SilentTraveller

I called Princess three months ago and tried to book the Royal Princess BVE for 12/29/13 and I was told that it was already fully booked. After doing some checking, I discovered the 90 day booking window so I phoned Princess back and asked why a BVE that couldn't yet be booked was already fully booked. After being put on hold for a long time, I was told that the original rep was wrong; it wasn't fully booked, it just wasn't open for booking yet. I have on my calendar exactly 90 days before 12/29/12, and I'm going to phone to see what I'm told then.

 

In the meantime, we actually booked three Royal Princess cruises sailing before 12/29/12, so I'm not certain we're still interested. Still, I'm curious (and even more now, in light of the OP's experience), and want to see what the real story is about Royal Princess BVEs.

You might want to try and schedule it next week. According to the current information posted on the BVE website, booking opens 120 days before the cruise.

https://book.princess.com/BookingSystem/jsp/home/ship_visit/BonVoyageExperience.jsp

MIght one politely inquire why anyone mistrusts the purity and taste of Princess' onboard water, which flows freely and for free? Or for that matter - and given numerous studies - trusts the purity of bottled water, much of which is simply repurposed tap water, plenty of which contains nasty contaminents? Why does anyone schlep water onboard, instead of doing your wallet and your environment a favor and carrying a refillable stainless steel water bottle?

 

I'm serious: why?

It might be the taste. For some strange reason I have a very refined palate when it comes to water. Very strange because even with numerous wine tastings I still can't tell the difference in the taste of wines - if I couldn't see the glass I probably couldn't tell from taste alone if it was a white or a red wine.

But with water I can tell you the brand of the water when I taste it. They all have a different flavor and some I like and some I don't - for example, I have never liked the taste of Evian! My BIL didn't believe me so he held a taste test and I correctly identified the three brands of bottled water and the tap water that he served to me.

Now with all the focus on conservation now I just take my Brita sports bottle with me. But even filtered I can still taste the difference between water from home and when traveling. I doubt too many bottled water drinkers see it this way. Maybe they just like buying as they go. Or maybe they are just sensitive and may not know why, just that "this water tastes funny" and so they go with bottled.