Steelers36

Agree, but I wouldn't receive a cell phone call on the ship at sea - not in port for that matter as I use a local SIM when we are travelling. I would be on MINT if in USA and something else if in Europe. Much too expensive to use my normal. I would think PCL personnel doing these invites ought to be checking what the guest is doing and be smart enough to realize they are on a ship. They could also email if not getting an answer. Far more chance for a guest to pick up email than answer a phone call at sea.

It is too bad about St Petersburg. Hopefully the war ends soon as I think that is why it is being bypassed. We went in early June and weather was quite nice. It certainly got hotter later on.

Maybe they have scrapped assigning letter groups to the Elite group of early arrivees.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. It painted a picture in my head. If I was looking for a negative for an Elite, it would be this. If Elites with Medallions stuck to the Green Lane and the Blue Lane is shorter, it means potentially that an Elite arriving later to the terminal gets through security sooner and through the second maze of ropes to an agent and upstairs to the lounge ahead of another Elite who waited with the Green Lane folks. If that Green Lane Elite was after a Sanctuary booking, they might find themselves behind that Blue Lane Elite in boarding and the Blue Laner gets to the Sanctuary first to grab one of the very scarce loungers available. I guess it may come down to how one gets out of the lounge once the boarding call begins. And that ultimate boarding call is normally by letters A, B, etc, which were handed out to guests as they checked in. SO, what letters are they handing to the first 10 guests in the Green Lane versus the first 10 guests in the Blue Lane? I would not see it fair for the first guests in Blue Lane to be carded B, C, etc, while only first guests in Green Lane get the A card. It looks like they may have missed the mark on handling priority guests. They could have just been handled as Green/Blue mixed together as they had been doing. This could be a change and solution in search of a problem that wasn't there. We shall see as more details known. BTW, I used Sanctuary as an example since it is the only thing I can think of where the order of boarding is absolutely critical (in Port Everglades) to having any success at getting loungers. Otherwise, a few minutes one way or the other doesn't make much difference. Were you given a letter card for the boarding call? If so, when did you receive it and any awareness of how they were assigning them to guests? PS - After they talked around the three lanes a couple of times during the webinar, Carmen was laughing about it and said guests can be accommodated in any lane they end up in if not sure. (That said, I would not be trying to use the Gray Lane for special needs, but this Green/Blue thing in regards to having a Medallion or not doesn't seem right).

@ldtr is bang on in post #18. Well written too.

This is basically a re-write and stripped from information presented by Carmen Roig at a regular TA webinar that was held last week. The lanes are not status levels - those words were not in the article, but I would agree that the article seems to imply this a bit using the word "tier". But that doesn't mean status. It's also much ado about nothing in a way since the Arrival Time plan has been a non-event for many many months (apparently Southampton port has been an outlier at times). Guests have been able to arrive and check-in when convenient for them pretty much since the re-launch. What is new is the re-design of the App's boarding pass page. The article did not include any photos, but some are included in this thread. That said, they were basically illegible during the webinar. The webinar also had no mention of Elite, Suite, Platinum priority check-in and boarding. IMO, it should have been mentioned and also how that is going to work with this new scheme. I have emailed Carmen Roig with some pertinent questions in this area and she had said she will get back to me after consulting with someone else about the procedures. I would not worry - there will still be priority boarding for eligible guests who arrive at the terminal prior to general boarding. (Realize that after boarding has begun and the terminal waiting areas emptied, there really is no priority nor need for it as guests quickly check-in and immediately head onto the ship. That said, I would still expect to see some agents dedicated to Suites and Elites as before). The Blue Lane used to be for guests who have incomplete check-in process and need additional servicing, such as information, credit card, security photo (although that is done on the ship AFAIK). It was never for those who just need to pick-up Medallion. I don't see why they want to hold up guests who only need a Medallion and otherwise Green - unless they are trying to get more people to pay $10 or get pushed into the packages. Let's see how it works out. A report of this procedure already in practice at T2 in Port Everglades seemed okay for someone who was at the terminal by 9:30am.

IMO, a seafood eater ought to be able to get a second tail in lieu of the steak. I see the next plate over looks like a single tail only and not larger than the one in foreground. Do you know if a larger steak if served if guest orders only that and no lobster?

I believe there was some misunderstanding in what your question was when the response was posted. You can purchase a PCL gift card today. You can use that GC to pay your cruise fare by giving the information (card nbr and PIN) to your TA who applies the payment. Your TA doesn't load your GC. You can purchase OBC using a PCL GC. I do not think that OBC is available to you until you are on he ship. You can use OBC from PCL or TA (as long as posted to your booking credits today such as with a group OBC) to pay down towards cost of excursions in advance of sailing. Note that some TA's grant cash back to clients using OBC and that isn't available until you are on the ship. (I prefer to work with a TA that just does a cash discount up-front off the cruise fare). I think you can pay for an excursion using a GC - just like you can pay for your cruise fare. But you cannot self-pay with a GC in the Cruise Personalizer, IIRC. You need to call Princess or have your TA do it. TA's don't really get involved with excursions. It is up to guest to shop and select and book excursions via Cruise Personalizer or Princess App. I should think you can then call Princess to make payment for the excursions since you book them yourself (and we can pay for them ourselves online - but not with a GC I believe). You can take GC's with you on a cruise and cash them in at Guest Services who will then post Refundable OBC to your stateroom account. Any Refundable OBC not used by end of voyage is refunded via a check sent in the mail some time following end of voyage. If the amount is small - around $25 - the guest can obtain a cash refund at Guest Services. I am not sure if answers for you are here or not as your inquiry reads a bit odd in terms of what you can do and how OBC can pay for excursions. You can read more about GC's here: https://www.princess.com/learn/cruise-gifts-celebrations/overview/gift-cards/

This has been discussed on and off over past 6-8 months. Here is a recent thread about food: There are varying opinions with some stating things are better now than six months ago. I don't have any recent experience, but was not impressed with the food quality on Regal last October (and wouldn't count that as today without an update). Island was better. I certainly felt the quality of beef cut was not was it used to be.

I wonder how the non-PCL touring guests are making out. Hard to believe in 2023 that a major port has a terminal building with no AC!

I just have my agency's booking page open, along with Princess.com when I am shopping and get the "true" cruise fares that way. Good luck.

Oh, one other important point. As a Princess past customer, you want to be logged in to their website for booking and other purposes. Even if you are in the USA - literally or figuratively - the system is going to show you CAD because that is your profile. You would need to have a US home address in profile in order to see USD. When we are in FL for Winter I can see USD on Princess.com if I do not log in. And even that doesn't always work because cookies can keep things going the way they last were. It's a PITA for sure, but converting from CAD back to USD gets you approximately close. That's because PCL doesn't always just multiply by 1.xx for some strange reason (.35 right now) - they fiddle around with the cents up and down somewhat after doing the conversion. Also, I figure they convert each individual line item (these are hidden) that makes up the port taxes instead of converting the bottom line, so that one is always off some pennies.

Yes, a VPN can do it I imagine (I am soon to get one myself for various reasons). It is quite maddening that PCL won't give us a country flag so we can choose what to see (many travel sites do this). Anyway, we can book in USD with PCL - you need to call in and have a res agent or CVP do it. A US-based TA can also book us in USD (of course) as that is their "home" currency. Another advantage is that many of them give cash discounts off the cruise fare that you won't get in Canada. You can also see USD prices by using a 3rd-party booking engine that is a US agency organization. Note that some general travel reservation sites have Canadian and US webpages, so make sure you specifically get into the US one - or set the appropriate country and currency flag. My top two US TA's have booking pages for self-service that not only give me USD, but show me all eligible cruise fares and not just the one on Princess.com. Hope you find a suitable solution.

Interesting. I am sure we paid them back in 2018/2019.

You can try reporting the issue to the OCEAN IT team. You can phone in and choose the selection from phone tree options or email here: AskOceanMedallion <A360ad7@carnival.com>

😄

BTW, this is a change because it seems, for one example, that Suites and Elites are mixed into the three lanes and are not getting priority access to the check-in area. Since you are Elite, what was the observation and consensus among other Elites? We typically arrive by 9:30am or even 9:15am and I would have expected to be let in first via the priority line. ( I do realize arriving that early is going to put one in the Elite/Suite waiting room in good time and not have too many others there waiting for boarding to open). And was there a second if they didn't all go in at once? I think T2 has quite a few security scan lines so it moves quickly once the doors open.

Yes, seems weird. Putting it another way, it reads like NCL does not have NCF's.

Okay, so already doing it. Presume this was at T2. T2 is where PCL does all the latest and greatest stuff for sure. Perhaps elsewhere too, but certainly T2 is ground zero for anything new. ETA: Did all three lines go in at once and divide up among X number of security lines? Post-security, was there another three lines reformed, or did you proceed to agents where overhead signs indicated who they were servicing?

Might have better been posted here: I have read reports of guests "losing" their Arrival time in the App. As you might guess by now, don't be concerned and just show up when convenient.

Non-Commission Fare (portion). Every voyage cruise fare has a fixed rate per day amount that is designated as non-commissionable to agents. On regular length voyages, the current rate is $27/day and for longer voyages it can be $24/day. If you have a TA that discounts, subtract out the NCF amount from the Princess fare quote and the net difference is what your discount is calculated on.

They won't have the legacy WMD on pre-Royal Class ships. They used to sometimes have a special theme night dinner in Sabitini's on occasion on some ships. If they ever do start the announced new one, it was stated to be on the other ships as well.

When we are booking in North America (N.A. residents) to cruise in Australia/NZ, we pay everything like we booked for a local voyage. We pay CA on top of cruise fare and pay the regular rates for Plus/Premier because the CA is in those packages. On the ship, the bar pricing - as an example - has the 18% baked in to the AUD prices.

Ah yes, I am familiar with that document and should answer the OP's pricing question. That said, I wonder if this latest version was prepared before the Caymus announcement, or does not include the Caymus experience since it has not started as yet? Or, have they scrapped it altogether? We have no reports on CC Princess forum about anyone attending such an event and I am sure we would have if someone went. May as well do the CT for $130 instead. I don't see why they would keep an "old" WMD offer if/when they introduce the new one and expect people to pony up over 3X the cash.

I'd say the blue highlight is wrong because it could be standard boilerplate text, not taking into account voyage involved. I am not sure your exact reference point. The earlier point in bold is what makes sense to me. So, isn't the cost of adding on Plus or Premier in Australia lower than for us booking in North America? IDK the Australian pricing, but I believe I have read this.