caribill

We are on the Ruby later in December. Usually shore excursions are available 6 months or even more in advance. But when they suddenly scheduled the Ruby for sailing to and then from Galveston, nothing was in place for those voyages. So the answer for your cruise is "nobody knows" as Princess has not been speedy in setting up excursions for some of those voyages.

Whatever the policy will be at the time you cruise, it will likely be the same from those who booked this as a single cruise of as a B2B two cruises.

Could you please tell some more about how USA Global Entry status could be used at Heathrow?

I interpret what the OP posted as saying he/she has booked a package tour that includes time in Las Vegas, the Princess cruise, and the bus from Las Vegas to the ship. So flying or any other means of getting to the ship would be replacing transportation that already is included in the tour package. By the way, if it truly is a six hour bus ride from Vegas hotel to the ship, that would be quicker than flying which involves getting to the airport early and then also, after claiming luggage, getting from the airport to the ship.

Because Princess policy is only to refund $25 or less in cash on board. Of what you are owed is more than $25, it must be a mailed check.

I would say to might know. I often receive junk mail which on the outside mentions the name of a company which on the inside has no relation at all to the company named on the outside.

It should be refundable OBC.

Quite different. When the roulette wheel stops spinning you have either won $$$ or lost $$$. When you submit a price for an upgrade, you either win and get the upgrade or lose and have not lost any $$$.

Except, if Princess does it like the other cruise lines do, you do not bid on a specific cabin.

Not my experience. I have had a number of free upgrades that were to a different type cabin including inside to ocean view to balcony (in two steps), from inside to oceanview, and from oceanview to balcony. All of these were before Princess started to sell upgrades.

I have seen auctions where, for example, the winning bid for a $100 gift card was above $110. I can easily see where with a Princess auction the final winning bid could be above what the cabin originally was priced at. When people are just bidding on the difference in price from what they have to what they want, they may not realize what the real total price is compared to if they had bought that higher category cabin in the first place.

Based on posts on Cruise Critic: With the upsell, if you responded that you were interested you would be called by Princess and could discuss what cabins would be available and sometimes even ask for an even higher category cabin at the original upsell price. When the call ended, you either had a specific cabin you were happy to get or had turned down the offer. But with the bidding, you bid on a category and if the bid is accepted, you are charged for the amount of your bid and then find out what cabin you have "won" in the auction. Don't like the result? Well you already paid for it. I do not know if you will be bidding on a type of cabin (example: Deluxe Balcony) or a category within the type (example: DB, which has cabins both mid-ship and far forward). Either way, you are bidding on an unknown location.

Once again Princess would rather be like the competition than be unique and give out free upgrades as in the past. The more Princess becomes like the other cruise lines, the less reason there is to make Princess the first choice for a cruise.

In the "good old days" Princess would dole out free upgrades, usually because they could resell the cabin you had easier than selling the cabin you were being upgraded to. Then Princess discovered that a significant number of passengers were open to an invitation to pay for an upgrade instead of waiting for the possibility of a free one. The result, more income to Princess and less free upgrades. This new "auction" process takes it to a higher level. Instead of Princess suggesting an upgrade price, let booked passengers bid for the upgrade. There have been many posts by people asking how to ask to pay for an upgrade, so Princess is really responding to consumer demand to pay more for what used to be free. I do not know the details (such as how soon do you know if your bid is accepted or if your bid is too low, will you be notified so you have the opportunity to bid more), but in regular auctions, people will often keep raising bids until the final price is more than the auctioned item is worth. From a financial viewpoint this could be advantageous to Princess. Instead of having a number of higher category cabins unsold as embarkation day approaches and having to deep discount them, Princess has people bidding to pay more to upgrade to them. Then Princess can market the lower category cabins which might be easier to sell to last minute passengers than the more expensive cabins. But, to repeat, Princess has figured out a way to give out even less free upgrades. And many customers are happy for this to happen.

There is a thread by someone who was on a cruise when this was filmed. The posts include a photo of the winners.

If you can see the new cruise on the Princess web site, then you should also be able to see that the drink package is there. You should also be able to see the new booking number.

I suspect they will need mattresses from somewhere for the next new ship.

So, what will Princess buy now for mattresses?

If it is on the same ship leaving arriving and leaving the same day, Vancouver would not be considered a disembarkation point if you stayed on the same ship for the next segment. PVSA is all about what port your entire cruise started and what port your entire cruise ended. Intermediate turnaround ports during the cruise do not matter.

Unfortunately you are not the only person this has happened to as there have been posts in the past by others that had the same experience. However, if I remember correctly, their cancellations were soon after final payment date, not very close to embarkation as what happened to you. I hope you get your excursions back and have a great "free" cruise.

There have been a number of posts on Cruise Critic that say they do not mind increased prices and discontinued amenities since Princess needs the money. Spending $$$ to sponsor a race car proves they do not. How many people do you think will now book a Princess cruise because they saw a car with the Princess sea witch logo go round and round on a race track?

The problem is that the official Canadian web site has different requirements on different pages. One page says what you indicated if you "arrive by sea". Another page says that if you "arrive by cruise ship" the testing is still required.

Did you have to show proof of being vaxxed?

All cruise lines have been dealing with this, but, for example, CCL announced that once the Covid testing rules were relaxed bookings for the rest of this year have skyrocketed. So either CCL is able to staff their ships somehow or these sailings with more passengers than in the recent past will have problems with on board service.

When the front of the ship goes up, the aft goes down by the same amount. When the front goes down, the aft goes up by the same amount.