SCX22

Princess' hiding behind a curtain 3rd party statement regarding Park19 has been around since late last week. Still waiting for a statement or press release directed to the public and not 3rd party news sources regarding the abandonment of Park19 directly from Princess. They had an official press release for their Guinness Record for pizza eating, which wasn't news. Why not release one about this major development regarding their newest ship? Are they afraid of damage control? Too late for that. The entire launch of the Sun Princess was botched. I understand that an official statement or press release to the public doesn't change anything but own up to the mistake instead of hiding behind a curtain.

Considering how much extra money Princess is/will be potentially raking in on the Sanctuary Class fare, I don’t think they care. It’s a risk they are willing to take. I agree though that I’m not sure if the new Sanctuary Class will work on Royal Class ships. The Sanctuary areas are kind of small and I see more wanting to use this perk because of the ample shaded areas. I can tell you, for this concept to work on the Majestic, Princess would need to designate the Hollywood Conservatory as The Sanctuary, but as it is now, it’s open to all and no such area exists.

The Sanctuary on the Sphere Class ships don't seem very private and could potentially turn into a zoo. Princess, in their Sanctuary Collection press release, broke down the number of cabins available. In total, there are 215 Sanctuary Collection cabins, which means based on double occupancy, up to 430 passengers would be granted access. Yikes! That's besides that there doesn't appear to be many shady areas. At least on the ships prior there's a big awning.

Not sure that Princess has made it Dubrovnik post pandemic. Was there in 2012 and 2018 on Princess. In 2012, there was a Princess shuttle for $10 per person round trip. In 2018, the shuttles were free and were provided by the port authority.

Not sure why Princess insists on doing weekend sales. We all know that weekends are when Princess does general maintenance on their website and things don't work. Their CVP department and most TAs are also closed on weekends. The Excursions function on the Cruise Personalizer has been really glitchy as of recent. There was a time a few months ago that you to right click, and open each page in a new window to move forward with the steps. Maybe try that. I would keep on trying until the 23rd when the "sale" ends.

It is true.

Don't try and comprehend. It's something your generation will not understand. Times change whether we like it or not.

He only cares about the MedallionClass program. One of the reasons he should not have been promoted to head honcho. He might be an expert on technology, but not running a cruise line--and I use expert loosely.

Not sure what the rationale behind Princess' cabin management is. In the case of 2 cruises that have the ability to be booked as one, it seems like Princess is holding back cabins on the short segments and waiting to see which cabins aren't booked on the single long cruise. They then take the cabins that aren't booked on the single long cruise and assign it to those who booked guarantees on the short segments. Having said that we book guarantee. When we booked B2B Med and TA cruises as separate cruises and had the bookings linked, we were pleasantly surprised that we got assigned the same cabin for both segments. It was a an even more pleasant surprise because the Med segment was booked as in Interior guarantee and the TA segment was booked as a balcony guarantee; in reality we got an upgrade on the Med segment. Not sure if this is common. I'm sure the upgrade part isn't common, but not sure if the being assigned the same cabin is had we booked the same category cabin on both segments.

3rd party articles is how the current discussion came about. Still waiting for Princess to come clean and release a statement. Not sure why they thought a Guinness Record for pizza eating is newsworthy (it’s not) but not the abandonment of a much touted amenity on their newest ship isn’t.

I've noticed that the App carries 2 photos. There is the photo that you uploaded and is used as your profile pic which shows under the Profile tab and is visible to other passengers under Shipmates, cabin door, and ship portals. Then there is the Security Photo that shows under the Travel Checklist. This photo automatically shows the photo that ship security took of you and uploaded on their end. You technically don't have to upload a real photo of yourself on the App. I don't use a real photo as a Profile photo and nothing has been said. Security will take a photo of you for ship purposes (this is the photo that populates on the crew tablets and devices) and once you've cruised with Princess for the first time post App release the photo will remain in the Security Photo section until they take a new photo of you.

Princess has to try somehow. If they do drastic changes too fast, they risk alienating the old blood cruisers who will move on to other lines. I like prefer X myself, but Princess pricing is hard to beat and Princess offers 20 day or longer cruises that I’ve taken a liking to. It’s a moot point now. Park19 never materialized. Just goes to show what a circus show Princess upper management is at the moment. Between the delayed announcements of the cancellations of the first 2 inaugurals, the cabin category changes, and now this, they utterly botched the release of the Sun Princess.

It's just all perception and how much an individual values something that is not valuable. Believe me if it had true value, and Princess would not be giving it to you for free. They would go out of business.

The Elite cabin mini bar is hardly a drink. It just mini bottles of certain types of liquors. As for discounting drink packages out of Texas, that has nothing to do with loyalty.

Food is food. You already paid for it in the cruise fare. The buffet is usually open when the PE Lounge is open and the IC is always open. There's only one ship homeported in Galveston for only part of the year. If you can't wait for a few hours for a drink, I'd look into getting help for alcoholism.

Sailed on the Enchanted last October/November in Europe. At that time, I was told the ship let crew go because they weren't up to snuff, so the ship was understaffed, and their replacements weren't coming until the ship crossed the pond to Fort Lauderdale in December. Not good to hear a lot of staff is still just going through the motions.

The PES Lounge doesn't entitle those availing of drinks. It would make more sense to say that the PES Lounge doesn't add any loyalty benefits because the base cruise fare already includes food. The cabin mini bar benefit for Elites holds less value for Elites with packages because they already pre-paid for their drinks.

Nope. Anytime ShoreEx touches a shore excursion onboard it affects only your folio. For example, if an excursion you booked gets cancelled, it won't get credited back to you CC; it will be credited to your folio as REFUNDABLE OBC. If you don't use it before the end of your cruise, you will be mailed a check after finance settles your folio. ShoreEx can give you refundable OBC as a credit if the Shore Excursion you booked dropped in price once onboard. We booked a city tour of Cartagena on Panama Canal cruise this past January using non-refundable OBC. The tours weren't selling very well and they had too many time slots and not enough takers. The price onboard decreased $20 per person what we "paid" pre-cruise and ShoreEx refunded us the difference as refundable OBC.

Not sure what P&O's schtick about only allowing Brits onboard. Another weird thing about P&O my British friends have told me is that travel insurance with P&O is mandatory. If you don't purchase the travel insurance directly with P&O, you have to provide proof of 3rd party travel insurance covering a predetermined amount or you will be denied boarding.

Also remember that RCI and X are only 2 lines and their business are more a like than they are different. The difference is really only the demographic. CCL has many lines too many differing lines. If P&O were, for example, to have reciprocal benefits with the other lines, it would be beneficial to the Brits who can book Princess. It would not be beneficial to Americans because they really can't book P&O because there's only one agency has the rights to book Americans onto P&O.

It would not be a good idea for Princess to delay the Star in 2025. It's already delayed by a few months as it is. It has 2 Med cruises (a 10 and a 7 day) before the the Transatlantic. If they delay the inaugural, Princess will have to sail an TA empty to reposition her to the Caribbean. The cruising season in Europe ends at the end of October so it wouldn't make sense to keep the Star there into November and December. TAs are very hard to get to capacity as it is; there are usually several price drops before and after final payment. While cruises over Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to go full, cruises immediately before Thanksgiving and Christmas are hard to fill because people spending those holidays at home want to use that time to prep. I will say though that given that the Sun was such a cluster, I wouldn't be surprised.

Every other cruise line under the CCL umbrella leaves the cruise card at staterooms. Royal Caribbean does this as well. It's more efficient because the check-in agents aren't looking for a needle in haystack trying to find cruise cards at check-in. People board using a QR code the first time they embark. Princess has this capability because their App creates a Boarding Pass with a QR code and instructs people to have the QR code ready. Except in Princess' case, the Boarding Pass and QR code are completely superfluous because they are never used.

Don't sweat the QR code. No one will ever ask to see it check-in. Just show up with proper documentation and you will be allowed to check-in and board.

On a different note, I think this is a win for RCCL and X. It gives incentive for passengers to cruise the other brand. It's especially favorable for cruisers who move from RCCL to X because X cruises cost more which is more revenue. I do see it being a problem for CCL because Princess also counts cruise segments. Other brands under the CCL umbrella do not. We all know some people plot ways to move up with Captain's Circle. It was pretty evident in the thread about the loyalty acceleration thread.

I think you misunderstood the reciprocity that's currently being offered between RCCL and X loyalty programs. There is status matching, but you earn points with loyalty program of the cruise line sailed only. The loyalty programs are still separate entities and the points earned do not comingle in a combined loyalty program. The loyal programs were never combined.