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Bon Voyage Experience

AlaskaFan05

By AlaskaFan05,
in Princess Cruises

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AlaskaFan05

AlaskaFan05

Posted
Posted

My DW and I have been trying to convince my Mother-In-Law to try cruising so we brought her to NY and aboard the Caribbean Princess yesterday. The Bon Voyage package is great. We were able to spend 4 hours onboard showing off the ship to my MIL and were able to enjoy lunch wherever we wanted. It is a great experience and worked well as my MIL wants to cruise now. I would recommend it to anyone who has family or friends who are not exactly sure they want to cruise. If you have any questions, let me know.

 

Jeff

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Colo Cruiser

Colo Cruiser

Posted
Posted
My DW and I have been trying to convince my Mother-In-Law to try cruising so we brought her to NY and aboard the Caribbean Princess yesterday. The Bon Voyage package is great. We were able to spend 4 hours onboard showing off the ship to my MIL and were able to enjoy lunch wherever we wanted. It is a great experience and worked well as my MIL wants to cruise now. I would recommend it to anyone who has family or friends who are not exactly sure they want to cruise. If you have any questions, let me know.

 

Jeff

 

It is great, for sure. :)

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Astro Flyer

Astro Flyer

Posted
Posted
My DW and I have been trying to convince my Mother-In-Law to try cruising so we brought her to NY and aboard the Caribbean Princess yesterday. The Bon Voyage package is great. We were able to spend 4 hours onboard showing off the ship to my MIL and were able to enjoy lunch wherever we wanted. It is a great experience and worked well as my MIL wants to cruise now. I would recommend it to anyone who has family or friends who are not exactly sure they want to cruise. If you have any questions, let me know.

 

Jeff

I believe the $39 fee can be converted into a credit if she books a cruise.

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  • 2 weeks later...
capriccio

capriccio

Posted
Posted

We're on the Emerald Princess right now and did the Bon Voyage experience with my brother and sister-in-law. They were the only folks in the program on Tuesday so we got a private tour of the ship with the future cruise consultant. They were so impressed. Then we had a wonderful lunch - and my brother who eats small meals throughout the day (he got the high metabolism in the family:)) ate a three course meal and two souflees! We then spent a couple of hours on our suite balcony -- and the steward brought us an entire bottle of good champagne. I've never known him to sit for a couple of hours (that high metabolism!). They had a great time and are ready to go to Alaska with us in the summer of 2012. A great marketing tool!

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Colo Cruiser

Colo Cruiser

Posted
Posted
We're on the Emerald Princess right now and did the Bon Voyage experience with my brother and sister-in-law. They were the only folks in the program on Tuesday so we got a private tour of the ship with the future cruise consultant. They were so impressed. Then we had a wonderful lunch - and my brother who eats small meals throughout the day (he got the high metabolism in the family:)) ate a three course meal and two souflees! We then spent a couple of hours on our suite balcony -- and the steward brought us an entire bottle of good champagne. I've never known him to sit for a couple of hours (that high metabolism!). They had a great time and are ready to go to Alaska with us in the summer of 2012. A great marketing tool!

 

Sounds like a perfect experience for them.

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konyagiqueen

konyagiqueen

Posted
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Unfotunately our experience of the Bon Voyage Experience was not so positive. We invited our son onto the B V E on Island Princess in San Francisco on 6 October. Unfortunately the portside was a complete shambles, there was a switch on ceremony going on, none of the portside staff had any idea what we were supposed to do and I needed to show them the print out from the website to explain.

Only by insisting did we manage to board WITH our son, and were still told we couldn't but walked on anyway. It was then past lunch time so we had a hurried meal, then a very quick tour of the ship but even then none of the promised viewing cabins were available. The promised photograph was also not ready and we were only able to track it down two days later.

Our son commented that if that was supposed to encourage him to take a cruise it had done exactly the opposite - he would never choose Princess.

 

The rest of our cruise was marvellous though!

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pris993

pris993

Posted
Posted
Unfotunately our experience of the Bon Voyage Experience was not so positive. We invited our son onto the B V E on Island Princess in San Francisco on 6 October. Unfortunately the portside was a complete shambles, there was a switch on ceremony going on, none of the portside staff had any idea what we were supposed to do and I needed to show them the print out from the website to explain.

Only by insisting did we manage to board WITH our son, and were still told we couldn't but walked on anyway. It was then past lunch time so we had a hurried meal, then a very quick tour of the ship but even then none of the promised viewing cabins were available. The promised photograph was also not ready and we were only able to track it down two days later.

Our son commented that if that was supposed to encourage him to take a cruise it had done exactly the opposite - he would never choose Princess.

 

The rest of our cruise was marvellous though!

 

Goosh, sorry you had such a bad experience. We brought on our son, grandson in San Francisco a week earlier, 9/29 on the Sea Princess and had a wonderful time. We were docked at Pier 27 which was a new pier to us but even that did not create a problem.

 

Our family and the grandson loved it some much they are booked on a 4 day in December out of LA now.

 

This is a new program - so possibly some of the shoreside staff do not have the info they need to facilitate a smoothing boarding. Princess needs to fix that for sure. I hope you let Princess know of your experience.

 

I had read that someone earlier could not board at the same time as their family, so assumed we would NOT be all together. In our case, we did board together, had our pictures taken together and had a nice lunch in MDR and time to visit afterwards and show the family the ship.

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Liv to Cruz

Liv to Cruz

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Posted

I find out such great things on the site. I never knew about the "Bon Voyage Experience" until 2 days ago. We live in Arizona and don't get to see our boys in California to often. We were trying to figure out how to get together with them before the cruise. Well how perfect to have lunch with them on the ship!!! Thanks for all the great tips.

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Colo Cruiser

Colo Cruiser

Posted
Posted
I find out such great things on the site. I never knew about the "Bon Voyage Experience" until 2 days ago. We live in Arizona and don't get to see our boys in California to often. We were trying to figure out how to get together with them before the cruise. Well how perfect to have lunch with them on the ship!!! Thanks for all the great tips.

 

 

If you browse the Princess website these things are in the news section too. ;)

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ivielane2

ivielane2

Posted
Posted

We did the BVE with DD and SIL as our guests on the Sea Princess Sept. 9, 2010 in San Francisco and it was very well organized. DD and SIL enjoyed touring, lunch and getting picture. Parking was absolutely no problem because we parked right across the street from the dock in the parking lot. Of course, parking was $25 a day. :eek: After we got back from that wonderful cruise to Alaska DD asked if we saw them waving as we cruised by Pier 39. We were in a balcony on the port side, I had the binoc's out and tried to find them, but to no avail. We are doing Alaska again out of San Francisco Sept. 2011 and this time I will invite my DS and DIL. Wonderful PR addition Princess has added, along with Veterans OBC.

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  • 2 weeks later...
wrecks

wrecks

Posted
Posted
Do you have to have a guest? Could I just pay the extra $78 to board the ship early and have my stateroom ready?

 

Too funny! When it's our turn to sail, DW is ready to jump onboard the minute the ship docks and pull those in "our cabin" out and change the sheets herself!

See you on the water,

Rex

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2Oregonians

2Oregonians

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Posted

We are traveling on Nov 20th out of San Pedro, CA and my brother, who lives nearby, is going to meet us at the pier just to visit for about an hour. I never knew there was a possibility of him seeing the ship. How would I go about arranging for this? Am I understanding it correctly that you can pay to have a guest board the ship and look around before it departs that afternoon? This would be great!!

 

Is it a guided tour, or do we just show the guest around ourselves? Is there going to be a sales pitch, because my brother would hate that! Can we skip the picture? He wouldn't care for that either. He's a rather cynical person and not into the rah-rah that would occur with a sales pitch. If you have done this, please give me some more details about how it all went. Thanks!!!

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capriccio

capriccio

Posted
Posted
We are traveling on Nov 20th out of San Pedro, CA and my brother, who lives nearby, is going to meet us at the pier just to visit for about an hour. I never knew there was a possibility of him seeing the ship. How would I go about arranging for this? Call Princess and ask for the Bon Voyage desk. Am I understanding it correctly that you can pay to have a guest board the ship and look around before it departs that afternoon? You board first and then the guests have to leave about 45 minutes before muster. This would be great!!

 

Is it a guided tour, or do we just show the guest around ourselves? There is a tour but it isn't mandatory. Is there going to be a sales pitch, because my brother would hate that! We were the only ones on the tour - and with the future cruise consultant no less - and he didn't use it as a sales pitch. We walked the ship (we had sailed on it before) hitting all the major areas and he answered questions. Can we skip the picture? I don't see why not. I'm not a picture fan (7 cruises and never bought a picture:p) but it wasn't rushed - since we were first on - and it really was a decent souvenir. He wouldn't care for that either. He's a rather cynical person and not into the rah-rah that would occur with a sales pitch. If you have done this, please give me some more details about how it all went. Thanks!!!

 

As I said in a an earlier post, we all enjoyed it.

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