minnesotasisu

are you sure this is free?

There used to be free saunas available but from what I understand they took that space and converted it into other spa services. 😞

We did receive the following reply from Princess customer service: Thank you for reaching out to us. We apologize for the difficulties you have had. When Onboard credit is purchased, either with a credit card or gift card, it will show on the Cruise Personalizer under the Onboard Services page and not under the Payments page where your promotional Onboard Credits are listed. Any OBC that you purchase and don’t use is refunded to you after the cruise via a check. OBC can be used pre cruise to pay for shore excursions. Once you are on the cruise, you can use it for anything except in the casino. It will show on your onboard folio as a credit and your daily charges will be subtracted from it. We were able to separate the 2 $500 credits on your February 21, 2024 Caribbean cruise so one is applied under your name and the other under your wife’s name. If you both register the same credit card for your onboard account, the two accounts will combine at the end of the cruises.

as @jwattle mentioned, it is an 8% discount plus the 1.5% from paying for it with our credit card... after awhile these things add up. The 8% alone equals $120 in cash we saved. Maybe you have so much money you don't even think about such things but us common folks do.

I think everything is now worked out. I did write an email to Princess customer relations and CC'd some VPs and the President to explain my issues with what I had been told when I redeemed my gift cards (they assured me they would show up on as OBC) and my frustrations with the conversations I had with the chat line and on the phone lines. I I also explained how I have always been one of PCL biggest cheerleaders and pointed them to the several website I created for the Princess Cruises we had sailed on hoping to attract our friends to join us (sample = https://sites.google.com/view/caribbean-cruise-2024/home ) Although I have not yet received a reply to my email, my gift cards amount do not show up under my OBC account but in the onboard services credit they do now show as "Onboard Credit" where I believe they were listed as Onboard Service Credit before. To test if this was truly OBC I booked about 4 excursions for both my wife and I and they were all paid for by OBC! In addition, I suspect PCL is trying to soothe my ruffled feathers because for our first cruise I noticed we have a $110 Ultimate Balcony Dinner booked for us on the first night of the cruise with a message of "Bon Voyage". We did not book this so I am assuming they (or a secret admirer) did it for us. This will be a bit of a strange balcony dinner since we have an interior room... but hey, I'm not turning it down. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and I will be writing a heartful thank you email to PCL for listening and responding to my concerns. My trust in Princess Cruise Line has returned, I am not sitting on the ledge any more, and we are eagerly looking forward to our upcoming cruises.

The person that told me about these gift cards actually purchased some and called Princess and used them to pay for their gratuities for her and her husband pre-cruise so they did it so I thought I would be able to also do it.

my gift cards do not show up under my onboard credit account. They show up under the onboard services account so that is where I am having the issue. I requested they be put under my OBC but they were not.

Thank you. I do hope you are correct. If so, then we should be fine and I can start backing away from the ledge I am standing on.

I am not going to be buying $1000 worth of goods or services onboard. There is nothing that interests me (spa, drinks, flower, etc) so that money is going to sit idle. Friends of our told us about these gift cards and she called Princess and they allowed the use of the gift cards to pay for her and her husbands crew appreciation. Princess would not allow me to do the same. I really want to cancel this cruise and be done with Princess but my wife tells me to settle down...

the thing is that they ONLY can be used for onboard services such as the spa, specialty restaurants, photos, flowers, etc. NONE of that stuff interests me. PLUS it is only in my name and they said only I can use it.

I have already redeemed the gift cards to Princess and they put them in an account that is used to pay for onboard services.

she shares the same last name and same source of payment. We did not use the gift cards to pay for the cruise. We were hoping to use them to pay for excursions, crew appreciation, and Wi-Fi.

so I was on the chat with Princess for over an hour this morning with no luck and tried calling them this afternoon to try and get this resolved. They would not allow me to transfer one of the $500 gift cards to my wife's name so she can use it. They also would not allow the gift cards to be used for crew appreciation, Wi-Fi, or to pay for excursions. The only thing I can to with them according to who I spoke to was using them for onboard services, such as the spa, specialty restaurants, etc. once onboard. There is no way I am going to spend $1000 on spa treatments, etc. Has anyone been able to use them as I had intended? I am fuming mad right now and feel the only way I may get this money back is to cancel the cruise which wouldn't take much of a nudge from me to do so. I may never cruise with Princess again if this can't be resolved.

Yes, now they tell me I can't use the gift cards for wifi or crew appreciation, etc. I have to use it for onboard services! there is NO way I am going to spend $1000 on onboard services on a cruise. My only resort to perhaps get my money back is to cancel the cruise which the way I am fuming right now feels about the right thing to do.

They did not allow our $250 stockholder OBC to be used to help pay for my wife's excursion payment. I had a LONG chat online and since the OBC is under my name it is only applied to my charges. What a crock.

I purchased three $500 Princess gift cards from AARP and for two upcoming cruises. I applied one of the $500 cards to the first cruise and two of the $500 gift cards to the second cruise (since it had more excursions). We were hoping to use this OBC to pay for excursions, crew incentives, and Wi-Fi but now I find out that since the gift cards were put under MY name in the sailing we can not use any of this OBC towards paying for my wife's excursions, crew incentives, and Wi-Fi !!! I tried to purchase some OBC for her using my OBC but it only allows you to buy OBC with a credit card. What a scam. Buyer beware!!!

this has proved to be very frustrating!!! I purchased two $500 AARP gift cards for Princess Cruises and applied them to my account in the hopes of using them for excursions, crew incentives, Wi-Fi, etc. BUT now I find that I can't use any of this $1000 to pay for my wife's excursions, crew incentives, Wi-Fi, etc because the gift cards were put on MY account name and not hers!!! I thought about buying her some OBC with my OBC either, that can only be purchased using a credit card. In addition, the $250 for stockholder OBC was only put on my account, not hers, even though it is a joint account. So now I have all this OBC that I might not be able to use and she has very little. I was on the chat line for over an hour trying to get this straight and that is what they told me. I am VERY frustrated by this whole ordeal.

We are not real experienced cruisers but we have noticed that the portions are smaller which is fine with us as there is normally more than enough to fill ourselves and we don't want to be rolled out of the dining room. It also produces less waste, which I'm sure happened a lot in the past. We also have noticed a slight drop in quality of the food, although while it is not terrible, it is not as good as it was pre-pandemic.

We want to use our OBC and in fact may purchase additional gift cards to put in our OBC account to help pay for them. However, yesterday when I tried to book an excursion it did not recognize that I had $250 of OBC from being a stockholder and wanted my credit card info to help pay for the additional charges that were not covered by OBC. I guess I am going to have to call Princess directly and book my excursions to make sure it is done how I want.

I don't recall how excursions are typically paid. We have some onboard credits applied to our upcoming cruises and it appears that when I add an excursion to the cart the payment is shown as "0" because they appear to be using our OBC for payment. However, I do recall that on previous cruises the excursions would show up on our daily journey account and were paid for at the time the excursion was done. Is that correct? If we have sufficient OBC in our account on the day of the excursion the payment for the excursion is taken from that OBC, and if there is not, it is charged to our credit card on file? Or are the excursions paid for at the time of booking them using OBC (if we have enough) or charged to our credit card on file? We anticipate having over $1000 of excursions charges for one of our upcoming cruises but will have $510 in OBC. I could add additional OBC using gift cards to pay for these excursions. Another question: I have a certain amount of OBC in my name and my wife has a smaller amount of OBC in her name due to the stockholder OBC being put under my name. When we book excursions using OBC are the accounts combined or is her payments for excursions take from her OBC and my payments taken from my OBC? Please sort this out for me! TIA

Thanks! I guess I forgot to look there!

I used "Fidelity" as that is what someone else said they used.

so where do you buy the internet onboard? At the customer desk or through the techies at the OceanMedallion help area? We are now Platinum level members so we get it for 50% off but the option to purchase it prior to the cruise does not seem to recognize this option.

I did go through those steps and my E*Trade firm was not listed so I did what others suggested and used another firm. Not sure if it will work or not

I tried the "new" method but I'm not sure it will work. I have two cruises booked for 2024 and no where did the app ask me about my specific cruises so how does it know how many I have booked? I also refuse to use "Plaid". There is NO way I am giving someone my account login and password information. That is way too risky. Can you imagine if an organization like that was hacked and hackers got ahold of everyone's login info? No thanks. I also submitted my info via the old method using email and got a response back saying they were switching over to this new app. What about the people who don't use apps? I told them if its not broke, don't fix it. If they can't use a method that I find reliable and safe I will just sell my CCL stock and be done with it.