Live from Grand Princess October 14-18

[donswife]

Hello from the Grand Princess Comedy cruise. We had already booked when the comedy piece was added, so I am curious to see what is different.  I welcome questions and anyone else on board to chime in.

[Sea Hag]

19 minutes ago, donswife said:

Hello from the Grand Princess Comedy cruise. We had already booked when the comedy piece was added, so I am curious to see what is different.  I welcome questions and anyone else on board to chime in.

No question, but a wish that you'll have a great cruise on the Grand. I'll be interested to see your posts about the comedy cruise thing. I've never been on a theme cruise.

[donswife]

We booked in August through our Princess vacation planner, and then ended up having her re-book during the buy on get one half price sale. Since we chose to live dangerously and fly in same day, we booked flights and transfers with Princess as well.  Our flights on Alaska Airlines ended up being about $40 less than booking directly. 

[donswife]

I put off loading the Medallion class app, and tried it after the Sept 25 update.  I have a Samsung Galaxy A51, and it worked immediately,  including carrying over our info from prior Medallion app. However,  DH was not able to log in. It didn't recognize his account name or booking number,  but his info showed up under my login, so I wasn't worried.  I did connect to an agent through my chat, and after going through the list of things  I already knew wouldn't work,  she said she would submit a ticket.  It started working a few days later,  but only if he logs in with booking number. Otherwise it has been working great.

[LarryHD2]

Only 700 passengers this sailing, it seems almost lonely in some areas at times.

[LarryHD2]

The medallion app itself is running OK, but the ocean now part, to order things, hangs a lot...  but I hear servers are having issues as well so its probably a network thing.

 

The comedians have been great and were having a wonderful time.

[Daniel A]

7 hours ago, LarryHD2 said:

The medallion app itself is running OK, but the ocean now part, to order things, hangs a lot...  but I hear servers are having issues as well so its probably a network thing.

 

The comedians have been great and were having a wonderful time.

Is one of the comedians onboard the guy who developed the MC app?  😁

[phabric]

Looking forward to your review 

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I am getting on in 10 days 17 hours and 4 minutes (but who’s counting? Lol) 

My journey view shows nothing loaded yet. On my July 25 sailing this year I could see the events weeks in advance. 
When did journey view start showing events for the cruise you are on? 
Does the crew check to see if you have made a “reservation” for an event when you go to it?

 

I’m not worried about it, just curious how journey view is being rolled out. 
 

thanks again!

[AF-1]

11 hours ago, LarryHD2 said:

Only 700 passengers this sailing, it seems almost lonely in some areas at times.

We had 713 passengers on our 4 Oct Grand sailing.  It is so nice having the big ship all to yourself

[AF-1]

22 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I am getting on in 10 days 17 hours and 4 minutes (but who’s counting? Lol) 

My journey view shows nothing loaded yet. On my July 25 sailing this year I could see the events weeks in advance. 
When did journey view start showing events for the cruise you are on? 
Does the crew check to see if you have made a “reservation” for an event when you go to it?

 

I’m not worried about it, just curious how journey view is being rolled out. 
 

thanks again!

I was on Grand 4 Oct cruise.  My journey view came online 24 hrs prior to sailing.  FYI  my journey view did not show everything that was happening on the ship.  The patters delivered to stateroom has all the listings

[CruzDayz]

1 hour ago, AF-1 said:

I was on Grand 4 Oct cruise.  My journey view came online 24 hrs prior to sailing.  FYI  my journey view did not show everything that was happening on the ship.  The patters delivered to stateroom has all the listings

[CruzDayz]

I'm at 48 hours and mine is loaded.

[donswife]

I'm sorry I disappeared for 2 days, for some reason Cruise Critic would not let me log on from my phone. It just occurred to me that I can use the internet cafe computer, and viola! it works! 😄

 

Our wonderful neighbor drove us to the airport at 6:30am.  The Southwest counter was deserted and was chaos at the Alaska Airlines bag check, so we had to wait a while, then breezed through security thanks to our TSA pre-check.  We still had 20-30 minutes before boarding, so we had some breakfast in the Alaska lounge, as we splurge on first class tickets.  Since we were trying to get into cruising shape, we had second breakfast on the plane 😁.  I will say we made pretty healthy choices.

 

Once we got to LAX, we found the Princess agent by baggage claim, and she escorted us to the waiting area for the bus.  There was the least amount of traffic ever, and we quickly arrived at the port. That is when I felt like we had entered The Twighlight Zone (cue music and Rod Serling voice-over.

[donswife]

21 hours ago, LarryHD2 said:

Only 700 passengers this sailing, it seems almost lonely in some areas at times.

Definitely a different experience! I like that the crew generally have more time to chat. Whoops, it appears that they are now "Teammates" according to the back on board by signs. 

[donswife]

10 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I am getting on in 10 days 17 hours and 4 minutes (but who’s counting? Lol) 

My journey view shows nothing loaded yet. On my July 25 sailing this year I could see the events weeks in advance. 
When did journey view start showing events for the cruise you are on? 
Does the crew check to see if you have made a “reservation” for an event when you go to it?

 

I’m not worried about it, just curious how journey view is being rolled out. 
 

thanks again!

No one has checked if we are signed up for events.  I only saw journey view events posted a couple of days ahead, can be annoying for planning meals. We have Club Class dining, so the only reservation we made was Sabatini's, and I was done in plenty of time for the show.

[donswife]

10 hours ago, AF-1 said:

I was on Grand 4 Oct cruise.  My journey view came online 24 hrs prior to sailing.  FYI  my journey view did not show everything that was happening on the ship.  The patters delivered to stateroom has all the listings

I find Journeyview hard to read, and I am glad we still get a Patter.

[donswife]

Oct 14 continued....

 

It was kind of creepy getting to the port and having it so deserted, even more noticeable since ours was the only ship.  We turned our luggage over to a porter with a tip (we could have easily rolled it 20 more feet and turned it in ourselves, but I felt bad that they were there trying to work) and went straight through security, waited 2 minutes to have our documents checked, and were then escorted onto the ship by a formally dressed crew member. She took us to our muster station to scan our medallion and then to our window suite, which was ready. The escort was a very nice touch, though not as fun as when we had an escort past a huge crowd waiting to board the Caribbean Princess after a Coast Guard inspection delayed boarding.  All together, bus to stateroom took 15 minutes tops.  We did pause for embarkation photo. Security was satisfied with our photos from 2 years ago, so I guess we are aging well.

[HaveDogWillTravel]

Thank you for the reply @donswife  I am also in a full suite and I am glad they are still doing the escorts on like they did in the “before times”. I don’t need a guide as I’m very familiar with the Grand but it’s a nice touch.  
Who is the cruise director?  

[AF-1]

1 hour ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

Thank you for the reply @donswife  I am also in a full suite and I am glad they are still doing the escorts on like they did in the “before times”. I don’t need a guide as I’m very familiar with the Grand but it’s a nice touch.  
Who is the cruise director?  

We were in suite for Oct 4th sailing.  No escort for us.  Glad you guys had one

Edited October 17, 2021 by AF-1

[AF-1]

4 hours ago, donswife said:

I find Journeyview hard to read, and I am glad we still get a Patter.

I ended up using journeyview on the large screens by the elevators;  they were very easy to read

[redrobin]

Onboard now. A few random comments so far. This is my 2nd cruise since the restart. I was on the Majestic in August. 
 

Embarkation was easy.  No problems with the home Covid test via emed! Terminal was empty. It was great seeing the Emerald Princess in LA and the Majestic Princess in Ensenada!!
 

Ship is — empty. Much different than my Alaskan sailing that was around 90% capacity. I was told 600 passengers, but it seems less than that. I noticed fire doors are closed at forward cabins on Aloha and Baja. No wait for — anything, plenty of seating — everywhere. 

Masking policy is unchanged. The only difference is the addition of ‘sip and cover’ signs at the Theater, and the Vista and Explorers lounges. Masks were required in entertainment venues on the Majestic too. The ship is not crowded, you will find unmasked passengers at the bars, in the Piazza, walking down the hallways, and of course out on deck. Mask compliance is generally good where required. Common sense goes a long way. 

The whole ship had to disembark this morning for customs and immigration. That was a pain. Ordered room service breakfast that was subpar. Yogurt was warm, breakfast muffin was cold. On the other hand, Elite lounge food offerings are really good. Comedians and lounge entertainment have been enjoyable. Off to the marriage show. Can add other thoughts later. 
 

 

 

 

[cr8tiv1]

I was wondering about your itinerary.  It seems as though it went like this:  LA/Ensenada/San Diego/Sea Day/LA.  (couldn't confirm since that cruise is no longer available on Princess.com).]

 

Did you have to go through customs because you stopped in Ensenada first?  I know they do the same if Princess hits Ensenada before arriving in Hilo (not the norm).

 

 

[Turbopaws]

I'll be on the Oct 23rd cruise which is an 80s theme cruise. Are they doing any of the regular shows in the theater or is it just the comedians? Do the regular Princess singers and dancers do anything in the other venues?

[Honolulu Blue]

4 hours ago, Turbopaws said:

I'll be on the Oct 23rd cruise which is an 80s theme cruise. Are they doing any of the regular shows in the theater or is it just the comedians? Do the regular Princess singers and dancers do anything in the other venues?

 

According to one of the cruisers on the 10/18 cruise (also with the 80s theme) who has access to the schedule, the Hall & Oates tribute act will get two shows in the main theater on Monday.