pompeii

I originally booked a mini on the Star but now I'm looking at a deluxe balcony. Special pricing for a deluxe balcony is $630 additional pp and the current price when I log onto the website is $2292. The $630 is on top of the $200 deposit we've already paid, but we're getting that $200 back in obc. So in my eyes, the balcony is $630 vs. $2292. About a 73% discount. The mini would be $1050 additional pp, and under my login, the current rate on the website is $2474. So not quite as good a deal as the balcony.

We had the exact same thing happen in 2015 when the Regal was still new. A full suite on their 23 day fall TA was offered for $1,089 instead of $10,890. As comparison, interiors on that cruise were starting around $3900. I have no idea how long it was advertised like that or how many people grabbed the fare. We booked it quite a few months in advance and Princess never tried to correct or rescind our fare. The trip was great and went off without a hitch. We spoke with Princess customer service several times leading up to the cruise for various reasons (that was in the good old days when customer service was worth calling) but no one ever batted an eye at the fare. We didn't mention the fare beforehand on social media or even while we were on the ship to fellow passengers, because I had a picture in my head of management finding out and security pounding on my stateroom door demanding that we pay up or else!

Do we know for sure that we can bid on upgrades with a comped cruise? I was wondering about that. Has anyone done it?

Well, I actually emailed my pvp asking for more information this morning just before 8am and cc'd Jen Wright, along with customer service. I received an email back from Jen at 9:06, so it was very fast. Barely an hour. Of course, she might be busier now that it's later in the day.

email Jen Wright, or whoever was on the email you received. That's how I got the pricing for the Star cruise. Be sure to tell her you tried customer service and they were clueless.

Here is the discounted pricing for the various cabins on the Star October 2025 cruise, per Jen Wright: Hello Susan - I am including the pricing options below should you be interested in the discounted upgrade. We can honor the interior room complimentary, meaning at the rate you have already paid, but it does not include the Plus or Premier package. The offer does include a $200 per person onboard credit. Should you choose to purchase the package onboard you can use the OBC to offset some of the cost of the package which I highly recommend given all that's included. The rates below are per person, in addition to what you have already paid. Oceanview: $280 Deluxe Balcony:$630 Mini suite: $1050 Cabana mini suite: $1120 Sincerely, Jen

Besides not honoring the offer or offering something better than an IE guarantee interior, my major gripe is that the email didn't tell us what the pricing would be to keep our originally booked cabin. Or the other cabin types. They had to have known before the email went out so there was no reason to not give us the information we would need to make an informed decision. And sending the email Friday evening so we can't contact our pvp until Monday was very poor customer service.

Does anyone have information or photos of the DE forward deluxe balconies? They look quite a bit longer than the other balconies but the photo and layout on the website are the same.

I agree 100% with keeping an eye on your bookings. A few months ago, with no notification or reason whatsoever, Princess removed my fcd's from my two upcoming bookings and then tried to reapply them. But they reapplied them backwards and put the fcd with the oldest date on the booking I made the most recently, which would have been fine except then I had only recently-purchased fcd's to put on my older booking. And the rule is that the purchase of the deposit has to predate the booking. So I also lost my $150 obc for that cruise. I didn't notice it for about a month because 1) I was on the other cruise in S. America and Antarctica, and 2) I knew I hadn't made any changes and so wasn't checking my obc or deposits to see if they changed. When I saw it after I returned from the Antarctica cruise, I contacted my pvp who said there was nothing she could do because the oldest deposit had already been "used" on the cruise I just got back from and they couldn't backdate the other deposit. She said to contact customer service and ask if they could possibly do something for me as a courtesy. I was able to find out the date they took the deposits off, but she would not say who did it or the reason why. The funny thing is that they did not touch my husband's deposits, only mine. I had to push quite a bit and insist that she contact customer service herself without me wasting my time going back and forth begging them for a "courtesy". After all, this was not my mistake or my doing. I got an email from her a few days later saying she had reached out on my behalf, and then a month or so later they reinstated my deposit and $150 obc. So yes, keep an eye on your bookings because Princess can do some strange things.

It shows as refundable on your account on the Princess website? My husband also gets military obc and his is clearly marked nonrefundable for both of our upcoming cruises. IIRC, it changed from refundable to nonrefundable last fall. It also states this in the FAQ about the military benefit. But to answer your original question, in our experience, nonrefundable is used first.

Check out Trip Advisor. Search your port and then things to do, then under experiences there should be tabs for day trips, walking tours, shore excursions, private tours, etc. You can also read the ports of call section here on cruise critic for your specific ports. You should find threads with independent tour suggestions there as well.

International Friends offers this as well and the drop off at LHR is 1:30-2:00pm. We did their Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Windsor tour a few years ago but got dropped off at our London hotel since we were staying for a few days. Everything went off without a hitch and we enjoyed the tour. We're using them again in August from Southampton to London via the Cotswolds and flying out the next morning. Southampton to London & Heathrow via Stonehenge | International Friends

If you are Platinum or Elite and the app doesn't show the 50% discount up front, then your app has your loyalty level wrong. You need to contact the IT department to have them fix it. It is not a requirement that you pay full price before boarding and wait for the discount in obc once on board. It should look like this:

I have a little nightlight that I plug into the bathroom outlet. Gives off enough light to be safe without being blinded.

We always put blue painters tape over ours, but if it's driving you crazy and you find yourself without any tape, someone mentioned that their steward took a little wad of tissue paper and dampened it with water, then stuck it over the sensor.

We're doing the same s2s in July out of Southampton as Mike above. However, we had no problem booking dining reservations on the app for each leg. On turnaround day, our dining reservations change from 6pm in the Provence dining room for the first 21 days to 5:40 in the Concerto for the remainder.

I'm glad it's on the Royal now. We were on her from September - November last fall (2023) and they still had the old coffee and coffee machines in the buffet. And they were broken most of the time. We went through a lot of Starbucks Via!

My husband and I will be disembarking from the Island Princess on July 26 at Southampton's Mayflower terminal and boarding the Regal that same day at the Ocean terminal. How easy is it to get from one terminal to the other? I assume walking won't be possible and I don't count on the cruise line to offer any type of assistance or transfer, so will a cab driver be willing to take us that short distance from one terminal to the other? Obviously, we'll have our luggage. Or is there some type of port transportation between terminals?

We got free tokens no problem from guest services on the Sapphire last month for when we wanted to do a load or two ourselves. Elite laundry service was also pretty quick, next day or 2 days max.

What I don't like is that it's not just the number of people signed up, it's that they don't know if they'll have a guide. So there can be plenty of people interested but they'll still not run the tour, or they'll cancel it. Just seems kind of iffy and unreliable to me.

Here's another option for you. I have never used this operator and cannot vouch for them, but I am considering it for our date in August. Normandy D-Day Beaches Shore Excursion from Le Havre Cruise Port (vexperio.com)

Regarding Overlord, I'm trying to book it from Le Havre for our stop on the Regal Princess in August, but they won't commit to running the tour. The email communication I've received is vague and says "I have added you to the wait list and we will let you know if we can open the tour. Again: We open group tours depending on demand. Please note this offers no guarantees and is demand dependent. We need a minimum of 8 people to open the tour but it also depends on how many and which guides we have available as to whether we can open the tour." For those who have used Overlord, did you run into this? I know from our roll call that at least one other couple is on their waitlist. It makes it very hard to plan if they don't even know if they'll have a guide for Normandy that day. It seems very odd to me for a tour operator that specializes in Normandy tours.

Yes, there have been numerous reports of these calls. Enough so that when we got one, I interrupted right off the bat by saying if he was calling about the $7000 package, we weren’t interested. He said thanks and hung up. It’s a legit call but nothing we’d buy.

Maybe it's triggered when your remaining balance is below the cost of Princess Vacation Protection on the booking?

I just paid for the majority of my July cruise with AARP gift cards, leaving a balance of $347. The final payment date isn't until April, but I just received a "shortfall notice" from Princess stating the balance due. Does Princess automatically send these out if you have a small balance left, even if you're not near the final payment date? I'll pay it when I can purchase another card next month. When I read further down in the notice, it says "THE FINAL PAYMENT RECEIVED WAS INSUFFICIENT TO COVER THE PRINCESS VACATION PROTECTION/PLATINUM VACATION PROTECTION FEE. THE PRINCESS VACATION PROTECTION/PLATINUM VACATION PROTECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE BOOKING." I looked at the booking and the insurance is still on there. Does anybody have experience with this? I'm not going to bother calling since the call center doesn't know how to do much except try to upsell to one of the packages. I'll email my pvp but they don't work on the weekends, so I wondered if I could get any answers here in the meantime.