Princess National Cruise Vacation Week

[waltd]

Save up to 30%, free paid gratuities, Spending money. So is this a sale or not? Has anyone saved any money with this promotion? :) Promotion starts today.

[TWA4Ever]

Save up to 30%, free paid gratuities, Spending money. So is this a sale or not? Has anyone saved any money with this promotion? :) Promotion starts today.

 

No savings on the fare, but $50 more OBC and prepaid gratuities. That works out to $218 for us. Appears to be a sale to me!

[waltd]

No savings on the fare, but $50 more OBC and prepaid gratuities. That works out to $218 for us. Appears to be a sale to me!

 

That's good to hear. :)

[JimmyVWine]

The pre-paid gratuities is the big kicker here. Thus, the more people you have in the cabin, the more likely you are to save money. I just re-fared about 2 hours ago. We have 3 people traveling in a Mini-Suite. The fare for Passengers #1 and #2 went up by $100. The fare for Passenger #3 stayed the same. Since the gratuities for 3 people total $252 and are being picked up by Princess, and the fare went up by $200, our savings was $52. In addition, we got $25 per person of additional OBC for all 3 people for a total of $75. This is added on to what we already had from our FCC. In the end, this netted us a savings of $127. But it did transform our deposit from refundable to non-refundable. But since we used a FCC, that is a modest outlay to risk.

Edited October 2, 2014 by JimmyVWine

[lolane1]

Save up to 30%, free paid gratuities, Spending money. So is this a sale or not? Has anyone saved any money with this promotion? :) Promotion starts today.

 

My cruise in april is about $100 more than I booked a few weeks ago.

[sandcar1]

call my ta jot 400 off my cruise in april thanks again for the info

[sandcar1]

also got prepaid gratitiues i guess were getting drink packages

[Bostonjetset]

We just booked the Regal on Monday and now this sale comes along! :(

I looked up our sailing and the price is the same but the free gratuities will mean $80.50pp less we have to spend on board. Just called my PVP and left her a message. Hopefully there isn't an hassle.

[baz48]

I noticed that our 17 day South American cruise fare went down for our category. I asked our agent to check it out and she had it refared. Saved us almost $700 and we got the free pre-paid gratuities (almost $400) also! We did lose $150 in prior OBCs, but we still come out way ahead. Very nice.

[MustangGT]

We went for the sale on our already booked cruise for March. While the fare did not change, we saved $168 with the pre-paid gratuities but lost $50 in OBC ($25 per person) from a previous promotion - OBC was $50 per person, now it is $25. Bottom line, we are ahead $118 - not a huge amount but I love saving any money I can. Yes, the deposit is now non-returnable/non-transferrable but we used FCCs so we will take the risk.

[dickinson]

Probably a stupid question but what if your category is sold out? Is it worth contacting my TA just to see?

[gremlinbangles]

Cruise price was the same but between losing obc from other promotion and adding gratuities and new obc we are ahead 116.

 

What I can't figure out is where in the personalizer I can see prepaid gratuities. I like seeing things.

[molme]

I don't think this sale includes Alaska cruises. I checked ours booked for May and can't see anything about gratuities paid, just onboard credit that we already were getting.

[atdahop]

Cruise price was the same but between losing obc from other promotion and adding gratuities and new obc we are ahead 116.

 

What I can't figure out is where in the personalizer I can see prepaid gratuities. I like seeing things.

 

I agree with you. I like seeing prepaid gratuities. If you find out where they show up please let me know. I booked but did a hold for 3 days.

[NavyVeteran]

I just double checked all of my future book cruises, and only one of them was included in the sale.

 

I can get free gratuities ($12 * 15 days = $180 per person) and $50 per person OBC - a total of $230 per person. However, the fare for my category is $400 per person higher than when I booked, so I don't think I'll be taking advantage of this sale.

[NavyVeteran]

Probably a stupid question but what if your category is sold out? Is it worth contacting my TA just to see?

 

Not a stupid question. You can always ask, but I wouldn't expect much.

 

I tried taking advantage of an earlier sale when my category was not available. I called Princess direct, since I had booked directly with them. Their representative said they were not able to rebook unless the category was available. So the only way I could take advantage of the sale was to change categories - which I did not want to do.

[JimmyVWine]

Cruise price was the same but between losing obc from other promotion and adding gratuities and new obc we are ahead 116.

 

What I can't figure out is where in the personalizer I can see prepaid gratuities. I like seeing things.

 

I agree with you. I like seeing prepaid gratuities. If you find out where they show up please let me know. I booked but did a hold for 3 days.

 

After I re-fared, Princess sent me a confirming email with an attached pdf "Booking Confirmation". At the bottom of that attachment, underneath the Itinerary, there is a "Comments" section and in there appears the following:

Bundled Gratuity

Complimentary Grat

 

That is the only reference I see as it does not show up on my Personalizer. I highlighted the reference on my Booking Confirmation and will carry it with me when I board.

Edited October 3, 2014 by JimmyVWine

[whitecap]

After seeing the original post I checked our two upcoming Caribbean Princess cruises, each 5 days, and found that one of them has been reduced dramatically in cruise fare. I plugged in the cabin next to the one we have booked, a BD category, and the difference was $560. My question though is, we are paid in full so what can I expect from Princess? This has never happened to us.

[hansi]

Save up to 30%, free paid gratuities, Spending money. So is this a sale or not? Has anyone saved any money with this promotion? :) Promotion starts today.

 

I assume that this only applies to passengers from the USA?:(

[gremlinbangles]

After seeing the original post I checked our two upcoming Caribbean Princess cruises, each 5 days, and found that one of them has been reduced dramatically in cruise fare. I plugged in the cabin next to the one we have booked, a BD category, and the difference was $560. My question though is, we are paid in full so what can I expect from Princess? This has never happened to us.

If you booked with Princess and you are not at the final pay period, usually 60 or 75 days b4 saildate, all you do is called them and they will give you the obc. They are very good about it. If you passed the date well you don't get anything.

[jackieo]

Not a stupid question. You can always ask, but I wouldn't expect much.

 

I tried taking advantage of an earlier sale when my category was not available. I called Princess direct, since I had booked directly with them. Their representative said they were not able to rebook unless the category was available. So the only way I could take advantage of the sale was to change categories - which I did not want to do.

 

Yes I contacted my TA yesterday and she told me the same. My category was sold out, so no go, but I could have moved to a different category and got the deal. However we have a Wake View Balcony booked and didn't want to move.

[michelle.zhang.90]

The pre-paid gratuities is the big kicker here. Thus, the more people you have in the cabin, the more likely you are to save money. I just re-fared about 2 hours ago. We have 3 people traveling in a Mini-Suite. The fare for Passengers #1 and #2 went up by $100. The fare for Passenger #3 stayed the same. Since the gratuities for 3 people total $252 and are being picked up by Princess, and the fare went up by $200, our savings was $52. In addition, we got $25 per person of additional OBC for all 3 people for a total of $75. This is added on to what we already had from our FCC. In the end, this netted us a savings of $127. But it did transform our deposit from refundable to non-refundable. But since we used a FCC, that is a modest outlay to risk.

 

Sounds good! Do you need to book a new one or the TA can simply modify what you already have?

[JimmyVWine]

Sounds good! Do you need to book a new one or the TA can simply modify what you already have?

 

Modified what I had. I phoned and told them the promotion that I was interested in and what the price was that was showing up on my computer screen. Representative checked to see if that cabin category was available (which I already knew it was, since I had done a "mock booking" and had up on my screen the price for the cabin next to mine.) Once that fact was confirmed, it was re-priced in about 10 seconds, and then she scouted around her site to see if there were any other add-ons that I qualified for. The whole thing took about 3 minutes. And then we had a 20 minute chat about her upcoming cruise on the Royal to NE/Canada.

[Thrak]

Had to go check it out but nothing there for me. Bummer. Maybe when I retire I can snag something of this sort. Glad to see that some are happy with the deal.

[Jagggg]

Promotion worked out great for us. Gave TA a called and now have 0 gratuities, on a 7 night balcony cruise, so that saved us $161. Also gave us an additional $50 in OBC to our already $50 OBC. Didn't lose $140 OBC from TA. Plus husband's military OBC $100. Now we have $340 OBC and no gratuities. The only downside is if we cancel will lose $400 deposit. Also the whole process took about an hour on phone, most of the time on hold. Thank you so much to the original poster.