huskerc

The PVSA does not apply to U.S. flagged vessels, which the POA is.

Err...of course you're right. I knew that, just completely slipped my mind.

It will actually be much more difficult in the United States because of the PVSA. Basically NCL is not allowed to transport you between two different US ports without visiting a distant foreign port, which the PoA does not do. They might choose to let you do it and pay the fee, but I wouldn't count on it.

I'm still just a little unclear about one part... If I buy for 3 days, it works out to be $23.21 per person, per day. Regarding the following "upcharges", it's my understanding that these dinners would count as one of my 3 meals. So, if I went to John Hughes Dinner Show on Escape, I'd be paying the $15 upcharge on top of the $23.21, so it would cost me $38.21. Is this how others interpret this?

That has been my understanding, but today I'm not so sure. The release says, "Norwegian guests who have purchased a Specialty Dining Package additionally have the flexibility to indulge in their heart's desire in select à la carte priced restaurants and entertainment-based restaurants for a small upcharge*** including..." and with that wording, this sounds a lot more to me like this is an additional benefit of purchasing any dining package.

Seconded on the rail. You do have to be able to haul your luggage around a few blocks, but for speed and price you can't beat it.

Consider eating on land instead. This is a very different type of cruise and you'll be in port most of the week. There are much better and more interesting options on land.

Explain the old unlimited plan?

Previously, AFAIK, the only dining plan was the "unlimited" dining plan, and it seems people reported being able to eat in multiple venues in the same evening with that plan. To me it does not sound like the new plans allow that, or at least it will count as a "sitting".

Just got off the phone with a Norwegian rep:

 

Under the new UDP each place counts as a sitting if your not on the full cruise plan. This means the poster who stated that you could do Cagney's twice and then a place that had the upcharge was correct.

I have no problem believing you were told that, but I am skeptical that it is true under the new plans (if you have an old "unlimited" plan, that may be different).

Right now under explore & plan -> dining options, I see 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 night options, all with the same description. I don't have options for 3-6 days and then a separate "unlimited" plan. So I take that to mean I am buying 7 sittings. If, in one evening, I go to Cagney's, Le Bistro, and then do 5 upcharges, my interpretation is that my package has been exhausted.

Per the staff on our cruise (May 30 - June 6) we were the last voyage on the Crown to get paper receipts for each drink using our drinks package. They said that they were going paperless for the June 6 voyage, FYI.

I really hope this goes fleetwide soon! Compared to Celebrity it was one of the really irritating things about the drink package.

Trying to see if anyone has figured this out by making reservations. Say I buy the 5 night package and then I want to do the Illusionarium. Does that $10 deal count as one of my 5 nights, or would it be 5 nights in specialty restaurants plus 6th night in the Illusionarium?

I think with the coffees and sodas included this would be worth it for me. My biggest concern really is whether the bartenders/baristas are really getting the gratuity that's included in the price which I believe is 15 percent. I don't always trust that the employees are given the auto tips. I have NEVER taken any gratuities off, and usually tip on top of the auto gratuities. I always tip $1 extra over the added auto gratuities at the bars as well. Will I still be given this option to add a tip when I'm not paying for the drink? Are we given a slip with every drink ordered?

Yes, unlike some other lines (Celebrity in particular) you do have to sign a slip. It will show $0 charge and $0 gratuity, with a line for additional gratuity that you can fill in.

We are probably the only two :)

Will there be an excursion down the Niobrara?

JT and I look forward to meeting you guys on board. We'll also be doing the standard Meet & Greet, Cabin Crawl, etc.

 

Ray

We will be attending those along with the standard LGBTQTII... meeting as well. Glad to know we won't be the only ones. We've been on several cruises and it just depends on the cruise!

On the Star Princess a week ago, crab legs were in the MDR midway through the cruise, and there seemed to be a daily "crab shack" available for a small fee in the buffet.

There were also other items on the MDR menu (mostly salmon and halibut) that were designated as Alaska items.

So who's on board?

My partner Danny and I just booked. Looking forward to meeting you and your friend!

-Chad

Chad and Danny here, just booked this cruise and looking for anyone else who will be aboard.

Chad and Danny here, just booked this cruise and looking for anyone else who will be aboard.

Recently my partner and I were on the Star Princess, Whittier to Vancouver departing May 23. We've been on several Celebrity and a few NCL cruises, but this was our first time on Princess.

We've come to enjoy Celebrity but chose this one because of the timing and itinerary. Since we wanted to do some time in northern Alaska before the cruise, and couldn't arrange to do it after the cruise, on this schedule, this was really the one cruise that worked for us. We've wanted to try Princess so it was a good opportunity.

Overall our reaction was very positive. The food was fantastic--easily the best we have had on a cruise ship. Celebrity's MDR has gone so far downhill, both in quality of food and in service, that we just don't eat there anymore. Either we choose Blu or we eat in their speciality restaurants. Our MDR service on the Star Princess was spotty, to be honest, but I think both waiter and assistant waiter were relatively new. It got better over the course of the cruise.

Buffet--we are not big buffet people but sometimes it's the only or quickest option. The buffet was very different from Celebrity's. On X there are buffet stations, and several "everyday" options like the Mexican bar and pasta bar. Princess didn't have either of those; instead it was much more of a cafeteria-line style. While I've always liked the stations, they don't work well when one station is popular and there needs to be a line for it--one time the X staff had us lining up the wrong direction, so you were getting sour cream, then cheese, then salsa, and finally you could pick up a tortilla to put it all in. I was surprised that the Princess buffet, which is so small by comparison, could serve so many people so efficiently. The food was again higher quality than anything we experienced in many different Celebrity buffets. Seating was also much more easily found than it is on X. For breakfast I did not find any omelet stations--maybe I just missed them. However there was a great variety of food available in such a small space.

The International Cafe is a very nice touch and we would often stop by for some soup or a quick snack, as well as coffee. Celebrity does not have anything like this. There is a coffee bar with some pastries, but the worst pastry in the IC is better than the best one from Celebrity's coffee bar. The IC really shines.

The other area where Princess shines is in use of public space. Not a lot of pool time on an Alaska cruise, obviously, but the variety of pools was nice. The bars and lounges are what set the ship apart for us. Vista, Explorers, Wheelhouse, Crooners, Vines, Skywalkers, and probably some that I'm forgetting. The only time we waited more than a minute or so for a bartender was during happy hour in Wheelhouse one night when it was very packed. Celebrity really just has a few bars of this nature.

We did have the unlimited drink package and had no problems using it, except for the silliness of constantly signing slips that had zero dollar totals. It's much nicer on X where you don't have to sign anything. Both packages are pretty comparable in cost (though X often rolls theirs in with the cruise fare) and what is included. Celebrity is the clear winner in wine list quality and variety, although to be fair, most of their wines are not available by the glass and therefore not included in the drink package.

Entertainment was very high quality. Strangely enough we realized after the cruise that the only thing we attended in the main theater was the muster drill. There were a few shows we would have liked to see and didn't due to conflicts. It was a change from Celebrity's style where there's typically one large show (or the same event with two showings) in the evening and that's it. We liked it and the production cast (saw them in Vista) was pretty good. I'd give the edge to Princess here but this is a very subjective subject and it was just one cruise.

Celebrity's Persian Garden wins out over the Star Princess's thermal suite. A long way to go there. The sauna/steam in the changing room were fairly equivalent but didn't seem to get warm enough.

We spent a lot of time in the Casino and the staff there was good. I can't say that I saw a difference there from X except that the $5 blackjack table pays 6 to 5. The $10 table pays standard 3 to 2, as do the video machines. We don't do slots or other games so I can't comment on those. I was worried about smoke being an issue (X casino is smoke free) but it really wasn't. The first formal night was declared a smoke-free night and I didn't find a difference.

The biggest downside for us was the cabin itself. We had a standard balcony on Caribe deck. The extra size of the balcony itself was a nice surprise. However the interior of the cabin definitely felt smaller than what we are used to on X. The bathroom was tiny and I think some people might have problems fitting into the shower. The changing area was a little..strange, to me. It's a nice space to have, but in such cramped quarters this would have been better spent in livable space, IMO. There is a bed, a small desk, and an in-the-way armchair. By contrast a Celebrity balcony of similar class would have a full-size desk and a sofa. Still, we're talking about a difference of a few square feet--neither space is enjoyable enough to spend large amounts of time.

We did make use of the self-service laundry, which was nice. However we are used to having a bag of laundry from Elite status on X so this was not a big deal to us.

Our previous Alaska cruise was round trip out of Seattle. On the itinerary I will say this one is obviously far superior. Airfare is not that much more for the one way than for the round trip, and there is so much more to see in northern Alaska. Seeing Denali was fantastic. The 20 hours of daylight was a bit hard to get used to though.

Overall we really loved the cruise and will definitely give Princess another shot in the future. The perks of status are nice but for us they don't automatically outweigh the other factors, so we'll continue to take everything into account when booking. I'd be happy to answer any questions especially regarding comparisons with Celebrity.

Depends on what you are doing. In Denali the Tundra Wilderness Tour is ~9 hours and we had several bottles of water supplied for the bus, but if I had a medical condition that required me to have water, I would have made sure to bring my own.

If you think you can get her to just trust that you have the return tickets, say that Amtrak has a goofy price structure and it was cheaper to book two one-way than to book round trip.

A bit of clarification here.

 

Dealers must hit on soft seventeen.

 

Insurance is offered with dealer showing an Ace.

 

Blackjack tables play with eight standard decks but the cards are continuously shuffled by machine.

 

The side bet is called Royal Pairs and does pay 50 to 1 for suited Kings with various payouts for other combinations down to 4 to 1.

 

There is a variation of Blackjack called Fun 21 Blackjack. That's the table where the Queens are removed from the deck. There are eight decks in this game as well but they are manually shuffled and dealt from a shoe. Fun 21 is similar to a game called Spanish 21 but some of Spanish 21's advantages are removed. Look up Spanish 21 on "wizardofodds.com" if you are curious.

 

I've never seen more than one Fun 21 table on a ship.

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Yes, you can get chips at the table charged to your on-board account. There are no fees for this "service".

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I personally try to avoid offering advice on strategy unless directly asked. Even then I caveat it with "this is what I do in an attempt to lose more slowly".

Thanks beg3yrs. This is exactly the info I was looking for. For the record I follow basic strategy as outlined on WoO and other sites. :)

Dealer hits on soft 17

Boo! Thanks for the info though.

Our first Princess cruise is coming up and I'd love a few answers to some casino questions. Can anyone who is familiar confirm my understanding?

1. We can purchase casino credits in advance--these are really just vouchers for cash, and there are no other fees. So I can purchase $100 casino credit and the charge to my card is $100. There will be a voucher in our cabin that can be exchanged for $100 cash.

2. There's not really any reason to do that because Princess does not charge a fee for casino "withdrawals". I can take $100 in cash out of my on-board account in the casino and there is no addition charge--my card is charged $100.

I don't care when it is charged...I just want to avoid any fees. I'll bring cash before I pay fees. But if there are no fees then I'll use my card for the rewards points.

3. Blackjack rules. Can anyone tell me these? Dealer stands on soft 17, etc.

It's only really an issue at automated stations--train tickets, for example. You will have to use cash or else find a live teller who can swipe the card.

Not everyone who takes your card will be familiar with swiping it nor with the fact that you don't have a PIN. If they stick the card in the bottom of the machine, they are expecting it to be chip and PIN. Just ask them to swipe it. If they ask you to enter your PIN, just hit enter--don't use your actual ATM-style PIN, unless you really have a chip and PIN card, which is rare in the US as everyone has noted.

We are Chad and Danny from Indianapolis. Anyone else sailing?

Our March Reflection cruise was the most crowded I have ever felt a cruise ship to be (spring break!). However Blu itself was not. This could be in part due to Luminae having opened for business (but not serving a dedicated menu yet). I know there's been a lot of speculation that suite passengers were causing some of Blu's crowding but we really never found that to be the case on this sailing. We never once waited for a table.

Contrast that with the Equinox in November for Thanksgiving where 45 minute waits weren't uncommon.