Frugalist

CCL stock is taking a big hit today. Down over 5% right now. Royal Caribbean is about where it closed yesterday and the general stock market is up a bit. Is the drop due to the situation in Texas? Who knows? Just sayin'. ;)

The statement at Princess.com in the News section says they have to book the cruise by the end of 2015.

Which means they could conceivably book a cruise that sails as late as early 2017. Very liberal IMHO.

ps. do you think "suite people" got the same offer as the rabble?

I can't imagine why they wouldn't.

I wonder if passengers are getting cruise credits/days for the Captains Circle loyalty program, since their fares are being refunded?

I wonder if/when the FCC expires?

Neither of the above affects me. Just curious.

My wife and I would treat this as an almost-free stay at a land resort. Free room. Free food (except for optional specialty restaurants). I don't know the Texas liquor law, but I gather it's a bit unusual. We're not big drinkers so I doubt that would impact our enjoyment of our week on board.

We've had some fun trying to figure out how we could've best taken advantage of this situation had we known about it in advance. We would've booked a fancy suite for about $3000 per person. Enjoyed the suite life for the week, then gotten our entire fare + port fees + gov't taxes refunded. Then we would've used our $750 FCC to book a balcony cabin on another 7-day cruise. 2 7-day cruises practically for free. ;)

The above is not intended to take away from the seriousness of the situation faced not only by thousands of cruise passengers, but also faced by the environment and economy in the Galveston/Houston region. Things are pretty serious in that regard.

Too bad they changed the offer. :(

They have gone back to offering the original terms of refund + FCC for all.

princess didn't have to offer anything.

Which is what I said, just in slightly different words: Princess was required to offer nothing! ;)

This was posted by Princess on their Facebook page about 25 minutes ago:

"Given this new information, all passengers will receive a 100% refund of the cruise fare, government fees and taxes. In addition, as a goodwill gesture, each passenger will receive a 25% Future Cruise Credit equal to the cruise fare paid on this voyage."

There! Is everyone happy now? ;) Although it is not mentioned if the FCC will have an expiration date, I'm sure we'll see people come on here witching that it expires before they can use it. ;) ;)

And, as chipmaster pointed out, there were probably a number of people who decided to leave the ship this afternoon based on the revised offer. Now, they find out the original offer if reinstated. Boy, will they be PO'd!

Still, a very generous offer by Princess. Way above and beyond what they were required to offer. Which was nothing! Still, there's a lot of Princess hating going on over at Facebook right now.

You guys are really something else. I'm sorry I wasted my vacation time posting. Now to get back to my cruise.

We're on the Royal now. Heard from a bartender last night and just confirmed with Passenger Services:

Starting with this cruise, if you want to buy the $49/day unlimited drink package, it is NO LONGER REQUIRED that all of the adults in your stateroom buy the package! I know this will make a lot of you very happy!

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1905197&highlight=magic+jack

I posted this in the thread you linked to:

"based on the above reports, it sounds like using the ship's internet is not very practical (if at all possible) for Magic Jack calls. By the way, if you're Platinum, you get at least 150 free minutes per cruise.

"I have the Magic Jack app on my Kindle Fire HD, and it works great. I used it to make free calls back to the states when we were in Canada last summer. I have no doubt it would work equally well at an internet cafe in port anywhere around the world.

"I also have the free Text+ app on my Fire HD and it works beautifully to send unlimited free texts. It works off an internet connection, not a cell phone connection. Since it's not a bandwidth hog like a Magic Jack or Skype call, I suspect it would work nicely using the ship's internet."

With a Magic Jack account, and the Magic Jack app on your mobile device, you can call back to the US for free from anywhere you have a wifi connection. As mentioned in the thread, you should make your calls from an internet cafe in port.

How do you know which dock that your ship will be at? I am trying to figure that out

vinow dot com then click on cruise ship schedule.

DH is off coffee due to stomach issues, but is enjoying lemon herbal tea with honey in the morning.

Bigelow Lemon Lift is available in the Horizon Court, along with several other varieties.

I think the key points to hit are:

 

1) If the original terms and conditions had been clear in the first place, they wouldn't have had to modify them. Clearly, the original wording left ambiguity.

 

2) Because the t&c weren't clear, you called Princess for clarification. The reps you spoke to assured you that the FCC could be split. You shouldn't be harmed (financially) because you were given incorrect information by Princess and then relied on it.

 

Good luck!

Two absolutely excellent points. With respect to #2, I've been arguing that Princess should be required to honor assurances made by their front-line telephone sales reps when relying on those assurances was the basis for making the booking in the first place. If those assurances were not made, we would not have made the booking.

To all Princess customers: BEWARE -- Princess telephone sales reps can promise you the moon if it means making a sale. Princess seems to think they are under no obligation to honor that promise. You cannot rely on anything a Princess sales rep says unless it is unambiguously spelled out in writing.

I found 2 screen shots of the original offer.

 

EDIT: The attachments aren't copying. They are posts #60 and #115.

Both have links you can click on to see a screen shot of the original offer.

Excellent! I have printed the screenshot linked to in post #60 and have added it to my pile of documents supporting my case.

You might want to ask around to see if anyone has a screenshot or other dated evidence of the original offer.

I copied and pasted the T&C into a Word document on Oct. 14 when I booked our Nov. 1 cruise. The Customer Relations rep I spoke with today asked me to email her a copy of that. Supposedly, upper management looked at it when considering their decision today. Their reasoning for refusing to apply the FCC to a second cruise is that the wording of the offer is that the FCC will be applied to a future "sailing," not "sailings."

Some early posts in this thread also quote the original T&C without the word "single." Those posts are all dated before chamima's Oct. 17 post quoting the T&C with the word "single."

If you think an actual screenshot of the original T&C would carry more weight than what we already have, I'll try to hunt one down. Thanks for your help.

The Nov cruise didn't have the stipulations of applying it to one cruise only that was 7 days in 2014?

When the promotion went live on Oct. 12, and when I booked our Nov. 1 cruise on Oct. 14, the Terms and Conditions did not restrict the application of the FCC to a single future sailing.

However, on Oct. 17, chamima posted the Terms and Condition in this thread at post #166. Sometime between Oct. 14 and Oct. 17 Princess changed the rules of the game. Sometime during that time frame they snuck in the word, "single." Someone at Princess was playing dirty pool by changing the T&C in the middle of the promotion.

OK, you have started at the bottom and worked part of your way up.

 

Time now to contact the President of Princess and work the issue down.

 

Write a calm letter/e-mail, state the facts, and include the wording of the original offer.

Excellent idea. I will start working on a draft of that letter now.

It's also been suggested that I start a separate thread here on CruiseCritic to focus strictly on this and other issues I and others are having with Princess honoring their commitments. This will help expose Princess's shenanigans, rather than have them buried deep in this long thread. I hope to have the initial post up tonight or tomorrow.

May I make a suggestion? Take that $1520 and use it on the cruise you booked that qualified and upgrade to a more expensive cabin or cancel/transfer the other booking with the FCC so you can book a longer more expensive cruise and incorporate this $1520 into that instead of wasting it.

Thanks for the suggestion, but that cruise has already been sailed.

Having kept my bar membership despite retirement, I read the terms and conditions very carefully. I did not see any "brochure price" restriction.

Wehwalt, I may be in need of good legal advice and/or services soon. Read my post just above this one.

Just heard back from Customer Relations rep. Bottom line: Princess upper management refuses to honor their Terms and Conditions and reneges on assurances provided by their front-line sales reps. They have taken our $1520 FCC and will not apply them to a 2nd qualifying future cruise. I don't know where to turn. The CR rep said the issue has gone as far as it will go within the company (up to the Customer Relations Manager).

Anyone had the thought that a new thread making this problem clear or a Facebook post may be the way to go?

It might be premature but they seem to respond to public forums and the problem might be getting lost in the original title of this thread.

A new thread might be a good idea. Reduce the possibility of current issues not being seen because they're at the end of a long thread. Who wants to start it? ;)

I don't have a Facebook account, but I've heard that companies often respond quickly and favorably to customer support issues posted on social media sites. Hopefully someone with a Facebook account who is encountering issues similar to those raised here can post something on Facebook.

We are having a similar issue with the FCC promotion. We booked on October 14 for the November 1 Golden Princess sailing in the Grand Suite. $1749 PP. We planned to apply this amount to two sailing using my credit on one sailing and applying my wife's FCC to sailing number two. I too went through the whole food chain on the phone, but at the end was told that the terms and conditions state that we cannot use the credits in that matter.

 

I took a screen shot of the terms and conditions during my booking and it does not state the single voyage terms.

 

Keep the fight going, you are not the only one they are hearing from.

If I may ask, how do you plan to follow up on their refusal to honor their own Terms and Conditions of this promotion?

A summary of this morning's call:

Front line CSR transferred me to Customer Relations, who could see our FCCs but couldn't understand why they weren't being applied to our new March booking. Put me on hold to discuss with a higher-up.

After a 10-15 minute hold, she came back with the single-cruise restriction line. I then explained to her the Terms and Conditions (T&C) at the time we booked (Oct. 14) and how I was assured twice that the FCC could be used on multiple future qualifying cruises. Put back on hold while she talked with "upper management."

She came back and said that everything they could see had the word, "single." I suggested that it seems that Princess changed the T&C of the promotion several days after it went live. She asked me if I had printed out the T&C. I told her I had copied and pasted them into a Word document along with the T&C of the current promotion. She asked me if I would email her a copy of the document, which I did. She said when she receives it, she will forward it to "upper management" who will look at in and decide the fate of our FCCs. She we call me back in a day or two when she hears of the decision.

She extended the hold on our March booking until this is resolved. She also "protected" the sale price, which is scheduled to expire after Dec. 20.

So, I'm hanging here in limbo. To be continued.

OH, John! Your saga with Princess doesn't seem to end. :(

I'm really sorry!

When I read your post I decided to check our Circle Savings account and the extra $300 from our cruise still shows as "active".

Our Circle Savings accounts showed the correct amounts as Cruise Credits as late as December 5, two days before our recent cruise departed. It wasn't until last night that I discovered our CS accounts were empty.

Before booking the Nov. 1 cruise I was told by two different Princess reps that the FCC could be applied to multiple qualifying cruises until used up. I asked once when I called to put a hold on a cabin. I asked again when I called back to finalize and pay for the booking. If I had been told otherwise, we would never have booked that cruise since we weren't planning on cruising again (other than our already-booked Dec. 7 cruise) before the end of 2014.

I'll be calling shortly and will report the results of that call.

The change from the previous 100% FCC sale seems to be that this time they're specifying the credit has to be used on a cruise that hasn't yet been paid in full, not that the last sale let people split the credit between multiple cruises.

 

In fact, someone on the board quoted the promotion's terms back in October in this post, and "The FCC must be applied to a single future sailing departing before December 31, 2014" is clearly in there.

Yes, the disagreement centers around the addition of the word, "single."

I looked at the post you linked to, and I don't know where the word, "single" came from, but it is not in the Terms and Conditions for this promotion that I printed out and have in front of me. Also, if you look at posts #46 and 84, also by the same poster, they quote the Terms and Conditions in full and they do NOT contain the word, "single." Also, look at post #16, which quotes the Terms and Conditions without the word, "single."

The 100% FCC refund promotion has been offered in 3 versions in the past couple of months. The first version, the one this thread is about, did not restrict the application of the FCC to a single future cruise and did not restrict the application of the FCC to a cruise that is not already paid in full. The second version, which was offered in November, added the single future cruise restriction. The third version, which is running now until the end of December, added the restriction to future cruises that are not already paid in full.