On 3/17/2021 at 5:13 AM, Lauraa88 said:

Hi all,

 

We’re currently expecting and are considering booking a cruise with Princess for when our little one will be approx 1 year old. 
 

I was wondering if anyone can share any experiences of cruising with a baby? 
 

We’ve been on lots of cruises with Princess so aren’t new to cruising. I’m aware other cruise lines might be more ‘child friendly’. But like everyone we‘ve got a lot of cruise credit to use up 😂. 

 

Thanks in advance! 
 

Laura 

We did a 10 day Halloween cruise from Brooklyn, NY to Fort Lauderdale, Fl a few years ago with our daughter, son in law, his unmarried sister with their three kids ages 5, 4, and 2 1/12

We had mini suites on Princess and it worked out well. The two boys spent the day in the kids club. Our 2 1/2 year old granddaughter could not be left alone in the kids club. Everyone had a wonderful time and the kids loved the cruise. When it was bedtime we had plenty of options on who was going to get them into bed. Our granddaughter was in a bed for the first time. One night she rolled out on to pillows placed on the floor and never woke up. She slept the entire night on the floor.

My advice is take the grandparents. Hopefully they will offer to pay. Otherwise ask a close friend.

Good luck

23 hours ago, deliver42 said:

At this point, I'd sail with just a bed in the room. Not even a TV

This past Monday we took our first cruise since the pandemic began. Well actually it was a one hour ferry ride from Highlands , New Jersey to Manhattan for a Dr appointment. There was no dining room, no all you can eat buffet, no shows but they did have coffee for sale which happened to be very good.

The sun rising on a clear 50 degree NJ shining on the lower Manhattan buildings was beautiful.

The ferry takes you past the Statue of Liberty, under the Verrazano, Brooklyn, Williamsburg, and Manhattan Bridges. The first stop is the Battery in lower Manhattan near Wall Street. The second stop is 35th Street and the FDR Drive one block from NYU Langone Medical Center.  If one has to travel to a hospital forget an ambulance. Take a ferry instead.

The New York harbor is very impressive.

On the return there are many seafood restaurants at the Highlands on the Jersey Shore.

The wearing of masks is required.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/y05Xw2f.jpg[/img]

No! We do not expect to resume any cruises until 2022 or 2023

Princess Cruises cancels sailings until mid-December because of the pandemic

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/princess-cruises-cancels-sailings-december-pandemic/index.html

This will most likely be extended well into 2021

Every day that goes by with no national policy on shutting down the US until the falling transmission rate meets the 14 day CDC guidelines means this pandemic will continue out of control and no one will be cruising anytime soon.

No other country will allow Americans to visit until the pandemic is under control.

No need to start packing perhaps not until 2022?

Howard

We currently have three Princess cruises booked in March, August, and December 2021.

At this time I do not believe any of them will sail and all will be cancelled?

I do not believe cruising will resume until the pandemic is resolved in the United States as well as other parts of the world.

Presently US  citizens are barred from entering most or all European countries, Canada, the Bahamas, and others.

Malls, Bars, Restaurants, and many stores are closed and even if they were to open many would still not enter so who would want to be confined to a cruise ship even if it didn't stop at any ports?

We generally sail out of Ft. Lauderdale. Florida currently has a very high infection and death rate from the Corona Virus so who would want to go there anytime soon?

It is currently not safe to travel anywhere or send children back to school so I think we all former cruisers will just have to sit tight, save our money and perhaps we can afford the Suite prices when cruising resumes in a few years?

If we all live that long!

Cheers

Howard

On 7/10/2020 at 5:47 PM, paradiselivin1 said:

Hard to anticipate how they're going to successfully launch from Florida for a long time to come if we can't get our number of cases to diminish. FL is the #1 hotspot in the world; especially Miami/Dade...Hanging on by a thread hoping for the best for the 2021 WC leaving FLL in early January but thinking that's just a dream that's going up in smoke..

Agree! Although we currently have FCC deposits on three cruises in 2021 based on what currently is going on I doubt we will sail on any of them. I think 2022 is a more realistic possibility?

Howard

5 minutes ago, 1965 said:

We toured with Trafalgar. Nothing but praise for them. 

We used

https://israeltour.com/israel-tours/

Excellent tour

For many years Jewish teenagers could go to Israel free under the "birthright" program.

This program now includes adults if you have never been to Israel.

We visited Israel for two weeks in 2015 on a tour with our temple and felt perfectly safe.

Our tour included dinner with Israel troops at an Israel Army base.

The twenty something base commander told us that we were safer in Israel than we were back hone in the US

Our tour bus made a stop near the Syrian border and we could see the lights of a nearby village in Syria.

Strongly recommend taking a tour as there is so much history there.

We had a great time and if taking a trip outside the US that is the one safe place to go.

Howard

Olden Norway

Falkland Islands. South American Cruise 2019

7 hours ago, dog said:

File a dispute with your credit card 

Exactly!

I posted in detail on another thread how quickly we received our refund for two cabins and two tours on my Princess Visa card on the cancelled
Sky Princess April 4th 2020 cruise.

I have read plenty of complaints regarding the Barclays Princess Visa Card but as far as receiving my refunds they did an outstanding job.

Others who used different credit cards complained about having to provide much documentation.

My Princess Visa Credit Card only showed Princess Cruises charges and nothing else was required to process my refunds.

Getting some additional points or other promised benefits form other cards is just not worth the hassle when stuff like this happens.

I'm sticking with my Barclays Princess Visa Card for any future cruises.

Howard

Chef's table

I sign up on every cruise.

Well worth the money.

Howard

Yes! Apr 4th Sky Princess

1 hour ago, tinkerbell83 said:

I never post, but these boards have been a huge help with the cruises we have taken so wanted to share.  We were set to sail April 4th on Sky and submitted our option 2 request March 12th.  The full refund showed up on our credit card yesterday.  We received our FCC a few weeks ago.  I hope this means full refunds are coming for others. 

We were booked on the same cruise and I received the refund on the two cabins and the two tours we had booked for our grandchildren last week on my credit card and back in my checking account this past Monday.

So happy!

Howard

I believe passengers will no longer be allowed to touch food in a future buffet. Food will be served to you .

We usually eat most or all our meals in the dining room.

Howard

3 hours ago, azzure said:

Hello - I had booked my first ever Princess Cruise (Alaska, May 23rd) last December.  Princess canceled the cruise, of course, and sent me a refund request receipt on April 14th.  I had booked through Costco travel and they, likewise, sent me a cancellation confirmation on April 17th.  I haven't done anything more, except this morning I called Costco Travel and the recorded message said refunds may take up to 90 days.  Cruise was paid for with Costco Citi card.  Should I do anything else, or just be patient?  Does the 90 days start the date of the canceled cruise, or the date of the cancellation itself?  Thanks.

If you paid for a cruise that Princess cancelled by a credit card you should contact customer service of that Costco Citi Card and request a charge back for the amount that you paid.

On 5/16/2020 at 1:41 PM, oceanlovinmama said:

Cruiselines have been doing the best they can.  They didn’t realize that they would be shut down for so long and the amount of refunds requested.  Most of their employees are working from home and because of the levels of security that need to be in place to deal with credit cards, most cruise lines have a skeleton crew.  Now with the country opening back up that will change.  BUT when you work with an agent and do a chargeback, the cruise line can come back to the agent for that payment and any commission that was given to that agent, that was protected because the cruise line cancelled, Will now be recalled.  We work on commission only, and that money comes AFTER you travel.  We have had no income for the past two months and probably won’t for the rest of the year, now we have to give Our commission back AND possibly be on the hook for thousands of dollars we don’t have.  Please think about your agent!

Works in a similar manner when you return an item to Nordstrom.  The sales person that earned a commission when the sale was made then loses that commission.

Do you keep clothes that do not properly fit or that you decided you no longer want?

Yes I received a full refund for the two cabins booked on the April 4th Sky Princess as well as the two tours that we had previously paid for on my Princess Visa Card last December. Shortly after Princess cancelled our cruise we spoke to Princess and chose option 2. The FCC showed up in my personalizer not long after.

A call to Princess Visa customer service initiating a couple of case numbers resulted in refunds of a couple of thousand dollars.

It is not a difficult process people!

Do not assume your refunds are coming in a timely manner with little or no effort on your part.

1- Contact Princess

2- Contact your credit card company

Enjoy your refund

Howard

17 hours ago, nho9504 said:

 

 

Good question.  But you failed to read the hint on why that mentioned in my post - that why has been explained 2 months ago in the upthread. 

 

Go back to the beginning of this thread, I have explained more than once, that I  paid for this cruise with our Chase Ultimate Reward points - that gives me 33% discount on the total money paid - from cruise to taxes to any extras to air paid thru Princess. 

 

To give you some educational background -

 

The booking agency Chase used is called Loyalty Travel which is under Connexions, a company handles Chase, Citi, US Bank and may be Capital One banks reward travel booking using the banks reward program.  You can easily search Connexion on google and learn something if you so inclined.

 

The guaranteed value of Chase Ultimate Reward point when redeemed as Statement Credit or Direct Deposit to a bank account is $0.01 to one point.

 

With Chase Sapphire Reserve card which I believe several posters have mentioned they used said card to pay for their cruises - the card earns 3% rebate on travel related charges fwiw.  We have more than enough points in our account to pay for a few cruises.  Hence we chose to use points instead of using out of pocket $ - that is how rewards are for, right?

 

Chase Sapphire Reserve benefits incl booking travel thru Chase Ultimate Reward program, would get a 1.5 x value instead of a 1 x value.  Chase Sapphire Preferred card and 2 Chase Ink business cards would get a 1.25 x value.  just fyi.

 

To illustrate,  for a $5000 worth of travel booking payment,  when booked thru Ultimate Reward program,  it would only cost me $3333, or 33,333 pts.   Got that? 

 

We opted to pay 100% of the booking by points which again, equaled to 66% of the $ paid to Princess.  Until Princess refunds to Loyalty Travel, it could not refund the points back to our account.

 

This is not our first time to book trips using our UR points. 

 

Last Spring we sailed a Celebrity Trans Pacific cruise from Tokyo to Vancouver entirely on the Chase Ultimate Reward points as an example.

 

Whenever the lodgings we needed are independent properties, not chain hotels, we use our Chase Ultimate Reward points to book, IF the lodging we want, is available on Chase platform which is operated by Expedia Corporate Travel, except Cruises which is operated by Connexions because Expedia lacks the expertise to handle cruises while Chase wants to keep its program competitive and cruise booking with UR pts is a big part of the travel reward program.

 

For this booking we only needed the cruise nothing else.  It is a Sky Trans Atlantic.  Our return flight after spending 3 weeks in Europe post cruise, was booked with Aeroolan miles (those of you Canadians should be familiar with this as Aeroplan has the most competitive chart for flight between Europe and North America), on Star Alliance flight in business class.

 

Aeroplan announced they would WAIVED award cancellation fee if canceled online before Mar 30, regardless when the award travel happened.  Later they extended that period thru May.  I went online to cancel our booking on Mar 16.  Miles deposited back to my account while I was still on the last screen of cancellation!  The taxes paid for this itinerary were refunded to my credit card in 2 days.  I did lose on exchange rate because CAD had fallen 10% during that several weeks between Feb and Mid March. 

 

That is HOW a credit card payment refund should be made - ALL AUTOMATICALLY, going back to the original form of payment WITHOUT the need of human intervention.

 

If I were to pay the same equivalent amount, you bet I would use a credit card, and an AMEX no less because AMEX still provides the best customer services.  No need to deal with overseas call centers for the most part.

 

In fact we have 2 of the $100/$500 "world leading cruises" AMEX offers in the AMEX cards we hold but the saving of $200 when paying with AMEX, PALED with the saving achieved when booking with Chase Ultimate Reward points.

 

We will see if CCL would stay afloat.  With Micky's connections, he should be able to get enough infusion of new capitals to keep the company in business.  Even NCL would, with its shadow owner of the big Malaysian wealthy family.  That does not prevent them to keep crying foul on how they are "fighting for their survivals".

 

Meanwhile, even though people who filed disputes would further delay the refunds sent to those who kept waiting, I would still encourage everyone who paid with a CC to file a dispute - that is the surest way to get your OWN money back.  It is your OWN money, and I dont see why you have to lend Princess an interest free loan for many months while getting ZERO communication plus being lied to every time you try to find out some info.

 

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Your detail taught me some things about using points to their fullest that I did not know. I have learned many new things from others on cruise critic because they have seen lots of new things.

12 hours ago, cristine said:

Howard 

Our final payment was due and paid in Dec. for a April 4th cruise.

Princess cancelled our cruises in March ...60 days had already passed since making payment am I correct in assuming by your post that Barclays Princess VISA CC 

waived the 60 day requirement to make a claim...?

Thanks 
Christine
 

 

 

Christine

I believe that is in fact the case.

Cruise lines require final payment 75 days in advance of your cruise date and tours for that particular cruise are being offered well in advance of the final payment date and many fill up quickly and are charged to ones credit card when booked. In our case that was in December 2019.

By using my Princess Visa card to pay for everything Princess related, and the fact that Princess cancelled the cruise I don't think Barclays is strickly enforcing the 60 day rule? I think all credit cards are required to send out the fine print on the terms of use of their cards which most people don't read and throw out as we do so I'm  not exactly sure what paragraph in that long document applies when a cruise is cancelled by the cruise line but here is the bottom line.

Open a dispute with your credit card company as soon as possible and most likely you will receive a refund.

Sorry for my long winded response but hey, I'm not going anywhere any time soon.

Good luck

Howard

I posted my refund experience in another thread but I'll repeat it here.

We were booked on the Sky Princess for our April 4th cruise out of Fort Lauderdale with our three grandkids. We booked two cabins with two different booking numbers. We also took out a travel policy with Allianz for the grandkids. We have a separate annual travel policy with Allianz

We booked and paid for two travel excursions in December 2019 and made final payment for the two bookings in early February 2020.

Princess cancelled our cruise in early March.

We chose option 2 and that showed up in our personalizer in a couple of weeks.

We had spoken with a Princess Customer Service Rep shortly after Princess cancelled our cruise in March inquiring about the refund of the cruise fare for the two cabins. She told us it could take up to 60 days for the refund.

Everything is paid for on my Barclays Princess Visa card

Knowing that most credit cards require any disputes be filed within 60 days, I initiated a credit card dispute of all my Princess charges first over the telephone receiving two case numbers and following up in writing on their web site.

On Friday I received all of the funds back on my Princess Visa Card and now have a very substantial credit.

Very happy

For those that think that they are just going to receive their money back automatically from Princess without filing a credit card dispute you may be waiting a long time or forever.

Hope this helps

Howard

40 minutes ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

No worries.  And I didn't and don't mean to antagonize you with it, it's just that my mind was/is not at ease at why you would thank Princess for the refund, and in fact, not even thank Barclays or Visa in the process.

 

It would be like a fireman risking his life running into your burning house while trapped and getting you out alive.  Outside, there are many onlookers, among them a police officer doing nothing but staring at the fire.  And upon gathering yourself, you turn to the police officer, hug him, and say "Thank You!" while completely ignoring the fireman...

 

...and to complete the analogy for total accuracy, it was the police officer who burned down your house when he flicked his still-lit nicotine stick onto a pile of dried raked leaves on your front lawn while he was out for a walk earlier.

 

 

Thanks for the laugh and you did not antagonize me. We all have too much free time on our hands and I've been wondering how much longer it will take for the complaints to resort back to the missing barrel chairs and deck chair hogs instead of missing refunds?

2 hours ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

With all due respect, you didn't make anything clear in that first post nor was their any semblance of a "how to" message in your first post declaring your "refund".  You didn't mention anything about a CC dispute nor even make any suggestion whatsoever. 

 

 

You are correct! My bad!

I added more detail in a subsequent post.

After reading so many posts of people not receiving refunds, my initial post was only that I received my refunds on my Princess Visa card after first notifying Princess that we chose option 2 shortly after Princess cancelled our April 4th Sky Princess cruise.

I have always been aware of a 60 day time limit to dispute a credit card charge and contacted Princess Visa customer service to open two case numbers for our two booking numbers and followed up in writing by contacting them on their web site giving them the two case numbers and also requesting the two tours that we also previously paid for on my credit card with the dates in 2019 of all the related charges.

Again sorry for the misleading initial post regarding my refund

Howard

3 hours ago, LDVinNC said:

Do you think anyone at Princess is monitoring the forums these days?  Surely they must be getting nervous to see all the folks - many Princess loyalists - who are appalled at the way this refund process is going, or should I say not going.

 

It makes no sense to me that they are dragging their feet and not providing ANY refunds to speak of.  They are in danger of losing their most valuable customers.

 

The only thing I can think of is that they do not care because they do not intend to resume sailing.

I am sure that Princess most definitely monitors all social media.

Prior to retiring from the large call center where I managed the telecommunications , there was a large room with restricted access with many large monitors along the walls where those employees monitored many social media platforms for both negative and positive postings of the company where I worked.

Our local NJ newspaper has a bamboozled column that runs a few times a week and most local TV news programs such as 7 on your side assist consumers. Often higher management is unaware of decisions made by lower level employees and step up to correct problems.

I have no problem with Princess and will eventually sail with them again perhaps not this year but perhaps in 2021 or 2022?

11 hours ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

hm9912, why did you feel the need to "thank" Princess in your first post declaring a "refund"? 

 

I don't at all see what there is to thank them for. 

I thanked Princess because when we first contacted Princess shortly after our April 4th cruise on the Sky Princess was cancelled, the rep that took our call asked for our booking numbers and was extremely pleasant, helpful, and working from home.

I'm sorry that my thanking Princess caused so much confusion which indicated to me that many do not understand how the system works?

I tried to make it clear in my original post yesterday morning shortly after seeing the money refunded in my Princess Visa account on how to get the ball rolling for those that are just sitting at home thinking that the money that they paid for a cancelled cruise is just magically going to be refunded to them by Princess.

Maybe it will eventually but most credit card terms of use give one a 60 day window to initiate a dispute.

Sorry if my post was not clear.

I always thank all call center reps no matter what company I'm calling as I am well aware of the stress and low pay conditions that they work under. Every call is monitored, timed, and every keystroke is closely monitored. They need permission just to go to the bathroom.

It is a tough job and they should be appreciated for the job that they do.

For those that are angry their anger should be directed at our inept federal government that bears much of the responsibility for the mess our entire country is currently in.