PMGS247

I've been working occasionally with a CVP for help on some of my cruise bookings, adjusting bookings/finding specific cabins, etc. It's fairly new to me though. Not sure how it all works, but he's been very helpful on a couple recent bookings. After a recent cruise where I refreshed our stock of Future Cruise Deposits I was just online recently browsing next year's options and without giving it much thought applied one of the FCD's to a likely candidate for a cruise next May. It's kind of a placeholder just to get something on the books, lock in an early price, and allow browsing excursions, but it's early and plans are loose, it's very possible that I cancel or completely change it so I didn't think too much of it until I thought..... Am I neglecting my vacation planner guy by booking online like that? Am I costing him any sort of commission by doing it that way?

Good to hear! I thought I remembered better internet on past princess cruises. I just got off the discovery and the internet was terrible. I expected more being the latest & greatest in the fleet but was not the case. Perhaps just splitting the same bandwidth on that many more people. It was completely sold out plus spring break kids, to be fair.

This is the most accurate statement ever made on this site.

Enjoy your day in Cozumel! I'll be on the CB in October. Sailed her twice before back in 2018/2019, western/eastern, respectively. Random questions.. Are you getting off the ship in Belize? What's the current production show(s)? I often read that the CB shows her age, anything in particular stand out being on board?

I don't think so...I think the best place to see it was in the travel summary that you access alongside luggage tags on the website.

Nope. YMMV depending on the ship. I feel like I've had better internet experiences on past cruises but I had higher expectations with Discovery being the newest ship in the fleet. One would think that would yield the latest & greatest but it was not the case.

Fresh off the Discovery. I did notice a small amount of the blue covers but it was a VERY small amount and not necessarily in any particularly desirable location. The only specific location I remember was the very last/top row of seats on the sides. I suppose those are desirable in the sense that no one's behind you (other than the few handicapped seats) and it's an easy exit, but if you're envisioning them blocking some sort of dead center/scientifically perfect combination of distance/elevation and/or prime front row seats, that's not the case. Seems a pretty thin window between when comparable seating is readily available and when the covers lift and it's no longer reserved. Doesn't seem a huge benefit. I've had the same benefit on Royal under The Key program. I feel like it was a little more noticeable there just because more of the shows were a "hot ticket" and the reserved seating was more clearly the most desirable seats in addition to being held until just before show time in a venue that fills up much faster.

Just got off Discovery Princess, had Plus. TLDR: Definitely got my money's worth, but that's not without some small gripes. Gratuities - once you take this out of the cost the package it doesn't take a whole lot of alcohol/coffee/juices to cover the remainder. Wifi - This is a great inclusion in the package because I'd definitely buy it separately if it weren't included. Having said that, it is downright atrocious. I figured out a couple days into the cruise that the network was losing track of my phone, which is to say it would suddenly not recognize my phone and treat it as an additional device. Since I only had 1 device included the wifi wouldn't work other than the medallion app. To fix this I just had to go into the app, go to medallionnet, and click the "swap" button to take over as the active device. I say all this to point out that even at it's absolute best when 2/3 of the pax are not on board because you're at a port, it still runs VERY slow...it's almost insulting to jump through hoops just to scrape out what was really really slow internet even at its fastest. It's still a good inclusion in the package though.....I would buy it again even knowing its bad. Good for anyone who can disconnect for the entire week or live entirely on wifi found at ports, but that's not me. Drink quality - My wife is the coffee drinker and more regular wine drinker. She was underwhelmed by both. Not terrible, checked the box for the occasion, but "meh" is a good word, especially the coffee. I laughed when she was so thrilled with the iced latte she got at the coffee shop in LAX before our flight home...it was clearly a huge relief after mediocre versions all week. Described the Princess ones as too sweet. She did enjoy the wine on board more than the coffee. For me the Americano I got each morning was quite enjoyable....I'm sure compared to a legit coffee house making a real Americano it was underwhelming but compared to my usual K-cup and powdered creamer, it was a nice upgrade every morning. As for alcohol the cocktails did always feel very weak. I must have a strong hand at home...just about knocked my own socks off first drink I made after the cruise after drinking theirs all week. I also enjoy a good beer but that's a never ending cruise gripe; it's just not a good vacation style if you're looking for interesting beers. The weak drinks and lack of good beer choices are problems as old as time, but as true as ever. Most frustrating part was the one or two semi-interesting beers were usually out of stock at whatever bar you were at. We did have a couple drinks charged to the room...I do wonder if we got screwed a little by overusing one or the other of our phones to put in drink orders resulting in a lopsided drink count for one of us. There's no way either of us hit 15 on any given day but whenever we ordered drinks we would do it on one phone to be efficient. Premium Desserts - we were able to just get two scoops of Gelato and they didn't show up on our room charges. The premium desserts looked completely over the top...we knew we were risking getting charged but it wasn't worth worrying too much about.

That stinks! Hopefully a one-off inventory issue and not an indication of a larger scale change.

Love the CB! Sailed on her twice and currently booked to sail her again in November. I won't repeat all the things that have been said above and generally agree with all of them....I'll add that I actually like the MUTS setup better on the CB than on the Royal class. While the royal class has the screen looming over 2 pools and a vast open space and an upper level down the sides, it's almost stadium style seating on the CB, with a few levels of lounge chairs and if you're further back you're higher up. Creates more of a theatre feel. There is a second large pool on the lido deck just aft or just forward of this one (I simply forget lol), which has the band stage looming over it rather than the MUTS screen. Picture is of Emerald, but same design on CB.

Don't forget to mention that anyone who drinks enough to warrant the beverage package is a degenerate alcoholic.

Just had a bit of PTSD reading this! 🤣

You'll find the boarding times are even more loose than the cabin ready time. The number of people who will report accounts of princess even glancing at your assigned boarding time are slim to none. For cabins, as Jimmy said, 1 is definitely all clear but if someone said 12:30 I'd take the under. They're pretty good about letting you in as soon as they can.

My lingering question…I have no idea when rate changes occurred. Not sure where I stand. My wife correctly pointed out that we don’t go for dessert very often so if we just want gelato we can roll our eyes and pay the small surcharge and then move on with life, but it’s the principle of the thing lol

Agreed, at least in my experience. The IC donuts always looked appealing but disappointing taste...for me this goes back well before covid and is same now.

When was this date? I'm with you and everyone else here...I just want a scoop of gelato. The full premium desserts look like a lot.

Since the tips from the drink package are set in stone from the outset, and I am someone who gets a lot of mileage out of my package, I occasionally throw in a little more, especially if drinks are delivered to me. The math used to be clearer when the packages were $60/day, they always tacked on the $10.80 in gratuities. Considering the volume that I used the package, I had to decide whether $10.80 was sufficient in tips for each day. Now with the package buried in with Plus/Premium it's not quite as black and white and I don't know how much the crew gets exactly from the beverage portion of the package. I continue to operate under the original $10.80 assumption and add occasional tips or not depending on how much I'm using the package that day/sailing. I know the real cost of the package varied a little bit from that over time, but same concept and not a big difference in the 18% tip amount.

Yeah I guess those variables can shift. DW and I always do mini suites so it is $18/day, but I didn’t realize platinum got discounted wifi (lol I guess I’ve been buying the package for a while). Still, $27 vs ~$35 doesn’t move the needle much. One drink.

There is a lot of noise in there....personally I will get zero usage out of the classes or juice bar, and will probably get minimal usage out of the desserts. Maybe 2-3 over the course of the cruise..2/day is excessive. Having said that when I assess the value I just ignore the stuff I won't use. Someone else did the math nicely though and pointed out 1 device Wi-Fi is $15 / day, crew appreciation $18/day. Just those two alone covers $33 of the $60 plus package cost. That leaves the beverage package for $27/day. That's pretty low. I don't know that there's a lot left to squeeze out of that. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to hear they did that, but it's a slam-dunk for a lot of people as-is, even completely ignoring the [largely useless] new stuff.

Above all else of course it's annoying. Also agreed with the person who called out that a half hour really isn't enough....pool time can easily stretch beyond 30 mins. Having said that, in practice, it's 30 mins from the time anyone notices/reports that the chair seems abandoned, so it seems to work OK. On the other hand, people who get triggered by it and go full Karen in their pursuit of justice...whether being a thorn in the side of the crew or directly confronting the original offender are somewhat hilarious. Having said that, I have to be thankful for these Karens that are willing to care enough about it to let it ruin their good time....if they weren't so vocal and annoying, the problem of chair hogging would absolutely be much worse than it is. These Karens do serve a valuable role as a deterrent.

I mean you did the math and asked the question that only you can answer for you. We could probably fine tune / nitpick the math and tweak this slightly but you reached the conclusion that you need 3-4 beverages per day to justify it and that's got to be close enough to be a good rule of thumb. My take....If you even feel like you're going to hit 2-3 per day, you're probably close enough to justify it. It's a pretty good deal...historically beverage packages usually took more like 6-8 drinks to break even.

wow I didn’t know that trick but it worked nicely! Looks like they use it a lot. That’s a good sign.

Sounds like she needs to go in for some sort of repairs. Someone couldn't even bother finishing editing the boiler plate to get rid of the "exciting". Whatever is being repaired might be "routine" but it certainly wasn't planned if they're cancelling sailings and throwing money at people to bring it in outside of standard dry-dock schedule. The reimbursement offers smell very much like covid cancellation offers which I'm all too familiar with. Fair offers though...hope you can make good use of it!

Wondering if anyone can provide insight into the movie screens on top deck of the voyager class. DW and I are a huge fan of watching movies on the big screen by the pool on a cruise ship. Having said that after our experience on other cruise lines we were disappointed in the on-board Movie experience on our only sailing with RCI - Oasis of the Seas. As much as we loved the shows in the aqua theatre, we found movies didn't work very well there, for various reasons. Looking at pictures of Mariner/Adventure of the Seas, the top deck movie screens seem a bit more traditional to what we've grown to love on other cruise lines so I'm curious others thoughts, especially if you've got experience with movies on other lines. How's the sound quality & volume? How often are movies shown & at what times of day? Any insight is greatly appreciated!

yeah same is true for platinum so I don't know why any of us bother with it but I'm somewhat obsessive about making sure I've got everything 100% filled out and compliant well in advance so I still go in and grab an arrival group even though I know I'm going to ignore it.