Burgmeister

No need to carry beer to pool. Five for price of four is available at pool bar. Also soda and water....you can bring on as much as you can carry. And you can replenish supplies when in port.

I've read on other threads that some bar tenders are insisting on opening all the bottles at the time of purchase claiming its Princess policy. Not sure how common that is though.

It varies depending on ports...can be as little as $60-$70 for a week to $400-$500 for longer cruise. Some cruises have known high port charges...Ie: Panama Canal

Thank you. Much appreciated.

So you can buy a bottle of rum on board for consumption on board? Where do you order that on the site?

Manage my booking>Onboard Reservations>Princess Cellars

Then scroll down past all of the wines

Although, I believe, that you can also order on board - I haven't actually tried this.

As a general piece of idle curiosity, how much of an average cruise price is made up of port charges?

I have just received a very helpful response from Princess, so I thought I would share.(as I promised)

"Thank you for your email.

I have noted your concerns and can advise that due to a recent change in our third-party credit card processor, Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) is no longer available for your cruise. We are currently working on a solution and expect to have DCC available in a short period of time. In the meantime all charges will be made to your card in the onboard currency and the conversion will be made by the card provider."

NCL Epic out of Barcelona had kettles in the cabins as well.

But going to Helinski - Finland on the one after, 2 June - Baltics, we are on both.:cool:

We really enjoyed Helsinki when we were there a few years ago. Watch out for the mosquitoes though!

We went to to Suomenlinna Fortress and it was really good. I would recommend that to anyone that is unsure about what they wish to do in Helsinki.

We received the email for our 26th May cruise. Given its a Scandinavean cruise, at least the new captain will feel at home (although, I appreciate, he appears to have a Finnish name and we aren't going to Finland).

Well, still no reply from Princess.

I found this on a very well known UK Based consumer website...

European law states the currency that customers are charged in must be agreed before the transaction, and if currency conversion is offered the customer must know all charges and the exchange rate beforehand too.

Mastercard and Visa, which facilitate the majority of consumer global payments, also say a customer must always give permission for a company to bill them in their own home currency rather than local currency. This means any business, wherever in the world you are paying, should not be overriding or changing your choice after you enter your PIN.

Mastercard and Visa say the onus is on the retailer's bank to enforce these rules, as it is the bank that is providing the access to the Mastercard and Visa networks. So if, for example, a restaurant or shop overrides the customer's choice, it would be the responsibility of that company's bank to make it stick to the Mastercard and Visa rules.

Mastercard says it has a dynamic currency compliance team which can step in, in such cases, to contact the company's bank, and in turn ask the bank to retrain employees from the retailer that is breaking the rules.

A spokesperson said: "Mastercard's direct relationship is with the acquiring bank. Where a retailer/business does not follow our DCC rules it is the acquirer [bank] who in turn is responsible for ensuring the business follows Mastercard's rules. If the terminal is at fault the acquirer is also responsible for ensuring any service provider they use for their DCC service fixes the noncompliance problem."

A Visa spokesperson told us: "Dynamic currency conversion transactions are allowed only when the merchant gets express permission from the customer before the transaction is authorised... Transaction amounts, applicable exchange and fees, [a] statement that [the] merchant provided currency exchange and proof of choice must be included in the transaction receipt."

I guess I need to fire the question off to Princess again.

Perhaps you will let us know how you get on. TIA.

 

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If I get a response, I'll defintiely post the gist of it on here.

I’ve been comparing the deck plans before and after the Dry dock and below is what I see to be different

The Plaza deck will be getting Alfredo’s, International Café, Vines and the Plaza bar. So the Grand plaza is getting a refit with the desks there moving up a deck.(loved Alfredo’s on the Grand and being able to get a pizza at lunch on the Island, also who doesn't like the IC?)

Fiesta deck will lose the cabins and the Chapel is being removed, I double checked each deck and can’t see it in a new location. (found this a little strange to get rid of it altogether but….). The captains circle desk, future cruise sale and library are to go in to where the cabins used to be.

On Promenade deck the only change is that Kai Sushi will become the internet café.

Sun deck will lose the Japanese baths and they are changing around the Teen lounge and youth centre and creating 2 outside play area’s.

On the sports deck the princess links becomes the lawn court.

It’s nice to see they aren’t expanding in to spaces they don’t already have in public use, also refreshing to see they are losing cabins rather than adding more in. Before we booked, we were comparing the changes due to the Indy as we were choosing between the Fjords on the Sapphire and a similar one RC are doing.They are adding a lot of new cabins in blank spaces and taking away a lot of nice quiet public seating area’s. The changes we thought weren’t good ones so although it was a longer sailing and was a tiny bit cheaper we choice the Sapphire mainly down to the layout of the ship.

So my thoughts on the Sapphire is that it looks like they are updating her to fit better with a market outside of Asia, ahead of her coming to us in the UK. Nothing to get worried about and changes for the better.

Jules

Thanks for posting that because, when I looked, both deck layouts were identical. I thought that was odd.

Didn't realise that the Princess didn't already have Alfredo's and the IC - learn something new everyday

We are relatively new to cruising so, I think, many of the cutbacks had already started by the time of our first cruise (I've never seen lobster offered in a MDR for example).

We will be going on our first Princess cruise in May having previously done 3 x RCCI and 1 x NCL. My wife and daughter have enjoyed all of our cruises although I was disappointed with our last RCCI one (Explorer).

Obviously, as I have a child that cruises with us, our choices will be different from the OP and I certainly woudln't recommend RCCI or NCL to people not wanting to "enjoy" the company of children.

I am not loyal to a particular company and go on cruises that we can afford. RCCI seemed to shoot up in price 3 or 4 years ago (especially when you take in to account the 3rd passenger) so I stopped cruising with them. We booked NCL when they were offering the 3rd passenger for £99 and threw in a drinks package. Our upcoming Princess cruise was chosen because they ran a similar "cheap" 3rd person fare.

When our daughter stops wanting to come on holiday with us it will open up more cruise options (2 person cabins - out of school holidays)

Thanks Istone, that is very interesting.

I have just emailed them about it and I will be very interested to see what they say about the legal position of having to "Opt in" to DCC . No doubt I will just be fobbed off with something like "you can go to Guest Services to get it changed" ignoring the actual legal principle.

It really ticks me off when I have to give up some of my hard earned holiday to queue at GS (and, there is ALWAYS a queue!) when it shouldn't be necessary. I've got better things to do on a cruise than join that line!

Also, while I'm taling about registered Credit Cards, the online process wouldn't let me exclude my daughter from making onboard purchases against my credit card. I have never allowed this in the past and I'm annoyed that Princess are forcing me in to doing so! I don;t mistrust my daughter but she could easily purchase something "by mistake" as she may have assumed that something that would be included on a previous cruise line was chargeable on Princess.

I to spotted it was missing but just thought I was over looking it somewhere.

 

i'd also be interested in knowing what sort of rate they charged to, it's been a few years since we were on a Princess ship. I think then we had them do the conversion and didn't feel there was really much in it. Having said that our end bill wasn't very much as I pre loaded the account before we sailed. I knew in advance what that rate that would be for that part.

I've got what I consider to be a good amount of OBC this time and as it's only a 7 day, so I don't this time thinks it's worth putting any on before we go.

Going by what you can pre-order in GBP (Gratuities for example) I reckon the rate they were using was about $1.26/£. Currently its sitting about $1.39 so that's quite a mark up!

Edit: The $ rate for gratuities for the 7 day cruise is $94.50. They want £75 for pre-payment

Fortunately for me, I prefer to maximize my time in most port cities before I board, so I tend to board late. Boarded late for my Med cruise last September (so much so that they were already tearing down most of the check in setup, but I was well before the cutoff time for check in). Not planning on boarding early for two cruises later this month either. Much prefer to spend my time exploring Sydney than sitting on the ship that is docked. Fortunately I am in the minority so my check in takes a very short time with no lines!

I guess you've not sailed out of Southampton then! Quicker you get on board the better!

At least its convenient to get to (for us).

Obviously, the conversion by your own bank is always preferable as the Princess rate is not as competitive and a little sneaky of Princess to remove this on-line option don't you think?

I think you are being quite generous to Princess there. "Not as competitive" is a definite understatement!

We will be going on our first Princess cruise at the end of May. My wife and I are both light drinkers who, on previous cruises with other lines, will have a cocktail each in the evening. I was planning on extending this to 1 in the evening at our usual time but also one during one of the HHs.

Given this development we will stick to our single evening drink. I know we probably aren't representative of the typical cruising family but, in our situation, this will be a net loss to Princess.

Also, what sort of company phases out an offer while "it considers other options"? if you are planning on replacing an offer with another you do it at the same time.

We always liked the RCCI offer of a "Cocktail of the Day"

There is nothing else in the area so its easy to see :-)

 

https://map.krak.dk/m/TkOgk

Thanks DV

There is a 'town shop' at the cruise terminal where you can buy bus tickets with your credit card. The bus driver only takes cash.

Thanks Frederik, that's great to know.

Presumably the "Town Shop" is easy to find - even for an idiot like myself?

This is not great. Sharing a drink or two is not only abuse of the policy - it is theft.

Whilst it is against the rules, and I am not condoning the practice, I'm not sure that, legally speaking, it is theft.

If you have the package and receive a drink then, in the eyes of the law, that drink is then yours to do with what-you-will. If you decide to give it away to a friend or stranger then, legally, you can. Just as you can give away any other item that you own.

That doesn't, of course, get around the fact that it is against the rules, and we must abide by the rules. If we all ignore rules then where would we be? France! (thanks to Al Murray aka The Pub Landlord for that one).

Apologies if this has already been answered but this is now a very long thread and I may have missed it. If we buy a bus ticket from Oceankaj can we pay with a credit card or must we use cash? I'm keen to avoid having to change too much cash before we go as, on this cruise, we will be using Euros, Danish Krone, Swedish Krone and Norwegian Krone.

Thanks

Thanks Frederik, very helpful

Hi’ just a quick follow up question. What would a Taxi cost from Tivoli to the terminal.? Will a taxi take 4. Thanks

Whilst this question is being answered could someone please confirm whether I can pay for a taxi with my credit card? I'm assuming you can but I thought I should check.

Also, I'm also assuming that I will be unlikely to be able to get a taxi from Nordhavn station after the buses stop in the evening?

Well a lot does happen, so I think it is a bit unfortunate that the busses to the cruise terminal stop running so early. All the other busses in the city operate until midnight or later (and all night friday and saturday). This is definitely something the municipality and the port should improve.

OK thanks Frederik. Yes, it does seem a shame when our ship isn't leaving until the early hours of the morning that the public transport stops so early.

Oh well. Time to rethink our plans.

Thanks again for the info.

Thanks for the replies Danish Viking and Frederik. That is disappointing as I had intended to purchase the 24 hour travel card. Not much point if I need to get a taxi from Tivoli (or wherever) to get back anyway.

Walking isn't an option. My wife is not the healthiest.

I guess not much happens in Copenhagen after 7pm!