Regal Princess cruise from Oct 12 to Oct 31, 2019

PEB

Staff Captain
We did a B2B2B on the Regal Princess Canada/New England in Oct. It was the first time on this ship, the first time with the medallion and the first time cruising this area. Overall the ship is very nice but it did not turn out to be our favorite Princess ship.

The best things about the ship were the crew. They were very good and really worked hard to take care of us. The ship is beautiful. We only used the medallion like a sail and sign card and did not use any of the extra apps. It did save a little time in the boarding process of the ship. The entertainment was very good both in production shows as well as the comedians that came onboard. The food was good not great but good whether it was in the dining room, buffet or any other free food areas of the ship. We did not eat in any specialty restaurants. They were also changing all the mattresses to all the cabins, unfortunately they never got to our cabin. Our cabins E437 and D501 were very nice and quite comfortable. They were not as big as some cabins we have had on other ships but I have no complaints about the cabins we had. We had a couple very stormy days and the ship handled very well in the bad weather. In fact we did run into a category 2 hurricane and the ship rode through it very well.

The not so great was that even though the ship is beautiful some of the seating in some areas was not very comfortable. We never did find any area that really was comfortable to us. The elevators especially in the Piazza area were terrible with the computer programs they use for the elevators you could wind up waiting extremely long periods while you could see the elevators sitting on one floor or bypassing your floor or even starting down then heading up. We had our best luck using the rear or forward elevators. Before you say we should have walked the stairs my wife is handicapped and I had recently had a hip replacement so using steps was not the best option. One thing that was done poorly was when we had to tender. This was done poorly compared to any time I had ever tendered on any ship on any cruise line. We did anytime dining if we took a table for two things went well and the service was great. If we said we would share a table for dinner the service was extremely slow, in fact one time they forgot to take our order until we finally complained. One problem we really were not happy with is that with the medallion you are supposed to be able to pay for drinks or products with the medallion, however many times they just asked your room number and several times we were charged for things we did not purchase. They do not give you receipts. We were able to get the extra charges removed at the front desk without problems.

We did NOT have a bad time in fact we would go on the ship again it just was not a favorite for us. Even with the few things we did not like overall the crew did all they could to make this a great cruise for us and we did enjoy ourselves.
 

BSeabob

Forum Manager
Staff member
Thanks for this. How was Canada ? :emoticon 0105 wink:
 

PEB

Staff Captain
Thanks for this. How was Canada ? :emoticon 0105 wink:

We enjoyed Canada it reminded us a lot of where we live. We did miss Halifax the first week and St. John the second week due to storms but made it there the other weeks. The majority of the cruise the weather was good and temps in the 40's and 50's my kind of weather.
 

bob

Community Manager Part Time Dinosaur
Staff member
Absolutely right PEB no such thing as a bad cruise long as you don't let the little things get to you.

Am interested in what you had to say about medallion, We were on the Ruby beginning of the year and they were just starting to implement some of the medallion features but had a long way to go. Did like the new medallion net and was able to take advantage of the unlimited wifi, worked very well. As I remember they had done away with receipts on the Ruby although they were still swiping cards so will be interesting adapting to walking around without a card in my pocket, will probably be reaching for it a lot
I am making notes on some of your comments about the problems as we will be on the Royal in the spring and it is a full medallion class like the Regal and will be our first experience with full medallion
 

PEB

Staff Captain
Absolutely right PEB no such thing as a bad cruise long as you don't let the little things get to you.

Am interested in what you had to say about medallion, We were on the Ruby beginning of the year and they were just starting to implement some of the medallion features but had a long way to go. Did like the new medallion net and was able to take advantage of the unlimited wifi, worked very well. As I remember they had done away with receipts on the Ruby although they were still swiping cards so will be interesting adapting to walking around without a card in my pocket, will probably be reaching for it a lot
I am making notes on some of your comments about the problems as we will be on the Royal in the spring and it is a full medallion class like the Regal and will be our first experience with full medallion

Bob we only used the medallion like a sail and sign card and did not use anything else with it. One problem we did find was that many times they asked us and others for their cabin number instead of using the medallion to pay for purchases. Due to this I believe they were typing in the wrong cabin numbers and not verifying if it was you in the picture that popped up. The reason I say this is because we got billed for at least a half dozen charges we did not make mostly from bars. Neither my wife or I drink alcohol yet we got billed for mixed drinks. While sitting at bars I would hear someone say their room was like B350 and the bartender would say D350 or something like that and if the passenger had already walked away and not correct them I am sure the wrong person got billed. Some people must have been billed for the wrong thing because they would finally say I will not give you my room number use my medallion. We had no trouble getting things taken off our bill, however I don't feel we should have to go to the desk every day to correct incorrect billing.

I only used the internet a couple times to check email and I had free minutes due to our Captains Circle status and I used their computers. It was slower than at home but it was faster than in the past.
 

RichC

Lecturer
We'll be on the Regal once again in Jan & prefer this class of ship over the others. We usually don't do 7 day trips on Princess but needed a change over the older ships.
We actually like the food on the Royal class ships over the others as the variety & prep is usually outstanding.

I discovered on the Crown that when doing a B2B the internet minutes might be cut short as they now base the minutes on the complete number of days of the trip & if you calculate them for each leg it adds up to more. The internet manager can fix it but only if you ask, otherwise you won't receive them. I suspect the Regal will be the same.

Other than opening the door & using the medallions to find one another we never use it for much else. I hope they've improved the location feature a little better then last year when it was far off a number of times.
 

bob

Community Manager Part Time Dinosaur
Staff member
Definitely helps to be able to get your door open..............

"I hope they've improved the location feature a little better then last year when it was far off a number of times." That is the built in hiding from the wife feature
 

RichC

Lecturer
Another problem is the Princess apps associated with the Medallions.

I managed to finally loaded the Ocean Ready app (with great difficulty) for our cruise on the Crown recently (Oct) after many tries. Not that it saved much time at the terminal but it did allow us to order the Medallions & have them sent to the home. It was just one less thing I have to do at the terminal. :)

Since we're leaving on the Regal in Jan I went to the Ocean Ready app on my phone only to find that it wouldn't work properly & couldn't load my booking number. I find out that they've discontinued the app & now use a MedallionClass app. Fine, so I try to load it & find out that my phones are to old to utilize the app. :mad:
I then call Princess to directly order the Medallions & was told that you must only use the app for ordering. :mad:

I can understand why some of the people just don't want to get involved using their phones.
I really wish they would get their act together.
 

PEB

Staff Captain
We'll be on the Regal once again in Jan & prefer this class of ship over the others. We usually don't do 7 day trips on Princess but needed a change over the older ships.
We actually like the food on the Royal class ships over the others as the variety & prep is usually outstanding.

I discovered on the Crown that when doing a B2B the internet minutes might be cut short as they now base the minutes on the complete number of days of the trip & if you calculate them for each leg it adds up to more. The internet manager can fix it but only if you ask, otherwise you won't receive them. I suspect the Regal will be the same.

Other than opening the door & using the medallions to find one another we never use it for much else. I hope they've improved the location feature a little better then last year when it was far off a number of times.

Yes with the B2B2B we took the minutes for internet were shortened due to calculating because of our number of days on the ship and yes we could have them adjusted as if it were three separate cruises. We did not have them changed because we only used the internet once each cruise to check our email so we hardly used any time at all. We only used the computers in the Internet cafe area of the ship and had a lot of time left to use if we had wanted it.
 

George C

Staff Captain
Thanks for the very nice review, have not cruised princess in a while and not planning on going back but always keep a open mind.
 

bob

Community Manager Part Time Dinosaur
Staff member
Another problem is the Princess apps associated with the Medallions.

I managed to finally loaded the Ocean Ready app (with great difficulty) for our cruise on the Crown recently (Oct) after many tries. Not that it saved much time at the terminal but it did allow us to order the Medallions & have them sent to the home. It was just one less thing I have to do at the terminal. :)

Since we're leaving on the Regal in Jan I went to the Ocean Ready app on my phone only to find that it wouldn't work properly & couldn't load my booking number. I find out that they've discontinued the app & now use a MedallionClass app. Fine, so I try to load it & find out that my phones are to old to utilize the app. :mad:
I then call Princess to directly order the Medallions & was told that you must only use the app for ordering. :mad:

I can understand why some of the people just don't want to get involved using their phones.
I really wish they would get their act together.
As you say hope they get the act together, we will be on the Royal little after you and it is a full Medallion Class. Am able to access the app but still shows exceptions but hopefully because we haven't made final yet. Pain in the butt in your case picking up the medallions at check in, so much for that, more like old times.
Going to be interesting, this will be our first time on a full blown Medallion ship, our last cruise had some features like the enhanced internet which by the way worked well, especially for Alaska, and friends and family chat sans notifications. One plus was the ability to add unlimited internet to our free package for around $75, trade free platinum/elite minutes for the deal, but that price was based on a 12 day cruise, haven't priced our nest one yet which is only 7 day. Am going day by day with baited breath............
 

RichC

Lecturer
We're still going again on the Regal in Jan but a super good deal came up last week that we couldn't refuse for Dec 15th plus after we booked out guaranteed inside cabin they offered any up-sell to a balcony for $58. After all our onboard credit is deducted from the total price it amounts to around $525 for both of us for the week. I doubt if we could dine out for the week at home for less.
I suppose they couldn't fill the ship during the pre-Christmas season.
 
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