Sea Hag

2 hours ago, WNCtourist said:

HAL newbie here anticipating my upcoming cruise! A dining question -- I prefer more vegetables at dinner than what I see on photos. May I put in a standing request for a plate of steamed broccoli/carrots with my MDR waiter?

Thanks!

We've asked for a plate of "whatever vegetables are ready in the kitchen" and this has always worked for us. I don't know about asking for specific veggies.

14 hours ago, MarcsSharon said:

Wow…forgive me for having the audacity to post a question you deem redundant. Perhaps you should just scroll on by in the future.

Believe it or not, I meant this as a helpful comment. That website is a useful tool, and likely many people never heard of it. I'm sorry it didn't sound that way to you, and I do apologize that I wasn't clearer about how I meant the comment.

42 minutes ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

Just left the website pricing out a 12 day from Galveston next March. While pricing I picked an inside cabin and for Princess to pick my cabin, so basically a guaranteed inside. It said $799 average pp. I click through and the price was close to $4000. I haven’t cruised Princess in awhile so not sure wha is going on.

 

TIA

Near the top of the page, after you choose a cabin, there's a dropdown or some such that gives a breakdown of charges. This sounds like a glitch to me, but it would be interesting to see what the breakdown shows.

Another thought - did you choose Premier or Plus? That would bring the price up pretty briskly.

On 9/17/2024 at 1:40 PM, MarcsSharon said:

Is it just me…website has been down too often. I want to pay my balance but technical difficulties are all I get. I tried calling in but the wait time and the awful music made me hang up. 

I have found this site to be very reliable for many years. I strongly suggest bookmarking it and checking there before posting yet another question like this.

Is it down? Check at Down for Everyone or Just Me

9 minutes ago, RRFan said:

We’ve been Elite for many years but have only cruised PCL once since Covid and wasn’t happy. So we’re going to give them one more try in November. We don’t drink alcohol and usually no soda. We’ve always exchanged the mini bar for coffee, which is no longer an option. Can we exchange all alcohol for water or Ginger ale?  Thanks in advance. 

We always swap out all of ours for sparkling water. I'm sure they'll swap for still water. And ginger ale is soda, so I'm sure you can swap for those as well.

13 hours ago, SBaker5080 said:

I’ve never booked a guaranteed cabin and was curious about your experiences booking one. Were you assigned a cabin in the same category? How soon before your cruise were you issued your cabin number? Thank you in advance! 

Way back when we still used to book guarantees, we always got assigned the category we booked, with one exception. Once we went from an inside to a nice OV.

12 hours ago, VibeGuy said:

Since Princess introduced bidding for upgrades, getting upgraded out of a metacategory (for example, going from an Oceanview to a Balcony or a Balcony to a Mini-Suite) has been pretty rare.  

I'm sure it is rare, but in August we got upgraded from an obstructed OV to a mini-suite. So it does still happen. We were very surprised.

16 hours ago, MileHighAko said:

It's worth going to the MDR on embarkation day for lunch because they serve an orange soufflé that is delicious.

Yes, that and the avocado shrimp appetizer.

1 hour ago, Silverspringcruiser said:

With OceanNow is your location determined when you place your order, or when it's ready?  If the latter will I get an alert so I know to go where I want to eat?

In my experience, they will track you down with your order. But how hard do you want to make their lives? We waited over two hours and then gave up and went to the buffet. They found us there, just as we were finishing eating. So, about 2 1/2 hours from time of order. I don't really feel bad about giving up on the order.

6 hours ago, voljeep said:

what did you notice in the app that your status had been corrected by Ocean Ready

 

@Sea Hag  @PacnGoNow

I checked right after I got off the phone with Princess, and my status had gone from new cruiser to elite. The color in the medallion had gone from blue to black. I wasn't sure how long it would take for them to get it corrected, but as it turned out it was pretty much immediately.

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

That error happened several months ago, during one of the many updates and changes.  I waited for it to correct itself.  😆 

It didn’t!  So, Ocean Ready, on the phone tree was able to fix it.  I was impressed.

 

I was also surprised that they were able to fix mine! Will wonders never cease?

1 hour ago, cruisinsince75 said:

The app and website version are crazy.  I booked Princess Premier Unlimited on a cruise booked last week.  Trying to book SD dining and I get an error that says only Platinum and Elite can book prior to final payment.  I am Platinum.  I try to do check in and I get a message that I can't because I am a minor <18 and covered under the passage contract of an adult.  I'm 72.  

Does your status show correctly in the app? Mine didn't. It showed blue, new cruiser. Should have been black, elite. I had to call in and get it fixed.

16 minutes ago, coo359a2 said:

 

See post #82 that shows what is on the App  for the new Premier package.  If that's how it will work, just curious on what that menu will be.

Just throwing this out here. From my point of view, the specialties have always been pre fixe, with some add-ons. It's been one cover charge for appetizer, main, and dessert. Sounds like pre fixe to me. I'll be surprised if they put out a separate menu for this.

Definition from the wisdom of the internet:

A prix fixe (a French term meaning “fixed price”) is a menu that offers a full meal at a set rate. Typically, that means diners get three courses consisting of an appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Diners choose from multiple options for each of the three courses, but the price remains the same no matter the selection.

47 minutes ago, Coral said:

It has always been that way since "cancel for any reason" has existed.

Okay, then it's further evidence that I'm nuts. Not sure any further evidence was needed, but I'll roll with it. 🤣

11 minutes ago, Coral said:

Regular gets 75% cruise credit for "cancel for any reason". Platinum gets 100% cruise credit.

Wow! You're right about that. I could have sworn that it wasn't like that in the past. Did they change it or is this further evidence that I'm nuts? 😂

2 hours ago, Knickearth said:

I am curious - when did princess change insurance coverage to cancel for any reason?  Several years ago my husband had to cancel a cruise due to business and was informed it was not covered.  Fortunately a friend came instead and fortunately his company reimbursed for having to cancel.

They sell two levels of insurance, regular and platinum. You have to have platinum to get the cancel for any reason coverage. If you're platinum or elite loyalty level, you get upgraded to the higher plan for the same cost as the lower one.

3 minutes ago, memoak said:

That confused me as well at first keep going back and starting the process over if need be. Hint - When you see your home address make sure you tap on it that will trigger the ability to complete the order

I got it done. One less thing to think about. 🙂

One other thing you should know. There's a slight delay in the back and forth on wifi calling. My son called me on the ship on my birthday recently and we went to saying something then saying "over" to indicate to the other person that we'd finished and it was time for them to talk. It wasn't a huge delay, but it was noticable.

On 8/27/2024 at 2:13 PM, john watson said:

I think now the bidding system to become upgraded system has been introduced the free upgrades will be extraordinarily rarely implemented. It makes a lot of sense to raise revenue with people paying to upgrade.

 

Regards John

I don't doubt that this is true, and in fact I hadn't put a "no upgrade" on our August cruise because of that thinking. But we got a great surprise upgrade, going from an obstructed OV to a mini on Emerald deck. I doubt that'll ever happen to us again!

In my experience, it's been very good for several years. No problems at all in any of our cabins. 

1 hour ago, Coral said:

I still want to cruise Disney one of these days!

You should do that. We did one once. And it's going to be only once for us. We loved parts of it. Great cabin with split bathroom. We really liked the traveling to different dining rooms each night with the tablemates and wait staff going along with us. The little Disney passenger princesses in their little Disney princess dresses were so charming - for the first couple of days. My DH caught a bad cold, probably from all the charming little princesses. I'm really glad we did one, but I can't see us ever doing it again.

On 8/27/2024 at 12:35 PM, phabric said:

I was on a Holland cruise, with a perk that everyone on the ship got a specialty dinner.  Holland choose the time for you, there was no changing time as there was no tables available  

Good to know. We have two of those coming up. If they assign us to late seatings, my DH isn't going to want to go. He's a stickler about eating early.

I'm also a big fan of this update that shows which dining room is which. Oddly enough, I decided to go ahead and order the medallions for a February 2025 sailing. Payment method is fine. But I only get the option to pick them up at the port, which is not my first choice. Is anybody else hitting this?

Never mind on this. I just noticed that it tells me to complete all check info to enable all shipping options. I'll leave the above in case anybody else is confused on this.

28 minutes ago, Grumzy said:

Never cruised before so finding this board very useful before our first ever trip to Alaska on the Koningsdam.  Can't find an answer to this question though.

When ordering room service if I want to tip the cabin steward, do I need to always have cash on hand or is there a chit I can sign to charge to the cabin, like in a hotel?

I stock up on fives and ones when we travel so I'll have these handy for porters, room service or whatever. 

1 minute ago, PacnGoNow said:

That’s great and a little odd.  Send those fairies over to the rest of us!😆

Sprinkle. Sprinkle. That's some fairy dust for you. 😁