Ganusja FarmerJohn

Another "pleasant" surprise. We didn't. We gave up on trying to book the European Cruise and to hear back from Princess. I can't spend any more time of frustration on the phone, having to tell my story to another rep from scratch, and still no resolution. We started researching another cruise (local) on the Princess website, only to find out that only a portion of the FCC is being applied! (try to book on the Princess website, you'll see). We called Princess to find out why. After another clueless rep (call option for PP questions) hung up on us after an hour and a half of wasting our time, we got to a good rep (through the booking of a new cruise call option) who was knowledgeable, polite, and involved. When we started asking about why only 1600 is being applied, he explained to us that it covers my fair only (The FCC is under my name). You can only use the FCC for the fare of the person who purchased the package - not even to cover my husband, who was buying it with me, or our kids! Needless to say, we were very shaken. Somehow, with his manager's assistance, he was able to apply the FCC to the entire room (it was not easy and took awhile). At this point, we picked extra Plus packages, which we did not need, just to be able to utilize the points. We are scared to touch anything. P. S. Also, when he was booking, he asked which airport is near us. We explained that we didn't need to fly. He explained that the system asks this to apply a regional discount. After the call was finished, although exhausted, we persisted in reviewing the details of the invoice. There was a "transfer" fee that was $88 per person ( $ 352 total) that was invoiced to us. We had to call Princess again to find out what this fee was. Of course, we got someone new. Eventually, we found out that the fee was for the transfer from the airport to the cruise! The rep found the fee reasonable, even though we started the call telling her we didn't need a transfer. So, watch out, fellow cruisers!

We purchased on beard of the ship. So we were sure it is Princess. We got no paperwork ( and we asked), but still thought we were OK because it was "Princess". My husband( bless his paranoid soul) took a picture of the laminated flyer, but it doesn'tgive you much)). We thought we were safe. She booked our cruise right there and then. I was observing the software, through which we were booking. Our cruise was more than what we paid, so, we would have used up the credits right away ( except that they charge an extra 1500 for the "travel benefits"). We started receiving emails about our itinerary from Princess shortly. With cruising continued ( poor internet, etc), holidays, coming back to work, I did not see the PP email. It went to spam, I guess.i was not too worried, because I was booked already. I did locate the email from PP later, once the issues with itinerary began and I started really looking. BTW, still no response from them. I am hoping that can be forewarned, the more people share their experiences. Good luck, everyone!

I agree. I wish we did all of that. Our previous positive experience with Norwegian gave us a false sense of security. (I understand that that is a different company, but we thought that dealing with big cruise companies was safe).

Never again. Not only you don't get a promised value of 15k, but you pay 7500 to get 6300 in cruise credits, the customer service is horrific, no issue resolution. It seems that they got your money, so they just wait until you give up calling. We purchased Princess Promotions on board of Discovery Princess (the cruise was great). We have a great experience with Norwegian Next Cruise credits, and we thought this was going to be a great experience that we could trust as well. However, the presentation was full of misrepresentation. We were told that the credits do not expire (not true), that there are plenty of hotels (that are the type of "smart hotels" like Homewood Suits type etc, that we could easily use and there was a plethora of them available). The package cost was 7500, but the value of the service is 15000. We would get 6000 credits for a cruise with a 300 on board credit, plus 100-200 credits for booking on board of the ship, a 7- day free stay, plus 2 2-night stay certificate (pay taxes only), $750 in hotel stays that were completely free. We were not advised of the cancellation timeline. As we were on board of the ship using our InCruises (separate story), she put that as a name of our travel agent. We booked a cruise to Europe for 2025 and happily continued our cruise. Internet was poor and we thought we had no reason to research this further. After we came back, in a few weeks we received a letter from Princess that the itinerary for our cruise has changed. This prompted us to start looking, as we were not interested in the new itinerary. We called Princess and they would not talk to us, as only our travel agent could talk to them. We explained that InCruises is a sort of self-service customer service. No avail, we had to get in contact with InCruises. Although InCruises does not offer phone support, it took them a couple of days, but they cancelled our cruise (no problems with them). We called Princess and they guided us though the log in process into the Princess Promotions. Once we logged in, we were surprised to find out that the credits very much expire, and we have only 2 years to complete our travel. This presented a problem, because we already have our travel planned out for the next 2 years. But we proceeded. Next there were a few unpleasant surprises with the hotels. The 2-day hotels stays are not free but are "discounted". If you book the same hotel through Expedia, you will pay a lot less then you would pay here for "free". The 7-night stay is possibly "free", but there are a couple of "tiny issues". In Europe (where we looked and need to go), there are only one or two hotels per country (just a hand full in the entire Europe not even one per country) in the middle of the boonies that are a part of that. Also, if you pay 1500 over the cruise credit that you get, divide that by 7, and you need a $215 room minimum cost to break even just to get your money's worth. They show that the rooms cost exorbitant amount of money, but in reality, if you go to Expedia, they cost 80-90 bucks per night. Next, there is a HUGE problem with a customer service. I called Princess Promotion and asked them if it would be possible to get out of the contract, due to the initial misinformation. They took my request and said someone would contact me shortly. (next 2 days or so). Jake did call me, said that he understood and although this was outside of the cancellation window (7 days, which no one told us before), but he would discuss it in a meeting in which they present special circumstances the same day. He would call me after the weekend. He gave me his direct extension. Mon, Tue, ... a week passes. I leave one voice mail, few more days another, another few days another. No response, no emails. I call Princess directly. One rep after another, asking to speak with a supervisor. One supervisor, they said would call back (to save me time on hold)- No call. We gave them another day or 2 - nothing. Meanwhile, calling Jake, just in case. No result. Call again to the main line. Another rep, who you need to tell the whole story from scratch, and they do not understand anything. Asked to speak with a supervisor. Have to justify why. Back and forth she goes to the sup, as our justification is not enough for them. Finally, a supervisor gets on the line. He is clearly miffed, but at least understands something. Sends me off to write an entry into customer relations. I said there was already an entry. Finally, he listens. He says he will make an entry into the system and will get back to us. I said we already did it. He, annoyed says, then we just have to wait. The decision has not been made yet. I asked what the response time is. He says it is 24-48 hours. I said it was already done over 2 weeks ago. Again, his tone is irritated, and tells me to wait or if I want to place an inquiry. I agreed for the inquiry. He said he is expediting it and we should hear back within 2-3 days. Two weeks later- no emails no calls. I try calling Jake in the interim. Still nothing. Just goes into the voice mail. We work full time. I call after work when I get home- they are already closed. I call on the weekend- they are not open on the weekend. It sounds like I have to take time off work to even get through to them, to talk about the money that they will get from me in hopes to recoup something. Princess Promotions NEVER EVER EVER again! I would expect better of Princess!