B_A_H

I'm going on the Poesia April 5 from Santos. I'll be entering Brazil on April 4. The visa requirement starts on April 10, the day before I leave the country. My question was more about what happens when you enter pre-visa but depart afterward. This answer from the Brazilian government website covers us both.

3 and 4 night weekend cruises are rough on any cruise line. They are full of locals and, yes, they are party cruises from boarding until disembarkation. And they always sail 100% full because if they aren't filling the cruise lines offer "local rates." Because they are cheap, let's just say they attract an eclectic crowd. Miami's God awful and Orlando's only marginally better for weekend cruises. The 3 and 4 night midweek cruises are less raucous because people have to take off work but are still rougher than a 7 day which costs more and requires even more time away. As someone said above, choosing dates when families aren't traveling can help. I was on a 4 night Meraviglia that departed Orlando on a Sunday about a year ago. The ship was about 2/3 full. I saw groups of people drunk off their asses by 10:00AM every day making spectacles of themselves at the pool area. As a percentage, they were a minority and because the ship wasn't full those folks didn't wreck everyone else's experience.

First, no cruise line has to sell you a single cabin. As others mentioned, unless the cabin is purpose built for singles, one person sailing on a full ship where two people could have occupied the cabin is cutting the cruise line's onboard revenue in half. Second, MSC offers single discounts that can be quite generous. It depends on the sailing and how far in advance you book. I'm taking my MIL on the Seaside 10/1 7 day Caribbean and we have two balcony cabins that were $725 each plus port tax. BTW, that same sailing is now nearly fully booked and not accepting singles. So it's not outrageous that you can't book. You either picked an unavailable sailing or should have reserved earlier.

You folks are funny. Alfredo's serving less food to fewer people is nothing but good for Princess. Those boycotting, you choosing not to eat something that costs Princess money and would have historically been free to you is an expense savings to Princess. Having the venue less crowded and more available to those willing to pay (or with a package) seems like a good thing for those people. Sounds like a win-win for Princess.

That brings up an interesting question. What's the bigger issue to folks here: 1) that Princess changed their packages to include less at lower tiers and are charging a'la carte for things that used to be free?, or 2) that they didn't grandfather people in when they changed the packages? I ask because if Celebrity is saying All Inclusive is less inclusive starting for purchases after [insert date] that would be very different than saying for sailings beginning [insert date] even if someone's package included tips when they bought it. I'm guess it's the former because the latter is quite brazen. Although, they degraded Aqua Class with sailings effective [insert date] so I guess anything's possible. It's almost like the cruise lines have tasted blood and want more. They'll keep on squeezing until they see future bookings fall off. That happens on a delay so it'll be interesting what they do in response if they squeeze too hard. They are all riding high right now because travel is still chugging along and demand remains high. There are lots of dark economic clouds on the horizon though and if they cause demand to drop all of us aggrieved may have the last laugh after all.

Celebrity just removed features from Aqua Class including for people under final payment. As you'd imagine the thread in their forum has hit six pages in twelve hours. The e-mail they sent guests said: "We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or discomfort this might cause you." That's corporate speak for "because we can and you can go pound sand if you don't like it." These last minute degradations suck. But clearly demand is strong enough the cruise lines feel they can get away with it. If multiple cruise lines are doing the rest have no incentive not to follow.

Amen. Like you, I get the principle thing. What I don't get is futilely beating something to death that can't be changed. I 100% agree Princess not grandfathering people in to the new programs was overtly hostile. But like you said, if someone's at the point in their booking that they can't cancel without penalty, letting these changes ruin a several thousand dollar vacation seems counterintuitive. Princess will make the same amount of money whether someone sails happy or miserable. For those aggrieved, retribution comes in never booking Princess again. If enough of you walk the talk maybe it'll send a message. But honestly, if there's enough new blood to replace you, Princess won't care. They clearly didn't care when they made the decision not to grandfather anyone in the first place.

Nothing @caribill, absolutely nothing. Let me all give you some insight in to my cynicism. I work for one of the major hotel companies. I've lost track of the number of customer-unfriendly "enhancements" we've put in place since the pandemic. Each accompanying public communication is hollowly swathed in the benefit to the customer. Hard truth. There is no customer benefit. And the product and/or service degradation is solely to provide additional profit. Everything we degraded was then degraded by competitors. If a competitor degrading something first we quickly followed. The airlines, hotel companies, and cruise lines are coming out of a cycle in which they all lost billions. Demand has coming roaring back and they're recouping their losses. Maybe in a few years the dynamic will change as it has in past cycles. Then with less demand or too much supply suppliers will start offering benefits for competitive differentiation. That never works for long though because competitors match it. The good news is that the raising of the bar will benefit the market. Those of you harping on what customer service used to be like can just stop. It's gone, at least in the cycle we're in. This cycle is purely about money. And none of these customer-unfriendly decisions are made without clear knowledge of their negative impact to loyalty and customer service.

I posted this in the now 26 page long angst thread. It was one of the five options I provided the castle storming villagers with. "Send a letter or letters to various decision makers at Princess sharing your displeasure. You'll receive a placating letter or phone call from a customer service rep in return but they aren't going to do anything for you. If they did something for you they'd have to do it for everybody and by not grandfathering everyone in to the new program Princess has already spoken." Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Princess isn't backing down and everyone's thrashing amongst themselves isn't going to change a thing. There's nothing anyone can say in this thread that's any different than what was said ad nauseum in the 26 page thread. There's only one next step (other than acceptance) now that Princess's position is clear. Lawyer up. If you pursue an individual legal action prepare to pay the legal fees upfront as no lawyer would take this on contingency. If it ends up a class action lawyers will make millions and you'll receive a $50 future cruise credit three years from now. Here are the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Most here seem stuck in anger and bargaining. My recommendation is getting to acceptance as quickly as you can because short of legal action (which won't solve the short term problem anyway) this is over.

I'm taking my MIL on the Seaside in October and you made me feel better. I usually travel in YC. It sounds like you and I have similar viewpoints on people's behavior in public. What you described is about what I'm expecting. MSC Is weird because more than other cruise lines I've sailed the personality of an MSC cruise varies wildly depending on port of departure and length. I avoid MSC out of Miami and same thing for anything less than a week. I'm hoping October is tamer than your summer experience. More for my 82 year old MIL than for me. I did go on a 4 night Meraviglia out of Orlando in Aurea not that long ago and my reaction to the food was similar to yours. Good to hear that your food experience was positive. With all the new capacity, I sense MSC is actually trying to up their game where other cruise lines seem to constantly be looking for things to cut or to charge extra for. MSC has beautiful well maintained ships and if they just upgrade the food and experience they'd be able to price themselves much closer to their mainstream competitors. Personally, I'd be willing to pay them more if it cut back on the people-who've-never-worn-shoes crowd. I'm glad your family enjoyed the cruise.

I actually find this thread immensely entertaining. I hope the merry marauders on this forum achieve whatever their goal is. However, I'd peg the odds of a grass roots uprising causing Princess to reverse their decision to be about the same as winning Powerball and here's why. Princess knew not grandfathering people in to the new packages would piss untold people off and did it anyway. The negative reaction being witnessed here is an anticipated byproduct of their decision. Does anyone truly believe Princess is so naïve they didn't anticipate backlash? I think we can all agree on one thing. Princess put money over goodwill. Heck, they even threw their own staff under the bus by forcing them to explain to "previous package" purchasers face-to-face that the free pizza they thought they were getting isn't free any longer. The villagers with pitchforks and torches will then take out their ire on the poor Filipino servers who had nothing to do with the decision and are victims themselves. Apparently, Princess isn't the benevolent God we thought they were. Your anger isn't with me, it's with Princess because they consciously made a customer unfriendly decision and there's nothing anyone here can do about it. I think it's that powerlessness that has people so upset. One parting comment. I browse the forums here for all the major cruise lines from time to time. There isn't a single one of them that isn't lit up because of customer-unfriendly decisions that are being made in the name of profit. As long as the economy remains robust and demand remains high things are going to get worse before they get better and the cruise lines will only become increasingly brazen.

I booked two Bella guarantee balconies on the Seaside for October a couple of months ago. It was two separate reservations and I was assigned two Fantastica balconies near each other within 24 hours. If you booked directly with MSC, every time there's a change to your booking, whether you do it or they do it, it'll automatically send you an e-mail. If you booked via a travel agency they'll receive the e-mail and hopefully forward it to you. Mine didn't and I found out by seeing the cabins on the reservations on the website.

So you're opting for option 5 I see. My comments were meant to be general and just highlighting the futility of a bunch of people in a forum beating each other and Princess up by restating the same grievances over and over for 25 pages when the outcome is already foregone. Carry on.

Princess is going to do whatever they want with or without your and my feedback. Since you're determined not to let go, here are your choices: Send a letter or letters to various decision makers at Princess sharing your displeasure. You'll receive a placating letter or phone call from a customer service rep in return but they aren't going to do anything for you. If they did something for you they'd have to do it for everybody and by not grandfathering everyone in to the new program Princess has already spoken. Hire an attorney and either singularly or as part of a class sue Princess for misrepresentation. No self-respecting attorney would take this on contingency as an individual case and the amount you'd have to front makes the very idea preposterous vs. your claimed harm. If somehow this ended up a class action and Princess settled the attorneys would get millions and each of the class would receive enough for a DiGiorno frozen pizza. Ask Princess to cancel your reservation without penalty due to you feeling they changed the value equation of what you purchased. Has anyone actually tried this? I'd be curious as to Princess's position. Them refusing could add support for item #2 for those that want to go that way. Suck it up and move on. Enjoy whatever cruise or cruises you have already have booked and don't let the marginal cost of the changes affect your vacation. Then, vote with your wallet moving forward and don't book Princess again. If more people follow that course then Princess's ability to replace them with new blood that more than anything would get Princess's attention. Continue ranting and raving amongst yourselves here for another 23 pages which won't change anything.

Of course you do. That would be pretty crappy. I'll withhold judgement on drinking between 10-15 drinks per day. 😉 But you have three choices: 1) wear your grievance as a badge of honor, 2) accept what happened and move on, or 3) knowing Princess's behavior leaves you vulnerable to a change like that choose not to book with them. In general, when you look at the total cost of a cruise vacation these days, paying the nominal amounts for what used to be be free adds single digit percentages to the total cost. Is it right or fair? No. Can anyone whose run this thread to 23 pages change that? Also no. There's an old saying. "Would you rather be right or rather be happy?" I wouldn't let these changes ruin my cruise nor harbor bitter resentment because they occurred. YMMV.