Princess Live Chat

[Belmont Babe]

I've searched this forum and can see a number of you have used this feature on FB. Anybody tried recently? I keep getting this message despite it being during their operating hours. "Thank you for your inquiry. Our service hours are 9am-5pm PST, Monday-Friday." (Please don't suggest I contact my Princess Cruise Planner, that person is half the problem.)🙄

[arxcards]

10 minutes ago, Belmont Babe said:

I've searched this forum and can see a number of you have used this feature on FB. Anybody tried recently? I keep getting this message despite it being during their operating hours. "Thank you for your inquiry. Our service hours are 9am-5pm PST, Monday-Friday." (Please don't suggest I contact my Princess Cruise Planner, that person is half the problem.)🙄

Via FB, no. That link would also connect to the US call centre, and their operating hours.

 

I have successfully used the chat function from Princess.com. The chat link is on the bottom edge of the screen, and will also show when they are offline.

[Belmont Babe]

9 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Via FB, no. That link would also connect to the US call centre, and their operating hours.

 

I have successfully used the chat function from Princess.com. The chat link is on the bottom edge of the screen, and will also show when they are offline.

Thanks for that info, I hadn't noticed that feature on Princess.com (probably never scrolled down that far 😁)

[Cbtours]

30 minutes ago, Belmont Babe said:

I've searched this forum and can see a number of you have used this feature on FB. Anybody tried recently? I keep getting this message despite it being during their operating hours. "Thank you for your inquiry. Our service hours are 9am-5pm PST, Monday-Friday." (Please don't suggest I contact my Princess Cruise Planner, that person is half the problem.)🙄

Yes, the princess chat is excellent. Just click onto it when it is showing "live" which is more like business hours. It is not just a virtual assistant but a real person.

[arxcards]

27 minutes ago, Belmont Babe said:

Thanks for that info, I hadn't noticed that feature on Princess.com (probably never scrolled down that far 😁)

If you are logged on and doing stuff on the personaliser, the chat link is a bit more obvious, otherwise I probably wouldn't have known about it myself.

[Ozwoody]

PST is Pacific Standard Time, ie: West Coast USA.

I think that's right🤔

[Jean C]

1 hour ago, Belmont Babe said:

I've searched this forum and can see a number of you have used this feature on FB. Anybody tried recently? I keep getting this message despite it being during their operating hours. "Thank you for your inquiry. Our service hours are 9am-5pm PST, Monday-Friday." (Please don't suggest I contact my Princess Cruise Planner, that person is half the problem.)🙄

Hi, our Princess Cruise Planner wasn't the best, not returning calls or responding to email queries (we're not "high maintenance"). So a few weeks ago I called Princess and asked to be assigned to a different Planner. Apparently our guy needed to do an administrative task for it to happen and he hadn't done it, so I phoned again to follow up, said we wanted to book a new cruise but wanted to start afresh with a new Planner - they gave us a new one there and then. We may or may not go through with the new booking (depends on airfares), but it was a means to an end 😧

[MMDown Under]

2 hours ago, Jean C said:

Hi, our Princess Cruise Planner wasn't the best, not returning calls or responding to email queries (we're not "high maintenance"). So a few weeks ago I called Princess and asked to be assigned to a different Planner. Apparently our guy needed to do an administrative task for it to happen and he hadn't done it, so I phoned again to follow up, said we wanted to book a new cruise but wanted to start afresh with a new Planner - they gave us a new one there and then. We may or may not go through with the new booking (depends on airfares), but it was a means to an end 😧

Well done!  

[Cascade1]

Personally I think these Princess Cruise Holiday Planners are a dead loss. Never once has mine responded to my emails. He loves sending Princess emails through to me but he just ignores mine. I have sent him two emails in the past 3 weeks without any reply. Last year was the same. I refuse to deal at all with him now.

[MMDown Under]

13 minutes ago, Cascade1 said:

Personally I think these Princess Cruise Holiday Planners are a dead loss. Never once has mine responded to my emails. He loves sending Princess emails through to me but he just ignores mine. I have sent him two emails in the past 3 weeks without any reply. Last year was the same. I refuse to deal at all with him now.

I guess you need to Princess you want a change of Holiday Planner so you can make a new booking. 

I used to have a planner for a US TA who worked from him.  He was brilliant.  It really makes a different.  

I also had an agent for a big TA who got promoted to HO.  Never find such a skilled one!  I like them to know more than I know 

[MMDown Under]

Just now, MMDown Under said:

I guess you need to advise Princess you want a change of Holiday Planner so you can make a new booking. 

I used to have a planner for a US TA who worked from home.  He was brilliant.  It really makes a different.  

I also had an agent for a local big TA who got promoted to HO.  Never found such a skilled one again!  I like them to know more than I know  If someone recommends one personally treasure him,

 

[Cascade1]

Unless I am doing something extensive in addition to a cruise, I usually just make the booking on-line with Princess myself. If there is anything major in addition to the cruise I may use a Travel Agent. Having booked on-line with Princess myself, if anything pops up like a price reduction etc. I just call Princess and they have always honoured the reduced price. Maybe I am missing something, but what can a Holiday Planner really do for you that I can't do myself?

[OzKiwiJJ]

My Princess Planner is very good at getting the cabins we want when itineraries are released but not so good at communicating by email, she seem to prefer phone calls.

[OzKiwiJJ]

45 minutes ago, Cascade1 said:

Unless I am doing something extensive in addition to a cruise, I usually just make the booking on-line with Princess myself. If there is anything major in addition to the cruise I may use a Travel Agent. Having booked on-line with Princess myself, if anything pops up like a price reduction etc. I just call Princess and they have always honoured the reduced price. Maybe I am missing something, but what can a Holiday Planner really do for you that I can't do myself?

Save you from sitting on the phone for six hours when a new itinerary release causes the Princess website to crash?

 

That's the main readon we switched to using one. Plus she was able to extend the final payment date on a replacement cruise when the FCCs took a while to come through.

[MMDown Under]

15 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

My Princess Planner is very good at getting the cabins we want when itineraries are released but not so good at communicating by email, she seem to prefer phone calls.

That wouldn't be any good for me as I don't answer phone calls.  However if she gets you cabins you want she must be on the ball.

[Jean C]

2 hours ago, Cascade1 said:

Personally I think these Princess Cruise Holiday Planners are a dead loss. Never once has mine responded to my emails. He loves sending Princess emails through to me but he just ignores mine. I have sent him two emails in the past 3 weeks without any reply. Last year was the same. I refuse to deal at all with him now.

Sounds like our guy J L Y 🥴

[Jean C]

2 hours ago, Cascade1 said:

Personally I think these Princess Cruise Holiday Planners are a dead loss. Never once has mine responded to my emails. He loves sending Princess emails through to me but he just ignores mine. I have sent him two emails in the past 3 weeks without any reply. Last year was the same. I refuse to deal at all with him now.

I got to the point where I would re-send emails with "PLEASE RESPOND" in in block caps in front of the heading. Still nada. We only want a Planner to get the extra OBC and their promise to automatically reduce fare should it go down. I still monitor fares of cruises booked - one we booked came down in price when Princess were having those weird glitches - we requested the reduction (about $500) but our Planner said to wait for the next week or two as they were expecting reductions where we wouldn't lose our OBC. It never happened, we were disadvantaged by about $50 each, no great deal but frustrating all the same 🙁

[Jean C]

1 hour ago, Cascade1 said:

Unless I am doing something extensive in addition to a cruise, I usually just make the booking on-line with Princess myself. If there is anything major in addition to the cruise I may use a Travel Agent. Having booked on-line with Princess myself, if anything pops up like a price reduction etc. I just call Princess and they have always honoured the reduced price. Maybe I am missing something, but what can a Holiday Planner really do for you that I can't do myself?

It sounds as though you have a good process. If you book through a Planner they give you a bit of extra OBC as a bonus 💰

[OzKiwiJJ]

55 minutes ago, Jean C said:

I got to the point where I would re-send emails with "PLEASE RESPOND" in in block caps in front of the heading. Still nada. We only want a Planner to get the extra OBC and their promise to automatically reduce fare should it go down. I still monitor fares of cruises booked - one we booked came down in price when Princess were having those weird glitches - we requested the reduction (about $500) but our Planner said to wait for the next week or two as they were expecting reductions where we wouldn't lose our OBC. It never happened, we were disadvantaged by about $50 each, no great deal but frustrating all the same 🙁

That isn't guaranteed. We didn't get any OBC for a couple of cruises we booked through our planner. We got great OBC booking through the Future Cruise Sales office a couple of weeks ago though - my planner was on holiday so missed out on that booking.

[Jean C]

3 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

That isn't guaranteed. We didn't get any OBC for a couple of cruises we booked through our planner. We got great OBC booking through the Future Cruise Sales office a couple of weeks ago though - my planner was on holiday so missed out on that booking.

I think it's only on cruises over a certain number of days. The one we booked is a short repositioning cruise from Sydney to Brisbane to join an already booked cruise, so we didn't get the extra OBC 😪

[Cascade1]

You may be able to shed some light on this. Sometime ago I was told that these Cruise Planners are only Travel Agents who have contracted with Princess to act on their behalf and are therefore not actually Princess staff. I can't be sure but maybe that's part of the problem???? 

[timtam2]

Princess Cruise Planners are a team based in the Philippines.  The online chat is manned by Princess Australian staff.

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 hours ago, timtam2 said:

Princess Cruise Planners are a team based in the Philippines.  The online chat is manned by Princess Australian staff.

My Princess Cruise Planner is American and lives in Nevada. She works from home.

Edited October 1, 2022 by OzKiwiJJ

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 hours ago, Cascade1 said:

You may be able to shed some light on this. Sometime ago I was told that these Cruise Planners are only Travel Agents who have contracted with Princess to act on their behalf and are therefore not actually Princess staff. I can't be sure but maybe that's part of the problem???? 

I don't think that's correct. They only work for Princess and only handle cruises, plus immediate travel associated with that cruise if required. They are technically classed as travel agents so you have to go through them to change or cancel bookings but they aren't travel agents in the usual sense of that term.