JimmyVWine

Perhaps. But you can only fool these people once. On Day One they might be excited to make use of this feature. But when they receive cold French Fries an hour after ordering them, will they go back to that well?

100%. Seemed like a good idea during social distancing. Keep people seated where they are and bring the food to them rather than have hordes of people gather shoulder to shoulder in a dining venue. And with ships sailing at half capacity, it probably worked. But with full ships of 4,000 people, the system is collapsing on itself, killed by its own popularity. Frankly, Princess should probably bite the bullet, announce that ON delivery was a pandemic strategy that served its purpose, but now that ships are full again, it is unsustainable and sunset the program. It generates no income for them and produces nothing but headaches. They are clearly trying to push people off of the program by charging the one-time charge, but only for the 25% of people who don't have a Package leaving the other 75% thinking that this is still a viable feature for them, and those people will be sorely disappointed. There are two ways to reduce demand--one is to charge a fee and the other is to make the system so frustrating that people give up and stop using the feature. Princess is doing both.

That's sort of the point. Not only does it not affect me, it doesn't affect many people at all. Princess is simply not going to move mountains over a change that affects so few people, and over which an even smaller number find unacceptable. And those it does affect have an easy fix--move into a Package and get everything included. This is the goal and it is going to work. No doubt Princess is going to up its Package numbers. It's not complicated. And if you are one of the few who will say: "I don't want a Package", then Princess is willing to have you move along, or pay by the feature. We have now seen what the future of cruising is going to look like. Embrace it or reject it. Your choice. But Princess is not going to disrupt its larger objective because 30 people complained to them. Look. If I were king for a day, I would do it differently. I would require EVERY guest to have a Package. Instead of "Standard", "Plus" and "Premier", it would be "Relax", "Plus" and "Premier" with "Relax" being the entry level that includes gratuities, wifi, coffee, soft drinks, room service, Casual Dining and Ocean Now delivery. Would this mean that people would pay extra for things that they used to get for free? Sure. But airlines got away with it years ago. We are all old enough to remember the days when checking bags and selecting seats was free. Then came the change, followed by copious complaining, and here we are, still paying for checked bags and seats. Remember when hotels let guests use the pool, hot tub and gym for free? Now we pay $40 per day for "Resort Fees" whether we use those features or not. Did people complain? Sure. Did that change anything? No. This is it, plain and simple. No need to overthink this. Raise revenue and smooth out the bookkeeping. Much easier to have each guest walk off the ship with a one line invoice than to keep track of and charge for every drink, pizza and cup of coffee.

I'm pretty sure that ships are staffed with fewer crew members than the ships sailed with in 2019 and January 2020. Purely an observation of how many cabins the stewards were responsible for and how many tables the DR servers were attending to. Seemed like fewer pool attendants and Buffet workers we saw. But I don't know for sure.

This, exactly. 75% of passengers are getting on board with a Package. To them these "enhancements" are a big yawn. For the remaining 25%, only a small percentage of those will even be aware of the changes or care. Raise your hand if you are outside of the Final Payment Date and plan to cancel your cruise because of these changes. And for those of you inside of the Final Payment Date, how many of you would now cancel if Princess gave you that option due to the late-breaking changes? Crickets. Or as Shakespeare wrote: "...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Princess is planning for the future, keeping up with its competition, and making adjustments on the fly as a result of a clear understaffing situation. In trying to adjust, it can either hire more staff which would increase costs thereby decreasing revenue, or it can increase revenue by holding steady on staffing and implementing new fees. Yes, this will anger some current customers. But Princess understands mortality better than its guests. Princess is trying very had to still be around 20 years from now. A very high percentage of current Princess cruises will not be, no matter how hard they try.

Agree. We sailed on Sapphire before Club Class/Reserve dining was a thing so all dining rooms were an option. We liked the decor of Savoy the best as it gave us the feel of being on a luxury, old school ocean liner. We liked Santa Fe the least because it just seemed so fake and out of place on a ship. But keep in mind that these are all just aesthetic opinions. I’d dine at any restaurant with no wait over waiting 20 minutes to get in to one wit decor I like better.

Having the room steward bring glasses of warm carbonated beverages at no additional cost over what I have already paid is “nice”. Bringing back properly chilled glasses of actual Champagne from Vines at no additional cost is even better. Yup.

This should read as “Sunday”.

In May on Regal we were never offered the Champale as a welcoming gesture. With 15 drinks a day included in our Plus fare, we didn’t want or need it. Seems like a silly thing to still offer when so many people have prepaid for drinks.

Not sure if this is typical or even helpful, but I found that all of the wonkiness and inconsistencies went away as soon as we connected to the Medallion Net system on board. I printed out screenshots and copies of our Travel Summary before boarding expecting to have to show those to crew members while on board every time I was overcharged or mis-charged for things I had included in my Package thinking that the crew members would see the same misinformation that I was seeing on the app. But as soon as I got on the ship and connected to Medallion Net, the app instantly had everything right. So make hard copies of what you see on the web, and don’t stress over what the app shows unless and until you get onboard and still see errors.

Why not pre-arrange for a taxi/car service? If there are 2 or more in your group, the rate for a car (Southampton Taxi) is comparable to paying per person for a Princess transfer. You can indicate on your departure form that you get on board that you have made your own arrangements and request the latest possible departure group. And if you have your own arrangements, your departure group and time really doesn’t matter other than knowing where to go in the terminal to collect any luggage that you put out the night before.

Seems logical. Call it "Minus" and price it out at $45 per day and you get everything included in "Plus" except your beverages must be soft ones.

So the question becomes: When "requiring" a package fails, will "making packages the only logical choice" succeed. As long as Standard is an option, there is not "requirement". Princess seems intent on making Standard a viable option only for people who cannot or chose not to consume alcohol.

I think you are right on the money, pun intended. Your cruising lifestyle causes you to come out ahead under either plan, perhaps with a greater benefit under "Plus". But since this isn't a game where you get paid in cash the difference at the end, it doesn't really matter which saves you more, if both save you money. As a wine drinker, when choosing between the two plans the next time I book, I am inclined to take the advice below, refusing to stress over the price of the glass of wine I have my eye on. Which is why I said in my earlier post that "emotionally" Princess is pushing people into Plans. At some point there is value in just sitting back and relaxing.

100%. Goal #1 = Increase Revenue. How that gets done is a labyrinth of interconnected strategies but the simplest of these is to push people into packages. I don't think anyone made a PowerPoint presentation at HQ showing how additional revenue from Alfredo's would be a game changer. I wouldn't be surprised if they started employing even more strategies that make Standard fares a sure loser. They want everyone to have a package and I suspect that soon they will get there. "Inside cabins can only booked if you have a package." "Advanced Dining Reservations can only be made if you have a package." "Pool hours from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. are limited to those who have a package." Don't laugh.

I'm not so sure. If 75% of passengers buy either Plus or Premium at no additional cost over what it used to be, and get Alfredo's included in their package, then PCL derives no additional revenue from this changeover unless some sub-percentage of the other 25% go in and spend out of pocket cash to dine there. Of the 25% "Standard" guests, some are going to fall into the "I don't like Alfredo's and don't want to pay extra to dine there" crowd; some will be in the "I am trying to keep costs down and don't want to incur any extra costs" crowd; and some will be in the "I can sail with Standard and still enjoy a meal or two at an extra cost Casual Restaurant and come out ahead" crowd. Princess only derives revenue from this third group. I can't imagine that the cash flow is material.

To be fair, you still need to add in the purchase price of the wine that you plan to bring on, especially if you buy it at the port of departure. I often bring on wines from my cellar that I have owned for years, and lie to myself and consider them "free". But if I go to Total in FLL the day before my cruise and spend $300 on wine, I can't lie to myself and pretend that this was not part of the cost of the cruise.

See below. Yes, it really is only a few bucks after a realistic evaluation is made of what one will spend on board. And the calculation that got to the number below used $5 per day for wifi. I didn't know that that was an achievable number. I think it is typically $15/$7.50 based on loyalty status. The OP is a first-time cruiser so it will be the higher number.

But you are not factoring in the portion of that $120 per day that you are going to spend anyway. As post #3 above points out, you are really looking at a difference of around $25-$29 per day depending on your gratuity level. Add in a single coffee. A single drink. A single soda. Even at that level of austerity the difference is now a couple of bucks.

Before the recent changes, one could do the math and make a good argument either way. After the recent changes, I would say definitely yes, it is worth it. Can one come out “cheaper” by going with the Standard fare? Yes. But now, for the first time ever, in order to come out ahead, one must actively avoid features and offerings on the ship which, to me, is no way to spend a vacation, emotionally. You see other people dining in Casual restaurants and you think to yourself, “Gee, that looks like a good time.” But if the goal is to “win” financially, you have to refrain from partaking. You see other people using Ocean Now and room service to get what they order and you think to yourself: “That seems like a neat feature.” But if the goal is to “win” financially, you must forego that convenience. In order to come out ahead financially, you spend your vacation cutting out things that might make you feel more relaxed and luxuriated. Whereas for a few bucks more per day (on top of a vacation measured in the thousands) you can stop worrying about employing deprivation strategies. Maybe Plus comes out better financially and maybe it loses. But if it loses, it is going to be by a few bucks each day. Are those few bucks worth cutting yourself off from many of the features on the ship? That is the question.

$3 x 3. Three glasses of Silverado Cab at $18 (or 3 glasses of Belle Glos Pinot Noir at $19) will cost ($3 x 3) x 1.18 = $10.62; or ($4 x 3) x 1.18 = $14.16 Do that for 7 days and you are between $75 and $100 out of pocket. Moving up from Plus to Premier would cost $140 for the 7 days. So the question then becomes will you spend the other $40-$65 on other things that are included in Premier that are not included in Plus. The answer probably lies in how often one dines in Crown Grill and/or Sabatini's, and how many photos one buys. My guess is that over the course of 7 days, the usage of the casual restaurants from "twice" to "unlimited" isn't worth very much, especially on port intensive itineraries. As for the desserts, well...

I am hoping to do something in Scandinavia, leaving out of Southampton again so that S does not have to fly too far to join us. But it won't be until 2025 at the earliest. While I didn't include them in my Journal, I have entire "albums" of photos of doorways, flower boxes, cats and iron railings all taken in Greece and Kotor. Enjoy your travels!

Thanks for the report. AJ Clarke was on Regal in May and we enjoyed his performances and lectures. He's a keeper. And I agree with you on how far comedians should push things on a cruise ship. If I pay to see Andrew Dice Clay (and I don't), I know what I am in for. But in the theater or Vista Lounge, one needs to be much more mindful of a diverse audience and an even more diverse crew.

"Offered" and "Identified on the wine list" are two different things. It is entirely possible for organic wines to be offered, but not labeled as such. While I have not looked specifically, I would guess that there are organic wines on the ship. Whether the Old World heavy list at Sabatini's has any is another question. But with a bit or research, one might be able to find organic wine by talking to the manager at Vines and have a bottle sent over to Sabatini's for dinner. Any wine that contains greater than 10 ppm sulfites must be labeled as containing sulfites. Between 1 and 10 ppm can be labeled as "sulfite free" but that is really, really rare. As for "absolutely sulfite free"? That does not exist. Organic wines tend to clock in around 30-40 ppm. Some can be around 10. A "regular" wine will be around 80. The upper legal limit in the EU is 220 and in the US it is 350, but rarely will a wine ever get into that range.

This is where I landed on the change. I was prepared to light my torch and sharpen my pitchfork, but then I looked at it from a real-world experience scenario. Granted, none of this applies to 14 or 20 day cruises but for 7 and 8 day cruises (our norm), it works. We have never eaten more than twice at Alfredo's, and have never paid to dine at any other "casual for-fee venues" because the price/enjoyment ratio seemed off. Now, we can dine at Alfredo's twice, (same as before), or try different venues that used to cost money, all for the same $60 per day we were paying before. So our typical visits to Alfredo's will not increase out total cost, and we are actually getting something included in our fare that used to cost more. Seems like a win. None of the other changes will affect our bottom line or habits one bit.