Mingus

I have "gifted" myself money for shore excursions and OBC. When I go to the cruise personalizer these dollars do not seem to be reflected. Am I looking in the right place? Are these $ not reflected since they are classified as "gifts". I have gifted a substantial amount of money and am concerned because I don't see this money. Any advice on where to look to see where I can verify that this money is indeed there?

Since items from the Gifts & Services catalog could be gifts from family and friends, they do not show on your cruise personalizer.

Request for an email confirmation, if you're purchasing for yourself.

You'll receive cards/vouchers for your purchases, in your cabin.

They don't need a dock that takes cruise ships, she won't have any passengers.

They will be working on the Grand, Canada place is not a good spot to load shipping containers of new material.

Anyone know for sure?

We were on the Grand early Apr and the crew said they'll be at Ballantyne.

Warned them it's not a good area, especially at night.

Apologies if this has been previously discussed (I couldn't find anything on a search), I'm not often in this thread, as my future cruises are RCCL and NCL (no comments, please ;-)).

 

According to the port schedule the Grand Princess is going to be moored at Canada Place from May 1 through to May 9. Anyone know anything about this? Is this correct? I would have thought that if they were going to be doing any work on the ship they would take it over to the SeaSpan shipyards on the other side of the harbour? It can't be cheap to keep it moored at Canada Place!

 

I'm not aware of any event in town that would need to use the ship - but maybe I'm just out of the loop on that! Just curious, anyone know any facts? It's always a little weird seeing ships moored there "long term"!

The Grand is supposed to be at Ballantyne for a wet-dock.

I called on Friday it was 10 percent. I am doing another order today I will let you know what I find out. I heard September they would raise it to 1.20.

The exchange rate you get for your obc depends on your cruise departure date.

Cruises prior to September (with the fare ending in 90 cents) are at 10% exchange rate.

Starting with September cruises, the fares end in 80 cents and are at 20%.

I had to call Princess for the OBC (I could not find anywhere online to do this in canadian funds). You call the gift department and they add the OBC in increments of $100.00US and bill you $110.00 canadian. When we got onboard there were 15 little cards telling us we had onboard credit of $100.00.

It's not listed in the Gifts & Services catalog, but you can buy OBC in increments of US$500 (item #6022).

Not to sure what the US rate of our cruise is.

Rates listed/billed/purchased from the website are Cdn.

I'm thrilled we can still buy at the lower rate of exchange.

Cruises starting Sept 2015 are priced at 20% exchange rate>

Can someone tell me when this change took place? My friend booked a FCC on our last cruise together in January 2012. We are looking at a cruise at the end of this year, so I hope it's still good.

The 2 year expiration started with FCCs purchased after March 9, 2012.

There was also another change to FCCs on August, 2012.

Princess added OBC for 3 to 6 day cruises:

$15pp for inside & outside

$25pp balcony & suites

Princess Cays is more of a private beach considering you can walk up to the main part of Eleuthra

What's the distance and have you done it before?

Since when did Costco drop AMEX? That's the only card they take. I used it there very recently.

Costco stopped accepting AMEX, so far, only in Canada.

Anybody know when we'll be receiving this year's Carnival Corp. proxy statement?

I find this is the easiest proof of ownership.

So true, but I tend to book rather far out so I needed to know how long they were good for.

A key point with the new FCCs is that it's a 2 year "book by" date, so your cruise date could be more than a year past that date.

The old FCCs had a 4 year "sail by" date.

Do you have to book in Canadian dollars for this? I called them and they said since I booked in $US, they could only bill OBC in $US. I mentioned that they always convert my account to Canadian and bill by credit card in Canadian at the end of each cruise, but that just seemed to confuse him.

Yes, you would have had to originally book your cruise at the prevailing Canadian dollar exchange rate, in order to have that exchange rate applied to any OBC purchase.

Your converting of your on-board account (at the end of the cruise) to Canadian dollars is a different issue.

Just contacted Princess and put in some OBC. It is still at 10% right now. $1,000 OBC charged to my credit card for $1,100.00 Not too bad, but I imagine that will change soon. So if you are going to put OBC on your cruise, better hurry. Never know when they will charge it at the 20% rate.

I believe the exchange rate charged for OBC, gifts, services, etc is same rate as when you first booked the cruise.

Just checked some of my saved cruises (in C$) and they have now been increased from 10% to 20% exchange rate :( :mad:

For Non-USA passengers, Princess requires an address at the Guest Check-In. We will be on the Pacific Princess for 28 days and follow up with a land tour in Alaska.We have one pre-cruise day in Miami and one in LA before returning home.

Is the name of the ship, c/- Princess Cruises, Santa Clara, California 95050 adequet?

Thanks in advance.

The "non-usa passenger" section has an "example" link to show you what's required.

when would the $25 credit for a referral show up and where?

Your referrals are listed in your Circle Savings Account/Account Summary.

They show up immediately, if you used the instant referral.

It's also interesting how all the Cdn prices end in '.90' on the Princess site but nowhere else. Guess that's what happens when they take the US price and just tack on an exchange rate.

Earlier this year, Princess changed their Canadian pricing from par to 10% premium. That's why C$ prices ends in .90

I had problems with Chrome. Switched to Firefox no problems logging in with new login box.

Yes, same problem. The log in screen in Chrome freezes, but ok in Firefox.

With the coffee card, do you only get free hot chocolate on the cruise on which you purchased the card or does the free hot chocolate carry over to another cruise?

It's like the unlimited brewed coffee.....depends if they write on the back of the coffee card.

I think there are two reasons eople buy a coffee card.

 

First, you get 15 specialty coffees. Assuming you drink this many, you save money with the card. Any unused punches can be used on a subsequent cruise.

 

Second, as long as there is a punch left, you get unlimited brewed coffee. Many feel this is much better coffee than the syrup stuff served in the buffet and other dining venues.

Also, with the coffee card, you get unlimited special teas (my fav, ginger tea) and hot chocolate.

That has been my experience also. In addition we were given new cruise (key) cards for the 2nd leg of the B2B. As we were led off the ship the card for the 1st leg was deactivated. As we returned to the ship after visiting immigration our new card was activated.

On our Grand B2B this past Sept., we didn't get our new cruise card for the 2nd leg.

Went to the PSD and they pointed out the 1st cruise card was valid to the end of the 2nd leg.

They said this was a new new policy to just have the one card for B2B (and I would assume for B2B2B......).

Last week we noticed that for the entire cruise on the Grand, the lighting in the Da Vinci dining room slowly dims and then suddenly goes full bright and then continuously repeats that cycle. We found it to be very annoying. When asked about it, the wait staff said it was a new system and was the same on all the dining rooms on the ship.

 

Anybody else notice this on other ships in the Princess fleet and/or know the rationale for it?

We were on the Grand back in Sept. and did notice the light changing.....didn't ask why.

"Pricing will vary by brand upon service rollout"...........so will it be more than the current pricing???

Is the new terminal finished yet in San Francisco? At the new terminal are there less traffic problems?

Yes it's finished.....we arrived on the Grand 9/25, for its official grand opening.

Vehicle traffic flow out front doesn't look too bad, but passenger flow might be a problem with little shelter from the rain.

Lots of pictures here.....

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2056338&highlight=pier+27

We never know what happens in the kitchens, we just have to assume that the crew is properly trained and following procedures.

On a recent Grand Princess galley tour, I noticed many security cameras (don't remember there being cameras on other ship galleys).

Asked one of the crew and was told "it's for ISO", which I assume was for ISO9001 Quality Management (a certified program for quality control).

So maybe any safe food issues are identified.