Steelers36

Those were PRE-cruise and I was commenting on cancelling something on board.

No idea at all and have never noticed anyone vaping on the ship - I think. I am not even sure we know what the correct official policy is. In the absence of anything more authoritative, I'd have to go with the Passage Contract language. I don't really read the old smoking policy sticky thread, so I have no idea if the matter has been covered there or not.

I was under impression that if you cancelled something like a SD res on-board, they posted refund as Refundable OBC to the cabin account. Wouldn't expect refund to form of payment, nor have to expect a check.

Thrak, you need to correct JP's email address. And I suspect his HA Group one - if exists - is missing the "J".

Agree with @waltd in general. However, I have seen a number of posts where they were offering great deals to folks on the ship if they wanted to stay on for the next voyage rather than head home. If you plan on cruising Princess again, purchase AT LEAST one FCD each. In fact, I would purchase one additional FCD per person beyond what you KNOW you are going to book and sail before you have a chance to purchase more. You can always then check IF the Future Cruise Consultant has any better deals on offer than you would see on Princess.com or get from your TA. PS - That should be a quick Q&A and not require a sit down if you are familiar with shopping for cruises of interest. Just ask the FCC person if they have any specials other than pricing on Princess.com and tell them you are buying FCD's.

Whenever there are headline shows in the main theater, there are always two per night. All ships same.

I have seen language that if two pieces of information are different on Princess.com, that the Passage Contract rules over a FAQ answer. Now, my preference would be for total ban on "smoking" on all indoor public areas and cabins as the FAQ text implies. IDK if anyone knows if this was a policy and Passage Contract was quietly adjusted and this is situation #73 where Princess says one thing over here and another over there. I don't have any active bookings so cannot look up anything other than the posted versions of Passage Contracts on Princess.com. It seems at least one or two posters above have accessed their current Contract via the booking's Cruise Personalizer link and are seeing the more lenient policy. True? Interesting situation I have not seen debated before. I do know that quite a number of years back, we entered a cabin that was awfully stale from old smoke and I had wished at the time that PCL had designated smoking cabins like hotels (apart from banning it which they eventually did). We immediately asked for new cabin and I don't recall if that happened or they did an extra deep cleaning the next day. Glad we don't have that worry any longer. Have not encountered a cabin that we would suspect used by a regular vaper, so IDK.

That was already done within the first five posts. Then folks started having some fun with it and why not lighten the mood with some harmless humor?

I thought the idea was that it was the collection spot to report results of bidding on a cabin. I would just ignore all the older stuff and just read the most recent posts which are going to be most relevant to the current situation. At least that is how I would treat such a thread topic. Same thing with DMW and Medallion/Princess App threads - the stuff from two years ago isn't so relevant (except I imagine one would find a lot of the same problems from then as exist today). ETA: If CC had a "weeding" job or process, they could erase any posts older than two years in any thread for relevancy sake. Also, at this point in life, what is useful from pre-Covid in forum threads?

Suggest you also post this on the "How's the bidding system doing?" thread.

It's HAL 19000.

Any place we have been, it is posted 30 minutes prior to sail time.

That was nice of them to offer that when they didn't have to.

Winter 2018 - Island Princess. Was on it. I believe they perhaps did similar in Winter 2019, but since Covid, nope. I think it should be brought back for folks never done the full circuit. It was a FLL round trip and of course included Panama Canal which we had not done before. That said, for a repeat trip, we found it took a long time down through Caribbean to actually get to Brazil and have some happenings in S.A. Having been to Rio at Carnival on that trip, we have no desire to go again and would be happy to start in Buenos Aires. In fact, we would fly in a couple of days early as we missed the city last time. We have been to Iguazu Falls ( a great side trip if you can swing it). I'd like to begin in B.A. as I said, but I don't like the typical finish in Valparaiso. I'd want to keep going up through Peru and so forth. Unfortunately, it's a back and forth thing now. Take a look at HAL as they are doing a circuit route. It was a wonderful 60-night trip, but I would like to hit most of the same ports on the west coast and you don't get that anymore. The only option is take first or last trip of the season from/to LA port and then you do get more west coast ports in S.A. if you B2B around to B.A. or go from B.A. to LA.

There are three active mini-bar threads right now. Perhaps one is sufficient?

There are three active mini-bar threads right now. Perhaps one is enough?

Passport is not a medical situation. However, if one partner has a medical issue to cancel, the other cabin mate is covered AFAIK (i.e., not expected to cruise alone and leave partner at home in medical condition).

I would bet a dollar or two on a mis-matched birthdate or CC Member number.

Welcome to Princess and Cruise Critic. It would be helpful if you and anyone else posting about a cruise fare question to give us the ship, the sail date and length of voyage, along with your cabin categories. That said, a little deduction leads me to believe you likely booked the Grand on Aug 26 for 7 nights. Could be something similar, but the principle I lay out follows. When you originally booked your Obstructed Oceanview, things were likely different in the booking options. Now, Princess has Non-Refundable deposits only for the cabin "lead-in" categories, This is the lowest level sold for each major cabin type (Suites excepted I believe). So, I am thinking when you looked at Mini-Suites, you saw the lead-in pricing of about $1,948 (or $3885 as you said for two when you looked). If so, this would mean you switch to a Non-Ref Deposit which you don't have now. I am quite sure you would have booked with the typical Refundable Deposit. Also, when you book the new way, you don't get to select a cabin at the low pricing. If I go up a level and check that pricing today, the total cost with port taxes is about $4,134, less your $991 already paid, leaves an upcharge net of about $3,143. This seems in line with what the agent told you and fits the parameters and numbers you quoted in your post. So, there is an additional upcharge to move at least to a MD cabin category in order to keep your Refundable status and to select a cabin (of course if MD's are GTY only, then you need to look at MC's or higher if you want to select "your" cabin), I do see you are closer to Final Payment Date now when your deposit would be committed in any case. I don't see why you couldn't go this route if you choose. You should discuss further with a Princess rep. I would think hard to go wrong with any Mini-Suite location, but folks do have preferences for that. I would suggest asking for a CVP since they should be more expert at selling and booking aspects of cruising if you are going to deal directly with Princess. Going forward, you might be better served by using an outside TA. But one of the better CVP's should be helpful in making this change that you desire.

Glad the OBC can work for you as many of us would be looking for the cash, depending on how much other OBC we have. Yes, there is a real issue with two couples travelling together as DMW won't apply dining credits for both couples to a booking. We had this situation last Fall where both we and our friends had DC's to use. We just booked on board as DMW was taking 4 credits from us if I tried to book the four of us. And it is necessary to be all on the same booking so you have a table for 4 instead of two 2-tops.

Yes, that person was so wrong they need to be sent for re-programming. Two people who want to dine together need to be on the same SD booking. When those two people are cabinmates on the same booking, the System knows you each have a credit. Either the credits work and are applied or not. That said, I did have a quirky bug in the App for a time last year where it seemed to recognize one of us for credits, but not the other. I'd say, if you are concerned space will be gone by the time you step on board, then book and pay and see Guest Services on board about being rebated back. That is going to be Refundable OBC, however, and not to your credit card, but at least the money is yours. You can also cancel the res made in the App for SD and your refund goes back to the card used. You can try re-booking and see if credits are accepted. You could hang onto your res until close to cruise date and keep trying to make additional res and see if credits look to be accepting. If so, cancel what you have and re-book right away and thinking space will still be there. No guarantees. I also don't think we guests know whether PCL is opening all table spaces to pre-cruise bookings, or still holding some back. I'd lean to the latter in the absence of any evidence to the contrary as this was the past practice. I just wouldn't dally about after boarding the ship if I wanted to book a particular venue and time.

Just a note for others who may be reading. When quoting a TA savings in % terms, it is going to be a variable result, depending on length of voyage and cabin category - both of which directly affect the cost. There are two components to every fare quote we see - Commissionable and Non-Commissionable. The latter is a fixed amount per day, so it is easy to see that the Commissionable portion is going to be quite small for an Inside cabin on a 7-night voyage, versus a Suite for 20 nights. This is not something most guests are aware of. The agency discount is always applied to the Commissionable portion of the fare and should be pretty consistent % number (a generous agency might lower the standard % for low cost deals in Inside cabins, however). Most folks end up calculating their savings as a % of the total cruise fare (and not always clear if they included the port taxes in the total fare or not when doing this). Even mentioning a dollar figure is less informative than if the poster includes what the Princess fare was at time of booking so that the savings have context. Ask your agent what their discount percentage is (you can figure it out yourself from their quotes as long as you know the NCF portion). If they say 10%, that seems pretty decent, but you can find better. Of course a travel points CC will give you the same benefit anywhere - unless this is a special due to affiliation and you only get the top rate (5%) when booking via the affiliated retailer. That is definitely a factor which boosts the total savings and comes into the equation if shopping around.

If that isn't a kiss-off, then IDK what is!

There really isn't much data to be concerned about on your device. Just name/pswd if that is being remembered. All of the significant data is stored on Princess servers.

I think they have a team of busy beavers toiling away trying to clean up bad data and they can barely keep up with the voyage sail dates.