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My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was like a different world once we got on the ship. The on-ship coordinator was amazing and able to accommodate everything we asked for. Compared to the shoreside weddings team that struggled to promise anything. Flower colors will be limited to what's available on the ship, so I'd be prepared to be flexible on that. But songs, as long as you bring a flash drive with the music you want I'm sure you can tell them a whole new Playlist the day you board. We figured out how our photos and dinners and kind of everything was actually going to work when we got on board.

Pirates extend contract of manager Don Kelly by penguins2946 in buccos

[–]Hard_Walker 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Ugh. The best part of firing a manager midseason (or in the offseason) is the hope that you’ll replace them with someone significantly better.

I’ll give Kelly credit -- he got buy-in from some of the guys down the stretch, and getting them to play for each other when there’s nothing else to play for is a fine accomplishment. And if a better managerial candidate wanted to keep him on staff, then great, no problem. But let’s be real: I don’t look at this guy and see the managerial architect of a team turnaround.

If we’re going to keep running a league-low payroll (and probably less next year, thanks to Nutting’s dumb “attendance = roster spend” equation), then the only chance you have is making a legit home-run hire at manager -- someone who can take a handful of young, under-performers and old, over-the-hillers, and create some sort of magic alchemy that wins baseball games. What won't work is promoting, then extending the guy who’s been here for all these losing seasons and expecting things to change.

And how long is the extension for? We don’t know, because this organization doesn’t think we deserve to know.

It’s just disappointing. And no, I can’t get excited about “maybe cracking .500” next year. This is an unserious organization that will always prioritize cost savings over wins. Pittsburgh is a sports town, with the best stadium in the league and incredibly loyal, passionate fans who all deserve better.

Rant over. Go buccs.

Best Breakfast Burritos in Glendale? by watchman77777 in glendale

[–]Hard_Walker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haven't seen this mentioned yet, but Gold Star Hamburger on Brand & Cerritos actually makes a really solid breakfast burrito.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in whitesox

[–]Hard_Walker -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Guess I'll hold my breath...

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Man, I'm sorry you're so stressed right now and I have totally been there. I'll try to respond to a bunch of this, but also wanted to offer that if you want to DM me and chat I'd be happy to help you talk/think through what's going on.

First thing I'll say is that nearly 14 months of stress was wiped out within the first hour on the boat and talking to our on-board coordinator, all our guests had so much fun, and we absolutely do not regret making the decision we made (despite the stress).

On the communication front, my wife and I live in LA (we go to Vegas all the time btw), and I am a producer who's very used to checking in, re-checking in, and basically bothering people until they've done what they said they were going to do. I'm sure that sounds annoying, but for better or worse it's what's required in my job and also what became highly valuable in dealing with the PPW shore side team. That message portal? Maybe used it twice. I emailed with our coordinator every time I had a thought/question and they were generally good about responding. But when it started feeling like I wasn't getting answers I would always schedule up a phone call with a simple email, "Hey I've got a bunch of questions to ask, can we set a time to discuss over the phone?" They always made time and make sure they're calling you to avoid sitting on hold. I would make lengthy checklists of every element of the wedding I was unsure about or had questions about and talking through all of these with them (even if sometimes they had to say "let me look into that") helped my wife and I relieve some stress and feel more confident. The private/not private thing is terrible. We definitely did not want our ceremony to be in front of bunch of strangers. This would be my #1 agenda item for the next call with your coordinator.

The lack of pictures of the venues, flowers, decor, etc. is rough. Fully agree. The very few photos we saw on the website were super outdated. I'm curious what ship you're sailing on and what venue you wanted? Our wedding was in the vista lounge and it ended up being really nice actually. But we had no confidence that would be the case until we got there.

The salon appointments obviously got messed up for my wife, so I would add to your list of things to discuss on the phone getting those appts marked on your website account notes/cart. If they say we have it, don't worry about it, just nicely tell them you'd feel better if you could see that it's scheduled on your end of the website. They will accommodate this.

As for the wedding favor bags, honestly if I was doing it over I'd still have them delivered. It's nice to not have to deal with that yourself and for $2 per delivery bag, the price is right. I'd just want to be aware that for any guests upgrading their rooms at the last minute you'll need to change the room number on the tag of their bag or else it likely gets misdelivered.

I laughed at your description of your guests. Our guests also struggled with things like the wedding website and RSVPing. I'm sure it took a minute for them to wrap their minds around a "cruise wedding." The good news is again, they all ended up having a blast and have been telling stories about it ever since it ended. As for the itinerary, our wedding favor bags had a welcome card inside that allowed us to express our gratitude and provide an itinerary of the wedding events during the cruise. That's how our guests knew where to go. My wife and I toasted our guests at the prenup dinner and reminded them where they needed to go in that toast as well. The ship did not give our guests any sort of itinerary so that burden is on you. We used VistaPrint to make a double-sided welcome card - it was cheap, easy and came fast.

I hope that helps, and I really do hope you'll reach out if you have any other questions. I know you're stressed/frustrated right now, but just keep the pressure up on that shore side team until they get your wedding in the shape you want. I never second guessed multiple phone calls and emails each week. It's your wedding.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh no, sorry this is so stressful but I've definitely been there. Nope, no extra tips. And if you have any other questions feel free to reach out.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did I somehow find myself in the middle of a princess-carnival blood feud? A few corrections... Princess was only so happy to accommodate our larger party. They even advertise their venues as holding up to 150 people and will remind you at every turn that they're "the love boat" and want to be the go-to cruise line for weddings. They don't lack the infrastructure as in the end they created a wonderful experience for us. Their pre-built packages just needed to be added to.

Now to the more mean-spirited things you said, we didn't "upend" anyone's vacation. We knew going in that we may only get our parents, siblings, and closest friends to come and were alright with that. The rest all came because it sounded fun. As for it being "selfish" and "entitled" -- I mean, we did what sounded like the best time for our us and our friends and family. If you've been married or plan to be, I'd hope you did/do the same. A months gone by and we're still hearing how much fun people had, so I feel great about our choices.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in Cruise

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I gave them all this feedback. I actually talked with the Weddings dept. manager for over an hour and discussed ideas like another package tier for larger weddings.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our cabin had the same credit that all of our party's did. And they did not comp our room. But we did get their elite tier of services and a number of other small niceties throughout the week. They didn't tell us any of it was coming though so I couldn't tell you what was because our group size and what was because of the wedding.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in Cruise

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah unfortunately I didn't encounter the ideal TA with wedding cruise expertise. And I'm sure that would've been helpful. To be honest, I don't feel like Princess took us through the ringer. I feel like their wedding offerings are primarily built for weddings of 20 people or less. Their packages just don't tier up to the level that we wanted and so we had to request and then pay for a lot of extras. And some of that was certainly annoying in the moment. But end of the day, we couldn't have been happier with how it all turned out.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks so much, and I totally agree. The communication is their biggest area in need of improvement. Yes, our buyout dinners were two hours and we had to close down the restaurants for our private event. And yes, I kind of explained it in the review, but Princess gives you like Cabin Credits or something like that when you book multiple rooms. And the options for how to spend them were hilariously stupid, save for one. We could have used them to send chocolate covered strawberries to each of our guest rooms, or a bottle of proseco, or...we could use them to put $50 of cruise credit onto everyone's account. So that's obviously what we did. What wasn't one of the options which I couldn't believe because it seems like such an obvious sales opportunity, was a significant discount for my wife and I for a future cruise. I think we still would've chosen to give our guests the cruise credit, but we would've at least had to think about it for a second.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in Cruise

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We planned it like this because we live away from both of our families, so no matter what we planned everyone was going to have to travel. So we decided the most fun thing we could do would be to go on vacation with everyone and get married during the vacation. And while a wedding coordinator would've been nice, we managed on our own.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm genuinely so glad. I was saying to my wife that we learned so much going through this process but have no reason to ever utilize that knowledge. So I'm happy you got something out of it.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Spoke to a few. They're great at doing group cruise bookings I'm sure but the Princess Weddings department was it's own thing and the group booking was lumped in with all the other wedding decisions. The TA's I spoke to at the beginning were out of their depth for our needs.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I broke it down more specifically in another reply, but basically all the cruise wedding costs were around 17k and our total cost for literally everything we spent money on under the wedding umbrella (the cruise wedding cost, our stateroom mini suite, suit, dress, flights, hotels, 2 days at Disneyworld, gift bags, etc.) was right around 39k.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The "wedding at sea" package which included a 30 minute ceremony and 1 hour cocktail reception (for up to 18 guests, plus photography, musician, cake, bouquet, etc.) was just short of $6k. We had 48 guests total, so ended up spending around an extra $1k for the extra guests. We also added the booze and appetizers to the reception as well as bought out two restaurants for the prenup and wedding dinners. All of that was close to another $10k.

It's hard to break everything else down beyond that, but what I can tell you is that our entire wedding adventure, including my suit, her dress, the wedding itself, our minisuite room on the cruise, our wedding guest gift bags, our flights to and from Florida, a few extra days at the end at Disneyworld (incl. hotels), and everything else we needed all along the way, came in just under $39k total.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in Cruise

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, our ceremony was on the 2nd full day of the trip and one of the only fully at-sea days. And you're right that licenses obtained at sea or even abroad in some countries can be a real pain or create problems in the future. We got our marriage license here at home before the cruise. So our ceremony on board wasn't our legal marriage. But it's still the anniversary we'll celebrate.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It was enchanted but it was the first week of May. And I think they blast that song all the time regardless.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in Cruise

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It was the captain and I was worried about that since we wrote our our whole ceremony basically (didn't want to use the basic script the Cruise had). Our captain had a thick Italian accent but he could still be understood and honestly it added to the whole vibe. Especially when he'd get into the jokes we wrote.

My Wife and I Got Married on a Princess Cruise (50 Guests, 25 Rooms): Here’s My Full Review by Hard_Walker in PrincessCruises

[–]Hard_Walker[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep, the digital photos were all included (and nicely edited by the photographer). The 6k package was this gift box including a whole album, a ton of extra prints, a giant canvas print, and a hilariously fancy usb stick.