wallyj

Hi @highloyo, Princess has cracked down on combinability of the Shareholders benefit with interline fares. I have an acquaintance who has booked a Princess cruise at interline fare, previously(last year) and said he ‘used’ to get the shareholders OBC. It was sometime last year(summer?), Princess started enforcing the non combinability of interline fares and shareholders. Almost certain with interline you also cannot get the OBC for using a FCD. I believe the terms and conditions on the form state about certain fares not being eligible. So really, you were never supposed to get. So now it requires my friend to do a little more math to see if a discounted or TA fare is better than booking interline, as he would have to give up shareholders and OBC from FCD usage. My 2 cents, do the math, booking interline will not always result in the best/lowest net fare. My friend who can book interline, just joined me on a 14 day Alaska as solo on the Sapphire Princess. Princess had a reduced solo supplement, TA was offering bonus OBC along with a group OBC, able to add shareholders of $250 for a 14 day sailing, and OBC for using a FCD. Net difference between interline was a few hundred dollars. I am not planning on selling my stock. Also @RRFan, as of April 2023, FCD’s purchased are only good for 12 months, but you are able to extend if you call before it expires.

I believe the original question was for a possible British isles sailing for next summer, which are not on the 50% list currently, as it only had sailings till May 2024. Some very popular itineraries were not included such as Mexico but some Coastals were. Will Princess continue with the 50% off promo and British isle cruises included? I believe the OP now understands the best option is for the brother going on a Princess sailing in a few weeks, is to buy FCD’s for the passengers not on board. Would not hurt to enquire if there is still a 50% off promo and if any more sailings beyond May 2024 have been added.

Sorry, does not sound correct. Princess has even posted on its website if you had the ‘older’ packages and you wanted some of the ‘newer’ amenities like desserts, juices and fitness classes’, you could pay an ‘upgrade’ fee. Just because you say you paid the same ‘difference’ in package price between plus and premier does not mean you paid for the ‘latest’ version which included the desserts and fitness classes. Do you understand that while the difference between plus and premier might have been $20 in November 2022, the Premier pkg at that time did not include the desserts, juices and fitness classes. The ship will tell you what version/rate of the premier pkg you booked. Almost certain it was towards the end of last year(December)they announced the new amenities effective for sailings late Feb 2023? You say you booked November, which would have been the ‘older’ premier without the new amenities. Princess can verify when the new pkg amenities were released for sale, if you ask. If you really feel you are right, get your invoice from your TA and show guest services who should correct the issue. I think you are focused on you paid $20(the difference) to upgrade from plus to premier but it was the ‘older’ version of premier and if you want the amenities of the current premier pkg, you would have been required to pay another ‘upgrade’ fee. If you paid $80/day per person for premier, then you indeed booked the most current ‘premier’ pkg, but I am betting you did not, since the ship is saying you are not entitled to the ‘newest’ amenities.

I have received in the past, the World Leading Cruise lines offer on my AMEX Blue Cash, no annual fee card, so the offers are not only offered to the ‘high end’ cards. Have received on this same card, offers for Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Carnival and NCL. Just used earlier this year offer for Celebrity, spend $1000 get $350 back. I know I used a AMEX Carnival offer for my January 2023 Carnival Panorama sailing, I believe it was spend $500 get $150? It is nice that fellow cruise critic members will usually post they have received or noticed the offer and post on the respective boards.

Hi @LACruiser88, Debbie and Rafael, hope u do not mind I use your first names as we have actually met in person, at of course, one of your favorite haunts being Vines on another ship. 10 hours ago, @schuddle reported in post #405 after speaking to an officer the Captain said ‘several’ and not ‘700’, so if you have been following, we got that update. Sounds like the ship is trying to mitigate any further cases and I am hoping for a normal non delayed embarkation on Saturday when you return to San Pedro. Thank you for another ‘live’ filled with informative commentary and great pictures. You wear your Panama hat well! Thank you for including a pic and nice to see you were able to travel as a multigenerational group and do lots of together and separate activities.

@startedwithamouse and @atlast95, @Cruise Raiderposted a link to the 50% off cruises list on another thread ‘Onboard Booking Question’ started by @CruiserMickey.

I am guessing ‘Silk’, is not a new production show, but an older one called ‘The Secret Silk’. I think I saw it on the Island Princess many, many years ago. @charlie murphy, was the part of the ‘sets’ on the side of the stage look like branches of a leafless tree? If so, then I am pretty sure they were for the show ‘The Secret Silk’. It seems to me, Princess is bringing back some shows that are quite old, instead of developing new shows, yes Rock Opera and Spotlight Bar are relatively new, but ‘Do You Wanna Dance’ and ‘Bravo’ are pretty old. Maybe Princess feels with all the new to Princess passengers, they don’t know these shows are quite old. It is my understating usually the biggest ‘cost’ of a production show is obtaining the ‘music rights’ . I think I remember going to one of the backstage tours and it was mentioned the ‘run’ of shows is on average 5-6 years?

@CruiserMickey, You brother will also have to ‘pay’ for the deposits and in the case you cancel or do not use, the $ is returned to the credit card used to buy the deposits. Have you sailed with Princess ? If not your brother should ‘refer’ you and others where you would each receive some ‘OBC’ ($25). The referral process will generate a Princess Captain circle number for the referee which your brother should supply when he purchases the future cruise deposits. See the Princess website for details on the referral program terms and conditions.

I agree, which is why even though I am a light drinker, plus at $30/day is a no brainer for me. I upgraded to premier for $40/day for my last 2 seven day promo cruises, tried one yoga class and was done. I posted in another thread, many of the fitness classes were scheduled ‘early’ in the morning and that did not work for me. I guess some passengers would not mind 8am and 9am classes. Saw very few ordering the sundaes. Will be interesting if the ‘benefits’ evolve or remain the same since fitness classes and extra desserts do not seem like they are getting heavy use. The lead Future cruise consultant on Sapphire did tell me shoreside said plus and premier are not supposed to be discounted, when we saw premier was not showing 50% off rate, so will it be corrected? I board the Emerald this Saturday and will check if plus and premier are still being discounted with the 50% fares.

Princess IT did make some sort of change as both Plus and Premier priced at 50% off for the previous promos. For me, $47.20/day for Premier was not the number coming up so the ‘glitch’ in my case is not so easily explained p, maybe because solo? and then with Future cruise calling shore side and them telling her ‘plus’ and ‘premier’ are not supposed to be discounted. I was then told if I wanted to upgrade to premier I would be charged the computer fare shown. I declined and have plus, but if I decide I want premier, will call and see if they will honor 50% off . Did Future cruise say Princess now knows about the ‘glitch’ and is going to correct?

Future cruise agents on the Discovery in January, Crown in May and the ones on the Sapphire this month were adamant, the 50% off promo is not combinable with using a FCD. I am fortunate to have been able to sail those months and see the promo evolve. Also, in January and May, 50% off also applied to plus or premier add on, but when the agents tried to add Premier on my solo sailings this month on board, plus would price at $30/day, Premier priced at a discount but higher than $40/day, closer to $50/day. What ship were you on? So as you have stated, consistently inconsistent.

I have the list as of July 12 when I disembarked, provide email and I can send you. You only need to pay in full if within final payment, else $100 non refundable deposit. Can not use FCD with this promo, but shareholders and military combinable if applicable, also TA group amenities not combinable, so if your TA happens to already have a group for one of these sailings, you cannot get the OBC, but if your TA discounts their commission, that is still allowed.

I have made 3 EZAir refares in the past week for my Dec1 cruise with final payment due August 3, so I do not have to worry about a ‘refund’ situation yet. After I make final payment on August 3, I have till Oct 16 to still cancel/change my EZAir flights without any penalties. I have the time to constantly check EZAir fares. I am booking a one way international flight from Santiago to LA. The fares have fluctuated a few times each day, so it was interesting to me to see the fares go up and down in the same day for the same flights by hundreds of dollars. EZAir fares easily beat booking direct with the airlines, by almost $500 for this one way itinerary. When I have made final payment on an EZAir booking and then refared to get a lower price, I am usually able to rebook my new flights myself, but usually had to call EZAir to ‘process’ the refund and then would see the credit on my credit card in a few days. This booking I will be using multiple AARP gift cards to pay final, so hopefully it will be easy to track which gift card is refunded if needed in the future if I refare my flight again before penalties.

Princess is known to have cabins held back that you cannot see, plus they know last minute cancellations and no shows happen for various reasons. The 3rd party company that handles the bidding process is also using the data collected to help establish bidding thresholds and what passengers are willing to bid, even if all categories are ‘sold out’. This is part of the ‘process’ and the 3rd party company is doing what most competent bidding processors do.

Hi @Steelers36, I always enjoy your contributions and insights. When the 50% promo was introduced in January and extended in May, yes the sailings that qualified were only within a few months. Now the list covers sailings till May 2024, so ‘fairly soon’ depends on your definition. I feel 10-11 months is not ‘fairly soon’, but others might. @Rick&Jeannie, the 50% promo is ONLY available to passengers ‘on board’, but we have no ideal how long the promo will last.

When I was on the Crown in May, yes, the 50% applied to both ‘plus’ and ‘premier’, meaning if you wanted to upgrade your booking , plus would price at only $30/day and premier would price at only $40/day. Just off the Sapphire last week and when the consultant priced the 50% sailings I was interested in with ‘premier’ it was not pricing at only $40/day although plus would price at only $30/day. As I posted, the consultant called shoreside and was told ‘plus’ and ‘premier’ are NOT supposed to be discounted. Just passing in my experience.

I believe Princess ramped up their contract at the beginning of the year with O.N.E. to do future cruises and now Loyalty. In January, they offered 50% off fare for most cruises till May 2023, around May the cruises were extended to those sailing by end of August, now there is a specific list(about 2 1/2 pages) of qualifying sailings leaving till May/Spring 2024. Exception is Reserve Class and above(suites) do not qualify. So I have not see any specials for sailings 2 or more years out. 50% off was also working with ‘plus’ fares(pricing at only $30/day) but Premier was NOT pricing at 50% off(was showing $47-$49/day). Future cruise called shoreside and was told ‘plus’ and ‘premier’ are not supposed to be discounted, so who knows if this will be corrected. Future cruise also said they have no ideal how long this 50% off promo will last and when it might end, but you can see it has evolved over the past few months.

@phoebe2m, I would resubmit, my friend submitted his request for his 4 upcoming cruises he booked, while we just on board the Sapphire, yesterday and just texted me, the shareholders have been applied to all 4 bookings, so that department seems to be processing requests currently in 1 day. I think your original request got lost? You do know how to check if the benefit is applied? Princess does not notify you your request has been completed.

Check your spelling? Yes, you have it correct in your thread, but unless you have the contact saved, it is easy to have a typo. I submitted my request last Thursday for 3 upcoming sailings around noon, happen to check around midnight that same day, and all were posted with my shareholders benefit, one of the quickest turnarounds for me.

On most of my Princess sailings, a singles/solo meet up (no host) is usually listed in the daily ‘events’ which you should receive nightly for the following days schedule. Many current ‘live from’ threads you will see they have posted the ‘event’ listing to give you an ideal. If not listed on your sailing, contact the Cruise Director with a note at Guest Services to add an event. Princess has no control on which passengers decide to ‘attend’. I saw a solo you tuber who had a video saying he was the only one to show up on one of his sailings. YMMV. Check out and participant in cruise critic roll calls and that other social site.

Do you know about the ‘roll call’. I see there is one for this sailing with SF to Sydney,Sept 26, which will cover your ports you are interested in. Also check out the ‘ports’ boards. Also check out the shore excursions offered, which should give you an ideal of suggested things or tours. With only a couple of months to your cruise, you are a little late in getting tours booked and may find some are sold out already, but if you just booked, you have some researching to do.

Even if the OP booked as one 14 day sailing, they would have received a minibar on each turnaround day and receive 2 credits if not booked as solo or in a suite. Years ago, you would have only received one cruise credit, but Princess updated its programming, in this instance, and should recognize that longer sailing is comprised of shorter voyages, and thus credit you for each. I have heard the term ‘logical’ sailing. I know there is an exception to this in the SYD to USA sailings, as usually Princess will offer a short 4 or 5 day sailing Syd to Auckland and Auckland to USA, only if you book these as separate sailings, will you get credit for each. If you book Syd to USA, you will get 1 credit. I know Princess may then offer LA to YVR as a continuation or Syd to YVR, which includes the LA to YVR segment and assume you would get credit for that as a separate voyage if you booked Syd to YVR.

@startedwithamouse, I am just off 14 day Alaska on the Sapphire. I am not a coffee drinker, so I do not know what was available at the IC, but in the buffet, the front drinks stations had 2 huge Lavazza branded dispensers(one for reg and one for decaf) that look like big drip coffee machines. A large funnel like piece can be attached at the top, which I assume has grounds, when the dispenser needs to be refilled. I witnessed the refilling one afternoon. Crew member will turn the dispenser with the spigot covered, so it should be obvious it is being refilled with the funnel like object in place at the top and coffee now flowing down into the dispenser. The back buffet drinks stations still have not been upgraded for the Lavazza dispensers and you will get the ‘syrup’ coffee from those stations. I did not notice anyone with Lavazza ‘can’ products. Assume on Royal class ships the coffee machines in the Buffett drinks station will eventually have ‘Lavazza’ beans?

@happy42cruise, are you replying to post #16? I believe they state they did not put in bid to upgrade. If you are replying as a fyi, for anyone that has received an upgrade not from the bidding process and still has active ‘bids’, I agree, cancel your bids if you are satisfied with your complimentary upgrade. I have read on another Cruiseline, after passenger received complimentary upgrade, bidding system still processed ‘bid’ and passenger was moved and charged.

I believe in the APP, you have Journey View which is not always in sync with what is printed on the paper patter. When in doubt/conflict, the patter is supposed to be ‘correct’. I think you can get a close digital version of the patter by typing in your browser shipname.princess.com, using the ships intranet, meaning you do not need to be on paid WiFi. Replace shipname with the name of your ship, examples are ruby, royal, majestic, etc. You will see many passengers still prefer to carry on them the paper patter to reference throughout the day.