Don9992

15 minutes ago, susymahmud said:

The medallion app is one of the worst I have ever encountered! I have over 20+ years of experience working in IT and can tell the system is absolutely asinine. Spent over one hour trying to enter items via my phone, then moved to ipad then ultimately called customer service and was on hold for 30 minutes only to have them on the phone with me for over 1 hour simply to have my credit card entered to apply to all family members including my daughter who is in another room. Customer service is overseas, and they have no idea what they are doing.  Person on other line kept saying the system was going through an upgrade and that is why it wasn't working. I called him out and said I could hear his background that other folks were booking dinner reservations, excursions etc., so if there was an upgrade, they couldn't do their job either. He argued that I couldn't get the medallions delivered because they wouldn't arrive in time. Once again pointed out we are 60 days away from our cruise, this is my 10th cruise and that is absolutely not true. Miraculously he then said he fixed it, and they would be mailed. Now I only have one item pending on my daughter's reservation...what a surprise it is entering her credit card information which somehow was not updated from my original request. I then tried to select a dinner reservation at the steakhouse. Was able to secure time/date, credit card information displayed but would error out and could not select. This was another 1-hour call with the person arguing that since I was not the one with the credit card I couldn't proceed. Once again, I pointed out the credit card is under my husband's name and has been tied to myself and our children so that in itself is contradictory. Only after pointing out their excuse, he 'miraculously' was able to finalize the reservation. There is no reason a system that should be so straightforward doesn't work.  Princess is simply not truly working through its systems errors. If you can't get things through the app, simply call customer service, but expect a long wait!

The really sad part is that it's actually better than it was a year ago.   I don't know who Princess hired to write this train wreck but whoever it was appears to completely unfamiliar with the notion that customers are not the appropriate parties for alpha and beta testing.

1 hour ago, Princessfan20 said:

We are booked on a 10 day January cruise and had a Mini-Suite and bid on Club Class.  Received an email late last week from Princess saying a Club Class Mini Suite was not available but they offered us an upgrade to Penthouse Suite for the same price we had bid on getting Club Class.  We were surprised and happily took the upgrade.  Happy New Year Princess!!

Now that's a deal I could live with!

Just now, Cruise Raider said:

I believe the new prices go into effect on February 20th.  

The balcony dining rates are up for the 1/21 cruise, though.

On 12/24/2022 at 1:29 PM, memoak said:

Wait till you see the prices for Sabatini’s ($35) and Crown Grille ($39). If course these are per person

My app still shows Crown Grill and Bistro Sur La Mer at $29 and Sabatini's at $25.

I pulled up the Princess site today and took a look at Dining Options for our January21 cruise on the Discovery.  I could swear the last time I looked the balcony breakfast cost $45 and dinner was $100.  Today they were $50 and $110, respectively.  I hadn't heard about a price increases. 

I've booked Plus on both Princess cruises I've taken because it's a really good deal.  I looked at Premier but:

a) We couldn't possibly care less about the photo package 

b) If it is possible, we care even less about the stupid prize program 

c) I have 2 devices,  a phone and a tablet and I can easily switch the regular Internet package between them

d) The drinks we order aren't particularly expensive so we don't need the boost. 

We would enjoy the specialty meals but we can just buy them for less than the cost of the upgrade. 

The bottom line is that there's just not enough value to this package above Plus to make it appeal to us. 

We were planning to do an excursion to some smaller interior towns while in Mazatlan until I read the State Department warning about Sinaloa state containing words like "tourist kidnapping".  We decided to just stay in the historic part of the city there on our January cruise.  That's the only effect te report had on our plans.

Call me a spoil sport but $20/day for a chance to win $15 of OBC doesn't strike me as a good deal.

On 11/10/2022 at 2:09 PM, Shelly97060 said:

Plus and Premier are fare types even though they include onboard amenities, so your cruise fare needs to be upgraded and paid for in advance of sailing ( you cannot use onboard credits toward cruise fares).  

That's how they used to show Plus and Premier but I've noticed lately that the Web site shows them as options that can be retroactively added.

I looked at the price to go to a full suite on the Discovery in January. The lowest bid was $475 each.  That is less than the regular price difference but not that much less. We're already in a Club Class Mini Suite with an expanded balcony and that sounds just fine. Pass

If I'm reading the app right, it looks like Club Class dining takes place in the Skagway dining room-  Is that correct?

On 6/25/2022 at 6:30 PM, that said:

Photo and cookbook

They give you a cookbook after showing you the ship's sewage treatment system? 

We got a call from Princess a couple of days ago and they asked me to open the app and attempt to add Ocean Ready info.  Fortunately,  I was sitting down.  It worked!  Next, they had my wife open the app.  Our July cruise showed in it!

She still has some issues in the app with entering Ocean Ready stuff but she is now able to do that on the Web page or through my login and all her other functions work.

Our issues started in September when we were switched from the Sapphire to the Royal.  We opened our first support ticket then.  It took about 8 months for Princess' IT department to fix what was clearly a database issue.  Oh, well.  Now I  just hope it stays fixed (or as close to fixed as it is) until the end of our cruise on July 30.

My wife would like to see the official Princess Medallion holders before buying one.  Do they cost any more onboard the ship? 

On 5/4/2022 at 8:09 AM, victoriaj said:

We have used Time Limousine and found them very professional a helpful, they have limos and vans and large capacity vehicles. You might want to check them out for price etc at www.timelimo.com

 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I just checked Time Limo.  They would charge CAD232.50 which is USD183 at today's exchange rate.  That's quite a bit more than CanTrip so we'll go with the latter.

2 hours ago, oakridger said:

My driver drove into the lower area of the port terminal and stopped where the porter came up and took the bags to be put on the ship.  I tipped him and walked into the check in area for the cruise.  The car drove down into the building for drop off.

 

Very easy!

That's great to hear, thanks!  I guess I should make sure I have some Canuck bucks to cover all the tips.

I guess I wasn't clear.  I was asking about curbside luggage handling.  We're staying at the Auberge and we'll be taking a city tour that picks up my party of 6 with luggage at the hotel, takes us on the 4-hour tour, and drops us off at Canada Place around 1PM.  I was just trying to figure out how lazy we wanted to be between the curb in front of Canada Place and the baggage check in the terminal.

1 hour ago, dog said:

As we got out of the taxi a porter walked up to us & took the suitcase. He walked us to terminal door & told us where to go. Tipped him. Suitcase was at my door by 1:30 

Yup.  Curbside is what I was asking about since we're not staying at the Pan Pacific.  Thanks!

Looking at the Port Information page for our July 23 cruise from Vancouver, it says that "Porter Assistance is available".  Does anyone have experience with this service? 

How much time should I budget to hike down the Mt. Roberts Trail after riding the tram to the top?

On 4/1/2022 at 11:50 AM, mtnesterz said:

The OP and an early poster describe what they wore, or want to wear on Formal Night. What they describe is what I would call work attire. Who wants to wear work clothes on vacation?

The formal wearers here all describe or post photos of tuxes or dinner jackets. A dinner jacket or tuxedo are party wear for men. Princess is in the business of making the ordinary special and memorable and that's why formal nights are offered.

A tip to the casual crowd, do not wear your work clothes on formal night. The mind forms patterns. You're there to enjoy yourself, not work. No wonder some people resent dressing for dinner! At one time I didn't get it, but I do now.  Wearing a tux or dinner jacket makes a difference in the experience.

I find it funny what you're referring to as "work clothes".  I retired from an IT company and, for us, "work clothes" were t-shirts and jeans.  In the summer if you wore socks to work, people worried that you might be going to an after-work job interview. 

23 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

those emails are read by underlings who filter out the customer complaints and such and send to the appropriate department.

If that gets me some attention then it's "Mission Accomplished" as far as I'm concerned. 

21 hours ago, Perky1 said:

Did you try deleting the app and re-installing it and/or restarting your phone.  Sometimes gremlins are to blame.

We have but, as I stated in the original post, this is clearly a data issue, not an app problem. 

11 hours ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

I agree 100%!  I retired from IT as well.  Most of the issues started when they did the first "migration" from the old web system into the new app's database.  I have pointed this out in many threads here on CC but have given up trying to explain to non-IT people what this meant.  We *should* be well beyond the cruises that were involved in that first migration...but I think a lot of people's base records got fouled up as well...hence ongoing issues.  I sent a VERY long email with detailed specific bug info to A360ad7@carnival.com (AskOceanMedallion) but I'm not sure that this address is still an active email.  I seem to recall others saying they tried it after I did and got bouncebacks...so they probably decided to hide in their shell and not use a publicly available email.

I guessed at the email addresses of the president and CTO of Princess Cruises and sent them emails about my issue.   They didn't bounce back so we'll see if that makes any difference. 

I have had it up to here with trying to get an IT issue resolved with Princess.  When we originally booked a Northbound Vancouver to Whittier sailing for July 23, we were to be on the Sapphire.  I downloaded the Medallion app and all appeared to work just fine.  Princess subsequently switched to the Royal and that's when our problems began.

Now when I look in the app, my cruise shows up and I can see the others in my group but, if I try to update the Personal Information and Documents section, I get the reply "You do not have any journeys.  Select Link Booking to add one."  When I try to link this sailing, I'm told that record has already been claimed.  Exactly the same thing happens if I use the Web site.

My wife's situation is even worse.  This sailing does not appear at all if she uses the app even though a second one does show up normally in both of our apps.

I first reported the problem on September 23 of last year.  Since then, I have spent more that 12 hours on the phone, mostly holding, have had multiple trouble tickets opened there (most of them with a "priority", according to the agent I'm speaking to), have sent 3 letters to Princess customer relations, and am consistently told that "someone" is working on the issue.  The closest thing to satisfaction I've received is $25 each in "goodwill" OBC but no sign of any resolution of the issue.

My 30 years of experience in IT tells me this is a database issue.  It took several months of pointing this observation out to Princess to even get them to acknowledge that and stop treating it an app problem.

We're taking this cruise as part of a family group so we do need to stay on it but our second cruise will be just us sailing to the Mexican Riveria in January.  Princess has a number of competitors in this market and, if there is no progress by next Friday, I have informed Princess that we will move us to another ship for that sailing.  I hope they believe that.