trinitygirl

success! I have prepaid for my wifi for the two cruises where it was not included. The app gave me an automatic 50% discount for platinum status, so now it's all taken care of and I don't have to think about it again. I am not sure if I am going to pre-pay the gratuities - over the three cruises they come to $1030 but the increase is only another $80. I guess that's another excursion so ... something to think about over the next week. In the meantime, the app has lots of cool things to play around with so thanks for your help!

thank you! I will check it out!

oh, thanks for this. Do you have to have paid for the cruise in full before using the Medallion app? Because my payment dates aren't until May+ next year so I haven't even looked at the app yet.

Hi all, following the email about price upgrades, I jumped onto my Princess booking page to find out how much it would cost to pre-pay for gratuities and wifi for my three cruises next summer (they are all booked in Australia but happening in Europe, so neither of these is included in the fare for the two cruises I didn't book with Princess Plus, and for the cruise that does have Princess Plus, gratuities are not included). On the payments page, I can see the button which gives me the price (in Australian dollars) to pre-pay the gratuities, but I can not see anywhere, how to pay for wifi. It's not on the onboard services tab, or the payments tab. Does anyone know where it is hidden, or do I need to ring and do it over the phone? thanks!

It’s a Princess Tour, so I don’t know which operator it is. If you go to the Princess website, the excursion is LI1160A.

when i departed Melbourne back in Jan 2019, I arrived at the port just before midday. There was a long line of people queued outside and we had to wait about an hour in the hot sun, no shade, before they let us into the terminal. Many of the people around me seemed prepared for the wait. Once upstairs in the terminal, I received my card etc quickly at the suite check in line, but then had to sit on a hard plastic seat for another hour (i was grateful for the seat, most people were standing up in a packed queue). When they were finally ready to let us through, we got on quickly. But i decided in future, i would not be arriving early at that terminal.

I have no information about 2024 but can report that I booked my Oct 4 2023 Search for the Northern Lights cruise in May this year. I was a late comer: the roll call started in August 2021! So if the 2024 cruises are not showing yet, they must be close…

Back in 2019 I sailed for two weeks on the Golden Princess, and I LOVED her - I think she is classified as an older ship. Less people, a wonderful promenade deck etc. I would happily sail on her again.

Hi all, thanks for the responses. There are no perks showing on Travel Summary, but when I click on Onboard Services, down the bottom I see this - as you can see, there is no mention of gratuities. When I click on payments, and click on crew appreciation, it will let me go all the way through to pre paying for them. The terms and conditions for Princess Plus and Premier do not mention gratuities. Again, while I am booking from the Australian website, these are three European cruises (ex Rome and Southhampton) with the onboard currency in USD (crew appreciation is included in the fare (not princess plus) for all cruises where the onboard currency is AUD). So it sounds like those of you booking in the US and Europe get gratuities included in Princess Plus, but those of us in Australia do not. That seems just weird to me???

Hi everyone, just hoping for clarification. I have seen on quite a few CC posts now, the statement that the crew appreciation/gratuities charge is included in Princess Plus. On the website it does not mention this (just drinks.wifi, OBC) and on my upcoming cruises, I have a button on the personaliser encouraging me to pre-pay the fee. I have just spoken to someone on the Princess phone line and he has said that the crew appreciation fare is not included in Princess Plus. This is not related to the fact that the fee is incorporated into the cruise fare for Australian and NZ cruises - the cruises I have booked are all in Europe with on board charges accrued in USD. So, can anyone shed any clarity on this for me? many thanks

I am confused by all the statements above, that Princess Plus includes the crew appreciation fee. All cruises originating in NZ and Australia (not just Princess) include tipping in the cruise fare. This doesn't have anything to do with Princess Plus, it's just part of the standard fare (as explained to me, this is cultural difference; we downunder don't really understand tipping and expect to pay higher fares to properly compensate staff). Anyway, my point is that for Australian and NZ cruises, Princess Plus includes drinks, wifi, and OBC. I have three cruises booked in Europe next year (one out of Rome, two out of Southhampton), two with Princess Plus. Nowhere in my contract or the personaliser, does it say that crew appreciation is covered - just drinks, wifi and the OBC. These were all booked on the Australian website but as they are not out of Australia, my understanding is that I have to pay the crew appreciation fee separately. On the payment tab for each cruise, there is a 'prepay crew appreciation tab' with the cost in AUD. So my question is: are the people above, saying that tips are included in Princess Plus, talking about a particular market where tips are included in PP? Or have I misunderstood something? many thanks for any clarification Emma

Thankyou. I will go with no expectations and see what they say!

Does anyone know if they will cater to vegetarians for either of these experiences?

Hi, I am comparing three different (but the same) tours Princess is advertising: GOA150, GOA 160 and GOA 165. I have had a look at the Port of Calls page but the information there doesn't really address my question because its not Princess-specific. These three tours all visit Milan and the Last Supper and appear to be 9 hours long (although the GOA 165 excursion details add up to 10 hours) and are listed as moderate activity. GOA 160 includes a visit to the Cathedral which I am not that interested in, as I spent 10 days in Milan in 2010, and the only reason I want to go back is to see the Last Supper which was closed when I was there. GOA 165 says in the excursion details that there are 45 minutes at the chapel but I don't trust this because my understanding is that ticket bookings are for 30 minutes, and see above re the hours not adding up), where the other 2 tours say 30 minutes. GOA 165 says in the excursion details that there is a 2.15 hour city tour followed by 3 hours of free time, but there is no mention in the description of what is involved in the city tour. So, my questions are: has anyone been on any of these tours and if so, can you report back? Also, do you think there will be any issues, given the free time provided on these tours, if I just skip the city tour and do my own thing until we meet back at the bus for the return journey? many thanks for any advice, Emma

I was delighted to discover, by absolute accident (an old browser window on my ipad which refreshed) ten days ago, a $1500 price drop on my Med cruise in August next year. Took a screen shot and sent it to my PVP and she was able to reprice my cruise. fab development! on the other hand, my Norway cruise has jumped up in price, which also makes me feel good. it pays to keep an eye out.

I posted about this last week so there is another thread out there. I had a bunch of FCCs from 2020 which expired in early 2021 before Australia restarted cruising. Princess extended them to Jan 2022. I applied them to a Jan 2022 cruise. Cruising hadn’t restarted by then, so they extended them again, to Jan 2023 and moved me to a Jan 2023 cruise. Earlier this year I got permission to take long service leave for the second half of 2023 and wanted to swap to a July 2023 cruise. Princess extended all the FCCs to July 2023, and even found a way to move my final remaining future cruise deposit (which had expired in Sept 2021 while sitting against the Jan 2022 cruise) to the July 2023 cruise. So, it CAN be done. But it may be that the fact cruising didn’t restart in Australia til recently (and we were locked in until the end of 2021 and couldn’t travel elsewhere) helped.

I have had all my FCC extended a couple of times now. I had both goodwill credits and cash credits. The first time they were extended in 2021 because Australia was still locked down and cruising had not restarted. Then when we reopened, I put them towards a cruise for Jan 2023 before changing my plans and wanting to use them for a July 2023 cruise. This was more complicated because they were due to expire in January 2023 AND my last remaining Future Cruise Deposit had already expired in Sept 2021. It took them a month but they worked out how to extend and transfer all of them. Which made me very happy!

i gave up waiting and booked a cruise with Celebrity for November 2023. I kept hoping that I could just stay on board Sky Princess after the TA cruise but I couldn't find where it went next. I didn't realise that they just hadn't released the sailings yet!

I am planning a small group ship tour from Livorno for next year. It’s ten hours and goes to three of the five villages in a mini bus. There is another tour that includes a 30 minute boat trip. It all looks wonderful. After the cruise I have a week based in Genoa and it seems like I can go back for a day trip by train if I wanted to.

Ok, thank you for this. Disappointing, but i will look for plan B.

The HOHO bus looks great, but the fine print says it only operates when a cruise ship is in port, May-Sept. our cruise is in October 2023; does anyone know if the website was written before cruising expanded to later in the year, or is the bus unlikely to be operating in Oct?

I headed straight to Alfredo's for my embarkation day lunch on the Regal. It was very quiet (most people were out in Helsinki) and the pizza is scrumptious.

Just wondering if anyone here has visited the spa since cruising restarted? Regular massages are one of my favorite treats while onboard, and as I plan my first cruise (Princess is restarting over here in October) I got to wondering if its safe, and how it is being managed these days. Any information? Emma