rheathslc

Just now, Tedferg said:

I see the coffees and water only come with the higher package.

Do you mean with NCL or with Princess? 

Per the info on princess.com Plus will still include specialty coffee, tea, smoothies, and bottled water and Premier will include everything Plus does with the higher price limit on alcohol.

Just now, Tedferg said:

I don't think 'Sharing' was as prevalent as people think. Can some confirm, if there was a time limit before you can order a second drink.

I think you're probably right. It's more of a situation of all of us having to pay the price for a few people who were always going to bend/break the rules.

When I was onboard in October and November I could and often did place back to back orders through the app or my stateroom TV. I never experience any kind of time limit.

14 minutes ago, ceilidh1 said:

I would be less complainy if I could get a lower price option for my kids who CAN"T drink alcohol. Lol. 

They really should have a lower priced options for Plus for anyone under the legal drinking age. Even with the Camp Discovery kids clubs, Princess isn't really about catering to kiddos and their families. They pretend they are but they really aren't. I don't have kids but I do have nieces and nephews and if I wanted to take them on a cruise I would choose a different line tbh. Even though I personally LOVE Princess.

5 minutes ago, Coffeeluvr05 said:

I think I would feel less complainey about all of this if I could opt to purchase it for myself and not my husband (either Plus or the stupid "Premier").  Or offer a non-alcohol version of both packages for the individuals who do not drink.  Believe it or not, Princess, not everyone in the same cabin wants the same thing and isn't just wanting to opt out of the purchase to cheat the system and share a package! 

 

I can only imagine how confusing this is going to be for the servers.  I imagine getting lots of Premier drinks even if I have the Plus package in the beginning of this 😁

I get that and I think the reason they do this is to fix the potential problem of people sharing drinks with someone who doesn't have the package. 

I hope it won't affect the servers but I know some people take out their frustration on the server even though it's totally out of their control. Everything is done with the medallion now and the charges and who gets what is based on what information is in their system for each guest. It very well might present issues for passenger services though if they don't get all the information straight in the system and lots of people are complaining about thier folio charges being wrong. I for one will be waiting to see how things go after June 25th. I hope it'll be a smooth transition. 

2 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

It's Premier, BTW.

I've been spelling it wrong too. Haha!

Premier = top, leading, foremost

Premiere = a first performance

5 minutes ago, thundercleese said:

You wouldn't pay the whole cost though, only the difference in price.

You're absolutely right. I got that wrong in my calculations. I still think it's a good value for my style of cruising and what I usually spend money on anyway. 🙂

Now we just have to wait and see if the drink prices increase and make some or even a majority of the drinks previously included at the $12 level only available at the $18 level going forward. That would for sure be a rotten thing for Princess to do. But several lines are increasing their prices right now so I guess we'll see what happens.

1 hour ago, Tedferg said:

I also think $50 for Plus pushes it out of my value range.

Plus covers:

the daily gratuity - roughly $15 per day

wifi - let's call this only $5 per day value because I'm platinum and get a 50% discount.

With those taken into account the "cost" of the drinks package on the new plus is $30 per day vs. about $70 (inc service charge) if you buy the drinks package by itself.

For someone who doesn't drink wine or cocktails or the specialty coffee it's probably not a good value. But if I wasn't doing Princess Plus I would need to pay a la cart for all the inclusions that I want. And even at the $70ish per day including service charge for the stand along drinks package it's still a good deal for me. Between lattes at breakfast, espresso after dinner (decaf these days but sill), a few cocktails by the pool, and wine with dinner I easily rack up more than that each day.

So for me $50/day is still way better than the $90/day I would spend a la cart.

And I know a lot of people remove the gratuities which you cannot do if you book with Princess Plus. So for those people it's also for sure not as good a value.  Having worked in the cruise industry and the hospitality and food service industry more generally, I know how important gratuities are and would never remove or reduce them. That's just my stance. I get that there are a lot of strong opinions about gratuities. To each their own.

28 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Please explain your logic. Which more expensive drinks would you choose? Also, you could pay $60 for two specialty dinners, how is $25 per day a bargain? Not trying to be a smartass, I am just amazed at how little benefit there is to me for 50% over Plus. I also think $50 for Plus pushes it out of my value range.

Well, I like nice wine and champagne and have mostly avoided getting the ones I like that were over the $12 limit in the past except for 1 or 2 times each cruise if we're celebrating something so I'm happy to have the $18 limit. If I order just two of the higher priced drinks that I would normally have to pay the whole cost of, it basically pays for itself. And we already uprgade to the 4 device wi-fi. Usually just one of us, but still. I also do like to get photos. I'm sentimental and like the cheesy on board photos. It's more of a value on shorter cruises for sure. We're on two B2B 5-day cruises in September. I did the math. For an extra $250 total for one 5-day cruise ($25 x 5 days x 2 people) we would be getting a value of $231 ($29x4 for specialty dinning, roughly $90 for the photos, and $25 for the wifi plan since I'm platinum and get the 50% discount on the upgrade - I only counted the value of one 4 device upgrade since we certainly don't need 8 devices and would not pay a la cart for it) not including the drinks. The for that extra $19 I get to order the more expensive wines and champagnes I like. 

On the Facebook post announcing this new tier Princess has responded to people and said they are not increasing the price of beverages on board. Now maybe they aren't being honest but we'll have to wait and see on that. If they DO increase prices and many of the items that were previously available at the $12 limit aren't anymore, that would be pretty lame. 

If you don't want pictures and don't upgrade wifi and don't drink several higher priced drinks I get that it isn't a value. These are things I would pay for anyway so it is a value to me.

And if I were on a tighter budget I wouldn't upgrade. But we only get two weeks of vacation per year and I like to splurge. Whether at sea or on land. And splurging on a cruise is way more affordable than most of our other vacations. 

🙂

17 minutes ago, jimmieg said:

As they price the package at $75, I wonder if the they will change $25 or $35 for upgrading old package? As so much is unclear, remains to be seen what they will do.

I asked today and was told that anyone who currently has a booking for a cruise departing June 25th or later with the original Princess Plus at $40 can upgrade for $25pp/day. It's in writing on the fb post. Not super official I know. I but I will use that as proof if anyone tries charging me $35 to upgrade.

10 hours ago, dreaminofcruisin said:

• Princess Plus ($40 per person, per day until May 25; $50 per person, per day starting May 25) – including unlimited WiFi for a single device; Plus Beverage package (covering drinks up to $12, 25 percent off bottles of wine, specialty coffees, smoothies and bottled water); and daily crew appreciation

The highlighted phrase is a little disturbing. Sooooo...does this mean that bottled water, smoothies and specialty coffees are NOT included? Just a 25% discount?

☹️

Specialty coffee, fountain sodas, smoothies, and the small bottled waters are still explicitly included. If you read the info on princess.com it is pretty clear. 

Well apparently I'm in the minority here but I really like this new tier and will be upgrading my two B2B 5-Day cruises in September to the Premier package which Princess confirmed that we can do for $25pp/day once it's available. And since we're on the Plus package currently at the $40 price the total for the Premier will be $65pp/day instead of the full $75.

We drink enough coffee and alcoholic beverages, each use at least 2 devices, and book specialty dining on each cruise that it makes the Premier package a good deal, especially on shorter cruises. On the longer ones it might not be as good of a deal given that some of the benefits are fixed no matter how long the cruise is.

And for us a $10/day increase in the Plus tier isn't the end of the world. $50pp/day is still a good deal when you add up all the inclusions.

Just my take. 🙂

5 minutes ago, arizonaperson said:

And the ships that have Skywalkers  ,great view from up there while enjoying our appetizers and drinks .

When we were on the Ruby in November the Platinum/Elite/Suite lounge was actually in Skywalkers in the evenings as opposed to Club Fusion. It was nice. 🙂

2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I like your figures better as it did seem there was 30’ of space on each side of the ship. But then I never was at a vantage point where I could actually see the gap on each side. 

I got mine from CruiseDeckPlans so I don't know how accurate that is. 

1 minute ago, GonzoWCS said:

If you get a chance read Path Between the Seas.  It is a fantastic book.  I read it as we sailed to and through the Panama Canal our first time.

 

Cheers

Just used this month's Audible credit to get this one. Thanks for the recommendation! I am currently listening to Atlantic and just finished Pacific both by Simon Winchester who is one of my favorite non-fiction writers so this will be a perfect complement.

3 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

From these figures it doesn’t appear the CB would fit in the old locks, but would definitely fit quite comfortably in the new ones that are 180 feet wide. 

The Island and Coral were built to Panamax specs for the old locks and are smaller than the Grand Class ships so CB does not fit through the old locks. 

4 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

The new locks are 180 ft wide. If you could look up how wide the CB is that should give you a good feeling for how tight it really was.

looks like the Beam (widest point at the nominal water line per wikipedia) on this ship is 159ft

6 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If you look to the right you will see the entry to the original French attempt to build a canal through Panama, which eventually failed before the US bought the rights to build it. 

That's so fascinating! I had no idea that had happened.

Thank you all for posting the photos and Bridge Cam shots! I'm following along with the Bridge Cam on the Princess website as well. 🙂 I can't wait to do a full-transit cruise next year!

15 hours ago, marcruiser said:

What is the Enclave that someone referred to.  Is it on the new Discovery?  What is different between the Enclave and the Sanctuary?  Are they both on the Discovery?  Thank you.

Bottom line: 

Enclave is an indoor thermal suite connected to the Lotus Spa and the Sanctuary is a top deck, outdoor (with some covered areas) upscale lounge area. Both are adults only and cost extra. 🙂

15 hours ago, marcruiser said:

What is the Enclave that someone referred to.  Is it on the new Discovery?  What is different between the Enclave and the Sanctuary?  Are they both on the Discovery?  Thank you.

The Enclave is the name of the Thermal Suite on all 6 of the Royal Class ships. The Enclave and whole Lotus spa are now on the Plaza deck on the newer ships and the Enclave has the hydrotherapy pool which the original thermal suites on the older ships do not have. 

The Sanctuary is on the top deck and all the way forward on most ships (except Island and Coral). 

They are separate spaces and both have an extra fee for use. The Enclave can be booked in advance on the cruise personalizer for a full cruise pass for a single person or for a couple (used it with my mom - can be any two people over 18). The Sanctuary is only able to be booked on board and can be booked for a half day ($20pp), full day ($40pp) or for the full cruise for $30pp per day.

On 4/28/2022 at 10:39 AM, Tug10 said:

We sail this Saturday and up until now the medallion app was kind of working fine for us as we were able to get our dining options we wanted, upload our passport info & photos and we had selected our embarkation time - we had Group A so the first available time slot.

All was good yesterday but checking it again today our embarkation slot has disappeared along with the QR code - the only available embarkation slot left was the very last option.

The issue we have is that we have pre-booked our travel arrangements to get to the port for the early embarkation time slot we originally had and this cannot be amended.

I am Elite and so would usually get priority boarding and don’t want to be sat around for hours on end after getting dropped off earlier due to our slot that disappeared.

Has anyone else had this issue or know whether we can maybe still board early?

It's possible they changed this since I last sailed in Nov 2021 but Elite, Platinum and Suite guests did still get priority boarding and no one was checking what group the app said you were in at all. On my October cruise out of LA it was the first cruise out of that terminal since the restart and it was pure chaos. Many Elite passengers were left waiting confusedly because no one could hear the ladies announcing when certain groups could board. They weren't even letting anyone approach the check in stations or use the rows and rows of seats that were for waiting for your group after the main check in. Once they FINALLY let us check in it was just straight through check-in and up the stairs onto the ship. I tried to help anybody around me that I could tell wasn't hearing the announcements. They had a whole Elite/Platinum/Suite lounge area set up that no one even used because of how disorganized everything was. However, in November out of San Francisco it was very smooth and orderly and we were passengers number 7 or 8 on board after being very first in line to get in the building when they finally opened up.

11 minutes ago, atexsix said:

Is anybody using a tablet for Medallion?  If so, are you having any problems?  I'm thinking about it as an alternative to my phone, but I don't wanna open up a new can of worms.

My partner used his Samsung Galaxy S10+ Tablet with no issues on our 5-day cruise on the Ruby in Nov 2021

3 hours ago, JF - retired RRT said:

When we did the Tahiti cruise on the Crown several years ago...the "secret" was out. It was literally standing room only. ALL of the loungers and the bleacher typ seating for all day every day. We gave up and used the hot tub above Adagio (the current deck plan looks like that's now part of the kid's club?).

I really like that hot tub at the back. It's still accessible and we found it was almost never in use (at least that was the case on the Ruby in Nov 2021) And it also seemed to stay hotter than than others in the main pools areas. It was across from the section they keep closed off and locked for the kids club but still accessible. There were very few young people on board though and only teens as it was a before the vaccines were approved for younger kiddos.

5 minutes ago, rheathslc said:

On 3/31/2022 at 10:50 PM, OzKiwiJJ said:

Yes, it is an extra charge. We had a look around it on embarkation day when we did a Sydney to Tokyo repositioning cruise on Diamond in 2018. Nice pools but not hot enough for me so I didn't bother trying it out. As far as I can recall most of the sessions are bathing suits required but they did offer one or two sessions a day in the more traditional Japanese manner - ie segregated nude bathing. 

 

Diamond regularly cruises out of Japan and I imagine it would be very popular there.

Expand  

Did you happen to note what the charge per session was?

NVM - just found a video that covers the cost. 🙂

On 3/31/2022 at 5:34 PM, sunsetme said:

Booked for a cruise in November and have just discovered this. Has anyone experienced it? Is there an extra charge for it?

We just booked on the Diamond for my 40th bday in September and I'm super excited. I've wanted to try the Izumi bath since I first heard about it. There is a video I found on youtube with more info.