caribill

Early TD was when the two dining rooms first opened each evening. So if you make a DMW reservation at that time for every evening, you have no problem being seated when the restaurant first opens. Almost like the old TD.

So the people that would have wanted TD at 5 PM will just show up at the now AT dining room at 5 PM. Same number of people showing up to occupy the same tables for up to 2 hours (or longer). Making the dining room totally AT (with DMW) does not make eating (or service) any faster than when it was TD.

Princess never had a limit of how many people who could sign up for AT. The restriction was for how many could sign up for TD. Carnival, on the other hand, did it the opposite way. There was a limit of how many could sign up for AT. Once that limit was reached, people were forved into TD. But RCI, with a three level dining room, did it differently. One level was reserved for TD, one level for AT, with the third level having a combination of TD and AT, the number of TD tables on that level depending on the demand for that cruise.

There is no reason that DMW dining cannot also have a leisurely pace. No matter what time you reserve a table for, once you are seated nobody will force you to eat quickly. Unless Princess forces you to eat in xx minutes time, then the increased passenger load still cannot be accommodated in dining rooms that are not sized for the increased ship capacities.

That can easily work when you make a reservation for the time the dining room first opens. But I wonder how well that would have worked if you had wanted a dining time of 6:20 instead of 5:00. Would that table #101 actually be available at that time every evening?

DMY implemented properly is a good replacement for the past Anytime Dining when most passengers showed up when they wanted and often had to wait for a table. Theoretically, with DMW andone that used to have AT could schedle a time to arrive an be quickly seated. But DMW and TD can still exist together. Based on pre-cruise demand for TD, just reserve the proper number of tables for TD at fixed times and thus with guaranteed seating at the scheduled arrival times. All the other tables could be used for DMW.

Just to be sure, was the reservation for a time other than when the dining room first opens? And did were the number of passengers close to 100% occupancy on your cruises?

I think Princess removed the TD not because they felt many people did not want it (after all, there were usually pre-cruise waitlists for at least one of the sittings), but because someone truly believed that DMW could replicate TD. Of course this was probably the same someone who believed that if you made a reservation for a table at 7:30, that a table would actually always be available then. Without TD with the same table at the same location at the same time every evening, you cannot walk directly into the dining room after the first evening and quickly get to your TD table. Instead, everyone, even those with reservations, must line up just like the first evening and be escorted to an available table somewhere in the dining room. And one feature of TD that is sorely missed is that if signed up for TD, the times were coordinated with Princess show times. Now you must make a wild guess months in advance of the cruise when showtimes might be and then decide on a time to reserve for dinner. Yes, Princess suggests several times for this, but at least two of those times are not the best timing option. If you wait until you know the show times pre-cruise, it is likely that the time slot you want is filled that close to embarkation.

Was the GTY on Princess in the same category as the specific cabin? For example, if the GTY was for a BE balcony, was the specific cabin also a BE balcony? Or was it for a higher category such as a BD balcony which would cost more than a BE? Some cruise lines other than Princess do offer a GTY that is lower in price than any specific cabin of the same type, for example a balcony cabin.

On Princess GTY rates are not lower. They are the same price as you would pay for the category you book a GTY for. For example, if you book a GTY for a BA cabin, it is the same price as if you were able to select a BA cabin.

Princess ships will convert foreign currency to the currency of the cruise, usually US $ in most parts of the world. They can do this at the Customer Service desk and, on some ships, a currency exchange machine. They only take bills, no coins. Exchange rate, as other point out, will be poor. Expect to lose 7%-10% of the currency value in the transaction. If using a currency exchange machine, it will add a "convenience fee" in addition to having a poor exchange rate. Once you do have the money exchanged, you can have the cash applied to your onboard account.

The new cruisers they are seeking will mainly be younger ones with families. That will help fill up the ship during summer and school vacation times, but they still need the older repeat passengers to fill up the ships the other times of the year and on longer cruises.

The difference is they do not charge me extra each time they make my bed or feed me in the main dining room. But they do charge me up to $5 for every shirt I want washed.

What they said: "we are redoubling efforts to attract new-to-cruise guests. About one-third of our guests have historically been new to cruise." To me that says they want more than 1/3 of the passengers to be new-to-cruise (NTC). That would mean having less than 2/3 of the passengers being repeat passengers. To me that says repeat passengers do not count as much any more. Since they also expect the a number of NTC passengers to cruise again with Princess while wanting less overall repeat passengers, my conclusion is they want less long time Princess customers.

The "Champagne" they give has less value than the cost of the bottle it is in. They already reduced the cost of the gifts by eliminating the glass emblem which depicted the cruise area (example Alaska) that the cruise was sailing. Obviously Princess ships are not sailing at full capacity yet. And certainly the recent Princess sale in North America (balcony for the cost of an inside cabin) and the one in Europe (Mini-Suite for the cost of a deluxe balcony; Premier package for the cost of the Plus package) indicates price cutting, not increasing. But they did say two things that apply corporate wide : a) "Cumulative advance bookings for full year 2023 are slightly above the historical average and at considerably higher prices, as compared to 2019 sailings, normalized for FCCs." b) "we have been working to increase near-term occupancy in part by using limited promotions and opaque channels, available only to a select group of people to protect overall price integrity for 2023"

On the CCL Corp stock analysts call this morning it sort of was made official that loyal customers do not count anymore. (This is for all the CCL Corp brands, not just Princess.) They are doubling efforts to reach new-to-cruise passengers. Past advertising focused on loyal guests. Current advertising is focused on attracting new cruisers. (By the way, they also said that . Pricing is still “way too much of a value.” Too much of a discount from land vacations.)

Which can be used on both Carnival and Princess cruises (and HAL and.......).

Princess has laundry rooms that passengers can use with washers and dryers (fees) and ironing boards with irons (free to use). Carnival does not.

RCI has a single 3-level dining room. Works out well. Never been too noisy for us. Of course Princess has DMW, but Royal used one deck for anytime, one deck for traditional fix-time, and one deck for a combination of the two.

Chances are someone else is not using your cabin number but a waiter entering in a cabin number makes a typo and yours is entered by accident.

For a regular computer monitor: a) Click on the photo. It will enlarge it a little bit, but not enough. b) Click on that enlarged photo. It will open on a new tab with the photo at the same size. c) Click on the photo in the new tab. It will enlarge it=, usually enough to read the Patter easily.

Pre-cruise regular price for a single-device-at-a-time package for the full cruise is $10/day. With Elite/Platinum discount it is $5/day.

Like the Princess web site, signs at ports often do not get updated to reflect current policies.

Do you mean early access to making DMW reservations? Currently Platinum and Elite can make DMW reservations as soon as they book a cruise. Hard to get any earlier access than that. I see no advantage to this unless Princess would process those bids and make acceptances before others can even make bids. I do not see that happening since the bidding process is supposed to increase Princess revenue as much as possible and not allowing all to bid before accepting early bids would likely not result in the optimal income increase. Often 2/3 or more of the passengers are platinum/elite. Lines would be as long as they have been with this as a perk.

Our last cruise before the shutdown was on the Pacific Princess. On Jan. 3, 2020 at 9:30 AM on a sea day there was "On Deck for the Cure", a walk supporting the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Foundation.