RDJ

Oh wow I had no idea! Well let’s hope that bug is the one bug they don’t fix lol

If you are elite or platinum then you don’t have to wait for final payment to make your reservations, you get early access!

I received an email from Princess saying this same thing today.

Like some others have said, we miss the old Princess too, but all cruise lines have evolved. They obviously have reasons for changing their business model and we have to adjust and grow with it if we want to keep cruising. We remember even a few years before Covid feeling like cruises already started nickel and diming. Prices have really gone up which is hard, but they have for everything right? We went to Vegas a few months ago and found no servers taking cocktail orders walking around. Lots of things have changed including cruises. We still feel it’s one of the best ways to travel, unpack once, see lots of places, food and entertainment is included, etc. We’ve found if you reach out to make personal connections with staff, they return the connection with personal service. Vacation and travel is all what you make it!

It did take 3 calls and some patience! I’m surprised how they can’t just make the reservation on our behalf as a work around for the flawed system. Enjoy your UK trip, we are doing that next year!

We like the Plus package. We are drinkers and we by no means worry about the 15 drink limit or feel like we have to drink more to justify. What we like is that we get to try different drinks, things we don’t normally drink or try at home. We can try it and if we don’t like it then we order something else! One day might be no alcohol and one day might be 10 drinks. When we did the math we found that as long as we averaged a certain amount overall, it would at least be a wash. Sometimes there’s not a savings, but the benefit is the cruise feels more all inclusive with the package. Without it we felt guilty on the days we chose to drink more. Now with that being said we only do that on Princess! The drink packages on other cruises we’ve tried cost way more than the Plus deal (just learned that lesson on Carnival).

Update! Sure enough after trying twice a day, just now I was able to finally make the dining rez for crown (without paying the cruise balance). My 3rd call to Princess last weekend said to give it some time as they were going to fix on their side and it did work! It finally saw the credit and got both nights booked!

The website says this as well, we qualify in the early access group which I assume why it lets me reserve now (issue is just that it wants to charge). I keep checking back daily to see if it’s changed lol

I’ve seen that too. But I’ve made reservations for the many other non-specialty dining on other nights already (despite the mention of main dining in that snapshot). Nor has Princess stated that to me after my 3 phone calls. Plus it will let me reserve, if I’m willing to just pay for it.

It was new for us but Carnival isn’t our primary choice

That’s interesting, we’ve already made reservations for our main dining on all other nights. We are specifically looking for the Crown grill on the remaining two nights. We paid for and ate at Sabbatinis once years ago and we disliked it, too much seafood for our tastes.

We are not due for final payment for a while yet. But in 3 calls to princess, no one has said that is a requirement.

This is my concern! Offer it as an included promotion but then make it too difficult to properly use.

I have the premiere package which comes with 2 speciality dinners. When I try to make the first reservation, it’s wants to charge my credit card (the total is not $0.00). I have tried both the app and the web version of the app. I have called Princess 3 times and they haven’t been able to help. First they said they fixed it and I just needed to wait 24hrs, didn’t work. Then they said it’s because I wasn’t Ocean Ready so I did that, it still didn’t work. The last time they just said they’d put in a technical ticket with their IT team. I don’t want to miss out on the time slots, should I just pay now and deal with the refund later? I’ve read some had difficulty getting the refund, etc plus that’s not how I want to spend my first day onboard. Any one else have this happen and have Princess actually fix it? I don’t get why they just can’t make the reservation for us if the app isn’t working correctly.

That’s my understanding as well