kywildcatfanone

As long as ships are sailing full or mostly full, cutbacks or price increases will be all you see.

Plastic water bottles? If so, I might get bottles instead of cans next time to take with me.

We now bring small battery operated fans, two, one each to have for air movement in the room. Once in a while, we get a room that is warmer than our liking and the fans help.

It's pretty obvious what cruise lines are doing is working, as they are doing more and more, and raising costs and raising costs. It is what it is. At some point in the near future, packages won't be optional. I can only see it heading this way given the amount of money they generate for the cruise lines.

Seems to be their only focus. But from a business sense, it does work. Get rid of loyal customers, who at least had some benefits to their loyalty left, although not many. Bring in new customers, who don't have the history, and make many items more expensive, and add packages to give the perception of a "deal". Marketing works. Celebrity had a Memorial Day promo on existing bookings. 50% off drink packages. What they didn't tell you was they raised the drink packages 50% to discount it 50%. Lessons learned from Kohls. If it works, it works, and it must work or they wouldn't do such things.

Yes, some of those cutbacks go back more than a year. They are still cutbacks, so not sure why you felt the need to comment on my post. Cutback are cutbacks, where they occurred 13 months ago, or last month. Edit: If you are happy with the cutbacks, the increase in costs of packages and so forth, good for you I guess.

With all the cuts to elite benefits over the last year, I don't see goodwill as something they care about.

I've done both at FLL, never had an issue. Might matter to the port, but FLL seems to allow whatever.

Poor IT design and implementation

Is there though? Really?

Yep, this is 100% true. The money is in the packages, the wifi, drinks and other onboard charges. The cruise fare is still a money maker, but the real profit is the add ons.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I do see people bring plastic bottles of water on at ports, so I don't know if they really check. At embarkation, I've only brought canned water like in soda cans just to be safe, but I would imagine at ports, you can do either. We like zero stuff, coke zero, sprite zero, 7up zero. No idea why Princess doesn't offer more options than they do.

As far as bringing on water/soda, never had a problem putting some in checked baggage and carrying on what we want. At least in FLL, they do not seem to care or check. I thought they would at least look in my bag to make sure it wasn't beer cans or something, but they don't.

I send it to my TA, who submits it, and usually it's on my account within 2-3 days.

It's only a benefit is you drink alcohol, other than that, it's quite expensive, and even expensive then if you consider the drink costs themselves. But that is up to each individual. Cruise lines have learned that marketing of "packages" works, and it's a huge profit provider for them. I actually think that because of the drink package pricing and usage, that is keeping basic cruise fares lower, at least on Princess. Which is great to me because we go packageless and ultimately save around $400 per cruise at a minimum over what we would pay.

Yep, after sailing a few ships between 50 and 65% capacity, I hate sailing on ships now full.

Yes, sorry, I was referring soda and bottled water.

We started the tv, about a minute later left the cabin, walked to muster station and checked in. I think the medallion only has to be present at start of video.

Pro tip: turn your TV on when you get to your cabin and let the drill play while you unpack or go check in at your muster station

Yes, that is what we do now that package prices are ridiculously high. We bring our own on-board at embarkation and in ports as needed.

Soda, no issues I have ever seen or had.

Well, I did purchase the wifi "upgrade" and it went through, so I'll take it. Not saving much, but not as bad as full price. Still irked that the non alcoholic drink package isn't really discounted.

Question: I purchased basic wifi for a cruise in October on Equinox. The cheapest option for two devices was one person and two devices. I see now, that I can "upgrade to premium wifi", but the only option it is giving me is to add it for me and the wife, which the website is letting me do. I haven't purchased yet. Will that work? Also, why is the zero alcohol package only 5% off, when the others are 50%? Geez, coudn't it at least be 30% off?

Most consumers aren't educated, which was my point. Sorry, thought it was obvious.

It's marketing and it works!