caribill

Since the reserved area is only for production shows, most nights I would not expect any reserved seating. If not available on the production show evenings, then Princess sold something they could not deliver.

Don't know. I was giving an example, not actually trying to make a booking at the moment. I do have a booking in another type cabin at the entry level and it is a GTY and I believe at the time I made the booking there were available cabins in that category level. But my TA said only GTY was able to be booked.

The problem is that they are making all cabins in the entry level for each category only GTY. If I want to pick, for example, E121 on the Emerald Princess, an obstructed view oceanview cabin that has a good view, I am not able to do so because the entire category is reserved for Let Princess Select Your Cabin. There is just no way to book the cabin I want if that is the cabin I want. This lower price option means I cannot get the cabin I want in that category. Not at a lower price. Not at a higher price. Not at any price.

I was not clear in my question. You say there are plenty of open cabins but also said on new releases you could not find them. So how do you find there are plenty of open cabins if you could not find them with a normal Princess search for 2-occupant cabins?

Where have you searched to locate the open cabins that were designed for only two occupants?

When you get that response the number of available 2-person cabins is zero so you are offered the opportunity to book the GTY. Princess will accept a certain number of GTYs for the category and level and if that number is filled, the category/level will be marked "sold out." So Princess is not playing a trick by not allowing you to select a specific 2-person cabin. None is available at that moment. As you point out, cabins at that category/level may be available for 3 or 4 people, but that is not what you searched for.

They can do that even if you selected a cabin and managed to have it marked no upgrade.

I would not exactly call it a charge for picking your own cabin. What Princess has done is take the entry level cabin for each type cabin (inside, oceanview, balcony,etc.) and made it unavailable for selecting a cabin. However the next high category of that cabin is available for selecting a cabin and sometimes also as a GTY which is essentially the same as Princess selects your cabin. Example: Entry level Balcony cabin BF can only be booked with Princess selecting a cabin and with the deposit non-refundable. But Balcony cabins BE. BD, BC, BB and BA can be booked with the ability to select a cabin and often with the ability to just make it a GTY booking, all with a refundable deposit. So what has basically changed is that it you want to select a cabin, your must not book the entry level cabin. What I do not know is whether the price difference between the entry level cabin (example BF) and the next level (example BE) is about the same as it was previously or if Princess has made the difference greater, either by giving a bigger discount for the entry level cabin or by raising the prices for the higher level cabins. I am not saying that I like this new policy (and definitely not defending it), especially the non-refundable deposit aspect of it as that means even if you wanted to switch to a lower priced new promotion or even switch to a higher priced cabin category, you would lose your deposit on the original booking.

And everyone gets the opportunity to order a beverage and never have it delivered.

Many vegetarians are not vegan and thus will consume animal products such as milk, eggs, butter, but not consume the animal itself such as pork, beef, fish. If a vegetarian wants to eat at the Crown Grill, I suggest going there in advance and speak to the headwaiter about what vegetarian alternatives they can prepare that would make the cover charge seem worthwhile.

But it is not direct to the gangway. You still have to go through security at the terminal. Even if this is faster, it is misleading to say it is direct from the off site to the gangway.

Not totally "yes." For example, if you successfully bid into a full suite from a lower type cabin, you will not get the double Captain's Circle cruise credit.

A new sale does not mean the price is better than the previous sale. The % off will be against a list price, not off a previous sale price. Just like at the grocery store. Carrots, let's say normally cost $1,50, may be at a sale price of $1.25 this week when last week's sale had a price of $1.09. Still a sale, just not as good a sale.

Of course. Definitely not the Director of Crew Appreciation. Or the person who pilots the water shuttle.

And is the only caffeine free diet soda in cans or any other way.

And HAL and Princess both report to the same person.

I assume you are living in Europe. Just contact your Europe located Princess office and book over the phone.

Correct. But if you are on a B2B and reach the next level by the end of the first segment, then the second level should be at the new level even if the B2B was booked as a single cruise. If this is your situation, check with the Captain;s Circle rep during the first segment to make him.her aware of what your status should be on the 2nd segment.

See my addition above in red. You can reach the next level based on days or credits.

When I have priced my B2Bs as two bookings vs. one, there is usually just a small difference between the two methods. And in the accounting system, the additional price of the Plus and Premier packages counts towards on board revenue. So if Princess meets its goal of 75% of passengers with one of those packages, they have already made a profit from the on board spending I hope not. Newcomers to cruising should not be suckered into paying for overpriced "art" that is often a computer printout (giclee). Posters on Cruise Critic have said they are no longer available on board. Not known is if they have a supply problem or just do not want to sell them anymore. A recent post on Cruise Critic says ship models were not available on his cruise.

Most OBC that exists before a cruise can be used to book Princess excursions. Note that the cost for each person's excursions will come from that person's OBC, so if most or all of the OBC is in one person's name (such as stockholder OBC would be), excursions booked for the other person may not have enough OBC available. If that applies to your OBC, you can call Princess to book the excursions and ask that the cost comes from one person's account. Some types of OBC cannot be used in advance of the cruise for excursions. Examples are OBC given by Princess as compensation for a previous problem and also OBC that people gift to you..

If they can keep track of 2 fancy desserts a day (with the complications of 0 for those who paid less than $60 for the Plus package and unlimited for those who purchased the Premier package) as well as two fitness cruises per cruise, then it is not hard to keep track of 15 specialty coffees per cruise. It is not the passenger's problem that waitstaff are not trained to know the difference between the various packages sold. Even with the elimination of the coffee package, they still have the plus package, the premier package and the non-alcohol package with their differences. We already know that the waiters rarely use the E-pads to take orders. They write down cabin numbers and then enter that information into the ordering computer at the bar. One result of that is incorrect cabin numbers are entered which seems to happen often based on posts on Cruise Critic by people who have to go to customer service to have erroneous charges removed. And often when a non-alcohol beverage is involved, staff do not even check if the passenger has any package at all as that takes time. After all, with Princess expecting 75% or more passengers to have one of the three beverage packages, it means the staff has to check 100% of the orders to find less than 25% of orders that need to have a charge made. (I say less than 25% because the average passenger without any package probably orders fewer non-alcohol beverages than the average passenger with a package does. I remember one time on a recent cruise where four or five people came to a bar at the same time to get some bottled water. The server just quickly handed out the number of bottles each person asked for. There was no checking each person's package status on the bar's computer. Probably all four or five people had a package, but maybe one or more did not. It was not worth the busy server's time to check each person's package status. And there have been posts on Cruise Critic by people without a package requesting soda at a bar and just being handed one with no checking for package status.

The best customers are those that come back again and again because they like the product. Or many of their best customers will be cruising on other cruise lines. Yes, there may be cutbacks on the other cruise lines also, but the more the Princess product is like the competition, the more the reason to consider the competition for a cruise.

Yes, that is why we pay thousands of dollars to cruise to exotic locations around the world. So we can spend shore time inside a local Internet cafe to access the Internet.

Agree. The value of the free Internet minutes on a 7 day cruise was about 50 cents/minute or $75.00.