eastender

Indeed, it does 'suck', not an expression we use in the UK! 🤔

I'll be very wary of booking with Princess in the future!

Believe that must be a USA option.

According to Terry Thorton (company's CCO), "a Princess cruise vacation is the best value in travel, but with continuing increases in consumer demand" their new pricing approach would always reward guests who lock in their Princess vacations well in advance.

“Gone are the days of last-minute deep discounts close to departure dates. The best time to secure a spot on a 2024 or 2025 Princess cruise is right now.”

To underscore its commitment to providing the most competitive pricing in the industry, Princess is introducing the Best Price Guarantee. Princess is so confident that its new pricing structure offers the best value that the brand will match any lower price found for the same cruise and stateroom category. Further, if a guest is unsure of the departure date, Princess Promotions will allow them to secure today’s pricing for a future vacation without locking in the specific dates or itinerary.

UK bookers, we booked Regal, 7th August sailing, £5,500. Now sale price is £3,500. We're told if we rebook, we'll lose £750 deposit. UK bookers are screwed again!

Changes are due to port congestion. Have to ask about possible transferring. Thanks.

We booked Regal Princess, Aug 7, around UK cruise, a major draw being stops at Dublin and Liverpool. Email this morning says both ports are cancelled and are replaced with Holyhead, Wales  and Falmouth, so 2 huge cities replaced by 2 towns with water shuttles involved.

Definitely would not have booked the cruise with the new itinerary but after talking to customer service, the changes are not considered major enough to get our deposits of £750 refunded. Not very fair IMHO.

On 11/27/2022 at 11:04 AM, doconner said:

If possible could you post a picture of the draft beer menu in the pub?  I'd like to know what draft beers are available there (I know most of the rest of the ship will just have Heineken, but believe the pub will have more options.

Just off the Meraviglia today. Posting a draft beer menu would be a total waste of time. They had around 8 pumps at the bar. IPA my favourite. No! Murphy's? No! Newcastle? No! What have you got on draft? Heineken!  IPA bottle? No! We may have IPA tomorrow, in other words, couldn't be bothered to get it up today. Seriously, who's managing that pub?

Done a dozen MSC's so a bit of a fan but a recent 5 nighter on Meraviglia definitely had some negatives. Embarking not good, long lines, bit unorganized, no Biggie.  First and second evening, very difficult to sit somewhere and be served a drink. Other nights better but not good. Lounges had non existent servers, this created lines at the bars with people trying to get a drink. Lounges are small for a big ship so difficult to get a seat anywhere. Loved Divina with it's numerous lounges and Doge coffee lounge. Meraviglia has no coffee lounge. Nice chocolate and coffee area on the promenade but premium drink package is not accepted here. Premium beers at the pub were regularly not available. No top tier event. I don't think this ship had enough staff to cope with the amount of passengers. Servers at regular dining were excellent although our 2 top was so squished up, it was really a table of 6. Disembarking, although quite well organized was also sloooow! Maybe this was not a fault of the ship. None of these things a deal breaker and we did enjoy the cruise but if this is how the big ships are, I'll try and stick to the smaller ones or maybe try and go yacht club.

Got off the ship Friday, ship got in around 07:00, didn't start the disembark until around 08:00 and the self assist was definitely not express. Seemed like most of the ship were self assisting. Although it seemed to be quite well organized, lines went on forever and we as Diamond didn't get off until around 10.00. A lot of self assist were still going off at this time.

No refund for port fees etc. but knowing how super efficient MSC customer service is, I'm sure the check is already in the mail. 😂

Off Meraviglia today. 5 nights with only 2 ports, make that 1 port as it didn't make the pier at the island due to currents and wind. There really wasn't anything unusual with the weather that day, quite windy I suppose but nothing unusual going on with the sea. Just makes me wonder if conditions have to be perfect for that big ship to get in there?

I always park at the port but if there's a 4 day cruise followed by a 3 day cruise, the lot gets 9 days money! What a scam.

We're from the UK. Been in Florida for a month and decided on another MSC cruise, thinking that the testing was over on the 5 dayers. Disappointed to say the least that we're being treated differently to US citizens and need a test. Tested ok this morning but this discrimination is bad. Makes no sense as not a govt. requirement and not the case on other lines. 

Never been out of Southampton before and hear stories of rough seas in the Bay of Biscay. How was is for you?

I would book a cruise for CATS. Excellent show. Can't understand all the negativity.

Second time in boardwalk balcony, never again. Way too much noise this time with people screaming as they come down the slides. Also films shown til midnight, James Bond, really loud, wouldn't mind if you could see it! Slides in the way.

US citizens from the start of this thing have never been stopped from entering the UK. Just last week they introduced a 2 week self isolating rule which is basically sign a form on entry that you agree to it, put any address you like (just make one up) and then go on your way. As it's an absolute joke, the rule is not expected to last long.

1 hour ago, Packlawyer17 said:

How much should they be charging for all you can drink per day?  $30? Lol.  Prices seem pretty in line to me.

Why Lol? MSC charge $35 for their easy drinks package, more basic but it's all I need. It was better when Royal had choices like the beer and wine only.

Thank you for your reply. We had a flyer left in the cabin about nextcruise deposits stating quite clearly "Pre-paid deposits good for ANY future Norwegian CL sailings".  At no time during the sale process was it mentioned that the deposits were no good for cruises same as the duration we were on! (5 nights). Cruise lite was not on offer and never mentioned, so now going through the process of a refund.

I bought 8 x $250 deposits for $1,000 recently on an NCL Sun 5 nighter thinking that they would be ok to use on cruises of that length. I'm confused about the 6 day cruise limitation which I now see on the small print, after all 5 nights is spread over 6 days, right? I'm having second thought now. If they cannot be used for those cruises, am I right in thinking you can get refunded for the purchase of the cruisenext deposits within 30 days? Thanks.

Was on Explorer very recently. Seemed to me the bars and lounges were understaffed. The hard working server would take several orders and then have to go back behind the bar to make the drinks up themselves. This meant having to wait a long time to get served at a table. Not good.

For the parking garage operators, the fantastic news is there are 9 days in a week! Park for 3 day cruise, get charged for 4. Park for 4 day cruise, get charged for 5. Hate that but I still park there for convenience. 

1 hour ago, sisocialworker said:

getting off the ship was a mess......the concierge took us to the front of the line where they check out your sea pass card and then you are on your own....last year on harmony (ft lauderdale) we were taken all the way through to a special customs line..maybe this just how it's done in miami .

 

Getting off the ship certainly was a mess. There was a line of about 100 people I would guess, that formed a nice line that went back inside the casino. Then people started exiting the elevators and just stood around with their cases blocking everything up. Getting in line wasn't for them obviously. No-one was there to organize anything and it became a bit of a mob scene with all those people gate crashing the front of the line joined by more and more people exiting the elevators. Really not fair on those people who's been in line for 45 mins. It would have been so easy to put a couple of ropes out to prevent what happened. One staff member did arrive at the scene after a while and seriously couldn't be bothered. 

Not always! We had a 12:00 noon check in time for the Divina. We arrived at 11:00 and just waited in a line of people until 12:20 when they opened the door for the security check etc.

Was on this same cruise and there certainly were at least 3 noticeable dogs. One thing I give the owners credit for is they weren't even trying to pretend they were anything else but their cutie pie pets. No fake vests and just walked them along the promenade like they were at home allowing anyone to pet them. I'm definitely taking my Great Dane next cruise, just hope he don't cover too many people in slobber at formal dinner. 😉

On Allure this last week and had the Deluxe drinks package, something we would not usually buy. My failing for not reading the small print, but at around $75 pppd, was quite surprised when not able to have quite ordinary wines in the $14 - $18 bracket. Also on Labadee they were pushing the Cocktail in a pineapple which cost $12 for anyone. If you have deluxe drinks package it'll cost you $9. Couldn't get my head around that logic, it's not like you can eat the pineapple! Not a big deal and had a great cruise, just saying, because the guys selling in the promenade ain't gonna point that stuff out! Caveat emptor, as they say.