hobbsie65

Just off the Crown (great cruise btw) & exchanged mini bar for 2 coffee cards - they put one on each of our room cards. I had an old card with about 10 punches left so gave that to some fellow passengers who used it with no problems.

You no longer have to wait until final payment date to submit the request for OBC. It can be done anytime after you have booked the cruise. This change was made so that you can use the OBC when making shore excursion reservations before the cruise.

I tried for a cruise in 2020 & today received this response "Unfortunately we cannot add the benefits at this time, as this can only be done within 90 days of departure. However, I have added a diary entry and will get this looked at shortly after 9 February 2020"

We decided to take the £1 deposit offer to hold the cabin we want. Hopefully, a price drop will come along when we will cancel and rebook the same cabin. Slight risk it doesn’t come off but it’s worked in the past.

Same here - we wanted one of those unobstructed obstructed balcony cabins on the Royal in 2020 so this £1 deposit got that for us & we will also cancel & rebook if a better deal comes along. We already get our shareholder & elite onboard credit which is $200 so a nice dent in the bar bill :)

Just taken advantage and booked a couple of cruises with a £1 deposit. I was a bit concerned when the confirmation came through where it stated that cancellation before final payment date would incur a fee of 15% of total cost. Spoke to Princess UK and was told to ignore that - the system hasn’t been adjusted to reflect the low deposit!

We’ll now watch out for price drops and if significant enough, will cancel and rebook using future cruise deposits. It’s such a shame that UK residents can’t cancel and rebook without penalty but I’ll not reopen that contentious topic! :eek:

I checked as well & just the £1 we lose to cancel. At least that's all we will lose to rebook so happy with that - we also booked a couple of cruises as well. Going on the Crown again next week - tbh it was not a great cruise on her last year so hopefully better this time.

Just to let you know you can book for just £1 today in the UK - not a bad deal to lock down a cruise especially for 2020 & nothing to lose apart from £1

We are on the same cruise I think in June. Departure is @ 10pm & boarding after 1pm according to my travel summary. We are flying in on a morning flight from London so will go straight to the ship & hopefully board by 11am before heading into Barcelona to meet some friends.

Firstly, this is not intended as another discussion on removing gratuities. I will not (and never would) do that as I know that all crew staff work extremely hard for the customers, get paid a pittance and rely on the tips and I strongly feel that the tips are a part of the cruise cost and, as such, should always be paid.

 

I have been reading various threads about the advantages and disadvantages of pre-paying gratuities and I have summarised what the threads seem to suggest below:

 

Advantages

 

Paid before leaving for cruise so don't have big bill at the end and if you are not from the US (like us) you can pay in your own currency before the cruise so avoiding currency fluctuations and potential foreign currency transaction fees from your bank.

Disadvantages

 

You could be getting the interest on the money in your bank account up until the end of the cruise.

My question is, will the room steward know that the tips are already prepaid or not? I want to prepay for the reasons stated above but I read a worrying thread in which someone talked about poor attitude from the room steward after he was given a cash tip (in addition to the prepaid gratuity) as the poster believed the steward may have thought the additional cash tip was instead of the auto gratuity. In that thread, it was suggested that people buy an OBC to cover the tips instead but I would prefer just to prepay the tips so I just want to make sure there are not likely to be any other issues with me doing that.

Thanks for any insights.

Always pre-pay - just paid for our June cruise. Shows as paid on invoice & I am sure the only way the steward would find out was if this was removed for whatever reason & they questioned his 'level' of service because of that.

Great pics - many thanks

My friends are boarding the Island Princess today & got there cabin number 3 days ago - I would always want to choose mine so never an option for me but I do not think they were too happy with the location.

Just used Renmar's site to book E701 on the Crown - not loads of cabins left but this one looks great so thanks Renmar - great job

Are you in the New Years sailing?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

No-we are on the 8th December sailing from Phuket

I heard that P&O days do not count toward the most traveled passenger program. Have not heard that they no longer apply toward Captain's Circle loyalty levels.

That is correct - just got off the Crown & I have over 900 days but not considered for the mtp program which I think is fair as it should only be cruises taken on a Princess ship. We still got some nice obc & the bar set up which was exchanged for coffee cards.

Cruise was not the best though - we have started cruising with Celebrity & much prefer the Solstice class ships & food so we will cancel our next 3 Princess cruises.

We got off Crown Princess as you got on and we did not have any issues with regards to the ship and did not think she looked shabby enjoyed the entertainment and the food in MDR but thought the food and choice in buffet at lunchtimes very repetitive and poor and the service was very poor compared to all our other cruises on Princess. When you walked in on previous cruises spaces on tables were set out with napkin and cutlery and soon as you sat down a waiter would ask if you wanted lemonade, tea or coffee and then a waiter would come around with a trolley asking if you wanted alcoholic drinks. This time tables were left with dirty plates from previous diners and you had to either clean them yourself or ask a waiter, not once in the whole cruise were we asked if we would like lemonade, tea or coffee and there was not drinks trolley except for one going around selling only irish coffee. I ended up going to the bar myself by the pools on more than one occasion to get a drink. As a final thought don't know whether it was an idea just for British cruisers but to have battered fish on every day was taking it a little bit too far and the one day they had a curry the only choice to go with it was pasta, mashed potatoes or roasted potatoes not a grain of rice in sight.

Totally agree - I also got off yesterday & really enjoyed the ports & the weather was certainly fabulous. Ship was in good condition but food in dining & buffet very poor as was the service. We were anytime dining & on 2 occasions made to feel unwelcome by the unorganised shambles that we encountered - we gave up & went to the buffet instead. Crew looked uninterested at times & seemed under staffed as well. We have another 3 princess cruises booked but after spending the last 3 on Celebrity ships this is now our preferred option so will cancel those tomorrow. I am also elite so am in a position to compare both lines but unfortunately Princess seems to have made noticeable cut backs on our last 4 cruises with them.

No question is a daft question. Yes, all you lose is your £1 p p. deposit. In fact we have booked two cruises next year ar today's high prices and if there is a price drop,we will just cancel and rebook at the lower rate.

That is exactly what we have done - watch the price drop after final payment date though :mad:

Booked the British Isles cruise - not very happy with price as seems quite high but can always cancel for £2 & rebook if price comes down. Got 4 booked for next year now including a Clipper cruise. I booked one Princess cruise with the $1 offer a while ago through a US agent so that will have to be cancelled I think :)

If you go on the quirky cruise website there are 8 or so reviews. My husband and I are going on this cruise Oct.28. The reviews are all good.

Thanks for that - we have just had our December 2018 Thailand cruise confirmed so really looking forward to it now

Thanks for the replies all.

 

The visa company NCL put me onto have today said that buying a visa in the UK and travelling on a cruise directly from US to Cuba would not be an issue, but given that if we travelled on a direct flight it would not be permitted, frankly I don't trust their advice.

 

It's clear that the process is relatively easy if you are a US citizen, but I'm just trying to find out if a UK passport holder could buy the visa via NCL when on the cruise.

We got our visas through NCL here in the UK - I just asked for them to arrange when I scanned & emailed the required forms back & within 10 minutes they emailed me back amended invoices with the visa charges on it - simples :)

Interesting question. I am thinking how would a US " rule" apply to a UK passport going to a third country? I wonder if the U.K. Passport and the visa issued to it would need to match. Don't know...just thinking maybe the agent was correct. The original reviewer here showed his visa form that was given to him by NCL a few pages back...mAybe that picture would be a clue. Good luck

We are going on this cruise with UK passports. We completed the required form & emailed it back also requesting that NCL arranged our visas. Within 10 minutes they had replied with an updated booking confirmation showing the $75 visa fee - very impressive

Yes, let me rephrase. I assumed this letter was going out to all travelers on the ship, not just US citizens and I may be wrong in that. I thought they were implying OFAC rules were applying to everyone from the ship and in that case I feel following OFAC rules may actually end up helping the Cuban government. If the US departing carriers were being required to make sure all their travelers know they must follow OFAC compliant tours, who usually use Cuban government approved guides. As I don't think the Cuban government actually wants thousands of capitalists running amok throughout the countryside, I feel that even though the US laws are just supposed to prevent blatant US tourism, in this way they can actually help Cuba's government control and shield the locals. Who knows, maybe they would be more happy to have all the tourists, even from USA, sitting at the beach resorts sipping Mojitos barely interacting with the locals like at many other caribbean venues. But now, I'm not sure how or if this affects non-US travelers on NCL cruises from the US. I still think it is a boon for NCL as at least US citizens should have second thoughts about booking private excursions, especially now due to how unpredictable enforcement of the existing US laws may become. Keep those records for five years.

Being from the UK we can visit Cuba when we like & do whatever we like without having to 'tell' our government our plans. I have booked this cruise as I am in Florida for a few weeks & this seems like a nice change to the norm but we still have to complete the form & send back to NCL. We are booking our own excursions but will still keep a record which will only be relevant if we are asked about it when visiting the US on vacation.

On board. Call room service.

Thanks Pia :)

Do you trade the set up for the coffee cards onboard or before you sail ?

Many thanks

Your wish has been granted if you have not booked yet :)

Enjoy the lowest fares of the season plus your choice of free amenity

Take advantage of our Star Perks Event, November 15 - December 9, and see the world aboard a boutique small ship. For a limited time, enjoy reduced fares and one FREE perk per cabin on voyages in the Caribbean, Costa Rica and Europe, as well as our new collection of Asia & Arabia voyages sailing in the winter of 2017 - 2018. Choose your FREE perk from a list of four great amenities including up to 2 free hotel nights, premium beverage package, unlimited WI-FI or up to $1,000 shipboard credit.

In the States there has been 7,366 gun crime murders so far in 2016 just to put things in perspective

We had 6155 on the Solstice & loved the cabin & location

Interesting reading thanks again

The 'rules' change if the passenger booked their flights independently - it is not then classed as a package. I know this as I work for an ABTA villa rental company & we do not package holidays to cover ourselves for flight changes/cancellations etc. Good luck anyway - my friend just had this on a MSC cruise but they refunded him the flight eventually.