No Crew at the Meet & Mingle

We had over 50 CC members sign up for our Meet & Mingle scheduled for our first sed day. I had prearranged the time and place with a Princess representative and kept her updated as our anticipated crowd grew over time, contacting her just days before departure to keep her ‘in the loop’. I requested for a few ‘key staff’ if available to answer any questions and to get better acquainted with each other. NONE attended.

The Meet and Mingle was otherwise fun lasting well over an hour. We set aside a later time and date for a ‘Slot Pull’ at the Casino. Due to the Super Bowl being the same day as the M&M, we decided to hold it on the last sea-day of our short five-day cruise. Though not as well attended as I had hoped, we were very lucky, with each participant over tripling their initial investment.

The five days went quick. We were blessed with good weather for our overnight in Cabo San Lucas. As far as I could tell everyone had a real good time. I know I did!

As an aside…

This was my first Cruise on a 'Medallion Enabled' Princess Ship. The pre-cruise preparation for the Medallion is redundant and cumbersome. Having to enter everything over after already giving it to the Princess website is a waste of time. The instructions for their 'scan' app for our passports were unclear and/or the scan mechanism was faulty requiring many, man, retries. Even after we finally succeeded for both of us, only one worked at check-in requiring a wait while they re-scanned the passport. I talked with others who shared similar frustrations.

B336 is a 'mini-suite'. It was clean, comfortable and spacious. The bathroom was well appointed with a full tub and shower. The shower has a handheld showerhead, which was absolutely necessary due to the extremely low water flow and pressure. We are Princess ‘Elite’ status and are supposed to rteceive upgraded ‘Suite’ level amenities and bath towels. None were provided. I informed the cabin steward and he told me ‘We don’t do that’.

The balconies are the smallest I have ever seen on any ocean cruise ship, barely fitting two chairs and a small table with no room for the provided foot stools or to maneuver between the 4 adjoining balconies amongst our group. The two cabins in the middle had to take one chair each into the cabin just to be able to open the partitions between the cabins.