Steelers36

You left out crew incentive.

I caught that one.

This is not true. I think you are misunderstanding something. Neither Plus nor Premier (on their own) entitles guest to priority embarkation.

I am a Standard Fare booker. I don't really get worked up over the change for Alfredo's/Gigi's to for-fee casual dining when clearly this has been a trend to introduce new CD locations on the ships. It certainly is a step up from the Lido take-away site with sit-down dining and wait-staff ambiance. As others have stated, it's more surprising they left it free for this long. IDK what the right price is for a pizza, but $12 is certainly a very large chunk of the prix fixe option and more than the mains at other casual dining IIRC. Anyway, didn't intend to sidetrack myself. As for the Ocean Now service charge, I just think it is quite odd and ironic that Princess (I am talking about YOU, JP) came out with the Medallion App - the great differentiator to the competition - and now guests have to pay a free to use one of its prime features. The App functions were built to enhance the onboard experience for the guest. Remove barriers to a carefree vacation, etc, etc. The food and drinks come to the guest. Oh, just playback those JP recordings when he was Project Mgr for this. So, I think this is what kills me about the change more than anything because I think it strikes a blow to the original concept and now the guest pays for use of a software app in effect that was not only to benefit them, but most certainly Princess itself. I feel like JP has sullied himself in this regard. That said, $15/voyage isn't going to break me should I choose to use Ocean Now (I never used it previously other than to order that first free drink we used to get a long time back - and even then I was standing by the bar and asked them for the drink I really wanted since it wasn't a choice in the App).

Understood, but I was trying to indicate that if a guest has a Standard Economy ticket booked via EZ-Air Flexible fare and another guest ended up with Basic Economy with the same airline by booking originally as EZ-Air Restricted, the first guest is not going to be changed to Basic Economy when they are ticketed - whether at standard 45 days or earlier at 60 days.

https://www.therams.com/news/princess-cruises-los-angeles-hometown-cruise-line-official-cruise-vacation#:~:text=As the Official Cruise Line,on the iconic Infinity Screen. For @gottagocit, I can say that NFL Football is about the biggest sport in USA for fans and sports betting, etc. It's not a national NFL partnership and television viewers may not even be aware. Hopefully, it nets PCL some benefit. I wouldn't call it "giving" money to the Rams. They do get advertising benefit out of it and it is a large market for attracting folks to cruising on the west coast.

I have requested Early Ticketing using EZ-Air page in the Personalizer. Once ticketed, passenger is subject to the airline rules for the ticket(s). This is not necessarily the same as if guest originally booked a Restricted Fare ticket in EZ-Air. As seen in this thread, it might even be an entirely different class of ticket. Certainly, once ticketed, changes will cost. I have ticketed early in order to be able to do seat selection (airline dependent). I also ticketed a bit early in 2022 as there were too many stories about guests being surprised that PCL had not paid for airfare or had not got them ticketed with EZ-Air and I wasn't taking any chances. It was also clear by the time I did so that fares were not going to be going lower and were already well-above what I had locked in at.

They don't like to broadcast the bad news. Instead, they have a spin session webinar for TA's to convince them to sell those packages because they have even more value than last month.

Even one per day is less than the $20 differential for Premium.

You say you have seen references. There is a large thread discussing all of the changes in detail and with varied opinions. Casual Dining new menus have been posted as well. There was no change to CC Benefits in this last set of changes. Casual Dining has always had free locations and for-fee locations. The change here is that Alfredo's/Gigi's will be for-fee going forward. The info provided in Post #2 is not really accurate. The for-fee casual dining locales will offer a prix-fixe option for $15/pp whereby guest gets an App, a Main, and a Dessert. However, the menus all have a la carte pricing, so if you just want one item, you can do so. Standard burgers, pizza, ice cream on Lido remain free. Only Alfredo's /Gigi's affected. Yes, there is a one-time charge per guest for using Ocean Now to order food/drink via the App or cabin TV. If you can arrange it so that only one guest orders all, you can get by with one service charge of $15. A phone call to Room Service to order something is $5 - per call, but that is covered if you have already paid the $15 fee.

I think what you showed us earlier was PCL's way of indicating Sold Out for cabin selection for 2. Pretty much everyone is unhappy with the change to make lead-in categories (in your case it would be a ME) have Non-Refundable Deposits. In order to select a cabin, you need at least book a MD (if they exist), or whatever is higher category like MC, MB, MA. We have never booked a Mini, but I would not want a BF or IF in those cabin types, for example. So, I wondered if your issue was the bug (or at least some of us perceive it as a bug), where Mini's could not be booked unless guest was specifying 3 passengers. With 2 passengers, then Princess.com was showing GTY only. I just tried your voyage with 3 guests sailing in cabin, and it comes back SOLD OUT with cabin selection. It does allow guest to book GTY with Non-Ref Deposit. IDK who'd want to lay money down in that situation as it seems next thing to a waiting list. IMO, it is a double-negative situation to have both a GTY and a Non-Ref Deposit. This indicates to me that other posters advising this is a popular voyage and the Mini's are gone are correct. They have to hold some Mini's back for those who did book a GTY or they could be doing a lot of "Move Over" offers down the line. Anyone really wanting this voyage in a Mini, should just check every morning as you never know when someone might cancel and 2025 is a long way off.

That $85 reads suspiciously like a TA group OBC, so interesting a PCL agent "found" it.

Yes, it does because you effectively cruise from Seattle to San Francisco and that is not a closed-loop voyage as you return to a different US port.

While I have never booked an EZ-Air flight that close to deadline, I never pay any attention to the Restricted Fares and filter them out right away. I have often noticed in casual glancing that, if available in advance, often can be higher or no savings. IMO, they are useless in terms of utilizing the advantages of EZ-Air. But, I do understand your situation. I do know that in terms of Flexible Fares, EZ-Air is not selling the lowest possible fare for any airline which are those kinds of seats you ended up with - no inclusions and sometimes no seat selection. OTOH, I don't see EZ-Air attempting to advise a shopper of all the differences among airlines and what they include and don't include. I think there is a general warning about that. It is news to me to see that a Restricted domestic fare could be a lowest possible category and not the same as the seats sold under Flexible. The fare difference may correspond to Alaska's own pricing if you shopped directly. It always costs more to book a seat with seat selection than a seat where you don't get a seat until 24-hr check-in or sometimes even assigned to you with no choice.

Those were very limited in scope and nothing close to what has been available.

I freely admit there will be exceptions and "high holiday" periods could be prime situations for that. But generally I have seen little to no pricing difference in most cases. Perhaps Suites are a different situation since they are in short supply (we don't book Suites and I have not really looked into their pricing at all).

Bayou Cafe on Island/Coral. Approximately a CG type menu, but with different items.

This is another dumb misstep by the jugheads in Santa Clarita. They invested money and time to provide the TV ordering feature, so why take it away as it is important to many guests? A cynic might say - given the stated temporary loss - that the PCL IT team was not prepared to program an order from the TV to charge the one-time $15 service fee that happens when ordering via the App on a smart device. What logical reason would there be to do this? An order is an order, whether it comes from guest smart device using Princess Medallion App or from the cabin TV. Are they trying to force folks into using both the App ordering and RS ordering so they can charge both $15 and $5? Also doesn't make much sense since PCL tells us 75% of guests are on Plus or Premier. Don't other lines have TV ordering? (I have no idea). Anyway, it is a really dumb move when they have already pissed off guests who have lost things they thought they were getting when booked and paid.

One. I always book separate voyages for many reasons. If I did book with Plus, there are additional reasons to do do now. It is better for EZ-Air as well. I'd be re-booking if the fare has not gone up. Generally there is not much fare difference, if any at all (at least when voyages first released). I have same advice for you. You are saying the best part is getting an extra $50 in SOBC. Well, you lost the opportunity for two more SD dinners at $35/$39. If on Plus plan, there is more free Casual Dining opportunities at the for-fee locations. If PCL or the TA has additional OBC (often group OBC from a TA), you would get an extra one of those. It is often way better to have EZ-Air flights split so that you can re-fare either the outbound or return independently if there is a price drop. There are many ways to make-up that $50 in either SOBC or MOBC. If PCL ever changes the Elite mini-bar setup rule, you will certainly get it if booked separately.

If it is the GC OBC you are concerned about, that is Refundable so it won't ever be lost completely. We have had rollover balances on each of our B2B experiences. That covers pre- and post-pandemic.

J, you are surely blessed this voyage. Blog sounds like you are having a grand time and the weather looks amazing. The Great Carnac sees more PCL voyages in your future.

At the time that the coffee program ended, for a short time following, those Elite/Suite guests who were expecting to swap for two coffee programs - and made inquiry with GS - were given $X of OBC. It was not a panacea. I don't even know if it happened on all ships. It was exception based clearly. It must be well over by now.

It is obvious to me that the OCEAN IT Team never allowed for Guest A to sail B2B with Guest B the first voyage and different Guest C the second voyage. Probably a quite rare situation, so I wouldn't lose sleep waiting for them to fix it. They still have not fixed some issues which have been around for up to two years.

Most certainly, SD pricing has no cents involved. However, not all locations are $39. For example, Sabitini's is $35. Crown Grill is $39. One would hope the DMW help desk (selection on Princess' phone tree options), would be able to explain what is going on. But first, knowing which SD location you booked would be helpful. I have never seen an incorrect amount anytime I was playing with SD booking, but have not been attempting it in 2023. I presume you have a typo above with the $149.93?