PMGS247

Enjoy your cruise!  I learned to love cruising on the Grand Class.  First 4 sailings were on Grand Class, 2 of those on the CB specifically (2018 & 2019).  Lots of fond memories!

Having said that we've since broadened out horizons within the princess fleet and definitely prefer the Royal class at this point.  We even revisited the CB last year when scheduling logistics dictated it to be the best choice.  It was like a throw-back cruise.  A great time was had but it did confirm we prefer the Royal class at this point.  You'll have a great time but I'll be surprised if you come back and say the CB is your new favorite.

It's been really bad recently. Interesting to see the thoughts about viewing in private mode.  Might try that.  As-is everything seems to work fine from my phone but not my full pc. 95% of my clicks on "Manage this Booking" lead to "Technical Difficulties" on a full PC browser.

19 hours ago, tothemall&beyond said:

People who are upset about the bottles water price increase are probably not people who buy the Plus or Premier packages. If you have one of those packages, why would you pay additional for water when it's included?

 

I actually did buy it at the $7 price point even with a package just because it was so cheap and it was nice to have a stash in the room on day 1. 

I'm well aware of steps I can take to get water and they're not that hard, and quite frankly I do those things too as the 12 pack is not enough for the whole trip it was just nice to have a starter stock just waiting for me when I got there. 

I have no problem with the price increase, it makes sense, but I probably won't do it at the $24 price point though.  I would never argue it's that difficult to get the included water but at $7 I just didn't care.

Kind of surprised it took this long.  I feel like it's been $7 forever. They're for-profit business...What do you want? If it's priced too high not enough people will buy it and they'll make less.  If people continue to buy it up like hotcakes they'll raise it again at some point.

I always get a drinks package but have historically bought the bottled water because it was so cheap the $7 was worth the convenience of starting with our own private stash in the room but I'll have to revisit this concept the next time I'm ordering this stuff for an upcoming cruise. 

Even $24 seems pretty much pennies in the grand scheme of the cruise but I'm really paying to not have to bother with room service and not having to be really diligent about picking up and bringing back bottles from bars. I'm lazy when I'm on vacation...a few bucks was worth getting away with that level of laziness but when I look at it objectively $24 is probably a bit steep just to avoid that little bit of work.

1 hour ago, JGmf said:

Message to Princess app and coding team:

DO NOT prioritize this as an issue.  Get to other tweaks and fixes first.

lol 1,000,000% much bigger fish to fry

12 minutes ago, voljeep said:

the website is showing xx days remaining and the app is showing a day less for our cruise

yep I think its the app that flips over in the middle of the day.  The website and app are independently calculating the same metric using two different sets of logic. My career is built around data analytics and this is a never-ending challenge....seeing Princess guilty of this is the least surprising thing that will happen to me today 😆

The days seem to flip over some time during the middle of the day. I'm sure it said 9 days in the morning and switched to 8 at some point during the day. I've run into this issue on other cruise groups on other social media sites where someone posts the countdown in the morning and later in the day someone else has a different number.

I think of it as if they just don't round. For easy numbers let's say embarkation is at 3:00pm on the 25th.  On 9/16 at 2:00pm there are 9 days and 1 hour to go.  The app says 9 days.  Fast forward a couple hours, on 9/16 at 4:00pm there are 8 days and 23 hours to go.  The app says 8 days.  So, they just call out the number of full days remaining and ignore the hours in the remainder.

I don't know that this is EXACTLY how it works or if the time of day is right but I think it's directionally correct for why you're seeing what looks like bad basic math.

6 minutes ago, dog said:

No problem here, except I get kicked out of my booking with technical difficulties.

Same....having said that I've gotten that error when I click on "Manage my booking" at least 80% of my attempts for what must be 2 months at this point.

22 hours ago, Renophi said:

I'm just wondering how the reserved seating is policed. Is this on the honor system or is there a crew member checking medallions? 

My experience has been crew checking medallions with their little handheld devices.  Wouldn't shock me if this isn't 100% consistent, especially if they're just about to open them up to everyone anyway and/or it's not a packed show.

21 hours ago, edgeman61 said:

I'm not a big drinker, would I be better off getting Medallion Net, my soft drinks/water and daily service charge ala carte?

Doing a little math between what you'd pay out of pocket for wifi at 50% off and daily gratuities you'd be utilizing about $30/day of the $60/day cost right off the top.

You'd need to cover the remaining $30/day with adult beverages, soft drinks/water, premium coffees, desserts, casual dining, etc. 

The exact definition of "not a big drinker" probably makes a lot of difference here.  Some people would use this same verbiage about having 1-2 per day, others would mean 1-2 per week. Considering most adult beverages are somewhere in the $8-12 range, if you're talking per day then you're probably a strong candidate for the package...not so much if you're in the "per week" club.  Do the math on what's realistic for you.

1 hour ago, reedprincess said:

Yeah that's been the case in the past - however, with the recent Premier changes to Unlimited specialty dining - slots may not be as available as in the past..

 

Agreed that it will change the dynamic. I don’t think in the near future that they’ll allow any more of the time slots to be reserved in advance than they did before, but they probably will fill up much quicker upon the start of the cruise. It’s the next race to book once on board next to sanctuary. 

43 minutes ago, reedprincess said:

 

 

Buying aboard would limit opportunities for specialty dining - unless, of course, you prepurchase to save your spot, then get refunded aboard once you buy the package.. 

This is true to some degree, and I've been one that has pre-purchased and gotten refunded later most of the time.  Having said that when I haven't done that it's been my experience that once on board, calling the dining line I find many more slots available than I thought there would be after seeing no reservations available for MONTHS on the app.  They definitely hold some reservations back.  I've read plenty of discussion on the topic and it seems my experience is the most common but not 100%. Definitely no guarantees.  Especially now with the very recent change to premier.

Feels like they should follow Royal's example here and only allow pre-booking if you pay in full, even if you have unlimited dining.  It would suck in many ways as it would create a rush to book dining as soon as everyone boards which would be the drama of the sanctuary x10....but it's definitely going to be a ***** show if you just let people make unlimited bookings. Damned if you do/if you don't situation I suppose.

18 hours ago, dog said:

I tried booking the Catch for my October Sun cruise- no availability at all.  

Exactly....that's why I'm holding onto my pre-paid reservations even though I have to float the cost.  Having said that it's always been my experience that once on board calling the dining line reveals there's a lot more time slots available that apparently just weren't offered for pre-booking online.  Having said that I'm still not willing to take that chance and keeping my pre-paid reservations.

3 hours ago, voljeep said:

that's all well and good for you IF when you cancelled ... then you were able to go back in on the APP and get the same exact reservations - or even better ... congrats

 

No way we would take that chance

Same...I'm sitting on 6 fully paid specialty dining reservations for the Sun in October and just upgraded to the new Premier.  Even though it's nearly $500 there's not a chance I trust Princess's system to work well enough that I could cancel and rebook without losing the time slots.  I'll get it converted to refundable OBC on board. My PVP agreed with this approach.

Yes I've done this a couple times.  Just go to Guest Services and they will apply it as OBC.

Upgraded 3 bookings from plus to the new premier today.  I emailed my PVP and it was done within a half hour. No issues.

One of those sailing is already paid in full, and we have 6 specialty dining also already paid for.  I'm just leaving those pre-paid and will get refundable OBC once I'm on board.  PVP agreed with this approach.  Trying to cancel & rebook would risk losing the time slots I've reserved.  In theory I should be able to just re-grab my same time slot but I just don't trust Princess's technology to work that smoothly.

14 hours ago, leftwriter said:

Hi, thanks for the great replies here. This is my first medallion sailing. I opted for one of the customized bracelets for my August 24th sailing. I was notified that my order was processed 25 days before sailing. I retrieved a tracking number from Princess. The latest online tracking info says it left a facility in CA on August 3rd. Unfortunately the tracking website doesn't display details of the progress along the way, or an ETA. I called Princess that day and they gave me an ETA of August 6th.

Having not received it I called Princess today. They confirmed the item ships ground to my area (not via USPS) and then hands it off to my local postal service for delivery to me. They gave me a new ETA of August 15th which is 9 days out. This is close to the experiences shared here. For those sailing further out it sounds like you should be okay. 😎

The tracking site leaves a lot to be desired.  Everyone initially gets the impression it's sitting/stuck in CA.  In reality it's not in CA it's on its way TO CA from I believe Singapore. While it does not show the initial shipping point it does show the shipping company which if you look it up is a China based shipping company and if you look really close at the CA piece it does mention that they're awaiting receipt of the item. They don't have it.  The trip from overseas is by far the longest portion of the journey and basically nothing happens in your tracking for the better part of a week. Once it arrives in CA it will pick up USPS tracking and take however long something normally takes to get to you from CA.

20 hours ago, skynight said:

For what it is worth I enjoy having a few slices of pizza or a burger on deck with an adult beverage. That's my go to. MDR isn't for everyone. 

Same....did the MDR thing a couple cruises in a row and while it was a nice relaxing way to start, the food isn't anything to write home about and being the beginning of my vacation I'm much more inclined to start soaking up the outdoors if at all possible as I'm usually in a warm climate escaping the cold from home.

1 hour ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

Everyone needs to go with the flow and pay for what brings them value.  Supposedly 75% of Princess cruisers buy a package, but some in the 25% dispute those figures.  Others think nothing of spending an extra 1000 per person on a mini suite over a basic inside cabin.  We wouldn't think of it.  I would much rather cruise more often with a package than cruise less often in an upgraded cabin and be stuck without all of the drink inclusions.  We use the cabin for sleeping, showering and dressing, nothing more.  Others like to relax on their balcony, we prefer to relax with an adult beverage in hand at Good Spirits at Sea.

Yep everyone's different.  My wife and I not only prefer a larger cabin and a balcony, but our annual cruise time is not limited by cost; it is limited by time.  Current life demands allow us to be away for two separate 7-day sailings per year, and that's it. Cost isn't a limiter so there's no trade off where we could cruise more if we spent less.  We can cruise 14 days per year whether we spend $5,000 or $10.00 per cruise.  Given this limitation, there's a degree of "if you're gonna do it, do it right" mentality.  Everyone's situation is different.

16 hours ago, wallyj said:

I do not believe the check in window appears in the travel summary, I just reviewed mine for my sailing in 3 days.

It's a moving target isn't it? It definitely used to.  The only thing consistent is inconsistency 🤣  Even my current travel summaries on all 3 booked cruises start with the following sentences: "All the details of your booking are here. Information ranging from your room number to boarding times."

Edit: I found later in the document the following sentence....this is definitely a recent update.  Our boarding window was on there for an April cruise this year. "Please refer to your OceanReady® Boarding Pass in the Princess Cruises® App on your mobile device to see what time the check-in window starts and ends."

Check your travel summary for the boarding window as well.  Usually something like 10:00am - 2:00pm, give or take.

As already discussed the boarding pass QR code shows up in the final days before the cruise.  I've never had to use mine but I've always done green lane.  Perhaps the QR code is helpful in pulling up your booking to get your medallions in blue lane given you don't yet have a medallion to scan. Still, I doubt even that's entirely necessary they can probably pull it up based on your name and cabin number.

Pretty sure sold out means at maximum passenger capacity, which depending on the mix of solo's/duo's/3+, will likely be hit before exactly every cabin is sold. Leaves unoccupied rooms and the ability for Princess to shift people around via selling upgrades.  Also cancellations will trigger a domino effect of room openings which they will backfill from their inventory of upgrade bids.

13 hours ago, DebbieD28 said:

I did think about cancelling and rescheduling, but didn't want to take the chance.  Maybe OBC won't be so bad - we can get another excursion or another specialty dining. I'd really rather have a refund so we'll see. CS has been messy for us. 

The OBC's refundable so if you don't spend it you'll get it refunded at the end of your cruise.  I would confirm with the agent at the guest services desk but it's been refundable both times I've done it.

As for the main topic I come to the same conclusion most here do - you're about 50/50.  If it's me and it's 50/50 I opt for the package and just call it a day.

Only other thing I'd throw out there is to consider if you're sailing with someone else.  The second person in the room also has to get the package.  Maybe you're the 3rd or you're sailing solo and it's entirely a $60/day decision, I'm just not sure from what's been written so throwing it out there.