Astro Flyer

I was on the Royal’s inaugural TA in 2013 shortly after the ship’s maiden voyage and also had a presentation by one of the main architects of the Royal’s design. When asked about why the center stairs above deck 7 were not finished for passenger use he stated that CCL CEO & Chairman Micky Arison refused to pay for cost overruns. The stairways were available for passengers to use in emergencies but not having carpeting & paneling they were not available for routine use by passengers. After pushback by passengers the stairs were eventually finished for passenger usage. Our speaker understood why passengers were upset & provided the reason why they were unavailable & apparently he was either replaced by your speaker or he was told to promote the company line.

You can see the pricing on the Medallion app under MedallionNet & this shows my amount for a 10 day cruise with the P&E discount…$7.50/day single device; $20/day four devices. Same price pre-cruise or onboard.

Checking my future cruises all have the water package available…$7.08 for 12) 500 ml bottles. Our future cruises included a 28 day around Australia cruise and an Auckland to LA transpacific cruise…both in Spring 2025. Our Spring 2024 cruise roundtrip LA also has the bottled water package. As I recall reading in previous discussions it’s not available in OZ/NZ and with your cruise sailing sooner maybe that is more accurate than mine in 2025.

The temperature being at 84° was something new in our balcony cabin with the blackout drapes closed upon boarding Discovery’s inaugural cruise. 😉 We abandoned our cabin for cool public spaces & after dinner the temperature returned to normal for the remainder of our 14 days onboard.

Thanks for confirming my presumption…our current $800 SBC is part of a booking promotion & thus would be lost switching to SM. By switching to SM we’d lose $800 of SBC in addition to the extra $1,000 cruise fare increase for our 15 day cruise (all amounts used are per couple). The $1,000 fare increase & $1,000 tours credit are a push. Losing our current $800 SBC to get their beer/wine/champagne at lunch & dinner plan (and maybe a 2nd WiFi connection) would be equivalent to paying $53/day/couple instead of what I’m seeing in my reservation at $79.90/day/couple. We’ll continue to crunch our numbers & read about others experiences but for us it appears SM would be a push if we wanted the tour credit & drink package which is unlikely for us & would stay with our cruise only booking & $800 SBC…thanks for sharing your insights.

By clicking the above link it takes you to this offer’s webpage. There you will see the following (this is a screenshot) that displays links to see qualifying cruises based on regions.

Thanks…found the price for the House Select package for our cruises before & after 10/1…$39.95/pp/day (tip included). Without reading this entire thread has anyone lost their existing complimentary SBC when booking SM? My guess is that would be lost when switching to SM. That’s another consideration when deciding if SM is cost effective for me or not.

The only thing on Discovery’s inaugural cruise was a certificate and not much in the gift shop to purchase either. The center of the Medallion was white with the SeaWitch the color of the Captain’s Circle level although those have been on the first season on other ships.

As you know, we’re in the same situation & sail after you in April…hopefully you’ll have no issues receiving both in your name onboard. 🤞 We’ve applied in her name but SOBC has been issued to me because my name was first on the reservation. Since learning about these changes, we had our TA switch us on a just booked cruise which was issued to her. I’m waiting to learn about onboard experiences after 9/12 to see if I need to email the SOBC section to put it in her name or if we’ll need to reapply after listing her name first.

My 15 day November 2024 “cruise only” price would increase by $500/pp. (no airfare, interior guarantee) with $1,000/cabin for tours and the beer/wine/champagne at lunch & dinner plan. If we wanted $1,000 of tours then that drink plan would be free so it’d be a better deal. We have our first O cruise in September and SM is not an option…is that drink package currently $30/day/person? Doubt if we’d spend $1,000 on tours on our 2024 cruise but if we did SM would currently be beneficial to us.

My taste buds are good with the buffet’s and dining room’s included coffee…it’s made from ground coffee on all Royal-class ships using their filtered coffee machines & not from concentrate like on older Princess ships. The coffee shop in the pastry area of the buffet & the Princess Live bar can only make espresso based drinks & not brewed coffee like at the IC (although you can pay for a Cafe Americano - a diluted espresso). Ricka47…the coffee program has been eliminated.

Even after the restart there was an option to pre-book the UBD on the Cruise Personalizer. Now that specialty dining is on the Medallion app I do not see the UBD booking option. Has anyone found the UBD pre-booking option for their cruise on the app?

This link takes you to a Princess webpage with links to the available cruises…not many except the Winter/Spring 2024 Sun Princess Med cruises. https://em.princess.com/pub/sf/ResponseForm?_ri_=X0Gzc2X%3DAQpglLjHJlTQGXzdFotDrOwzeG2SlshmEOS53P2izd3TBDjzfNubeqLqsD6P3PzfuiH64UnVXMtX%3DAQpglLjHJlTQGXzdFotDrOwzeG2SlshmEOS5zcI0kKLiDzfcvSKBwh8zfnc77CG2q7gabKn&_ei_=EYvPsybyoWIx0ZWjnwGTTuM6dKBND4r-HM&_di_=gtj9ial0ktr3feujlbt80sotg5u7kqfhldj9lq7u93rgak047ljg

That’s encouraging & would think the new CCL CEO Josh Weinstein with his financial background is helping with their recovery from the pandemic. That’s nearly 2/3 of what we paid over a decade ago but is off the $70+ high 5 years ago…what a rollercoaster ride. 🎢 ☺️

That’s encouraging that yours are still showing. 👍 Your experience has been different than our experiences throughout the decades we’ve owned CCL shares. We request the SOBC in my wife’s name but with my name first on the reservation it’s always issued to me which that section told me was SOP. Our shares are jointly owned & for a recently booked cruise (after we knew about the change) for 2025 had my TA list my wife first & to apply in her name…it was issued to her.

Checking the Payments section in my Cruise Personalizer for our 3 future cruises (2-SOBC in my name; 1-SOBC in my wife’s name) that are sailing after 9/12 (Spring 2024 & 2025) I get a Sorry for the inconvenience notification without seeing our OBCs. Apparently changes are being made that makes our OBCs currently unavailable which is an indication to me that I cannot receive both OBCs in my name. Thus their emailed statement (Again, we will honor your combined onboard credit for your upcoming booked cruise. We look forward to welcoming you on board!) appears to not be grandfathered for my 2 SOBCs in my name in combination with my MOBC. It appears that I’ll need to have our TA make my wife’s name first on our reservations & to reapply for SOBC. We always apply for SOBC in her name which gets issued to me as the first reservation name. Previously it didn’t matter because our onboard account combines our various types of OBC…until apparently now.

Like you I checked our previously issued SOBC & MOBC in my name for cruises after 9/12 and they are currently shown. Based on past experiences some changes are slowly made by their IT to their system. My hope is to get a definitive answer from Princess about whether these changes will be grandfathered for SOBC issued before today & sailing after 9/12. I have time before our Spring 2024 & 2025 cruises that are impacted by this change. If our cruises after 9/12 are not grandfathered, like you will reapply for SOBC in my wife’s name for our jointly owned CCL shares. It’s frustrating when changes are made & they don’t anticipate pertinent questions passengers need to have answered.

It’s now just past the reported 6/29, 0800 implementation time for cruises sailing after 9/12 that SOBC & MOBC are no longer combinable. Does anyone with inside sources know if existing SOBC & MOBC issued to the same person before today & sailing after 9/12 will be grandfathered? Or will we need to reapply for SOBC to meet the previously posted unofficial information provided by Princess sources that would allow one person in a cabin to get SOBC and the other person MOBC?

Correct…having never sailed solo or in a suite, I neglected to make that distinction…thanks.

Any open venue such as Crown Grill without any activities will generally be quiet. The Take 5 lounge (6-fwd portside) has not had many events scheduled there. Look at the Princess Patter to see which venues have nothing scheduled.

When signed in to My Account on the Princess website the My Princess shows the Cruises Sailed option where you can view your past & future cruise credits…one credit = one minibar.

Yes…

UGH!!! 😳 If my previously issued SOBC/MOBC gets messed up I’d reapply to their very efficient shareholder section to reinstate our SOBC instead of to futilely attempt to get it corrected by their poorly trained inexperienced difficult to understand overseas call center staff who could make the issue even worse.