Traderboy

Does basic WiFi allow you to send a photo via WhatsApp?

This looks like a very different ship for Princess.

Does anybody have views on it?

I know that the main place is the International Cafe (on deck 5)

However I seem to remember that some of the other bars serve barista coffee.

Is this correct?

Also can you get barista coffee in the main dining room?

On 3/25/2024 at 5:03 PM, reedprincess said:

f you've purchased the Plus or Premier Cruise Package post Dec 14, 2022 - the $5 fee is waived and Ocean Now activation is included - making room service delivery, whether to Stateroom or around the ship free.

Yes we purchased Plus after Dec 14 2022 so this means no charge for room service other than items such as sushi, pizza and steak.

Is that right?

We set off in a weeks time to Haugesund, Alesund, Olden Skjolden and Stavanger.

I now know we are doing the lift at Olden, a boat cruise at Stavanger, a walk up to the viewing place at Skyolden. Can we easily walk around Haugesund and Alesund or do we need some transportation?

TRLD,

I think you are right about the P&O split personality.

Those hankering after the good old days prefer Aurora, Arcadia .

Azura, Ventura (once described as the 'Butlins' cruise ship) and the Britannia  heralded the move to much larger ships such as Iona and Arvia.

I'm assuming that the change in ship size allows them to be very competitive on price.

As others have said  the drink prices and the ship excursions are more reasonably priced than the American cruises ships.  However, on Princess and Celebrity,  we find that the basic drink package/ basic WiFi /tips paid is an excellent way of avoiding the extra costs.

How did P& O get away with the tips included pricing?  This seems a complete anathema when you consider the low pay of the excellent cruise staff.

Perhaps people have generally returned to the old notion of tipping for good service.  I hope so.

Anyway those P & O old days are gone now.  We loved it while it lasted : Arcadia,  Adonia, Oceana, Canberra, Oriana, etc... 

What do others think?

Hi TRLD

Presumably you know that Princess have two ships operating all summer out of Southampton.

I wouldn't want to be on any cruise in the school holidays, especially not P & O.

Thank you Jean for this very helpful description of your recent Japan cruise.

We too have been on a recent Asian cruise on Celebrity Millenium.

The general standard of the Celebrity experience was very good and far superior in my opinion to what is available on P&O.

We did have a few niggles though especially about the included basic WiFi and the basic drinks package. Everything is geared to persuading you to upgrade.

Another problem we thought was lack of space allocated to indoor seating particularly when the weather precluded any outdoor activity.

Far too much space on the ship was given over to Shops and the Casino. Yes I know that is where they make a lot of money.

The ships excursions were far too expensive - though very well organised. We did not feel the need to pay $60 for a speciality restaurant. The food in the main dining room was excellent.

We’re still unsure whether we prefer Princess Cruises ahead of Celebrity because we have all the benefits of elite loyalty tier.

On Celebrity we seem to have no benefit at all from our blue tier or whatever they call it. We have now been on 2 Celebrity cruises.

On 4/12/2024 at 12:37 PM, Cathygh said:

Following on from Jean's report about P&O vs Fred, I thought I would give an overvie of my experience on my first Celebrity cruise. This was a much delayed cruise- 12 nights Best of Japan. We chose Celebrity for the itinerary, and because P&O don't go there for this type of thing. The following is just my opinion.

 

Checking in/embarkation.

Done online. 2 ladies waiting at the terminal, just before we got on the ship, mainly checking our ID on a tablet. 2 people in the queue before us. We could choose our own boarding time. Very efficient.

 

Passenger mix

900 Brits although it felt like more. The rest were from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe. Most made an effort in the evening.I had expected it to be like the cruise we did on Princess in January 2023 where scruffy passengers were the norm

 

Condition of the ship/cabin.

Very good for a 24 year old ship. No leaks anywhere and no broken toilets. Had a $60m refurb in 2019. Cabins and public areas are very modern, but patio doors had a bit of rust. The first night was very windy and we could hear wind and the sea in the cabin. I thought maybe the door wasn't shut properly even though it was locked. I opened and found  I couldn't close it so my husband did and the door partly came off. We could still lock it! Maintenance arrived in about 2 minutes and fixed it back on. It happens a lot on this ship, and hearing the sea is also quite common. The next refit is this year and may be the doors will be replaced then.

The P&O bed is more comfortable IMHO

Hardly saw our steward but there is an evening turn down service. The chocolates were not nice.

Air con- I am not sure it worked well, but we didn't need it as we were never too cold/hot.

 

Dining.

We had freedom dining in Metropolitan. We ate there for all but 2 breakfasts and 1 dinner and also on port days.

Breakfast. Waiters come round with juice, water, tea, coffee and pastries while you wait. Wide choice and always hot. The quality of the eggs, sausage and bacon are superior to P&O.

Lunch - similar to P&O, but one day it was very bad and we sent it back, hot chicken was served luke warm with rubbery chips

Dinner. Usually a good choice and I only ate from the always available menu once. Always hot and tasty. 

Freedom dining was over subscribed so sometimes we were given a buzzer - the maximum wait was 20 minutes if you wanted to share

 

Buffet - manic as you would expect, but food was ok. 

 

Drinks package

We had the classic package, which included drinks up to $10. Alcohol wise the only drinks under $10 were 330ml cans of beer/lager. I drink white wine and there was a choice of 2-3 for $10. They were ok. Cocktails were all $12+. There were cocktails under $10 but there was no list so you had to suggest something and then find out if it was included or not. Baileys was $11 and I thought it was mean not to include it in the package and I was too stingy to pay the $1 and 20% service charge on top.

Wine service at dinner was slow one night. The waiter can take a drinks order, but not for wine, the sommelier does that, and they had a lot of tables to cover.

I think the drinks are unlimited and I was not aware of any drunken behaviour.

 

Speciality dining.

$60 per head plus 20% service charge. They were constantly trying to sell the speciality restaurants. Towards the end of the cruise they dropped the price of the Indian to $45 so we did that. Food was good but the service was terrible. The waiter got our order wrong 4 times. 

 

Note regarding eating in Blu, for which you pay a whole lot more for an Aquaclass cabin, people were complaining that they had to wait to get in, rather than walking in when they wanted and it wasn't worth the extra.

 

Little extras, sometimes they came round with free prosecco or canapes, as a gift from an officer

 

Captain/ officers

Captain Pierre was quite shy, I think, but he did do the daily update himself and & an info session in the Theatre. The hotel director was very visible, she was always there when we left and returned to the ship. Ents Director was also very visible

 

Entertainment

Good and varied but we rarely got to the evening shows which were at 7 and 9. We heard good reports.  We did go to the Skylounge every night where the Ents Director would have a bit of fun and created a great atmoshere. eg on Beatles night there would be a quick quiz which involved most of the audience followed by dancing. He is one of the best ets directors I have come across.

 

The App.

Useful for checking in beforehand. The drinks, menus for each restaurant and the entertainment for the whole cruise was listed before we arrived, You could book dining and shore excursions on it. What surprised me  was that they still use pen and paper to take orders, not tablets. It worked well.

 

Shore Excursions

Very expensive. You got up to 15% off if you prebook. We did our own thing. Food and transport was cheap in Japan and the metro system was easy to use, once you got the hang of it.

 

Price

On one TA website a week to the fjords in an inside cabin on June 8th is £660 on Iona, Celebrity  Apex is £1007 plus gratuities. Is Celebrity worth the extra? Not really TBF but Celebrity is meant to be a 5* line, not a 4* line, so perhaps a better comparison would be Cunard. 

 

Thank you Jean for this very helpful description of your recent Japan cruise.

We too have been on a recent Asian cruise on Celebrity Millenium.

The general standard of the Celebrity experience was very good and far superior in my opinion to what is available on P&O.

We did have a few niggles though especially about the included basic WiFi and the basic drinks package. Everything is geared to persuading you to upgrade.

Another problem we thought was lack of space allocated to indoor seating particularly when the weather precluded any outdoor activity.

Far too much space on the ship was given over to Shops and the Casino. Yes I know that is where they make a lot of money.

The ships excursions were far too expensive - though very well organised. We did not feel the need to pay $60 for a speciality restaurant. The food in the main dining room was excellent.

We’re still unsure whether we prefer Princess Cruises ahead of Celebrity because we have all the benefits of elite loyalty tier.

On Celebrity we seem to have no benefit at all from our blue tier or whatever they call it. We have now been on 2 Celebrity cruises.

 

 

 

 

We started our cruising with 4 P&O cruises .

We have never returned for 2 main reasons:

1. we came to dislike the ‘solely-British’ vibe 

2. the ‘always included’  trend seemed to pass P&O by.

We have recently seen the new 2026 P&O  cruise programme. There are some nice European itineraries with what seem to be quite attractive prices.

Can anyone please update us with the current P& 0 experience.

Is it possible to pay about £40 a night for a drinks package, WiFi included and tips paid?

Another issue is whether our Princess loyalty package of Elite is transferable on to P&O?

I expect not, though our initial 4 P&O  cruises did count towards our Princess loyalty level.
 

You are quite right Rick.

Princess Medallion net is a far better system .

I’ve never had a problem with their WiFi

I’m amazed at how some of you are prepared to defend what is essentially a total rip-off.

They want you to pay $8 extra per day to even send a single photo .

They call it Premium WiFI when it is not.

It is akin to the internet of the 1990s

If you have the new Princess package is room service charge waived?

Can someone please update me regarding what is available.

Also what are the costs?

is it any different for Suites ?

You have all made my point.

it is not worth paying Celebrity for Premium WiFi.

Premium WiFi does not match its name.

At times it is not even in existence!

You are wasting your money if you pay for it

The point is that a simple photo is not a large upload.   

The data involved in downloading say the BBC website (including lots of pictures)  far exceeds what I am talking about.  This is allowed on the basic WiFi package.

In my opinion they do it on purpose  - to make money for Celebrity.  Not because they cannot handle the data uploads.

I have the basic  Princess package  so this apparently  includes two casual eateries.

Does this mean I can eat in Alfredos at lunchtime  twice  without paying?

I was on Celebrity Millenium and i certainly could not send any photos at all.

In order to send any photo at all I would have had to pay 91 dollars for 12 days. 

Some on this board  think that is a price worth paying. Not me!

We are on Sky Princess in April.

What are the casual dining venues that are available to people on the Princess package?

Are these meals any better than meals in the main dining room?

Is the Italian lunchtime venue no longer freely available on Sky?

I was pleased to have a package with WiFi included. 
 Unfortunately this is another trick to take your money. 
While it does include a basic access to the Internet you find that you cannot even send a single photo to your loved ones. 
In order to share even simple photos  you have to pay another 91 dollars for 12 days.

I can understand why they might want to prohibit streaming videos or online video chats. However the banning of sharing a few photos is just a way for Celebrity to make money.

What do others think?

Many thanks for all these useful comments

That’s what I thought

However can you swop between devices on a single account?

Hi Jim

Is it possible to use two devices at the same time on one account - literally at the same time?

Can anyone please tell me how many sockets are available in a balcony cabin on millennium. 
Are they all US style sockets?

Any ubs sockets?

Can someone please explain how the basic WiFi works.

i want to use it both on my phone and on an iPad. 
Does the system allow this? 
Do you have to keep logging off one device before connecting the other?

Any advice would be much appreciated.