Trading Elite bar setup for coffee package

[tailspintom]

16 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Sadly the IT folks often have to contend with grandiose promises made by the Marketing people who have absolutely zero clue about the things they promise. I saw that a lot.

You were on the IT / technical side of the house, I see.  After being on the operations / engineering side for some time I moved over to the product side.  A notice was sent out that effective (the date) tailspintom sucks. It is all perspective, I suppose.

[denmarks]

4 minutes ago, hobo1937 said:

It may depend on the ship. We swapped our Elite mini bar for the 2 coffee packages on the Star Princess Alaska cruise in April this year. I called room service right after lunch the day we boarded and they came shortly thereafter to take the mini bar things out. The person on the phone said it would take until the following day for the coffee cards to be activated. However, it took until the day after they said it would be activated  to finally be able to use the coffee cards. 

I hope it is immediate. I will have to use 30 drinks on a 15 day cruise. I would loudly complain if I had to lose 2 days. If it was delayed I would still get the drinks and let the front desk sort it out.

[tailspintom]

17 hours ago, denmarks said:

 

I agree. I was a programmer for 20 years. They have an online system so the information is available at any point. It would be simple to print it on the ledgers printed at the kiosks. You must understand that the IT department gets its instructions from the user. They can not just add a feature on their own but can recommend it.

I am not a fan of cluttering up the folio with debits followed by credits. Or, for that matter, a zero entry.  It is bad enough with the laundry.  A multiple daily entry for the coffee is not benefit for me.  It is a lot easier for me to occasionally ask how many more are left on my and my wife's account.  This is the difficulty when one is trying to translate what the end user values.

[tailspintom]

12 minutes ago, denmarks said:

I hope it is immediate. I will have to use 30 drinks on a 15 day cruise. I would loudly complain if I had to lose 2 days. If it was delayed I would still get the drinks and let the front desk sort it out.

In April on the Regal, I swapped out the mini bar in the afternoon and the medallion was working that evening.

[skynight]

17 hours ago, Pam in CA said:

That was my experience on the Royal last month when I exchanged my mini-bar set-up for the coffee “cards.” 

 

They explained that they put the charge on your folio until the mini-bar exchange is recorded. That’s so you can start using it immediately and your folio/Medallion shows you have the package. The exchange was recorded overnight and the charge disappeared. 

 

My question is: now that the new soda card includes coffee, will we be able to exchange the mini-bar for the soda/coffee package? 

Great Question, but I would guess the answer is no. Two coffee packages = selling price of $73.16. New coffee & soda package is $23.59/pp/day. Any cruise longer than 3 days and Princess would lose revenue if they gave the coffee & soda package away as a mini bar trade. What I would like to see is an unlimited brewed coffee and specialty tea/day package. Leave out all the other stuff.

Edited June 13, 2019 by skynight

[kywildcatfanone]

33 minutes ago, skynight said:

Princess would lose revenue if they gave the coffee & soda package away as a mini bar trade

They don't lose revenue on any of these packages.  They are making 1000% profit on each one they sell.

[Thrak]

5 hours ago, denmarks said:

I hope it is immediate. I will have to use 30 drinks on a 15 day cruise. I would loudly complain if I had to lose 2 days. If it was delayed I would still get the drinks and let the front desk sort it out.

 

We just used up 2 completely virgin coffee cards on a 7 day cruise! It was surprisingly difficult to get people to let you buy them coffee or chocolate - especially as it's now hard to tell if someone has a coffee package or a beverage package since there are no longer actual cards being issued. I managed to find a few folks who took me up on the offer once I explained the cards weren't valid after August 31 and we weren't cruising again until October. One guy had actually intended to purchase two coffees and was pleased to get both of them free. I loved buying stuff for strangers and one young couple who seemed very unsure of accepting my offer ended up thanking me quite effusively.