Steelers36

Ditto Post #388. (He was also supposedly our captain on Regal, but nope).

Where do you suppose the big box agents on the phone are working from?

Yes, you can do that. If you have four people, just upgrade your plan to 4 devices. If you are Platinum or Elite level, you get 50% off. Just need to share the login credentials with daughters and they are good to go. Four devices can be connected at once. If a fifth device attempts to login, the system will ask you which one of the four to drop out.

You are correct in that a business can set a standard and advise potential customers of it and then the customer knows to either go along or head to a competitor. The thing is that Princess has setup more of a guideline and recommendations and is not strictly enforcing everything in the guideline. So, they are unlike a high-end land-based restaurant or private club that might still insist on a particular dress code. They are more definite about what they do not allow and seem to enforce that for the most part (although reports since the re-start indicate Smart Casual nights have a more Casual look than in the past). So, the table is flipped and it's more like is the guest doesn't like the system, the guest can seek another cruise line that makes its customers toe the line, so to speak. For us, we like the flexibility that Princess offers in reality with a range of reasonable dress accepted.

Aside from the fact that I don't believe we should be telling fellow Princess guests what to do, the Specialty Restaurants have been, and remain, smart casual at all times. However, formal wear is also welcomed.

You are boarding just after we depart (we are jumping ship two days early in Messina to spend six days in Sicily before returning to Civitavecchia to board the Island for another tour of duty (LOL). I will do some reporting, but no plans for a "live from". I will be interested in how the atmosphere is on board, Dining situation, internet reliability, and activities on board for the sea days.

We have not done 30 Princess cruises as yet, but I am quite confident I will never find a price directly with Princess that compares to agencies like the one I use now. We have not looked outside Princess to-date, but I see that as something we will do when looking to cruise again. This fall we are doing a series of Princess trips and looking forward to it, but then taking a step back with FCC's and gift card bonuses, and gift cards themselves exhausted. With sailing Princess alone, I have not had to shop around since landing on the best discount rates I am aware of.

No issues with anyone who wants to self-book with Princess (I like the extra revenue as well). I am also one who likes to have control of all of our travel arrangements. I do not use TA's as a general rule. One exception is booking Princess cruises because I am willing to give up some of the control in order to get a generous cash discount off the cruise fare. In terms of finding as good a deal on Princess.com as any travel agent, I beg to differ. First, Princess.com only shows pricing for a single fare code (with Standard, Plus, and Premier options). As a guest, you may qualify for other promotions as well. Princess.com should be showing your best pricing option, but I have seen this is not always the case. The only ways you are going to know about the other options is to ask a Princess agent to look in POLAR and see what else you are eligible for. Or, have access to a third party booking engine that does provide all possible fare code options. My TA's website does this, as do some generic booking sites and other agencies. Not all agencies display the details on fare codes and all of the options. If you find something better, you need a Princess rep or CVP to book it because there is no way on Princess.com to do so. Finally, no matter what fare promotion option someone finds with Princess, my TA is going to sell it to me for less, so there is never a situation where Princess is better cost-wise.

Unless you have access like an agent to POLAR, you cannot change or cancel your bookings. There is no customer-facing online ability to do those things. Nor to change a cabin assignment as another example. In terms of a Princess CVP, they have access to the booking system and can do their own work to serve a client. TA's also have access to POLAR, but some prefer to call in to Princess and have a PCL employee make the changes, bookings and cancels. At least some of that group like to do it that way so that if something goes wrong it is on Princess and not them (if they had self-served). Princess encourages agent self-service and has done training and made changes to provide more things in simper ways for agents. Thing is, the typical independent agent deals with a variety of cruise lines and other tour providers and may not be totally comfortable with some of the more intricate or less used processes in the Princess system.

This is true and my TA has been very busy over the past 12 months or so and has to wait on hold (sometimes multiple phones on hold with multiple lines). Yes, he has other clients that need servicing as well. When I email him about something, I do let him know if there is an urgency or deadline to grab a fare drop deal for example. He has not failed to accomplish something in due course or in time. Sometimes he has surprised me with a speedy job done considering how busy they are fielding calls and issues. It is also true that Princess CVP's have scores of clients who may be contacting them. One advantage is they focus on Princess exclusively and the good ones should be experts at everything. The downside is if you are someone who sails with other lines, you either need a TA for them or deal with someone different internally.

Once 60 days has passed, you cannot switch booking. That said, I have read of a rare case where, say the TA was making some egregious errors or became non-responsive, a guest might write Customer Relations and request Princess to take back the booking as the person was firing their agent. Are your bookings marked No Upgrade, or Accept Upgrade? You might get an Upgrade offer or just done and if your agent doesn't notify you promptly, you might not be able to act fast enough to get your cabin back. Has the agent cross-referenced all six bookings? If this is done PCL should realize that you are all together and shouldn't move one cabin to someplace else on the ship. I would put that in a screw-up category if you are not promptly notified. The other thing is to make sure when Final Payment comes that the agency applies payment to all six cabins.

Come to Toronto!! Many Americans love coming to Toronto.

If that is directed at me, yes, it is real. We purchased a condo last Winter. Joining Rewards is not the same as joining as AARP mbr and not required I am told. No doubt I would get pestered by emails, but they don't require a full street address. I did add it. I would also expect that a member magazine would only go to full members.

So that must be the RB then if we pull up the deck plans?

Right you both are. But the salient point in terms of fleet ship codes is that there was a Golden before there was a Grand and so the G was taken. Grand became AP.

Yes, I know. An unfortunate circumstance in the UK. It is a reason I have read some Brits find ways to book in USA.

According to Wikipedia history of Princess, the Golden joined the fleet before the Grand.

Even Ontario, which opened back up slowly, has not required masks in theaters for a long time now. We were at a live Broadway-style musical two weeks ago and I would say it was pretty much half elected to wear a mask. In fact this particular show is going to Broadway after it leaves Toronto, so we were seeing the future Broadway cast and show. I HIGHLY recommend the show &JULIET, if I can put in a plug. It was a blast!!

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHZL_enAU841AU841&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:2&tbm=lcl&sxsrf=ALiCzsbjEG7Gkdn7chu4cUEsQhk5c73ORQ:1658525602148&q=naples+cruise+port&rflfq=1&num=10&ved=2ahUKEwjZsPequY35AhV5K0QIHSXeCGkQtgN6BAgkEAY#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:[[40.844735199999995,14.2638681],[40.8370989,14.253869]];tbs:lrf:!1m4!1u2!2m2!2m1!1e1!2m1!1e2!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:2

When the Crown came along, code CP was already taken for the Sea Princess. And I am sure the Sea Princess did not get the SP code since that went to the Sun Princess (edumacated guess there without checking it). the KP wasn't a bad choice since the "C" in "Crown" sounds like a "K". Hence, I think your idea of why the Sea Princess became CP makes sense - pronunciation. The fleet was smaller than as well. I think "RP" was the original Royal Princess. And the moniker was re-used for the new Royal. Also, I believe the old Golden Princess had the GP code. So, knowing the history, that explains why Grand could not use the G or the R, so they went to the A (at least the A is a long A sound in word Grand???). When the new Regal came along, they gave it GP. So, far not so bad to figure out their logic. The newish Sky Princess had both the S and the K taken, so it became YP. I am not sure why Majestic became MJ. And it gets murky with the newest ships - Enchanted and Discovery. EX for Enchanted? Why not EN? And Discovery is XP. What's with the X all of a sudden? I think they must have given up on coming up with more codes ending with "P". I would have named these two "EN" and "DS" in lieu of using the X. But what do I know? I'm just wasting time here on CC. LOL.

If I was embarking on a long voyage - such as we have upcoming in October - I'd like to have the option to quarantine for a few days on board, rather than be stuck overseas waiting to fly back home. If it was a short Caribbean trip, well forget it I guess.

Good one!! Best line of the week!!!

Yes, 3 x $100 instead of $250. Sometimes you do get more S/H OBC with a single booking (e.g. 14 nights over 2 x 7 nights). However, I find I often am getting other perks for separate bookings, like an extra SD credit, or OBC, etc. I am finding the fares pretty equivalent these days (but I know it varies). I don't mind a bit of a hit since I get flexibility in re-faring the separate segments. I also like having my outbound and return airfares disconnected when using EZ-Air since I can re-fare one without the other. We have a B3B on REGAL in October, plus a following 4th trip on ISLAND. I booked the REGAL as three segments rather than 25 nights (or 14+11). I re-fared the various cruises multiple times since the beginning. I booked us early so it was NP at all to get the same cabin throughout. With EZ-Air, I changed flights and re-fared multiple times since that opened up and am on different airlines than I started with. I know we have to lowest possible Business fares to and from FCO and it would have been nearly impossible to do with a round-trip booking. Those are my reasons. Other things like Captain's Circle cruise credits and Elite mini-bar setups are the same, no matter how booked. I will say that a new issue that gave me the shivers was DMW trying to book across the virtual REGAL B3B as DMW (and MC App in general) sees this as one voyage, but I have little confidence in DMW and hope our expected TD style booking can be confirmed on board.

I'd be happy to check into this fare more as I did in Post #27 above. Perhaps there is another fare code you don't see unless you have access to a good booking engine other than Princess.com which doesn't display all available fares. I would need the ship and cruise date. I don't necessarily doubt anyone, but I am certainly interested in knowing if there is a good agency out there that has better discounting than the two I have used in that past 6 years or so.

I forgot about Crew Chat. I imagine we'll have occasion to try that out in October.