Zippy99

2 hours ago, cruisehopper29 said:

I tried to use my shareholder benefit with Carnival and went back and forth with guest relations and I was denied.  People that paid $50 for cruise got promo.  They didn't upgrade me.  Royal Caribbean treats their shareholders much better.  No problem and gotten upgraded on guarantee room. RCL way to go.  

 

To my knowledge you’ve never been able to request shareholder benefit on board. You’ve always had to submit the request in advance of the cruise, which is now 3 weeks prior to your cruise beginning. I’ve had it refused before by P&O cruises, because I was within the old ‘2 week period’ that it used to be. This obviously counts against those shareholders, who book last minute cruises! 

2 hours ago, Denise72 said:

I've been cruising with Carnival for 10 years now and just finally took advantage of the Covid stock prices and bought 100 shares, so this is good to know! How long does it usually take them to add the OBC? I faxed mine in a few weeks ago and I haven't seen anything yet. Cruise is in Jan.

Well it’s usually applied very quickly, but I think it’s very much dependent these days on how close you are to the cruise date. You should get some form of acknowledgment once it’s applied or just log on to the particular cruise  brand website and view your upcoming cruise and look specifically at any credits that have been applied. For Princess and P&O cruises, I now email the request and scan in my proof of share ownership. You then get an email acknowledgment of receipt and eventually an email telling you it’s been applied as well as seeing it under the payments and credits on the cruise website.
Previously when I faxed in my documents, I always took them with me on the cruise, together with the proof of a fax journal printout showing when I had sent the fax in, just in case the credit hadn’t been applied and I then needed to have a conversation with the front desk…. Needless to say it wasn’t required, but you can’t be too careful if you don’t receive any acknowledgement of submission.

4 hours ago, dadacat said:

Dang! I wish I knew about this before. My cruise is leaving on 11/20

Well, don’t be discouraged from submitting your claim, although they’ve changed the wording, but do it now, if you haven’t already done so, they  might still accept it! On my recent Princess cruise, although I was just within the three weeks, I submitted the request and still got it! So nothing ventured, nothing gained! However I’ll make sure in future that I’ll comply, just to make sure that I don’t give them the option of rejecting the request.

Did anybody pick up on the subtle change to claiming Carnival shareholder benefit this year? Instead of giving a minimum of 2 weeks notice, you now have to give a minimum of 3 weeks notice from date of sailing. I’m not sure if all the brands religiously adhere to it, so it would be interesting to find out? Obviously my assumption would be, that’s it’s aimed at thwarting the last minute cruiser having found a good deal and then claim the benefit within the 3 week period (I did once have the shareholder benefit declined in the U.K. for a P&O cruise that was within the then two week period a few years back). So be warned, if you looking to claim both a good last minute deal and the shareholder benefit, make sure you give yourself sufficient time to get the claim in, otherwise depending upon the brand you’re sailing with and their interpretation and goodwill, it’s quite likely/possible that you’re be disappointed if you leave it too late.

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather, my App burst into unexpected life today with 9 days to go to our sailing! So from having 0 access, up till now, I’ve now nearly have a near full working App. The only thing I discovered that wasn’t working was my future cruise booking isn’t showing (shows on my wife’s app and I can’t enter it manually as it returns a message it’s already been claimed) and I can’t see the restaurant bookings that were made using my wife’s app. However, I’ve now entered all the pre cruise info required for the upcoming cruise on Sky for both of us and we are now in ‘green lane’ for boarding and can now breathe again!

11 hours ago, Expat Cruise said:

Do not like the app and the fact that you  can no longer access and input, and store, the cruise information on your computer. I do not keep records on my phone. This is a big downgrade for us. Princess is failing its guests again.

I think where they’re failing guests like me, is there lack of communication on the problems that some are experiencing with the App and their complete silence on the matter with no feedback once you’ve reported the problem. Although to be fair I’ve come to the conclusion, it’s likely nothing to do with App, which we all blame as my login via my wife’s phone gives the same result as when I log in using my phone absolutely 0% access to her 75% access to features, although she still doesn’t have access for entering travel, passport info or CC detail. 
My last cruise in 2019 and the App worked perfectly, but they were still using the online personaliser at that time for entering travel and credit card details,  and I can still access the personaliser on Princess.com using a web browser and via the link in the App, so I am still recognised on the Princess web site along with my future cruises and cruise history and status. So I reckon someone at Princess corrupted the data doing a ‘lift and shift’ of customer details during the shutdown and never cleansed the data and made an assumption all would be ok and as a lot of us know, it’s clearly not and of course they should have rolled back to how it used to work whilst they fixed the problems, once people started to raise them, offline and not make us all chase for a fix. However perhaps that was also no no for technical reasons!. My second booked cruise is next May, the way it’s gone so far, I’ll be surprised if they’ve fixed any of my problems by then….

1 hour ago, Shelly97060 said:

Good info!  
 

Also, when you open the app if you click on your picture in the upper left corner it will also show all your booked cruises and you can click on them to select which one you want to review or enter information for.

If only it was that easy, my account is totally corrupted or it’s likely that the links on their servers are for my account. I’ve tried logging in on my wife’s phone ( she has access to a lot of stuff, except the travel checklist, payment card setup and a few other things where the screen just goes blank and what you suggest works on her phone and our cabin number and other cruises are displayed). Unfortunately on connection I see the same info, on her device if I use it to log on as I do on my devices. So it’s definitely a server problem. As yours is working perfectly you’re one of the lucky ones!

Well I'm now able to answer my own question, servers are back  and I can log in to my account once again but unfortunately it's still not showing my booked cruises, so still at square 1 and no improvement with the recent bug fixes for me!

I see it’s been mentioned and suggested that the alternative way of logging in to the App is to use your booking number. Well been there, done that countless times and all I ever I ever used to get was booking number not found. But today, before I posted I thought I’d better check ‘the latest’,  it now says ‘we’re sorry our servers are having problems. Please try again later’. Perhaps that’s a positive as I’ve never had that message before and it’s quite possible that they’ve taken the servers offline to resolve some of the issues (benefit of the doubt being given here as it early hours in the US and 9am in the U.K.). I double checked to see if I can log in normally and it recognises my email but not the password currently so assume it’s also the same server related issue until someone tells me they ‘ok’ and can login as normal, that is! I should point out that I’ve always been able to log in via the app to my account and do basic things things, like change my photo and emergency contact, I just couldn’t see any booked cruises, so can’t do any of the personalised stuff for any of my cruises!

I feel your pain. If it doesn't work and they unable to fix it, they should just say so and not have everyone chase there owns tails. Obviously the front office staff are just given a script, so I don't blame them for this farce, but do blame the  management responsible for the implementation of the Medallion App rollout and those that are  responsible for the Tech teams developing it and probably the migration of the data on their servers. They all need to take a project management, Information Technology and customer relations course! 

This app and the support for it is tragic, I’m due to go mid September on Sky and for me it’s unusable on Android and the iPad and I’ve been fed the same diatribe as everyone else. Delete the app and try again or leave it a few days and check to see if it then works. Been doing this for the last two months. The only thing consistent is it’s performs similarly on both of my devices which’s to me points to some form of data corruption on their servers, which they obviously don’t seem to be able to fix, probably because they’d bring the whole network down if they do! However the biggest frustration is the lack of information from the technical team. Your contact is with a member of the front office, who tell you to try the same thing over and over again. I’ve even tried emailing the Oceans tech team direct as well with no real joy, although they have said they sorting problems as your cruise gets closer, but so far I see no evidence of this, nor am I receiving any updates to the problems affecting my account. Someone at Princess should just issue a statement admitting they have a problem and they can’t fix it for many in the short term and will advise when it’s finally functioning and roll back in the meantime to the earlier way of inputting your data, via the web browser. I’d then be happy to live a peaceful life…

On 7/17/2021 at 6:24 PM, Thrak said:

I don't understand why so many people who are having major difficulties fail to go to the app download pages and post negative reviews detailing their issues. Complaining on CC isn't getting the complaints to the people who need to hear them. Post on the download sites. Detail the issues there. If you have already posted a review then update it with new information. Posting here is like a "wheel squeaking in space". Nobody can hear it.

I’ve recently done that on Apple’s App Store and my review has been recently published. Also I notice the number of negative reviews has climbed considerably and that the developers used to respond to the reviews asking people to get in touch by email in order to resolve personally, but they don’t appear to be doing that now, possibly because they’re overwhelmed. In my case I’d go along with what an earlier poster inferred that the held cruise data has likely become corrupted or the links between the app and the server are just broken. Either way it’s the lack of communication by Princess on the issues, that I find frustrating as they seem to be using a sticky plaster approach to fixing problems. Guess for my upcoming cruise I’ll be even more frustrated at the port when I have to join the blue line and my travel companions, new to the app, sail on through and straight on to the ship.

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Have you completely uninstalled the App from your Samsung smartphone and re-installed it?  The current version is 3.0.92725.

Yes, that’s the version I have and I’ve now deleted and reinstalled it three times over the last two weeks on both the iPad and the phone as my most recent phone call to Princess suggested that some bug fixes and a new issue was released earlier this week, but it made no difference on the iPad or the phone and it’s consistent on both devices. I think I have some fundamental system problems, likely to be nothing to do with the app, but server related, I just need someone to confirm what the problem is with my account (and also my wife’s), unfortunately the people I’m talking to in the U.K. are not technical at all and can’t provide any progress reports which makes it all very frustrating.

When we last sailed in late 2019 the app, we thought was brilliant, but for our upcoming cruise it’s useless. The only thing I can do is change my photo on my both the iPad and my Samsung phone. I can’t link in a booking as it’s been already claimed. My wife’s service fares a bit better, she can see the cruise, but can’t use the travel personaliser. In fact she gets a message on the phone about the travel compass not being available and that their techies are aware and working behind the scenes to fix it. Now whether they fix it in time for the cruise in September is anybodies guess, but I’ve reported the issue in the U.K. twice now over the last few weeks , but all they do is take note of the issue and pass it (so they say) over to the US as the techies are based there. It wouldn’t be so bad, but my travel companions, first time users of the App were able to complete everything and are now ready to go.
Princess need to do an urgent rewind and go back to using the browser before they P everyone off. They also need to have a proper fault reporting process and feedback for customers reporting issues, so we don’t have to keep chasing our tails and they also need a dedicated line or online form for reporting these problems to knowledgable people. It not good just being told, we’ll pass the info over to the ‘States’ and you should give them a week and then try the App again to see if your problems been solved. I’m not here to test their system, I’m here to input my data on what is obviously a very flawed system. Rant over for now!

Thanks everyone for the heads up and the replies. Looking at the programme, they’re appear to be only doing a round trip of 28 days in March 2022 on the Coral and aren’t doing the 17 day Northern explorer from Sydney to Fremantle that I’m booked on for March ‘21 on the Sapphire. Causing a bit of a dilemma, what with Aus being effectively closed to travellers because of the quarantine rules, but not one, I have to decide on until December when payment is due and maybe travel restrictions will show signs of being lifted by then (maybe I might be being too optimistic there..)

As for the ‘Plus’ option we in the UK pay £35pp pd for this benefit.

Does anybody know when the 2022 programme of sailings for Australia is likely to be published by Princess?  Was looking at options for my 2021 cruise scheduled for next March, one them to put it back a year, but as they don’t have any cruises published, I can’t consider that option at the moment, so if anyone knows when they might release their 2022 programme, I’d appreciate if you could share that information?

I noticed that both Carnival Breeze ( now heading back towards the States) and Carnival Valor is/were moored of the English Coast at Weymouth (Portland). Does anybody know what  the Breeze and Valor are/were doing there, as it rare to see CCL ships in UK waters these days. I can only assume they were both taking part in crew repatriation, unless it was cheaper to park up here for a while....

It says it sails at 6pm in the link http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/Live_Information/Shipping_Movements_and_Cruise_Ship_Schedule/Cruise_Ship_Schedule/ . Muster drill will be before you sail. Guestimate would be around 5pm.

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From last week the visa situation has changed you can now use an evisa for the Indian ports a friend has just had an email from Celebrity stating this Good luck

 

 

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Yes saw it today, with the email from Celebrity being published on the Constellation roll call for 7th April 2018

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Thanks for the responding Doc Mum and for the information. I guessed disembarking the ship would be a Celebrity decision and as we have private tours booked at all the ports, the first, Cochin is the only one that might give us a problem if our allocated group going through immigration gets delayed for too long or even find ourselves in different groups. Anyway something to discuss with my travel companions as to what the consensus view is as we’ve already been told that people with the tourist visa will be fast tracked off the ship, although it still sounds as though there is a queue, although smaller for this.

Hot of the press though as from Thursday just gone, I’m told that Celebrity have issued a communication to agents for onward transmission to passengers on the eVisa and are now making the eVisa ‘official’. Apparently dealing with my agent, he told me that they are being sent out automatically, am waiting to receive ours, so don’t know more than that at this moment, but it ends the debate around ‘will I be stopped from boarding the ship with an eVisa’.

Ray

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Main difference is that passengers on traditional/stamped Indian visa had their passports/immigration processed onboard (during sea day), 2 days before arriving in GOA, and apparently, it only took 5 minutes. But they needed another stamp when they got to the port (and maybe waited 20 minutes in line). This was the case for about 2,000 passengers.

 

Indian eVisa could NOT be processed on board, and we needed to get off the ship, where the Indian immigration were set up on the port. We were the 2nd group to get processed and took about 30-45 minutes. Their process on port could be done much quicker. Once we got processed in GOA, other ports of call in India (Mumbai, Cochin) are completely fine, as they are now considered domestic travel.

 

So it was definitely no hassle for us to get onboard, and tour India on eVisa. About 200 passengers have eVisa and 2,000 passengers have stamped Visa. I'm not sure if cruise ships will or will not allow Indian eVisa in the future, because if more than 10% of passengers have eVisas, I don't think port immigration officers in GOA can handle it. I can see long long long delays for processing of eVisa in the port if more passengers have EVisas. 200 passengers on EVisa took 30 minutes to 3 hours.. Imagine 2,200 passengers!!! It could take all day and more!!!!! This would surely lead to shore excursion delays or even cancellations!! And ships DON'T like that!!!

 

Sounds like you had a great time and that bodes well for us and my party in April. Although we’re going in the opposite direction and guess you knew that the eVisa situation changed on Jan 2nd i.e biometric scanning was suspended and it also became accepted at more sea ports.

We’ve been looking at the eVisa option and have yet to decide, but time is fast approaching when we have to bite bullet and get one or other.

You mention that you were in the second group assume that means you were doing a ship tour and it was taking up to 45 minutes to get through immigration. If you don’t mind me asking, how many were in your group and was that 45 mins per tour group and controlled by Celebrity or was this a normal disembakation where you were just wanting to get off the ship and they placed you in groups to go through immigration? Either way I assume preference was given to ships tours if their were hold ups at immigration, so do you know if it was a problem for people with eVisa’s getting off for private tours?

We’re doing the reverse to you, with our first port of entry being Cochin and what with there still being no clear cut advice being given by Celebrity we don’t want to miss our first tour because of immigration delays.

Ray

I do not think that you can attach concerns about currency fluctuations to the delegation of gratuities.

I would LOVE to be able to book my entire World Cruise in the UK but pay in my USD.

IF you do not agree with gratuities, then remove them.

The gratuities for a 21 day double occupancy Britannia cabin amounts to 367 GBP. Either you accept it or you don't.

Is there anything stopping you? The reason I ask is that in the past I've booked Cunard cruises in the US for travel from the UK and the US. The cruise was cheaper at the time and gave me price drop protection which I thought was great when one of the cruises dropped considerably in price. On Cunard cruises though the loyalty card systems of the US and UK weren't joined up and probably still aren't and at the end of the cruise you had to phone the relevant office to get the cruise recognised against your 'in country' loyalty membership. I guess a few emails to relevant cruise travel agents in the UK would determine this for sure, but be aware the earlier you book, could cost you, as we don't get price drop protection.

Gosh That's a good rate: £1 -$1.44 (well it is these days)

I haven't sent it rise above 1.34 since the Brexit announcement.

 

Well it was at time of writing, looks like Celebrity caught on and the $25 OBC gift certificate now stands today at $1.329 to the £.

http://www.celebritycruises.com/bonvoyage/cruise-onboard-credit/onbdcr/item-code-c171

It's a good anomaly, so don't knock it accept it for what it's worth as it probably won't last forever! When P&O last changed there loyalty scheme they ended the reciprocity agreement where Princess cruises counted towards the P&O loyalty scheme. Fortunately for me I also kept my status level with Princess, whereas I was knocked back for not cruising with P&O for a 3 year period. However, these days you also occasionally see ships captains working across the brands of P&O, Princess and Cunard. As all brands in the UK are managed out of Carnival House in Southampton, there really isn't much distinction between any of them apart from the service levels offered and the ship board clientele they attract and from experience the only difference when you call them is dependent upon the number you rang, as to how they greet you I.e thank you for calling Princess, Cunard etc. Of course the brand once at sea, is distinct, so they don't go in for cross selling the other brands, so hence you'll only ever be welcomed back as a Princess cruiser, as you would if you were sailing on any other Carnival owned brand. As aside it would be nice if they did have some cross benefits as RCI do with Celebrity for example, but I don't think that will ever happen, as each brand is a profit centre, contributing to the Carnival bottom line.

Even if the £ to $ rate improves, don't bank on a 64Gb version being available. On the Eclipse TA in April, all they had was a couple of 16Gb versions for sale and were completely out of stock of the 64's. If you're still keen at the time of your cruise, see if you can get an idea of their stock levels from customer services prior to sailing. Coincidentally was looking at 12w chargers in the local Apple shop the other day and they were retailing at £15. As for money to purchase an IPad, should they actually have a 64Gb on board, you could consider gifting yourself some OBC, I bought myself recently some onboard spend for an upcoming Celebrity cruise at $1.44 to the £, but you are gambling with the rates.