Do Princess drop the prices on their Duty Free Alcohol when the ship is going to Vila?

[Korky100]

Carnival and P&O drastically drop their duty free alcohol prices to compete with the Vila shops.  Does anyone know if Princess do too?

[arxcards]

A bit. Their shelf prices will still be more expensive than Fung Kuei.

Princess will price match, but you need to provide proof, and that is awkward to get from the shops in Vila - they want you to buy from them, so they aren't about to hand you a price list.

 

We just get it in Vila. More choice, best prices, delivered to ship. Take the ship price list with you in Vila to be sure, but very unlikely that Princess will have anything cheaper than Fung Kuei, and they will price match the ship if there is.

Edited November 30 by arxcards

[ceeceeDee]

On the subject of Fung Kuei....... I note that they close at midday on Saturdays. Does anyone know if they close later if there is a cruise ship in port? As luck would have it, we have a 3 hour excursion booked in Vila on a Saturday starting at 8:30am which means we will be cutting it VERY fine to get to Fung Kuei before they close. We pass it on the way back from the excursion so we may be able to get our driver to chuck us out to save a bit of time, but either way it's a bit iffy we'll make it in time.

[MicCanberra]

I agree with Geoff, we have been to Vila quite a few times and when we have visited the duty free shop, they have been easily best priced. The last time however, the pricing was a lot dearer in the shop and there were some items on the ship ( not alcohol) that were better.

Note there were several other duty free shops apart from Fung Kuay there as well.

[Korky100]

When we were on Pacific Adventure in June I purchased Ballentines scotch for $20 on board as we were going to Vila.  A few months later we were back on board and it was $46.50 because we weren't going to Vila.   I didn't buy any as it wasn’t worth the hassle of carrying it home at that price.

[MicCanberra]

Wow, that is a big difference in the prices.

[ceeceeDee]

On 11/30/2024 at 10:46 AM, ceeceeDee said:

On the subject of Fung Kuei....... I note that they close at midday on Saturdays. Does anyone know if they close later if there is a cruise ship in port? As luck would have it, we have a 3 hour excursion booked in Vila on a Saturday starting at 8:30am which means we will be cutting it VERY fine to get to Fung Kuei before they close. We pass it on the way back from the excursion so we may be able to get our driver to chuck us out to save a bit of time, but either way it's a bit iffy we'll make it in time.

Update: I ended up emailing Fung Kuei and asked the question, which Trevor Fung answered this morning. Now I can stop stressing. They do, indeed, remain open on a Saturday if a cruise ship is in port. They close when the ship leaves. To be honest, I really thought that would be the case. They'd be nuts to close at midday and potentially lose a lot of $$ with thousands of cruise pax in the vicinity.

[MicCanberra]

Good result 

[ceeceeDee]

8 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Good result 

Exceptional, actually. I planned to, potentially, do my Christmas shopping at Fung Kuei so it was a bit of a worry when I thought they might be closed.

[MicCanberra]

Duty free Xmas, love it

[ceeceeDee]

1 minute ago, MicCanberra said:

Duty free Xmas, love it

I very occasionally get these light bulb moments 😂 My next big task will be putting a brick on Darren's head to keep him under control when we enter the shop. He's a zillion times worse than a kid in a toy shop ('I want, I want, I want.....'). 😆

[arxcards]

54 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

Update: I ended up emailing Fung Kuei and asked the question, which Trevor Fung answered this morning. Now I can stop stressing. They do, indeed, remain open on a Saturday if a cruise ship is in port. They close when the ship leaves. To be honest, I really thought that would be the case. They'd be nuts to close at midday and potentially lose a lot of $$ with thousands of cruise pax in the vicinity.

In the past they remained open whenever they had foot traffic, but that was pre-covid. They do love their cruise passengers.

[ceeceeDee]

40 minutes ago, arxcards said:

In the past they remained open whenever they had foot traffic, but that was pre-covid. They do love their cruise passengers.

They certainly do! Mind you, contributors to this forum should get an extra discount for all the free publicity and recommendations we give them.🙂

[arxcards]

43 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

They certainly do! Mind you, contributors to this forum should get an extra discount for all the free publicity and recommendations we give them.🙂

After the cruise lines all give us our free cruises so we can go and collect. 😀

[ceeceeDee]

38 minutes ago, arxcards said:

After the cruise lines all give us our free cruises so we can go and collect. 😀

Now THERE'S a thought 🤣 Mind you, realistically we do quite a bit of the cruise line's work for them answering questions and giving advice (most of it sound 🤔🙂)

Edited December 2 by ceeceeDee

[MicCanberra]

2 hours ago, ceeceeDee said:

I very occasionally get these light bulb moments 😂 My next big task will be putting a brick on Darren's head to keep him under control when we enter the shop. He's a zillion times worse than a kid in a toy shop ('I want, I want, I want.....'). 😆

We all want until we see the wallet is empty.

[MicCanberra]

9 minutes ago, ceeceeDee said:

Now THERE'S a thought 🤣 Mind you, realistically we do quite a bit of the cruise line's work for them answering questions and giving advice (most of it sound 🤔🙂)

Most, almost?

[arxcards]

3 hours ago, ceeceeDee said:

Now THERE'S a thought 🤣 Mind you, realistically we do quite a bit of the cruise line's work for them answering questions and giving advice (most of it sound 🤔🙂)

So much of this advice is in the category of why the dickens don't you tell your customers about this upfront. Then when they do ask via official channels why don't you give your customers a consistent answer.

[MicCanberra]

8 minutes ago, arxcards said:

So much of this advice is in the category of why the dickens don't you tell your customers about this upfront. Then when they do ask via official channels why don't you give your customers a consistent answer.

That sounds far to easy and sensible, perhaps there are different answers depending on who asked.