Princess keeps changing my booking...

[Thrak]

We are booked for a 16 day Panama Canal cruise in December. My wife picked out a specific cabin she wanted and we booked it. It was marked as "no upgrade". Today I checked the booking and we had been moved to a different cabin. (Likely an "upgrade" because they moved us to a mid ship cabin.) Our original cabin was showing as "available". I contacted our TA and he got it fixed and sent us a new copy of the booking. Again, this was done just this afternoon.

 

I just now checked and we have been moved to a different mid ship cabin. I tried Live Chat and they said they can't help me. Once again, or original cabin is showing as vacant. Now I have to try to get the TA to "fix" it again but, of course, it's 7:30 PM and he's not in the office. I am boggled by the incompetence at Princess.

[Steelers36]

8 minutes ago, Thrak said:

We are booked for a 16 day Panama Canal cruise in December. My wife picked out a specific cabin she wanted and we booked it. It was marked as "no upgrade". Today I checked the booking and we had been moved to a different cabin. (Likely an "upgrade" because they moved us to a mid ship cabin.) Our original cabin was showing as "available". I contacted our TA and he got it fixed and sent us a new copy of the booking. Again, this was done just this afternoon.

 

I just now checked and we have been moved to a different mid ship cabin. I tried Live Chat and they said they can't help me. Once again, or original cabin is showing as vacant. Now I have to try to get the TA to "fix" it again but, of course, it's 7:30 PM and he's not in the office. I am boggled by the incompetence at Princess.

If you have online access to your TA booking engine, or pages, make a mock booking on hold to keep the cabin until you can speak with TA and then he can cancel out the hold.

[Thrak]

17 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

If you have online access to your TA booking engine, or pages, make a mock booking on hold to keep the cabin until you can speak with TA and then he can cancel out the hold.

 

Thanks. I'm so frustrated I didn't think to do that but I have done it now. Hopefully my TA can remove the "hold" booking and fix things back the way they were before. That's what I'm asking him to do as I didn't get into detail on the bogus booking so I don't want it to be completed. Hopefully I haven't just made more problems.

[kiwimum]

What ship, deck and cabin?  Is it possibly on an isolation deck?  They will move you no matter what.   We have experienced the same situation on several ships.

Edited July 29, 2022 by kiwimum

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

Thanks. I'm so frustrated I didn't think to do that but I have done it now. Hopefully my TA can remove the "hold" booking and fix things back the way they were before. That's what I'm asking him to do as I didn't get into detail on the bogus booking so I don't want it to be completed. Hopefully I haven't just made more problems.

I have done this several times if I needed to grab a new price deal in off hours and only a couple of cabins available in the target category.  It is a lot easier when doing it with agency booking site since they "own" the booking and not Princess as with doing it on Princess.com.

[SargassoPirate]

I check my Princess bookings every morning because they have proven to be untrustworthy regarding "upgrades" and cabin reassignments.  So far so good, but my next cruise isn't until January and there's a lot of time for them to foul things up.

 

I like the trick of putting a hold on the previous cabin if it's still available.  

[PacnGoNow]

9 hours ago, Thrak said:

We are booked for a 16 day Panama Canal cruise in December. My wife picked out a specific cabin she wanted and we booked it. It was marked as "no upgrade". Today I checked the booking and we had been moved to a different cabin. (Likely an "upgrade" because they moved us to a mid ship cabin.) Our original cabin was showing as "available". I contacted our TA and he got it fixed and sent us a new copy of the booking. Again, this was done just this afternoon.

 

I just now checked and we have been moved to a different mid ship cabin. I tried Live Chat and they said they can't help me. Once again, or original cabin is showing as vacant. Now I have to try to get the TA to "fix" it again but, of course, it's 7:30 PM and he's not in the office. I am boggled by the incompetence at Princess.

Is it possibly a quarantine area?  

[skynight]

Do you think a faulty computer program could be doing this rather than an actual person?

[SargassoPirate]

13 minutes ago, skynight said:

Do you think a faulty computer program could be doing this rather than an actual person?

Since I can't even log in to my Princess account and get a red warning not to call their agents about it, why would their computer system be suspect?  (Sarcasm)

 

 

[pedirn]

We too marked booking no upgrade so imagine my surprise last week when I got an email regarding our upgrade.   Upgrade was one deck up and right next to elevators.    We prefer aft cabins and that is what we had booked.   Our daughter (will be first Princess cruise) booked cabin across from us with our grandson so being close to them was our preference.   I did get original booked cabin back but not without going through “request form” that they made sure I knew was just a request and not a guarantee.  Now an upgrade to me would be a mini suite or suite….not one deck up.  Found it strange that this cruise is not until March 2023 and they were already giving out. “upgrades”

[ontheweb]

11 hours ago, kiwimum said:

What ship, deck and cabin?  Is it possibly on an isolation deck?  They will move you no matter what.   We have experienced the same situation on several ships.

If it was an isolation deck for quarantine purposes, I don't see how the TA could have got it back the first time.

[kiwimum]

19 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

If it was an isolation deck for quarantine purposes, I don't see how the TA could have got it back the first time.

On one of our Majestic cruise we were ‘upgraded’ and moved from our large Dolphin balcony to an undesirable location,  CVP was able to move us back only to moved again a couple of days later.   Cabin was definitely used for isolation as we could see the individual exercising on the balcony.

[CineGraphic]

2 hours ago, ontheweb said:

If it was an isolation deck for quarantine purposes, I don't see how the TA could have got it back the first time.

 

Not much of what they do seems to make sense these days.

[PRINCESS Sweet Pea]

I too believe it is being planned to be an isolation area.

Cruisers are seeing this while onboard.

I don't think Princess will show this information on their booking engine and reservations.

I don't think they finalize this until they look at GTY bookings, ship capacity, etc... at Final Payment Date.

 

I am not sure of the best way to work with this!!!!

I would hope that you might know and get another acceptable cabin, and not be moved just 'wherever'.

I might be temped to go with the 'upgrade' to mid-ship.

At least you would know that it is a desirable location, assuming it is not way-high, or. have some other issue.  (like just over a venue like Crooners....)

 

For a while people were losing those coveted aft wake-facing cabins to quarantine.

But, I don't know if this is still how Princess is selecting quarantine areas.

I know that forward deck 8 and 9 were seen one shop to be roped off, like quarantine.

 

Good Luck!!!

[Thrak]

1 hour ago, PRINCESS Sweet Pea said:

I too believe it is being planned to be an isolation area.

 

Nope. There are several cabins in the general area that are available to book. The TA got it fixed (again) and it will hopefully stick this time. Both times it was changed it was an "upgrade" to a higher category mid ship. The  Princess people keep telling the TA that "the computers went down again" and that's the problem. Hardly likely but that's their story.

 

Note: The TA shared a few stories about recent experiences with Princess. There have been a lot of issues.

[Rick&Jeannie]

34 minutes ago, Thrak said:

"the computers went down again"

No...customer approval rating went down...

Edited July 29, 2022 by Rick&Jeannie

[Guest ldtr]

59 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

Nope. There are several cabins in the general area that are available to book. The TA got it fixed (again) and it will hopefully stick this time. Both times it was changed it was an "upgrade" to a higher category mid ship. The  Princess people keep telling the TA that "the computers went down again" and that's the problem. Hardly likely but that's their story.

 

Note: The TA shared a few stories about recent experiences with Princess. There have been a lot of issues.

If it on Dolphin on Royal Class or on Aloha on Grand class it may be impacted by quarantine.  Princess happily allows people to book them, then moves them when it gets close to sail date.  It allows the bookings in case that the need for quarantine space were to go away before the cruise date.  Being allowed to book may not be a quarantine that you are allowed to stay.

 

One had a cabin that got bounced out of 3 days before the cruise for operational reasons.  Turned out that they used the cabin for a visiting entertainer on that cruise at their request.

[Thrak]

10 minutes ago, ldtr said:

If it on Dolphin on Royal Class or on Aloha on Grand class it may be impacted by quarantine.  Princess happily allows people to book them, then moves them when it gets close to sail date.  It allows the bookings in case that the need for quarantine space were to go away before the cruise date.  Being allowed to book may not be a quarantine that you are allowed to stay.

 

One had a cabin that got bounced out of 3 days before the cruise for operational reasons.  Turned out that they used the cabin for a visiting entertainer on that cruise at their request.

 

Aft Riviera deck.

[DaisyRose]

Considering the shutdown and financial losses that cruise companies have endured these past couple years, you would think they would be extremely grateful for bookings, and want to do everything possible to keep passengers happy, including honoring "no upgrade" requests.  I have two cruises that I booked earlier than I normally would have because an aft facing balcony was available.  I paid an extra charge for those "premium" cabins and made sure my agent had them marked "no complimentary upgrades." I will be super upset if they take them away from me.  Only time will tell.  

[Steelers36]

42 minutes ago, ldtr said:

If it on Dolphin on Royal Class or on Aloha on Grand class it may be impacted by quarantine.  Princess happily allows people to book them, then moves them when it gets close to sail date.  It allows the bookings in case that the need for quarantine space were to go away before the cruise date.  Being allowed to book may not be a quarantine that you are allowed to stay.

 

One had a cabin that got bounced out of 3 days before the cruise for operational reasons.  Turned out that they used the cabin for a visiting entertainer on that cruise at their request.

So, it seems to me using logic and math, that if they were to sell all cabins and then need quarantine quarters, tbere would be nowhere to move guests and they would have to boot them off the voyage at great expense.  Seems to me better to hold back some inventory and then release it later if turns out not needed.  I refer to stuff that has been for sale.  For late 2023 and 2024 just releasing in August for sale I would presume normal operations and no need for quarantine.

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Not much of what they do seems to make sense these days.

What you wrote does make sense.

[ontheweb]

42 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

So, it seems to me using logic and math, that if they were to sell all cabins and then need quarantine quarters, tbere would be nowhere to move guests and they would have to boot them off the voyage at great expense.  Seems to me better to hold back some inventory and then release it later if turns out not needed.  I refer to stuff that has been for sale.  For late 2023 and 2024 just releasing in August for sale I would presume normal operations and no need for quarantine.

But that would make sense.

[kiwimum]

I am sure Princess is hoping for ‘normal’ operations in 2023.   I booked Alaska, June 2023 for family today to ensure exemption spots for daughter and grandkids.  Response from Princess was they are not processing exemptions after 5/31/2023.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

So, it seems to me using logic and math, that if they were to sell all cabins and then need quarantine quarters, tbere would be nowhere to move guests and they would have to boot them off the voyage at great expense.  Seems to me better to hold back some inventory and then release it later if turns out not needed.  I refer to stuff that has been for sale.  For late 2023 and 2024 just releasing in August for sale I would presume normal operations and no need for quarantine.

The sales number have generally been low enough where they have not had to worry about it.  Might change as they get close to full occupancy.  While they have not restricted individual cabins (at least not a few months ago) they do seem to have limited the total numbers of cabins available.

 

On my most recent cruise they were sold out for balcony and above cabins.  A couple of people that I knew had mentioned that they had tried to book Aloha and had gotten moved a couple of weeks before the cruise.  The cruise was only at 2500 on the Ruby.  

Edited July 29, 2022 by ldtr

[chubbypiggy]

20 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

If you have online access to your TA booking engine, or pages, make a mock booking on hold to keep the cabin until you can speak with TA and then he can cancel out the hold.

When I log in to my Princess account and go to the cruise that I am interested in, after I chose a cabin, I noticed it says can hold until "XX" (XX is 3 days later).  If I do a mock booking and 2 days later I decided to call in to Princess and tell the Princess agent I am now ready to do the actual booking on the "hold" booking I did, is that okay?  Or I must go back to my account and finish that booking online?  Also, if the website's price a day or two later gone up higher than the booking that I placed on hold, or OBC offered on my "hold" booking is no longer being offered, will I have to pay the new price or my "on hold" booking price and OBC offered still will be honored?  Thank you.