caribill

Princess did take this into account and ended up putting a voyage number on the cards. On that voyage, the purchased coffee was still "free" even if there were no more punches. If one or more punches remained at the end of the cruise, they could be used on a future cruise, but on that future cruise there would not be the free "purchased" coffee unless you got it with a punch. So, as indicated, all those purchased and unused punches disappeared after a certain date. I (as did many others) had totally unused cards which became worthless.

Although you had pre-paid using the credit card, the way the accounting system computer works is as follows: a) It pretends that you had not pre-paid and your credit card payment is treated as refundable OBC. b) It then charges the excursion to your onboard account, using non-refundable first. So once your non-refundable is used up with this and other shipboard charges, any refundable OBC is yours again even if used pre-cruise to book an excursion.

.

Recent menus posted for a number of Princess ships do not show ice cream (Gelato) as an offering on any of the dinner menus other than vanilla or chocolate as part of a sundae.

For us it was a big deal on a B2B because we had a use of all the OBC on the second segment and not much use for it on the first one. However, at that time it did carry over.

Was any of this refundable OBC?

I bet you have never taken a 30 day or longer cruise unless you really overpack.

The meal at the MTP lunch is a special one and might be the best meal you eat on a cruise. The flowers, Champagne and certificate are not part of making the MTP luncheon. They are a part of making a milestone number of cruise days (for example, 500). On some cruises instead of a MTP lunch there will instead be a MTP cocktail party on one evening. No charge for drinks and plenty of good horderves. Pre-pandemic at a MTP lunch a staff member sat at each table. The top cruisers by number of days sat with the Captain. Those who just made the cutoff sat with the Captain's Circle host. The cruise members were always very willing to engage in conversarion with those at their tables. Pre-pandemic at a MTP cocktail party the staff members (from Captain on down) would circulate and an attendee could take to many of them unlike at the lunch where one only spoke with the staff member at their tablle.

When we did it, Princess took care of getting the luggage to the bus. From the time we left the suitcases outside of our cabin until we reached the Seattle airport we did not see or handle them.

It has been several years since we took this bus. When we did it we did not have to get off of the bus. Our passports were collected, brought to a building to be checked, and then brought back to us.

Whether at the Guest Services desk or using an onboard currency exchange machine, Princess will give a very poor foreign exchange rate and add a fee in addition. Including the fee, you could easily lose 10% of the value of your money when doing a currency exchange on a Princess ship.

And that is very, very important. By the way, if you do have the charge processed in your home currency, there will still be a foreign transaction fee added by your card company unless it is a card which does not have such a fee. Also if you are using a debit card to get the local currency again make sure to select the transaction to be in the local currency. Other cards that do not have a foreign transaction fee include those issued by CapitalOne. You really get the current official exchange rate with those cards and there is no annual fee on most of them.

Thanks for the report. For those who will be in Rome pre- or post-cruise, you can have the same experience at a much lower cost than the Princess tour. Just go online and book the Vatican Museum in advance at a selected time. When it is your time, you can enter without waiting on the long tourist line. You can also book visiting the gardens in advance. I do not know if the Princess tour included a knowledgeable guide leading the group and explaining everything that was seen in the museum and gardens, but a guide would be extra if you booked the Museum on your own.

Princess just requires that you have evidence of honorary discharge. Does not matter how long ago or if that was your last job.

Not a good assumption. The Princess benefit started when the president of Princess was a veteran. At least at that time other CCL brands did not join in with that benefit.

B2B passengers can disembark once any passenger is allowed to disembark.

Above post is from a poster who is taking the tour and will most likely post a report including photos after the tour. Check out his "live from" at

OP is referring to a tour of Vatican City, not the Ultimate Ship Tour.

Early access being one day early.

I think he was referring to the initial contact with a customer service rep, not if you (or the rep) had to talk with another part of the company. The OP said they reached the initial rep in 20 minutes which is a lot less than 4 hours, but still at least 15 minutes too long. But even the rep could not talk to someone else within the company without waiting for hours. That is inexcusable and needs to be corrected ASAP. Also to be noted is that many of the calls to Princess (and thus contributing to long wait times) are the result of other parts of the company not functioning properly. Among these are: o All the calls to get help with the Medallion App pre-cruise. o All the calls about where is my FCC that people have been waiting for for months. o All the calls about screwed up EZAir arrangement. o All the calls about onboard reservations that the web site is not handling correctly. Fix these (and other) internal SNAFUs and the number of phone calls to Princess would drop to levels that the current staff might be able to handle in a reasonable amount of time and thus eliminate long waits on hold. And Cal also said they were working on an automated call back feature so one would not have to stay on the phone until someone becomes available. That will be a vast improvement, but one still should not have to wait for hours for such a call back.

The "best Internet at sea" is surpassed only by the best customer service on land.

That is because the rental company went out of business due to lack of demand.

And yet the "benefit" is that you get the same amenities as full suite passengers.

Then you had better not have a cell phone when on land.

It is more fun to exchange your Medallion with your spouse's. Then the ship's computers will think he/she is where you are and vice/versa.