Steelers36

True that only one person needs buy it, but it doesn't make sense at all to purchase their standalone drink packages. Better to buy 2x Plus. This has been established multiple times. Plus Drink pkg = $77 Crew Appr'n = 2x $16 = $32 Internet = 2x $7.5 - $15 = $15 - $30 TOTAL = $124 - $139 (and doesn't count even $1 for cabinmate drinking anything) 2x PLUS = $120.

True enough, but parents can buy it in their cabin and not for the kids cabin.

No one HAS to book with the Plus or Premier package. Princess offers the "no frills" Standard and you pay separately for Crew Appreciation, MedallionNet Internet, and any drinks. NEVER think of purchasing the stand-alone drink packages - they are way over-priced and you may as well book the Cruise Fare option Plus/Premier. If Princess will allow two adults booked in Cabin 1 and two kids booked in Cabin 2 - the kids can be booked Standard. Parents can book Plus or Standard. It is up to you to figure out if the additional $60/pp/day is of value (depends on your spending habits on the ship, particularly amount and which type of beverages). Princess Plus is $60/pp/day and Premier $80/pp/day and same price pre-cruise as on-board. Perhaps you might find a sales promo with a TA that discounts the Plus, but then do they also discount the Standard. It's just a math exercise. Assuming you use Internet, that is $15/day and Crew Incentive is $16/pp/day. You could have one adult upgrade from the 1-device internet to 4-devices and then the kids don't need an internet package on their own. They do need to pay the $16 Crew Incentive. Family Internet = $15 + $15 + $25 = $55 Crew Appreciation = $16 x 4 = $64 Beverages = $??/day

Hmm. I guess you need to camp by the door. Doesn't seem right, but I am wondering if they didn't know how to organize it from the standard setup.

My understanding has been that technically, you cannot have just kids under certain age in a cabin - although we know this happens on the ships. To get past booking restrictions, parents book Mom + Kiddo1 and Dad + Kiddo2 and then swap cabins on board. The details about age of kids and such are in Passage Contract I believe.

IMO, parents with kids shouldn't sweat this any longer. Just book Standard fare and then order either Plus or Premier package on board.

Seems odd they wouldn't use the upstairs holding room since it is right beside the ramps to the ship.

Would ne nice if you could post the ship, date and voyage length. I am guessing that the cabin category you ended up with (Bx) is what drove the pricing for the invoice. How did you get this message? Are you saying it popped up on the screen while you were shopping a cruise on Princess.com? Never heard of that before.

They seem to board crew in the oddest locations at times. When we did S.A. trip in 2018, they switched captains at one of the small Chilean ports before a more major city (forget which one now).

You need to gamble money in the casino. You can get the money by charging to your on board account. Enough said.

Anything you purchase on board (other than FCD's) is charged to your on board account. And, anything charged to the on board account is offset with our OBC. No, there is no longer any advantage (i.e. discounted price) for paying in advance. The price in advance and on board is the same. $15/day for 1-device and $40/day for 4-devices.

I agree with Jimmy. In so many ways, the App is a ...... well, let's just say the IT team not only creates bugs and screws things up, but the App has been known on many occasions to have out-of-date or incorrect info (this was often the case during the higher-Covid protocols period).

I agree with you. The OP is right about the fact that a simple issue should not be so difficult to resolve. I think many of us are just a bit beaten down with the way things work at PCL and mostly resigned to the fact we have to sometimes chase after them repeatedly to get an answer or a resolution.

It is correct. They split the lower berths as the upper berths are often right above, so it becomes quite awkward if you try to maintain a combined lower queen, plus the upper bunks. If you can swing it, try booking two cabins - Mom + Kiddo 1 and Dad + Kiddo2. On board, put Kiddo1 & Kiddo2 in one cabin and M&D in the other.

What you have stated makes sense - in terms of what Princess seems to be trying to do with lead-in "F" categories. As you mentioned, it flies in the face of B.S.E. supposedly having Ref deposits. Most certainly, NCZ, is indicative of a Refundable Fare Code. I suppose it wears two hats the way things are going: Ref for "E" and higher and Non-Ref for "F". Also, that $100 fee they wanted to charge you is consistent with the new Fare Code condition - for an "F" fare with restrictions. But you booked an "E" fare to get around that, so it seems wrong they wanted to ping you for $100. And a rather feeble attempt on their part as we can cancel and re-book prior to FP Date with no penalty. Sometimes it seems PCL just shoots themselves in the foot. PS - I know who your TA is and I would agree if anyone knows what's what with Princess, she would. Lot of history and experience there.

I try to provide details for a number of reasons. If one of the TA's on here responds, they can understand the particulars. Folks can certainly ask a CVP or TA what Fare Code they are being booked under and if there any other options. Folks who'd like to be more self-sufficient get some info they can use to do own investigations. Princess isn't hiding anything so to speak - they just present one fare choice and it is supposed to be the best one. I do recall not too long ago, their system was not presenting the best fare for some people in certain situations. A glitch? Perhaps? I know this happened to my friend a year or so ago with one of our voyages we took last Fall. She wasn't seeing the lower price I was seeing on Princess.com, but she was just as eligible for it as I was. I am not a TA, nor have been one, but I feel I have decent insight into some of what they do and how things work with Princess and them. I am not, nor have ever been a Princess employee. I don't believe I have any particular inside track to Princess - I certainly don't have ongoing personal relationships with employees that some posters have mentioned. I have sought out the "right" person at times to try and get an issue resolved or an answer. I try to share what I can at times in hopes it might be useful/helpful to some posters on here, just as I get helpful info from others. Thanks for your note by the way.

True - if the voyage you are looking at is structured that way. From a brief perusal of a small number of voyages for sale, I see both the old way and the new way.

Yes, guests could book and select a cabin (of course providing they were available to select) in the "F" categories in the past. Looks like that is going/gone away for at least selected voyages now.

I am not sure that the shopping big box has a detailed booking engine as I have never used them. And answer is no - there are available-to-all booking engines out there. Sure, some are with TA's that also provide cruise fare discounts. Thing is, we cannot name travel agencies, even if the purpose is to get you to a self-service booking engine. I can say that more than one agency uses a certain booking engine because once you get past/around their front-end and personalized parts, you can quickly see that the basic content and presentation, as well as the steps involved in making a booking, are identical. It shouldn't be too hard to find one or two that work well, similar to hunting down a good TA. If the goal is just to see all the pricing options and details, it doesn't matter if that particular agency discounts or provides good personal service.

Try out various large US-based agencies that have a self-serve booking engine where you can shop and price cruises and make your own bookings. We are not allowed to name agencies here. Actually, there is also at least one Canadian provider that has a good cruise booking engine.

Princess.com only shows us one possible cruise fare (for each of Std, Plus, Premier). It is supposed to be the best deal for the logged in guest. That said, there are often lots of Fare Codes applicable to a voyage based on the guest's Captain Circle Profile (past guest, regional location, casino eligibility, etc). There are third party booking engines - in particular these are basically ones operated by travel agencies that allow customers to self-book. A number of these are good at showing all eligible Fare Codes for the customer. Of course, the customer needs to be on these websites with their name, birthdate and CC Member Number so that the TA system can show what is applicable from Princess. Otherwise, you just get whatever the default fare is for a "nobody".

Some of my comments and posed questions are more for a TA or Princess to answer. I don't notice any of our TA contributors posted here, but I will provide what I found from some small bit of research. I used Caribbean sector and next Winter as an example, ultimately focusing in on January. First, not every voyage for sale has this new setup. But perhaps PCL plans to make it so across the board. The following example is from a 10-night on Enchanted in early Jan, 2024. The standard Public Fare codes (always available) are for sale. Standard/Plus/Premier = NL1/NP1/NR3. They are $1 more each than the current promo offers. The next set of Fare Codes is the current common set for North America - that being N3B/N3A/N3R. All of these fares are Refundable. (Note that all the first six Fare Codes I have mentioned begin with "N" and (strangely enough) this has always been PCL indication as being Refundable. There is still a CAD at Par (to USD) promo going on which I would be eligible for if I was booking the cruise. These are RL2/RJ2/RK2. These are regional-specific Fare Codes applicable to Cdn guests and the total fare is much lower is USD and when converted to CAD at the current 1.35 PCL rate, they approximate in CAD the same numeric amount as what Americans pay using N3B/N3A/N3R. They are all Refundable. Finally, if looking at Category IF (or BF as examples), there is one additional Fare Code - KGR. This says it has been effective from DEC 14/22 and runs to the cruise sail date. The conditions listed for this Fare Code indicate Non-Refundable Deposit and $100 Fee to change booking to another date and no cabin selection with assignment coming close to sail date. The conditions mention nothing about Plus perks, so it appears to be a Standard type of fare booking. But, here's the rub. For this voyage, the cruise fare for Standard in USA is $1,048 (Catg IF). Plus is $600 more (as expected) at $1,648. If I look at Category IE, the price jump is $100. The Non-Ref Fare Code KGR is $1,216!!! So, it is quite a bit more than the Refundable option. What I am saying is, it looks completely possible (based on a 3rd party booking engine that shows ALL eligible fare types), that one can book a IF cabin using N3A and not forced to book with KGR. Based on what I have seen, IDK why anyone would elect the KGR Fare Code. I also noted that when shopping the mentioned voyage (on Princess.com), if I was looking for the PLUS fare, it also offered Non-Refundable and Refundable, stating the deposit is Non-Refundable if I let Princess choose cabin. Interesting, because I don't see a Fare Code listed for Plus that is Non-Ref (another reason for a TA to weigh in with what they can see). If I am shopping the Premier fare option, now the deposit is listed as Refundable whether I let Princess assign cabin or I select one. Traditionally, there has been only a small upcharge fare difference between IF and IE (like $25 - $40) and likely more ($75+) for Balcony group. Now, I do see a $100 fare jump from F to E. After that initial $100 jump, the price changes from E to D, D to C, etc, appear to fall back into the more expected range of increases. That said, I have noticed from casual observance that PCL has increased the price jump heading to an A category whereas they used to keep it fairly steady straight line increase from letter to letter. Of course, this is an extracted example, and I am sure there are other exceptions, and so forth. As for us personally, I never book the "F" category, so I don't see it being an issue since from "E" on up, things have not changed. Seems to me, they are attempting to offer a no-frills, cheap way into a cabin and nothing is known until close to cruise date where you are staying. Seems to align with rock-bottom airfares where you get nothing including seat assignment until check-in. I wouldn't be using this new situation, but I am left curious since it appears one could book an "F" category cabin with a Refundable Fare Code, but it is still going to be a GTY cabin.

I don't see how PCL can make a Refundable Fare Code Non-Ref. They had or still have distinct codes for those. They ought to be using them so there is no confusion. I need to look at this a bit more.

Man is this horse getting beaten up every day. It should be clear, but I guess it isn't still due to variations in what people see and where they happen to look for info. Not to mention a rogue ship or two.

Oooops... you are so right and it is too late to correct it.