Princess New Premier Plus

[nini]

On 6/27/2022 at 8:56 AM, JimmyVWine said:

The better question is: "What has changed in the past month?"  And the answer is the introduction of the Premier Plan and new sales strategies to get people to level up to it.  And one of those strategies is to serve Plus wines in the blind for the very first time with the hopes that peoples' eyes move over to the higher priced wines with familiar names.

Thank you for stating what I have not. Well said!

We were on the Emerald from May 9-21. I have a "good eye" and have tended bar. The wine glass pours were definitely smaller and I want to say 3 ounces. Many disagree with me, but I am good at estimating. So they are squeezing at least 8 glasses of wine from that bottle. On the last night, I was able to get a decent pour at Vines. The pour from Vines were chintzy before then.

[nini]

22 minutes ago, voljeep said:

has anyone currently on board posted, in any thread, how this is 'actually' working now - when ordering wine covered by PLUS?

That will be nice to hear from someone. We will be on the Grand in September, so I want to remember to report back. But I also think I may carry a couple of my own bottles. We are driving to Vancouver, BC and I think we can take two bottles across the border. We have the Princess Plus.

[pppatpc2]

We just got off the Caribbean on Saturday which was the last day with the old system.  Many of the wines listed were not available anyway.  I'm glad to see the liquor has kept their same prices for the most part although I expect Good Spirits at Sea drinks will not be included. 

[jwattle]

1 hour ago, nini said:

Thank you for stating what I have not. Well said!

We were on the Emerald from May 9-21. I have a "good eye" and have tended bar. The wine glass pours were definitely smaller and I want to say 3 ounces. Many disagree with me, but I am good at estimating. So they are squeezing at least 8 glasses of wine from that bottle. On the last night, I was able to get a decent pour at Vines. The pour from Vines were chintzy before then.

On Majestic they were pouring decent pours, a good solid six ounce pour.

[nini]

8 minutes ago, jwattle said:

On Majestic they were pouring decent pours, a good solid six ounce pour.

It is good to know that they haven't all gone to the dark side. Maybe there was seniority in requesting to go to a newer ship? And the more experienced staff went there? However, our cabin steward was not brand new. He had been on the Diamond when Covid hit.

[nini]

However, I have to say that charging $17.00 for a glass of Beringer Chardonnay is a bit much! It is on the lowest shelf at the stores which sell wine.

[jenndisney]

On 6/28/2022 at 11:13 AM, JimmyVWine said:

After some soul searching and number crunching, I figured out that based on our habits, Princess got me to nibble on the bait, but not swallow the hook.  By my calculations, if our party of three drinks what we want, when we want to without slavishly adhering to price limits, we will incur just under $300 in "overages" during our cruise.  So I bought 3 $100 Gift Cards at a 10% discount and called those in to the Princess phone line to load them onto our account as OBC.  (I could have done that on board, but at least I can double-task while I am on hold as opposed to waiting at the PSD while on board.)  So for $270 over the price of the Plus Fare I can cover all of our drinks, or very close to it.  This is in comparison to the cost to upgrade to Premier which would have been ($25 x 7) x 3 = $525.  The higher price would have gotten me an extra Specialty Dining dinner valued at either $87 or $75, as well as photos.  I don't care about the latter, and I can always pay out of pocket for the former if we want to, and still come out ahead.  

I assume you’ve also calculated in the gratuities for the crew per day per person. That is also part of the Princess plus. I’m making the assumption that you don’t use Wi-Fi so that benefit was of no use to you. And if so and these numbers come out this way you are exactly right where Princess plus or even the deluxe or not a good fit for you.

[jenndisney]

I do think that one thing we should remember is that cruise lines do not publish officially their drink menus with offerings and prices. This means all of the information we are complaining about is because we either have seen old menus or photos of the new menus. None of the contracts that we sign when we pay for our cruise indicates that what is currently available via social media is part of the terms of our contract.  And so this doesn’t surprise me that we’re going to have more well style liquor at the lower package price and more top shelf liquor for the upgraded package.  And it won’t surprise me if the different brands labels and such change based on their stock levels and availability. If they get a great deal on a wine that may have been higher they might offer it as the lower package and vice versa.

[Cruise Raider]

Our favorite Chardonnay, Rombauer, which was $15 per glass and $55 per bottle, just went up to $79 per bottle on the new price list and not listed as sold by the glass now.  They were completely out of it on my last cruise.  

I was happy enough with the Mer Soliel Chardonnay but not sure if I saw it listed on the abbreviated menu that was posted.  They were really pushing the Decoy Chardonnay.  It's just ok but better when served in a decent glass like Vines has.  

Anyway, wine has gone up around here in the Bay Area, as have all of our groceries.  Some areas of store shelves are just bare.  I can't be upset with Princess for raising their prices and plating smaller portions in the dining room.  They are just keeping up with inflation and supply chain issues that have impacted us all, at least in our area.  Our gas is over $7 a gallon here ... everything goes up in price when that happens. Thankfully, they haven't reintroduced that fuel surcharge as of yet ... not even sure if that is legal now.  

I'm just wondering what wines will be available when we board in a couple of months.  If it's only $25 a day pp to upgrade from the Plus to the Premier, it might be worth it if they have some great wines on the menu.  But, if they don't, it would be of little value to me to upgrade.  

[JimmyVWine]

17 minutes ago, jenndisney said:

I assume you’ve also calculated in the gratuities for the crew per day per person. That is also part of the Princess plus. I’m making the assumption that you don’t use Wi-Fi so that benefit was of no use to you. And if so and these numbers come out this way you are exactly right where Princess plus or even the deluxe or not a good fit for you.

???  Don't understand your point.  I already have Plus.  The calculation is whether it makes sense to level up to Premier.

[JimmyVWine]

5 hours ago, jeno said:

I can’t seem to find that list.  Are you able to guide me to it? TIA

Post #2 in this Topic back on Page 1 provides a link to lists uploaded onto GoogleDocs.  One of those lists is labeled as "MDR-New".

[jwattle]

28 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Post #2 in this Topic back on Page 1 provides a link to lists uploaded onto GoogleDocs.  One of those lists is labeled as "MDR-New".

But to be fair, that is within a day or two of the new package; they may need a week or two to get their wines in a row 🙂

 

[omynameistaken]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

Our favorite Chardonnay, Rombauer, which was $15 per glass and $55 per bottle, just went up to $79 per bottle on the new price list and not listed as sold by the glass now.  They were completely out of it on my last cruise.  

I was happy enough with the Mer Soliel Chardonnay but not sure if I saw it listed on the abbreviated menu that was posted.  They were really pushing the Decoy Chardonnay.  It's just ok but better when served in a decent glass like Vines has.  

Anyway, wine has gone up around here in the Bay Area, as have all of our groceries.  Some areas of store shelves are just bare.  I can't be upset with Princess for raising their prices and plating smaller portions in the dining room.  They are just keeping up with inflation and supply chain issues that have impacted us all, at least in our area.  Our gas is over $7 a gallon here ... everything goes up in price when that happens. Thankfully, they haven't reintroduced that fuel surcharge as of yet ... not even sure if that is legal now.  

I'm just wondering what wines will be available when we board in a couple of months.  If it's only $25 a day pp to upgrade from the Plus to the Premier, it might be worth it if they have some great wines on the menu.  But, if they don't, it would be of little value to me to upgrade.  

 

Rombauer Chardonnay is also my favorite. We have always purchased the drink package way back to the sticker era, and I have always happily paid the $3.54 difference. It will be unfortunate to see it leave the menu. Cheers🍷

[pppatpc2]

On 6/28/2022 at 12:13 PM, JimmyVWine said:

After some soul searching and number crunching, I figured out that based on our habits, Princess got me to nibble on the bait, but not swallow the hook.  By my calculations, if our party of three drinks what we want, when we want to without slavishly adhering to price limits, we will incur just under $300 in "overages" during our cruise.  So I bought 3 $100 Gift Cards at a 10% discount and called those in to the Princess phone line to load them onto our account as OBC.  (I could have done that on board, but at least I can double-task while I am on hold as opposed to waiting at the PSD while on board.)  So for $270 over the price of the Plus Fare I can cover all of our drinks, or very close to it.  This is in comparison to the cost to upgrade to Premier which would have been ($25 x 7) x 3 = $525.  The higher price would have gotten me an extra Specialty Dining dinner valued at either $87 or $75, as well as photos.  I don't care about the latter, and I can always pay out of pocket for the former if we want to, and still come out ahead.  

Where do you get discounted Princess gift cards?

 

[dreaminofcruisin]

5 minutes ago, pppatpc2 said:

Where do you get discounted Princess gift cards?

 

 

AARP Rewards....

...and having said that...it seems that any posts stating that disappear....

not sure why.....

[JimmyVWine]

8 minutes ago, dreaminofcruisin said:

 

AARP Rewards....

...and having said that...it seems that any posts stating that disappear....

not sure why.....

Yes, and yes.

[memoak]

2 hours ago, jenndisney said:

I assume you’ve also calculated in the gratuities for the crew per day per person. That is also part of the Princess plus. I’m making the assumption that you don’t use Wi-Fi so that benefit was of no use to you. And if so and these numbers come out this way you are exactly right where Princess plus or even the deluxe or not a good fit for you.

Don’t quite get it. WiFi is on the plus package

[Cruise Raider]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:47 PM, jwattle said:

Not to be contentious, but I think that they get 4-5 pours from a bottle, not 16...a 750 bottle = 26 oz, and I'm fairly sure that they pour about a six ounce glass 🙂

 

Yes, they are supposed to get 5 pours from each bottle of wine.  We’re lucky when they make it 4.  Seriously though, if the wine is covered under the package, it really doesn’t much matter.  Not many people can drink 15 glasses of wine (or 3 bottles of wine) in a day. 

[jeno]

1 minute ago, Cruise Raider said:

Yes, they are supposed to get 5 pours from each bottle of wine.  We’re lucky when they make it 4.  Seriously though, if the wine is covered under the package, it really doesn’t much matter.  Not many people can drink 15 glasses of wine (or 3 bottles of wine) in a day. 

I totally agree that if they are covered under the package it makes no difference.  But once the prices are going up and we are paying $2-$9 up charge per glass to get a decent wine (if that comes to pass) then the amount of wine per glass matters.  As it always does for anyone without a package. 

[Cruise Raider]

22 minutes ago, jeno said:

I totally agree that if they are covered under the package it makes no difference.  But once the prices are going up and we are paying $2-$9 up charge per glass to get a decent wine (if that comes to pass) then the amount of wine per glass matters.  As it always does for anyone without a package. 

 

Well said!

[prmssk]

9 hours ago, voljeep said:

has anyone currently on board posted, in any thread, how this is 'actually' working now - when ordering wine covered by PLUS?

On the Caribbean now and it is not working.  Servers don't know what is covered and don't even always have the new menu (like Vines).  Things listed on new menus aren't available yet.  Charges (or a lack of charges) on our account don't match what we expect based on the drinks we ordered (except for an issue with lattes and frappes for a minor with a Coffee & Soda package, the charges have been less than we expected so we haven't complained).  They weren't ready for this rollout and its going to take more than a couple weeks to work the kinks out (at least on the Caribbean).

[ceilidh1]

1 hour ago, prmssk said:

On the Caribbean now and it is not working.  Servers don't know what is covered and don't even always have the new menu (like Vines).  Things listed on new menus aren't available yet.  Charges (or a lack of charges) on our account don't match what we expect based on the drinks we ordered (except for an issue with lattes and frappes for a minor with a Coffee & Soda package, the charges have been less than we expected so we haven't complained).  They weren't ready for this rollout and its going to take more than a couple weeks to work the kinks out (at least on the Caribbean).

This is a bonus for those on Plus package who aren't getting charged overages or are getting drinks no longer covered by their package, but a downer for those who paid for the upgrade, I guess...Not really surprised that the onboard folks were/are unprepared for this - seems like those who make the decisions these days have never actually been on the front lines (the medallion roll out showed that...)

[EviesCruisin]

OP, thanks so much for the Google drive link. Do you have happen to have the Vines menu or QR code? We currently have the Plus package and it's helpful to see that the brands of wines (i.e. Meomi Pinot Noir for $12) have been replaced with "house" Pinot Noir. I may upgrade to the Plus but I was hoping to get a look at the Vines menu to make sure. THANKS! Seeing these other updated menus definitely helps.

[broker1217]

I just got off the Majestic-and we upgraded to the Premium package.

I was going to post drink menus but quickly realized it would serve no purpose.

The QR code menus do not reflect what any venue actually has.

It is fairly difficult to get a Premium wine.

There was Rombauer and a nice Schafer chardonnay at Vines. There is an actual french Champagne that is $18---but we only found it in specialty restaurants (Harmony and Crown Grill). Vines, main bar on level 5, Crown Grill bar---no champagne. French specialty restaurant (Bistro Sur La Mer)---no french champagne.

They will repeatedly offer the crap Prosecco. My husband got a nice Cabernet at Crown Grill with dinner.

 

No premium wines at the pool bar, bar by the buffet or via room service using the app.

Every venue was different and none of the menus (QR, app, television or paper) matched, nor did they reflect what was actually on hand. The only premium drinks I noticed was a $18 margarita. But if you ask---there is premium scotch available at some bars.

 

The main Dining Room did not have a list of Premium wines available (nor did they have any). They did have a list of recommended wines available by the bottle---but no prices.

Your best bet is to simply ask at each venue what premium beverages are available.

Some of the staff is more knowledgeable than others.

 

It was fairly maddening. I would not pay for it again and just figure I was lucky if I found premium wine and pay the extra per glass.

[Happiest when cruising]

5 minutes ago, broker1217 said:

I just got off the Majestic-and we upgraded to the Premium package.

I was going to post drink menus but quickly realized it would serve no purpose.

The QR code menus do not reflect what any venue actually has.

It is fairly difficult to get a Premium wine.

There was Rombauer and a nice Schafer chardonnay at Vines. There is an actual french Champagne that is $18---but we only found it in specialty restaurants (Harmony and Crown Grill). Vines, main bar on level 5, Crown Grill bar---no champagne. French specialty restaurant (Bistro Sur La Mer)---no french champagne.

They will repeatedly offer the crap Prosecco. My husband got a nice Cabernet at Crown Grill with dinner.

 

No premium wines at the pool bar, bar by the buffet or via room service using the app.

Every venue was different and none of the menus (QR, app, television or paper) matched, nor did they reflect what was actually on hand. The only premium drinks I noticed was a $18 margarita. But if you ask---there is premium scotch available at some bars.

 

The main Dining Room did not have a list of Premium wines available (nor did they have any). They did have a list of recommended wines available by the bottle---but no prices.

Your best bet is to simply ask at each venue what premium beverages are available.

Some of the staff is more knowledgeable than others.

 

It was fairly maddening. I would not pay for it again and just figure I was lucky if I found premium wine and pay the extra per glass.

That is crazy. Did you enjoy the other perks of the premium package?