JimmyVWine

The concept is brilliant. The execution needs a bit of work. And we, as website users, have to start getting used to avoiding starting posts with "Well, on my cruise..." What one sees on one cruise may not be true on another.

As I posted a few days ago, Princess has created a "Lego Block" ship with a whole host of new categories where cabins can have benefits conferred upon them (or taken away) with a keystroke and a color change on the schematic specific to that cruise. A Signature Suite can become a Mini-Suite and vice versa. A D0 can become a D1. When what they are selling now are benefits as opposed to cabin configuration, the sky is the limit, and changes can and will be made based on booking patterns. If there is a strong run on Signature Suites, they can make more. If they need more (or fewer) D0's, they can do that. It's pretty brilliant actually.

Children get charged daily gratuity, so that part of the Plus fee is baked in. Kids will use wifi as much or more than adults! 😄 Kids will eat those monstrosity special desserts. And soft drinks/mocktails are not free. And if the parents are going to dine in Casual Restaurants as part of their package and the kids come along, that is another $15 plus gratuity per visit. WiFi for single device = $25 per day $17 per day Crew Appreciation (Mini-Suite, which I would recommend if sailing with 4 people) Two visits to Casual Dining venues ($35 divided over 7 days = $5 per day) That takes you to $47 out of a daily charge of $60. If the child will consume $13 per day in juices, sodas, mocktails and desserts, you are at the break-even point.

It would be odd for Princess to disclose why they are making this offer. But they certainly know that there are people hanging on every published word, photo and video. They aren’t stupid. They clearly want the next cruise to sail with a similar passenger load as this first one which is way less than capacity.

They are trying to ensure a smooth(er) cruise by decreasing capacity.

Spring Break is largely irrelevant for European cruises.

Seems as if they found a middle ground third option. Send people on the March 9th sailing a moveover offer ensuring that the ship sails way below capacity so that they can better stress-test the new ship, while also ensuring that the people who do board the ship are fully onboard (pardon the pun) with the fact that they will be getting a "less than" experience. People who reject the offer and opt to board the ship will be doing so with eyes wide open and can hardly be heard to complain. (Though they will anyway.)

The same holds true even if guests 3 and 4 are adults.

I see your point, but starting new, content-specific threads is a proven losing strategy here. The newly created thread continues to drift to pages 2 or 3, and has 11 posts, only 2 of which are substantive with the remainder being posts cheering on the new thread in hopes that it will prove valuable. Far more information about what is and is not included is and will continue to be found here. Same thing happened with the "Photos and Videos of Sun Princess" separate thread. Which has more photos and videos, that separate thread, or this one? That thread has drifted to page 5. In a perfect world, the roles would reverse, but as I noted, separate threads prove to be a losing strategy here.

Not only that, today everyone is a social media "star". If the CEO started sitting down with every YT poster with 1,000 followers to discuss pressing issues, he'd have to do that 2,369 times on this one cruise alone.

No. They can sail with no package at all, a drink package that covers-non-alcohol drinks, or get Plus or Premier. When securing a reservation with Packages, the first two guests will get those attached to their account and guests 3 (and 4 if applicable) get charged the "Cruise Only" fare and you will have to contact Princess or your Travel Agent to add whatever package or plan you want for the additional passengers. And they do not have to be the same. For example, you could add a package or drinks plan to the 7 year-olds account and nothing to the 5 year old. Or Plus for the 7 year old and a drink package for the 5 year old. If you book direct with Princess, you can do this through the Chat function on the website. I have done this three times and it took me less than 10 minutes each time. Calling can take much longer. And if you use a TA, you should have them do it. You can also add packages and Plans once on board. There is usually no saving for doing so, and it does involve waiting in a Customer Service Line on Day One which may not be how you want to start your cruise. Also, they frequently have a table set up somewhere in the Piazza on Day One for signing people up for drink plans. Not sure if they also handle adding full Packages like Plus and Premier.

Hermie! If we don't get Spellbound finished on time, the children will be so upset!

I would certainly hope so. But just imagine the uproar if they weren't? A transatlantic on a tramp steamer. 🤣 I am on the cruise before that that goes from BCL to Southampton before it heads across the Atlantic. Four Sea Days and an overnight in Southampton before disembarking.

I’m holding off until September!

I figured that the pub offerings would appear either there or in the buffet (or both). But a stand alone Pub Lunch in a dedicated venue seems highly unlikely when O’Malley’s is selling its menu.

Funny (not funny) story. Back in 1997 my sister-in-law was a Disney TA. She urged me to book a cruise on their brand new Disney Magic scheduled to set sail in April, 1998. I figured that I would throw her some business, but I didn’t want anything to do with the first several cruises of a brand new ship on a brand new line. (I’m not counting the Big Red Boat as being a predecessor.). So I booked for the first week of August thinking that this would be enough time to for shakedown issues. After a lengthy delay in launching, our cruise proved to be the second for that ship. Not saying that Sun needed 4 extra month’s lead time. But certainly one would have been a good idea.

No chance. The Pub Lunch was an included option for all guests. O’Malley’s is a paid-for casual venue. Princess is not going to give away its Fish-n-Chips when it can sell them. I suspect that the introduction of O’Malley’s spells the end of the free Pub Lunch.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, let’s see what the early reviews here on CC are after the first wave of guests gets off. IMO, Princess took a big gamble sailing with much of its new “groundbreaking, spectacular, never-before-seen” features non-operational. It had a choice of cancelling more cruises (probably no fewer than 2) or sailing with apologies. A no win situation. If early reviews are devastating, they chose wrong as first impressions last forever. If early reviews are largely forgiving, they chose right. We will know soon.

Why install drink holders when you can sell these in the Princess Shop?

I seem to recall that there was a poll conducted here several years ago (pre-pandemic) and the runaway winner was: "We got the category we paid for." The responses so far in this thread are very encouraging. I wonder if Captain's Circle status level plays a role. Will Platinum and Elite fare better than Blue, Ruby and Gold? If you are willing to share your status at the time of boarding, maybe that might add some insight to the data.

Our order as well, only as a pod of three people, we add on a second pizza. Or an eggplant rotini if that is available.

$5 per ride, or a one time payment of $14.99 for unlimited use. Also included with Plus, Premium and Signature privileges. . . . j/k

There is no single answer. As for timing, the recipient only cares that they were recognized. Not when they were recognized. Don't stress over it. As for amount, that is entirely up to you.

My prediction is that there is going to be a sea-change (pun intended) with the current iteration of the Sanctuary at the first drydock refurb, if not sooner. While P.T. Barnum has never been proven wrong about suckers being born every minute, there is a limit to their gullibility. Raise prices and provide only rows of unpadded vinyl lounge chairs with no shade? Even Mr. Barnum could not have anticipated people being so foolish. And this is especially true when we see pictures and videos of the Dome and Sea View Terrace offered to everyone at no charge. People who book cruises on Sun Princess are going to fall over themselves to experience the new features and when they try out the bow-based lounge areas for free, there is nothing that would compel anyone to pay for the lesser, stern-based lounge area. Add in the new Cabanas (which afford solitude), the Reserve Cabana deck area, (which is capacity-limited), the Signature Sun Deck (which is also capacity-limited) and generally larger balconies throughout the ship for people to hang out in, and the need to pay for the Fortress of Solitude that the Sanctuary typically provides evaporates. Maybe I will eat these words, but I can't imagine the current iteration of the Sanctuary being anything other than crickets for the foreseeable future.