Changes to Princess Plus, room service fees, Alfredo's and others. Fee changes. Etc

[Busy Mum]

6 minutes ago, suzyed said:

They will charge a one-time fee of $14.99 for room service IF you don't have Plus or Premier.

Thank you Suzyed, time to look for other cruising options.  Vicki. 🙂  

[Steelers36]

Unreal... 500 posts in about 12 hrs.

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, Busy Mum said:

Thank you Suzyed, time to look for other cruising options.  Vicki. 🙂  

Not correct.  RS is $5 per order usage.  $15/pp  per booking if you want to use the Ocean Now feature in the App to order drinks or snacks to your location.  That won't be including cabins or why would anyone order RS an incur the other fee?

[Yowman]

8 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

So you are joking right... or getting BS from other social media?

 

I understand the RS charge.  Does having a drink delivered to you at, say, poolside also incur the $5 charge?  

[New2cruise2022]

12 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

There are a lot of people who can’t or don’t want to drink.

By taking once complimentary items away from Standard cruise rates, it is essentially "value added" to Plus and Premier packages. If you don't drink, there is still value -- no room service fee, casual dining, "priority by default" embarkation.

[suzyed]

14 hours ago, Jeter02 said:

Ugh! I was just reading about this for Alfredo's/Gigi's. I have seen that on Gigi's on the Enchanted they do have some items that are extra charges along with the complimentary regular items. Plenty fingers are crossed that they're not charging you for a full sit down meal there now. If so this is a very sad day. 

Sounds like they are charging for the prix fixe meals....$14.99.  If you have Plus, you get it free TWO times per sailing, If you have Premier it is free.  If you have neither you pay $14.99 every time you eat there.

[DallasGuy75219]

5 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

Here's a video you might enjoy from Gary Bembridge, with his thoughts on the 4 classes of cruise lines. If you don't care to watch, he puts Princess in the Premium category. 

Of course this was from 2017 and we all know what has happened since. With changes as they have unfolded over the years, you might rightly ask, where does Princess stand today?

https://youtu.be/Y1hiYS0Y8uA

 

Google "adult focused mass market cruise line" and "adult focused mass market line" and you get one single result... one single result on Google.  It's a Cruise Critic post from @ldtr🙄

[New2cruise2022]

10 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Unreal... 500 posts in about 12 hrs.

It is a major policy shift. It impacts almost every cruiser with Princess. Except for those that already booked Premier (and are receiving more value), cruisers must examine the value offered and decide if they will upgrade, lose value, or cancel cruises.

[suzyed]

14 hours ago, Jeter02 said:

Ugh! I was just reading about this for Alfredo's/Gigi's. I have seen that on Gigi's on the Enchanted they do have some items that are extra charges along with the complimentary regular items. Plenty fingers are crossed that they're not charging you for a full sit down meal there now. If so this is a very sad day. 

I think this falls under the "Casual Dining" scheme.

 

[damiross]

9 hours ago, SCX22 said:

 

 

Princess is aligning themselves with the other mass market competition to pay off their debt.  RC, X, and Carnival have been charging for these amenities for a long time.  If the competition can get away with it why can't Princess?

I don't know why companies that do what every other company does aren't charged with conspiracy to limit competition.  

[4cats4me]

5 hours ago, Princessfan20 said:

All this justification for some by allowing Princess to gouge its' customers.  Princess has made many changes in policies recently which have taken benefits away that passengers had earned based on their Loyalty Program.  Also it made it so Veterans are not entitled to the Shareholders OBC program.  No other group is excluded from stacking their OBC's on Princess.  Then they come out with all these new upcharges unless you buy a product you do not need.  Princess has also raised its' prices substantially.

It is not even close to going out of business based on the performance of CCL stock.

 

All that has happened is there has been new management come from the Carnival side of CCL to run Princess.  We see no reason now to be loyal to Princess with their new direction of greed.  This is just the beginning and I am sure they will have a whole new group of upscale products next year that use to be free.  They really just helped us move on to Viking, Oceania and other lines that do not nickel and dime their passengers.   We have wanted to do it for awhile but had remained too loyal to Princess.  This does not even take into account the UPGRADE they have done to their new off shore call center which is so efficient it is saving their loyal passengers immense amounts of valuable time.  🙂 We are no longer interested in their new programs of the month which are turning into a blatant ripoff.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  
This is where we’re at, too.  
We have a lot of credit on the books with Princess and at this point I’m willing to let it go. 
Within the next year or so my husband will retire, and we were looking forward to a future of longer cruises,

30-60+ days, 

but instead we will most likely go on shorter,  high-end cruises,  on small ships.  

 

[4cats4me]

57 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

No... the one time $15 charge is to allow use of the Ocean Now feature to order and receive drinks where you are... not room service.  Has to be separate thing.

 

And to all.. let's skip the penny BS by PCL and call it the $15 it is.

WHAT???

I was so focused on the Alfredo thing, I missed the boat (no pun intended) about an initiation fee of $15 to activate that thing to get a drink??? LOLOL

LOL

LOL

LOL

 

O M G 

[DougH]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

Not correct.  RS is $5 per order usage.  $15/pp  per booking if you want to use the Ocean Now feature in the App to order drinks or snacks to your location.  That won't be including cabins or why would anyone order RS an incur the other fee?

So if I order room service from my stateroom TV is it only the $5 delivery charge?

[villauk]

7 hours ago, Astro Flyer said:

Another slide from the webinar might give you an answer.

 

 

 

So I have no included visits to Alfredo’s because I purchased my Plus package prior to Dec and as I can’t have my medallion posted, living in the U.K., I’m also going to be now taken out of the Green Line that I was previously in! Do I get a discount of $10 as they won’t mail my medallion, like they charge if you’re not on a package to send the device pre-cruise - no, I thought not!

[Kellyansapansa]

Ultimately, we all have the choice to accept these changes, or to switch to another cruise line. Personally I don't see it as Princess being greedy or nickel and diming. This is their strategy to recover significant losses incurred in the last few years. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet. 😉

[jonnyenglish1]

It will be interesting to see if the expand the casual dining options on ships in response to this. Thinking on the last 2 Princess ships i have been on, Sky and Regal, there is only Alfredos and Ocean Terrace? 

[Holidayfun141]

We are booked on Sky Princess in April 2024 on the Standard Fare.

will we be able to use the Ocean Ready to book early dining in the MDR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Neil_c]

16 hours ago, Martha1974 said:

Fair point - we’re UK based and sail out of the UK so have only sailed on Sky Princess up to now, I had forgotten about O’Malleys and the GastroPub on other ships. 

Also for us UK based. We cannot get the medallion sent to our home so we will never be green lane even with the package 

[kentishfred]

1 hour ago, Kellyansapansa said:

Ultimately, we all have the choice to accept these changes, or to switch to another cruise line. Personally I don't see it as Princess being greedy or nickel and diming. This is their strategy to recover significant losses incurred in the last few years. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet. 😉

Not read all the posts but a voice of reason abive. For a start the perks are not free as you actually pay for them in your package. Carnival have made huge losses over the last few years due to Covid. How do think they will recover these? They have to put up the cost of cruising or else they will go bankrupt. If you want to continue cruising then all of us will have to get used to being charged more for our cruising. This is Princess's way of increasing the spend per client and hence increase profitability. Profit seems to be a dirty word but without profits companies will not survive. There are many other cruise lines around, so you can use them instead of Princess. Having been on a couple of other cruise lines recently,.in my opinion, Princess offer a excellent product at a reasonable price. Not the cheapest but you get what you pay for.

[kentishfred]

20 minutes ago, Neil_c said:

Also for us UK based. We cannot get the medallion sent to our home so we will never be green lane even with the package 

Hi Neil That is strange, on our recent Sky cruise we had Green lane and also already allocated Green lane for our Regal cruise in September. For information both times with have had the premium package. We picked up our medallion when we checked in.

[Bugalugsnz]

For those of us who’ve paid Standard for upcoming cruises the point is we won’t get what we paid for. We’ll get less. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Bugalugsnz

[Bedruthen]

1 hour ago, Kellyansapansa said:

Ultimately, we all have the choice to accept these changes, or to switch to another cruise line. Personally I don't see it as Princess being greedy or nickel and diming. This is their strategy to recover significant losses incurred in the last few years. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet. 😉

But it’s not that simple in the short term. Yes people can consider alternative cruise lines for future bookings, but what choices do you have if you have already booked and paid. Seems to me that Princess should have applied changes only to new bookings and bookings where passengers could, if they chose, get a refund of their deposit. What sits so badly is changing the goal posts after you have no option but to take the cruise. It’s deception on a corporate scale, because these plans will have been discussed for months. Why do you think they increased the cost of Plus and premier packages? Because they knew these changes were planned. Don't treat your customer base as fools, it always ends badly.

[kentishfred]

4 minutes ago, Bugalugsnz said:

For those of us who’ve paid Standard for upcoming cruises the point is we won’t get what we paid for. We’ll get less. 

Totally understand that, we got caught with this when they introduced Premier as a better package than Plus. If you have paid your balance then I think you should get what you paid for. 

[Kellyansapansa]

4 minutes ago, Bedruthen said:

But it’s not that simple in the short term. Yes people can consider alternative cruise lines for future bookings, but what choices do you have if you have already booked and paid. Seems to me that Princess should have applied changes only to new bookings and bookings where passengers could, if they chose, get a refund of their deposit. What sits so badly is changing the goal posts after you have no option but to take the cruise. It’s deception on a corporate scale, because these plans will have been discussed for months. Why do you think they increased the cost of Plus and premier packages? Because they knew these changes were planned. Don't treat your customer base as fools, it always ends badly.

Yes, I do agree that's unfair. I guess they had to draw the line somewhere but they should have honoured existing bookings.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Kellyansapansa

[UT-Volsfan]

4 hours ago, Yowman said:

 

I understand the RS charge.  Does having a drink delivered to you at, say, poolside also incur the $5 charge?  

I don't believe so.  In the webinar they said the $5 room service charge was for picking up the phone and calling room service.  If you order a drink thru the App and only pay Standard fare, then the first order would be the price of the drink plus a one time fee of $14,99 to activate the app for that cruise.

 

If you order a beverage from a Princess employee at the pool, then I believe you only pay for the price of the drink.