I always buy the Plus package and have managed to either break even or do better financially than I would without it, even with a teen as passenger two. My last 7 day cruise I upgraded to the premiere, which I justified to myself because I knew I wanted to get some nice pictures. We definitely got the moneys worth out of the pictures but the upgraded alcohol portion was a joke - they literally had nothing in stock that was at the higher pricing. I won $25 OBC in Princess Prizes, and we did use the specialty dining, which we would have paid for otherwise. There is no way I would upgrade on a longer cruise. Now that Plus is going up again, I would need to do the math to find the break-even point and would more likely just go with standard and pay-as-you-go.
I wonder what the end game for Princess is here. Is it to make the Premiere look more attractive? To enitce new cruisers who don't know any better? Psychologically, if I was a newbie, faced with ONLY standard or Premiere, I would likely just buy Premiere so I got everything and worried about nothing. With Plus awkwardly jammed in there, it would make me stop and think about what I was actually getting and whether it was worth it. I would do the math and likely opt out of any of them. As a seasoned cruiser, I look at the options and think "Wow! They are charging more for what?" It feels like they are trying to be all-inclusive without being all-inclusive. Personally, I would almost prefer that they just raise the overall cruise price and have everything included...but I guess that doesn't sell cabins.
I have loved Princess since day one and they have always been my go-to line. Sadly, they continue to make it harder to keep loving them. Every benefit they do away with, every decline in product or onboard experience, every attempt to nickel and dime, just makes me like them a little less. I'm not saying other lines don't do the same, but I haven't sailed on other lines enough to know the difference - and I'm sure that is what Princess is counting on from their "new" passengers....