New Princess policy makes VV an even better value

[Lustate]

14 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Welcome to the club.

 

I'm club VV all the way. Never wanted to do a cruise because of all the issues people say on here with the extras, the having to pay for a meal unless you want a rubbish buffet of bland food etc. VV came along and we gave them a go. 

 

Would we switch brands? Doubt it. 

[cantgetin]

I can't say I'm thrilled with all things VV, but they have enough right to make it my current favorite line and only the second like I've said that about in our 50 cruises.  Yes, we love the "nearly all inclusive" concept.  Each time, we've gotten off the ship with a credit card payment in the single digits, and that was only because we opted to spend the remainder of our loot on the last night.  We've done everything we wanted to and had "free money" from one or another sort of perk to cover it.

The best parts are the crew and the "no tipping" concept.

[CruisingWalter]

20 hours ago, CanadianCruiser21 said:

Another random thing I noticed is that staff seem to be extra friendly/helpful/smiley on camera in Princess videos compared to VV videos. I watch a lot of the buffet tour videos and the staff seem to purposely look at the camera, wave and say hi with smile big, as if their manager is watching the videos. Maybe they are like that all the time though, in which case I feel bad for them because that is exhausting, but I’m probably just projecting because I have RBF.
 

In VV videos, crew seem more relaxed and chill. I feel more comfortable in environments where the crew/staff are more like equals, versus environments where they act/feel like they are your servants and worried about losing their jobs or needing tips. 

 

We've sailed Princess 5 times now, most recently on the Sky Princess where we had a simply outstanding time and where the management showed why they are so incredible. Their MDR service is second to none in the mainstream industry. Yes the crew is over the top friendly, but they've always been like for the almost 20 years we've been sailing. You just see then now because everyone has a video camera in their pocket.  

 

On VV I've actually had some crew members ask not to be filmed, which of course I respect. I do love that VV allows the crew to eat in the same restaurants as the rest of us, though I have seen some grumblings around that they take seats from the guests when the ships are full or near full. We've not sailed a full ship yet, I have a feeling Nov 18 on Valiant will be the first as she is close to a sell out now. 

[CruisingWalter]

21 hours ago, CanadianCruiser21 said:

I love CruisingWalter and am surprised how few subscribers he has on YouTube.

 

Wow that's a very nice compliment, I do appreciate that. Social platforms are so weird. We just crossed 14,000 on TikTok, we'll have upwards of 3000 - 6000 folks join our weekly live chats. But on YouTube it's been a very slow build. The one thing that separates me from a lot of vloggers is I literally pay no attention to the analytics.

 

I just follow what my dear friend Sean told me years ago, just create what I like to create and I try to create content that's helpful to others. There are vloggers out there who are trying to make a living just vlogging, so they have to game the SEO and the system to get the most clicks and subs. 

 

I used to work in television, film and marketing and it was my job to game the system to get the most subs. But with my own channel, it's just meant to be fun and helpful. Glad some of what we create is useful. 🙂

[cantgetin]

1 hour ago, CruisingWalter said:

I do love that VV allows the crew to eat in the same restaurants as the rest of us, though I have seen some grumblings around that they take seats from the guests when the ships are full or near full. We've not sailed a full ship yet, I have a feeling Nov 18 on Valiant will be the first as she is close to a sell out now. 

VV has a policy as to what crew members are allowed to be or eat where depending on how full the ship is.  If you do the "behind the scenes" tour you can see the color coded signs alerting the crew.   They aren't as happy as when the ships were sailing with 800 "sailors" and crew was allowed to be anywhere on their off time.  For instance, when it is busy, only passenger facing crew can eat in the  restaurants and only after 9pm.  THey have also been instructed to always allow sailors to go first.  We had a cute situation in The Galley where a nice young man was trying to get a salad.  He started out about third in line and by letting people go ahead was quickly at about 10th.  I was near the front and commented that he'd never get that salad if he kept letting people go ahead.  The lady at the front told him to come up and tell her what he wanted and she'd get 2 salads, which would keep him within the rules!

I suspect that the rules were instituted because there were guest complaints of being told that a restaurant was full when there were multiple tables of crew members.  Each cruise we've done has been more full than the time before.  But don't feel too bad.  They reportedly have the best crew mess of any line.

[Travel-and-See]

5 hours ago, Lustate said:

 

I'm club VV all the way. Never wanted to do a cruise because of all the issues people say on here with the extras, the having to pay for a meal unless you want a rubbish buffet of bland food etc. VV came along and we gave them a go. 

 

Would we switch brands? Doubt it. 

As much as I enjoy VV and my next cruise will be with them again, there are things I really like about Celebrity too. If you like sailing on Virgin it's probably worth giving another line a try. The Virgin boats are honestly kind of boring compared to other lines, which is nice if you like a chill and relaxed cruise but it can also be fun to have a bit more excitement. 

 

50 minutes ago, cantgetin said:

For instance, when it is busy, only passenger facing crew can eat in the  restaurants and only after 9pm.  THey have also been instructed to always allow sailors to go first.  We had a cute situation in The Galley where a nice young man was trying to get a salad.

 

I thought it was a big negative to be told a restaurant was full when a group of crew members were in line before me and were seated so I'm glad they made this change. I'll probably get hate for this but I think it looks tacky and unprofessional to have crew members regularly eating in the sit-down restaurants on board. There is a reason other lines generally do not allow that. 

 

With the salad sation... the crew member could have always placed his order with one of the servers, I know I've ordered salads that way as a guest. 

[CineGraphic]

Princess just made this list of the 3 worst cruise lines based on internet reviews.

The three worst lines according to this vid are Costa, MSC, and Princess.

The segment on Princess begins at the 13:48 time stamp.

https://youtu.be/HcSnC9wihD4

 

[Lustate]

44 minutes ago, Travel-and-See said:

I thought it was a big negative to be told a restaurant was full when a group of crew members were in line before me and were seated so I'm glad they made this change. I'll probably get hate for this but I think it looks tacky and unprofessional to have crew members regularly eating in the sit-down restaurants on board. There is a reason other lines generally do not allow that. 

 

I think it's a balancing act for all on this one. Can you imagine going to Gunbae and having zero atmosphere because of low sailor numbers? Or of course the flip side of trying to get into Extra Virgin and having a table of 10 crew blocking out the place? Must be a hard thing to plan for everyone really.

 

 On the professionalism thing the closest I have found on VV is often caused by sailors. You will see a group of crew having dinner and keeping themselves to themselves and a sailor tries to muscle in and be "friends" with them. The poor crew are trying to eat and relax and sailors need to remember these are professionals so they won't tell you to sling it, but please give them space when they are off shift. There is someone on insta who constantly is showing "dinner with..." and you can see the crew have glazed over and want them gone. 

[CruisingWalter]

52 minutes ago, Travel-and-See said:

As much as I enjoy VV and my next cruise will be with them again, there are things I really like about Celebrity too.

 

I would be incredibly bored sailing on the same cruise line over and over and over. Especially VV with pretty much identical ships and very limited itineraries. I love the ships and I love the crew, but in small doses. At least with other cruise lines you tend to have variety in the classes of ships. 

 

So far we're up to 9 cruise lines, hoping to get to 11 by the end of next year, maybe 12. Adding some river cruising soon too, right here in the U.S. 🙂  

 

If you like VV, Celebrity and Princess should definitely be on your list. All the nonsense over the Princess Plus (which is an awesome deal) will die out at some point. We've never had a bad sailing on Princess, we've never had a bad sailing on Celebrity and the Sky Princess sailing a few months ago was just almost perfect.

 

MSC Yacht Club looks intriguing and we'll be sailing the Seashore to try that out once she comes to Port Canaveral. We sailed Seaside last month sailing standard and were pleasantly surprised. The specialty dining was awesome and both the buffet and MDR were much better than we expected. Ocean Cay is far and away my favorite private islands and our overnight stay really made me wish Virgin would stay later at Bimini. I have never understood why VV leaves so early when it's less than 2 hours to get from Bimini to Port Miami. The big MSC Beach Party at night was so much fun, especially with the ship sitting right there looking amazing in the dark.

 

There's absolutely nothing at sea like Central Park on the Royal Oasis class. Yes, those ships are big and loud at times, but I had such a great time exploring the ship and spending time in Central Park. That really gets me excited to finally sit up in the Garden area of the Celebrity Edge Class Ships. 

 

There are just too many cruise ships out there and so many experiences to enjoy to be locked into one cruise line. If it works for you to be loyal to one cruise line, then do it. If it makes you feel better to berate other cruise lines, then do it. For me, I see the good, the bad and the ugly in every cruise line, but you won't ever get me to lock myself down to one flavor of cruising.  🙂 

[CruisingWalter]

49 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

The three worst lines according to this vid are Costa, MSC, and Princess.

 

One channel's opinion. Have you seen the female TikTok travel influencer with over 1M followers who completely trashed Virgin Voyages as the WORST cruise and cruise line she's ever been on?  That was a month ago.  Over 300k views with many comments to the affirmative that they hated it too. Probably most of those commenters have never been on a cruise ship, let alone VV, but there you go, the 'power of social media.' You remember how a certain British vlogger built their entire audience trashing Scarlet Lady during a preview in England before it even started sailing 

 

I will say all this fuss over Princess Plus is just amusing and it will all blow over sooner than later. At $60/day pp it's the best value out there other than VV.  If you're purchasing WiFi, you'll might as well roll into PPlus because you're already over halfway there. And the service has remained exceptional in our travels on Princess. I cannot wait till the Sun Princess gets here, though I'm trying to convince my DW to go to Europe so we can sail her in the Med next year. 

 

If you really want to see the Princess experience, check out Ben and David's vlogs on the Sky Princess. What they show in their series is exactly what we experienced. Heck you can watch our experience in our vlogs too. One bad meal that was correctly brilliantly by the management. 

 

 

[CineGraphic]

1 minute ago, CruisingWalter said:

One channel's opinion.

 

Based on  Which? Magazine who state, "Our results are driven by thousands of cruise-line guests rating their experience of the facilities onboard – the cabin, food and drink and customer service – so you can avoid queuing for the restaurant every morning, or being ripped off over tips."

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/cruise-lines/article/best-and-worst-cruise-lines-aXDfX7O9uJEz

 

5 minutes ago, CruisingWalter said:

If you really want to see the Princess experience, check out Ben and David's vlogs on the Sky Princess.

 

Did you watch the video I posted, it's by Ben & David.

[happy cruzer]

Some cruisers love princes air (lets you price lots of options) and Princess travel protection ( good pricing not dependent on age, covers the entire cruise package, and platinum has cfar).  So the answer imho is it depends.

[CineGraphic]

Agent has client who cancelled $18K worth of Princess bookings due to the new changes.

https://youtu.be/PSURK9fcSLc

 

 

[Lustate]

12 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

Agent has client who cancelled $18K worth of Princess bookings due to the new changes.

https://youtu.be/PSURK9fcSLc

 

Honestly, it's not a shocker. With a whole new type of person starting to cruise, it's hard to explain to us why on earth the "old" way of doing a cruise is better. Second someone tells me "your eating when we say, where we say, and on a table with who we say, unless you pay us more" I'm leaving. 

[CrazyTrain2]

On 8/9/2023 at 1:55 PM, CineGraphic said:

Agent has client who cancelled $18K worth of Princess bookings due to the new changes.

https://youtu.be/PSURK9fcSLc

 

 

When Don (the ultimate Canadian and Princess Fan) gets upset, you know Princess has upset their core customer base.  Betrayal is Dante's 7th circle of hell for a reason.  Princess has committed Brand Betrayal.

[cantgetin]

1 hour ago, CrazyTrain2 said:

When Don (the ultimate Canadian and Princess Fan) gets upset, you know Princess has upset their core customer base.  Betrayal is Dante's 7th circle of hell for a reason.  Princess has committed Brand Betrayal.

Don was also livid about a meeting Princess held for TAs.  They didn't discuss the issues the TAs were promised, and instead did basic "how to book on our app for new agents" class.  I suggested he look at other lines.

[CastleCritic]

17 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Don was also livid about a meeting Princess held for TAs.  They didn't discuss the issues the TAs were promised, and instead did basic "how to book on our app for new agents" class.  I suggested he look at other lines.

Did you see the video where he mentioned winning an award from his agency for the most booking volume on princess for many years running. That’s a bit of cooking your golden goose to switch. He did seem ticked in The video you mentioned for sure

[cantgetin]

Just now, CastleCritic said:

Did you see the video where he mentioned winning an award from his agency for the most booking volume on princess for many years running. That’s a bit of cooking your golden goose to switch. He did seem ticked in The video you mentioned for sure

He's not going to switch, but like most agents, he is free to book clients with other lines.  There are lines that pay higher commissions than Princess.  I worked with an agent who was number one with another cruise line for many years.  He still books with that line, but post Covid, he jumped on the VV bandwagon.  Of course, he kept as many of his loyal clients as possible by continuing to book whatever line they wished while actively promoting VV.  At one point, he was number 1 with Virgin (may still be or may be waiting for new rankings).  I have a friend who ranked in the top 10 of Virgin "first mates."  He says his life would be easier if he could stick to Disney and Virgin, but books all likes because that's what clients want.

I just think that Don could make his future more secure by booking more cruises outside of Princess....not leaving them, but expanding his clientele and his expertise.

[CastleCritic]

1 hour ago, cantgetin said:

He's not going to switch, but like most agents, he is free to book clients with other lines.  There are lines that pay higher commissions than Princess.  I worked with an agent who was number one with another cruise line for many years.  He still books with that line, but post Covid, he jumped on the VV bandwagon.  Of course, he kept as many of his loyal clients as possible by continuing to book whatever line they wished while actively promoting VV.  At one point, he was number 1 with Virgin (may still be or may be waiting for new rankings).  I have a friend who ranked in the top 10 of Virgin "first mates."  He says his life would be easier if he could stick to Disney and Virgin, but books all likes because that's what clients want.

I just think that Don could make his future more secure by booking more cruises outside of Princess....not leaving them, but expanding his clientele and his expertise.

Don like a number of other travel YouTubers can do exactly that, by taking a cruise, talking it up and then somehow mentioning he can book you on that cruise line.

 

I know he runs group cruises and I believe at least some of the future ones are NOT on Princess.  I dont follow his stuff that closely but my brain is a collection of useless facts like that.

[cantgetin]

Well, good luck to him.  I'm not a travel professional.  I just think that, in general, it is better to not put all your eggs in one basket.

[Lustate]

17 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Well, good luck to him.  I'm not a travel professional.  I just think that, in general, it is better to not put all your eggs in one basket.

100% on this. Some brands do listen to the TA and have engagement groups, but some of the “old school” brands won’t ever do that, as they know, or at least think, they control the market. 

[cantgetin]

2 hours ago, Lustate said:

they know, or at least think, they control the market. 

Yes, but 25 years ago  the mouse introduced a new, family oriented line....and suddenly Royal and NCL made major family oriented changes. THey'd probably insist that those changes were planned all along, and how much of a threat was a line that only had 2 medium sized ships?  I think that some of the VV features represent a similar challenge, but due to covid and other issues, the launch has been much slower. Every cruiser who makes a choice for VV is indirectly making a choice against other lines. They don't have as much control as they think.  They also need to remember that it is a lot more difficult to recruit a new customer than to keep an existing one.

Virgin doesn't have an easy road to attracting new customers, has not done a good job of positioning the brand with some of their ads, etc.  But they have done a great job of rebooking sailors who give them one try.

[DKNY26]

So my opinion is probably not heavily weighed because I am not an experienced cruiser.  My only experience has been a weekend cruise twice for a friends birthday etc.  Both times I swore off ever exploring cruising further.  Then along came VV.  I will tell you why I am about to do my first true vacation on a cruise and why I chose to change my mind and book B2B on the Resilient Lady.

   I do not need to worry about parents who choose not to watch after their children who are ruining someone else’s experience.

  I do not need to watch people pile mediocre food onto plates to the point of gluttony.  Also being served at questionable food safety temperatures.   
   There is no challenge to hit a max drink package allotment causing far too many problems on board.  
   I am not going to be stopped to take pictures every 50 feet.

   I am not going to have everyday things as add-ons (wi-fi, premium dining, tips,etc).

   Additionally, I do not wish to be in a “formal” setting with a more subdued crowd 24x7, or be in my cabin by 10.  For me and another couple this brand hit a nitch.  I would assume it will with others.  I hope it lives up to its reputation but it marketed well enough for us to give it a try.  

[cantgetin]

1 hour ago, DKNY26 said:

 For me and another couple this brand hit a nitch.  I would assume it will with others.  I hope it lives up to its reputation but it marketed well enough for us to give it a try.  

I agree with everything you said about VV. If the early marketing had been better, I likely would have tried VV 6-12 months earlier than I did.  I also found the recent JLo ads to be a turn off had I not already known the product.  The need to walk a fine line between not turning off the 20-30 age group while at the same time attracting the older crowd.  I think their average age of 43 is older than they anticipated. 

Bottom line, they have a good product.....they just need to continue spreading the word.

[DKNY26]

1 hour ago, cantgetin said:

I agree with everything you said about VV. If the early marketing had been better, I likely would have tried VV 6-12 months earlier than I did.  I also found the recent JLo ads to be a turn off had I not already known the product.  The need to walk a fine line between not turning off the 20-30 age group while at the same time attracting the older crowd.  I think their average age of 43 is older than they anticipated. 

Bottom line, they have a good product.....they just need to continue spreading the word.