cflutist

Princess changed the rules this year for S&S versus last year. No OBC option and no complimentary Specialty Dining either.

Josko is home in Croatia right now between contracts. I friended on FB all 4 of our waiters in Club Class on the Pacific. Nice to follow their posts on the World Cruise.

Breakfast in Sabatini's. Since there are only 10 suites on the ship, they set 10 tables and you can stay as long as you want. Fyi we were in 8067 last year and the WiFi signal was weak, so we used our tablets at breakfast.

Do not book a full suite! They are expensive and they will spoil you. If you once book one, you will likely become addicted to full suites. An increase in the number of people addicted to suites can only result in the prices going up and the availability going down. That will just cost me more and may result in the desired suite being sold out by the time I try to book it. So, have mercy on those of us cruisers who are addicted to suites and never book one yourself.:D

No kidding! Especially on the Pacific Princess. I called at 7:55 am to book an Owner's suite, and by 8:05 our first two choices were taken for this 18-night Land of the Midnight Sun cruise. Had to settle for deck 8 instead of deck 7.

Availability of Penthouse or Premium suites are much easier to get on the Star, Grand, or Majestic. Been told that the balconies on the Majestic are narrow, not like the 9 x 17 ft double wide balconies on the Caribe deck for the older ships.

We like having the space, breakfast, same day laundry, CC dining and being able to order from the MDR menu when desired.

New to HAL, but there is a 21-night Alaska RT from San Francisco cruise that we are interested in.

Does anyone know when the 2020 Alaska voyages will be available for booking?

Thanks in advance.

Note--you are now able to make shore excursion reservations on line in advance and pay with OBC.

Yes, I know that, but they refuse to split the CCL shareholders OBC, posted under one person only. Plus there is additional OBC for Captains Circle that you get onboard only.

So what are the coveted reservations?

Things such as the Chef's Table, Ship Tour, picking your lounger in the Sanctuary, Reservations for Specialty Dining (you have to wait until you are onboard if it is complimentary), shore excursions if you didn't want to prepay but use your OBC instead for payment. All of my OBC is non-refundable so I want to use it onboard, especially if you have complimentary gratuities.

So what happens when an Elite guest is doing the Bon Voyage Experience and has linked his reservation with ours (Elite in a full suite) and vice versa.

There is nothing on our Cruise Personalizer showing that we are linked. Will we be able to board together (Grand Princess in San Francisco) with the BVE group? Or must we wait for the Elite/Suite group?

I think you have to be present. They won't even deliver the complimentary plate of canapes if you are not there.

Not true, we have come back many times to our suite with the nightly canapes waiting for us (we like the profiteroles).

We have hosted Afternoon tea twice now in our suites for our CC Rollcall group. I called a day early with the head count. Way too much food, they even bring an extra table for it.

Australia laws allow merchants (and Princess is a merchant) to charge the user for the fees the credit card company charges the merchant for the transaction. In effect, Princess has chosen to have this 1.1% fee paid by the customer so it does not have to absorb the credit card company's fee.

 

Of course not every merchant passes on the fee, but Princess is one of those that does. It is not a government fee.

Thanks, so if it shows up on our shipboard account, then we get 3% cashback from our credit card and no international fees. We would still net 1.9% cashback.

My understanding is that this is in Australia only due to the way credit card fees are dealt with.

 

In north america, vendors pay the fees charged by card companies and pass them along to the consumers thru product pricing.

In Australia the card user pays the fee directly - hence the 1.1% fee.

All credit card transactions have a MCC (Merchant Category Code) associated with them. Is the surcharge a Princess charge? Or a charge directly by the Australian government? Makes a difference for us to maximize our cashback credit card rewards.

Which cruise are you in C102? I can't wait to hear how you like it..

Looked at the Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu itinerary and couldn't decide starboard or port, so booked C102 for September 2018. Going counterclockwise around New Zealand so booked R614 for March 2019 so we could see land.

Have sailed in PH and Owners Suites before, but never in a Premium Suite, so thought we would try it. Probably more motion than midship, but if I can survive a cruise in the Caribbean on the Royal Clipper (tall ship with sails, 170 pax) then I am up for trying something new on Princess.

Did read that the balconies on the Majestic are quite narrow as compared to Cairibe deck PH suites on Grand class ships, or Owners suited on the Pacific Princess.

In reference to post #7 apparently I was on the “good” deck. No problems. Mike

 

 

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Dang, we are on the wrong deck, C102 and R614, lol.

Now I wouldn't mind eating some chicken curry, have bought the frozen meals with basmati rice from Trader Joe's.

Especially since you started it.. :')

We have 3 other cruises to worry about first

Now I am a bit worried that we are on the first Majestic cruise out of Sydney in September. But I am looking forwards to dinner in Harmony, the Cantonese restaurant on board.

Don't be so sure. We also signed up for a cruise in March and rarely do I even think of signing up for the roll call.

We are going to NZ in March 2019, from the San Francisco Bay Area. Should go check the rollcall.

In addition, Princess revealed that Sky Princess will unveil a new suite category, Sky Suites. The suites -- located at the top of the ship -- will feature 270-degree views; occupants also will be able to enjoy the ship's outdoor theater concept, Movies Under the Stars, without leaving their rooms. The suites will hold up to five and offer the largest balconies in the Princess fleet. Princess plans to create a series of new amenities exclusive to the suites (more details will be released in the coming months).

As long as they don't take away our breakfast in Sabatini's or Crown Grill, the complimentary same day laundry, or Club Class Dining. I can live without the orchid plant (was a flower arrangement previously), or the personalized stationary (have a bunch of those silver pens and black leather wallets too).

Anyone have a clue what the new amenities could be?

This is the Antarctica cruise that we will be sailing on. Unlike Princess, they keep raising the fares closer to sailing. It has gone up more than 8k PP since we booked and paid in April 2017.

https://www.silversea.com/destinations/antarctica-cruise/ushuaia-to-ushuaia-1829.html?fycref=row1

Although we currently have 4 Princess cruises booked, my hubby said that if we are traveling that far, that we are going to land in Antarctica. So we booked a 15-night in April 2017 for December 2018 the the Silversea Cloud luxury expedition ship. 200 pax maximum and 205 crew. Open bar (we don't drink), unlimited Internet but satellite coverage must be sparse down there.

Cruise on Silversea or Oceania and get free unlimited Internet. Although we mainly cruised on Princess, we are venturing out because I am getting tired of all the nickel and diming going on.

Thanks for the clarification & sorry about misunderstanding your situation. I receive the same amount of military credit so having shareholder in my wife’s name results in a 50-50 split for us.

That makes sense. Thank you for serving our country.

I’ve experienced the same issue due to my name being first on our reservation for jointly owned CCL shares:

 

 

1. Faxed their request form with my wife’s name listed to Booking Support.
   
2. Called them (800-872-6779 x-30317) when not issued to her & they immediately transferred shareholder credit to my wife.
   

I’ve faxed that form in her name on numerous cruises & recently this was the first time SOBC was correctly issued to my wife. Either they’ve changed the system or the agent knew how to issue SOBC to her.

 

It’s not required to use their request form but our recent request was correctly issued to my wife.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=412579&d=1512944674

Our problem is that I wanted the OBC split 50-50 so we could each book and pay for a shorex with OBC. Spoke to two different CSRs who said that could not be done.

On a different cruise, I just booked hubby's shorex with my name. I will either just have him use my ticket (they have never checked in our 28 cruises) or will exchange it onboard.

There has been a change since last October. You can now use OBC to pre-pay for shore excursions. Should you cancel an excursion, the money goes back where it came from.

What is annoying is that Princess posts the shareholder OBC only to the first passenger in the cabin even though our shares are in a JOINT account. So we didn't want to reserve one of our shorex because I would have had to prepay for hubby's shorex and then would have excess OBC leftover because we also have complimentary gratuities under the 3 for Free promo. So I will wait to book our least favorite shorex onboard where the OBCs are combined for both of us in the cabin.

Official hours are 7:30 to 10:30 on sea days and 7:30 to 9:30 on port days. I wish they opened earlier on early port arrival days.

 

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On port days we would just order from the Suite Breakfast menu and have it delivered at 630 am. Not as good as Sabatini's but better than a cold breakfast.

Well - she had one both days. We must be tough on her! :)

She had another one tonight. Just paid off our Alaska cruise.

Ours discounts the cruise by about 10% and also gives small obc. Princess does know about it because she gets confirmation from them that she forwards onto me. Also final payment shows as Princess Cruises on my credit card.

There are other cruiselines that don't allow discounting where she will cut me a check from her commission, in this case $2000 and $3000, I will take it.