Projunior

We are Platinum on Princess and Elite Plus on X. To us, the Princess buffet is inferior.

Enjoyed my Crown and gingers on our Aug 2 sailing of the Sapphire Princess in Alaska.

Possible? Luggage walkoff required? Are Uber/Lyft advised and if so, how might availability be? Ship docks at 6am on a Friday.

Fret not, I am sure you will get your wish. Doubtless, Princess has AI software crawling through the spending habits of all past passengers and will eventually be modifying incentives and rewards and offers and loyalty programs to do just that. Just hope you are lucky enough to make the cut and be included in the anointed cohort. If not, follow the advice of some in this thread, "Don't like it? Tough. Princess doesn't owe you anything. Find another cruise line".

Booked a guaranteed cabin on the Sapphire for this Wednesday's sailing in Alaska. Four days ago I finally received my cabin assignment. From the time I made the booking, I expected to be assigned a lousy cabin and, lo and behold, I was! I just knew they wouldn't let me down! So to all you naysayers who complain about Princess not meeting your expectations, take that. And just to remove any doubt that they care about this Captain's Circle Platinum member, they decided to treat me to experience the inaugural charges for pizza in Alfredo's on this very same cruise, two weeks before any other ship. How did they know this is the favorite lunch of this Captain's Circle Platinum member? It's magic, I tell you.

The offers seem to be getting chintzier for us with every passing cruise. We were/are Platinum but hadn't sailed Princess since 2019 (been sailing Celebrity with their worthless Blue Chip Club). Then, starting last December we have sailed Princess on three separate 7-day cruises. DW and I both play WPT Heads Up Hold 'em, $35 each per hand, with tiny contributions to the slots. On all three cruises we spent roughly the same amount of time in the casino - several hours per day. Cruise #1, Regal, December 2022 - One day a bottle of wine delivered to the room compliments of the casino, another night chocolate covered strawberries. End of the cruise, free balcony offer and $600 free play. Cruise #2, Ruby, February 2023 - No wine. No strawberries. End of the cruise, free inside cabin offer and $600 free play. Cruise #3, Regal, April 2023 - No wine. No strawberries. No cabin offer and $550 free play. Heading to Alaska next week for a 7-day cruise on the Sapphire. Based on the trend, not expecting much.

For what it's worth...we booked a category OZ guaranteed obstructed outside view on an upcoming Alaska cruise on the Sapphire. Friends of ours booked exactly the same. We just got assigned cabin E121 and our friends ended up in E119.

I do appreciate that Princess conducts dance classes. However, I wish they would endeavor to build on the classes with follow-up activities, a chance for those in the class to practice what they learned as well as to strut their stuff. For example, if a ballroom class teaches rumba, salsa, tango or whatever in the afternoon, then it would be nice to have the instructor conclude the class by saying, "This evening in Club Fusion we will play a wide variety of danceable music but with a special emphasis on ...", rumba, salsa, tango or whatever.

I didn't see Crown Royal or Canadian Club being offered in any of the pictures. Bummer.

Agreed. In my experience, picking up the medallion at the port seemed to add maybe 45 seconds to the embarkation process.

I booked a November cruise on the Regal and applied my and my DW's casino freeplay offers to the booking. I just made a new reservation on the Sapphire for August. I'd like to move the offers to this cruise. Anyone have any experience doing something like that?

Self-describe yourself as an influencer. Film your cruise vacation. Post the video on YouTube. Write off the cost of the cruise on your tax return as a "business expense" of "influencing". So clever.

Boaty McBoatface. Or has that one been taken?

We have 17 cruises on X. Boarding the Edge on Thursday for our very first on E-class. Thank you for your timely comments and insights.

True or False: clickbait subject lines are annoying.

@OrcaGirlsaid this on her current thread: "Like others have mentioned, I had sailed ONCE on Celebrity like 5-6 years ago. I probably spent under $100 on slots, my husband maybe a couple hundred on table games. We are not big gamblers by any means. But we started getting the emails with free cruise offers last summer, and who am I to say no?" Not sure who is in charge of marketing at BCC, but this does not engender warm feelings in an Elite Plus Amethyst level BCC member with 17 Celebrity cruises who can't even get a single email from BCC. I guess BCC has concluded that they don't need enticements to get me to sail on Celebrity. Nothing could be further from reality. Time to play the field. We are already Platinum on Princess and there their Players Club treats members with respect.

Since you've clearly demonstrated that despite your complete ignorance about the game Ultimate Hold 'em (see: "rotating chairs" and "three hands a minute" in your first post), you've managed to conclude I am a liar and a trickster regarding my experience. Feel free to add that to the list of things that you don't know anything about. The table minimum on Celebrity for Ultimate Hold 'em is $10, but in reality this minimum bet must be placed in equal amounts on both the Ante and the Blind, so the actual minimum is $20. I play just $5 over that, resulting in a wager of $15+$15=$30 ante/blind a hand. Then I also play the Trips bet for $5, so $35 a hand total. The house edge in UTH is 2.185%. That means that a theoretical loss on $10,000 played is $218.50. BCC gives 8 points for each dollar of theoretical for table games, or 1,748 points for $10,000 played. On my last cruise I earned just over 2,400 points. So it would take almost 10 cruises, wagering around $15K per cruise just to maintain measly Amethyst level (25,000 points) in BCC. You really think $10,000 play through on a single cruise guarantees what you call "top comps"? Laughable. The point of my post, sadly lost on you, is that BCC sneers at my level of play but, in a surprise to me, Princess rewarded it in what I felt was a generous way. I merely wanted to share that most simple point. And, to reiterate, BCC has never once sent me any kind of offer. Ever.

I am Elite Plus with Celebrity and Amethyst in BCC. Let me start by saying that I have never, even once, gotten an email or a snail mail or any kind of offer from BCC. So instead I call when I pick out a cruise and ask if I can get a BCC discount. Sometimes yes, often no. My wife and I both bet $35/hand playing Ultimate Hold 'em for at least two hours a day when sailing on Celebrity. No offers for us for that, not good enough for BCC. And let me tell you that nothing is more infuriating than reading on CC how someone dropped $20 in a slot machine over the course of an entire cruise and got an offer for a comped veranda cabin. My last two cruises have been on Princess and the difference between the Princess Players Club and the Blue Chip Club is like night and day. When I booked my December cruise on the Regal I was given $100 in casino freeplay even though I hadn't sailed Princess since 2015. So on Celebrity you have to earn your way up to middle tier Amethyst to get $100 while on Princess they gave that same amount to someone (me) who hadn't set foot on a Princess ship in eight years. We randomly picked this sailing of the Regal and only found out once aboard that it happened to be a casino cruise for Princess slot players. Lots of gamblers on board and as a result the casino, both machines and tables, was swarmed all the time. I once waited an hour and a half to get on the single WPT Heads Up Poker (Carnival Corporation's version of Ultimate) table. As the cruise progressed my wife and I got tired of all the waiting for a seat and we ended up playing only perhaps 1/3 the amount we would on a typical 7-day cruise on Celebrity. But get this -- on the second to last night of the cruise the Players Club slipped two offers under our door, one for $250 of freeplay on our next Princess cruise the the other for $300. As someone used to the stinginess of BCC, I was shocked beyond belief. Then we used that offer on a second Princess cruise, this one on the Ruby out of Galveston last month. The casino was lovely and uncrowded. There were seats any time we wanted to play. On the fourth day of the cruise the Players Club sent, unannounced, chocolate covered strawberries to our cabin. On the fifth day, again unannounced, they sent a bottle of nice Italian wine to our cabin. On the fifth day they sent an offer for a free inside cabin on our next cruise along with $750 in freeplay. This was playing the exact same stakes/amounts we always play on Celebrity and this is after just two recent cruises on Princess! Meanwhile, after 17 cruises on Celebrity and lots of donations to the casino, BCC can't be bothered to send me a single offer. BCC may be attracting some new business by offering those comped cabins to those dropping a few bucks in a slot machine, but they alienated me to the point where I looked for greener pastures and found them on Princess.

We took the Princess transfer from the port to IAH following our Ruby cruise on Jan 21. The bus left the port somewhere between 8:30 and 9. On both the IAH to the port transfer and again the other way, we were told to expect a 90 minute ride. It was just over 60 minutes each time; these were Sundays and traffic was light. Our flight was also at 12:30 and we made it easily.

We flew into IAH the day before our January 15 cruise on the Ruby. We stayed at the airport Marriott. The transfer instructions from Princess instructed all passengers who were not arriving at IAH the day of the cruise to meet the Princess rep at terminal C at 10AM on the day of the sailing. We took the IAH Subway directly from the hotel to the terminal where Princess had a desk set up. After we checked in we waited around 45 minutes to an hour before boarding the bus. The transfers were $54/pp one way.

We had Club Class dining on the Regal in December. We had JP and Domingo as a wait team. Sublime service. You might ask for them.

We am also taking three of my grandkids on their first cruise and our first Carnival cruise on the Celebration this June. Is Camp Ocean open every day? Or only on sea days?

New grat charge for suites $18pp/day times 6 days times 5 passengers equals $540. Family Harbor Suite, Cabin 4330, on the Celebration - no balcony.

We've been on 41 cruises, but never on Carnival. But taking three grandkids in June on a 6-day cruise on the Celebration. All five of us are staying in a Family Harbor Suite. Or should I say "Suite", since it doesn't even have a balcony. But because it's a "suite" we will be charged "suite" level grats. So for the five of us that comes to $540. And that's before adding internet. That's some substantial pain being inflicted on grandpa's wallet.

We sailed Club Class on the Regal the first week of December and were quite pleased with the food. No complaints whatsoever.