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Most of the sailings are on the longer side and are exotic (South America, Trans-Pacific, Trans-Atlantic). The notable exceptions are some Caribbean cruises from Galveston, Partial Transit Panama Canal cruises, and a few Med/Trans Atlantic sailings this Fall on the Enchanted Princess. Ask to see the list of 50% off sailings that are outside of the 50 day mark. The Go Princess Department Manager had a segment on The Wake Show, which is how I found out. Didn't ask when this promotion ended.

Consider yourself lucky. The FCD and associated OBC aren't supposed to be combined with any cruise booked under the 50% off rates given onboard. Booked several cruises on different ships since ONE took over the onboard Future Cruise Department in January and started offering 50% off certain sailings. Every time I've been told that the 50% off offer is non-combinable with the FCD. It's fine with me because the rates I've been quoted under this promotion don't make me think twice. Yes, the OBC Princess offers on sailings is combinable and will be credited to your booking. Should have been more clear about that. Meant to refer to the OBC given by using a FCD.

Balconies, for example, on this sailing are showing $4198 pp, plus port. On board it would be $2099 pp, plus port. No OBC, though.

If you're referring to the 04/05/24 TA and British Isles cruise on the Regal Princess, this cruise is on the current 50% off list offered by Future Cruise onboard. Can't combine this offer with the Future Cruise Deposit OBC bounce back offer. Its $100 deposit while onboard, refundable depending on the category booked. It's 50% off the base price you see on the Princess website per person, plus port. The Princess Plus/Premium prices are also 50% off. Not sure when this offer expires.

I've noticed that on this year's Med itineraries, Princess stops in La Seyne/Toulon a lot. In the vicinity of Marseille/Provence, but not as much action.

Once you are onboard and connected to MedallionNet, OceanNow will be activated on the app. Aside from room service and drinks, you can order robes through OceanNow by pressing the Room Amenities option. You can also order a bucket of ice, extra hangers, extra towels, etc.

There's a misunderstanding here. All they need is your cabin number. What does your loyalty level have to do with anything? All that tells them is an approximation of how many cruises you've taken with Princess. Doesn't affect anything. Remember at Elite, you can't move any higher. I think that there is some confounding with the Princess Promotions reps that were making cold calls to customers earlier this year. That's not how Go Princess rolls. Of course they would love to sell you a promo package, but there is no obligation to purchase one of these and they're going to bring it up, it's part of their job.

The Go Princess person my group interacted with on the Majestic Princess last month (he was NOT the department head) was knowledgeable about all of this. He gave is us pricing and explained to us for "x" amount more, you can have a refundable deposit. He even bought out the enlarged ship deck plans to choose cabins before he knew we were booking guarantee cabins. Our Captain's Circle status was never mentioned once in our interaction. At end and after making our bookings, the Princess Promotions packages were brought up, but after saying we were aware of them and were not interested, we were let go with no hard feeling or pressure to listen to the spiel about them any further. Maybe it's an old school vs. new school mentality, but self service is the way of travel reservations. You can make a booking on the Princess website without ever having to talk to a person. Cruise lines have been behind in the trend in that passengers can't make significant changes to their reservations without human interaction with an agent. I'd certainly be open having kiosks onboard to make future cruise reservations so long as it would honor the discounted pricing offered onboard. In all honesty, all the Go Princess reps (and Future Cruise reps in the past) do is lift your data from the current booking into the new booking. The airlines have fully adopted self service, and if you're savvy with their apps you can be rebooked without having to wait in line for an agent during delays. It saves money and can save the passenger time if they know what they are doing. My personal preference but, I research itineraries on the Princess website and turn to social media and travel review websites to learn about the destinations before going to the Go Princess on board. Don't really need to be spoon fed too many details, just want to know the price. If the price isn't to my liking I walk away. Simple. Not sure what more people want with the Go Princess reps. It's their jobs to offer the Princess Promotions packages. You can't fault them for that; Princess is allowing them to by partnering with ONE. It would be different if they started to pressure people into buying these packages, but they aren't.

Cross your fingers that UK Border Patrol doesn't have the genius idea to hand screen all passengers disembarking. 😩 That became a problem for my relatives disembarking the Sky in Southampton earlier this year. Apparently not only did it back up debarkation, but also delayed embarkation because the ship couldn't get a zero fast enough. Would pad your air departure with more time. Princess recommends you book your return flight 7 hours after published arrival time into Southampton. Better that you wait for your flight because if all is on time, you're flight won't wait for you.

Single device plan is $15 per day ($7.50 per day for P&E). 4-device plan is $40 per day ($20 per day for P&E).

There's a requisite of understanding the product offered by Princess by being a current passenger. It's for the passenger to decide if taking another cruise with Princess is for them. The Go Princess team can lead them to water and give options but ultimately can't make them drink. They can present itineraries and give pricing. Not sure how much more they can do. From my experience they are fully capable and understand the booking engine when it comes to making new bookings. Given their job responsibility to make new onboard bookings and meet quotas, you can't really expect them to know how to service a booking with a complicated request. Time will tell if this was the correct decision for Princess management to switch. My CVP has stated to me the the Go Princess team has helped to fill ships once final payment has passed by offering 50% off cruise fares departing in 50 days or less. Sorry to the OP.

I understand that you have a unique situation. However, Princess most likely didn't have passengers like you in mind when they decided to make this switch. There is probably a very small percentage who cruise like you do and have as many future cruises as you do. The Go Princess! Team is there to make NEW bookings. Even prior to this change, I wouldn't expect Future Cruise rep to service an existing booking. They wouldn't be getting credit towards their quota by doing this. It's no different shoreside, when TAs and CVPs won't service a booking that isn't credited to them or their agency. You should find a Princess CVP will be highly responsive to your requests by e-mail. I have one of these and she is great. I transact with her almost exclusively through e-mail and don't really need to talk to her unless she's taking my CC info for final payment.

Bring seasickness medication, just in case. The waters off the coast of San Francisco are notorious for being choppy regardless of the time of year. On a Hawaii cruise on the Royal Princess this past January, we couldn't walk in a straight line for the first few days because of the ship's motion. Vomit bags were placed all around the ships and I saw many people making use. California's weather is becoming pretty unpredictable, which makes predicting the weather you will experience on the open Pacific unpredictable. After many years of drought and warm and dry winters, California got more than their fair share of rain this past winter. We weren't really able to make use of the outdoor space of the ship until we got closer to Hawaii because it was too windy and cold. Also, Hawaii cruises tend to be more casual. On formal nights, some men wear dress pants and aloha shirts; some women wear muumuus because that is considered formal wear in Hawaii. Enjoy the events offered by the Hawaii ambassadors. Their presentations piqued my attention and were quite fun. There's hula dancing and ukulele classes, lei making classes, and much more.

No reason to be disgruntled at the front line employees of Go Princess!. Regardless of the politics behind it, ultimately it was Princess management that chose to reorganize the Future Cruise Department. If a passenger doesn't want to support Go Princess! because of the politics of the change, there are other avenues of booking future cruises shoreside. I do see the potential of boosting future cruise sales because now there are more reps to serve passengers wanting to book future cruises. Prior, there was usually only one Future Cruise rep and if there was a line, most passengers didn't bother. As far as the Loyalty responsibilities being taken over, I haven't noticed a difference. There was a Captain's Circle Party with an open bar and the Most Travelled Luncheon still occurred. There is no obligation to attend either event, if invited; both are completely optional. Most will probably continue to attend. Captain's Circle Members can go to the Go Princess! desk to have their problems taken care of and it is open longer than the few hours a day the Captain's Circle Host desk ever was. It's no different than the current state of layoffs with U.S. tech companies. It's a strategic move, not a personal attack. At least the Princess employees affected were given a choice.

No problems with the GO Princess! reps on the Majestic Princess. They were able to book our cruise buddy in a single cabin on one of the cruises on their current 50% off list. The onboard pricing wiped out the single supplement. Wouldn't get worked up over the reps. It's a known issue for Princess to limit number of single cruisers on a given cruise. Princess changed their Future Cruise Department business model and these guys are only doing their jobs. They are no longer pushing these packages over the phone (Princess cruisers got mad at that) and are now pushing them onboard the ships. They are just doing what they were told to do. To be honest, they only mention the Princess Promotions at the end and it wasn't pushy, at least not for us. The option to decline is all there. As far as the FCDs, people should really stop using the paper forms. It a waste of paper and it just creates more work because someone else has to manually enter it in. It's one of the functions of the Medallion App that works. After, purchasing the FCD through the app, the confirmation e-mail populates your inbox in a matter of minutes.

The special events happen during the christening ceremony, not the inaugural cruise. Those that attend that this event are upper management and VIPs.

The closest airport to the World Cruise Port in San Pedro is Long Beach (LGB), if you can get a flight there. It's only 15 minutes by car with no traffic. If LGB isn't an option, LAX is still a better choice than SNA. SNA is further out and traffic in the morning on weekdays on the 405 of locals commuting to and from LA will make the trip longer. LAX is around 20 miles from San Pedro. SNA is around 35 miles. Again it's LA, so factor in bumper to bumper traffic on some portions of the freeway; rarely is it driving 65 mph on the freeway all the way to the destination.

The Canada Line is the quickest way to get from YVR to downtown Vancouver. Just note that there will be a lot of going up and down escalators/stairs and the elevators at the stations aren't the cleanest nor are they always operational. The Canada Line gets you to City Centre Station in about 20 minutes for C$9.45. A taxi from YVR will be C$34 flat rate per car anywhere south of Pender Street in Vancouver, and C$38 flat rate per car anywhere north or Pender street (Canada Place). A taxi might be more convenient, even if you had to hire 2, because of the convenience of the pick up and drop off. I did notice that there were some van taxis at YVR. The Holiday Inn is not the most centrally located hotel. If you can, you should find a hotel closer to the Vancouver City Centre Station or Waterfront Station. It's a short walk from this vicinity to the Canada Place. From where the Holiday Inn is located, it's more convenient to take a taxi to the Canada Place with luggage than to hop back onto the Canada Line. Some hotels, such as the Pan Pacific or The EXchange Hotel (both near the Waterfront Station), have last minute specials that pop up if they still have a lot of availability the week of your stay. Also, if you arrive at the Canada Place before 11:00 a.m., baggage drop off is on Level P2, not on Level CS. Have your taxi driver drop you off down at Level P2 or if walking to the Canada Place, take the elevators inside the Pan Pacific Hotel to Level P2.

I would have contingency plans with your employer in case the you cannot get connectivity. Also, workplace VPN logins don't work through MedallionNet. I always had to login into my work VPN while mooching off of wifi in port. Can't speak for Starlink or the Emerald, but was on the Royal Princess to Hawaii in January when MedallionNet was still serviced by SES, and the speeds were slow until we got closer to the California Coast or Hawaii. You won't have any problems with the messaging apps. Wifi calling is pretty good, but not foolproof. I had 2 calls drop out of 12 I made using this service.

Let the guarantee process play out. You might just end up finding yourself with an upgraded cabin. If you request a cabin be assigned now, it's game over.

Take 5 is usually pretty quiet in the mornings and early afternoons. Surprisingly, the Retreat Pool area on Deck 17 and the terrace area above it on Deck 18 were pretty quiet when I was on board this past April. This all depends on the crowd that will be joining you at the time that you will be using it.

"Still" or "flat" water is the term used for non-carbonated water in other parts of the world. It's because the carbonation in what American's know as a sparkling water, moves and agitates the water. On Princess, still water is the bottled water not from the ship's taps.

If you are on a Princess airport to port transfer it will depend on the transfer operator. I've experienced it where my large luggage was loaded on a box truck instead of the luggage hold of the coach. If this is the case then there's no way you can self carry on all of your luggage because you and your luggage won't arrive at the port at the same time. I think this is done to save gas on the coaches. If your all of you luggage goes with you on the coach, then you can wait for the driver/porters to unload the luggage from the coach, claim yours, and schlep it through the terminal.

It's normal for the deck and cabin number to show as "pending" in the app on embarkation day. Both populate with the correct information as soon as the first boarding group time passes. Highly unlikely that you were upgraded, but it could happen. This has been my experience on the app for all my cruises since the app has been launched.

On Grand Class ships, which the Diamond Princess is part of, only mini-suites and above have couches. Any category below mini suites will not have a couch, and will have the 3rd and 4th person berths as pullman beds from the ceiling. See article below for pics: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/diamond-princess-coronavirus-quarantine-cruise