Advice and things you wish you knew about Princess for a newbie?

[njpln]

Calling all Princess experts!
 

We have traveled on several different cruise lines and amassed 20+ cruises. But we only took one Princess cruise 18 years ago and don’t remember much. so we are basically newbies on Princess.  We are booked on the Enchanted Princess for New Year’s  at the end of 2023.

 

So, I’m wondering what advice you would give to someone that you wish you had known about prior to cruising with Princess?

 

Thanks in advance!

[voljeep]

you can 'request' off menu items in the mdr.  You may not always get what you wanted, but you get what you need.

 

baked potato, extra butter...

[jeromep]

That is a big and broad question.

 

Did you book through a travel agent?  Do you have one you like?  Not like a corporate TA, but an independent or one that works independently that has support of a franchise?  One real human you can call to work through things, ask questions, etc.  I recommend a TA right now because the telephone support at Princess has been heavily off-shored and isn't all that good.  The call centers can handle very straight forward things, but anything that may get complex or is outside of their script will tie them up in knots and you won't actually get any answers.

 

If you did book direct, you can still transfer the cruise to a TA once you find one.  Plus, you are helping put food on somebody's table.  TAs get a commission.  When you transfer a booking to a TA, Princess has to pay a commission to them out of your agreed upon cruise fare.  Otherwise, Princess just takes the value of what would be paid as a commission and pockets it for themselves.  After the mess we have been through the past few years, TAs could really use the work.

 

I think the Medallion is a great technological change.  It is a bit too big brother for me, notably the location tracking, however when it works, especially for ordering food and beverage and having it delivered, it works well.  The Princess app that works in conjunction with the Medallion is kind of flaky.  But it is gradually getting better.

 

Internet on board was supposed to be excellent, they made a lot of marketing hay about fast Internet back in 2019, but that all seems to have passed or been an opportunity lost, so Internet on board is just marginal. 

 

Take a serious look at Princess Plus.  It might pencil out for you considering that it includes gratuities and a great number of beverages that you would otherwise have to pay per drink for, along with Internet access.

 

That is about all I can offer right now without knowing more about your cruise or your specific interests.

 

 

[MeganGC1983]

On 2/1/2023 at 12:28 PM, njpln said:

Calling all Princess experts!
 

We have traveled on several different cruise lines and amassed 20+ cruises. But we only took one Princess cruise 18 years ago and don’t remember much. so we are basically newbies on Princess.  We are booked on the Enchanted Princess for New Year’s  at the end of 2023.

 

So, I’m wondering what advice you would give to someone that you wish you had known about prior to cruising with Princess?

 

Thanks in advance!

Same boat except we’ve never cruises Princess. Excited to try it out. Going on the Ruby Princess out of Galveston. We have Princess Plus. What else should we know? TIA

[MileHighAko]

If you're in a suite, breakfast at a specialty restaurant is not to be missed.

 

Instead of water slides and race tracks, there are tons of bars with live music. It's worth it to "bar hop" to the different venues and find the ones that vibe for you.

 

The crew chat feature in the app can handle a lot of requests that you might have had to go to guest services for previously, and they happily answer questions like "where can I find xyz" or "how many pax are onboard".

 

The ship gets pretty quiet by 10PM, but there is still plenty of party left in the Visa lounge.

[ldubs]

OP is on the 123123 cruise.   

[BamaVol]

12 hours ago, ldubs said:

OP is on the 123123 cruise.   

So, if it gets quiet after 10 PM, check to see if the life boats are still attached.

[pathi]

Make sure to visit the International Café. Great place for snacks or a small meal. Food is free. Coffee will be included in your plus pkg. It is in the atrium,deck 5.

[NavyCruiser]

14 hours ago, MileHighAko said:

The crew chat feature in the app can handle a lot of requests that you might have had to go to guest services for previously, and they happily answer questions like "where can I find xyz" or "how many pax are onboard".

 

 

I tried that chat feature to guest services: 

Asked them which Medallion-class elevator do I take to go from the aft end to the forward end of the ship?  

Never received an answer back...

[Thrak]

3 hours ago, NavyCruiser said:

 

I tried that chat feature to guest services: 

Asked them which Medallion-class elevator do I take to go from the aft end to the forward end of the ship?  

Never received an answer back...

 

You can only find that elevator on Deck 13.

[MeganGC1983]

Thanks y’all. 

[Sea Hag]

I was several cruises in before I found out I could ask for price drops. 

[_rusty_shackleford]

Finally I can be useful(ish?)! We just did our first Princess cruise (15+ Carnival) in the fall. Definitely recommend!
 

First of all, major step up from Carnival. Ambience, clientele (part of this may be because it was a 14 night Alaska, so factor that in), food. We had a blast. Booked 2 more this year.
 

Princess' buffet was on par with Carnival's dining room, if not better in my opinion. Great selection (we had things like smoked salmon available at the buffet everyday), excellent Filipino dishes like tocino. Hard to describe if you've never been on Carnival, but enough for us to decide we'd easily pay 150% over a comparable Carnival cruise. Staff were great as well, but honestly we never have had a bad experience with Carnival staff either. One thing we found odd was there's no built-in way to do 'traditional' dining (same table and waitstaff every night). Usually the host/hostesses can accommodate if you favor that like we do, but you may need to wait for a table with your staff to open up. We had no issue with being able to do this.

 

Crowd skewed older than we're used to on Carnival, which I guess is relative, but my wife (32) and I (33) were easily among the younger crowd. That could have been the length and itinerary as well. Either way, neither of us are party animals and got exactly the peace and quiet we were hoping for in our cabin combined with lively bars and common spaces.

 

Others mentioned Princess Plus. Definitely worth it if you drink. If you value the internet at $0 like we do, it still only takes 3ish drinks to break even with the other benefits. The Medallions made life pretty darn easy. Borderline creepy since they can certainly track your movements throughout the ship but it has its benefits as well.
 

We are not really theatre types so can't comment on the shows, but their live musicians were very talented. The last night of each leg of our 14 night they had all of the musicians in the main atrium playing a show. This was far and away the highlight of the cruise. It was really well done, and neat to see everyone circling the atrium on multiple levels to watch. The brought the gosh darn house down. According to the music director they normally do this in the theater but recently (COVID spacing? Who knows) moved it to the atrium. I sincerely hope they've decided to continue doing that.

 

Please feel free to reply with any specific questions. We were on the Royal Princess. 

[MeganGC1983]

1 hour ago, _rusty_shackleford said:

Finally I can be useful(ish?)! We just did our first Princess cruise (15+ Carnival) in the fall. Definitely recommend!
 

First of all, major step up from Carnival. Ambience, clientele (part of this may be because it was a 14 night Alaska, so factor that in), food. We had a blast. Booked 2 more this year.
 

Princess' buffet was on par with Carnival's dining room, if not better in my opinion. Great selection (we had things like smoked salmon available at the buffet everyday), excellent Filipino dishes like tocino. Hard to describe if you've never been on Carnival, but enough for us to decide we'd easily pay 150% over a comparable Carnival cruise. Staff were great as well, but honestly we never have had a bad experience with Carnival staff either. One thing we found odd was there's no built-in way to do 'traditional' dining (same table and waitstaff every night). Usually the host/hostesses can accommodate if you favor that like we do, but you may need to wait for a table with your staff to open up. We had no issue with being able to do this.

 

Crowd skewed older than we're used to on Carnival, which I guess is relative, but my wife (32) and I (33) were easily among the younger crowd. That could have been the length and itinerary as well. Either way, neither of us are party animals and got exactly the peace and quiet we were hoping for in our cabin combined with lively bars and common spaces.

 

Others mentioned Princess Plus. Definitely worth it if you drink. If you value the internet at $0 like we do, it still only takes 3ish drinks to break even with the other benefits. The Medallions made life pretty darn easy. Borderline creepy since they can certainly track your movements throughout the ship but it has its benefits as well.
 

We are not really theatre types so can't comment on the shows, but their live musicians were very talented. The last night of each leg of our 14 night they had all of the musicians in the main atrium playing a show. This was far and away the highlight of the cruise. It was really well done, and neat to see everyone circling the atrium on multiple levels to watch. The brought the gosh darn house down. According to the music director they normally do this in the theater but recently (COVID spacing? Who knows) moved it to the atrium. I sincerely hope they've decided to continue doing that.

 

Please feel free to reply with any specific questions. We were on the Royal Princess. 

Very helpful. Appreciate the insight. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Since the Covid restart, we’ve only cruise Carnival and Virgin. Excited to give it a test drive. 

[_rusty_shackleford]

10 minutes ago, MeganGC1983 said:

Very helpful. Appreciate the insight. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Since the Covid restart, we’ve only cruise Carnival and Virgin. Excited to give it a test drive. 

Please feel free to reply with any questions you think of. I've only done the one Princess cruise so far but perhaps can offer that kind of 'first timer' advice since my first experience was fairly recent. The only big thing we're doing differently on our next couple is waiting to do Princess Plus until we're onboard so we can use our OBC. From what I've read you can use OBC for it, but we'll see if that's true/how long it lasts if so.