colourbird

This is what I can't understand about the cruise we have just booked. 11 days Brisbane to Sydney.

On the 7 day portion, we'd be able to book a cabin on a couple of decks and they are all still available. On the 11 day voyage they are guaranteed. What gives? Our TA was unable to get any explanation out of Princess.

1 hour ago, MMDown Under said:

I think it is a good idea to monitor your existing bookings to have them repriced when prices go down.  My comments were in relation to the new practice by cruiselines of charging for passengers to select their cabins.  I wouldn't play that game, as I often found lower prices after final payment.  

It appears cruise lines have adopted the practice from airlines that charge additional fees for seat selection, realising it will generate more revenue.

9 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

You may not know your cabin until the very last day. 

Oh no! If that's the case, it means I'll be worrying about it for 22 months!

48 minutes ago, arxcards said:

 

So it would seem though - if you want to book online, you get the guarantee option on the cheaper options of each cabin type, yet our T/A could pick our cabin for us. Princess PVP's work like T/As for just Princess, so it is natural to assume they can also choose specific cabins when they only show as guarantees online.

 

Previously when I have booked a guarantee with Princess, sometimes they allocate you a cabin straight away. If I don't like the cabin, I just ask the T/A to swap it to a different cabin within the same category and haven't been knocked back yet.

Our TA has been trying for three days to get specific cabins for us and has now given up. Hopefully it won't be too long till we get our cabins allocated and if they aren't any good, we may be able to change them then.

4 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

What you see as the guarantee fare is the lowest category fare which is no longer available for selection. The lowest selection fare is a higher category ie guarantee may be a BF but selection category may be a BD.

We checked out this cruise the day it went on sale. It started with guaranteed cabins, so it wasn't even due to lowest fares already being sold out.

I've seen this before when i've booked on other cruise lines where the cabins are guaranteed once you get closer to sailing, but two years out is weird.

57 minutes ago, MMDown Under said:

Why?  Have you spoken to the cruise line?  I have found you need to phone twice sometimes to get the answer you want.

My TA has just called again and spoke to another person, but we still have the same outcome. I'll have to remember all this drama for our post cruise survey in a couple of years time.

6 minutes ago, Jean C said:

That could put some people off. I am cruising later this year with family. For comfort and to accommodate all of us, I  booked 3 x 4 berth mini suites. Because of the way cabins are configured, we had to be next door but one to each other.  Not all balconies have full cover though, I wouldn't want to risk being in an uncovered one as the sun gets too hot for me. In future I'd have to grit teeth and pay the extra to choose 🙁

I wouldn't mind paying extra to choose, but that's not even an option on the cruise we are booking.

14 minutes ago, Jean C said:

Hi, I see you are from Australia. We had an experience well before covid where we wanted to book the forward section of Aloha deck (our favourite area) for a lengthy cruise, soon after release, but from Auckland return only guaranteed cabins were showing.  However to book Sydney return, you could choose a cabin. We felt so strongly about not taking pot luck that we considered adding an airfare so we could choose our own cabin. We had a very good TA at the time and she worked her magic and got us a specific cabin number we were very happy with, Auckland return. I suggest you contact your TA or Princess direct, if you booked with them  to see what they can do 🙂

That's interesting. I just had a look at a shorter segment of the cruise and none of the cabins are coming up as guaranteed and hardly any are sold, but deck 12 forward is not available.

I also prefer the front of Aloha deck as it is extremely quiet with cabins above. My TA has tried a few times already and they won't budge and allocate us a room, however now they are saying we are guaranteed a cabin at the front. We were hoping to have two cabins next to each other as we have friends travelling too. They say they don't guarantee the two cabins will be near each other. I'm not sure what decks they will be on though.

My TA has just attempted to reserve the cabin we prefer, which is located near the front of deck 12 on the Diamond Princess and all we are offered is a guaranteed cabin, despite a number of calls to Princess. The cruise is two years away and has just become available for booking, but from day one most cabins on decks 10 to 12 are only available as guaranteed cabins.

When we check the Princess website to choose a cabin, cabins on lower decks are not even listed as options.

I am unable to understand the benefit that Princess gains from this practice, and it is discouraging me from booking with them again in the future.

10 hours ago, arxcards said:

Yes, distance and the lack of a suitable spot to build a ferry wharf. It is a lovely way to get into Brisbane but if they charged $30pp return, would they get enough takers to make it profitable? Whichever way, Brisbane council is not going to subsidise cruise passengers to get into the city, and why would they treat our smaller numbers any differently from the masses that arrive at the airport?

 

As with White Bay in Sydney, that is an interesting comparison. They have a wharf to arrive to and a much shorter distance to ferry, yet it was never popular enough to make any service viable. White Bay celebrates her 10th birthday on Sunday, but BICT has been is use for less than a year. Let me guess what we will still be discussing in 9 years time 😉 

Yes people would pay $30 for a return ferry to Brisbane City over the $40 for the Princess shuttle bus + additional cost of a ferry ride if they were going to travel on one.

White Bay is different as it is closer to the city. I've walked to and from there (without luggage) or just caught the public bus home (it's 20 minutes walk from the ship). It's easy to get a taxi too.

50 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I think the issue is that the BICT is a considerable distance down river from the current last stop. I'm not sure how much more time it would add to the ferry journey and whether it would be cost effective. It certainly would be my choice of transportation on a nice day. We did it a couple of times when we were on cruises that stopped at Portside and it was lovely.

The wharf would be around 15 minutes away from Hamilton. The main benefit would be for cruise passengers being able to catch the ferry into the city and back to the ship instead of having to catch the bus into the city and then a ferry up or down river and return to catch the bus back to the ship.

20 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Lots of good PR and goodwill for a city to throw out a welcome mat, visitor maps, a town crier, a pipe band, free shuttles & volunteer guides. A large majority of passengers do not spend money in Aussie ports beyond a decent coffee or a drink, so governments would rather have passengers doing tours (ship or independent) to places that are very good at capturing tourist dollars.

When we were there a couple of weeks ago Princess didn't supply any maps and they didn't have anyone at Ann Street to assist anyone needing directions. There were no greeters either.

Luckily for around a dozen elderly passengers who couldn't work out how to get to the information centre or the river, my wife and I are regular visitors to Brisbane and were able to take them to North Quay ferry terminal via the information centre.

You'd think Princess could have had one or two crew members at Ann Street for the duration.

8 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I think the issue is that the BICT is a considerable distance down river from the current last stop. I'm not sure how much more time it would add to the ferry journey and whether it would be cost effective. It certainly would be my choice of transportation on a nice day. We did it a couple of times when we were on cruises that stopped at Portside and it was lovely.

We actually went on the Rivercat from North Quay to Northshore Hamilton on our recent visit and just walked around Ascot and back to Brett's Wharf for the return trip to the city before catching our bus back to the ship.

One solution would be for Brisbane Council to add an additional Rivercat stop after the Northshore Hamilton stop, specifically to use on cruise ship days, and operate ferry services directly to the cruise terminal. By  extending the Rivercat service, Brisbane Council can improve the  experience for cruise passengers and establish the city as a welcoming and tourist-friendly destination, rather than leave thousands of us on the outskirts of the city.

56 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I wonder what happens if everyone decides to return on the last bus? 🤔

We had people on our bus who were due to return much later so it probably isn't an issue. Our driver said there were buses running every five to 10 minutes during the afternoon, so it isn't just one bus at a set time listed on the tickets.

We found when using Princess's Brisbane on your own "tour / transfer" recently on the Coral Princess, you didn't have to return at the time shown on your ticket. As long as you had a ticket the drivers would let you on for the return trip to the ship. They weren't checking times printed on the tickets anyway, they just collected them. You could leave anytime till the last bus (and they departed Ann Street regularly).

16 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

I'm not sure Princess is offering great value for the price any more judging by what I'm seeing on forums elsewhere. The new drinks prices are kicking in and people aren't happy. Apparently if you don't drink alcohol you can no longer buy soda packages or coffee packages, just a combined soda/coffee package at $65pp per day. There is plenty of confusion over the new inclusions in the Plus fare - the speciality desserts appear to be huge ice cream sundaes and you'd need to have two of those a day to get your money's worth. I wouldn't even have one per cruise - my idea of a nice ice cream treat is a single scoop in a cone, I can't handle any more that that at one time.

I've never bought any packages on a cruise so haven't noticed those changes.

1 hour ago, thebaehrs said:

@colourbird , @MicCanberra - if we swapped to a shorter cruise at the present sale fare, it would be the same price for actually a better cabin.
 

The real issue is that it’s not a good time of year for us. We’d have to carve time off work, and go from work to cruise right back to work. And surely be thinking about work the whole trip. So my wife has talked me out of it. 
 

I just really love what I’m seeing from the Celebrity ships. Hopefully in a few years. On the plus side, this week I managed to get 2% knocked off my home loan by doing the Barefoot and ringing the bank. Should help with the cruise fund. At least till we get the next ten rate hikes. 
 

Are there any savvy folks out there talking about how to make cruising happen on a tight budget?

Great job on lowering your loan rate!

Instead of choosing a Celebrity cruise, consider looking into Princess and Royal Caribbean as they offer great value for the price, especially the beautiful Ovation of the Seas.

For us, a balcony cabin is sufficient since we spend most of our time out and about. By saving money on the cabin, we can afford to extend our cruise duration.

We typically reserve our preferred cabin a couple of years in advance when the cruise comes on the market. During the two years leading up to our cruise, our travel agent and I keep an eye out for sales. If we find a genuine sale, we can apply the new fare to our booking as many times as we want. However, be cautious of tricks where cruise prices increase when extras or on-board credit are thrown in.
 

14 minutes ago, thebaehrs said:

If you had the option of Celebrity Eclipse instead… which would you do?

Isn't cost an issue? We are booked on Celebrity Edge to New Zealand later this year and it is much more expensive than a P&O cruise.

P&O is cheap and we only sailed on the Adventure for the itinerary and dates being suitable for us at the time. We still had a good time on Adventure but wouldn't sail on P&O again. If you can afford to pay more, it is best to try other cruise lines. They are all a bit different and have good and bad points. In my experience, being on a cruise ship is always good, so anything bad is just another experience. If you don't let any negatives bother you, you will have a great time on any cruise line.

We were on Adventure for 7 nights out of school holidays. We found many places onboard to relax. There are deck chairs almost all around the ship on the upper decks, many not near to pools. They are very quiet and you have ocean views!

We found bookings were available at any restaurant we felt like eating at on the night at any time and even spare seats available at all of them.

You can even grab food from the Pantry and take it outside and eat it in the adjacent seating area near the paid pizza and paid burger outlets which are always very quiet.

8 hours ago, Chiliburn said:

There’s a story in our local cruise media today that Lelepa will be open with in a couple of years.

 

 

But i'm an Aussie and prefer water slides to scuba diving and laying on a beach all day on a cruise (why spend all that money when i'm surrounded by beaches and can do that for free whenever I want?) Why can't we have water slides too?

17 minutes ago, nich3cats said:

My poor travel agent has spent untold hours on the phone only to deal with totally incompetent Royal employees or having the call dropped. She has been trying since Monday to shift my transatlantic to Ovation 2023. I am appalled at the incredibly horrible customer service given to my travel agent. I would be happy to stay on hold but they won’t talk to me since I booked with a TA. Good thing I want to book for 2023 since the Ovation Transatlantic for 2022 is filling really fast. Are all cruise lines this bad?

I've booked / cruised on 7 different lines (I don't go for loyalty, just particular destinations / ships) and this is the first time i've had so much trouble with a booking. My travel agent is extremely busy at the moment and doesn't have time to waste trying to organise my refund from RCI as i'm changing the booking to another company.

4 minutes ago, steveru621 said:

 

NOTHING ABSOULUTELY NOTHING was offered to us when they canceled 4 February 2022 cruises on Serenade a few weeks before we were scheduled to sail.  Oh, they said we'll give you 125% FCC that you can't use for Symphony with the same dates.  RCI just flipped us off, and said BTW the GS you booked on Serenade is 50% more expensive on Symphony and you can't keep the same cabin for all four cruises.

 

 

 

That's horrible treatment when it's all out of our control. I'm going to take the money and book another cruise line.

6 minutes ago, steveru621 said:

 

Bayley continues to hide behind Covid.  This is the SECOND time they have done this to us in 2 months.

 

What options were you offered on the previous cruise that was cancelled in these circumstances?

Although the biosecurity act has been extended till mid April, the restrictions on cruise ships could be lifted at any time. Different things are added and removed from the act from time to time even though it remains in place.