caribill

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.

No recent experience, but unless the ship is staying in the UK area for more cruises, the answer will be "no."

The kettles Princess puts in the cabin hace met the safety standards that Princess has set. Kettles that passengers might bring aboard may not meet those safety standards. It is easier to just forbid passengers from bringing kettles on board than inspecting every such kettle to reliably determine they are safe.

I have often been on a Princess cruise where 2/3rds of the passengers were platinum/elite. If Princess allowed equal status to those who have status with the other CCL brands, it could be almost everyone has high status and benefits that are diluted with more participants (priority tendering, return time for free laundry, special disembarkation lounge are examples) become almost meaningless.

Airline/hotel loyalty programs differ from cruise line loyalty programs in an important way. Airline/hotel loyalty programs are really designed with the business traveler in mind, people who take multiple trips a year, often multiple trips a month. The casual vacation traveler who may fly and use an airline/hotel a couple of times a year can participate in the programs, but will never have as many benefits as a business traveler. The cruise line loyalty programs do not expect members to cruise many times every year. Most cruisers may take a cruise once a year or once every two years. These programs are designed to entice the cruiser to consider the same cruise line from their next once-a-year cruise. Of course Cruise Critic posters are more likely to take more than one cruise a year. Some practically live on a ship for several months each year. Thus they will likely reach a high loyalty level much faster than the casual cruiser, And, as posts in this thread show, many CC posters have high loyalty status on multiple cruise lines.

Usually there is a post like the OP's every Sunday. Seems the weekend is a favorite time to implement changes.

Do you mean to fly in and be sure you actually make the cruise? If that is your question, yes. If we are not doing sightseeing in the embarkation city, we usually try to arrive the day before embarkation. If we are doing sightseeing before embarkation, the number of days before embarkation depends on how much sightseeing we want to do.

Boarding usually starts sometime between 11 and Noon. The 1 PM you mention is what Princess has said for many years and does not reflect reality and never has.

Probably a headache either way, but it needs to be fixed by Princess. Guest services may be able to get you your $10 back, but they will probably not have any influence on getting the problem fixed. However you get it done, I think it is worth the effort to speak with the Captain's Circle rep when on the cruise. Maybe he/she can put a word to the right place.

Another thread has said that when it comes time to ship the Medallion to a home, they check if the fee is waived due to having purchased a package and, if a package has been purchased, you are not actually charged for the shipping.

Ordering the Medallion is required to get to green status. Method of delivery (home or port) does not matter.

???