caribill

People also report that they they can't get a reservation for a specialty restaurant. So by your logic, Princess should raise those prices also.

Including the crew who all call it the Patter.

The key word in your question is "require." Even "special" events such as a white night or other themed event do not require one to have special clothing to participate. If you want to dress specially for an event, fine. But if not, just as fine.

Sometimes it is better to book excursions before final payment: a) Popular excursions or those with limited spaces may be sold out by the time you make final payment. b) Often the cost of excursions increases as the time to embarkation gets closer.

Many who book the whole cruise may use it part of each day. Booking for AM and PM does not mean you have to actually be there 100% of the time you have paid for. For example, if you have booked it for an afternoon from 1-5 PM, you may just want to use it from 3-5 PM. If that is the case, it will appear to others at 2 PM that there are no-shows and can't understand why they cannot have that space that afternoon.

You can book (and pay for when booking) Princess shore excursions once they are set up for your cruise. Sometimes they are set up a year or more in advance and sometimes six or less months before the cruise. It does not matter when you make final payment for the cruise. If excursions are available at the time you initially book the cruise, you can reserve them at that time.

You can only book excursions for those in your booking number. Each cabin will have its own booking number. If you want to arrange all of the Princess excursions for your group, you can do so if you know all of the booking numbers. You will have to sign in with each booking number, make the reservation for that cabin, exit that booking and enter the next booking number. Charges for the excursions will go to whatever charge card has been set up for each booking number. If OBC is being used to pay part or all of the excursion costs, it can only be applied to the person in whose name an excursion is booked.

Are they in the dining rooms? Vines? elsewhere?

Since I have not yet taken the cruise and made any charges while in ports, there is no way to send in money in advance to cover what may come due before the cruise ends. Certainly not a problem with a short cruise, but when on a trip of a month or more, charges made during the trip can require payment before returning home.

What new sommelier? I have not seen a sommelier on Princess for years.

That is, as you indicated, one bottle per adult which can be consumed in your cabin with no corkage fee. All additional bottles per adult will have a corkage fee (now listed as $20) whether you consume it in your cabin or bring the bottle to a fining room.

Just call three times and you can get three different answers.

Like many other long time cruisers I often do not use cruise line excursions. Overall, my cruising history is about 1/3 cruise line excursions, 1/3 independent vendor excursions and 1/3 exploring on our own. Via Cruise Critic we have been able to have many excellent independent excursions and have never been disappointed with any of them. Yet there have been a number of Princess excursions that have been a very poor experience, usually due to the tour guide the Princess contractor hired. (If you want, I can give examples.) And although one can now get a 10% discount on Princess excursions, one can often save up to 50% with a private excursion that is equivalent or better, with a smaller group, and without a mandatory stop at a Princess or vendor favored shopping venue. Sometimes we actually pay more for a private excursion than what Princess charges because the private one is a significantly better experience. One example is whale watching in Juneau. When we did it with Princess, it was a very crowded boat and when a whale was spotted, it could only be seen by those on the correct side of the boat. But when we did it with a private vendor that charged more than Princess, there were only six people on the boat and all six could see every whale that was spotted.

I said benefits, I did not limit them to just being elite. a) Loyalty OBC b) Swapping minibar for coffee package equivalent (also a full suite benefit lost) c) And yes, the free minutes. Yes, I realize that it is impractical to have the system monitor minutes anymore. But, until the recent price increase, the cost of the unlimited Internet package was about the $$ value of the old free minutes. To give an equal benefit, it should be free to platinum/elite passengers. On an upcoming cruise, with the old minutes benefit we would have had a total of 1000 minutes, more than enough for our needs. Instead we now will need to pay $495 (with the platinum/elite discount) to have equivalent usage. You may think switching from free to paying $495 is a great benefit, but I do not.

Certainly many feel it is not in their best interest to pay for "crappy" Internet.

At one time platinum and elite passengers as well as full suite passengers had unlimited free minutes. So, yes, I would like to go back to when the benefits included that.

I do not ask for more perks (but would happily accept any meaningful ones), but I would like the ones they removed put back.

CCL Corp stock analysts presentation or Princess TA webinar, I do not remember which. They expect 50% to have Plus and 25% to have Premier. This was before the December price increases for the packages.

Some of the finest restaurants on land use coffee syrup. But like regular coffee in a grocery store, it comes in various quality choices. Rumor is that Princess does not purchase the highest quality coffee syrup.

Princess does not use instant. Posters have said that regular coffee on the Royal class ships is better than on the other ships. Were you on a Royal class ship last year?

Best I have found is 3% on all travel and also with 5% on gasoline. No foreign transaction charges.

To cover the annual fee of $450 or more, cards such as Aspire will be used by very frequent travelers, not the average person that takes a Princess cruise.

With Princess expecting 75% of cruisers to purchase the Plus or Primier package, many, many repeat Princess passengers are spending more than the minimum cruise fare.

How was the Internet reliability and speed on the TA return to Fort Lauderdale?

According to many who sail on Princess, the coffee served in the dining room or delivered by Room Service is not real coffee.