JimmyVWine

While I sympathize with the fact that this SHOULD have been fixable while on a call, the moral of the story here is that there is no way that you have now endured less aggravation and time wasting than you would have on the ship. And the comparison isn't 316 minutes versus 60. It is more like 316 versus 10. Guest Services is adjacent to the International Cafe. Each time you go to the IC, all you have to do is take a peek to see if there is a sizable line at GS. There is no way that over the course of an entire cruise that there isn't some time during the day that the line is 2-3 people long at the most. The other suggestion for the future is the Chat Feature on the website. No obnoxious hold music and you can multi-task as you wait for a CSR to begin the chat. Longest I have waited is about 7 minutes and they seem to be able to do pretty much everything that I have needed done. Can't promise that they would have fixed your particular issue, but I would have chosen Chat over a 226 minute hold time.

It varies from year to year, and itinerary to itinerary. But I can attest that the booking that I made during last year's BSE promotion was absolutely the best all-in price for our Mediterranean Cruise, by a wide margin. None of the sales before or since have come close to what we got last Winter, as long as the Plus Package is of interest. Basically, in addition to good pricing, they included the Plus Package for "free". Yes, I know that nothing is "free." But this was not one of those sales where they jacked the price up by $300 and then gave you the $280 (7 x $40) Plus package for free. It was basically the same price as before, and with the Plus Package thrown in, and for us, that was for all three passengers, amounting to a $840 savings. (Price to upgrade to Premium was the usual $25 per day.) Now that Plus is $60 per day, a similar sale could be big. So I would take a hard look at the BSE offerings when they come out.

Where I live, infection rates have risen steadily since Thanksgiving and continue to climb. (I won't use the word "spike" as that seems to be a trigger for some people.) In addition to rates rising, hospitalizations have risen dramatically as well. I assume that people don't go to the hospital unless they are "sick". Now, the numbers are nowhere near where they were at the peak of Covid, but they are certainly way, way higher than they were two months ago. 400 is more than 40, but it isn't 2,000 if you follow. I certainly cannot extrapolate what I am seeing in my part of the world (and workplace...pretty big Covid numbers there as well), to the cruise industry, but I don't think that it a leap to predict that the number of Covid+ people who will board ships in the next month will be higher than last month, and the number of Covid+ people disembarking after their cruise will also be higher than last month. But at this point, as noted, people need to take whatever precautions they think they need to take, and evaluate how important it is to them to remain Covid-free. I think that by this point, everyone should be on the same page that if you board a cruise ship, or go to a shopping mall, or sporting event, or anywhere where there is a large crowd, there is a risk that you may contract Covid. And the epidemiologists have been spot-on so far that from Thanksgiving through the two weeks after New Years, the numbers will increase. No reason to think that this year will be any different.

Yes. There has never been any suggestion that the gratuities are split "evenly". It's a rather complex formula, but out of your $15 per day, X will go to the stewards, Y will go to the head waiters, Z will go to the assistant waiters, Q will go to the bartenders, etc. And those amounts are most assuredly not equal. I am sorry if this was not clear to you.

I'm not an accountant, and I can't be sure that I understand all of that. But in the end, instead of paying $1,000 and tipping $200, I end up paying $1,200 and the workers get paid. So I'm not sure that it matters much to me, the consumer.

I have definitely stayed at places that have a Resort Fee and it was clearly stated that the resort operates on a "no tipping policy" because that is all accounted for as part of the daily fee.

I never really thought about that. When we tip the housekeeping staff in a hotel, do they tip out the back room the way waiters do? And do all hotels do their own laundry in-house, or do they use a service that picks up dirty linens and supplies fresh ones? In the latter scenario, the third party vendor isn't going to share in a tip pool. But if laundry is done in-house, maybe the housekeepers share with the laundry folks. I suspect that at a resort that charges a "resort fee", things get spread around more than we know.

So which is it? Are you only tipping the waiter or is the server sharing with others? No one ever suggested that tips were split evenly either in the US or on a ship.

Then clearly you don’t understand how “tipping out” works in the US. If the waiter you tip is not sharing with others, s/he would be fired pretty quickly. The people on the ship who you tip are also earning exactly what they agreed to which is more than what they would earn in their home country. I am not at all sure how earning more than what they would earn back home is a factor in deciding who to tip.

Totally get what you are saying. But in the food service industry and cruise ships generally, there are soooooo many people who add to the enjoyment of your experience that when you limit your tips to the people who are “front and center” expecting that they are not going to share, you leave out many people behind the scenes who contributed, but you just don’t see them. The whole “behind the scenes” thing is exactly why the daily gratuity system developed in the first place.

Every time that I have purchased from AARP the cards arrive by email within 10 minutes.

There is no option for using a Gift Card to buy OBC. The screen you will get to is exactly the same as the one shown in Post #43 above, even if you book directly with Princess. I called and used the chat, and both methods confirmed that if you want to apply a Gift Card toward OBC, you must call. Every time I have called, I have been connected to someone who knew exactly what I was trying to do and completed my request in under 5 minutes. If you want to pay down your existing cruise balance using a Gift Card, the radio button to do so appears. But when you go to buy OBC, that radio button is non-existent.

That's where I am. I think the real question, as I put on Hamlet's tights, is: "To cruise or not to cruise" But the idea that the changes we see are unique to Princess and that moving to other cruise lines will be a panacea is shortsighted. Even after the nickel and diming that is going on, Princess still has a beverage package that is on the low end of the scale, and as the article we were directed to yesterday portends, wi-fi is going to increase throughout the industry. I don't think that Princess has done one single thing post-Covid that sets it apart from other cruise lines in terms of changing the atmosphere and pricing of cruising. The rising tide is lifting all ships, as it were. And I always have the option of turning my back on any and all of their new, fancy packages, which I suspect is going to be the norm going forward. For me, the real question is whether there is fun and value in cruising generally, as opposed to assessing whether there is still fun and value in being a Princess customer. I do not believe for a second that moving over to another line will solve my or anyone else's issues. But moving to another form of vacationing might. I still have a cruise booked for the Spring and I intend to take it. And we'll see where it goes from there.

Completely unobtrusive. No furniture anywhere near the connecting door. We have had a number of MIni Suites that have a connection and never experienced any issue with our neighbors and I trust the converse is true (I hope).

Those seemed to have resolved as I purchased cards in both October and November without issue. I guess the gremlins are back.

Brilliant! Found my Order History and it indeed shows "Shipping and Handling" listed as $0.00. Of course, this still raises the issue of the "taxes and fees are an estimate" language, but at least I have something to show someone if it ever comes to that.

Thanks. Too late for me. There was a problem with my booking that I needed to call to resolve. While I was on the phone, the agent asked me if I had ordered my medallions yet. I said that I had not, and she said that she would take care of it for me over the phone which she did, resulting in the email that I reproduced here. So I have no record of the transaction other than the email that I saved.

Nope. Especially if it is $10 for all three Medallions. Just curious as to how they want me to pay. And just trying to close the loop on how this will play out. Information for the masses, more so than for me.

I just went to the AARP site to see if: 1) you had to be a paying member to get the cards (you do not) and to buy another card since we are now in a new month. When I clicked on image of either card, an error message flashed very briefly (tenth of a second) that says "This item is not found in the system". (I had to click on it multiple times to read the whole thing because it disappears in a flash.) The error message then changes to "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties in processing your request. Please retry in a few minutes. Thank you for your patience." So maybe either Princess, AARP or both have detected some funky stuff going on with their gift card process and halted the sale. Anyone else seeing this?

1. Thank you for your efforts. 2. The final chapter has yet to be written. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds. I went back and looked at my Medallion Order confirming email and do not see a "$0 confirmation" nor do I see where one could even be listed. Here is how that email reads (bolding is mine): Great News James! Your OceanMedallion™ order OCEAN-xxxxxxx for your upcoming Princess MedallionClass™ vacation has been received. You requested to have your order shipped to your home. Your Medallion® devices and any products you ordered will be shipped 10 to 20 days before your Princess MedallionClass™ vacation. Please be sure to wear your Medallion® device to your port of embarkation to allow for an expedited, contactless arrival experience. We will send a follow up email to notify you when your order is being shipped. Please note that taxes and fees are estimates and will be finalized at the time of shipment, when you will receive your transaction receipt. Please save your order number for future reference. We hope you enjoy your fabulous MedallionClass™ vacation. So it looks like the $0 confirmation would only be sent at the time of shipment, but this email says that fees are only estimates and will be finalized at the time of shipment. So assuming that at the time of shipment I get another email that shows that I am being charged $10 (and by the way, how do they do that? Add it to my shipboard account?) and I protest the charge, aren't they just going to go back to the email reproduced above and say that the fee was an estimate only, and the final amount is now $10? Not sure how one wins that argument.

I think my analogy is apt, since you have not made the final payment on the car yet. But if one wants to split hairs, the proper analogy would be that you purchased (over the internet in August) a 2022 model with a backup camera and agreed to pick up the car on October 1. On September 20 the 2023 model hit the showroom floor and came with both back and front cameras and the cost of the new model is $500 more. The dealership offers you the opportunity to forego your 2022 model and pay $500 for the newer model. Your choice. Keep your 2022 with a back camera or pay $500 more for the newer model. What you don't get to do is demand that a front camera be installed on your 2022 model at no extra cost. And what the dealership cannot do is demand that you pay $500 more for your 2022 model because the new model costs that much more.

I agree. I waited in lines before to pick up cards. Getting in a line to pick up a metal disc isn't going to kill me. That said, when Medallion Class was rolled out, the promotional videos showed people arriving at the port of embarkation, tapping in, and getting straight on the ship. That "future state" can never become the "present state" now that waiting in a line to pick up the Medallion is the norm. And as I noted in my Med Trip Report, when I arrived at the port in Piraeus, the people doing the check-in were incredulous that we actually had our medallions on our wristbands. Sure, it was a departure out of a non-U.S. port, so most people had to collect them at the terminal. But they were so unsure what to do about our situation that they had to call over a supervisor. So the aspirational goal of people tapping in and getting straight on the ship was never going to be a thing.

I don't disagree with the "as a business they should..." If someone went through the whole process of getting to the Green Lane including ordering their medallions, Princess should suck it up and ship those for free. But I don't think they are required to.

Apples and oranges. You are still getting your oil changes. But when you got your oil changed, perhaps they gave you a free courtesy car for you to use while your car was in the shop, and now that gas prices increased, they now charge you $10 for the courtesy car. Free medallion shipping was NEVER part of any package you paid for. Everyone (in the US) got this same feature regardless of package. It was a "freebie" and now it isn't. They haven't lessened the package. And to be clear, if oil changes were part of your initial purchase, they cannot be taken away. So your hypothetical doesn't work. They are not legally allowed to say "no more oil changes." But they can say: "no more free courtesy car."

Just curious. If you buy a car at a dealership and sign up for the auto makers 48 month finance plan, and 6 months after you buy your car a new model comes out that has a feature that your car does not have. Do you expect the dealership to install this new feature into your car free of charge? And if the price of the new vehicle goes up, do you live in fear that your remaining monthly payments will increase? This is no different. Think about it.