CruisingWalter

Honestly the Princess Plus package is one of the best in the mainstream cruise lines. It's $60/day pp for WiFi / Gratuities / Drinks up to $15 / Free Room Service Delivery / Free Desserts / Free OceanNow Delivery and a few more items. Most folks are going to get WiFi. You're going to pay for the Gratuities. When you add those two items together that leaves about $28/day for all drinks up to $15 plus the other items. You're not going to find another mainstream cruise line that includes a Drinks Package plus everything else for $28/day. When you do the math that's $196/pp for a 7 day cruise or $392 for the entire cruise. Or $100 more than paying for a $300 Bar Tab on VV. Holland America. The Princess Plus package at $60/day that includes Gratuities is cheaper than the HAL Have It All Plus package that also includes gratuities. Their standard Have It All package skips the gratuities so while that package might only be $50/day you have to add $16/day pp gratuities which makes that package $66/day. And Have It All / Plus don't include the add-ons Princess has rolled into Plus. Then you look at cruise lines like Carnival around $60/day pp just for a drinks package, Royal Caribbean can be upwards of $90/day pp just for a drinks package, Celebrity is $75/day pp for the "All Included" for fewer things than Princess charges $60/day. NCL is a bargain with their "Free At Sea" package running about $160/pp for a 7 day cruise that includes the drinks package, shore excursion discount, 1 specialty meal and WiFi, but their WiFi is limited to 150 minutes in that deal unless you upgrade, and you'll have to add another $16/day pp for the gratuities. Disney doesn't have a drinks package but includes soft drinks in the cruise fare and you can purchase a wine package onboard. MSC has a confusing litany of drinks packages (5 in all) but they're not a bad value for what they are and if you go Yacht Club the WiFi and drinks package is included. You can go YC for the same price as a balcony on many cruise lines. So when you really compare everyone else to Princess, the Plus package is easily one of the best values on the market today for what it offers the guest. You're going to pay for gratuities on board. The vast majority of guests are going to purchase WiFi for their cruise. That just leaves an additional $28/day pp that covers your all of your drinks up to $15 / Ocean Now delivery / room service fee / Alfredo's & Gigi's / desserts / Ocean Medallion delivery and a few more items. Every single time a cruise line rolls out a new concept, adds fees, or moves previously free services into a paid tier, Cruise Critic lights up with the negative posts. And all the other forums light up with "see how much better OUR cruise line is than THAT one!" Then the cruise line goes on to post record bookings almost month after month. Cruising is evolving and guests today, myself included, would prefer to pay a reasonable price for items to be rolled into a package so I don't have to be nickeled and dimed to death on a ship. Rolling in Gratuities / WiFi / All drinks up to $15 is reasonable for me. Yes I love the fact that when I board VV I know I won't be spending another dime, but honestly when I board Princess with the Plus Package it's rare that I spend another dime. To each their own. Sailing one cruise line over and over and over would be truly boring for me. With any luck we'll be up to 11 cruise lines sailed by 2024. Princess isn't perfect but all this howling about the Plus and Premier package really is much ado about nothing. Even the poll running in the Princess forums shows that the vast majority in that forum aren't going anywhere. If VV floats your boat stick with it, if you don't like someone else's product, don't sail on them. It's that easy.

If you received an email from your TA it was totally in your face. AUGUST 3RD!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Some food for thought looking at Princess Plus vs the other cruise lines. Holland America. The Princess Plus package at $60/day that includes Gratuities is cheaper than the HAL Have It All Plus package that also includes gratuities. Their standard Have It All package skips the gratuities so while that package might only be $50/day you have to add $16/day pp gratuities which makes that package $66/day. And Have It All / Plus don't include the add-ons Princess has rolled into Plus. Then you look at cruise lines like Carnival around $60/day pp just for a drinks package, Royal Caribbean can be upwards of $90/day pp just for a drinks package, Celebrity is $75/day pp for the "All Included" for fewer things than Princess charges $60/day. NCL is a bargain with their "Free At Sea" package running about $160/pp for a 7 day cruise that includes the drinks package, shore excursion discount, 1 specialty meal and WiFi, but their WiFi is limited to 150 minutes in that deal unless you upgrade, and you'll have to add another $16/day pp for the gratuities. Disney doesn't have a drinks package but includes soft drinks in the cruise fare and you can purchase a wine package onboard. MSC has a confusing litany of drinks packages (5 in all) but they're not a bad value for what they are and if you go Yacht Club the WiFi and drinks package is included. You can go YC for the same price as a balcony on many cruise lines. So when you really compare everyone else to Princess, the Plus package is easily one of the best values on the market today for what it offers the guest. You're going to pay for gratuities on board. The vast majority of guests are going to purchase WiFi for their cruise. That just leaves an additional $28/day pp that covers your all of your drinks up to $15 / Ocean Now delivery / room service fee / Alfredo's & Gigi's / desserts / Ocean Medallion delivery and a few more items. Every single time a cruise line rolls out a new concept, adds fees, or moves previously free services into a paid tier, Cruise Critic lights up with the negative posts. Then the cruise line goes on to post record bookings almost month after month. Cruising is evolving and guests today, myself included, would prefer to pay a reasonable price for items to be rolled into a package so I don't have to be nickeled and dimed to death on a ship. Rolling in Gratuities / WiFi / All drinks up to $15 is reasonable for me. It's one of the reasons I love sailing Virgin Voyages so much, I've yet to spend a dime once we get on their ships. I'd much prefer the see the cruise lines raise their base prices a little and roll more into the cruise fare like VV did. At the very least roll the soft drinks in. That can't cost any more than $5/guest to roll the soft drinks into the cruise fare. We've sailed 9 cruise lines so far, should be 10 or 11 by the end of 2024, and Princess Plus for me is a no brainer. Princess Premier is not for me, but it's an available package for those who want it.

We loved Sapphire in Alaska and we sailed Island Princess in the Panama Canal. Princess has awesome smaller ships and they are so much better in Alaska than the big ships. Sky Princess was STUNNING for us in February but she was perfect in the Caribbean. I wouldn't want to sail a Royal Class in Alaska. Just too big, too many people, not enough wide open decks to view the surroundings.

Based on the poll that's running, it doesn't seem like so many are 'disappointed' as most seem to be planning to continue sailing the way they've always sailed with Princess. A vast minority saying they will leave the cruise line. A lot of shouting over $28/day pp. Personally I LOVE the new changes and it makes the Plus really a no-brainer for most folks with the new additions. We're really excited about the new ships and the new Alaska itineraries so no changes, no complaints here. It's interesting you mention HAL. The Princess Plus package at $60/day that includes Gratuities is cheaper than the HAL Have It All Plus package that also includes gratuities. Their standard Have It All package skips the gratuities so while that package might only be $50/day you have to add $16/day pp gratuities which makes that package $66/day. And Have It All / Plus don't include the add-ons Princess has rolled into Plus. Then you look at cruise lines like Carnival around $60/day pp just for a drinks package, Royal Caribbean can be upwards of $90/day pp just for a drinks package, Celebrity is $75/day pp for the "All Included" for fewer things than Princess charges $60/day. NCL is a bargain with their "Free At Sea" package running about $160/pp for a 7 day cruise that includes the drinks package, shore excursion discount, 1 specialty meal and WiFi, but their WiFi is limited to 150 minutes in that deal unless you upgrade, and you'll have to add another $16/day pp for the gratuities. Disney doesn't have a drinks package but includes soft drinks in the cruise fare and you can purchase a wine package onboard. MSC has a confusing litany of drinks packages (5 in all) but they're not a bad value for what they are and if you go Yacht Club the WiFi and drinks package is included. You can go YC for the same price as a balcony on many cruise lines. So when you really compare everyone else to Princess, the Plus package is easily one of the best values on the market today for what it offers the guest. You're going to pay for gratuities on board. The vast majority of guests are going to purchase WiFi for their cruise. That just leaves an additional $28/day pp that covers your all of your drinks up to $15 / Ocean Now delivery / room service fee / Alfredo's & Gigi's / desserts / Ocean Medallion delivery and a few more items. Every single time a cruise line rolls out a new concept, adds fees, or moves previously free services into a paid tier, Cruise Critic lights up with the negative posts. Then the cruise line goes on to post record bookings almost month after month. Cruising is evolving and guests today, myself included, would prefer to pay a reasonable price for items to be rolled into a package so I don't have to be nickeled and dimed to death on a ship. It's one of the reasons I love sailing Virgin Voyages so much, I've yet to spend a dime once we get on their ships. I'd much prefer the see the cruise lines raise their base prices a little and roll more into the cruise fare like VV did. At the very least roll the soft drinks in. That can't cost any more than $5/guest to roll the soft drinks into the cruise fare. But Princess Plus for me is a no brainer. Princess Premier is not for me, but it's an available package for those who want it.

You pick Alaska based on the itinerary, not the ship. We have an affinity for Sapphire but that's because she's the one we sailed as part of our Cruise Tour. For the Cruise Tour, I HIGHLY recommend Tour First / Cruise Second. The tour involves more moving around and more activities. The ship you unpack once and get pampered while on the ship. Our tour was 7 / 7 with Fairbanks, Denali and Copper River on land. The Majestic and Royal are the largest ships but we prefer smaller ships in Alaska. The ports are quite small and with a smaller ship, that means less people having to move on and off. I would go Sapphire / Grand with those four you mentioned.

You can print them out and we HIGHLY recommend you go online and get some luggage tag holders. We get them via Amazon, just search "Princess Cruises Luggage Tag Holders." Get the ones with the metal wire clasps, they're awesome and will make sure your tags don't come off. If not, the porters will put a bag tag on for you at the terminal.

If you're picking up the Medallion you'll be in quite a queue to get it being in the blue lane. If you don't have Princess Plus, paying the $10 shipping to have it delivered to your home so you can bypass that lane is well worth it. When we sailed Sky Princess we literally just walked through the terminal in minutes. Meanwhile the long line for the Medallion pickup snaked outside the terminal. As others have mentioned, it's all on the app now, especially access to the ship. You should be able to login to your account on the website and print out some backup paperwork if you feel you need it. Just have your ID out and ready and have the Princess App open on your phone BEFORE you enter the terminal. We have ours open and ready to show as we're walking in from the parking garage. The Medallion is awesome, so much better than the keycards.

They made a big announcement two weeks ago. August 2 for Elite. August 3 for everyone else. 🙂

When you do the math, any guest who purchases a WiFi package without Princess Plus is only saving about $196 per cruise, per guest if you don't get Princess Plus. Plus takes care of your Gratuities, WiFi and Drinks up to $15. Purchasing a WiFi package and paying your Gratuities runs around $32/day pp depending on your cabin. That means you're paying around $28/day pp for your drinks package. 28x7 = $196/pp or $392 per cabin for a one week cruise. For those of you who will be purchasing a WiFi package without Plus, as long as you spend under $400 on your coffee/soda/wine/beer/cocktails/mocktails and don't purchase any of the items rolled into Plus, during a one week cruise, you'll come out ahead. If you spend over $400 on your next one-week cruise on those items, then Plus would be a consideration.

That's how it is across the board on all cruise lines. If one person in the cabin gets a drinks package for example, the other adults in the same cabin will have to get it. It's to prevent one person in a single cabin from buying a package and then sharing their package with their cabinmates. With Princess the Plus or Premier is required of the first two people in the cabin if one wants it.

Celebrity has the best solarium pools in the industry across the fleet. So amazing. And honestly right now they have better itineraries in the Caribbean from Florida. Very curious to see what VV does with their new itineraries.

Not in our experience. 4 cruises so far on Celebrity, 2 so far on VV. Very similar to be honest. The crews are similar, even with the Celebrity crew being dressed more formal, they're really casual and fun. Food is similar, pools are much better on Celebrity. And Celebrity has a lot more of the traditional games plus that awesome water volleyball game between the crew and the guests. 🙂

This is true of all cruise lines. Venues are removed and changed, restaurants are added or removed. Cruises and cruise ships are evolutionary and what you paid for today may not be exactly what you get when you board the ship in 6 months. We've been cruising almost 20 years and having something that was free when we booked turn to something that's now paid has happened with us in the past. We just roll with it.

Princess Plus has been one of the best packages in the cruising industry for a while. Reasonable price, good inclusions and it only got better today. Especially since they left the pricing in place. It'd be nice if they simply wrapped most everything into the fare ala Virgin Voyages, but I love where they are going now with Plus and Premier. Our first cruises were on Princess and we have no reason to stop sailing them now, especially with the new class of ships coming next year!!

We cannot recommend TAs here. But if you work through a good one, you'll get extra Sailor Loot and sometimes some other perks as well. We have cruised for 20 years and never book without a TA. The big advantage to booking through a TA with VV is cabin selection which you cannot do on the website. You would have to call in to do that or have your TA make the change after you book.

Always book through a TA in the future for this exact scenario. My TA literally has a dedicated business development manager they can call to make ship happen. For now, tag VV's social team, nicely, and tell them you're having difficulty getting a situation resolved. They should respond to you pretty quickly on Twitter or Threads. But be nice about it, don't be deragatory or they will ignore you.

That's funny, a friend just booked that exact date and is trying to get us to come along. 🙂 You never know....

That's not typical at all in our experience. We've done 10 to 14 day cruises and longer cruises doesn't necessarily mean more instances of evacs. Maybe 1 per cruise in our experience, but often none. That's over almost 20 years so far of cruising. As for the 'booze cruise' nature of the shorter cruises, that's true of every cruise line 3 and 4 night itineraries. We never thought about it until we took a 3 nighter years ago on Mariner of the Seas. They had party events starting at 12:30a which is not typical of most cruise lines. Then we realized a 3 night cruise is essentially a Las Vegas weekend. Gotta get the most bang for your buck in 3 nights so that means partying into the late hours and drinking as much as possible. Unless we really want to get away for a weekend, we try to do no less than 7 nights on any cruise. Which is why we don't sail VV as much when only one ship is in Miami. .

Supposedly the vibe is very different on European cruises vs. the Miami cruises. I've heard that multiple times from folks who have sailed both destinations. The crowd tends to be a bit more mellow and chill in Europe, a bit more into parties and the events out of Miami. Of course Europe is almost exclusively 7 nights or longer while Miami is mostly 4/5. Shorter cruises tend to bring a little more of the 'party' atmosphere as folks try to get the most out their shorter cruise. That being said, we've gone on two cruises on Scarlet and it's been awesome both times. We are in the mostly chill crowd enjoying the evening music in On The Rocks vs. The Major in the evening.

Nice job with the video!

Wait, wait, wait, I resemble that statement! 🤣🤣 30+ years in film & television production with my last 8 years as a marketing executive designing content strategies with the national accolades to show for it. You can tell your cruise buddy to 'let it go' with the travel content. When I first started out it was always my Panasonic GH4 or Fuji XT3 for the best possible 4k footage and I really wanted the Sony A7 series. Now it's all my Samsung Galaxy 22 and GoPro 10 on a hand held table top tripod. Sometimes the GH4 for those long 1 or 2 hour natural scenes. When I learned to 'stop trying to be perfect' it made everything so much easier. 🙂 It still takes forever for me to get my YouTube stuff up though, TikTok is so much faster.....

That should be correct since she's primarily going over there for her first scheduled dry dock. It will be interesting to see if she's going to come back to Miami in Winter 2024 or if Valiant will become the new Miami ship.

We have no control over mother nature. I have a bunch of friends who are on the Brilliant Lady itineraries and am very close to pulling the trigger myself. Honestly, besides the Valiant 8-night Eastern Caribbean from Miami, those are two best Caribbean itineraries Virgin has going right now.

I'm seriously considering it for our November Valiant sailing. I like the idea of not having to drive 3 1/2 hours each way. 🙂