AE_Collector

Has anything been said previously about eliminating the coffee packages? Also, someone mentioned temporary swap of mini bar setup for a discount on the per day cost to bump to Plus Level Package?

On 2/14/2023 at 8:59 AM, damiross said:

It really sucks that when I hit Platinum the rules change! 

Then imagine getting to platinum as quick as possible to get the free minutes of Internet and now after 43 cruises (so over 8 times the cruises to get to platinum and almost 3 times the cruises to get to Elite) and now free internet package is gone and internet prices are increasing. This is where I feel they needed an Elite Plus level maybe at 50 cruises/500 days to leave a few existing perks for loyalty and create something for the rest to keep working towards. Rewards programs work because there is always a goal to strive for but someone at Princess doesn’t get that so the program maxes at after just 15/150 since elimination of the Captains Circle OBC increases up to 52 cruises.

Thanks for the reminder, I remember that now. I guess I ran down two flights of stairs to the lounge!

On 1/20/2023 at 5:57 PM, Lcruiser5356 said:

I agree with everything said in the LONG letter. We did a 14 day cruise on Crown Nov 2022. Food in DR was mediocre at best - slow, cold and sometimes inedible. Organization at DR entrance - not a bit. For our 6:30 reservation we finally left the line at 7:15. Learned it was best not to have a reservation as they got in first.

Buffet was always out of food in many containers. When mentioned to an attendant she just barked and said she'd get to it. Food was also usually cold.

Our medallion worked occasionally to open the door to our room. Even after getting a new one. Forget setting it up to get the room cleaned.

I agree about the bright light at BR door. Don't carry electrician tape to cover it.

Staff and activities were great, as usual, for the most part. Do miss the old Elite perks.

We  have done 25 cruises with Princess and have one planned for next Nov. If this goes the way of the last it will be our last.

 

This shows how easily different people have different experiences! We did a 7 day on Crown Princess in November 2022 and experienced none of what you mention. This was our 43rd Princess cruise so it wasn’t that we have nothing to compare to. However, maybe we weren’t on the same ship as you say you were on a 14 day cruise in November. We were on the 7 day Nov 2 to 9 Vancouver to LA. Then it did the 28 day South Pacific so there was no 14 day cruise on Crown in November.

So if there has just been a price increase for internet, what is the bottom line now? As Elite, for a single device pre-purchasing it was $5/day. Still ticked about losing the free internet package but I will admit the internet has improved. 

On 1/21/2023 at 10:54 AM, Thrak said:

 

We sailed Island Princess as the next cruise after one of our Coral Princess sailings. That really put things in perspective. I definitely didn't care for Island. I kept "running out of ship" when I headed aft inside the ship and having the Promenade cut off as we headed aft outside was a major bummer. Sailing Island right after sailing Coral just emphasized the downside of the changes. (I did see On The Bayou on Island Princess but they did it in the main theater and it just wasn't at all the same.)

We used to do the Island Princess from Vancouver to Whittier then stay on and do it all again in reverse back to Vancouver but that was before the major renovation. Ran into a couple having a major reno to their house in Vancouver who did that all summer long living on the cruise ship and every se line week they were home for a few hours to check in the progress!
 

The last time we were in Coral was a last minute Panama Canal cruise that we could have booked on either Coral or Island for the same price and there was 1 or 2 days difference in departure dates. There was no doubt which one we were booking. We book lots of deck 8 obstructed OV cabins and had one just around the corner from the aft stairwell so I could run out the cabin door, down 1 flight of stairs and into the back of the aft theatre to catch the comedian or whomever was on. Being a two level theatre an entrance to the theatre off 8 could be possible but I don’t think it is…too long ago now.

TO UPDATE THIS LIST:

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<COPY TO THIS LINE SO THERE IS SPACE TO TYPE CHANGE NOTES AFTER THE CHART>

Updated DRO on Enchanted Princess from previous post of Senior Officers Screen by ProfMHC.

We love Coral Princess as well. Island Princess was the same until they added something like 125 cabins on the back where the theatre used to be. We haven’t personally been in island since then but I can’t imagine it being as nice as Coral Princess is. These were the two “PanaMax” ships built for the Panama Canal prior to the new locks opening which are wide enough for the new larger ships.

We have looked at doing this Around Australia cruise too but we are never organized enough to book years in advance. With such a popular cruise it is hard to figure why they don’t squeeze in another few sailings unless government limitations are the reason.

On 11/14/2022 at 12:37 AM, socram13 said:

Enjoyed Kelvin Joy on the Emerald years ago! Looking forward to the Coral in December.  

I agree 100%. Kelvin was a Cruise Director in a cruise we did from Beijing to Vancouver in 2012. He still stands out as the CD my wife and I enjoyed more than any other. But I see he is back as an ED now so likely doesn’t have the same presence around the ship as he did when he was a CD. His Wake Shows were the BEST and had us hooked on contributing to the Wake Shows almost every day for years after.

Someone 10 pages or so back here (doing a big catch up here, haven’t been around much) someone mentioned that Billy Hygate was a favourite. We really enjoyed having him as CD on our longest ever cruise to date… 49 days from Florida to California around Cape Horn on Ruby Princess the first time she came to the West Coast Feb/Mar 2015. I assume Billy finally retired but he was a class act!

And finally since I have not been here much it is sort of cool to see a legacy I left here pop up in every updated list from when I was “the Cruise Director list guy” back in 2014/2015 …. keeping the list clean and updated. I wrote the instructions on HOW to properly copy and paste a new list then do the updates, not with quote button etc. I know the instructions go missing from time to time on posts but it looks to have stood the test of time to stop most of the updates that can no longer be updated by the next guy. And great work to everyone who now looks after the New List improving it as needed. It is a great resource.

Terry (AE_Collector)

What is the battery… thing in bottom shown with yellow around it? Seems odd to me since I was installing the proximity card reader technology in the late 80’s that didn’t need a battery. I assume the battery isn’t easily replaceable? Our second medallion cruise was in May and my wife’s medallion didn’t work properly from the beginning. First clue was after the third time she watched the safety drill video in our cabin it still didn’t credit her with having done it which generated a letter to our cabin the next day. It was either the third or fourth day before we finally tracked down the right person after numerous “wrong persons” who had us go to passenger services for a replacement.

They did in Alaska in May. But yes it will take some time to become more widespread. 

I haven’t opened one up but I would doubt that there is a battery inside. Electronics yes so proper handling would be to send it for electronic recycling. The technology has existed for decades eliminating the need for. A battery in things like access cards for work etc. The readers all over the ship emit a RF signal that Is picked up by an antennae winding in the card or medallion. This charges a small capacitor inside which allows the tiny microchip inside to broadcast its ID which the reader picks up. Thus they can track your location around the ship and when your reader outside your cabin door sees a medallion that it knows is associated with this cabin, it unlocks the door.

I would far rather that stuff like this were issued once and reprogrammed for each cruise you are going in. The cost of producing all these medallions and mailing them all over the place in presentation cases seems a bit over the top to me not to mention wasteful. They can certainly reissue them if you’ve lost yours or when you step up to a different level but there is no reason to print sailing info on them and then issue new ones for every cruise. We live in such a wasteful world!

My best Princess chocolates story:

We cruised Pacific Princess from Vancouver to Honolulu and disembarked, staying at Waikiki for close to a week and then flew home to Vancouver. We always put the daily chocolates into a bag to take home with us for when we needed a reminder of being onboard while we are between cruises. This trip we met up with friends who cruised Vancouver to Hawaii on Celebrity and their cruise arrived at Honolulu for two days, then did the other Hawaiian stops and came back to Honolulu to disembark. So we met up with them for their two days at Honolulu. Some here will recall celebrity discontinuing the chocolates on the pillow (this was 2015) and eventually having to finally reinstate them due to all the complaints. Our friends happened to mention all the whining on their cruise due to the discontinuation of the chocolates. Conveniently we had a bag of Well branded Princess chocolates to send with them to hand out onboard to anyone complaining as their cruise moved on from Honolulu. 

On 8/7/2022 at 2:34 PM, disudds said:

It looks like, just all the other recent Crown cruises, you will not be going into the Inner Passage at all. Has anyone said anything about that? Is there any compensation?

You need to cruise to or from Vancouver to do the inside passage between the mainland of BC and Vancouver island. And now that Royal Class ships are doing some of these itineraries unfortunately they can’t do the inside passage either due to low clearance under power lines crossing from the mainland to Vancouver Island. 

8 hours ago, Marlster said:

I am on the Royal to Alaska Sept. 17th and on Sept. 23rd I am scheduled to stop in Victoria then to Vancouver., so maybe this cruise will be the last stop in Victoria.  I live in Victoria and wish I could disembark there, answer so far is NO.

 

Marlster

Your cruise sounds like a 7 day round trip at the end of the season as opposed to the 7 day north then 7 day south itineraries that Royal Princess has been doing since May 14.

Another thing is that the number of times we received free upgrades FROM an obstructed Oceanview cabin was remarkable! This is because there are less of this category cabin than most other categories. This pretty much came to an end for us around 2015/16 when they started selling upgrades. Sometimes we would see them using this category to fill cabins on ships by instantly assigning a higher category cabin the moment you booked one so that the price point remained available for those that searched it out to meet their price requirement.

Have never heard of that exact scenario. I eventually stopped booking direct with Princess as there was no extra anything for repeatedly booking that way and we were booking so many cruises with Princess we felt we pretty much knew the drill and didn’t need any extra help in most cases.

There we’re instances as @geoherb mentioned where once you log in sometimes the price changes (improves) for a variety of possible reasons including seniors discounts, geographic special prices and maybe a loyalty factor but nothing at a set consistent $ value.

Used to be up to US$25 you could just get back from the Passenger Services Desk on the last night. So that is likely still the way it works. More than that you usually get a cheque in the mail…. Eventually.

Wee would do it. Obstructed Oceanview became our go to cabin category for cruising on a budget but with some natural light. It also makes it quick and easy to check the weather and to see if you are docked, close or not close to being docked. frequently we found that Obstructed view cabins were only $100 per person or so more than inside while being far less than full Oceanview and possibly half the price of a balcony cabin.
 

We had more or less avaoided the 6 new Royal Class ships as they don’t have Oceanview cabins at all but just did our first cruise on one in May.

14 hours ago, pris993 said:

I think there is a repeat passenger discount.  I believe we usually get $50 pp  off a cruise fare as a repeat passenger.  We are elite, so have been getting the repeat passenger fare for some time.  

I suspect that you are referring to the Captains Circle $25/$50/$75/$100 OBC credit on each cruise once you are at 21/32/42/52 cruises. This is GONE now along with the free internet minutes package.

On 6/27/2022 at 4:35 PM, nini said:

UPDATE: We just received our check for the remaining OBC. We were on the Emerald May 9-21.

We also just received a cheque for remaining OBC from our May 2-14 cruise. This was for pre-purchased OBC. 

23 hours ago, Ombud said:

big box store's problem??

 

 

Well initially but we realized the mistake literally in seconds after the cruise cost was processed and they were on the phone to Princess to rectify it. By the next day I could see the OBC associated with using a FCD to book so it was sorted. They said Princess would refund the $100 x2 which makes sense as the booking cost that shows up on credit card as “Princess Cruises” should have been $200 lower. But I have been back and forth a couple of times and keep hoping it will show up as a credit on my credit card soon as I can’t bear to try to call yet again!
 

I assume the excess OBC that I pre purchased will either go back to credit card or arrive as a cheque eventually. It usually took a month so I am not surprised if it takes a couple of months now. Not sure what the “less 25%” part is about but it better not apply to purchased OBC!

We disembarked May 14 and I am still waiting for a refund. Not refundable OBC but purchased OBC with my own money. In the past it has frequently taken up to a month but we are at 6 weeks and counting now.

I also have a problem in that we used our FCD’s to book but the big box store agent forget to call Princess when booking to have the FCD’s applied. Thus we didn’t get $100 each off the booking price for using our FCD’s. Big Box store called right away after payment and the OBC for using FCD’s was applied but still no $100 each refund. Onboard the cruise the Future Cruise Consultant said oh they probably just gave you the OBC and left your FCD for future use but then as he looked it up he concluded “no they didn’t”. It was used and removed. Said to call Big Box store which I did and they said I would get an email about it from Princess within 5 days… 35-40 days ago now. At this point in time the $200 isn’t worth the hours on hold only to be cut off before the problem is resolved. Been there, done that too many times with this cruise.

We would be much more likely to consider another cruise soon if they would bring mandatory masking back in most instances. As it is right now…. We are not likely to.

Caribbean Princess had similar problems several years ago and the problem started not that long after a drydock. Thus I believe it went for about 18 months in this mode until the next drydock. It is usually one of the several generators that isn’t working limiting electrical output when they want to move close to full speed. Everything is run by electricity on these ships, it isn’t like an engine is connected to a driveshaft and propeller.

I would suspect that it will be fixed in drydock in October so the Vancouver to California round trip will be just before and the Vancouver to Hawaii round trip will be just after.