JimmyVWine

Glad to help. When Ben and David did their video tour of Arvia, one of them figured out how to open the accordion door and the other one said that he never would have figured that out! So don't feel bad. Game changer. Though I am still hating the cheap looking, single rattan sofa in place of the South Beach vibe seating area.

On prior builds, the glass panels between the cabana and the balcony accordion fold so that the entire space opens up and the panels are out of the way. Is that the case with yours?

These lounge chairs under the Dome are going to take Chair Hogging to levels never before seen.

Has anyone posted on how the reservations for Spellbound will work? Pre-book on the app? On the ship only? If not, if someone who is on the ship now could give details on the process, that would be great.

The front/back configuration of the deck furniture is comical. I can't picture 4 people sitting that way, as if they were in a theater or stadium! And if you are sailing with a Chair Hog, that person is going to get up at 5:30 and claim one of the loungers closest to the water!

I'd say page 6 is being kind! When the first post is a photo of the luggage in the driveway while waiting for the Uber to take the poster to the airport, you know that you are in for a long slog. 🤣

The furniture in the cabana portion of the cabin is a serious downgrade from what is in cabanas on other ships that have them. Prior builds have an "L-shaped" lounge area that is far more conducive to relaxing, with seating that faces the water. The cabana in this video has a one sofa just big enough of two people that is perpendicular to the water. For comparison, here is a Conservatory layout on Arvia.

You just go, dine, and at the end of the meal you get charged for one person.

Thanks. I am familiar with the on board process, as I have done it before....which is why I was wondering if I could avoid it. 😆 30 minutes of my life waiting for the Guest Services Agent trying to figure out how to get $25 onto my OBC because he had never done that before! Maybe next time I will get lucky and will be dealing with someone who is familiar with the process!

Change this sentence to read: "If you're an experienced cruiser, then you know that you run certain risks when you book a cruise within the first 2-3 months of the inaugural and you must be willing to accept facing those consequences." Then it becomes an unassailable post. Putting the word "NEVER" in all caps makes it a bit over the top. Were that true then the converse would also have to be true, which is to say that every inaugural cruise would be 100% booked out by inexperienced cruisers. That isn't realistic, or something that the cruise line even wants.

Real World Math Quiz!! If I have $470 remaining on my cruise balance and I have a $500 Gift Card, can I apply the entire $500 to my balance when paying on line and if so, will the extra $30 roll over to my account as OBC? Or do I just type in $470 in the payment box and have $30 left on the card to take to Guest Services to have applied to my folio? Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks.

I’ll go with “most of us.” That gives everyone the ability to agree and yet exclude themselves from the insult!

I guess you just described the people who post on social media sites.

But only to a point. Let's be honest here. Suppose Princess had published the following press release: Dear loyal Princess customers. We regret to inform you that we will not be able to proceed with our inaugural sailing as planned. We simply are not ready to sail. We severely overestimated the ability of the workforce at the shipyard to get the ship finished in time for the scheduled departure, and vastly underestimated that amount of remaining work that would be needed to get the ship into the first-rate condition that you have come to love and rightfully expect. Some of the issues are labor related, some are supply-chain related, and some are just our own miscalculation as to how long it would take to complete the build. And if we are being totally honest here, we still don't know when the ship will be ready to sail. Our February 18 departure is looking doubtful, and beyond that we just don't know. We will do our best to keep you apprised of the progress being made. We know that you are deeply disappointed and so are we. We want to see you on board as much as you want to be on board. All that said...[INSERT ALL OF THE REFUND AND FCC STUFF HERE]. OK. Now, with all that said, how many people would come to this board and say: "All's good. PCL is doing good by me." And how many people would come here and say: "JP doesn't know what he is doing. He should be fired. PCL is a ridiculous operation. I can't believe the incompetence!" I'm not suggesting that honesty is not the best policy. But I think that we have a tendency to overstate just how impactful that honesty would be on our real world, real time reactions to the situation. Princess could have fallen on the sword here and put the blame squarely on itself and been as open and honest as it could, and the cancelled vacations and honeymoons would still exist, the stress levels would be just as high, and the anger would still get vented.

Back in the day before computers were able to predict passenger loads and cancellations with surgical precision, airlines used to overbook flights far more frequently and offer free flights all the time. I used to intentionally book morning flights that I knew would be overbooked and volunteer for later flights in exchange for free tickets. I would accumulate 4 or 5 free flights a year. So yeah. I’ll bet people book inaugural cruises expecting to get favorable compensation.

There are many cruise ships that are now LNG-capable. Very few of them are actually running on that fuel due to cost. Especially in Europe. Just a guess, but perhaps Sun Princess is joining those ranks. Or maybe testing while in dock or while doing open water testing necessitated checking out both diesel and LNG usage even if LNG was going to be the preferred fuel going forward. Or maybe the desalination process used to produce potable water uses diesel fuel in the production system that is completely independent of the LNG used for propulsion.

I don't disagree, but one cannot assume that the U.S. law as applied to airlines would apply to all passengers, worldwide, for a fare booked on a foreign flagged ship. "No refunds. Store credit only" is not unusual. Or illegal. But I agree that it would never happen in these circumstances.

Everyone is assuming that the diesel-in-the-water issue was just discovered, thus necessitating the cancelation of the 2/18 cruise. It is entirely possible that the problem was identified quite a while ago and they have been working on it for several weeks (or much longer) and that is why the original inaugural cruise was canceled, but they hoped to have the situation fully remedied and cleared by now. Maybe they just missed their estimate by a day or two, had to cancel the 2/18 cruise, but are fully confident that the situation is or will be remedied in time for the 2/28 cruise, so they took delivery knowing that the root problem was behind them. Honestly, if they JUST discovered this diesel issue, they aren't going anywhere before April. While this is true, I have to believe that people who booked one of these first two cruises paid undiscounted, "as high as they could mark them up" prices, so the 50% FCC will turn out to be MORE than 50% of whatever replacement cruise they book (assuming similar length of sailing).

To be fair, they are doing much more than saying "Sorry." Full refund. 50% FCC. Financial consideration for airfare. That is more than saying "sorry." If one paid $5,000 for two people to sail, then they get all that money back and can book a similar cruise for $2,500. Assuming that the timing and logistics work for people, getting a cruise on a new ship at half price is a good deal. These delays are costing Princess a fortune. It's not like they are taking this lightly. Would better communication delivered in a more timely manner be better? Absolutely. But it is what it is. We've all stewed in an airport waiting area, or on a plane sitting on a tarmac waiting to take off because the airplane has a red warning light that won't go off, and maintenance is needed. We get mad. We get frustrated. But what would we want them to do? Take off with a mechanical problem? I doubt that these sailings are getting canceled simply because one of the magicians can't seem to get that card trick perfected just right. Or because Rudy isn't satisfied with the quality of the halibut that has been delivered.

$12.50

I changed cabins using Chat a few weeks ago. Same category. Same deck. Same side of the ship. Just wanted to move ten cabins closer to the middle. As mentioned in an earlier post, I made it very clear that I had an excellent fare with the 3rd Person Sails Free promo and I did not want to move if it was going to cost me any money or if I was going to lose any perks. I gave the agent the exact cabin number that I wanted (the only cabin left on that deck so that was easy). The agent said that it shouldn’t be a problem and asked me to bear with her for a few minutes. About 7 minutes later she returned and recited back to me exactly what I wanted: New cabin numb. No re-faring. No price increase and I agreed. A minute later I had my new cabin. When the chat ended I elected to have a transcript of it emailed to me. In another minute I looked at my Personalizer and everything appeared perfect. Total time invested by me was about 15 minutes. I know that my small sample size doesn’t negate the difficulties that others have had, but I am 4 for 4 in using Chat for FAST and ACCURATE results. Way better than calling.

Prices were raised last week. Bottom line is that EVERYTHING that is purchased a la carte has or will go up to the point where it simply does not make sense to sail without a package. That is, as long as the price of the packages does not go up. But for now, they haven't so the packages become the obvious choice for most. There are always exceptions, but those people are now going to pay a lot more for their cruises, unless they forego things like the internet.

I find the original premise interesting. I was going to say that I have not really noticed a marked difference in formality on any ship or in any region...except the Caribbean. Those tend to be the least formal. But honestly, the difference from ship to ship and itinerary to itinerary can be measured in micrograms.

When Princess introduced its first app I couldn’t sign in to save my life. I spent a long time on the phone with tech support and they couldn’t figure out the problem so they suggested that I set up my app account using a username (not my email) and a password that differed from my web login, but when creating my profile, use the same email address associated with the web account. I did that and never had another problem and the two systems interface perfectly. I can log on to the web and open the (old) app and everything shows up fine in both places. Today when I downloaded the app I first tried to log in with my web credentials thinking that the old app information was probably obsolete but I got an error message. So I tried my app credentials and got right in.

Just downloaded the new app on I-Phone. Seamless login with my prior app credentials (which are NOT the same as my website credentials.) No timeouts. My upcoming cruise shows up with all the correct information and packages. I am green and ready to board without ever having provided a Shoreside payment method (cruise is in Europe if that matters) as are the rest of my family members. The only “issue” is that very little ship (Sun) information is included and no Dining options can be booked. But my cruise is 250+ days away so I guess that will come.