Fredette

On 5/18/2020 at 2:02 AM, oceanlovinmama said:

You know.....people are cruel.  Look at you.  Being a big bully and all.  I'm just saying to be patient with these cruise lines.  I've not heard of one refund going over 90 days.  They are coming in around 60 or so.  These are unprecedented times, those times call for different measures.  I bet when the price goes down,  you demand they do that immediately, or you want that on board credit they promised  you to show up NOW on your account.  It's different when it's the other way around isn't it?  All I was saying is to think of your TA IF you used one and to be patient with the cruise lines.  Wow....that is all.

Well, I'm past the 60 day point, although not at the 90 day point, so what you are saying is that I WILL have my refund by the 90th day?  

On 5/17/2020 at 3:40 AM, oceanlovinmama said:

Wrong....you should be though.  They have promised you your money back, but you aren’t giving them the time to follow through.  Do you know how many people they are dealing with, and with a reduced staff? Give them a break...but my agency may not allow us to do business with clients who do this.  It takes away any protected commission and technically the supplier(cruiseline) could come after us for payment.  It’s a huge headache for people who can’t be understanding and patient.  

"Understanding and patient" - does that include those who were ignored for two months?  Princess have behaved reprehensibly and would have met with more understanding and patience had they been open, up front and honest.  

On 5/21/2020 at 12:49 PM, senior lady said:

The offices are closed so agents are working from home and doing everything manually

Surely a company as big as Princess (incorporated in a tax haven no less so there's a saving) could afford to have workers remote in to their work computers?  Everyone else in the corporate world is capable of doing it!

3 hours ago, leck57 said:

 

Nice of you to take one line from a longer post and I was replying to a post that was off the rails in my opinion. My post in full was in no way intended to to excuse Princess as have my other posts in this thread.

But feel free to be offended in your closed mind world. 

Whoops, touched a sore point did I?

It may only have been one line, but it was your line.  Perhaps you should read it again and try to work out why it is so offensive.  You don't need to have a closed mind to find someone dismissing the deaths of so many people as trivial.

Never mind.  Your problem, not mine.

On 5/8/2020 at 8:37 PM, leck57 said:

I'm loyal to Princess and essentially I don't care whether they are found as guilty as hell.

How sad.  You don't care if the conduct of Princess directly led to the death of innocent people.

7 minutes ago, Peytonhead said:

We hit the 60 day mark from our initial notification of selecting option #2.  Spoke to Princess numerous times and was told my travel agent would issue the refund but the charges were done by Princess.  We filled a dispute with our bank to get our money back.  Seeing no one has gotten a refund, it appears Princess has a huge cash flow problem and I am tired of being asked to be patient.

I wouldn't be surprised to see cruise lines go bankrupt over this, so at this stage I will be surprised if I ever see my money.

13 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

Here it is again:

1. Departure Date order

2. UP TO 60 days from time they received your choice of option 1 or 2

 

 

 

 

Well, I first tried contacting my TA prior to March 20 ( judging by the email trail) to request a refund, so they are coming up to 60 days now.

I have had a "don't contact us anymore" email from Princess because I asked them questions they couldn't answer about why it took so long to get anyone from Princess to respond, so they won't even engage about the issue.

It's a shame that the NSW government let the Ruby Princess leave Sydney.  I think there should have been a class action by all Australians to place a lien over the ship until Princess cleared it's debts.  We let a valuable asset leave our shores.

If Princess go under, we all lose our money.

13 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

So, my cruise was March 14th. My choice was submitted March 12th. They failed on both counts!

3 hours ago, LDVinNC said:

 

They have to announce the amount of days to get your refund, you say?  They DID - 30 then 60 then 90 then who knows.  And those of us waiting HAVE contacted Princess and/or our TA's and keep getting non-answers.

They told me they are processing in the order of sailing dates, not when you requested cancellation, so I don't think anyone really knows anything - employees and public alike!

On 3/14/2020 at 11:35 AM, lahore said:

Hi,  I cancelled under the new cancellation policy on the day it came out.  I received an email but the money has not hit my account.  Obviously I know things are terribly unusual and Princess and Banks are no doubt terribly overburdened.   However, I was just wondering if people are starting to get their refunds trickling through?  My bank has - in the past - been very slow with refunds so I’m curious.  In Australia by the way.

Still waiting almost two months after I first requested to cancel.

I understand things are tough in the cruise industry, but two months?  

If this is how Princess disregards repeat cruisers, I will not risk my money with them again.

15 hours ago, GUT2407 said:

Daughter had 9:15 time slot and by 9:20 was ringing to ask where to meet us.

Which cruise was this?

And - this was a booked time, not the general scrum?

On 10/28/2019 at 6:12 PM, MicCanberra said:

You should have no issues, at least you have a much better chance of getting to the domestic airport for your flight by 10 am. For international they would need 8am.

Sorry to be a downer, but a 10am flight is pretty risky for the Ovation, we knew people that missed 10.30 and later.  The walk off process is a shambles, that's where our problem was.

On 10/26/2019 at 10:36 AM, mr walker said:

 

This does not happen every cruise or every ship. Our return to Sydney in Feb this year from AKL on Radiance, there was no pre-clearance & each & every passenger had to present to the official in the terminal. There were long delays & many missed their transport. Our shuttle was booked for 9:30 (we are not rush of the ship people & had an 8:50 timeslot) & they waited until 10am & then left when we had not emerged. Good news was that they came back for us, and we were only going to our home in Sydney.

I know, I've never experienced it before either, but it was great.  It made the part of the process once you were off the ship go smoothly and quickly.  I hope they roll this out more frequently.

21 minutes ago, banzaii said:

To be fair, on this trip Ovation was 2hrs late getting into Sydney.  This would have added to the chaos with even those pax with afternoon travel plans becoming anxious.

We usually use rail to get back to CBR and the choices have usually been 12ish or 6pmish. 

 

I find airports stressful themselves and have been left stranded several times by delayed flights.

 

So because we don't like hanging around either so I'm quite comfortable with the 12 departure.

2 hrs?  Weren't we due in at 6, but got in around 7?  

One thing I was impressed about was the Border Force initiative to pre-clear passengers (what a great gig - getting to spend a couple of days working, the nights to yourself on a cruise ship!) - so when we finally got off, we only had to hand over our customs declaration cards and leg it out of the terminal.  Otherwise, it would have been worse.

On 10/18/2019 at 2:01 PM, benjoon said:

Ok I promised to tell you how my experience of my disembarkation for an early flight in Sydney. Well I won’t be able to as we were left in Picton NZ. My husband had a medical issue that meant we couldn’t continue. Hopefully someone will let you know how they went.

 

 We now fly out of Blenheim on Monday.
 

 

Sorry to hear that, I hope everything is ok.

I doubt you would have made the 10.25 anyway, the "walk off unassisted" line was apparently what ALL passengers did.  We missed our flight, and know of at least three other couples who did also.

On 9/15/2019 at 1:36 PM, benjoon said:

Do you think a 10.25 Qantas flight is going to be hard to make? We are willing to get off as early as possible to make it.

Did you make your flight?  

There were some rough seas, but the ship didn't keep to the speed that the Captain said it needed to in order to be on time, so there may have been other issues we weren't informed about (the water being off might have been a symptom of something else).

THEN the big question is - why was disembarkation so mismanaged that many people missed their flights afterwards?  Imagine there are 4900 passengers on the ship, and about 3/4 of them are lined up on deck 5 WITH LUGGAGE all trying to get off at the same time.  

It was a debacle.

I think the huge majority of people make their purchase decisions exclusively based on price these days, going for the cheapest. Some also seek out something specific, a P&O cruise for example and go through various agents, discount shopper schemes, credit card cash back opportunities, shopper points clubs or direct with the cruise line. There is not a great deal of loyalty in this the way I see it.

 

Loyalty is about sticking with something even when times are rough, it gets painful or awkward to continue but you do anyway whatever happens. I remember a story about Frank Sinatra when he was in concert and his dementia had got the better of him. The band played the whole tune while Frank just stood there not singing. At the end of the tune the audience sat in complete silence except one guy who stood up and shouted, "Don't worry about it Frank we still love you". Frank nailed the next song to perfection. I still love P&O cruises and do not worry about what loyalty bonus I might be getting.

 

Regards John

The problem with that theory is that P&O have made a business decision to split their Australian business from their 'core' business, which means that even though both lines are identifiable as P&O, they are not the same. Whereas if I take a cruise in Australia on RCI, Carnival, Princess, MSC etc... whatever 'loyalty points' I accrue are recognisable by the cruise line as it is the same line. However P&O do not operate out of Australia, they have rebadged their Australian business as P&O Australia, and P&O Australia do not have a 'loyalty' scheme as such so basically your 'loyalty' to the brand is unrecognised by both.

Loyalty schemes exist to try to sway a consumer to use a particular business, and unless P&O compete with the others, they might end up losing. It's not good business to disregard someone's past 'loyalty' just because of semantics.

As you can see from my signature below, I have been on one or two cruises. I have now booked for a P&O cruise (not P&O Australia) and was disappointed to find myself considered a 'first time cruiser' without any of the teeny perks that repeat cruisers get - despite having been on several P&O Australia cruises, and Cunard, and Princess which are P&O 'sister' lines. So we don't even merit an invite to the Captain's party, despite being repeat cruisers.

It just irks that the scheme is called a 'loyalty' scheme, yet it appears to be confined to each individual line.

If I have a frequent shopper card given to me by a business within a group of businesses, it is generally honoured at ALL businesses in the chain, not just the one, so why the difference with cruise ships? It's almost like P&O doesn't actually value people who choose to return and sample their different offerings. :(

Just as an update, it took two weeks. Better than they said, but still a very long time considering how quickly you have to pay the deposit!

Refunds ALWAYS take longer than charges....it will come.....but, as far as ports, you've read the "cruise contract", right? It specifically states they can change, cancel, rearrange, or substitute any port at any time, for ANY reason. If you want to go to a particular place, you should NOT do it via a cruise. That's just asking for disappointment!

 

Just be patient...you will get your money back, if you were within the "refund" period.

Yes, as I said in my post, the cruise wasn't until September, so I am well within the period when I can cancel.

And I do know that they can cancel ports, however I think that once they have changed more than 50% of the cruise, it is no longer the same cruise that they sold, and they should make an effort to deal fairly with their customers in such circumstances.

That being said, I am a lot more fortunate than the people whose cruise on the Star was cut short recently when the engines failed and it ended up adrift and having to be towed back into port, so maybe we had a lucky escape.:)

I have to confess that I am a bit angry. Both because I won't be going on the cruise we had booked, and because Norwegian is dragging their heels in sending us the refund on our deposit.

My family and I booked for an Adriatic Cruise in September 2017 way back in December 2016, and paid our deposit straight away.

It was a seven night cruise, with five ports. Norwegian has since changed three of the ports, so the cruise we were left with bore very little resemblance to the cruise we booked. One of the ports they took off, was a "must do" for my husband, so reluctantly, we cancelled.

Norwegian's explanation was that "ports change" - well I would have thought that they could have ensured the ports were "locked in" before they published the schedule and took bookings. I know things change, and one port I could have dealt with (we have experienced this before), but three? More than half the advertised ports?

Now they are telling me that it will be 4-6 weeks before we get our deposit back.

I hardly think this is fair. It was not a "change of mind" cancellation. We would have gone on the original cruise, or even a mild variation, but not when it was so different to the one we booked, and paid a deposit on. We paid our deposit instantly, is it really so difficult to expect something more prompt than 4-6 weeks?

Have other cruisers experienced this?

Definitely a worthwhile gamble in my opinion - the worst that can happen is you'll still have a balcony. Better than that is that you have a fair to good chance of getting a great unobstructed balcony like we did.

Very excited - our cabin has been assigned and it was a good one! It was almost the location etc... that I would have picked if I had picked it myself, and half the price! Cruise can't roll around soon enough for me :p

Thanks for all your responses - we have taken a gamble on a guarantee (balcony) for our next cruise, and are crossing our fingers that we luck out and get a good one. Even if we get an obstructed balcony, it is still a balcony (I really love the ability to get fresh air and of course natural light) so we will be happy with whatever we get (we paid just over half of the cost of the cheapest balcony, so we can't complain about whatever we get).

It's the bad habits of some passengers, not so much the food service issue that spreads Noro. How many just walk out of the toilets with no hand washing, or a minimal splash under the water? Too many.

 

I use the paper towel to open the door out of the restrooms as suggested, I wash my hands thoroughly & use sanitiser entering the restaurants as well as take my own as I believe it works better.

 

I have seen people have 2 plates of food in the buffet, then balance one on top of the other so the bottom of the top plate makes contact with the food below, thus placing anything it picked up from the counter onto the food - this wouldn't change if people were served from the buffet, only if every meal was served like main dining room style.

 

They also place their bread roll etc directly on the table in some cases rather than get an additional plate for it. They seem to think they can never go back to the buffet so pile their plates sky high so no room for the roll & to eat the food.

 

I enjoy the buffet, being able to pick & choose what I want, but I take precautions - never taking food from the front of the trays where stupid people place the tongs they just held in their potentially dirty hands on top of the food or on the bench, or little kids have been touching everything. I also wait for a fresh tray of something to arrive if it's down to it's last dregs.

 

I let staff know if I see something that could be an issue like last cruise a spoon dropped into the chocolate sauce or if tongs fall on the ground etc.

 

I never place the eating end of my cutlery on the tables in the buffet, always sit it on the edge of my plate otherwise anything on the table gets on your utensils which you then put in your mouth.

 

So many people just seem to be ignorant of basic hygiene when in public places, but then I find many people are just ignorant in general so it's no surprise really. :rolleyes:

 

So far I have never had Noro ever on any holiday, even travelling with my husband who contracted it in Morocco & was sick for 4 days. He has never had it on a cruise ship though. They say about 20% of the population is actually immune to Noro - hoping I'm one of those!

 

I also wipe down the cabin commonly touched areas that the staff don't always clean with a sanitiser wipe (light switches, door knobs etc) on first day in the cabin just in case.

 

I have caught a few colds though - one was from a selfish woman who knew she was sick & sat next to me, but came to dinner anyway then left half way through as she felt too ill, after having coughed all over the table of course.

 

No way to avoid other people, so the only option is to adopt a more rigid self hygiene oriented mind set when travelling - it becomes second nature.

 

Before anyone thinks I'm germ phobic - at home, which is on a farm, we use zero anti bacterial products, just orange cleaner. I only take precautions when travelling & so far so good. :)

That's a really good tip (taking wipies for any suspect areas). The crew are really hard working on these ships and you often see them wiping down handrails of an evening etc.... but they can't be everywhere. I must get some for my next cruise and just give doorknobs and the like in our cabin a going over before we unpack. Thank you.

There are mixed reviews on The Pantry on P & O Aussie.

 

Most complaints are around the lack of variety of food, the lack of trays and the reconfiguration of the tables.

 

However the lack of variety is an interesting complaint - there are 10 themed food areas (e.g. Indian, Roast, Asian, Pastry, The Grill etc) and each has a variety of dishes that change each meal. So not sure how people can say lack of variety.

 

The removal of trays has been panned severely - especially those who are disabled or have kids or want to visit multiple stations.

 

The seating issue is due to removing some table space to make the concept work and also to put different seat configurations in - e.g. bar stools at high tables, couches etc.

 

No idea if this is cutting down on illness or food consumption but it seems to be the way P & O is going across their line.

 

There doesn't seem to be any complaints about wait times to be served or freshness of the food.

I don't know that you could call it 'variety'. I fronted up to check out the stir-fry a couple of teams, and walked past that station some more times, and every time the stir fry seemed to be bulked out with cabbage. Wait times aren't a problem, because everyone is in the restaurant now as the pantry is a dismal failure. You have to experience it to understand it.