AE_Collector

Been to both those places on two separate Princess cruises. Glad we did and can say we’ve been there! Both times on the small Princess ships that are no longer a Princess ships unfortunately. Ocean Princess in 2015 and Pacific Princess in 2017. 79.x degrees north! Much further north and we would have been back home in Canada. It was June so summer solstice time. The sun didn’t set for 11 consecutive days out of the 16 day cruise. Very Cool….(but NOT Cold!)

I always felt that Princess would never do anything to “rock the boat”. They had a history of not downgrading much of anything (IMHO). But that was awhile ago and yes now there have been some downgrades to existing. Not that long after we made it to Elite we began seeing the Elite laundry very often taking three days to come back and Princess clearly stated “due to the number of Elite members on this cruise expect laundry to take three days rather than one day”. We are fairly minimal users of this perk but on the other hand we do long cruises and we quite often spend days or a week on land around where we will board the cruise. In these cases the laundry is a terrific perk. We just cruised 12 days round trip from our home port and took enough with us so we didn’t have to use the laundry at all. I always thought that if they created a higher level they could give the higher level the unlimited laundry and change the Elite laundry perk to a reasonable laundry allowance based on the number of days on the cruise. The price list already exists to base this on. A reasonable allowance might stop people from sending in everything after wearing it just once just because they can and it might limit or end people sending all their non Elite friends and relatives laundry in as well. Then maybe Eleite level can get their laundry back the next day like they are supposed to. I know, controversial but it’s frustrating to earn a perk that becomes too much of a pain to use in so many cases.

Yes I have mentioned this 2 or 3 times recently here and have been waiting for the “not required” replies. Recall that in discussions several years ago. But everyone is different. Princess has a good loyalty rewards program but it has been slipping lately. And I know they are hurting right now as well. Had they said it was “suspended until further notice” there would be hope that it or a replacement might be back one day. As I mentioned, there really doesn’t need to be much costly loot associated with an Elite Plus level maybe at 50 cruises / 500 days (preferably just the days part) or what about a nice round 1 year, 365 days. So the number of cruisers actually receiving it wouldn’t be very large but it is something for everyone to continue working towards. They could have turned the $25-$100 Loyalty Credit into this new level so it would be gone now and it’s replace the back once you hit 365 or 500 days. A very significant reduction in the cost of providing the old CC loyalty credit at the same time as creating a new level. I would have said they could include one specialty meal per cruise but yes, that might slightly devalue the new premium package that includes two specialty meals. How many very frequent cruisers slow down on the ship based shore excursions they do? Probably most of us so maybe an extra 10% discount in addition to the new 10% discount for Elite (is it just Elite?). It might just be enough to sell an extra ship based excursion to us once in awhile which maybe they wind up ahead on the deal. Another idea, what about “Stand-by Excursions” at 25% discount to Elite Plus only? If there are available seats at the last minute the Stand-by people help fill the excursion but if it’s full .. it’s full… you can try again next time you’re here since frequent cruisers will likely be back soon. Likely almost free money to Princess as much of the excursion costs to them is likely are based on “per bus load of people”. I guess my point is that there are likely many ways they could provide something for a higher loyalty level that would cost them almost nothing. Clearly they just don’t see any need and maybe they are correct. But I seem to be seeing a bit higher pushback lately against Princess changes and “devaluations”. A flashy launch of a new higher reward level could leverage a lot of Good Will in my opinion.

My wife and I have totally different CC numbers, not just the A or B at the end of all the digits and we never received double CC loyalty $$ on the 20 or 21 cruises we did after initially getting to our 21st cruise. And unlike cruise credits and mini bar set ups we never received additional CC reward $$ on the second leg of a back to back cruise that was booked as one longer cruise though we did move towards the next level by two cruises in that scenario, just didn’t get a second batch of $$.

I have heard that before and assumed they would have fixed it by now… which in a round about way … they have. I don’t think that the shareholder benefit worked that way though. We had owned 600 shares but dumped 400 of them just as the Covid share price plunge began… still at about 2.5 times todays share price.

Are you certain you are referring to the Captains Circle loyalty credit that began on your 21st Princess cruise? I ask because you mention $100 per person per cruise. It was always a maximum of $100 per cabin not per per cruise for us. But yes it’s gone. We had just completed our final $50 credit cruise in the fall of 2019 so our first cruise since restart at the beginning of this month would have been our first at $75. I still think Princess needs another loyalty level even if there isn’t anything all that valuable included in it. I had always hoped that they would do this possibly by rolling this benefit into the cost of providing a higher level. Instead, this perk is now gone. I know that not everyone agrees but finding myself with absolutely nothing left to work towards on the loyalty front removes one incentive to just grab that quick cruise here or there because if for no other reason, doing so would move us one rung higher up the ladder. Loyalty/rewards programs are huge and I personally think that Princess is dropping the ball here.

That is what stands out to me as well. They could have made it as you say, tied to the number of formal nights or just said one specialty dining booking for every 5 days on the cruise etc. This reminds me of how silly the coffee package has become for some of us with 15 specialty drinks no matter whether it is a 3 day or 30 day cruise. This was reasonable when you could finish using punches on your next cruise but that is gone with it being tied to the medallion now.

There is nothing I know if that is as supply/demand driven as cruise pricing. It is always all over the place. I cant believe the deals I am seeing on cruises for west cost of North America right now so probably everywhere to some extent. They are just trying to get things going again. They are losing a bundle on every cruise but would be losing even more if the ships remained at anchor. If and when things finally get back almost to normal prices are going to get a lot higher, especially if fuel stays anywhere near these prices.

I think that means you are crew. Let us know if your cabin seems a little smaller than you remember and if you have to do dishes and change your own linen! (Just kidding of course)

We too were in the May 2-14 Royal Princess round trip from Vancouver to Alaska. Our first venture out very far after two years of laying low but far from our first Princess cruise. An easy cruise for us since we live 20 miles from Canada Place pier. Overall we were impressed. Crew was great as always. We found the food to be excellent onboard. No Covid for us during or after. We religiously wore our masks onboard in public areas until seated for food or drink. And we weren’t alone… I did several surveys of people wandering the ship and every time came to a figure of 60-70% wearing masks. I really think they should have stuck with so called “Mandatory” masks inside though some would still push it I’m sure. Bottom line is that Cruising is risky for Covid transmission. We would consider doing another soon but not sure what we would do if once onboard almost no one could be bothered to wear masks inside.

The perk after the sometimes slow customs and security line at a Vancouver is that you don’t have to go through customs upon arrival at your first Alaska port which could also cause some delays and possible missed excursions etc. But yes it usually seems to be a bit of a lineup unfortunately.

@Thrak having done many cruises to/from Vancouver it is normal to have the casino closed all the way in and past or from Victoria to Vancouver. The shipping channel is close to shore all the way with the line dividing traffic being the Canada US border. One direction travels on the Canadian side and the other direction on the US side.

We get the offers that are for my mom as I look after her account and bookings etc. she had a bunch of offers recently and I really don’t think she drops much in the casino but likes to play a little bit. She hasn’t been on a cruise source 2015. I was tempted to go spend a few dollars in the casino myself on the cruise we just did as some of the offers would have us scrambling to do the cruise! One we have been considering was $699 for her in an inside and $1699 for us. Her offers have always been discounted inside cabins. All other categories are the same price I see for myself.

You must be good at resisting the food and deserts as well though. I don’t think I’ve ever lost weight but have had a couple where I only gained 2-3 pounds. Like you, we do some long cruises and I have found that I pretty much max out at gaining about 8 pounds even on the longest cruises which for us was 49 days. But I gained 6 on the one you were just on. Have lost about 4 of the 6 in our first week at home.

Finally something I do every cruise that is 100% sanctioned by the gym/fitness centre! There’s hope for me yet!

I have frequently just given my name when calling in if I neglected to look up my CC number first. Lately I figure I have 1-2 hours to look it up after calling and while waiting to speak with someone. But I have a name that likely means they don’t have to look very far to narrow it down to me. However I have my every day first name and my official first name like on my passport so this scenario could easily lead to someone having more than one account.

Somehow years ago my wife wound up with a separate CC number. Don’t think it was ever used for a cruise but just a few years ago we had a Future Cruise Deposit missing which was finally found in her mystery CC account number. Got it moved and other account closed out.

Yes has always been platinum/Elite as far as I know.

As for lifeboat drills, we learned on our 49 day cruise around South America in 2015 which was comprised of 3 separate segments that passengers need to attend a lifeboat drill every 30 days. And that means no more than 30 days since you’ve been to one at any point in time that you are in board. Our first segment was 19 days and next was 14 days. That meant we had to attend at the beginning and again 19 days later as our last few days in the second segment would be more than 30 days after our initial drill. But then we were able to skip the one at the beginning of the third segment as second and third segments added up to 30 days. So we just squeaked under the wire!

I’ve been away from cruise Critic for awhile and I can’t recall if posts like this are appreciated or not or whether it should be put here or somewhere else in the site. We are at Downtown Vancouver for a couple of days “Cat Sitting” for our daughter so first order of the day was to walk the four blocks to see which Princess ship was at the pier. Yes I know I didn’t need to even go outside to figure this out but it’s a nice day here…. Finally! We did our first ever cruise on a Royal Class ship disembarking Royal Princess right here just one week ago. Our reaction to the Royal class ships is mixed but neither that nor Covid nor the loss of a few more perks stopped us from enjoying the 12 day Alaska round trip from Vancouver.

We have only been on a Royal class ship once, Royal Princess and we disembarked just one week ago today. This event was held in Vista Longe which is deck 7 aft.

Well he did say it would get him thinking, not deal or no deal. In my case I always thought that Princess had the BEST perks (for us, everyone values various perks differently). Thus as they slowly reduce some of the perks we still feel they have decent perks, just not what they used to be. But if more goes away we may at least look at the competition a little bit more but that doesn't mean we are gone as it is likely an industry wide thing. Also, cruise lines have been through hell and we are just happy that they survived. But when things get better in the future maybe there will be some re-evaluating by Princess.

Two cruises booked as one “Grand Adventure” has resulted in two cruise credits for quite a few years now. We did a N and S bound Alaska cruise in 2013 that was booked as one 14 day cruise. We had 10 in our group. E Ernie who needed one more cruise to attain the next level got new cards with new level after first 7 days and received two cruise credits at the end. Those of us who didn’t change levels during the two cruises only received one credit. I finally called a couple months later to ask about it and was told they were just changing to make it automatic. The rep looked at our accounts, added a 0 day cruise to get an extra cruise credit and looked back several years to find another situation and added 0 day cruises for them as well, I was impressed. Since then all similar cruises have automatically become 2 cruise credits in a single entry in our cruise history. Also we have always received the second minibar automatically at the start of the second cruise. As for 4 versus 2 credits for single cruisers I can’t say for certain. Typically when the make two cruises available as one it is just $100 or so less per person. But sometimes they put these together in the last couple of months prior to sailing to fill ships. We snagged one once that was $1 less for 14 days than the single 7 day pricing. Couldn’t say no to that!

Mexican night at the lounge frequently gets us there. But this first cruise back since shut down we didn’t even look at the schedule and didn’t make it there at all. Maybe next time.

I was able to stay on top of the FCDs expiring over our 2 1/2 year absence. We usually have 5-6 each expiring at various times usually two each at a time. They were willing to renew them as I called in about each group though they missed one single one of my wife’s in a group of 4 that I renewed just last fall. Onboard last week I had them cancel and refund the corresponding one belonging to me and repurchased another two each. Too difficult to keep track of if I don’t keep them in groups. We have said many times that we are so grateful for all the travelling we’ve already done to so many parts of the world. So much easier when you are younger. I retired at 56 and while we already had done maybe close to 15 cruises by then, we really ramped it up over the following several years and have been doing a little less each year now until Covid hit. But grandkids are a part of the equation as well. Our daughter who lives 3 blocks away from Canada Place is away for a long weekend so we’ve moved in to cat sit and with it finally being a bright sunny day in Vancouver, we will soon be off on foot to see what’s tied up at Canada Place today.