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I'm also peeved about the fact that free medallion shipping is included in the packages yet, as a Canadian, I'm not eligible to get that shipping. If you can't make it available to everyone that participates in the package then don't add it as a perk (I know it's not just Canadians that can't have it shipped). Princess is touting the ease of embarking with your freely shipped medallion as one of the reasons to upgrade to a package, but those of us who pay for the package and can't get that aspect are SOL.

Or it could backfire completely and Princess finds itself with a host of passengers that paid for Ocean Now/Room Service delivery rather than having it included with their packages and expect to actually get a service that works well. On my last Princess cruise, room service would regularly take an hour, sometimes never even showed up. Ocean Now delivery was hit or miss - sometimes it came, sometimes it just got cancelled without explanation, sometimes the drinks were given to other guests. That's all well and good when it's not an out of pocket expense, but if I'm paying extra for this service I would expect it to be top notch.

If I had a crystal ball, I would say that these chnages will result in the following: - Long time Princess cruisers that don't usually venture to other lines will now start shopping around and dipping their toes in the water. Remember, if you have never experienced the "before" with these other lines, the changes everyone on the other lines are complaining about are irrelevant as you don't know any different. - Same as above, cruisers from other lines that are unhappy with whatever is going on there, will try out Princess. As above, new cruisers on Princess won't know that these fees didn't exist previously so will just be happy with whichever option/package they choose. - Both above points result in "flux" with new passengers across the lines as opposed to loyal passengers on one line. Maybe this is what the lines want? I don't know. I do know, that I work for a theatre company and we fight every year to get our loyal/repeat customers to come back as it costs far less to keep a repeat customer than it does to go out and market for a new customer. I also know that our customer base is getting older (likely true for Princess) and what was once an art form for older adults is now being heavily marketed to the young population, mainly those under 40 (also seems to be the angle Princess is going for judging by their website pictures and language). - Time will tell how this will play out for Princess. My best guess is that for every loyal guest they lose, they get a new guest in who is willing to pay. The thing is, will that new guest come back for more or just continue to shop around? If you charge a new guest to use ocean now and then the drinks never come, or you charge a guest for room service and it takes 3 hours...how will that play out? As a repeat cruiser, I'm more likely to say "It's just a bad day/glitch. This didn't happen on my last cruise". A new cruiser will think this is normal and not be happy. - Personally, I am a TA and was elite on Princess long before that. I sell far more Princess product than anything else, primarily because they are/were a line that I felt was an excellent product and I had no hesitation promoting them as such. These fees, on top of all the other changes over the past few years, coupled with the disastrous medallion app rollout are making it harder to keep pushing for them.

In the Webinar, Princess said they would be emailing all booked passengers with the info and upgrade options. If booked through a TA, the TA will get the email and forward it on (though it's possible it would still come directly from Princess as well - that often happens with "important" emails). As a TA, I have nothing official from Princess either for my own bookings or for my client's bookings. While I have discussed this with clients that have asked, I have not reached out to inform those that have not yet as I would prefer to defer to the official Princess communication. Hopefully it will come this week!

Another thing to keep in mind is that the ocean now fee is per guest, rather than per room. So a couple in one room would either need to both pay the fee in order to use the feature or have one person pay and do all the ordering. The charge also applies to minors, so if my kid decided to order on the app they would be charged. My kids are old enough now to not do something like that unless given permission, but I suspect there may be some unhappy parents out there if they incur a charge from their kid ordering on the app. My kids use the app ordering a lot as I have a bit of a "pet peeve" about seeing kids standing at a bar...but that's a whole other conversation.

Yes, that appears to be something not clarified. I'm not sure if it would incur the room service fee or the ocean now fee. Maybe they are abandoning the option to order from the tv? Who knows?

Salty Dog is 2 plates and a dessert for the $14.99 cover charge (or free if on the packages). Steamers and Planks were on Caribbean but I thought they had been done away with - the menus were updated recently, so I may be wrong. I haven't sailed Caribbean in a long time.

Comparative Fare Chart - apologies if this has already been posted Comparison.pdf

More details for Ocean Now and Room Service Ocean Now and Room Service.pdf

Alfredos (ship dependent - ship codes are at bottom right of menu) Alfredos 1.pdf Alfredos 2.pdf

GiGi's GiGis.pdf

Kai Sushi Kai.pdf

O Malleys O Malleys.pdf

Ocean Terrace Ocean Terrace.pdf

Steamers Steamers.pdf

Vines as of August 31st Vines 0831.pdf

Some more info is starting to get posted to TA site. Planks Menu (is that even around these days?) Planks.pdf

NCL at ambassador level gets a free 7 night cruise in a balcony cabin. Just a one-time thing, but free all the same.

What on earth is that gray blob on top? It looks like seagull ca-ca. Please tell me it's not meant to be cream?

I remember the days when: you had notepaper and envelopes in your cabin (with the ship name and "written at sea" on the paper) the soda package was less than $10 a day and included a tumbler and cool curly straw with an animal attached turndown service with chocolates and (sometimes) towel animals passport book with collectable stamps each cruise coffee cards and ability to switch out the mini bar for them and use them on other sailings Not saying that any of the above had much impact on me, persoanlly, but they are still cuts to what WAS there and now isn't...

I think that is what they said on the webinar - they will be emailing guests who have booked and letting them know the changes/options to upgrade. I have 2 bookings currently - one with premiere package so no real changes there, other than the fees waived for the new charges. The other is a 15 day standard fare booking - it makes no sense financially to add a package to this cruise as it would put me at an additional $1800 (plus 30% CAD exchange rate) for myself and a teen. I will wait it out until final payment and see what comes down the pipe, but already looking at other options...

Exactly - so Princess no longer stands out from the competition. What is there to make me (or anyone) choose Princess over the other lines? I used to be 100% loyal to Princess for many years, now I have no hesitation in choosing the competition. I will still cruise with them, but they are no longer my first choice/go to line.

My disappointment with the above is that all 3 were heavily promoted/touted in Princess marketing as being "included" - the ocean medallion app ordering was one of the selling points for medallion class cruising, Gigi's and Alfredos have been constantly marketed as an inclusion, and complimentary room service was also one of the pieces that made Princess stand out from the other lines.

Maybe they could implement turndown service as a perk for package buyers... 😜

Kindred spirits...