Princess; 'check in' from '1pm to 4pm'

[OzKiwiJJ]

10 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Thanks. Yes, I have booked a CC cabin and the Premier package so hoping there's a decent drop. Agree with your assessments above. I've read about people taking their own glasses on Princess which made me wonder how bad they were.

 

I thought I'd also seen they list a French champagne by the glass for Premier - do they really stock it?

I've never seen a French champagne by the glass in Premier, the only sparkling has been the Pirie.

[LittleFish1976]

44 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I've never seen a French champagne by the glass in Premier, the only sparkling has been the Pirie.

That's interesting. The wine lists I've seen posted via the Princess board must be different. Makes sense in a way - they'd have to print different ones for our market due to the use of AUD anyway so why not change the selection. Interesting.

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

That's interesting. The wine lists I've seen posted via the Princess board must be different. Makes sense in a way - they'd have to print different ones for our market due to the use of AUD anyway so why not change the selection. Interesting.

For someone into variety and drinking premium wines, the Princess packages are a bit of an injustice. Yes, locally we have a menu that is geared towards local wines, largely for reliable supply. For by-the-glass, they are doing a reasonable job, as the other option would be house red - house white - house bubbles. The by-the-glass wines need to be:

Solid

Generally drinkable (bland)

Readily available

 

Value for money, it certainly isn't. But when you have 4 ships here for half of the year, the more heavily consumed wines need to be able to stand up to those criteria. We used to like trying to find a "new" wine while cruising, but find that the generic cruise lines stock "safe" options these days. 

[arxcards]

On 8/29/2023 at 1:16 PM, LittleFish1976 said:

Can anyone help me understand what's going on here?

 

I'm boarding the Grand Princess in Melbourne in October (first Princess cruise). I understand there are no boarding times or boarding groups any more. However, on the Travel Itinerary for me that I find via my booking on the Princess website, it says 'check in' is from 1pm to 4pm.

 

This seems rather late if that's for the whole ship. I would assume that I've been given this slot as I have no status with Princess. I did think that a mini suite had some early boarding advantage.

 

How would you experienced Princess cruisers make sense of this? Can I really not turn up until 1pm? Doesn't this look like a Princess-imposed 'group' for boarding time?

Princess' can check-in from 1pm

Divas can check-in at noon

[LittleFish1976]

5 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Princess' can check-in from 1pm

Divas can check-in at noon

I resemble that remark!

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

That's interesting. The wine lists I've seen posted via the Princess board must be different. Makes sense in a way - they'd have to print different ones for our market due to the use of AUD anyway so why not change the selection. Interesting.

Yes, I believe the Australian wines by the glass lists now differ from those on ships operating in USD.  I'm doing a cruise out of Japan in a couple of months so will get to see what those ones are like. From the odd muttering I've seen during my infrequent forays into the main Princess boards I'm expecting the American version of Willowglen wines! Of course I could be wrong and they might surprise me but I've budgeted for buying some bottled wines as well. 

 

On some of the earlier cruises we did pre-2019 they used to just add an extra Australian wine list to the regular US one, which had some wines by the glass. I can't recall when they stopped doing that though.

[OzKiwiJJ]

40 minutes ago, arxcards said:

For someone into variety and drinking premium wines, the Princess packages are a bit of an injustice. Yes, locally we have a menu that is geared towards local wines, largely for reliable supply. For by-the-glass, they are doing a reasonable job, as the other option would be house red - house white - house bubbles. The by-the-glass wines need to be:

Solid

Generally drinkable (bland)

Readily available

 

Value for money, it certainly isn't. But when you have 4 ships here for half of the year, the more heavily consumed wines need to be able to stand up to those criteria. We used to like trying to find a "new" wine while cruising, but find that the generic cruise lines stock "safe" options these days. 

No, they are NOT doing a reasonable job. They are not providing what they promise. 9 wines by the glass is a long way from the promised 25, and they aren't providing an adequate variety of wines to suit modern Australian tastes. Their Plus wine list reads like some from the late 20th century ans with a slant that is more towards American wine tastes than current Australian ones. Even simple licenced cafes in Australia have better wine lists than the current Princess Australian one. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

This is the Princess wines by the glass list from March 2018 when we did a repositioning cruise from Sydney to Tokyo on Diamond Princess. It was AUD onboard.

 

 

[arxcards]

34 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

No, they are NOT doing a reasonable job. They are not providing what they promise. 9 wines by the glass is a long way from the promised 25, and they aren't providing an adequate variety of wines to suit modern Australian tastes. Their Plus wine list reads like some from the late 20th century ans with a slant that is more towards American wine tastes than current Australian ones. Even simple licenced cafes in Australia have better wine lists than the current Princess Australian one. 

They are not doing a good job

They are not giving you value for money

They are not giving you enough choice,

But I agree to disagree (without caps) and believe they are doing a reasonable job in these days of fractured supply lines and prices going up every other day. They needed to ensure supply over a 12 -month period, and only the mass labels would enter into such supply agreements in the current climate, pre-selling 12-months' worth of wine at the price of the day.

 

Local licensed cafes can change their menu week to week, and most would turn over under 250 bottles total each week. Do the maths on 4 ships worth of passengers drinking those cheap & cheerful package wines over 6 months. It is an issue of reliable supply.

 

Last season, did they sell you a pup - absolutely.  If we only drank wine when we cruised, we wouldn't be getting a plus package. Barb will happily drink the merlot or rose at dinner, otherwise it is spirits & cocktails with the package. Price aside, I like interesting wines and those are not compatible with mass consumption service. Hopefully this upcoming season will be a bit better, but I am not counting on it.

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Given there is a huge glut of wine in Australia those suppliers would have been rubbing their hands together in glee at the thought of big orders from the cruise lines. Sorry, but we're going to have to butt heads over that issue! And it doesn't excuse the very limited selection and the horrendeous markup Princess is charging on some of them. This is how the De Bortoli Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is normally sold:

 

If you buy three casks you get it for $20 per cask. At 150ml per glass that's around 26 glasses per cask, which works out at 75 cents a glass retail. Princess are selling it for $14 a glass. That over 1,700% markup! 😡

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by OzKiwiJJ

[LittleFish1976]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Given there is a huge glut of wine in Australia those suppliers would have been rubbing their hands together in glee at the thought of big orders from the cruise lines. Sorry, but we're going to have to butt heads over that issue! And it doesn't excuse the very limited selection and the horrendeous markup Princess is charging on some of them. This is how the De Bortoli Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is normally sold:

 

If you buy three casks you get it for $20 per cask. At 150ml per glass that's around 26 glasses per cask, which works out at 75 cents a glass retail. Princess are selling it for $14 a glass. That over 1,700% markup! 😡

 

 

I agree and not just about the wine glut here (thanks China). Surely given the nature of wine production (being an annual event) wouldn't they be used to selling a year or two at a time? I was imagining they (cruise lines) would put contracts in place for an annual supply a couple of years in advance and not just for the big producers.

 

Big supermarkets contract with farmers with a long lead time on livestock and produce. I don't see why the big business of cruise lines would be different when it comes to a known product like wine.

 

Cunard's excuse for being out of stock of some wines on board in February this year was that they only replenish in Southampton. As a PSA, I can tell you that they have some excellent European and South American wines on board, by the glass, and within the limits of the drinks package (and even better - very special ones - by the glass beyond the limits of the drinks package).

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by LittleFish1976

[OzKiwiJJ]

44 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

I agree and not just about the wine glut here (thanks China). Surely given the nature of wine production (being an annual event) wouldn't they be used to selling a year or two at a time? I was imagining they (cruise lines) would put contracts in place for an annual supply a couple of years in advance and not just for the big producers.

 

Big supermarkets contract with farmers with a long lead time on livestock and produce. I don't see why the big business of cruise lines would be different when it comes to a known product like wine.

 

Cunard's excuse for being out of stock of some wines on board in February this year was that they only replenish in Southampton. As a PSA, I can tell you that they have some excellent European and South American wines on board, by the glass, and within the limits of the drinks package (and even better - very special ones - by the glass beyond the limits of the drinks package).

 

In all fairness the pandemic screwed up supply lines and I don't think Princess and P&O had that much lead time before the restart to redo their wine lists so after yelling at the Bar Manager on our first Coral cruise last year and writing a letter to Princess I then kept my grumbles to a minimum for a while. However I expected the selection of wines to improve by the start of last year's peak season and it didn't. Instead they increased the prices of both the packages and the wines so now we have bottom of the barrel wines at ludicrous prices and still have a very restricted selection of wines. 

 

We're doing a Cunard cruise in January so I hope they have some decent wines.

Edited August 31, 2023 by OzKiwiJJ