WAvoyager

On one of our cruises last year it was much cheaper booking for the full cruise - $179 I think. ($149 for a 7 day to Mexico) Its definitely worth the daily rate to me - but for the whole cruise, I planned to go at least 3-4 times, and ended up going twice. Next time I’ll just do it daily.

You’re making me feel so old, and I know I’m not! LOL! my first cruise was on the Costa Enrico C, in 1983. 🫣

It’s unfortunately important to keep all information regarding promos when booking with Princess. We once booked a comped cruise, which had some additional included items. There was some issue so they had to rebook the cruise. When rebooked, the extra comped items (part of the promo) were all missing. They had no record of the promo code associated with the offer, and required us to prove that they ever had such an offer. Fortunately we kept the original mailer, and were able to find it and provided the code for them. You would think that keeping track of the promos you offer directly to your customers would be a pretty basic thing to do, but…

Yeah - it’s similar to hotel rooms. Doesn’t really cost anything different if you’re in the inside or balcony room - they might as well get some extra money from you for the upgrade. hey - maybe you got Startedwithamouse’s original room! 😄

Where do these “free” wine tastings and canapés come from? I need to make sure I request mine on my next cruise! oh wait - I’m guessing they come “free” when you’ve paid for a nicer cabin or something…? everything has a cost - sometimes it’s just more obvious that you’re paying.

Yes, everything sounds normal. As others have noted, the charges all seem correct. What happens with the rate charged is that Princess ‘proper’ charges $$$ for the cruise. The Casino group collects the necessary $ from you for customer responsible charges. The remaining $$ is ‘paid’ to Princess by the Casino group. (There may not be any actual payment, but there is some financial accounting transaction which the Casino is responsible for). Once the casino takes care of their ‘payment’, the cruise is considered paid in full and is eligible for upgrade bidding. Please note : by upgrade, I mean the upgrade bidding process. If you requested an upgraded cabin, it doesn’t sound right that you had to wait. They’ve always been able to book an upgraded cabin from our offer at time of booking, within certain cabin categories. When we were offered interior room, we booked a balcony. Now that we’re offered a balcony, we always book a mini-suite, at the casino upgrade rate. They don’t allow upgrades to certain categories. This is the first I’ve heard of the Casino to Princess payment being made 10 days following your reservation. This process is notorious for the Casino waiting until the last minute to ‘pay’ the remaining balance, or past the last minute to where Princess cancels the reservation. But maybe it’s a new policy they’ve implemented recently. I was surprised that my upcoming trip was upgrade bidding eligible pretty early on, which indicates the cruise has been paid in full, so that aligns with what you were told. We’ve been on 5 casino comped cruises, and while there were a couple of hiccups, everything has worked out as expected, and we have a hard time considering paying for a cruise these days.

You’re correct - and from the sound of it, even if we do go on the Caribbean Princess, it’s likely I’ll never find out where it is! 😄

I can’t think of any reason it would be a problem. The issue with EZ Air is that it’s a modification to your Princess booking. If that isn’t done by a Casino agent, your booking may get messed up (since regular agents may not properly capture Casino booking specific details). Booking your flight with the airline has no impact on your Princess booking.

Guess I’ll need to plan some “in and out” time for our next cruise! 😁

I had the same issue for our 4/15 cruise. I just changed it to pick up at port. Doesn’t really slow down the process much - for us anyway. Overall times will get worse as I’m sure lots of people are having the issue.

It’s been reported that there’s a 15 minute delay between prize ‘drawings’ - so going right back out probably doesn’t do anything. My concern is we usually have our daughter with us, and she always wants to run up to the door first to see her name on the screen. Not sure if we’ll have to tell her she doesn’t get to do that, or if we’ll have to wait, exit the room, and go back in each time we go to our cabin! 🤪

It’s not included in Plus - only in Premier.

I only know where the gym is on the ships I’ve been on because you had to route through them to get to other things.

Yeah, but all of those extra calories are of course being offset by the new fitness classes, right? 🤣 I keep meaning to use the gym while we’re cruising, but….

We don’t really drink at home. We have gotten Plus comped the last couple of cruises. We both use the internet every day. But lots of bottled water and soda’s don’t really make up the extra $28/day. But on every cruise with Plus, my wife now ends up having 2-3 cocktails per day. And I have a whole new category of drinks to choose from throughout the day. Plus, I have a wife who is much more relaxed and happy throughout the trip. Financially, it’s pretty close for us, but comparing a cruise with and without Plus. It’s worth every $ we’d have to spend adding it on. And now, I know my daughter will enjoy a few desserts on the cruise. Heck, me too!

Us too. I do have to say though, that we thought the food was mostly disappointing. The buffet was very limited in selection and mostly mediocre, and the MDR food was nothing inspiring. There were definitely some good dishes, but a lot of “meh” food as well. Definitely a letdown from the Crown 6 months before the shutdown. We also ate at the Crown Grill and Sabatini’s. The Grill was surprisingly good (contrary to the reports we had read from others), and Sabatini’s, while not as good as pre-shutdown, was still enjoyable. All in all, the food wasn’t awful, but there was definitely a big change in the overall quality. I’m hoping it was challenges in the restart, and not an ongoing trend. The trip, even with the ships propulsion issues at the time, was still enjoyable. We’re hoping to see a return closer to the previous high standards when we board the Discovery next month.

Sorry to hear this. I hope it’s a mild case and you get better soon! Rest up!

I guess the NOTS has a REALLY late excursion?

I really wanted to bid on the forward facing club class mini - but then I realized there isn’t a fold out couch in that cabin class. The only time we can get our DD to sleep in her own bed is when we’re in a hotel or on the ship. No way I’m giving up that pull-out!

For Alaskan cruises, cruise lines have an arrangement with Alaska to open the casinos at a certain distance from the ports, and do not have to be as specific distance from the coast. I believe the actual implementation is an hour away from port, but I could be mistaken on that. As noted by others, this does not apply while in Glacier Bay (National park?), and also does not apply once you’re in Canadian waters, or approaching WA state.

Looks similar to the performance from last year. My wife had no problems - mainly surfing new articles for her work. I couldn’t use anything - mainly games, which get clobbered by high ping times. I was sick in bed for half the cruise, with no iPad entertainment. Bleh!

I don’t remember seeing one. I remember Carnival having one. But I could be mistaken about Princess. We always get our cruises comped by the casino, so never really look out for their promos. We were looking to book a Carnival cruise under one of the promotions, but even with the huge discounts the cost was $$$$.

Hopefully they’ve been dusting! 😁

Yup - was tying to figure out if they’ve done anything with the space yet. I would have to think that they’ve already sunk costs into developing the laser shooting and escape room experiences. During the pandemic, throwing more money at ships to get the hardware installed wasn’t feasible, but now that operations have fully resumed, it seems like this should be a quick way of adding an additional revenue stream to the ship.

Thanks - unfortunately that thread is a half a year old, and there was nothing open in the Discovery at that time. The escape room was in the Enchanted, and the poster was guessing it would be added to Discovery.