Charged for dining reservations that are included in package

[Captain&Commander]

I just noticed my credit card was charged for two specialty Dinning reservations that I made with the help of the Princess navigator on my medallion.  These two dinners were suppose to be included in my premium package. When I called Princess they told me I’d have to wait and have it credited when I got on the ship.

Has any one else had this happen?  I wonder if Princess would have credited my account if I hadn’t noticed the overcharge?   

[Guest ldtr]

Not unusual if you make them before the cruise you get changed.  Or you can have customer service make them for you.  If you did not notify them when you boarded that you want to use the included dinners for that time, no real way for them to tell that you were not planning to use the included ones for a different time with the reservation made on board.

[VaCruzers]

To have it credited back to your card onboard, passenger services will cancel your existing reservation and you will have to rebook. Otherwise, they have no way to refund your credit card. At least this was our experience in August.

[memoak]

I don’t know why everyone is so hot to pre book dinners. In our experience it has never been a problem to get tables once in board. They do not reserve every single table otherwise they could not offer free meals to casino guests and others to make up for Cruise issues 

[Thrak]

On a 14 day Circle Caribbean - Caribbean Princess in 2018 - I waited too long to make reservations and when I got around to it they said there was no availability for the date I wanted. D'Oh!  I'll admit I was surprised but it can get booked full for specific times/dates. I had to choose another date for our dinner.

[malba2366]

20 minutes ago, memoak said:

I don’t know why everyone is so hot to pre book dinners. In our experience it has never been a problem to get tables once in board. They do not reserve every single table otherwise they could not offer free meals to casino guests and others to make up for Cruise issues 

 

Depending on the take rate on Princess premier it could become difficult to get reservations when you want if not booked in advance.

[Thrak]

11 minutes ago, malba2366 said:

 

Depending on the take rate on Princess premier it could become difficult to get reservations when you want if not booked in advance.

 

When we couldn't get the date we wanted Princess was running one of their ubiquitous "sales" that included specialty dining. I figured there were a lot of passengers with that perk on our sailing.

[JimmyVWine]

29 minutes ago, memoak said:

I don’t know why everyone is so hot to pre book dinners. In our experience it has never been a problem to get tables once in board. They do not reserve every single table otherwise they could not offer free meals to casino guests and others to make up for Cruise issues 

It depends on the promotion under which people booked.  When "Plus" was first rolled out, there were promotions that offered Plus for a slightly reduced rate and added in a free Specialty Dinner.  That type of deal was very popular and so many people booked under those promotions that getting reservations on board was very difficult.  Supply was way, way below demand.  Now that Premier is rolling out and includes Specialty Dinners, I doubt very much that Princess will offer free Specialty Dinners to anyone who isn't buying that package as that would be a disincentive to people booking the more expensive Premier package.  So I think that the number of people boarding the ship with a free Specialty Dinner in their arsenal will go down.  Unless, of course, the Premier package is wildly popular, which I tend to doubt, but who knows?  So to sum it up, I think that from the restart until a few weeks from now, there was a window of time when free SD was added in to many bookings and pre-booking was rather important.  In three weeks' time, I think we will see that subside. 

[jeromep]

This speaks to a big issue with the pre-booking of items and the logic that Princess is using right now.  It is one thing to charge somebody up front to pre-book dining or spa if their cruise doesn't have a Plus/Premier package attached.  But once somebody selects a package that includes some perk, like specialty dining, then the programming logic should allow booking the time without insisting on charging their card.  This situation feels very much like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.  Marketing came up with Plus and Premier and launched it, but they didn't bother to loop in the programmers who are dealing with the booking engine on the web site.  The packages work on board because that is separate and independent from the booking system, and where it counts is on board.  The way pre-books seem to work is that they are collected in the on-shore system and then transmitted to the ship's system on or about embarkation of the new group of passengers.  I suspect that they have some large IT project to try to harmonize on-board passenger management with shore-side, but that has to be a huge project and many disparate systems.

[malba2366]

13 minutes ago, jeromep said:

This speaks to a big issue with the pre-booking of items and the logic that Princess is using right now.  It is one thing to charge somebody up front to pre-book dining or spa if their cruise doesn't have a Plus/Premier package attached.  But once somebody selects a package that includes some perk, like specialty dining, then the programming logic should allow booking the time without insisting on charging their card.  This situation feels very much like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.  Marketing came up with Plus and Premier and launched it, but they didn't bother to loop in the programmers who are dealing with the booking engine on the web site.  The packages work on board because that is separate and independent from the booking system, and where it counts is on board.  The way pre-books seem to work is that they are collected in the on-shore system and then transmitted to the ship's system on or about embarkation of the new group of passengers.  I suspect that they have some large IT project to try to harmonize on-board passenger management with shore-side, but that has to be a huge project and many disparate systems.

I was able to book specialty dining using princess premier credits for a cruise in July.  I was only offered tables at 730, but I was okay with that.

Edited January 31, 2023 by malba2366

[memoak]

28 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

It depends on the promotion under which people booked.  When "Plus" was first rolled out, there were promotions that offered Plus for a slightly reduced rate and added in a free Specialty Dinner.  That type of deal was very popular and so many people booked under those promotions that getting reservations on board was very difficult.  Supply was way, way below demand.  Now that Premier is rolling out and includes Specialty Dinners, I doubt very much that Princess will offer free Specialty Dinners to anyone who isn't buying that package as that would be a disincentive to people booking the more expensive Premier package.  So I think that the number of people boarding the ship with a free Specialty Dinner in their arsenal will go down.  Unless, of course, the Premier package is wildly popular, which I tend to doubt, but who knows?  So to sum it up, I think that from the restart until a few weeks from now, there was a window of time when free SD was added in to many bookings and pre-booking was rather important.  In three weeks' time, I think we will see that subside. 

I have almost always been offered a free dinner by casino hosts because invariable they screw up my free play and have to wait a day or so to get it loaded. Also I have often just gone up to the Sabatini’s manager early evening and been able to sit down around 7:30 or so

[JimmyVWine]

15 minutes ago, memoak said:

I have almost always been offered a free dinner by casino hosts because invariable they screw up my free play and have to wait a day or so to get it loaded. Also I have often just gone up to the Sabatini’s manager early evening and been able to sit down around 7:30 or so

A.  If the restaurant holds tables open for casino players, then those tables are not available to the rest of the passengers, meaning that they are just as "booked" as any other table.  That the casino has dinner table privileges heightens the need for pre-booking.  It doesn't lessen it.

 

B. Small sample size. Falls under the fallacy of "I did it, therefore everyone can do it."

Edited January 31, 2023 by JimmyVWine

[memoak]

44 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

A.  If the restaurant holds tables open for casino players, then those tables are not available to the rest of the passengers, meaning that they are just as "booked" as any other table.  That the casino has dinner table privileges heightens the need for pre-booking.  It doesn't lessen it.

 

B. Small sample size. Falls under the fallacy of "I did it, therefore everyone can do it."

Been doing it for over 40 cruises including 4 last year

[PrincessLuver]

9 minutes ago, memoak said:

Been doing it for over 40 cruises including 4 last year

 

Same here.  Have not had any problems getting a specialty restaurant reservation once on board with all the cruises we have done this year.  I really do not think it is a problem and maybe Princess is just not selling that many Plus or Premium packages.

[JimmyVWine]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

Been doing it for over 40 cruises including 4 last year

The free SD promotion bundled with Plus was done after the restart, so this isn’t a four year thing. Sorry if that was not clear. I thought that I had explained that the supply/demand issue has only been present during the past year and will soon go away as all of the cruises booked under those terms wind down. 

[bbfbgurl]

5 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

It depends on the promotion under which people booked.  When "Plus" was first rolled out, there were promotions that offered Plus for a slightly reduced rate and added in a free Specialty Dinner.  That type of deal was very popular and so many people booked under those promotions that getting reservations on board was very difficult.  Supply was way, way below demand.  Now that Premier is rolling out and includes Specialty Dinners, I doubt very much that Princess will offer free Specialty Dinners to anyone who isn't buying that package as that would be a disincentive to people booking the more expensive Premier package.  So I think that the number of people boarding the ship with a free Specialty Dinner in their arsenal will go down.  Unless, of course, the Premier package is wildly popular, which I tend to doubt, but who knows?  So to sum it up, I think that from the restart until a few weeks from now, there was a window of time when free SD was added in to many bookings and pre-booking was rather important.  In three weeks' time, I think we will see that subside. 

Totally agree! But also restaurant dependent. Came back from enchanted princess in Dec. I tried to book on embarkation day (like 2 or 3 pm!) for crowne grill, person at desk was like sorry all full up and said to keep checking app if anyone cancels ( lol which I never did).  We also had free SD because of promo when we booked and that too probably contributed to it being full. We ended up at the French inspired Bistro.  I think though there were openings at  Sabatini and salty dog grill throughout the cruise.  Also to note, I swear there used to be multiple settings precovid at these SD restaurants, but during that Dec cruise  it looked like if that table was booked once that night that was it. (Might not be true but that was also what it seemed!) 

[dog]

They did let me book my included specialty dinner on Discovery when I was in a suite. No extra charge to my credit card for that.

[Tripmode33]

14 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

The free SD promotion bundled with Plus was done after the restart, so this isn’t a four year thing. Sorry if that was not clear. I thought that I had explained that the supply/demand issue has only been present during the past year and will soon go away as all of the cruises booked under those terms wind down. 

Agree, we've definitely had problems getting a booking for speciality restaurants once onboard this past year, and we've been on three different Princess ships. If you want a particular night, or if it's a short cruise, I'd definitely make the effort to book pre-cruise.  Hopefully, as suggested, this need may be temporary.

[voljeep]

15 hours ago, memoak said:

Been doing it for over 40 cruises including 4 last year

you have "status" (casino), so yes, maybe some tables are held back for "status"   Us regular 'shmoos' 

that have only taken 17 or so cruises, staying in a regular balcony, can be shut out.  I "KNOW" because it happened to us on our last cruise.  No balcony dining, no Crown Grill, Sabitini's ONLY on first night.

[ED49404]

With all that being said.  In the future what is the best way to reserve in advance a SD if you have the Premier package without paying for it up front?   

[malba2366]

1 hour ago, ED49404 said:

With all that being said.  In the future what is the best way to reserve in advance a SD if you have the Premier package without paying for it up front?   

I was able to do do it using the princess app along with making MDR reservations. It automatically used the vouchers when I did it a few weeks ago for a July cruise. 

[sonomaphil]

I was able to book late last November for the two Premier included specialty dining dinners for a January 2nd cruise on the app.  I have another cruise end of April and also have Premier but the app wants a full CC payment.  Maybe there is a time line lag to open the Premier bookings? 

[JimmyVWine]

32 minutes ago, malba2366 said:

I was able to do do it using the princess app along with making MDR reservations. It automatically used the vouchers when I did it a few weeks ago for a July cruise. 

And I was one of the many people who booked under the Best Sale Ever (February/March 2022 Edition) for a cruise we took this past October.  We got Plus for $40 per day and a Specialty Dinner added in.  For the longest time I was seeing that I would be charged for making the reservation.  Then at some point there was an upgrade to the app, so I deleted the app and reinstalled it, and after I did that, when I used the app to book our dinner, it recognized my vouchers and allowed me to book without paying.  

[voljeep]

12 minutes ago, sonomaphil said:

I was able to book late last November for the two Premier included specialty dining dinners for a January 2nd cruise on the app.  I have another cruise end of April and also have Premier but the app wants a full CC payment.  Maybe there is a time line lag to open the Premier bookings? 

I 'believe' another poster stated the exact same thing.  It wasn't there at first, but then apparently appeared later.  

 

3 options

pay upfront

keep checking back, then book

book on board 

[JimmyVWine]

And slightly off topic, but I have noticed another issue with booking using the app.  For my upcoming cruise I used the app to book (and pay) for a Dinner at Sabatini's.  Party of 3.  Booked in August for a cruise in May, so in other words, way, way in advance.  No matter which day I selected, and no matter what time I selected, I was ALWAYS able to find a slot for us, but in so doing, received a notice that my "Party would be broken into separate tables."  As in what?  A two and a one?  Or three ones?  Of course they aren't going to do this. There is no way that when I booked the restaurant was not so full that I could not get three people seated together at the same table.  Most people can't even book until after they make their final payment, and I booked 10 months in advance.  So I went ahead and made the booking and I will sort it out once we are on the ship.  But this has to be an issue with the app or the booking system.  I would go ahead and cancel and re-book now, but the price has gone up and I would be charged the new, higher fee if I did this.