caribill

Not totally "yes." For example, if you successfully bid into a full suite from a lower type cabin, you will not get the double Captain's Circle cruise credit.

A new sale does not mean the price is better than the previous sale. The % off will be against a list price, not off a previous sale price. Just like at the grocery store. Carrots, let's say normally cost $1,50, may be at a sale price of $1.25 this week when last week's sale had a price of $1.09. Still a sale, just not as good a sale.

Of course. Definitely not the Director of Crew Appreciation. Or the person who pilots the water shuttle.

And is the only caffeine free diet soda in cans or any other way.

And HAL and Princess both report to the same person.

I assume you are living in Europe. Just contact your Europe located Princess office and book over the phone.

Correct. But if you are on a B2B and reach the next level by the end of the first segment, then the second level should be at the new level even if the B2B was booked as a single cruise. If this is your situation, check with the Captain;s Circle rep during the first segment to make him.her aware of what your status should be on the 2nd segment.

See my addition above in red. You can reach the next level based on days or credits.

When I have priced my B2Bs as two bookings vs. one, there is usually just a small difference between the two methods. And in the accounting system, the additional price of the Plus and Premier packages counts towards on board revenue. So if Princess meets its goal of 75% of passengers with one of those packages, they have already made a profit from the on board spending I hope not. Newcomers to cruising should not be suckered into paying for overpriced "art" that is often a computer printout (giclee). Posters on Cruise Critic have said they are no longer available on board. Not known is if they have a supply problem or just do not want to sell them anymore. A recent post on Cruise Critic says ship models were not available on his cruise.

Most OBC that exists before a cruise can be used to book Princess excursions. Note that the cost for each person's excursions will come from that person's OBC, so if most or all of the OBC is in one person's name (such as stockholder OBC would be), excursions booked for the other person may not have enough OBC available. If that applies to your OBC, you can call Princess to book the excursions and ask that the cost comes from one person's account. Some types of OBC cannot be used in advance of the cruise for excursions. Examples are OBC given by Princess as compensation for a previous problem and also OBC that people gift to you..

If they can keep track of 2 fancy desserts a day (with the complications of 0 for those who paid less than $60 for the Plus package and unlimited for those who purchased the Premier package) as well as two fitness cruises per cruise, then it is not hard to keep track of 15 specialty coffees per cruise. It is not the passenger's problem that waitstaff are not trained to know the difference between the various packages sold. Even with the elimination of the coffee package, they still have the plus package, the premier package and the non-alcohol package with their differences. We already know that the waiters rarely use the E-pads to take orders. They write down cabin numbers and then enter that information into the ordering computer at the bar. One result of that is incorrect cabin numbers are entered which seems to happen often based on posts on Cruise Critic by people who have to go to customer service to have erroneous charges removed. And often when a non-alcohol beverage is involved, staff do not even check if the passenger has any package at all as that takes time. After all, with Princess expecting 75% or more passengers to have one of the three beverage packages, it means the staff has to check 100% of the orders to find less than 25% of orders that need to have a charge made. (I say less than 25% because the average passenger without any package probably orders fewer non-alcohol beverages than the average passenger with a package does. I remember one time on a recent cruise where four or five people came to a bar at the same time to get some bottled water. The server just quickly handed out the number of bottles each person asked for. There was no checking each person's package status on the bar's computer. Probably all four or five people had a package, but maybe one or more did not. It was not worth the busy server's time to check each person's package status. And there have been posts on Cruise Critic by people without a package requesting soda at a bar and just being handed one with no checking for package status.

The best customers are those that come back again and again because they like the product. Or many of their best customers will be cruising on other cruise lines. Yes, there may be cutbacks on the other cruise lines also, but the more the Princess product is like the competition, the more the reason to consider the competition for a cruise.

Yes, that is why we pay thousands of dollars to cruise to exotic locations around the world. So we can spend shore time inside a local Internet cafe to access the Internet.

Agree. The value of the free Internet minutes on a 7 day cruise was about 50 cents/minute or $75.00.

I am not sure that paying $495 I never had to spend before is a benefit. But, you are correct. To use the Internet we will choose to pay $495 for this benefit.

The free internet minutes that no longer exist would have sufficed (as they always have) will now cost us $495 on an upcoming two segment cruise. And I find more $$$ saved with independent excursions than a 10% discount on Princess excursions. As an example: A 7 hour private tour with 19 people in one port on an upcoming port will cost $164/person not including lunch. The equivalent Princess 7 hour tour (including lunch) with up to 45 people would cost $297/person after the 10% discount. The lunch on a more crowded tour is not worth paying $133 more per person to Princess after the discount. Thus, this benefit is not worth anything to us. These two examples (Internet, excursions) replace free benefits with benefits that only apply if you give more $$$ to Princess. A loss of a swap benefit that many people used. As I indicated in my original comments, the benefits cuts were to their best customers. So the loss of the Loyalty OBC is just saying loyalty no longer matter to Princess. Another loss (and one that basically cost Princess no significant outlay of $$$) was the celebration of having reached 500 days on Princess cruises and 750 days on Princess cruises.

Since Princess expects about 75% of passengers to have the Plus or Premier package which includes these desserts, 150 glasses is a very small fraction of the number of people who have paid for them with the packages.

Unless you like canned soda which is not included in the $60/$80/$39 per person per day packages.

Oh no! They are an important part of the 2 fancy desserts a day one can get a day by paying $60/$80 a person per day extra.

Why? They have been cutting benefits to their best customers left and right without any replacements. What makes you think they would not cut more without any meaningful replacement?

If they can count 15 alcohol beverages a day, they can count 15 coffees a cruise.

And then in December raised the Internet rates by 50% (or more depending on options).

Yes, that is the way to get access.

The Plus and Premier package elements are considered onboard revenue, just purchased pre-cruise. Of course those who purchase drinks and Internet and tips pre-cruise would normally have little to pay post-cruise from onboard purchases. Cruise lines have found that psychologically people who expect a very low onboard bill will actually spend more and end up spending more than if they had waited to purchases drinks, Internet and tips until they were on board.

I assume this refers to drinking in the ports as on board the ship the minimum age is still 21.