keldaria

5 hours ago, paradiseprincess said:

I would agree that this is an attempt to push sanctuary guests to opt for specialty dining and the premier package. It has eroded my sense of value as a loyal passenger.

 

Deck 6 has live ambient music, soaring views, open aft view spaces that are touted on any ship as being most desirable. Deck 8 Sanctuary dining "premium" space will have guests moving from Wake Terrace bar and pool through the dining room in bathing suits and views of a bar, loungers and promenade with foot traffic. Consider this....Deck 7 for Sanctuary, 6 for traditional & Walk ins as well as 8 for Walk Ins overflow would have made far more sense. 

 

I would also add that we are traveling with family who booked a Reserve Mini and they were considering upgrading to a Signature suite to dine with us but guess what, while paying considerably less, they are now getting the same upgrade to Sanctuary. I'm just disappointed in this transition and decisions made by Princess. For sure, the two other speciality dining rooms needed an upgrade but the allocation of space in the MDR is not right.

 

I'll still have a great time but I worked hard for decades and this is my retirement trip and I now wish I would have selected a tried and true Royal Class ship. I hope to have more time to cruise in retirement and now I am looking at other brands. 

I’m honestly somewhat shocked at erosion of benefits promised to suites. It will be interesting to see how they handle it live and the feedback they get. I think they are bound to make more chances before starting Europe cruises next year. The lounge being one of the few benefits for suite class is a pretty limited offering considering many of the rooms aren’t exactly bigger or offer much in the way of amenities themselves. I can’t see people bidding on upgrades or booking at higher costs just for the lounge.

honestly I think they need to reexamine the love restaurant location. That would’ve been the perfect place for a new signature restaurant if they could find somewhere reasonable to fit Love. Honestly I’d have moved it to the new butchers block location and try to squeeze that somewhere else.

On 9/12/2024 at 1:48 PM, Fredric22 said:

I was talking a bout the outdoor area (still in the deck plan) that is supposed to be for Signature Suites only.  And what about the Suite Lounge?  Is that now open to all?

The Signature Sun Deck was combined with the Sanctuary to make the Sanctuary larger.

The signature lounge is still suite only. 

3 hours ago, trbarton said:

I’ve got a new booking & when I enter my CC information I get a message that “the payment method exists for the given card”.  It’s a card that I only use for my Princess Cruises. What can I do?

 

Tom😀

This is going to sound weird but look at your credit cards expiration date. If it expires before the cruise then the website/app will pop up this incredibly misleading and non-informative error. Try switching it out for a credit card that expires after your cruise and it should take it.

2 hours ago, Ombud said:

@keldaria is that because of the 'odd' chair? Table for 4 or 6 possible? So whats a group of 5 to do? 

 

Can anyone find a recent Americana menu? I can't get a 1st night reservation and would prefer to miss the buffet

I assume it’s because the odd chair, which for hot pot makes some sense because they look to be setup for 4 people so a 5th person would basically mean taking up 2 tables. I was just surprised that many of the other restaurants also had similar behavior.

Specifically, Butcher Block, Kai Sushi, The Catch, and Hot Pot all do this with 5 people.

Spellbound may do this but I’m unable to check because one of my party is underage and it automatically kicks me down to 4 people so I can see reservation options anyways.

Love by Britto, Sabatini’s, Crown Grill, Umai Teppanyaki (hibachi) do have options for 5 people.

10 hours ago, Ombud said:

Looks great! We do hot pot is common out here but you only share with your individual table

Just an interesting quirk I’ve noticed about hot pot and a few other sun princess venues. If you are a party of 5 people, many of the specialty venues, including hot pot, won’t show up with available reservation slots until you drop down to 4 or less people (you might find bookings open up for parties of 6-8 but 5 seems to be limiting). For about a month now I’ve been watching for reservations to open up and only seeing a handful of specialty restaurants available. It wasn’t until I dropped down to 2 people to book one of the locations for me and my wife that I noticed everything else opened up. Playing with it some more caused me to realize that 4 people seems to have open availability but 5 seems dramatically more limited.

4 hours ago, MonikaJ42 said:

I'm a little nervous after reading this post as we are booked on the Oct 19th sailing in a S9 suite. 

We booked via a casino offer so it was a tremendous deal looking at what they are charging for this type of suite and what we paid.  Keeping our fingers crossed that by the time its our turn to cruise it will all be worked out.  

 

Happy cruising everyone!

I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Overall I think they have things figured out. Some of us were just grumbling because they changed course on what they initially sold us. If you got a casino deal on an S9 suite then you likely got a good deal even with any changes.
 

I don’t expect there to be any issues post change, although your sail date is literally right after the shift so maybe some quirks will happen.

20 minutes ago, CalTexCruiser said:

 

With the current setup (separate Sanctuary suite area and dedicated suite restaurant), most of the reports from full suite passengers are that the suite experience is great on the Sun.

 

We'll see how things go after the changes on Oct 14.

This is my understanding too. Aside from park 19 and startup glitches from the sun being not only a new ship but a new class of ships, the overall experience being reported by suite passengers seems to match expectations for what I booked.

I’m hopeful the experience after Oct 14th will continue to match but only time will tell.

15 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

I think some are overestimating the potential crowding in the Sanctuary, especially when considering that there are less than 20 DO category rooms and about 50 reserve minis. The tiny suite section of the Sanctuary has been expanded to include the whole thing, and as you said, there is no longer a paid option for the Sanctuary. People are also worried about the dining room, but the dining room size for Sanctuary class has increased at least by double. 

I'm not overly concerned about the sanctuary. I do feel a little miffed that the suite exclusive area has been removed but overall the combined area of the sanctuary should be able to handle most of the guests in question. Keep in mind that before when the sanctuary was a first come first served, rush and pay to enter option, you almost always had it full and when people paid special for the experience they tended to hang around all day just to make the most of their expense. Now you have a limited number of cabins who have it by default. Not everyone in this class of cabin is going to want to make use of the sanctuary and because its a built in perk, they will be less incentivized to rush there in the morning and hang around to "get their moneys worth for the day". They will be more likely to come and go as they please like the normal pool deck which can ebb and flow with visitors during the day. There will be some busy days that leaves them too full for everyone to enjoy but I expect that to occur less than a typical sanctuary experience where they would get booked up and unable to allow more in.

With that being said, the loss of all but one of the suite only areas does suck. People who booked felt like they were paying extra for exclusivity in these areas only to have that exclusivity taken away. In another thread there was much debate about if a sky suite SEM could help a sky suite guest get non-suite guests into the suite restaurant. The general conclusion was it wasn't possible and a even borderline disrespectful to even ask for such a thing since the non-suite guests didn't pay for that perk. These changes effectively feel like that whole situation where those not paying for suite perks just got access to something we paid for. Even if they can accommodate everyone in the sanctuary and signature restaurant it still overall feels like the suite experience has been degraded. 

I'm still looking forward to my cruise next April and I think I'm over the hump where I thought I might cancel due to the changes. I just need to keep telling myself I still have access to these areas even if they aren't as exclusive as they once were.

22 hours ago, memoak said:

After 62 cruises with Princess and the last 20 all in full suites with many personal relationships with Princess officials I believe I know of what I speak. You can text multiple meals from room service to your suite for guests but not take up room in suite dining. I have been through this many times 

The sky suites have their own suite manage that can provide options to sky suite guests available to no other guests. With that said even they have limits to their ability to accommodate and like you’ve said they probably wouldn’t be able to accommodate taking non-suite guests into suite only areas.

With that said, part of their “working miracles” if offering alternatives and options that they can do. In this instance, as others have said, they would most likely suggest hosting them at the dining table in the sky suite where they could provide the sky suite residents and their guests a similar dining experience only more private and exclusive. It doesn’t break any hard fast rules but also accommodates the people staying in the sky suite so I assume this is what they would setup.

Ultimately all they can do is ask but they shouldn’t expect SEM to be able to break rules for them.

17 hours ago, RRFPresident said:

Thank you for sharing these screencaps. I'm going to send them to my TA in hopes it helps get an answer from Princess. We sail this November and I'll be sharing and answering questions as much as I can while onboard.

 

I'm curious about the reference here referring to the Thermal Suite since no ship with a Sky Suite is listed in their footnote. Was really hoping the use of the Enclave would still be a perk as it was for our cruise on Enchanted.

Please let me know. It was my assumption that the thermal suites was just a reference to the smaller ships allowing suite users access the the thermal suites so it got stamped on all suites. I purchased a cruise length pass to the enclave for my upcoming trip because I didn’t think it was included. If you find out otherwise I’d be interested to know. Any updates you could give about perks would be greatly appreciated as I sail in April.

For anyone wanting to see the original benefits lists BEFORE the sanctuary update. These are not necessary current for any new bookings but I assume are included for past bookings before the Sanctuary Class update.

Worth noting that Princess does provide a better list during the actual booking process. If you pick a cruise and a Sky Suite this is what you should see.

This is honestly something I’ve been wondering since they reworked their pages for the Sun and Star. The original pages listed sky suite benefits that were very much in line with the Enchanted and the Discovery (except for a few obvious ones like the private balcony for viewing movies under the stars since obviously the change in location dictates that’s not an option). The new ones have stripped out a number of perks.

Before the Sanctuary Class “Upgrade” these were also listed benefits which are now seemingly missing.

Seamless Curb to Suite

Pre-Cruise Shoreside Concierge

Suite Experience Manager

Premium Champagne on Arrival

Reserved Theater Seating (this was included before premiere was automatically included with the sanctuary collection)

Two Full Bottle Bars Setup and Mixers

Private Shopping Concierge

Complementary Fine Wine Tasting

Complementary Ultimate Balcony Breakfast AND Dinner

In-Room Coffee Machine

Some of these, I expect are still part of the package but it makes me wonder if they didn’t drop others. I have Screenshots of the original Sun Princess Page with the Pre-Sanctuary Class versions from when I booked. I know we’ve already lost the Signature Sun Deck and will now be sharing the Signature Restaurant with all the Sanctuary Class Cabins (and obviously everyone is losing park 19)… but it makes me wonder if they also cut these other perks on the sly.

Its all these changes and potential lost benefits is really making me annoyed and nervous about my booking of a Sky Suite next April. I would greatly appreciate anyone booked into a sky suite before April 2025, if they let me know what benefits from the list above are still a thing and what, if any, have been fully removed.

i would reach out to support to ask directly but they barely know anything. If it’s not listed on the current publicly available page they’ll say it’s not included. I’m sort of waiting for my suite manager to reach out to actually know but that won’t be until a week or 2 before the cruise at best if they reach out at all (assuming it’s still a thing).

13 hours ago, Globaler said:

You can always pay the difference on each drink if you are on plus

You can but there is a difference in mind set between the idea of something being included and something being an up charge.

ill happily sample the catalog when its included in my package, where as I'm not necessarily going to pay extra to try something I’m not sure I’ll like.

On 5/24/2024 at 12:00 AM, reedprincess said:

Yup, just recoding different category staterooms.  

It happens on all the ships at different times, not a big deal.  

That's when Sanctuary Club officially begins and the deck plans will reflect those cabin categories....

Technically the signature sun deck gets merged into the sanctuary, but I’m not sure what physical barriers actually separated those areas currently.

2 hours ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

We're the exact opposite.  We don't drink wine, we prefer craft cocktails.  Mainly consume the special evening menu at Good Spirits, but I had seen online there were different menus and drinks on the Sun versus the other ships and there were many drinks that were like 17, 18, 20 that the Premier would cover.  The unlimited casual meals would be the other aspect that makes it worthwhile to upgrade besides of course the obvious reason of the two specialty dinners.

I agree with that interpretation as well, I like a good cocktail, it was just the ability to sample wine that stuck out.

the unlimited casual dining is somewhat a mixed bag for me. I don’t really hit them for dinners since I typically try to hit specialty restaurants since 2 of those are comped anyways then stack in an experiential dining and the free comped specialty for embarkation day if you booked a suite and you’ve barely hit the normal dining by the end of most cruises. It has its benefits on long cruises but i primarily enjoy hitting them for lunch to get more bang for my buck, however the real limitation is just how few casual dining spots their are compared to specialty dining. There is only 2 on the sun which is fairly limited considering. I wish there was more variety so you could really take advantage of them. Typically 2-3 casual dining (lunches) is my limit anyways since there is so few so unlimited isn’t really a huge bonus for me but I can see how mileage would vary for others.

1 hour ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

Another positive to upgrading from Plus to Premier on the Sun (& Star) is the 20.00 ceiling instead of 15.00 ceiling on alcoholic drinks.  There are many different wines and craft cocktails that are only available on the Sun that are priced between 16-20 that are covered by Premier but not by Plus.  Of course the shorter length of your cruise the better since you also get two specialty dinners per sailing.  There has been a debate about this since you get 4 on a seven day B2B versus only 2 on a 14 day.

I think this particular fact is undersold, especially for wine drinkers. Don’t get me wrong there is plenty of choices on the menu for plus options and this is typically where most cruisers land. However if you like wine and want to sample some higher end bottles, then Premier is a great way to do it.

3 hours ago, MacMadame said:

But these people have a contract with Princess for a certain number of months. Therefore, technically, they are not employees of Princess but are contractors. The difference is that their contract is directly with Princess while the Princess Promotions people work for O.N.E which has the contract with Princess.

 

It's a very fine distinction IMO that I don't think the customers should have to care about.

The only distinction that should matter is did Princess contract with someone that resulted directly or indirectly with a person being employed in that function. 
 

Princess has a choice in who they contract with and for what purposes. They are directly associated with any actions taken in the name of that contract. They are in effect endorsing princess promotions underhanded nature of misrepresentation if they are not ending the contract or demanding changes to conduct by people operating under that contract. 
 

A 7 day refund window when many cruises last that long especially when considering travel time is red flag territory. They’ve basically made a product that under normal circumstances most people buying will never have a chance to review and refund before it’s no longer an option. The fact that it’s part of an FAQ on princesses own website seems to endorse this behavior as acceptable.

5 hours ago, PastryPal said:

I should have mentioned. . . They were on a 16 day cruise and they visited the FCD in the first week. By the time they returned home and saw the charge on their card, they were already outside Princess Promotions' 7 day cancellation period. 

Yep, then it’s best to straight up dispute it with your credit card being outside the refund window.

i am thankful I did some basic level of research when I bought in. I knew I had a 7 day window to cancel/refund and I made sure I took the time review it before I was outside that window. It just sucks that this happened to your parents as I assume these sales reps know people won’t look at them until they get back home. I really wonder why Princess lets this happen and doesn’t force a 30 day refund window since even if it’s a separate company the choices princess promotions are making is directly impacting princess and its reputation with their highest value customers. Don’t tell me someone would buy a 7k or 15k package if they didn’t like the cruise line.

I myself opted for the 15k package (ouch). I had figured between the FCC/Onboard which I knew I’d need, and the hotel certificates I’d also likely use, that I should be fairly close to break even making the hotel credits a bonus. I had assumed they spent like FCC and that you just applied them to whatever booking on their portal that you wanted until they were all used up. Nope, the portal applies them as it sees fit which typically meant that it would apply enough credits to lower the cost of the hotel by about 10%. Meaning to burn up my 3,000 credits I’d need months of hotels stays. Conveniently the portal also seemed to be about 10% more expensive than direct booking with hotels so you do the math. 
 

I don’t mind that the certificates were capped at so much value per day, I expected that, nobody is going to give you a blank check to go hit a suite at the royalton. I don’t even really mind that their portal was more expensive than booking direct in most cases, that makes some sense because they need to make their money somehow. The reason it crossed into scam territory for me was purely the hotel credits and how they got applied. You can’t make me spend almost 30k to use the 3k hotel credits you sold me under the pretense they worked just like cruise credits in your portal.

i asked to cancel on day 6 and had my refund about 3 days later. Huge load off my mind.

6 hours ago, PastryPal said:

 

I know my parents and they would have definitely walked away if they thought someone was trying to sign them up for some sort of vacation club. 

 

We are also Canadian. It seems like they have the smallest package based upon the amount charged to their credit card (which, of course, was over $4000 once it was converted to Canadian $$.) From what I've read, most of the $3499 is FCC so, worst case scenario, they can put it towards the European cruise that they just booked? They didn't even know that the amount included FCC until we googled it.

 

I wasn't there so I don't know what was said, but I also don't know how both of them could have completely misunderstood what was going on. My mom is also the kind of person who comes home with printed versions of the Princess Patter so, if they received any paperwork from the future cruise desk that explained how it all worked, she would still have it. It's a mystery.

 

 

If your within 7 days or 30 if a Florida resident, just call and cancel it.

I got suckered into the upsell myself on my last cruise thinking the combination of credits was actually quite attractive for the cost. The result is the website offers rooms at sub par prices that you can obtain far better rates directly from the hotels in question, and the credits they offer are almost useless. 
 

that said they have a 7 day or so cancellation policy. I was able to call and cancel without much issue was got the refund within a few days. I’d call princess promotions directly if they are still within that window and cancel with them. Please note they are a separate entity from princess so the numbers will be different. 
 

if you’re beyond that window, call your bank and dispute. The only reason I would start with princess promotions is I have no idea how a dispute and chargeback would impact their main princess booking. They are separate entities so it should be fine but they reclaim their future cruise credits and such so it might be a bigger issue depending on how things are applied within their account.

6 minutes ago, TRLD said:

Think of the view that the space is perfectly fine because with the lack of shade and wind  (according to reports) many will not use it for Ling periods of time anyway.

I think the point that matters is when conditions are ideal the place will be swamped. When it’s too sunny or windy doesn’t matter since I won’t be as inclined to use the space ether. 
 

Yes the suite only area wouldn’t necessarily hold all 80 suite guests but on perfect days I have to imagine the ship crew would’ve accounted for this by making less passes available to control population. Now the sanctuary is guaranteed on ideal days to be over capacity.

12 minutes ago, dog said:

My late 2024 Sun cruise let me book Signature restaurant & Butcher’s Block today.  For my D0-aft it listed both the Reserve & Signature dining rooms.

So, who knows what will happen by then?

What sailing date if you don’t mind me asking. And are you confirming that you can see both options on your dinner reservations in your D0 booking?

18 minutes ago, MacMadame said:

Don't you think they'll put the Signature dining into a bigger space with this change?

Doubtful. It’ll still be the same spaces most likely but no idea if the reserve and signature will function as one, or still operate as 2 separate dining areas with different guest lists.

8 minutes ago, techsearch said:

 And the plot thickens - I read everything you did and decided that the Premiere was NOT included. And then I logged into my Princess account and went to the summary page and then see the ‘options for upgrades’ and then I click on “learn more” next to Bev Packages and then a screen pops up and says - you have already purchased the Premier Package. Goodness. 

Hmmm, I’m curious if their system if bugging out or if they are low key offering premier to suite guest that ask. I have the premier upgrade active on my reservation but only because I purchased the upgrade. Guests 3, 4 and 5 however do not and I can still see they don’t. I guess it’s about time I called in myself since my email doesn’t seem to have gotten a response. Would go a long way to soothing my annoyance with this announcement if we all got premier for free or even if guest 3, 4 and 5 did.