Need-a-vacation

8 minutes ago, Seacruise said:

To me it is a 300% increase that isn't needed or wanted.

I agree.  Seems like it would have made more sense to phase it in a few dollars at a time every few months over a year.  Boil the frog, if you will.

That's what makes me wonder if there's a different motivation behind the big price hike besides just making more money.  That's a big enough jump that many people won't just absorb it and keep buying like they have and they will find work arounds.

I remember several years ago on Carnival  it was really cheap to pre-order a case of water for your cabin.  The hypothesis then was they wanted people to stop bringing flats of water through embarkation because it was gumming up the works and they could manage their water inventory better by encouraging people to pre-order instead of just buying on board. And making it cheap slowed the revolt from passengers when they tried to limit how much people brought on board.

I can see where that approach may lead to a lot of waste.  I know we bought more than we needed "just in case", and had bottles left at the end of the week that we couldn't take with us since we were flying home.  Perhaps they realized they were throwing away a ton of unused bottles and want to cut down on the waste they have to discard? And they like to make money on what they sell! 

Perhaps a good compromise would be to sell fairly priced, but larger containers? People could have "bottled" water available in their rooms to pour themselves a glass or refill containers? When we bought water on NCL last year, it came in 1 liter cartons with a screw-top lid.  It was still expensive, but it was a manageable amount to drink in a day, but they weren't as easy to just carry around in your hand or pocket. We did see plenty abandoned around the ship though!

Wow. I'm amazed at the robust response for such a simple thing.  I'm definitely not worried or annoyed about it, although it did prompt me to double check that I didn't have a senior moment and register the wrong date in my head! 

I totally agree that it's a super low priority issue.  And I have no expectations of princess spending any effort to fix it.  It's just a curiosity.

As a data and reporting geek, it does present an interesting question of exactly how would one write up the requirements for this feature? What would most users expect to see? I am painfully aware the date math is stupidly obnoxious, and adding the time component and timezones (especially DST) to it makes it totally nuts.

12 hours ago, julia said:

Yes, this is true, but I did not mind it for smaller transactions.  If I can afford to be in Vancouver, I can afford the .36 cent loss.

And thank you for pointing out this truth.  It's easy to get caught up in trying to optimize all the time, and lose sight of the big picture - that spending $15 USD for something that might have cost $10 USD if I did the exchange may not be worth the effort in the overall picture of life.  Pocket money for a soda or souvenir will probably not matter what exchange rate I get.

Thanks to everyone for such helpful information and insight.

I may have a few coins leftover from our last trip and that might be enough to at least buy a water or something on my way to the hotel if I need it. 

I plan to mostly use credit cards, but I want to have a little bit for small purchases.

If I have some leftover, will princess accept it onboard and apply it to my folio account?

I'm not stressing over it, just think it's kinda sad they can't accurately report how many days until embarkation.  Seeing the info from the old app kinda explains how it works.

@Palpablesubset6 fortunately it all worked fine in my laptop web browser when I logged in with the "personalize my cruise" link I got after booking, so I bought my plus package and printed my bag tags. 

I noticed that the app has the wrong number of days until embarkation. I wonder if it's got some date/time stupidity that's screwing with the sessions.

It's just kinda sad that such a big company can have such issues with such a critical part of the customer experience. 

Will it be this crappy on board?

I'ts 9/16, my cruise leaves on 9/25.  But the app says 8 days until embarkation.  It's said that all day, so it's not just a time zone thing.  Is that normal with Princess?

Grrrr... It seemed like the problem was fixed last week.  Of course, today I try to log in to buy my package and get the stupid errors again.  I can't even print my boarding passes from the app, although I was able to finish check in

I guess I'll try from the web site.

Thank you everyone for the input. 

As long as I can get through the airport and getting to my hotel near downtown without CAD, then I can figure out how to get a little bit. 

I did the ATM thing last time we passed through Vancouver because I thought we'd need it for bag storage fees at Amtrak.  It seems like it turned out to be a lot of extra headache (and schlepping around in the rain dragging our bags) and I don't think we needed it for the bags.  Although we seem to have none left, so we must have spent it somehow!

Will I need to acquire CAD for 48 hours in Vancouver? I would use my credit card for most purchases, but should I plan too need CAD for small purchases and tips (like for tour guides)?

Also, if I want to do laundry at my hotel, what will I need? 

Any recommendations on the least bad way to get CAD of I need that? 

Thanks!

3 hours ago, memoak said:

We have done this our last 2 cruises out of Canada Place and just walked through very quick

Is it possible to drop your bags earlier and then disappear for a few hours?

They've added a lounge singer in Crooners!  😀

@cruisepest thank you for digging that up. 

I'm not sure if I paid a single supplement. I booked a room as 1 guest.  I paid more than I would have paid per person sharing the room, but there is no line item specifying a single supplement.  I'm pretty sure I didn't pay double. 

39 minutes ago, dog said:

Can you call your TA to help?

I don't think I  have one.  I booked through princess - might have even just been through chat!

So in theory, this 4 day cruise could jump me from barely gold (1 cruise) to platinum, totally skipping Ruby?  I don't think I paid a full double fare.

So is it the norm to get 2 credits for a solo booking, and this promo doubles it?

Can someone explain this promotion and how to get it? I'm booked solo in 2 weeks.

Something's wonky.  I was initially able to log in from computer and see my trip and offers to upgrade for my trip.  Then I started getting errors in the "manage my reservations" areas. 

So then I went to search cruises and I'd get results, but prices were all unavailable.  Once I logged out, the prices showed up. 

I guess princess doesn't like me? 😳

I attempted to get help through chat. That was minimally useful and a story of it's own.  It worked for about 8 seconds when I logged out and in, and then I started getting the message again.   I'm going to try some more stuff later tonight, like using phone browser, logging out and closing app before logging back in, reinstalling the app, using computer browser, etc. 

I also wonder if it's cookie settings -- when I logged back in to the app, it asked me for cookie approvals and I rejected everything that wasn't marked as required.

It's 12 days until my departure.  When I log in to the princess App and go to the "Packages" button, I get a message that there was an error processing my request. Is this just because it's so close, or do I need to do more digging?  I get the same thing with the "Spa" button.  But it looks like I could make reservations for the dining room.

@lx200gps my apologies. I got different posts mixed up.  There was an earlier question about LGB.

I've only gone from San Pedro to LAX once before and that was forever ago. I don't remember much on details, I just remember it being a mess at LAX because they had evacuated the terminal earlier and were re-screening everyone. 🙄

Thanks so for the reassurance.  I'm not worried about planning a detail daily itinerary at this point.  I was more worried that the DJ was going to be the only thing happening!

I noticed there are now some entries for the ship schedule for my cruise in 2 weeks, but it's just a DJ on deck. Is this really going to be the only activity, or do they add a lot of the activities when it's closer to the cruise?

I have booked a 10:50 departure from LGB in a couple weeks.  I'll try to remember to check in with how it goes. 

A couple factors that led me to try this: 

1. My cruise is coming straight from Canada and immigration is done at boarding. This should limit that potential delay. 

2. We are only ship in port that day.

3. Flying Southwest - a bit more forgiving with changes

4. There are many later flights, including 2 direct flights that should be no problem

5. I upgraded to the "wanna get away plus" fare, which includes free same day changes with a confirmed seat.

6. I have global entry, which should hopefully get me through security faster.