mef623

I'll start by saying that there's nothing in this post that you haven't seen several times in the past 15 pages. Just me, throwing my thoughts out into the vast expanse known as the internet. I got my email yesterday telling me about the additional charges. Our cruise is in December and we booked the standard package. We have cruised about two dozen times, in everything from balcony cabins to suites. This upcoming cruise is two balconies. I'm totally okay with Princess wanting to make a profit. As others have noted, CCL is a publicly traded company and has a fiduciary duty to its shareholders. What I'm not okay with is their telling me that they are adding charges for benefits that had been free when I booked the cruise. When I booked the cruise, room service was free and they gave me no indication that that was changing. I called yesterday and the answer was pretty much "too bad." Yup, Princess says that all terms are changeable. Nope, the $5 per call (or $15 one-time charge) is not going to bankrupt me. And yup, I still believe the cruise offers value, just less so than before. The problem, though, is that I'm never going to be able to take them at face value in the future when they tell me what is offered. Had they said that cruises booked before the announcement would receive the old benefits, that would have been fine. But it shouldn't be my problem that two different sets of pricing would confuse staff onboard. I'm used to being nickeled and dimed, but have always been told about it when pricing the product. Oh, one more thing. Princess reps, stick to your scripts. Really. I called yesterday about it and I always start the conversation with, "I know that you didn't make this change personally..." so it doesn't sound personal. And I'm sure your script told you to tell me, "Well, most of our customers have told us that they are okay with the change..." Bully for them. But when you go off-script, as the rep did with me yesterday, and say, "Well, most of our customers understand that travel changes. In fact, life changes," please, I don't need your philosophy on life. Either help me or don't. Mike

Masochist! 😉

Thank you all for your helpful information, as well as commiseration. I'm really at the point where I might never take another Princess cruise again because of this !#@%$@#$@#$ Medallion thing. The number of times that I get error messages is insane. Even the web version is going nuts. Today's issue was that it wouldn't recognize any credit card that expires in 2023 as valid beyond the date of sailing (next week). It consistently fails to save information or signs me in an out. Making dinner reservations was a nightmare. Overall, it's a bad solution in search of a problem. We've been on 20+ Princess cruises and I've never experienced this level of frustration four days before boarding. In any case, thank you for letting me vent. Mike