Best Sale Ever Starts December 11th

[Daniel A]

25 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Great! If I might ask, what does IC stand for?

Sorry, International Café.  It's the coffee shop open 24/7.

[Tedferg]

1 hour ago, chamima said:

 

Not sure what you mean by discuss but I emailed our TA and she's adding the code to all of our future cruises so that she can just do it all Wednesday morning.

She's a very popular TA and I'm sure she'll be swamped with requests (or has been already).

Thanks - I guess I should have said 'contacted' rather than 'discussed'. I thought TA might have better insight on how to interpret  the codes against prior cruises etc. Hoping they would confirm our speculation that we can purchase the add on withou refaring an losing prior amenities.

[PaperSniper4]

Anyone else really looking forward to when airlines decide to try this pricing also? I keep telling my wife those pay toilet, extra charges if we are "overweight", wearing winter clothing, etc, etc are coming soon!🤪🤑

 

I have a headache just reading through these 10 pages for a sale that doesn't even start until 11 Dec - in two days! I just checked and I booked our Jan 2021 10 day Mexico cruise about a week ago under the "Anniversary + Cyber" sale price. Looks to me that adding gratuities and drinks for my wife and I would cost $600 ($30x2x10); since we don't drink much except for the 2 bottles of wine we bring on, and the 3 small bottles of scotch/gin/rum we have in our cabin, that $600 would mean to us $300 gratuities (that's a wash) but another $300 for the drinks that now cost us about $75 (3 bottles on the ship) + $40 (two bottles of wine we bring).

 

So, looks like adding on those perks is not financially beneficial for our situation.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Sorry, International Café.  It's the coffee shop open 24/7.

 

No problem. We've recently made Princess our new favorite cruise line and haven't learned all of the well known acronyms yet. 

[PaperSniper4]

Just now, PaperSniper4 said:

 

Reply to myself because I forgot to click "notify me of replies....."

[chamima]

9 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Thanks - I guess I should have said 'contacted' rather than 'discussed'. I thought TA might have better insight on how to interpret  the codes against prior cruises etc. Hoping they would confirm our speculation that we can purchase the add on withou refaring an losing prior amenities.

 

 

As I said - I emailed my TA and asked those exact questions.

She answered that this promo is an "add-on". We have 3 for Free so will "add-on" $25/pp/pd.

[cruisinggran]

18 hours ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

 I will admit that I haven’t read this entire thread and I started from the back but can someone please explain this to me. 

 

[sun&sea]

My sister and I had a balcony under sip and sail promo. I am elite, this is her first cruise. We really wanted a mini, but the cost was prohibitive under this promo. Prices have been dropping, but we really did not want to lose our PBP. This past Sat, the prices really dropped, and I read about the Best Ever Sale. Mini suite on the lido deck was $250 less than our balcony. I rebooked under the cyber sale and got 4 device unlimited wifi. I hope to add the PBP and gratuities on Wed for $30/pp/day. Net result will be $30 less than our balcony cabin with just drinks. Win-Win! 

 

Janet

[cruisinggran]

39 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

 

As I said - I emailed my TA and asked those exact questions.

She answered that this promo is an "add-on". We have 3 for Free so will "add-on" $25/pp/pd.

We booked originally with no perks. Got the sip and sail put on with a increase of approx

$250.00 pp.  if I am reading this right to put the gratuity and wifi on it will be $25.00 pp per day. Or in our case $32.50 Canadian =$617.50 for 19 days probably does work out for

us.

[Griller]

Read the full fine print from the Princess page which had the link posted and saw it said

 

"and may not be combined with other offers or other onboard credits"

 

so no Stockholder or Military OBC etc?

 

That would make a big difference.

[Ken the cruiser]

7 minutes ago, Griller said:

Read the full fine print from the Princess page which had the link posted and saw it said

 

"and may not be combined with other offers or other onboard credits"

 

so no Stockholder or Military OBC etc?

 

That would make a big difference.

I could be mistaken, but I believe that quoted statement is in pretty much every promotion they have. So we're going under the assumption our military and shareholder benefits OBC are safe.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Ken the cruiser

[MsSoCalCruiser]

21 hours ago, crystalspin said:

Do you have any current bookings? If so, what promo if any were they booked?

 

The pasted page is a 'crib-sheet' for TA's. It indicates that you can keep your fare and your perks and get what ever perks you wouldn't have from the original promo. Originally, there were three new codes: BEST3, BEST2DG, and BEST2DW, for $40pppd, $30pppd, and $25pppd respectively. PBP-grats-wifi, PBP-grats, and PBP-wifi respectively. ETA: it appears that all in a room must buy, although some interpret the wording to mean the first two passengers must buy and any 3rd/4th pax get the add-on. As they are basically giving away the PBP, that would be assuming a lot! 

 

A fourth code appeared (in the screen grab you pinned) for clients who had booked under Sip-n-Sail last summer. It was called BEST2WG for $25pppd and covering wifi-grats. Making grats equal to PBP, which is about right because PBP-grats is $30pppd and grats is $14.50-$15.50 for most of us. But that code has now disappeared from the crib-sheet so no one (here) knows if there is a grats+wifi add-on.

 

As the title of the thread states, the Best Sale Ever, starts on the 11th (Wednesday) and if it applies to you, you would go through whatever method you booked under. TA, CVP, or straight phone call (I think if you booked via internet you need to call for the add-ons). 

 

Finally, if you have no bookings but want to make one, there will be fares with all the perks. But they haven't been leaked!

Thank you!   I really appreciate you explaining this to me. I wonder how they will handle solo bookings? 

[riffatsea]

They better fix the web site before tomorrow or NO one will be able to get through to book anything on this sale!

[Daniel A]

18 minutes ago, riffatsea said:

They better fix the web site before tomorrow or NO one will be able to get through to book anything on this sale!

Maybe that's the plan...

[voljeep]

9 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Maybe that's the plan...

unless they limit the packages per cruise, what's the big rush to do this tomorrow, unless you are booking a new cruise , or see a price drop on an existing cruise ?

[Renmar]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

unless they limit the packages per cruise, what's the big rush to do this tomorrow, unless you are booking a new cruise , or see a price drop on an existing cruise ?

I'm not holding my breath for that, would be nice though.

 

Theo

[PoohUnderstands]

Hopefully, this sale may be why Princess site is having so many problems?  Tomorrow I hope that they have things worked out as I am very interested in this sale.  

 

Pooh

[Ken the cruiser]

OTOH if the gratuities are $15 pp/day and unlimited internet for 1 account is $10 pp/day, we're not seeing the big deal here.

 

Is it possible that the internet and gratuity perks are just a lot of smoke and a little overcharging with the free internet to get you to purchase the PBP for $25 pp/day (or $50 pp/day to cover both of you in the cabin), since the minimum add-on package includes a minimum of 2 of the 3 perks? 

[lstone19]

18 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

OTOH if the gratuities are $15 pp/day and unlimited internet for 1 account is $10 pp/day, we're not seeing the big deal here.

 

Is it possible that the internet and gratuity perks are just a lot of smoke and a little overcharging with the free internet to get you to purchase the PBP for $25 pp/day (or $50 pp/day to cover both of you in the cabin), since the minimum add-on package includes a minimum of 2 of the 3 perks? 

 

Of course they're trying to get you to spend more. They're always trying to get you to increase onboard spending. It's up to the customer to determine if the package is worth it.

 

For many, internet and gratuities are fixed amounts they are going to spend anyway. For us on our next cruise, we already have Internet included so we would add the gratuities and PBP for $30pp/day. Since we already know we will spend $14.50pp/day on gratuities, that means the cost to us of the PBP is $15.50pp/day. Will we spend that much if we're paying by the drink? Actually, probably not but if we have the package, we'd drink more (marginal cost of an additional beverage (which is $0 with the PBP) is a factor in whether we decide to have another).

 

The other factor is what to do with OBC. We expect to have $600 on our next cruise, a 15-night cruise. Gratuities would have taken up $435 of it, drinks the rest plus another $200 based on our past cruise spending. So what to do with it? Excursions, specialty dining, etc. are all possibilities (let's not talk about ways to cash it out that technically violates the Terms and Conditions) but they are things we might not be spending on if not for the OBC. If we don't do the add-on, we spend $200 beyond the OBC. If we do the add-on, we spend $900 up front and then use the $600 for other things. So they've increased our spend by $700 but some of that would have been spent anyway (excursions although they might have been 3rd party excursions if not for OBC).

 

So putting it all together, Princess, by reducing the price of the PBP to us, gets us to increase overall spending while also increasing the value to us. That's smart marketing.

 

 

 

[Daniel A]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

OTOH if the gratuities are $15 pp/day and unlimited internet for 1 account is $10 pp/day, we're not seeing the big deal here.

 

Is it possible that the internet and gratuity perks are just a lot of smoke and a little overcharging with the free internet to get you to purchase the PBP for $25 pp/day (or $50 pp/day to cover both of you in the cabin), since the minimum add-on package includes a minimum of 2 of the 3 perks? 

Look at it this way - if grats are $15 and the minimum package which includes grats is $30, then what Princess is doing is offering a huge discount on the PBP.  If you buy the grats for $15 then you get the PBP for $15/day instead of $70.79/day.  Same with the wifi at $10, you get the PBP for only $15 if you buy the wifi package.  Still looks like a huge win considering that I keep my 3 for free too...

[Scotmay]

I agree wth the previous poster. Pretty smart marketing on behalf of Princess. At the end of the day, they are still getting more money out of you. You need to figure out if you really need these add ons. For us to add on drinks and wifi it would be almost $1,000 CAD for our 2 week cruise. I would rather spend this money on tours etc.,.  

[OC SeaPA]

4 minutes ago, Scotmay said:

I agree wth the previous poster. Pretty smart marketing on behalf of Princess. At the end of the day, they are still getting more money out of you. You need to figure out if you really need these add ons. For us to add on drinks and wifi it would be almost $1,000 CAD for our 2 week cruise. I would rather spend this money on tours etc.,.  

Agreed- now this cruise brand can compete with RCI/Celebrity, which usually had the UBP as a perk, and NCL, which also has the UBP as a "free" perk.  We do try for these cruises, as DH doesn't drink much (1 or 2 scotches per cruise), so a beverage package doesn't work for us to pay for 2.  But we do get him a soda package, and I limit my drinks and get a wine package for dinners, so this comes out to about the same, but unlimited drinks for me on  Panama Canal cruise with 1/2 sea days!   

 

Booked through Princess, called her yesterday, and she will add $30pp/pd first thing Wed morning!  Yeah! 

[Daniel A]

I would not have known about this promotion (thank you azbirdmom!) if I didn't follow Cruise Critic.  I still have only heard crickets from my TA.  I think the phone call I'll make tomorrow to my TA to do the add ons will likely be my last call to that TA.

 

I'm interested to know:  Has anyone on this thread heard about this promotion from their TA?  (Other than as a response to your query about this.)

[Tedferg]

4 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

I would not have known about this promotion (thank you azbirdmom!) if I didn't follow Cruise Critic.  I still have only heard crickets from my TA.  I think the phone call I'll make tomorrow to my TA to do the add ons will likely be my last call to that TA.

 

I'm interested to know:  Has anyone on this thread heard about this promotion from their TA?  (Other than as a response to your query about this.)

I emailed my TA and she said she would check on 11th. I too would not have known about it if not for Cruise Critic. My TA regularly sends emails about cruise deals on various cruise lines. As someone said, TAs get bombarded from all cruise lines and maybe they have a discipline to only go with current offer. I imagine it would be a madhouse if TA was juggling current and soon to be offers for several cruise lines.

[rocklinmom]

My sister is booked with a TA for our cruise and I booked my family and the rest of our family group. I have already told them about this promo and refared us twice so far (for both a lower fare and a better promo). My sister has heard nothing from her TA since booking in May. She is now wishing I had booked them originally.