history_bits

Hi everyone! 

Mom and I are excited to be sailing on a 4-night Bahamas on the Freedom leaving April 4th.

Our last day is on Coco Cay and we were thinking of getting internet for that last day so we can check in for our departure flights and do all the pre-clearance for returning to Canada the next day.

I'm looking all over for the price of just a few hours of internet and can't seem to find anything clear... 😕  I know RCCL totally wants us to book for the full trip, but a big part of why I travel is to disconnect, so I really don't want it foe the whole trip. 

Just wondering if anyone has ever done this before? If it was a different port day I'd just wander around for wifi... 🤣

Cheers!

Just wanted to share that we just got our bid accepted in Royal Up today for our April 4 4-night cruise on the Freedom.

We had a Guarantee interior and got a balcony for the minimum bid ($95 CAD/person).

Break out the champagne! 🍾  

I am cruising next week to the Caribbean.

Going to be prepared. Princess has sent us emails and notifications about how they plan to mitigate Coronavirus on those ships. That info is all over Cruise Critic so I wont repeat it. (Questionnaires, passport checks, etc)

I feel fine with traveling. I understand the risks and believe the rewards outweigh them. That's my choice.

Aw man!

I just checked an hour ago, too...

This is only my second cruise with princess and the second time we miss Princess Cays.... maybe one day...

3 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

It’s a beautiful day in St. Thomas, with only 3 ships in port. 
 

Only three ships in St. Thomas?! That's a win!

And gorgeous, too! Enjoy!

27 minutes ago, poongie40 said:

That looks great!  But I'm curious.... can we put the medallion in a small purse like old key cards?  I never used a lanyard.   

It's just a sensor, really. You can carry it and use it how you like. You might have to take it out and tap a sensor from time to time, like to pay at a bar, but for the most time, you could just carry it in your pocket.

I just don't usually have pockets in my dresses for dinner, hence the bracelet. 

I did put it in my bra once, but that only works for opening the door. You don't want to be rummaging around in there to pay for a drink. lol 😂🤣 🤫

Have a great trip everyone! 

I'm eagerly following since next time you are in Fort Lauderdale, I'll be getting onboard. 😊

Alfredo's is a game-changer. Wood oven pizza at sea? Sign me up!

My mom and I even debated not booking our upcoming Crown holiday because it didn't have Alfredo's. 😂

44 minutes ago, Qextor said:

Indeed - US Border guards can tell my Mom is a dual national, just by scanning her passport.  It is also why my Mom broke down and got a Canadian passport - US customs gave her too much static about using a British passport to enter the US (which at the time was less expensive to maintain than a Canadian one) but living in Canada.

Even further than that, the US and Canada have an agreement that they share movements of their citizens. So that's why they dont like her using the UK passport because the UK wont give them any info about her. 

My husband is from the UK and we live in Canada. Had a few chats with border guards about this. 

Just now, Kenswing said:

That was 15 minutes ago plus 24 hours..  🤣

Urgh! It's so Friday... I just saw the time zone and didn't delete it fast enough. Go figure only on here once a day. lol

Weird coincidence that it was so close to my local time. 😂

Been lurking on here in order to be prepared for the worst case scenario for my upcoming Feb 25 trip on the Crown. Feel like it's unlikely, but I like to hedge my bets... 

May have even somewhat jokingly asked my boss today if I'd need to use vacation days, or if quarantine qualified as sick leave when he asked if I was looking forward to my "corona cruise". 

Just logged into the Princess website to check and see if there had been any itinerary changes for my itinerary due to the ongoing generator issues on the Crown, and decided to click on the "Health Advisories" section at the top of the page. They just updated it about 15 mins ago with a list of what they are offering the passengers on the quarantined ship.

https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/notices/diamond-princess-guest-experience.html

Hi everyone! 

For something a bit different I thought I'd share a little pre-cruise craftiness. 😊

Mom and I are sailing on the Crown on February 25th and I kept debating whether or not I wanted to purchase a clip or sports band for my medallion. We were on the Regal last year (loved it!) and the lanyard was fine most of the time but I hated wearing it in the evenings when we went to dinner, have drinks, or for a show or music. 

I'm not usually very vain, but if I'm putting in the effort to look nice for the evening (which I do when I cruise) I couldn't help but feel that the ol' lanyard cramped my style and I usually just carried it in my hand.

I looked at the nice bracelets and couldn't bring myself to spend that money, especially with the Canadian conversion rate.

I was waiting for my coffee to brew the other morning and started playing with my old Medallion which I just keep on the fridge as a magnet. Then it hit me! Couldn't I just make something myself?

I hit Michael's after work today and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with my results. Fimo modeling clay, super strong magnets, pre-made bracelets and some Swarovski crystals later I'd say not too shabby. $30 Cdn and I still have two magnets and most of the Fimo left.

Clearly handmade but I'm pleased. Wouldn't wear them for strenuous activity, but I think they'll make my evenings a little classier.

I agree with some of the other posters.

While I'm slightly concerned for my February 23rd sailing, there is indeed a lot of fearmongering going on. I saw the headline this morning, followed a few hours later by the "all clear" article ( https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51314138) .

What's more fascinating to me is that it's far, far, far more difficult to find the "all clear after a few hours on the quarantined cruise ship" article than the "THOUSANDS STUCK ON CRUISE SHIP BECAUSE CORONAVIRUS!!!!!!" articles. Go figure.

I've done a bit of research myself and simply plan to do what I normally do on a cruise ship - wash hands regularly. 

It appears that this week's cruise made it's planned (albeit rescheduled) stops and the 3 missed ports from last week was indeed a weather issue, which combined with the generator issue made for a huge mess.

I'm on the Feb. 26 sailing so I've been watching closely - according to the ***** it just left Aruba at 5pm as scheduled today. 🙂

And to second what ToyFoxFan said, it is apparently supposed to be sorted by the Feb. 15th sailing.

4 hours ago, MissP22 said:

We have never stopped at the corkage table or paid a corkage fee - ever.

Just walk on by & they'll never say a word even if they are set up.

 

Get a glass at the IC (or even better is a large water glass from the DR) you can then bring a glass with you to the DR the next evening. 

If you bring the whole bottle they may charge you a corkage fee or they might not. 

Hold up... do I have this right? 

Step 1) Bring wine on board

Step 2) Get free bottle per person. If staff aren't uber keen, possibly get other bottles free as well. 

Step 3) Get a glass somewhere.

Step 4) Pour yourself a glass of wine in the cabin, then head out of the cabin to drink it wherever you please. 

Genius!🍷

3 hours ago, skynight said:

Itinerary changes have already been announced for the 16th, 26th and Feb 5th cruises. 

Oh wow, don't I feel silly! You're right and I saw it but just forgot.

I'm planning on enjoying my vacation no matter what, I just want to be prepared.

I suppose the only thing I'm wondering about is all the speculation about last week's itinerary, where they missed even more than the planned ports. The official stance was weather, which makes sense given that other ships didn't dock as well, but I'll still be curious to see how it plays out. If it makes all the ports that are scheduled as of today, perfect! 

If it misses several again, I might put on my tin foil hat... and plan on bringing another book for my trip. 😉

I was just thinking about this as well as we are sailing in late Feb.

I'm watching closely to see if she makes it to Princess Cays and other ports this week. Shes in Fort Lauderdale today so I wonder if people onboard have heard anything or been told anything yet.

I'm interested in any info on this.

My mom and I are cruising on the Crown in late Feb...

Wouldn't it be nice...

Funny, I surprised my mom with a cruise last Christmas (we sailed in February). 

I was fortunate to be able to have my dad send me all her passport info so I could do the majority of the "Ocean Ready" and setup stuff with his help.

I made her a pretend boarding pass and gave it to her with the confirmation at Christmas and she was blown away. Then we spent Christmas vacay doing some planning and researching. 

She and I are planning another cruise this year together, and she has admitted that while she enjoyed the surprise, she did miss the excitement of the pre-planning. Your idea is awesome, but even if you could find a special occasion to surprise them before I'm sure they will still be excited and happy, but then you can also have the pleasure of planning together.

Funny, my mom and I were on the Regal this past February and while it had Medallion Class we knew we wouldn't get our Medallions in the mail because at that point no one was.

I downloaded Ocean Ready and my mom and I got it all set up in my apartment before we left. No different than setting it all up in the Cruise Personalizer in my opinion. In fact, taking our security photos and choosing our avatars (ie: the images that would represent us on the interactive maps) was a bit fun and a little bit like starting the vacation before we even left.

When we got to the pier we breezed through! My mom insisted on bringing our printed boarding passes etc. but I don't even think they looked at them. We went through an express line past all the people with paper boarding passes and met a guy who went to get our medallions and that was it. 

He probably looked at our passports to make sure that they were the same as the security photos we loaded ourselves into the Ocean Ready app, but that was probably it. We were shocked. Actually. Come to think of it, I'm not sure that he even did that. My mom went to the bathroom by the desk right after he greeted us and left for the medallions and by the time she got back I had them and we were ready to board. lol

I did enjoy the basic features that were available on our cruise. Did use the app to find my mom on a few days when we were doing our own things. Booked dinner, planned our schedule... What I'm most looking forward to is when they finally get the drinks and food delivery working! I'm terrible at getting bartenders' attention and I welcome the opportunity to order a drink without getting up from my seat and risking losing it.

Anyway, it's a personal preference... we are cruising on the Crown next February and I'm already itching to get all set up!

This is fascinating to me, really, because I work in survey design professionally. Not cruise ships, but museums/historic sites.

Because of this, I did spend the time filling out the survey while my mom and I were sitting by the pool at our post-cruise hotel after our first Princess cruise last February. 

I do remember mentioning to her that I found it long... but I also commented and thought that it was pretty well designed as far as professional survey design goes.

I've had these conversations with people at work all the time: "urgh! People don't like the long surveys. Let's just give them one rating scale for them to rate us. It'll be easier and we'll get more!"

Someone actually just said this to me yesterday as I was working on our digital survey pilot. 

My response? "Well, that's true... but how useful is a single rating scale, really, given what we want to know about people's visits? I'm using this data to make actual decisions, so I need the specific questions. A rating scale just makes us feel better about ourselves; we don't actually learn from it."

Don't get me started on response bias, where the majority of people are likely to just rate things either 5/5 or 1/5, rarely anything in between.

Similarly, while it's nice that people enjoyed their tour with Steven, it doesn't help us plan and make the museums better. Same thing with regards to how awesome staff is/was. I know on cruise lines it's more likely they get bonuses for good ratings/mentions, but I think the trend in business is changing on that front.

I certainly can't speak for Princess Corporate. That's for sure. But my guess is that because of the level of information, the way they use it, and the way it is designed, that they are indeed using it for decision-making. Whether your individual suggestion or complaint gets applied is another matter as data is collated and compiled and may be acknowledged internally, but not acted upon for a variety of reasons. Or acted upon in a way that may not be immediately apparent. It's fascinating, really, but I'm a nerd for this type of thing. lol Pretty biased, I must admit.

All this being said, I would strongly suggest that Princess offer a small token as a thank you for filling out the whole survey. Say.... a $25 onboard credit for next cruise? Free dinner for one? I dunno. Something to acknowledge that they know it's long and they are grateful. 

Oh man! Sailing on the Regal at the end of January.... fingers crossed or it that being too optimistic? Lol

Good diary. Will be very helpful as I'm looking forward to the same cruise in 2019.

Thanks for the insights!