Princess Chatterer

It was removed because of the weight it put on the back of the ship.

Note to Cruise Critic Editors: Please delete the link in post #12 and #13 referencing abc dot net dot au/news. It was an honest mistake.

I asked the question because it was reported four months ago the Grand Princess had vomit smells everywhere. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-13/grand-princess-ship-covid-gastro-docks-in-adelaide/103096836 We will be sailing on the Grand Princess for 33 days this year so I was just asking whether the ship ls now in "ship shape." Last year we sailed on the 21 year old Island Princes when air conditioning completely failed in our part of the ship. A/C was out for the entire length of our Panama Canal west coast to east coast cruise. We and passengers in our part of the ship were truly miserable getting little sleep. I'm thinking that as the Princess ships start ageing out passengers should pay a little attention before before they book..

Grand Princess is now 26 years old. Is she still ship shape?

The definition of the word priority is the quality or state of coming before another in time or importance. This is exactly what Princess offered, in writing, for ship to shore tendering.. Passengers in the rewarded group could either accept this perk or just ignore it. It's sort of like having a loyalty contract with Princess. A loyalty contract is very nice to have and must be earned. Receiving an elite waiting room for tenders is good but not in a very significant way. Being granted an advantage by Princess of priority placement in a long tender waiting line is a very distinct benefit. This was not what happened on that particular day. Our "priority" boarding group was fed into into a very disorderly queue of other groups coming down the stairs all adding to pushing and shoving, wall to wall, passengers already packing the 4th floor tender waiting area. It was chaos for everybody. You may correctly say well it's been that way for quite a while. Or even has always been that way. But that misses the point. The point is does priority ship to shore tender boarding still exist other than on paper? Well it may still exist on some ships but that benefit sure didn't exist on that morning in Maui.

I agree about Alaska BUT you need to cruise when the Alaska season first begins where 200-300 range might barely work. Otherwise 500+ is a pretty good beginning benchmark for the lunch, or cocktail hour on many Princess voyages. On repositioning cruises completely forget it. On embarkation day check with the loyalty staffer because they typically already the invite list and likely will give you a heads up.

Sorry. I was inquiring about the Sun Princess.

No International Cafe? Are you sure?

Once inside the elevator how do you pick your destination floor?

With zero knowledge on my part could plumbing be the problem?

I VERY carefully read and reread every word on the Princess “Dear Guest” Lahaina Water Shuttle Hints & Tips as well as the Princess Water Shuttle Operation for Lahaina in Princess event listings, These are in front of me right now. As nothing was written in either document for Elite priority procedures I asked CrewCall Chat what were the Elite tendering instructions? They said we were to proceed to Michelangelo MDR (instead of Club Fusion Deck 7 aft) In Michelangelo we were met by a crewman and the Captain’s Circle representative and were asked to take a seat. As previously posted here when the next three groups were called, we were taken down the stairs mergining into the scrum (my words) of three groups that had been called from Club Fusion. In was Club Confusion on deck 4 between the stairs/elevators leading to the ticket/no ticket taker on the far side of the door leading to the scanners.

In the 300 range. The tender port was Lahaina. The Elite benefit says “priority ship-to-shore water shuttle embarkation.” It there was any priority at 11am at Lahaina on the Emerald Princess then I completely missed it. In fact, the ship wide newsletter about water shuttle procedures never mentioned the word Elite, nor did the Princess event listings aka The Patter. One would think that, lacking any written or verbal ship instruction, an Elite passenger would follow the old tradition of simply walking down to the scanner area near the pontoon and just get at the very back end of the existing 4th deck tender waiting line.

We waited in the deck five waiting room while the previous three groups were called. It was around 11 am. When the next three groups were called the Elite group was merged into the scrum of the next called three groups coming down the stairs from deck seven. After we got to deck four passengers from the elevators and other sides of the stairs made up their own separate line and then pushed themselves into to single ticket taker line at the door. When we were asked for our ticket we had none but the ticket taker allowed us to pass her without a ticket. On the way back to the ship the tender had too many people apparently for three person seating so the tender guy switched to four person seating. Seas were rough at the pontoon and the crew dealing with six walkers and a suitcase slowed things up even more in what I considered to be a risky situation. For us, if we had received the exact promised in writing Elite benefit then the whole thing would have gone much better. Your mileage may vary.

Our Captain’s Circle rep wasn’t especially pleased by the Elite policy change. The reduction in Elite benefits apparently has been kept very quiet by Princess headquarters. Our Elite waiting group was sent to join non Elite group(s) without giving us boarding tickets. Boarding tickets were asked for in the very chaotic tender lobby due to multiple groups being called all at the same time.

Currently on the Emerald Princess. It’s nearly impossible to get a dining room reservation on board on ANY night before 8:40 pm. As a test I asked Ocean Now if I could get a delivery in the back of Fresh Market/Horizon Court. The app said I couldn’t place an order because it didn’t know were the medallion fob I was wearing was located.

Elites can no longer join the tender boarding line at will for tendering from the ship to the shore. Elites must now wait in a ship waiting room until called. This policy change was confirmed in writing from three Emerald Princess admin. sources and by personal observation. Maybe this is old news to some but for us it was a brand new Elite befit reduction.

That’s what T.A. told me.

Refare? Oh really? I thought Princess doesn't let TA's do that anymore.

Medallion Net doesn’t allow VPN according to the Internet Cafe staff. During our Ft Lauderdale to Southampton repo cruise on Sky Princess Internet was 2 up, 2 down until we completely lost it for three days west of Portugal. As you already know Medallion Net is very buggy.

Just wait until you see the Princess class structure planned for the new Sun Princess. Steerage class for many and lots of good things for the privileged monied class.

If you traded your mini-bar for physical coffee cards more often than not the physical card came to you unsigned and undated on the back. Those could be gifted or sold on eBay or held forever for future free brewed coffee or hot chocolate. That’s partially why Princess ended the physical coffee card program.

We are boarding the Sky tomorrow for the repo run. The Sky repo voyage appears to be seriously undersold. No crowding expected. Good times.

That’s my experience as well. With today’s CCL price the 100 share benefit has been a real loser.

$35 pre-pay for Sabatini’s on the Sky Princess. The last time we were at Sabatini’s they lost our leftover wine in their wine locker. We won’t get fooled again.

I will be testing my travel router GL.iNet GL-AXT1800 (Slate AX) on Princess next week. I bought it from Amazon and it works perfectly in hotels. I might also test it being powered from the hidden 220 volt outlet under the bed and/or European outlets on the desk using a UROPHYLLA 2-in-1 bypass adapter - from Amazon. The GL-AXT-1800 wall wart says that it will accept 100-240 volts, 50-60 cycles.