caribill

No, but those paying the new pricing could have the number of free desserts set to 2 and those with the old pricing have the number set to 0. If they can count how many alcohol drinks you have on a 24 hour period, they can easily add logic to count how many desserts are available for the booking.

If you do not see them, ask a buffet manager about them.

And what the contents in the description are is beverages priced up to $12.00. That has definitely not changed. What has changed is some beverages that used to be $12 or less now cost more than $12 and are no longer included without an extra charge. The Princess description does not specify any liquor or wine by brand name being included in the Plus package, just the price limit.

Definitely not a Princess spokesperson. A call to the UK Princess office should allow you to verify what you will be getting with your package.

Your price will not change. The former Premier Beverage Package that you booked has been renamed the Plus Beverage Package and it is the selections within the Plus Beverage Package at the time you cruise you will get without an additional charge.

It was first reported on Cruise Critic earlier this year. With 75% or more passengers having the Plus/Premier packages which include gratuities, that left less than 25% of passengers who had the daily crew appreciation fee on their accounts. And since Australians on Australia based cruises have the gratuity built into their cruise fare, that left even less passengers who had the daily charge. My theory is that with relatively few passengers who had the option of adjusting tips downward and would actually do so, Princess did not think it was worth all the time and effort to verify that every cash tip given to dining room staff and cabin stewards met the rules to keep these tips.

That also works when they do downgrades to what you have purchased. Those who booked the alcohol beverage package included when booking what is now called the Plus package only have the current included options, with a number of selection available before are now only available with the higher priced Premier package.

You may have to wait until you are on board to make the reservation, but if you have all 4 meals charged to your onboard account, I think that would work.

I agree. I think it is a major design flaw. Some people prefer shared tables for four or six [people which have faster dining times than tables for eight. Of course that was also true for Traditional dining. But with TD we have made some longtime friends that we met at our TD tables. It is one of the Princess ships that only has two MDRs and both were offered. That is our plan. Thanks.

You mean differentiate by cabin category for: o poor o very poor o extremely poor

To me a major problem is that actual cruisers were not involved in any design review.

It was available for some times, but not anywhere near the time we wanted. When I had tried to make the reservation with the Princess rep, she also said that shared was not available at the time we wanted. Thanks for that information.

Basically the Plus and Premier packages are designed for those people who in the past purchased the alcohol beverage package or would have purchased it if the price had been lower. Since the cost of the Plus package is significantly less than the alcohol beverage package is by itself, it is a no-brainer to purchase if you want the alcohol beverage package, even without considering the inclusion of tips and the "best Wi-Fi at sea."

Yes, 2 nights no matter how long the segment is. So if your 14 night cruise is just one segment (not a B2B), just 2. I am not sure what they do with the second segment if it is a B2b.

Special areas and privileges for those that book some expensive cabins. And it will spread to other ships. From the press release: Also launching exclusively on Sun Princess will be a new level of suite accommodations, the Signature Collection. In addition to premium stateroom amenities, Signature Collection suites include access to the Signature Restaurant, Signature Lounge, and Signature Sun Deck, a private area of the Sanctuary. With Sun Princess, Club Class accommodations onboard this ship, and all Princess ships will now be called Reserve Collection, which are the best-located mini suite staterooms. Within the Reserve Collection will be Reserve Collection Cabana rooms, resort-style staterooms that offer a balcony and private cabana, an extra-large outdoor lounge space. These premium accommodations also include access to the Reserve Collection Restaurant.

As many devices as you want, just one at a time.

Show up when you want as you do not need to pick an arrival time. If you do pick one, it does not matter either. But you cannot pick up your medallion until around 11 AM. And if you do not have elite status or in a full suite, you will not be among the first to board for that race to book the Sanctuary or a cabana.

This tee shirt is now acceptable at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, including dress-to-impress and formal nights.

History: Originally the main dining rooms were only traditional dining. You had the same waitstaff throughout the cruise as, of course, as the same cabin steward. At that time, cash in envelopes was the method of tipping. Then Anytime dining was introduced. those doing Anytime no longer had the same waitstaff every evening. That is when the daily service charge was added to shipboard accounts, so that dining room staff could be properly rewarded. With the current policy of sharing the gratuities with crew across the fleet, each passenger's contribution to their dining room staff and cabin steward could be just about a peney a person per day. You are no longer directly rewarding those who give you great service. Now that dining room staff and cabin stewards can keep any cash given directly to them, that is the only way to directly reward those who gave you great service in those areas. Otherwise, you have given them less than a dime for a 7 day cruise. (Of course you are also rewarding those on other ships with that less than a dime per crew member with the crew appreciation charge.)

And on the cruise lines that are the main competitors of Princess: RCI, Carnival, Celebrity, HAL.

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Apparently wearing your birthday suit is not allowed.

OK, the Medallion app has been around a while but not on any of my digital devices. It is not that I am a Luddite. We have a number of digital devices, all of which the powers that be decided that the App could not be used on. Some the App was not designed for and some had older operating systems than the App was compatible with. But recently we acquired new Android digital devices that the App can run on. But I still did not rush to install the App. Having read of all the trials and tribulations of the early adopters of the App, I wanted to wait until just before my next Princess cruise to download it so it would be as up-to-date and (hopefully) as bug free as possible. But two needs convinced me to bring the App into my life yesterday. We have a B2B booked (two booking numbers) for late spring and I wanted to purchase an Internet package and also set up the DMW dinner reservations for both segments. A Princess Internet package cannot be purchased through the Personalizer, so I tried to book it via phone at 1-800-Princess. However, booking it that way required paying full price now and getting the 50% off due to Captain's Circle status refunded as OBC 6 months from now. The rep even checked with a supervisor but was told paying full price now was the only option. Nope, not going to do that as on another thread someone posted they could used the App to book their Internet package and only pay the 50% rate. I also called Princess (separate call) to set up DMW dinner reservations for the two segments. Wanted to simply book a table to share at the same time in the same dining room for the 33 days. The helpful rep said she could do this, but had to book each night separately instead of with one request for each segment. Having read on Cruise Critic that the best chance to get the same waitstaff each night (and possibly the same table) was to do it with a single request, not by booking each evening separately. So I said thanks for her help, but not to proceed. So now it was finally time to grab the App by the horns or whatever one grabs it by in order to download it. It was easy to find in the App store and easy and quick to download. I signed in using the booking number for one of the segments instead of a user name and password as I was unsure if my Princess sign-in info would work with the App or if I needed to set up a different user name/password. (I still do not know that, so any voice of experience about that would be appreciated.) And then I was very surprised about how well the App worked for what I wanted. I easily and quickly found how to book the Internet package I wanted. Although I signed in with the booking number for the first segment, I was offered the ability to book the package for each segment with the Captain's Circle status 50% discount immediately applied. No need to give Princess a 6-month loan before getting 50% back as OBC. That accomplished (and verified using the Personalizer on a desktop PC), I moved on to using the DMW path to set up the dinner reservations. Again, easy to find on the App to do this and easy to do it with a single request instead of 33 individual requests like the phone rep wanted to do. In the past we almost always had Traditional dining. We like having the same shared table with the same dining companions that had been assigned to our table and the same waitstaff throughout a cruise. Also liked that Traditional dining took the guesswork out of picking a time to dine that would mesh well with Princess Theater show times. Also liked that after the organized chaos of the first evening, we could walk directly to out assigned table when the dining room doors were opened for our seating. (I realize that DMW makes no promises about having the same table, the same waitstaff or the same dining companions or even having a table available at your reserved time.) Anyway, another pleasant surprise. The App recognized we are on a B2B and allowed us to make a single request for all 33 evenings instead of doing it by segment. (The Internet package required it being booked for each segment separately.) Another surprise, and not a good one (which was not the fault of the App), is that the time I picked (in the hope that it would mesh with the showtimes) no longer had any tables to share available, only tables for just the two of us. For a 33 day voyage, we had hoped to be able to share a table with others. Also looking at times 20 minutes and 40 minutes both earlier and later than our selected time, shared tables were also not an available option. (Shared tables were available at some other times outside of when we wanted.) So, we then easily picked a dining room with an individual table for the entire cruise. (Six months before the cruise I am surprised that shared tables were not available in either dining room around the time we wanted. The ship is nowhere close at this time to being fully booked. Before DMW, people could request a table for 2, but because there were so few tables for 2, not everyone had their request satisfied. I am not sure how Princess now has a scarcity of tables to share but numerous tables for two available.) Having easily accomplished my two goals for using the App for the first time, I did one more thing, downloading the port guides for every port on the itinerary. I will really miss having the printed guides as they are a pain to read on a small screen. I hope somehow we can get them printed when on the cruise. So to summerize: o I easily downloaded the App. o I easily booked an Internet package for each segment with the appropriate discount. o I easily made a DMW reservation for the entire cruise I am thankful for the pioneer users of the App who struggled to make the App work for them. Thanks to them, it works (so far) pre-cruise for me.

Princess is making it a big deal by marketing it as a reason to pay the increased price of the package.

I did not see where it said you could do that for the Wi-Fi