caribill

Most Traveled Guests, the 40 guests who have traveled the most on Princess on that cruise.

I do not know if Princess has changed their expectations, but it had been expected that 50% of passengers would book with Plus and 25% with Premier. So on the "smaller" ships with 3100 passengers, about 775 people would book with Premier and could possibly expect to dine in a specialty restaurant every evening.

On another cruise line with an unlimited package: Two men who stole nearly $100,000 in Effy jewelry from a shop onboard MSC Cruises’ MSC Virtuosa on March 31, 2023 have avoided jail time in their sentencing. The men – age 30 and Age 33 – boarded MSC Virtuosa in Southampton, UK on March 31, 2023 for a 7-night Northern Europe sailing. Within hours, however, the two men had managed to overindulge in the all-included drinks and entered an unmanned Effy jewelry store, one of 11 retail stores onboard. According to the Southern Daily Echo, one proceeded to stuff eight rings and two necklaces into his underwear – yes, you read that right – while the other kept a lookout. The value of the stolen jewelry was estimated at £76,000, or approximately $97,000 (USD). Once the ship’s staffed discovered that several pieces were missing, security was alerted and camera footage reviewed, which clearly showed the two men committing the theft. They were located in different onboard bars by security officers. MSC Virtuosa has 21 different bars onboard, which the two men had clearly taken advantage of, as they were described as “extremely drunk.” Cruise Guests Who Stole $100,000 in Jewelry Avoid Jail Time (cruisehive.com)

All cruise lines (not just Princess) have found that if people pay in advance, then once on board they will spend even more $$$ since there will not be a big bill at the end for drinks, tips, etc. So, more money up front on profitable packages plus new spending once on board.

Unlimited MedallionNet Max Wi-Fi: Prioritized access to the highest quality and highest performance bandwidth available anywhere in the world Not sure what "prioritized access" means. Will passengers not purchasing the Premier package end up with slower Internet?

In my experience, dining in a Princess specialty restaurant takes 50% to 100% more time than in a MDR. So anyone wanting to dine in specialty restaurants throughout the cruise will spend many hours in total doing so. Guess Princess prefers passengers spending this time in restaurants instead of in the casino or shops on board.

The benefit of nightly specialty dining does not mean you can dine at the restaurant you want. It could be that all of the available slots for your entire cruise are only in your third choice restaurant.

" Unlimited reserved seating in the Princess Theater: Enjoy premium seating for all shows and performances." Says "unlimited," but like the specialty restaurants, there is limited seating capacity in the rows reserved for this benefit. Show up if those seats are taken and the benefit is zero.

From the 6/24/24 stock analysts presentation: (remember, this covers all of CCL Corp brands, not just Princess) Inside of two years, we've made incredible strides in improving our commercial operations, strategically reallocating our portfolio composition, formulating growth plans, and strengthening even further our [global team ship and shore], the best in the business. Off the back of these efforts, we've closed yet another quarter delivering records, this time across revenues, operating income, customer deposits, and booking levels, exceeding our guidance on every measure. Yields increased over 12% in Q2, over 1.5 points more than March guidance, as we continue to drive strong per diem growth, up over 6%. Coupled with flat cruise costs, excluding fuel on a unit basis, which David will elaborate on, we delivered $500 million more to the bottom line year over year and outperformed our earnings guidance by $170 million. Based on continued strong demand trends, we are also taking up our expectations for the full year by $275 million, driven by double-digit yield growth. Now, this would get us to double-digit ROIC this year. And while that will be a strong outcome for 2024, it is nowhere near what our business is capable of delivering. Our current booking trends are a testament to that. We are hitting records on top of previous records, which clearly tells us the strength and demand we have been building is continuing into next year and beyond. In the near term, pricing on bookings taken in the second quarter has continued to run considerably higher for each of the third and fourth quarters. And again, that's on top of record per diems last year. There was an improvement in net interest expense of $60 million, driven by our second-quarter refinancing, repricing, and debt prepayment activities. The strong 10.25% improvement in 2024 yields is a result of the increase in all the component parts, higher ticket prices, higher onboard spending, and higher occupancy at historical levels with all three components improving on both sides of the Atlantic. Our efforts to proactively manage our debt profile continued throughout the quarter. We prepaid $1.6 billion of secured term loan facilities. We also repriced approximately $2.75 billion of the same secured term loan facilities. And we issued $535 million of unsecured notes due 2030, refinancing our unsecured notes due 2026, extending those maturities and reducing interest expense. These transactions simplified our capital structure, reduced net interest expense in the second quarter by $10 million, will reduce net interest expense for 2024 by 55 million and 85 million on an annualized basis. Our decision to prepay 1.6 billion of debt during the second quarter was based on our strong liquidity, our improved financial performance and our optimism about the future. We will continue to look for more opportunistic refinancings over time.

Tips are pooled among the fleet, not just the ship you are on. When your daily contribution is divided by the number of eligible personnel on all the ships, you may be directly contributing only a penny or two each day to your cabin steward. What he/she actually gets depends on how many much people on all the ships are contributing.

One big benefit of booking with EZAir vs. booking directly with the airline if you are not flying business or first class is that booking directly with the airline usually means a non-fundable fare. And if Princess cancels your cruise (yes, that does happen), you have paid for an airfare you cannot use. You might get credit for some or all of the fare, but the credit may expire 1 year from when you booked the flight, not 1 year from when you cancelled it. And even if the credit is available, the airline might not fly to where you want to take your next vacation.

Right. If any refundable OBC remains at the end of the cruise.

Only at the end of the cruise, if there is any refundable OBC remaining, will a refund be made. It will not go back to your credit card. It will be returned by check in a plain white envelope which may or may not have the word "Princess" visible before opening. This usually happens in 2 to4 weeks after the cruise ends.

Yes, you will have paid for your excursions before you have onboard OBC available. But the way it works (at least at the time of my original post) is that the onboard account starts out saying you effectively have credit for OBC plus the amount you have already paid for excursions. And then it posts the excursions as if they are being paid from this total, using non-refundable OBC up first. Example: You paid $500 in advance using credit cards for excursions (refundable if you cancel the excursions) and you also have $200 non-refundable OBC. This is a total of $700. The onboard account will subtract the $500 excursion costs from that $700 total leaving a balance of $200 available for actual onboard use. But the $500 it uses of the $700 available will first use the $200 non-refundable OBC and then use $300 of your refundable pre-paid amount of $500. The remaining $200 will be considered refundable OBC and will be refunded if you have no other charges using it up. If you get a printout of your onboard account the first day, it will show this and indicate that the $200 balance is refundable. Hope this helps.

Unless you do not have a smart phone. (Yes, some people who cruise do not own one.)