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My wife was right; I should have known. The central venue of this ship, and probably all Princess ships, is called "The Piazza" not "The Plaza". I'm in the process of going back and editing all the prior pages of this report to change "Plaza" to "Piazza". You would think I could remember that as my mother's maiden name and half of my adoptive family's last name is "Piazza." My adoptive family is Italian and growing up a "piazza" referred to an upstairs outdoors balcony, especially at the back of a house. So, the official definition of "piazza" is: (1) A public square in an Italian town, (2) A roofed and arcaded passageway, a colonnade, or (3) A veranda. I never lived in Italy and we didn't have any roofed arcaded passageways in our town, so I never heard of "piazza" refering to either of those. But almost every house in my neighborhood had an upstairs veranda, and that is what everyone was referring to when they said "piazza." The central venue on Princess ships certainly is like a public square, but Princess ships are definitely not a town in Italy. People in my home town might call the areas on Deck 6 and Deck 7 that overlook the central area "piazzas," but not the cental venue itself. The central venue on Princess ships seem more like a "plaza," like the central lobby of a hotel, than a "piazza" to me and the spelling is very close. Ever since I had cataract surgery in both eyes, my nearsight reading has not been so good, even with reading glasses.
Do you tip on cruise ships anymore? I used to until a couple of years ago. I'm generally a very generous tipper leaving 20%, and sometimes even 25% to 30% if I either know the server very well or their service goes way up and beyond what is expected. I remember the days when many would give the servers a $1 tip each time a drink was delivered and maybe $2 or $3 whenever used room service deliver food to our cabin. Then they started the practice of bringing receipts with the drinks that would have the total including an automatically added 18% gratuity, and then a space for "Additional Tip" which I found annoying. Generally any bar or restaurant that automatically adds in an 18% gratuity, I just leave it at that rather than give my usual 20% or more. I just feel that a tip is supposed to be at the discretion of the guest and not an automatic charge.
I have not seen anyone leaving tips for server for the last few years of cruising and I have adopted the same habit. I no longer give any time to bar servers nor for room service. Maybe it is because I've been on cruises with a lot of people where tipping is not customery such as Australians, Japanese and Chinese. Or maybe it is becasue almost all cruise lines have gone away from handing envelopes of cash to everyone and now has automatic gratuities added by the cruise company. We still give an extra bonus to our stateroom steward as we have the most contact with that person. We never have the same table in the Main Dining Rooms or have a regular bar that we frequent, so we don't give any tips to the Dining Room staff or any bartender.
Also, ever since they've raised the automatic daily gratuities so high, and also the daily cost of Princess Plus and Princess Premiere so high, it just feels I'm paying enough every day for a cruise for them to adequately compensate their staff without my extra contributions. My wife and I usually book our cruises very early and are able to obtain early booking rates that make the cost a bit more bearable. As I mentioned earlier, we normally never buy a Drinks Pacakage as the cost of the amount we drink never adds up to the daily cost of a Drinks Package. But we do always pre-pay the gratuities and each buy a one device WiFi package. Once you add up the cost of just those two options, you are almost up to the cost of the Princess Plus upgrade, especially with the early booking discount, so we do always select that upgrade.
Many of you are probably aware that NOT tipping is such a part of the Australian culture that cruise lines DO NOT add an automatic gratuity into the cost when Australians book a cruise. I'm not sure what the cruise lines do, but I suspect they just charge Australians a higher base rate to make up for the lack of adding automatic gratuity charges.
If you would like to provide me your feedback about tipping, you can send me an email using my contact info above or below.
I found the internet speed and reliability on this cruise to be better than on any prior cruise I've ever been on. The ship is using StarLink. Download rates vary from 1.0 to 5.0 averaging 3.04 Mbps for downloads with a latency of 84ms and about 0.80 Mbps for uploads with a latency of 772ms. We've been able to stream from YouTube with no problem. I can even use Google Remote to connect to one of my home computers in Vancouver, Washington, when I want to stream live or recorded TV programs from YouTubeTV. I actually have Starlink at home, but just for testing purposes. Xfiinity is my main internet source at my home in Vancouver, Washington, but I use Starlink as a backup when Xfinity is down and just to see how good the speed of Starlink is. Starlink is much faster at my home than on the ship, but nowhere near the speed of Xfinity. For a cruise ship, however, it is way better in both speed and reliability than internet used to be on ships. My understanding is that just about all cruise lines and airlines have plans to convert over to Starlink eventually.
We ordered a Jameson whiskey that we poured into our Guiness beer to turn into a sort of "Irish Car Bomb" that we then shared. For food we ordered a Classic Irish Shepherd's Pie and a Chicken curry. The Bailey's Irish Cream Trifle was the dessert served to everyone. Chicken curry is actually one of the most popular dishes served in pubs throughout Ireland, Scottland and the rest of the United Kingdon, so it is definitely also Irish cuisine.
Exclusive venue for Elite and Platinum Captains Circle guests, as well as Suite guests, to meet your ship's officers and fellow guests with drink offers, delectable delights and live entertainment. Dress Code: Smart Casual and above.
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
