Mary loves to travel

Hi Tina & Ken, you might be able to call and get it refunded to your credit card. Just say you realize you'll have some other OBC you need to spend, yada yada. Shouldn't hurt to ask. If not, you'll have a slug of credit on your accounts once onboard.

Maybe so. BUT, think about how Princess does their onboard accounting. For example, if I reserve and pre-pay for several Princess excursions, once onboard, the first day my account will show all the excursion money I prepaid as a Credit. Then, as I take each excursion, they'll charge my account for the excursion. In this case, let's say a N.A. cruiser prepays their Crew Appreciation. Once onboard, that cruiser will see the prepay as a credit t their account. BUT, there won't be a daily CA charge against it, to spend it down day by day. One could end up with quite a bit of credit to spend. Either way, Princess doesn't just quietly pocket the money & chuckle about it. Mary

I think with many people buying one of the packages, some started asking for a price break on the package, since CA is already included (albeit not very clearly spelled out). Here it is spelled out in the detailed Terms & Conditions of the Plus Package (same wording in the details of the Premier Package): Crew Appreciation paid on behalf of the guest varies based on stateroom type (up to 4 guests per stateroom). Princess Premier does not include other service charges. Although Crew Appreciation is listed as part of the Princess Premier package, on Australia and New Zealand voyages Crew Appreciation is already included in the cruise fare and therefore all guests, regardless of whether they book the Princess Plus package, will receive Crew Appreciation and no substitution or refund will be provided for such part of the package.

Yes! For all cruises which originate and end in an Australian port, Crew Appreciation is already part of the base fare.

I think that’s a web error- the programming for Crew Appeciation tells it to show on all cruises unless explicitly part of a promo or package. I mentioned that to my CVP and she agreed it is confusing. For those who’ve prepaid CA, I suspect it will work as it does for any other cruise: once onboard your account will show a credit of what you’ve prepaid. But, on Australia cruises there will be no daily CA charge to offset (on cruises that originate from an Australian port AND end in an Australian port). Mary

We dined at the Sabatini's with the new menu last month on Sky. It was wonderful! Excellent food, ambiance & service.

CA is included in the base cruise fare, for all cruises originating from AND returning to an Australian port. So, even without a package, there is NO Daily Charge for CA 🙂 (somewhat similar to you, the package is not cost effective for us, or maybe borderline; so really knowing if we'll be charged daily CA is an important factor in deciding about a package. In this case, clearly we will go without a package). Best, Mary

Monday morning update! Just off the phone with our wonderful CVP who confirmed that YES, for cruises originating in and returning to Australia, Crew Appreciation is already included for all passengers, regardless of package. The wording I've quoted in prior posts is to state that no discount will be given on Plus or Premiere package prices due to the already included Crew Appreciation. The prices are the prices. So, for those of us who are borderline break-even on a package, this is significant input into deciding on whether to buy a package. For those who are nowhere near "borderline break-even", it doesn't really matter 🙂 Cheers, Mary

Thanks very much! I am pursuing this right now -- quite a savings!! Mary

this is exactly what I expected. It was just reading the fine print that made me wonder. Seems the consensus is that what I saw is one of those very rare P website errors 🙂

@Astro Flyer Thanks! @Thrak ok, we're counting on you to find out & report back 🙂

Thanks! As I suspected - the error is in the fine print of the "Score for '24" promotion; apparently, it should say that gratuities are included for all Australians booking Australia & NA cruises.....

Oh, that's an interesting question! So, I just went into my personalizer to find out: for an Australia cruise next year (starts and ends in Australia). Currently booked with Standard fare. To add on Plus is $60 USD per day, Premier is $80 USD per day. The above yellow highlighted comes from the fine print on the "Score for '24" promotion. Mary

that's interesting! So, the error on the Princess website is either where they say "Although Crew Appreciation is listed as part of the Princess Plus package, on Australia and New Zealand voyages Crew Appreciation is already included in the cruise fare and therefore all guests, regardless of whether they book the Princess Plus package, will receive Crew Appreciation and no substitution or refund will be provided for such part of the package." .... or the error is in the Personalizer, where it's shown that we *will* be charged gratuities.

thanks for bringing this back around! Where it really comes into play is if one might or might not buy one of the packages: if one is normally borderline break-even on a package, knowing the Crew Appreciation won't be charged can be quite a deciding factor when evaluating the package. I realize that people who tend to have 3-4 or more alcohol drinks will get benefit from the package either way, but for those of us who are lighter drinkers, this is important to know.

@Astro Flyer that’s exactly the situation I suspected! A little unfair, to say the least. My confirmation document does show OBC as a 1:1 conversion to AUD. It says All OBC will be credited in AUD. Wonder if that’s to do with Oz law? Hmmm. So if I have no package, and prepay Crew Appreciation, certainly the regular conversion rate will be used (~ 1USD: 1.45AUD) ? Mary

We most likely won’t get either package. So, charging crew appreciation onboard in AUD balances out the OBC conversion 1:1 to AUD, I think. ETA will Princess use the same conversion rate - so 16 AUD per day Crew Appreciation?

I noticed that! Hmm, I wonder which currency will be used when charging us our daily Crew Appreciation?

For a bit, though, it looked like they were covered even without booking a Plus or Premiere package.

I suspect this is correct. It was exciting there for a bit when I thought maybe the grats were already covered 🙂

Votes are running 1-1 so far 😄 In a surprising twist, there seems to be an error on the P website

I'm wondering if I'm interpreting this correctly: on an upcoming "Round Australia" cruise, when reading the terms & conditions around the Plus and Premiere packages, it seems to state that Crew Appreciation is already included in the cruise fare for an Australia cruise: "Crew Appreciation paid on behalf of the guest varies based on stateroom type (up to 4 guests per stateroom). Princess Plus does not include other service charges. Although Crew Appreciation is listed as part of the Princess Plus package, on Australia and New Zealand voyages Crew Appreciation is already included in the cruise fare and therefore all guests, regardless of whether they book the Princess Plus package, will receive Crew Appreciation and no substitution or refund will be provided for such part of the package." I'm reading this as saying that whether you buy a package or not, the Crew Appreciation is included in the cruise fare (BUT they're not adjusting the price of the package). So, here's the question: I'm not Australian, but are we reading this correctly that Crew Appreciation will *NOT* be added onto our daily bill, it's already part of the cruise fare? Thanks, Mary

Thank you. Sounds like our cabin will not be near any smoking areas. Seems Princess is striking a nice balance between needs of smokers & non-smokers.

Hello, can anyone confirm where the smoking areas are on Crown Princess? Thanks, Mary

That's great! Mine had an excellent savings, but no OBC - we actually lost $100 pp OBC we'd had, but the savings MORE THAN make up for that loss. Didn't see anything about an EZ Air discount. Good for you that you got this 🙂