lx200gps

Very little more than which type of cabin? Mini suites are slightly larger than balcony cabins, with a full sofa (not a loveseat like the deluxe balconies), two TVs with a room divider in some ships, different bathrooms etc. They aren't generally extended balconies, at least not the minis we usually stay in.

Certainly have to agree with you on that one. My wife's drink of choice is also the Cosmo, and the swill she gets on Princess bears little resemblance to a "classic" formulation. I make her one at least once a week, and my standard mix is three parts Grey Goose (I actually use Grey Goose Orange), one part Cointreau, juice of half a lime, and fill the glass up with cranberry juice. The result is a deep pink strong drink, not the pale pink thing she gets served on Princess by a waiter who clearly assured her they use Grey Goose and Cointreau. I suspect the two offenses are that they, as you say, use fake lime juice instead of fresh squeezed, and I also suspect they use that most horrid of bartender weapons, simple syrup, to pad the drink and make up for the reduced amount of alcohol they use. My personal favorite is the Chairman of the Board, my formulation is equal parts Grey Goose Orange and Tanqueray Rangpur gin (for the lime overtones) and a dash of Cointreau. I'm also pretty sure Princess use simple syrup to pad it out, as it's always a lot sweeter and weaker than when I make them at home.

There is a large ferry terminal in Weehawken, almost directly across the Hudson from the MCT. There are two hotels pretty much right at the ferry terminal, a Residence Inn and an Envue, both in the same building as one of the ferry parking garages. When we stayed there last summer, it was a $US9 ferry ride across the river, then a 15 minute walk up to the ship at the MCT. The Residence Inn, at the time we stayed there, was almost half the cost of a similar class property in Manhattan, and the cost to park was also about half.

No sweat, have a great cruise

The aforementioned Crowne Plaza and the Doubletree are pretty much the only decent hotels in San Pedro. As the whole area is not that great, we have taken to staying up in Torrance after arrival at LAX. Half way to San Pedro and a much nicer area with lots of good hotels, restaurants, shopping etc, not nearly as expensive as Long Beach. A shorter drive from LAX but a bit longer drive on embarkation morning.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. You'll probably get better responses over on the East Coast Departures sub-form, as it's better targeted to answering questions about sailing out of the Manhattan Cruise Terminal. Lots of locals over there who know a lot about the area. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/317-east-coast-departures/ If you haven't sailed out of the MCT, be prepared for sticker shock, hotels and parking in Manhattan are VERY expensive, particularly for us Canadians with our exchange rate. You might want to consider staying in New Jersey then traveling in on embarkation morning. That's what we do when we drive down

Too funny. We did exactly this last month on the Discovery, at a table set up in the Piazza as soon as we boarded. The crew member processed our Premier upgrade on the spot with his tablet, then proceeded to give a very long "dissertation" on all details of the package, with which we were already very familiar. Took us forever to get away from the well-meaning gentleman as he wouldn't stop talking ;o)

We were on the Discovery a few weeks ago, and will be back on her again in February. My wife loved the Ocean Terrace, but like your DH, I don't do bait and can't find anything to eat there. When my wife wants her sushi fix, I simply walk downstairs to the IC, grab a sandwich and bring it back upstairs to eat with her. Since the IC is directly above the Ocean Terrace, it's a very easy workaround.

As the others have said, yes absolutely you can. As soon as you board, there will be tables set up right near the boarding areas, usually in the Piazza. Head on over and have one of the employees do the upgrade for you and the new Package should go active right then and there. Great way to use up some of your OBC and have a drink as soon as you board ;o)

We've stayed at many hotels in the area, 17th St, Dania even Plantation. We've never found one that won't hold your bags for you if early check-in isn't available. Early check-in is a function of how busy the hotel is and whether housekeeping has had a chance to finish up some rooms. Always best to contact the hotel ahead of time and ask about holding your bags. Honestly, I'm not sure I would want to do business with a hotel that refused to do so for an early-arriving guest with a reservation. ;o)

Another good thing about the Starlink system is that the service is much less susceptible to "overcrowding" as compared with what it was pre-Starlink. The last few times we sailed, with Starlink, there was no perceptible difference in performance, download speed etc, regardless of when we tried it. 6AM, late at night or noon on a sea day, it didn't seem to matter, the download speed was a pretty consistent 2.5-3 no matter how many people were trying to use it. In the old days trying to access the system on a sea day was horrible.

Thanks very much, worked perfectly here, Android 10, latest app version on a Sammy Galaxy S9+. No more green boxes and loud speech, scrolling works though it also worked for me before I did this small hack.

I suspect the OP has unrealistic expectations. That is pretty much the same speed we had on all our Starlink-equipped cruises, including on the Discovery a few weeks ago. Perfectly fine for basic operations, and many people report being able to stream, video call etc. Yes, it's not a great speed, but more than good enough.

I'm running the latest version on my Android 10 Galaxy S9+. The app works fine (or as fine as this app could be) but it does come with a horrifying new bug, text to speech functionality turned on by default. A loud voice speaks the name of highlighted on-screen buttons which happen to be highlighted. Things like "BUTTON TAP. BUTTON TAP TO SELECT" "PRINCESS LOGO" etc etc etc. Per the stickied thread above, it's a known issue being worked on. And as other have posted, we have used the app on and off ship on our Android phones many times, as recently as a few weeks ago on the Discovery. No issues

Latest version of the app runs normally on my Android 10 Galaxy S9+. They had better get rid of the incredibly obnoxious voice over/screen reader however. Worryingly, given their history with this app development, I have the fullest expectation they will consider it a good feature and force it down our throats without any way to disable it.

Because there is almost no way that any of us would know the answer to that question. He/she gave a very good and reasonable answer.

We did the Plus to Premier upgrade literally seconds after boarding the Discovery a few weeks ago (had to use up some the our OBC). We did it at a table in the Piazza as we walked on board. The gentleman selling it to us was quite clear, when I confirmed with him, that it would "go live" instantly, and it did. He used one of the employee tablets connected to their system to do the immediate activation. But yes, ALWAYS check your on board account on a very regular basis, mistaken charges are not uncommon.

Sorry,no idea what this means.

Actually, they weren't "mains", we ordered one as a starter and the other as the main, so I would expect the "main" to be of a suitable size. It wasn't, they were both tiny. Quality-wise, they weren't any better or worse than any other meal in any other restaurant on the ship, which is to say they were fine. We have found that over the last few years, the food quality tends to vary significantly ship to ship, cook to cook. The food on the Discovery a few weeks ago was much better than on the Sky as recently as last Feb.

It's interesting that you say this about the portion sizes in the Salty Dog. We were on her a few weeks ago, and found the portion sizes for the main courses we had to actually be much too small due to how they were presented. The lobster mac and cheese and the short rib poutine were served in tiny bowls which would have been perfect as appetizer sizes but were much too small for me as main courses (and no, I'm not a big eater). I remember one of dishes coming in a specially designed white bowl which was very large outside diameter, maybe 14" across but the center holding the food wasn't more than 6" wide and not very full. All the other venues had perfectly good portions, just not the SD. We're back on her again in Feb for another try. Glad you're having such a great trip ;o)

A LOT depends on what time of year the OP is asking about as well. I checked the Hampton inn next to the pier for our mid-July trip and the cheapest refundable rate I could find was north of $US675 for one night. We're planning to stay way up in Burlington and drive down the morning of the cruise

What about Park and Fly packages from hotels near Logan? The airport is not far from the cruise port and should be a quick Uber or taxi ride on the morning of the cruise.

We use Take 5 as a quiet place to read on sea days, and in the 5 or 6 cruises we've been on that had a Take 5, there were only one or two times that it was closed for a private function, and then only for a brief period. Even then, in one case they only used half the bar, so the other half was still open for us to use. During the day, there is never any music playing, it's dead quiet, which is why we love it so much. At night, yes, it's a jazz club, not the place for peace and quiet ;o)

If you're on the July 14 sailing, looks like we'll on board together ;o) The Emerald is a great ship, one of the slightly older but not too small class. We've only been on her once 6 or 7 years ago, and IIRC she had a refurb in 2019, though we've been on her sister ships like the Ruby and Crown many times Re the Medallion accessory for Premier, it's only a small plastic medallion clip that can be used to clip the disk to a shirt pocket or inside a shirt, as some crew members will occasionally do. I don't use it as I found it fit the medallion too loosely, and prefer an older style wallet card. As to getting the accessory, once you start the check-in process, you will reach the point where you have to choose the medallion and specify the shipping details. Once you go through the process, the "system" will know that you are Premier, and will show the medallion, the stock lanyard AND the accessory, along with the $0.00 balance owed (unless you choose some other accessory that doesn't come free). If you don't have the Premier plan, then the accessory won't show as a free add-on. It looks like this, though the ones we received a few weeks ago were solid blue

Sadly, no. Although they show Boston as a cruise port, they had nothing available for our specific dates in July. I'll try them again in a few months in case they open up some slots.