Poulsbo Cruisers

I had a little different experience just today. It wasn't that the service I received was poor, just not helpful.

 

I called Princess to see if I could take advantage of the reduced fare just posted for our upcoming cruise. I knew it was past final payment date, but we have platinum vacation protection and flexible airfares. The agent said that the new fares were for new bookings only (I knew that). I pointed out our status and he said that yes, I could cancel and rebook and then get a refund. He said there was nothing he could do other than let us go through that entire process. He said I could email customer relations regarding this issue.

 

I emailed customer relations and received an automated response that if my inquiry was on a pre cruise concern to call the 1-800 number.

 

Now before everyone jumps on me about the final payment date and all it entails, that is not the point of this post. My problem is being told who I should contact at Princess only to be told to go back to the phone number that gave me the information to begin with.

Thanks so much for this. We will be on the Regal in a couple months and really appreciate seeing these pictures.

We will be doing a Baltic cruise also. Looking at the excursions, I was surprised with the high costs. One would think that with the dollar at all time highs against the euro, the price Princess pays the European tour operators would be way down. Like oil price declines, this must be an area in which the savings to the company are not being passed down to the consumer.

 

For that reason, it may be best to use private tour operators in Europe.

The red price is a "sale" price. The price itself may or may not be less than it was yesterday. If you look near the top left corner there will be a sale banner...click on it to see the terms. Sometimes it includes dinner in a specialty restaurant, free grats, extra OBC, etc.

 

So true. It seems as though some sale prices are hard to determine. I see a price one day that says it's a "sale" price, but it hasn't changed from the day before. It's best not to pay much attention to these gimmicks.

I hope this helps explain what's happening and doesn't confuse you further.

 

Thanks for your detailed explanation, but I wasn't really confused except by all those folks who kept telling me I hadn't booked a guaranteed cabin using the chose for me option when I knew I had.

This is what my page said about guaranteed bookings when I booked this afternoon....

 

Fast and easy. Let us take care of it for you. We'll select the best available Balcony stateroom at $ person. Based on current stateroom availability, a stateroom will be assigned closer to departure date.

 

*Does not include wheelchair accessible staterooms

 

 

( I did not include the price we paid)

 

Mine said the same thing when I booked. I don't understand why some posters don't think this is a guaranteed cabin.

I am more confused than ever. On my upcoming cruise I selected selected the balcony option. Then chose the front of the ship. Then selected deluxe balcony from the upper deck. At that time I could have selected one of the two available cabins or select the chose for me option. I went with the latter. This guaranteed me a deluxe balcony cabin at the lowest fare without selecting a particular cabin.

 

I have done this with Princess on two other occasions. On both of those cruises the wording was different and it may have actually stated I was guaranteeing a cabin at the minimum category I selected, but I don't see how that differs from what I am doing this time around.

This is incorrect. This option gives you a specific cabin at the lowest fare in that category. This is different from a guarantee where the verbiage "cabin will be assigned before departure" is shown.

 

Then I guess I better call Princess. I chose the lowest category deluxe balcony using the "choose for me" option on our upcoming Baltic cruise. I was told that a cabin would be assigned just prior to departure, but that I was guaranteed at least this category. Now you are saying that this isn't a guarantee. What exactly is it then?

There are no dorky questions, only dorky answers ;).

 

I had wondered about this myself, as I am now booking all our reservations directly with Princess online. I eventually figured out that if there is a "choose for me" option for that category or cabin type, then no guarantees are currently being offered, at least online. If you have, as Pablo222 mentioned, a "cabin will be assigned just prior to departure" option, then there are guarantees available online.

 

The Choose for Me option is a guarantee. You are guaranteeing that category or higher. If you want to guarantee a particular cabin or area on the ship then you must select a particular cabin and ask Princess to not upgrade you. Nothing has changed except the terminology.

I don't believe it is specifically referred to as a guarantee anymore. Rather, you can select the option "choose for me" at several points in the booking process. This works the same way as a guarantee. If I understand your question correctly.

I used to have Princess pricing figured out. Now I'm confused. We always booked early and then watched to see if the prices came down. I guess one could still do this, but now the prices seem to jump all around. It appears that any substantial fare decrease occurs after final payment. I may rethink booking early and start waiting until after final payment date.

We booked our upcoming July Baltic cruise in January. Since then Princess has shown three different "sales" for this cruise. Yet, the prices have not changed. In fact, the OBC has gone down and the 3rd and 4th passenger fares have gone up. Yet Princess is showing the current fares as a sale price.

Don't get me wrong, I think we are getting good value for what we are paying. It's just that the way Princess is pricing cruises has really changed in the three years since we last sailed with them. I wonder if we will see more people waiting until after the final payment date to book.

Thanks for the review. We will be on the Regal in a few months. I'm enjoying reading your take on this ship. BTW, if you see the captain let him know the Regal's bridge cam has been down for a couple of days. LOL

I'm sure it will too, they'll need to find an alternative stop than Naples as were already going there, hopefully Malta or Corsica 😀

 

A few years back, our cruise on the Crown was supposed to stop in Cannes. Princess removed this port for the remainder of that year. They didn't substitute any other port. We spent a day sailing at a snails pace around the Med.

Question: I have been checking the Delta site to keep tabs on our flight price wise. How/where do you check the price for Princess air? I see the air reservation on my personalizer but there is no price that I can see, the price is on my invoice. I can't do a "mock" booking, at least to my knowledge. AND, I certainly don't want to "screw" up what I have locked in.

 

Inquiring minds....................;)

 

It's fairly easy to check this. Bring up tour cruise (do not go into personalizer). You will see a tab for "flight quotes." Click this, fill in your airport city, the class you desire and enter. You will see the fares available for both restricted and flexible. You can do this without going through the booking process.

And the comment that they sell out. Yes, they may, but at what price? And how many lost passengers to other lines?

 

I agree. But, are they selling out? I don't know where the poster got that. Maybe for the Caribbean especially after pushing last minute deals. We are only two weeks from the beginning of May. A search of available cruises shows 50 itineraries available in May with most cabin categories left. Maybe May is not the best example, but it appears that most of the cruises only get sold out with a big last minute push and drastically reduced fares.

i was reading the following on the Princess website:

 

"As an exclusive benefit for our loyal Members, we'll reward you for bringing new customers to Princess. When you refer new passengers to us, we'll offer them a discount off their first cruise, and once they sail with us, we'll offer the same savings to you!"

 

What does this mean? We referred new customers for our upcoming cruise and they received a discount. Once they sail, it appears we will get something, but what? A discount off our next cruise? A refund?

I am sure that Princess knows what they are doing. They have been doing it for a long time.

They are in business to make money, not to please us other then the cruise experience itself.

 

I didn't say they didn't know what they were doing, just that I couldn't figure it out. And no one would stay in business if they weren't out to please their customers. And that goes for more than the cruise experience. They please me. That's why I keep going back.

 

But, first time cruisers or those looking at Princess for the first time may be turned off by the initially high fares and continuing changing prices shown for Princess cruises.

We never used Princess air in the past - figuring that we could get a better deal on our own. For our upcoming Baltic cruise I checked with Princess just for kicks. I was surprised to find lower airfare with Princess than I could get on my own. And also shocked to find that the flexible fares were less than the fixed fares. Needless to say, we booked our air through Princess.

It sure is difficult for me to figure out if Princess knows what they are doing. Their 2016 Europe fares are substantially higher than the competition. Everyone know that they will come down so they either wait to book or they book now and then keep watching the prices so that they can call and get the "sale" price. And if you are new to cruising or less experienced you will be booking with RCCL or Celebrity after seeing the fares and making a comparison.

 

I'm booked on a Baltic cruise for this July. The final payment date is next week. There are a lot of unsold cabins. If Princess had started with reasonable fares a year ago, maybe most cabins would be sold. Now they will need to give great last minute deals to get these cabins sold.

On the last morning of our 1992 cruise on the NCL Westward, my DW developed food poisoning from something she ate the prior evening. This effected several passengers. NCL changed our flight and put us up in a hotel until my wife could travel. Now for the good deal. NCL gave us a free Caribbean cruise the next year. I don't think you would ever see something like that again.

You can watch pricing all you want but if you request a quote from a TA who books a high volume of Princess cruises, you can save 10-20% plus OBC and perks. TAs are not allowed to advertise or promote discounted fares so if you're looking at just the Princess website, you're comparing apples to oranges.

 

As another posted stated, I have never found these TA deals. I've researched, what I believe, are all the major online agencies. I've found savings of maybe $50 per person. However, they do offer OBCs that may make it worth using them.

I haven't cruised Princess for several years, but I have booked an upcoming Baltic cruise on the Regal. I have noticed a change in the way Princess is running so-called sales. As always, I carefully follow the pricing to look for reductions prior to final payment. In the past this saved me a lot of money over the price originally booked. Since booking this cruise, Princess has had two "sales." Both times, the website was changed to show "sale" in red. Both times there has been no reduction in price. In fact, both times Princess removed the $200 OBC per passenger and substituted reduced 3rd and 4th passenger rates. The OBC is probably a better deal for most people booking this cruise. Overall, I still think the rates are fair, I just find it interesting that Princess announces a sale and then keeps the fares the same. And yes, all the cabin categories remain unchanged.

Go into your cruise personalizer. Open the section called payments and credits. You should find a booking balance section. If you click on the down arrow you will see the invoice charges and payments. This works for me, however I haven't made final payment yet.

On my first Mediterranean cruise, we were in Rome on Sunday. The Vatican museum was closed. This prevented us from seeing the Cistine Chapel. Considering how many visitors to Florence are from cruise ships, I can't see how they would open the museums to cruise ship passengers.

There are no lifeboats blocking views on the Caribe Deck. The diagram Princess uses shows the positions of the lifeboats if you were looking straight down. The lifeboats are a couple decks below Caribe.