whitecap

I too will wrap up my comments here with this; I just wish Princess would stick to their past routine of sending out a notice prior to the increase. Ya'll have a wonderful and blessed day, may the rain nourish your crops and may the sun brighten each and every day!

memoak, we pretty much agree. I think the only issue I personally have is when there is no notice given. I can remember in the past when, say gratuities were going to increase, Princess would put out a notice to let everyone know what was coming and give everyone a chance to purchase before the increase. Nowadays, you wake up and it's done. Would be nice if they would go back to sending out the notice.

Memoak, I do agree in part however, what "gets my goat", "burns my butt", "pokes the bear", "steams my corn" is you wake up one morning ready to finish preparing for your cruise and BAM, the price of water goes up 300%, the wifi increases, gratuities increase, specialty dinning increases and suddenly you budget has jumped into the Inflation Hot Air Ballon and taken off. Maybe someone should call Elon and ask for an "inflation rescue". 🤣

I think that it is amazing that this thread started as a "be aware" of a 300% increase in the cost of bottled water to which cruise lines recycle and what items they recycle, among other topics. Fact of the matter is, Princess has raised their price 300% and in my opinion, like several of their other price increases, it is in an effort to push passengers to buying one of the drink packages, plain and simple. Princess has increased their fares, the cost of specialty dinning, wi-fi, gratuities, excursions and now water. I believe that in the near future they will stop accepting soda and water at the ports on embarkation and the corkage fee for wine will increase two or three fold. All of this simply to push everyone to the beverage packages. Every cruiser will have to decide for themselves what is right for them. DW and I don't drink enough alcohol or fancy coffees to justify a beverage package but we do drink lots of the bottled water. Our choice now, for our Nov 2025 cruise is, buy it at the inflated price or search for another solution. Decisions decisions.

Ordered our water for Nov 2024 and Feb 2025 some time back and it appears our order has not been affected. Another way that they are pushing everyone toward the packages.

Awww, the games that Princess does play!! Look over here, don't look over there; don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain. 😉 Got to love it.

geoherb; thanks for doing the live from the Emerald. Very interested in the ships condition, staffing and service as we are booked for this November. We last sailed on the Emerald in September 2010, which was our very first cruise and we really enjoyed the ship. Looking forward to all the pictures and information. Have a great time!

Thanks everyone. We were able to snag an aft facing on Deck 11. We have done aft facing on Caribbean Princess several times and really enjoyed it. I believe the Emerald Princess is a sister ship so should be similar. Thanks agains for the responses.

It has been 14 years since sailing on the Emerald Princess. Can anyone please tell me the size and cover of the deck 10 balcony? Looking at a BD cabin, 700 series. Any information would be much appreciated. Thanks

Speaking on behalf of myself, who is heavily invested, a big THANK YOU to all who continue to purchase the beverage packages!! 😁

Would that be a package where the person is considered privileged and expects to get anything and everything they want, when they want it and will throw a fit if it doesn't happen? I'd buy that one!!! 😇

Never purchased a package yet never went hungry or thirsty! 😁

Just my thoughts about this issue: Princess went to a system where the shops are run by an outside company and the prices went up on everything, sales events went down or weren't sales at all; then Princess went to an outside company to run the Future Cruise office and my experience with them was very negative as we tried for 4 days to get the consultant to book a cruise and she was unable to get the booking done even after contacting her bosses several times. Our last few cruises, we've had over 50 with Princess, we buy very little aboard ship, doing our shopping at the ports.

DW and I are booked for CB Feb 3,2025 for 14 days and Sky Princess Nov 30, 2025. Both out of Port Canaveral.

Pink845 I take it you are currently on board. Was there any conversation about anything other than carpets? I assumed that with all the reports of leaking pipes there would be some new carpet installation and although the DW and I really like the CB, last time we were onboard it was obvious that furniture both in staterooms and public spaces needed some attention. Thanks for the info.

OMG....does Grandma's age really have any relevance to this event? If Grandma and the young man had taken an excursion and the young man had arranged to meet his gaming friend there, would we be talking about Grandma's age? Apparently the young man's parent(s) and Grandma felt that she was very capable of taking her Grandson on a cruise. Lay off Grandma! There are only two facts to this event: Young man disembarked ship; Young man didn't return. What say we let the "real investigators" handle this and give the public the facts when completed. Sergeant Joe Friday would not be happy with all the "speculation".

Thanks for the reply. I'm guessing that the dry dock is going to be for some refreshing, paint, carpet etc.

Does anyone know if the Caribbean Princess is still scheduled for a dry dock in October 2024 and if it is, what changes, if any, are coming?

Now that is funny....Ok, I have reconsidered all that some of you have said and I have decided that: I will continue to remove the gratuities and handed out "tips" to those aboard my ship who do a really good job of making my vacation wonderful. As for anyone else, keep putting your money into the pool and hope that the captain did get his paycheck and isn't actually taking the ship home to hold as a lien! 😃

Let me try one last time: If your paid gratuities goes into a pool and Princess, at their sole discretion, decides who gets a slice of the pie, how do you know that your room steward, who did a wonderful job, got a slice?

To clarify: How do you know that your room steward received/was given/handed/paid/put cash in his or her pocket, any part of the paid gratuities?

Quick question for ya TRLD: When you pay the "Crew Appreciation" how can one determine if the room steward, dining room staff, buffet staff, laundry personnel or anyone else actually received any part of the gratuities you paid? It would be nice to think that they did, but because it goes into a pool, under the control of Princess and distributed "fleet wide", I'm not sure that anyone can factually say that they did. If there is a way, please let me know. Thanks

I think the point that those of us that you label as "complaining" aren't addressing the cost, rather, the fact that the "crew appreciation" is not appreciation for the job well done by the crew on the ship you are on, but money you are giving to Princess to give out to whoever they decide deserves it and further it isn't just an "appreciation" but wage compensation and bonuses, again, given to whoever they decide deserves it.

It really doesn't matter how I calculate my tip, my tip is a tip, not a wage booster.