PMGS247

18 months feels pretty inevitable that there will be a price increase. Seems like a few people believe there are some good sources of advanced notice. Regardless, being 18 months out would recommend adding it to the booking now. Final payment won't be until ~Oct '24 so you're not locked into anything, but you do guarantee the current rate should you wish to keep it. You can make a much more informed & lower risk decision at that point to remove it or keep it, whatever makes the most sense.

The CB has always been a piñata for bad reviews. The Island as well now that I think about it. I shared the same concerns back in 2018 when I was first slated to sail her on a Western Caribbean itinerary, which tells you how far back this tradition goes. I had such a great time on that sailing that we came back to do the Eastern Caribbean the following year in literally the exact same cabin. I'm slated to sail on her on Halloween this year. Can't wait! Take reviews with a massive grain of salt.

Agreed. But also 100% is the poor optics, just pointing that out....clearly you're fine with that, but the flippant attitude and what appears to be indifference to short changing the crew is always going to leave a bad taste with most of your peers. It may meet some technical requirement, but in the practical world - that's the appearance.

Your outlook is just overly idealistic and regardless of how you slice up the terminology comes off as an excuse for you to spend less at the expense of the crew, not the cruise line. In theory I don't disagree with your outlook but it's not the reality in which we live. If someone can influence change on this, I'm on board...show me where to sign. Until then, to be flippant about disregarding/removing those charges, will not have a good look. Savings in this context is anything that you would have spent anyway. For the overwhelming majority of cruises, these charges fit that description and thus are 100% factored into this calculation.

Math doesn't lie. Guess if I were smarter I'd pay $100/day for the stuff I like to have on vacation rather than take my option to pay $60/day. That'll show 'em. Can't trick me.

It's crazy how dumb you assume the rest of the world is. It's really not hard to do the math on whether it's profitable to get a package or not...and it doesn't take anywhere near the 15 beverages in a day you implied was necessary to get there. The math.....$60/day. Let's say you don't use anything in the package except the included crew appreciation....no desserts, no classes, etc. Crew appreciation in the cheapest cabin category is $16/day. That leaves $44/day you need to cover just in alcohol. Let's ignore the fact that your bottled waters/soda/coffee would also count, and let's assume you're only drinking the cheapest beer on the ship. Coors light, nothing else, $6.25. Even doing that math, you need to drink 7.04 beers per day to break even. That example is the most extreme scenario I can come up with trying to make the package look as bad as possible in terms of how much you need to drink to break even. When you factor in the included wifi, soda/water/coffee, and the fact that most people are not just drinking the cheapest beer, the number of drinks required to get a positive return gets really small really quick. The math varies a little bit for each person since some don't use wifi, some don't consume much water/premium coffee, and the cost/drink varies heavily based on your preferences, but mathematically no one could possibly be worse than needing 7 cheap beers in a day...and that's an objectively unrealistic situation. For most that's more like 2-3 drinks/day...and it's not hard to figure out.

Answers in red.

Yes, they do adjust the base price to cover the cost of the new inclusion. I've done the math enough over the years though to say there's usually a nominal discount though. Using silly simple numbers, if A is $100 and B is $100 separately where total cost is $200 for both, and they run a promotion where A includes B, they'll increase price of A to $195. Nothing major but if you're going to buy the package anyway, it would be silly to turn down free money. I could see how it would be a pain if you were trying to avoid the package from the get-go. As for the need for plus package it's just math for everyone individually. What would I buy anyway? What's included? How well do those match up? None of us NEED any of the things they offer in these packages, but everyone knows themselves and not everyone who wants to drink on vacation is doing so because the cruise line duped them into thinking they need to....if we're going to buy them anyway, might as well take the cheaper option. I'm sure there are some completely uninformed passengers who are unknowingly and unnecessarily paying for things they'll never use, but I think that population is largely not here on cruise critic talking about this topic week in an week out lol

It's definitely a little larger than a standard queen. I always notice because I have a bit more elbow room when sailing vs when I'm sleeping in my queen bed at home. For a while it had me thinking my queen bed at home wasn't quite full size until I realized that no, the ship beds are just slightly larger.

I'm surprised to hear that pools aren't heated. Just off Discovery princess last month sailing to Mexican Riviera where the weather was relatively cool most of the trip (most days low to mid 60's and breezy). Around the main pools there were a lot of people sitting around loungers in long pants and hoodies with blankets but also people walking around in bathing suits and relatively full pools because the water was so warm. I was sure it was heated..but it's not like I verified this one way or the other.

I've had some mixed results with my PVP, but overall happy using their service. It's a slower process but less of a headache than calling customer service. Rarely are my cruise inquiries all that urgent that a few hours or even days makes much of a difference. He dinged my confidence once by basically disappearing for a period of time after saying he'd get back to me the next day and then ignored a couple follow-ups I sent over the next couple weeks, but he saved it just before I wrote him off and has been fine ever since. Still, after that, I've got my eyes on him and will not hesitate to go around him if I end up with a more time sensitive matter. I used to use a family member as a TA but she no longer does TA work. I figure next time I go to book on a different cruise line I may look into finding a new TA, but as long as it's Princess, for now I'm overall happy with my PVP.

Agreed with the other posts, you can definitely true up your price after booking. You do have to look closely and consider additional perks/promotions/inclusions in the different rates because you will be swapping those out for whatever is currently offered. Not sure who told you you can't make any changes now. You certainly can. As you point out you can just cancel and re-book, which is why they will let you just change the rate without going through all that song & dance. It would be an uncommon scenario that you wouldn't be allowed to adjust to the new rate. Whoever conveyed this to you either miscommunicated or misunderstood and ended up confusing Deposit for Final Payment. Life will definitely get more difficult to adjust your fare after final payment has been made, but should not be a problem at all with just a deposit down.

Glad you enjoyed your cruise! DW and I were booked on this cruise but due to scheduling issues ended up going on the 4/1 sailing. It was also our first Mexican Riviera, with previous experience entirely in the Caribbean/Bahamas. We enjoyed the experience overall immensely, and I'm sure someday will do it again for the sake of variety if nothing else, plus we have friends in LA that we visited in conjunction with the cruise, but we also realized that our preferred destination is definitely the Caribbean. All 3 ports were beautiful but if you're beach bums like us, the chilly pacific can't compete with the white sand & turquoise water of the Caribbean. Sounds like you chose well in terms of excursions with varied activities. DW and I tried a little too hard to make a Caribbean beach day happen at each stop, and it's not like you couldn't enjoy the beach, but it wasn't the optimal way to spend the whole day at any of those ports. Still, first world problems, what a beautiful part of the world. The ship is beautiful as well and still has that new ship smell.

Wow yeah I had no idea the dimensions were restricted on the CB. On the emerald and Crown they are standard mini suites no different from any other. I’m sure it’s only a matter of inches but enough to make the difference.

Interesting!!! Must be a matter of a few inches creating the difference between the CB and traditional grand class ships. Im aware of subtle differences between CB and other grand class ships but assumed Dolphin deck was unaffected. Add this to the list, I suppose! Thanks for the response & insight!!

As with most Mini Suites on the CB, I'm talking Dolphin deck...far aft, cabins D732 & D733 Any other mini suites yield the option for Bed Configurations of either either 2x Twin or Queen. For some reason these rooms specifically ONLY have the option of 2x Twin. I've come across this multiple times in attempting to book the CB. Every time I ask Princess about it the princess rep on the other end is as surprised as anyone that Queen isn't an option usually starting with "that's weird" and seemingly start with confidence that it must be a mistake they can overcome but inevitably end up steering me to another cabin and have never come back to explain why Queen beds are not an option. I've sailed on both the Crown and Emerald Princess which have identical Dolphin decks to the CB and stayed in D732 on both ships, Queen config no problem. Anyone ever run into this or know why these cabins specifically would only be configurable to 2x twin? It's a desirable cabin in the sense that it has an additional cut-out section on it's balcony for aesthetic reasons at the aft of the ship, resulting in basically a double sized balcony. Here's a photo from the Emerald where you can see the balcony extension. Where the hand-rail is mis-aligned and the solid half-wall starts is where the typical balcony would end with another divider. The rest is all bonus space. Pardon my cigarette, this was from 2010 when you could smoke on the balcony LOL

I saw the “scammed” topic. Thankfully those issues are fairly few and far between, I haven’t come across issues too often. Sorry you got so tangled up in it.

Interesting development…just got this out of office reply from my CVP. Pretty sure we’ve concluded that they do need to be involved in processing a booking to get “credit” (however you want to interpret that) for the booking. “I will be out of the office i will be onboard the Enchanted Princess until Monday May 1st.Please call my direct line at 1-800-901-1172and press 0 to be assisted by one of my support agents during my absence. It is critical to let my booking support staff know you have a cruise planner and to provide my name [redacted] as your planner when creating a new booking thru my support staff so i can retain the servicing ability for your booking ,Otherwise I will respond to your email upon my return, have a blessed day:)”

Delivered to the room? Yes. In person at the bar? No. Delivery to the pool area? No. There are some exceptions especially towards the end of the week if we've had a particularly good, consistent server/bar tender where we'll give them something extra for the week.

Doubles is definitely fine. Where the line gets a little blurry is ordering multiple drinks. I just sailed a couple weeks ago and was able to order multiple drinks seemingly anytime. Way less of an issue than it was back in the day where I would often be turned down or had to explain why I needed more than 1. I feel like with drink packages so much more prevalent with the new Plus/Premier setup, they're just not as worried about you sharing with people who don't have the drink package. One word of caution if you order drinks through the app on the phone.....My wife and I did this a lot - on the pool deck when the bars were busy or back in the room, we could order as many drinks as we wanted for delivery but we always used one phone so it was more efficient/one order. Definitely ended up with a few drinks charged to the room because we were too lopsided in ordering from one phone or the other and ended up putting that account over 15. If you do this....alternate which account you use each time.

Having read enough of that I just went ahead and cancelled my booking. Once it seems fully cleared I'll reach out to CVP and act like nothing had ever happened to create a new booking. It may not make a difference but there's more upside here than downside.

yeah I'm kind of the same way. I also don't think too much about bookings when I'm making them so far in advance, especially with FCD's in hand, so I just didn't think it through too much..

Yikes! I'm sure they're not supposed to do this and that explains the the CVP & OBC you were granted but it does seem insightful. Makes me consider cancelling my existing booking and re-booking with the CVP. Might not be able to un-ring that bell though.

Interesting. This kind of suggests the opposite of what others have said, in that it suggests it does make a difference booking directly through the CVP. Guess I’m still scratching my head a bit with peoples differing thoughts & experiences.

Thank you. That is very good to know. Just a courtesy. I've been in commission based roles before and all too well remember being shorted by technical details like this. Sounds like they get credit with Princess anyway so that's good; I'm glad someone here did know. Edit: I wouldn't hesitate to book through a 3rd party if the additional perks were attractive enough and I wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep...this is entirely within the confines of booking directly, website vs having the CVP process it.