windsor08

I read about this on CC. I went on the app for my booked Australian cruise. Offer was there and I took advantage of the offer. The offer expired on Tuesday. With discount I thought the excursion was OK in price. Since the offer expired I checked, and the same excursion is available for same orig8nal price before discount was applied. Ie 25 % more than I paid.

12 hours ago, cruise_critical said:

I have a 14 night cruise booked in December on Royal.

Pre-booked it with Premier ($95 AUD/day) months back.

 

Seems it has only gone up $5 AUD (like $3 USD) after this change to $100/day now.

https://www.princess.com/en-au/cruise-deals-promotions/plus-premier-cruise-packages

At $5 per day, seems it's a no brainer as long as I can book a couple more SD.

 

BUT... According to the app/website right now, Crown Grill is fully booked out for every time slot / day of the cruise. But nearly every time slot of every day is available to book on Sabatinis. So this seems a bit odd.

 

Maybe they are doing something and blocked off from booking the Crown Grill temporarily? Would be amazing if they opened during lunches on sea day like on RCCL.

I too am on Royal in December, and have been struggling for two weeks to make SD reservations, including 3 calls to Ocean Ready help line. This morning I uninstalled the app on my phone, reinstalled it, went to dining reservations, and lo and behold Sabatinis was available for all days and most time slots. And it accepted my Premier package SD - allowing me to book without charge to my credit card.

Sadly, Crown Grill was showing as unavailable for all days and times. A few hours later I went in on the web version, and lo and behold, Crown Grill was showing as available all days and most times. Again it allowed me to use my second SD reservation from the (current) Premier package without charge to my credit card.

Is it just me, or does this statement from the Princess FAQs make perfect sense? 

This is from the Princess FAQs.

Here's my story - sad , but true.

(For what it's worth, I too have a Galaxy S10).  This is a cruise to celebrate my 70th birthday, and naturally we wanted to book dinner at Crown Grill for that night. The app kept showing no times available, both before and after final payment 2 weeks ago. I got Ocean Ready, and received confirmation emails for ordering medallions. Got green ticks all the way.

Meanwhile, Sabatinis appeared on Dine My Way, but not Crown Grill. Then neither. Then one glorious day Crown Grill (but no Sabatinis). I quickly went to reserve dinner for my birthday. Because I have Premiere package, I ticked the box and it applied $0 to the dinner reservation. Then when I confirmed the booking an error message popped up saying it couldn't process the $0.

Then I noticed the medallion ordering section had a red cross instead of the previous green. I went in to re-order medallions again, but this time I decided to personalise my medallion with a Birthday motif. I confirmed the selection, got confirmation that I paid USD 5 and another email. The red cross was now green again.

Several more attempts to book Crown Grill or Sabatinis failed, both with the app and the web version. After reading this board, I called Princess and spoke with customer service. He corrected my Ocean Ready status by reordering our medallions, which had reverted to red yet again. He also said they were phasing out medallion personalization. I checked my credit card, and the USD5 hadn't been charged to it. He couldn't book Crown Grill. It was showing no times available to him.

Later that day I went on the app and both Crown Grill and Sabatinis were available, but again my Premiere package included reservation wouldn't process because it was $0. I called Princess again, and the Ocean Ready person made the reservation I wanted for me. Fantastic - there it was on the reservation list.

Later I was checking my credit card and I had been charged AUD126 for the reservation. Next day I called Ocean Ready again. The lady said the best way was to get the AUD126 refunded was to cancel the dinner reservation and then re-book it as part of the included specialty dinners. She cancelled the dinner reservation for me, but then got the same error I received when trying to make the reservation again. After a long wait I was told because my wife and I use the same email address for our booking, this is causing all the problems. We changed my wife's booking to another email address (after going through Princess security), and then Ocean Ready made another attempt to make my birthday dinner reservation. It still wouldn't work for them. 

I was then told a ticket would be created to resolve the issue. Meantime, I still don't have the dinner reservation. And when I checked my credit card, I found that there were now three lots of AUD126 charged to the card (the AUD378 has since been repaid). I am still waiting for the next exciting installment.  

I haven't looked at the Princess App for a couple of weeks, but thought I'd better check it out based on recent comments here. It opens to say I have 19 Days Until Embarkation. I looked further in case Princess had given me a freebie, but no such luck - my booking still shows as November 2024!

I had to look. Could I find a substitute for my 6 night Fremantle to Melbourne cruise on Resilient Lady? A long way to fly, and very few 6 night itineraries. One out of  Portsmouth had possibilities, but there were no suites in my category available.

The email from VV talks of new Itinerary releases for the entire fleet very soon. Presumably this will happen before 27 March, when the will automatic refund occurs,  and maybe the new itineraries will have a touch of the Brilliant.

Resilient Lady journeys from Europe to Australia again around October. If the problem persists another upheaval to schedules is necessary then too. Cunard sails annually to Australia via South Africa,, so it is feasible, but VV doesn't have much time to make a decision and find passengers too make it viable.

I agree with Spinn that a long journey on Shadow with only a few dining  options would be a little challenging. We have enjoyed our meals in the MDR, and the menu does change. Our two dinners at La Terrazza have been excellent. La Dame also had a beautifully cooked duck, but I see no reason to pay extra again when La Terrazza is so good.

I too don't fancy cooking my own food while on holiday, buy obviously the hot rocks dining appeals to many fellow cruisers (before the cold  snap). Caviar and Pommery have appeared upon request, so the essentials were restocked in  Florida.

I hope the fog lifts to allow views of the Newfoundland coast as we arrive.

Thanks Spin for the additional information.

Our 15 night Shadow cruise embarking next week includes Newfoundland as a destination. There are three formal nights scheduled.

The bow ties have appeared. Three formal nights for us!

Does my blue Rolling Stones Tongue tie match my dark suit?

As preparation for this cruise my wife and I last night attended Come From Away the musical. What a brilliant show that is - and gave extra flavour to our upcoming visit to Newfoundland as part of this cruise. I know we won't be anywhere near Gander, but it all adds to the sense of the place.

We are looking forward to a wonderful cruise and hopefully kind weather!

Queen Elizabeth, Azamara Journey, Oceania Regatta, SS Whisper, and Coral Princess will all be sailing across the south of Australia via Fremantle before Christmas if you are looking for alternatives to NZ.. We too did NZ ages ago on Solstice, Milford Sound was wonderful, as was the whole cruise, but there is too much of the world I haven't seen to do it again.