JimmyVWine

And slightly off topic, but I have noticed another issue with booking using the app. For my upcoming cruise I used the app to book (and pay) for a Dinner at Sabatini's. Party of 3. Booked in August for a cruise in May, so in other words, way, way in advance. No matter which day I selected, and no matter what time I selected, I was ALWAYS able to find a slot for us, but in so doing, received a notice that my "Party would be broken into separate tables." As in what? A two and a one? Or three ones? Of course they aren't going to do this. There is no way that when I booked the restaurant was not so full that I could not get three people seated together at the same table. Most people can't even book until after they make their final payment, and I booked 10 months in advance. So I went ahead and made the booking and I will sort it out once we are on the ship. But this has to be an issue with the app or the booking system. I would go ahead and cancel and re-book now, but the price has gone up and I would be charged the new, higher fee if I did this.

And I was one of the many people who booked under the Best Sale Ever (February/March 2022 Edition) for a cruise we took this past October. We got Plus for $40 per day and a Specialty Dinner added in. For the longest time I was seeing that I would be charged for making the reservation. Then at some point there was an upgrade to the app, so I deleted the app and reinstalled it, and after I did that, when I used the app to book our dinner, it recognized my vouchers and allowed me to book without paying.

We had an uncovered balcony in Alaska and it was amazing. You get a full, clear view without obstruction. There is little chance of needing to slather on sunscreen. A hat would be sufficient on the sunniest days. But as you noted, on port days you will not be on your balcony between 10:00-4:00. Ever. On a scenic cruising sea day and at night stargazing, you will be thankful for your open-air balcony.

Maybe the Gym, or nearby?

The free SD promotion bundled with Plus was done after the restart, so this isn’t a four year thing. Sorry if that was not clear. I thought that I had explained that the supply/demand issue has only been present during the past year and will soon go away as all of the cruises booked under those terms wind down.

A. If the restaurant holds tables open for casino players, then those tables are not available to the rest of the passengers, meaning that they are just as "booked" as any other table. That the casino has dinner table privileges heightens the need for pre-booking. It doesn't lessen it. B. Small sample size. Falls under the fallacy of "I did it, therefore everyone can do it."

It depends on the promotion under which people booked. When "Plus" was first rolled out, there were promotions that offered Plus for a slightly reduced rate and added in a free Specialty Dinner. That type of deal was very popular and so many people booked under those promotions that getting reservations on board was very difficult. Supply was way, way below demand. Now that Premier is rolling out and includes Specialty Dinners, I doubt very much that Princess will offer free Specialty Dinners to anyone who isn't buying that package as that would be a disincentive to people booking the more expensive Premier package. So I think that the number of people boarding the ship with a free Specialty Dinner in their arsenal will go down. Unless, of course, the Premier package is wildly popular, which I tend to doubt, but who knows? So to sum it up, I think that from the restart until a few weeks from now, there was a window of time when free SD was added in to many bookings and pre-booking was rather important. In three weeks' time, I think we will see that subside.

Yes and yes. It has both a covered pool and a number of uncovered pools.

We too have a daughter who caught the history/archaeology bug at a young age and she is now 24 with a Bachelors Double Major in Classical Art/Archaeology and Anthropology and a Master Degree in Classical Archaeology. She lived in Athens for a year and traveled extensively in that region. When she was a Freshman in college we did our first trip to Athens coupled with a cruise much like yours. The big differences were that we started in Athens with four days there and our cruise was much more "Greek Island" concentrated. (Princess doesn't really offer this itinerary at the moment). But we did a second Med Cruise this past October as an overdue graduation present to our daughter after she completed her Masters. She served as our very able tour guide, so we did not need to book private tours. I asked her if she wanted to do any private tours to get another perspective and she reminded me how much her education cost me and told me that if she couldn't fill the role as a private guide, all that money would have been wasted. Anywhooooo, I just have a couple of thoughts about your itinerary having done most of what you have planned, save for the Turkey portion which I have not been to. My perspective is as someone who traveled with an aspiring archaeology major on one trip, and as someone who traveled with a successful Masters candidate in archaeology on the other trip. It was mentioned above and I will reiterate it here. Your Naples Day is too busy. I tried to convince my daughter to guide us through both Pompeii and Herculaneum in one day and she said that it had to be "either/or" and we would do the other on another visit. She voted for Pompeii and that is what we did. To beat the crowds we hired a driver to take us straight to Pompeii with our tickets already bought and printed. We arrived around park opening and stayed until 3:00. From there we crossed the street to the train station and took a train back to Naples, assuming that we would walk to the ship from there. It was pouring rain, so we took a cab. Trust me when I tell you that we only saw about a fifth of what we could have. This was a "greatest hits" tour of Pompeii as selected by my daughter and the idea that we could have squeezed in Herculaneum on top of this would have been laughable. And to add in Vesuvius? Not in a million years. Yes, I know that there are excursions and private tours that will do all three. But every single second that you spend elsewhere is time that is cut from Pompeii. There is simply no way around it. If you are satisfied with your "chance of a lifetime" trip to Pompeii being a two hour visit, then perhaps this would work for you. For my archeologist daughter, this was out of the question. Second: Don't doubt your decision to go to Delos for a second. That was a "must see" stop for our daughter on our first trip when she was in college. I had never heard of it. Boy was she right. We hired a private guide (if you watch the Rick Steves show when he visits Delos, it turns out the he and I hired the same guide. Didn't intend it that way, but it just happened.) Even with a full visit to Delos we had ample time to roam the streets of Mykonos before it was time to leave. Third: While in Athens, (and hopefully the Greek Holiday won't mess this up), you must, and I say this as loudly and firmly as possible, MUST find time to go to the National Archaeology Museum. It may be the single best museum I have ever been to, (and I have now been 4 times). When my daughter was studying in Athens she had a UNESCO/Museum Student pass that allowed her unlimited free visits to pretty much everything in Athens and she practically wore that museum out. The Acropolis Museum is absolutely worth the visit, but its content is "limited" to just the Acropolis. The National Archaeology Museum has everything else. When you combine the Acropolis Museum and the the National Archaeology Museum, and then throw in the museum at Olympia, you have pretty much checked all the boxes. You don't need a private guide for that. Just do some reading ahead of time. Beyond those few tips, what you have planned sounds like my kind of trip. Just understand that you will need a vacation from your vacation when you are done!

I have seem lots of women wearing stretch pants. Whether or not they are ladies is unknown to me. 😉

Also keep in mind that most bars have transitioned to QR code “menus”. The printed ones may not be accurate. As for Princess’ specialty drinks like Chocolate Banana or Blue Hawaiian and things like that, they were never “out” of anything. But specific brands of spirits were hit or miss. We found that the best strategy was to simply go to the bar and observe. No bars were bare. They were all fully stocked. And also keep in mind that the bars are not fungible. They were offering different things in different places. On Regal, the best stocked bar by far was the Wheelhouse. They had rums and single malts that other bars did not have. And the Princess Live bar also seemed to have things not found at other bars. So if a bartender says “We don’t have that”, he might be referring only to his bar. Or it could be ship-wide. You just don’t know. It is both frustrating and fun to explore all the bars on board to find what each one has.

Sorry. But intentionality is the sine qua non of a “Bait and Switch” tactic. It cannot be done accidentally. The definition you cited to reinforces that through the use of the verbs “attracted” and “encouraged”. Princess’ erroneous website pricing is not encouraging the purchase of something different at a higher cost. The thing for sale is the very same thing. A “Bait and Switch” requires the insertion into the transaction of a substituted item at a higher price.

Has the “new” Premier program even started yet? I thought the changes went into effect in February.

The thread title is a bit misleading. This isn’t “bait and switch” which is a term applied to circumstances where you actually buy something but receive something different. Here, you go through the booking process (or your TA does) and you can see the actual price and the choice is yours to book or not. If you don’t like the price, you pass. This is a systems failure, not an attempt to defraud. Disappointing? Yes. Dirty commercial tactic designed to dupe the customer? No.

Artist's rendition of people on the Lido Deck trying to use the App to reserve a spot on a lifeboat.

On Regal we have sailed in both B409 and C426, both of which appear on the Deck Plan to run the risk of extra wind given the way they face. Neither presented any extra wind that I could discern. On our next cruise we will be in a "414" cabin which would appear to be more protected and I can run a comparison. But so far, based on my experience, I would not hesitate to book any angled extended balcony. Since we usually travel as a family of three, those extended balconies are pretty much a necessity for us as it allows us to take a third chair out there where we could not do that in a standard balcony.

While I can see how Room Service was too busy, it now seems as if this guy named Stewart is even busier! 😁

Not unusual. The answer to your question was posted in the very next post after yours. So with the question thoroughly answered, people take the opportunity to editorialize and go off in different directions. Par for the coarse (misspelling intentional). I'd say: "Welcome to the wonderful world of CC", but you have been here a while!

Getting problems resolved over the phone appears to be a losing battle much of the time. I had a problem applying a Gift Card to my outstanding balance and I tried a number of times to get it resolved on the phone. The people manning the phones on the main Princess Line insisted that the resolution had to come from the Gift Card Department and the Gift Card Department insisted that the resolution had to come from the main Princess Customer Service Department. After numerous phone calls and telling the person in the CS Department that under no circumstances should she transfer my call to the Gift Card department because I had just finished speaking to them, she confessed that the people who respond to the customer service emails have far more power and authority (her words) to solve problems than the people who work the phones. So I send a detailed email to customerrelations@princescruises.com with attachments, files, screenshots and the like, and my issue was resolved to my complete satisfaction in 6 days. I offer this up only for the sake of "process." As for the substance of the OP's issue, I don't think they are entitled to any special booking privileges and don't expect them to get any. But they are entitled to the courtesy of a direct answer from Princess.

Same here. 10% across the board. And if AARP is not an option, "CardCash" has Princess GCs at 5.5% off. Occasionally the discount varies, but it is almost always 5.5% off. $472.50 for a $500 card.

You are missing the point of the OP. "Just having fun" and looking for more details. My assertion is that if you look at Lucy's video of Arvia and Ben and David's video of Iona, you'll get a pretty good sense of how Sun will be designed. I never said that Sun would be a "sister ship" or be exactly the same. But the videos of those other ships will provide an understanding of the changes to come, and as my last word on this, I stand by that statement.

I think you are focused too much on the location of venues and not enough on the overwhelming change in design. Sun will retire the Piazza that we have come to know and replace it with an entirely new Atrium...that will be exactly like the one on Arvia. Sun will retire the placement of three MDRs (one on 5 and two on 6) that we have come to expect and replace it with a two-story MDR open to multi-floor windows looking at the ocean...just like Arvia. Sun will retire the fully enclosed Specialty Dining Venue and replace it with a Specialty Dining Venue that is more open and airy, and even has tables that overlook the Atrium...just like Arvia. Sun will "introduce for the first time on a Princess ship" a glass-enclosed forward pool that will double as an evening entertainment venue with performances, shows and acrobats...just like Arvia. Sun will "introduce for the first time on a Princess ship" a ropes course up top...Just like Arvia. Sun will introduce infinity pools with swim-up bars and infinity hot tubs...just like Arvia. These are wholesale, big-picture changes that Sun will feature and that are already in operation on P&O, so watching videos of those ships will in fact give a clear indication of what the big picture changes will look like. Whether a particular dining venue is on Deck 6 or Deck 7, or whether it is port or starboard is largely irrelevant when compared to the overall design and function of the ship. As for reviews, the Editorial Board of this site has given Arvia 5 Stars. Iona has 4. At least the trend is in the right direction and hopefully will continue with Sun.

I think it is actually the reverse. Once they get around to filling in the blanks, we will see that it is more and more like the P&O ships. Those are getting very good reviews and press. Why change?

The placement of the buffet will clearly be different. The ship within a ship concept appears to be overblown based on recent promo videos. They mention a special area in the Sanctuary and some deck space for Cabana cabins. Not much else. Ben and David’s tour of Iona looks very, very similar to what Princess has shown us so far. The big changes in the Sphere Class are to the Piazza and the forward dome. Iona and Arvia look nearly identical in that respect.

There are a number of videos showing tours of P&O’s Iona and now Arvia. I would imagine that Sun will have far more similarities than differences. Certainly not exact. But those videos should give one a sense of what life on board a Sphere Class ship will be like.