Booking Fare Survey: Which Cruise fare do you book? With or Without the Princess Plus Pacakage

[tanyaewa]

We book the type of fare based on the type of cruise.  A 5 night pacific coastal with my mom and sons is not a party cruise and it’s not worth it.  A 10day Med with 7 brand new ports is too busy to drink or use wifi. Bring wine onboard and a few buckets of beer 

A week long cruise with my husband in the sunshine is definitely a Plus type cruise.  
So for me it depends on who my companions are, destination, sea days and type of vacation 

Edited July 10, 2021 by tanyaewa

[Jeter02]

11 hours ago, tanyaewa said:

We book the type of fare based on the type of cruise.  A 5 night pacific coastal with my mom and sons is not a party cruise and it’s not worth it.  A 10day Med with 7 brand new ports is too busy to drink or use wifi. Bring wine onboard and a few buckets of beer 

A week long cruise with my husband in the sunshine is definitely a Plus type cruise.  
So for me it depends on who my companions are, destination, sea days and type of vacation 

Everyone has different needs. As long as you enjoy yourselves, that's what's most important. 

[dog]

On 7/10/2021 at 11:44 AM, Jeter02 said:

Everyone has different needs. As long as you enjoy yourselves, that's what's most important. 

Agree. Interesting results for Plus at this point 

[Jeter02]

7 hours ago, dog said:

Agree. Interesting results for Plus at this point 

Besides the numeric results, I thoroughly enjoyed learning more and hearing the reasoning behind people's choices.

[USCcruisecrazy]

Pretty simple choice for us:  difference on the 10 day we just booked is $400, or $40 per day.

 

$40 minus $14.50 crew incentive = $25.50

$25.50 minus $10 wi-fi cost = $15.50

$15.50 will buy at best 2 specialty drinks

 

So, if we plan on having 2 glasses of wine a day or a fu-fu drink and wine, or wine and a specialty coffee...name whatever 2 drinks you want, we save $$$ by getting the package deal!

[Jeter02]

30 minutes ago, USCcruisecrazy said:

Pretty simple choice for us:  difference on the 10 day we just booked is $400, or $40 per day.

 

$40 minus $14.50 crew incentive = $25.50

$25.50 minus $10 wi-fi cost = $15.50

$15.50 will buy at best 2 specialty drinks

 

So, if we plan on having 2 glasses of wine a day or a fu-fu drink and wine, or wine and a specialty coffee...name whatever 2 drinks you want, we save $$$ by getting the package deal!

Nice! I actually went to a book several more cruises yesterday. So as I was on the phone with my agent who's the queen of looking out for me and getting me the best deal and promotional stuff attached. She actually found a group rate that had the plus package instead of the normal 7-Day cruise of $280 for about $160. Not too shabby of a deal, if I say so myself. 

[Steelers36]

I mentioned last week sometime in a post that I would report on my experience inquiring about adding PLUS to our four bookings for OCT 2022. 

 

We originally booked under the Best.Sale.Ever (B.S.E.) at the beginning of this year.  Every Princess booking has a fare code.  I booked the SAVER for all four voyages, which was NZ2 at the time.  The PLUS fare code was NZ1. 

 

In order to change/upgrade to the PLUS, our fare code would have to be changed from NZ2 to NZ1.  Sounds like a simple online update.  But, as we all know, the B.S.E. is no longer an active sales promo and the NZ- codes are expired. 

 

It makes sense to me that Princess requires a re-fare in our situation to whatever eligible fare codes exist today.  I had the feeling this would be the answer back and I think many people who did change to the PLUS after booking SAVER, probably did it while their booking codes were still active and no fare changes.  Thus a re-fare had no dollar impact even though that is technically what Princess may have done. 

 

At the same time, it is clear from a post or two that there have been some exception cases where Customer Service or a supervisor in Support Team allowed an override.  IDK the circumstances other than what posted in this thread, but I cannot think of a good excuse or reason to argue with Princess that I should be able to still get the PLUS for only $40/pp/day more even though cruise fares have gone up since we booked.  Shoe on the other foot - had fares gone down now and I wanted PLUS, I would want to re-fare and not have Princess say I can't do that and have to pay $40 more to get the PLUS. 

 

Congrats to those who managed to get the PLUS added on for only $40/pp/day in a situation where fares had increased since they booked.  It's not something I can discuss with Princess and push on my own since we are booked with a TA and I respect that he isn't inclined to go arguing on our behalf when I have no basis to argue the case.  I did ask him to check with booking support team and I trust that he did.

 

Overall, Princess list price on our four cruises is up $885/pp.  That said, most of it is on the last two voyages and the net increase for the first two voyages (7 nights each) is only $52/pp.  But that would push the PLUS up to almost $44/pp/day for the first 14 nights.

 

I will keep an eye on pricing like I always do, and if fares drop, I may re-think about PLUS, but most certainly not worth it now for all our cruises.