Done with Princess

[Rick&Jeannie]

3 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

It’s the Caesar salad with Kale….yuck.

That just "ain't right!" 😟

[Guest ldtr]

5 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I’ve never had trouble ordering Fettuccine Alfredo since the restart…on or off the menu.  Even got the cheese basket once.

 

It’s the Caesar salad with Kale….yuck.  Just ordered it without kale, but the croutons are substituted with chick peas.

 

 

They are trying to keep you healthy😁

[Rick&Jeannie]

46 minutes ago, ldtr said:

They are trying to keep you healthy😁

Hmmmm...yeah. Remind me how that ties in with "Premium Desserts"?  😄

Edited March 31, 2023 by Rick&Jeannie

[Guest ldtr]

12 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

Hmmmm...yeah. Remind me how that ties in with "Premium Desserts"?  😄

Maybe it is just us low spenders that they are trying to keep healthy?

[DHP1]

😀  off topic aren’t we. 

[Incognito1]

On 3/28/2023 at 5:20 PM, Tedferg said:

What 'silliness' are you referring to?

Answering that gets you a caution from the CCHost...  You can a simple search, but I suspect you already know to what he's referring and you're just trolling.

[ldubs]

9 hours ago, DHP1 said:

😀  off topic aren’t we. 

 

Yep.  I think the points about missing the deadline have been well made, so maybe that is a good thing.  😀

[CruizinSusan70]

To the OP...best of luck on your future cruises on whichever cruise line you choose to cruise on next.  Happy sailing.

Edited April 1, 2023 by CruizinSusan70

[Coral]

On 3/28/2023 at 5:11 PM, BBurnsG550 said:

After 17 cruises with Princess, we're done with this cruise line.

 

Let me explain.  We were scheduled for a 15 day Hawai'i cruise in April of 2020 when the pandemic forced Princess to cancel the trip.  We chose the refund option and Princess offered us a 25% future cruise credit to use WHEN THE PANDEMIC WAS OVER as an incentive to sail again.  Now that the silliness truly has passed, we started looking at cruises for later this year and settled on an Atlantic crossing this fall.

 

Imagine our surprise when we talked to our Princess cruise coordinator and discussed applying our cruise credit to this itinerary.  "That cruise had to be booked AND sailed by the end of 2022 to get that credit." We NEVER received ANY notice that was the case.  We never received any reminder emails saying "hey, don't forget your cruise credit and you have to use it by the end of 2022."  Zip. Zero. Nada.  And according to the federal government, the pandemic still wasn't OVER by the end of 2022.

 

 

 

I am late to the game here. I was in the same boat as you as I had a cruise in April 2020 that was cancelled.

 

You did get your full refund! The pandemic was beyond Princess's control. They were generous in giving you 25% credit towards another cruise. Even if you didn't use the 25% credit - you were made whole by getting your full refund.

 

No one knew how long the pandemic would last. None of us expected it to be this long. The rules were spelled out. One must have used it by 12/2022 to get the credit. I booked a cruise and went during the pandemic to use my 25%. The information was out there. Just because they didn't send you reminders, doesn't mean it wasn't out there. Other lines who did similar promos had similar stipulations.

 

If you look at my posts - I am not always complimentary towards Princess. I was very critical on how long it took to get my money back (for some reason my booking was put aside and it took months and months to get my refund). I don't like the direction Princess is going. It is not the same Princess I fell in love with.

 

Though - I can't fault them on not being clear about when I had to use my 25%. The information was spelled out clearly on this. I am sorry you didn't take advantage of it but you are not out anything because you did get a full refund.

[ChutChut]

On 3/28/2023 at 5:11 PM, BBurnsG550 said:

After 17 cruises with Princess, we're done with this cruise line.

 

Let me explain.  We were scheduled for a 15 day Hawai'i cruise in April of 2020 when the pandemic forced Princess to cancel the trip.  We chose the refund option and Princess offered us a 25% future cruise credit to use WHEN THE PANDEMIC WAS OVER as an incentive to sail again.  Now that the silliness truly has passed, we started looking at cruises for later this year and settled on an Atlantic crossing this fall.

 

Imagine our surprise when we talked to our Princess cruise coordinator and discussed applying our cruise credit to this itinerary.  "That cruise had to be booked AND sailed by the end of 2022 to get that credit." We NEVER received ANY notice that was the case.  We never received any reminder emails saying "hey, don't forget your cruise credit and you have to use it by the end of 2022."  Zip. Zero. Nada.  And according to the federal government, the pandemic still wasn't OVER by the end of 2022.

 

We were referred to a "Customer Care" rep earlier today to discuss the matter.  It was quite possibly the rudest "customer service" phone call I'd ever experienced in my life.  It was five minutes of snark, condescension, and disdain with no acceptable resolution to our issue and the agent refused to give us his last name or to route our call to a supervisor by claiming he WAS the supervisor.

 

Needless to say, we called our rep back immediately and cancelled the $30,000 cruise we were planning and assured her we wouldn't be sailing with Princess again.  
 

We had been kicking around the idea of trying some other lines.  This was a sign from the universe to go ahead and do that.

 

Flame away.

 

 

No flame, but if it were me, I wouldn't give up. I had a FCC after an unfortunate incident in late 2019 after a Thanksgiving cruise. I had to use the credit by November 2021 but cruising wasn't that attractive to me at that time....Anyway, it expired, but I wrote Princess customer service and asked for it to be reinstated. They reinstated it without issue. I understand you're frustrated, etc. (I would be, too) but I would press the issue and get it reinstated.

[kitkat343]

Pre covid, Princess was our favorite cruise line.  However, I did find that most of the cruise lines are more similar than different, so it's perfectly fine to try other lines (we are trying other lines because my oldest is now 12, so the other lines have a bit more for teenagers.)

 

I would note that you should probably be cautious with NCL, because they are cancelling ports after final payment a lot.  On my last cruise, they replaced the Dominican Republic with a sea day and cancelled the morning in Antigua for environmental reasons, and wouldn't let anyone cancel or reschedule their cruises and continued to sell and advertise the cruise with the original itinerary including cancelled ports for the next month.

 

They've cancelled the inside passage after final payment in Alaska on the NCL Spirit cruises this summer, and on Panama Canal cruises cancelled Costa Rica and Nicaragua for safety reasons, replacing them with Acapulco and Jamaica.  

 

But if you are unhappy with Princess you can try other lines.  We found precovid that princess had very strong food and itineraries, which was most important to us, but different people have different priorities.

 

 

 

[nunyabidness]

13 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

I would note that you should probably be cautious with NCL, because they are cancelling ports after final payment a lot.  On my last cruise, they replaced the Dominican Republic with a sea day and cancelled the morning in Antigua for environmental reasons, and wouldn't let anyone cancel or reschedule their cruises and continued to sell and advertise the cruise with the original itinerary including cancelled ports for the next month.

 

They've cancelled the inside passage after final payment in Alaska on the NCL Spirit cruises this summer, and on Panama Canal cruises cancelled Costa Rica and Nicaragua for safety reasons, replacing them with Acapulco and Jamaica. 

Sounds like Crown Princess last year.  Princess knew from the beginning of the Alaska season that Crown couldn't sail its scheduled itineraries but slow-rolled itinerary change announcements until after final payment for most or all of the Alaska season.

 

So yes, most of the cruise lines are more similar than different, including with regard to sketchy business practices.

Edited April 1, 2023 by nunyabidness

[WAvoyager]

4 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

Sounds like Crown Princess last year.  Princess knew from the beginning of the Alaska season that Crown couldn't sail its scheduled itineraries but slow-rolled itinerary change announcements until after final payment for most or all of the Alaska season.

I think Princess was counting on being able to bring the ships speed up later in the season, so they could hit the ports.  There was lots of evidence that speeds were improving, but then never got to the point where the full itinerary could be supported.  Towards the end, I’d agree that they should have just announced the change for the full season, but in the first half, it did seem like there were ongoing efforts to salvage the stops for the rest of the season.

 

My biggest disappointment was the substitution of Icy Point, and then when we arrived, half of Icy Point was shut down due to limited crowds and/or staffing.  The adventure course designed for 4-6 year olds would’ve been great when my daughter was still a 4-6 y.o.!  🥲

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, WAvoyager said:

I think Princess was counting on being able to bring the ships speed up later in the season, so they could hit the ports.  There was lots of evidence that speeds were improving, but then never got to the point where the full itinerary could be supported.  Towards the end, I’d agree that they should have just announced the change for the full season, but in the first half, it did seem like there were ongoing efforts to salvage the stops for the rest of the season.

 

My biggest disappointment was the substitution of Icy Point, and then when we arrived, half of Icy Point was shut down due to limited crowds and/or staffing.  The adventure course designed for 4-6 year olds would’ve been great when my daughter was still a 4-6 y.o.!  🥲

ICY point Strait was usually substituted for Skagway last year because of the rock slide and atleast 1 and sometimes two of the 3 docks were unuseable.  Not much Princess could do about that.

[nunyabidness]

27 minutes ago, ldtr said:

ICY point Strait was usually substituted for Skagway last year because of the rock slide and atleast 1 and sometimes two of the 3 docks were unuseable.  Not much Princess could do about that.

Not for Crown. 

 

On my sailing we still went to Skagway, and Ketchican was replaced with 3.5 hours (3 hours considering back onboard time) in Icy Strait Point due to "operational reasons" (i.e. reduced sailing speed).

[Jadn13]

On 3/31/2023 at 1:33 PM, Rick&Jeannie said:

That just "ain't right!" 😟

Ha! I was excited whenI saw it! Have ordered it a bunch.  

[kitkat343]

3 hours ago, nunyabidness said:

Sounds like Crown Princess last year.  Princess knew from the beginning of the Alaska season that Crown couldn't sail its scheduled itineraries but slow-rolled itinerary change announcements until after final payment for most or all of the Alaska season.

 

So yes, most of the cruise lines are more similar than different, including with regard to sketchy business practices.

Oh, that is most unfortunate, especially given how special an Alaskan cruise is!  Itineraries are most important to me, so I hope this doesn't become a habit with the cruise lines.  I can completely understand if weather, an unexpected recent mechanical failure or port safety become an issue, but I really don't want to see cruise lines cancelling ports just to save money so they can travel back to NY over three days instead of two and burn less fuel.

[memoak]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

ICY point Strait was usually substituted for Skagway last year because of the rock slide and atleast 1 and sometimes two of the 3 docks were unuseable.  Not much Princess could do about that.

Most of the substitutions for Skagway last  year went to Haines it seemed like

[nunyabidness]

30 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

but I really don't want to see cruise lines cancelling ports just to save money so they can travel back to NY over three days instead of two and burn less fuel.

Carnival and NCL have increasingly been changing itineraries people are already booked on, switching to ports that are not as far away and/cutting time in ports, in order to burn less fuel.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

Most of the substitutions for Skagway last  year went to Haines it seemed like

a few went to Haines, several went to Icy Point. Many of the diversions to Icy Point were originally scheduled for Skagway.  Not all diversions from Skagway went to Icy Point.  Some got a sea day.  It all depended upon the schedule of each port and where they could fit them in.

[WAvoyager]

4 hours ago, ldtr said:

ICY point Strait was usually substituted for Skagway last year because of the rock slide and atleast 1 and sometimes two of the 3 docks were unuseable.  Not much Princess could do about that.

Yes, not much they could do about the rockslide, but the Crown was diverted due to propulsion issues.  This was before the slides, and that’s why I was referring to them possibly thinking they could fix the problem every week.  They kept upping the speed weekly, but I think they gave up on it eventually and settled for the revised itinerary.  Maybe the slides contributed to the final decision.

Edited April 2, 2023 by WAvoyager

[cruzin4us]

I didn't have any FCC but even I knew they were expiring at the end of 2022.    Everything always has an expiration date, and I sure as heck would have kept track of it.....that's just me speaking

[martinitime1]

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, WAvoyager said:

Yes, not much they could do about the rockslide, but the Crown was diverted due to propulsion issues.  This was before the slides, and that’s why I was referring to them possibly thinking they could fix the problem every week.  They kept upping the speed weekly, but I think they gave up on it eventually and settled for the revised itinerary.  Maybe the slides contributed to the final decision.

There was propulsion issues, but there was also the new restrictions Canada put into place on certain areas. in Canadian waters Had 2 Alaskian cruises last year on 2 different cruise lines. One move a port stop from Victoria to Prince Rupert.  The other shortened the last Alaska port (Ketchikan) by 3 hours in order to be able to make it back to port on time for the turn around day.  

 

The new speed rules impacted quite a few schedules.

[EDVM96]

11 minutes ago, ldtr said:

The new speed rules impacted quite a few schedules.

So let's blame Canada!