Princess new unlimited internet

Well, that didn’t work! Let me try it this way.

 

 

 

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They ought to lose the stupid .99 for the pricing. Anyway, the weekly price is pretty good as it drops the packages to $8/day, $11.43/day and $16/day respectively. This seems more in line with what has been reported from Carnival or other lines (I didn't look back so don't recall if they were even cheaper for full cruise).

I wonder what these full cruise prices will be for 10 days, 14 days, and my 60 day?

Also, what is not clear to me is whether the internet is the old sloooowww crapper if using by the minute and the new plans get you a "superior experience". That is very poor if our benefit time is reduced performance.

For the benefit minutes, the add-on 200 minutes for $40 is definitely much cheaper than the packages for sale where 240 minutes costs $99.

This was posted on Cruising Princess with Vickie on her FB site. It was provided by a pax on the Grand P where it is being tested.

 

Thanks for the link..

Certainly is good to see that Princess has tweeked the program, and clarified and refined the details since the first Grand test sailing

Srpilo

Carnival's plans are $4/day, $10.25/day, and $14.88/day. I believe it is unlimited internet. I know they also offer a discounted price if you purchase for the whole cruise. It is less expensive than Princess.

Also note...... these prices are listed as Loyalty Plans. If you have not reached Platinum to get some free minutes then I bet the prices will be higher.

So has the Grand even made it to the list for the roll out for the Ocean Medallion yet? I haven't seen it on any of the releases so why would it have MedallionNet installed?

According to the MedallionNet article the speed is expected to be about 10 times faster. So that's 10 x dial-up speed. While better not sure that is going to be enough to have an exceptional internet experience while on board.

It would be great to hear from someone that has first hand knowledge of the "New Princess Internet" offering.

Carnival's plans are $4/day, $10.25/day, and $14.88/day. I believe it is unlimited internet. I know they also offer a discounted price if you purchase for the whole cruise. It is less expensive than Princess.

 

Also note...... these prices are listed as Loyalty Plans. If you have not reached Platinum to get some free minutes then I bet the prices will be higher.

Only the "per minute" plans were headlined as Loyalty Plans... the rest were Discounted Plans. Not clear from the picture that they would apply only to Platinums & Elites. Besides, the per-day pricing is what was being reported, right?

Oops... you're right. It does say discounted plans. Sorry about that.

This is a trial run and may not be indicative of what the final plan will be. The daily caps may only be in place because of the service capacity on the Grand.

Has anyone personally experienced a "Faster Internet Experience" on any Princess ship? If so, do you have any speed test results? How reliable was it etc ? What are your thoughts on it?

 

If it's the same old slow-n-stupid connection capping premium data usage to 500MB per day is a joke. I doubt you could even download 500MB in a week.

Internet experience on the Majestic was excellent. No problems at all from our cabin.

And I was going to complain about paying double when cruising SOLO and not getting the extra internet minutes, or a double bar set up in the cabin as an Elite. Now that would be a great topic!

Carnival's plans are $4/day, $10.25/day, and $14.88/day. I believe it is unlimited internet. I know they also offer a discounted price if you purchase for the whole cruise. It is less expensive than Princess.

 

 

 

Also note...... these prices are listed as Loyalty Plans. If you have not reached Platinum to get some free minutes then I bet the prices will be higher.

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E-Mail vs websites? How are they going to do that? Many Mail services are thru generic websites, so how will they tell what is mail and what is surf? if you fill out a prompt with your email address, maybe that does it?

I have had some experience with that on Carnival where they had a social, surfing and streaming packages.

I had the surfing package and most of the time I had no problem, accessing what I wanted to. But one time when I used a link to a magazine article it said I had to have the streaming package to access it.

So somehow it determines by web site which type package can/cannot access it.

I don't see it affecting how we receive and use our Elite minutes since they are a quantified amount of free internet .. When our minutes are gone there gone.

 

It could affect them by eliminating them as being a perk.

Or keeping them, but rendering them useless if you purchase an unlimited use package.

I would personally enjoy a data amount instead of a minutes on line meter. I wonder if their system could meter the data.. may be a good compromise for the perks people.

It does already.

I have had usage reports on Princess that show data quantity along with number of minutes used.

I love the free min benefit! I can use them to do what I want when I want. The new package would limit what I could access even if I got the lowest package for free. Free Facebook is all well and great, but not being able to check emails and airline check-in etc. would suck. And at this point, we don't even know that we would get anything for free!

Good point. Not good if the social package does not allow airline check-in, forcing one to purchase the higher priced package just to be able to check-in for flights.

With family in Venezuela I can tell you there can be restrictions on using Netflix at all. I'm not sure how to find out where it is restricted and where else it can be used. Canada seems to be no problem.

Restrictions are usually based on the location of where a web site thinks you are. So far my experience on Princess ships is that web sites think you are in the USA no matter where in the world the ship is.

 

Current minute packages sell for $160 for 460 minutes and $200 for 680 minutes.

 

Won't surprise me if Princess sees the new system as a "benefit" for the typical 7-night or 10-night vacation voyage. The $25 package prices to $175 for 7 nights and $250 for 10. So it's in the range of the larger packages for sale now, but they can say it's unlimited and (presumably) faster.

 

The real problem is the price quickly becomes prohibitive for longer voyages and they should have a declining scale of pricing for that situation. But it seems like the pricing is out of line with similar offerings, so maybe it will eventually be adjusted.

Celebrity has also gone to unlimited Internet also and they have eliminated all packages of minutes. They still have a loyalty perk of xx free minutes, but if you purchase an unlimited package, the perk is of no use.

Unlike Princess and Carnival, there is only one level of service and it is priced by the length of the cruise. Pricing below is if purchased on the ship. There is a 10% discount for pre-purchase. Certain loyalty levels have an additional discount.

Unlimited 2 - 3 days $79

Unlimited 4 - 6 days $159

Unlimited 7 - 9 days $249

Unlimited 10 - 13 days $299

Unlimited 14+ days $319

They do have shorter duration packages, but only available on the ship:

24 continuous hours $49

1 hour of continuous use $19.99

All of the above is for use on one device at a time.

 

"Princess have just rolled out Princessconnect on the Grand, unlimited internet always connected starts at $14.99 a day."

...has already been shown to be false by subsequent posters.

It seems that the $14.99 is for a social media package, not an unlimited package.

It is an unlimited package, an unlimited social media package.

A poster on another website mentioned that she has a friend currently on the Grand. The friend was charged the $14.99 price (discounted due to P/E loyalty status) for the $29.99 Ultimate package. I know this is second hand, but if correct, it is a slap in the face to those of us who have remained loyal to the Princess brand.....:mad::mad::mad:

I suspect most people do not really want the streaming capabilities of the $29.99 package, so offering a package that most people would not want at a lower price is not a benefit at all.

Also, with the minutes perk two eligible passengers in a cabin could be using their minutes at the same time on separate devices. For both passengers to do that with the new packages, both would have to pay the $14.99/day fee.

Are you saying there are people currently on the Grand who are actually paying the ransom so they can get the word out? Also, I am wondering what Princess considers social media. The definition is pretty broad - "Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media." Isn't this forum social media?

I wonder if Cruise Critic is part of the social media package.

Carnival has already had the three tier "unlimited" plans for some time and CCL has announced that the plans will be rolled out to all of their cruise lines. Ms. Swartz has no control over that.

 

The issue is that CCL is using Princess to determine how much Princess passengers are willing to pay for the privilege. This is the comparison between the Carnival pricing and the Princess trial.

 

Social: Carnival current pricing $5.00 - Princess trial pricing $14.99

Value: Carnival current pricing $16 - Princess trial pricing $24.99

Premium: Carnival current pricing $25 - Princess trial pricing $29.99

 

When I heard about the changes and the the Carnival pricing I was hoping that the Platinum minutes would be converted to the Value package with the option of upgrading to the Premium package for $9.00/day or less. I would think that the Social package would be of little value to most Princess passengers and that the Value package would be the most desired option. I know that I use Facebook and other social media apps infrequently and certainly not to communicate with others.

 

This trial's significant price increases and paltry internet replacement benefit is shameful. Princess, stop this stupid trial and announce that Princess pricing will be the same as the current Carnival pricing and that the Platinum benefit with the unlimited plans will be the Value package.

 

The prices for Carnival are the daily prices if purchased by the day. But it is much less if purchased for the entire cruise. On an 11-day Carnival cruise I had the following pricing.

Social: Carnival current pricing $5 - $40 for the entire cruise

Value: Carnival current pricing $16 - $90 for the entire cruise

Premium: Carnival current pricing $25 - $150 for the entire cruise

So far I have not seen any posts about Princess offering reduced pricing for an entire cruise.

So true....imagine getting on a ship for 10 days thinking you have 250 minutes each....and end up with a bill to be able to use them! A 149.90 surprise!

That is a $149.90 surprise if you only want the social media (think Facebook) package. It is a $249.90 surprise if you want to read and send E-mails.

And that is per person. So if you originally had 250 minutes each and still wanted to each use a device at the same time for e-mails with the new offering, it would be a $499.80 surprise.

They do but within reason and with reasonable notice. Lately, most airlines give at least a year's notice before making negative changes to frequent flyer programs. Why? Because tickets can at most be booked 11 months out and by giving a year's notice, no one can claim they bought a ticket expecting a promised FF benefit that was no longer offered.

 

But Princess continues to tell us that Internet minutes are a benefit even when at least this week on Grand, they weren't. A passenger could legitimately make a case that since it was advertised, they considered it part of their cruise contract (not withstanding any claim otherwise in the actual contract since that is what's called an "adhesion contract").

 

As pointed out earlier, unlimited Internet was a full suite perk at one time. Princess suddenly eliminated it, replacing it with a free specialty restaurant dinner good only on embarkation day.

After enough complaints, all those who booked full suites before the elimination of the perk did get their unlimited Internet, but they had to ask for it once on the cruise.

IMHO, this is a major misstep that will hopefully be adjusted or corrected. With regards to the Platinum/Elite Internet perk, they are angering literally millions of loyal customers. We used to get unlimited Internet, then it was reduced to minutes (which I could live with) and now they’re limiting Internet access to FB and Twitter.

Internet access is not being limited to FB and Twitter. Just pay more and you can have the access to the features you used to have for free.

Across many threads in the past there have been posts saying that Princess had the best loyalty perks. And the favorite two perks were the Internet minutes for Platinum and above) and the laundry for Elite.

On the past it has been one person at a time. Someone stated that you don't sign on any more. If that is correct, will you be able to use multiple devices on one account. On a given cruise I may connect to the internet using my phone, my tablet or my PC. I wouldn't like to be tied to one device.

 

 

On Carnival with their unlimited package you just signed on one time (if you just wanted to use that single device), but you did have to sign on that first time.

Glad to know that there are still options. AND, it sort of is confirmed on the Princess Website when you login and choose Onboard Reservations, then pick Internet Access, the package is the old version of buying in minutes. We're 5 days from sailing on the Grand and nothing on the site shows an option for unlimited.

Hopefully you will have the options on your upcoming cruise. Please post what you do have once on board.