after your clothes are done. 2. Don't put your things in the washer or dryer and then leave for an hour or more to lay by the pool, play bingo, or go to the movie.

It's been a few years (2019) since we were in Alaska but if memory serves me correctly we had virtually no coverage/no signal with Verizon when we were there.

After 26 years in the Army and way too many years of having to get up at zero dark thirty the number one item I don't leave home without is my 20 oz insulated coffee mug and that includes when I go on a Princess cruise. In our 30+ cruises I have never had a problem getting it filled at the International Cafe or Le Patisserie on the smaller ships. On our most recent cruise in Jan/Feb of this year aboard Emerald Princess, which was still observing fairly strict COVID protocols they, at least for brewed coffee, still filled my mug and added the "fixin's" per my instructions.

Would like to believe the individual was not being "unethical", sounds like he was more likely just "inept" than anything else. Have had good PVP's and bad PVP's as in responsive and non-responsive over the years with Princess but never had one apply FCD's when just holding a cabin/booking for me. As others have said I would be willing to bet this individual is probably new or newer and as with so many of the people working for Princess now just not trained very well or experienced enough yet. It really is sad when the customer knows more than the agent.

I currently have a Kindle Paperwhite and have never been able to connect it to the WiFi whilst on board ship despite being able to do so at home, at many hotels, and even at various ports with free wi-fi around the world. As my current Kindle is several years old and starting to have some glitches, I am looking to get a new one and hoping one of the more technology minded people here can advise if the following information on Kindle Paperwhite or the Kindle Oasis would make either of them potentially compatible with the Madallion Net WiFi currently available on Princess. Any help is greatly appreciated. Kindle Paperwhite: Wifi Connectivity Supports 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks. Does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) wifi networks. Kindle Oasis: Wi-Fi Connectivity Supports public and private Wi-Fi networks or hotspots that use the 802.11b, g, or n standards with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication or Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS).