Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee

[youngkona]

I placed an order for shore excursion in Cabo San Lucas through Princess, even though I know the same company located in Cabo Princesses uses is advertising this for $30 less per person, because I have on-board ship credit. I quickly submitted the Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee to the email address following all of the steps. The terms and policy states they will let you know within two business days whether it meets the guidelines to match the price (plus 10%). Two business days come and go and I heard nothing. I followed up with a phone call on the 3rd day. The number listed in there Terms and Conditions is no longer in-service so I had to go to regular customer service number. On that day Live Chat was also unavailable. I waited over an hour to talk to some and then was transferred and then disconnected. I then sent a follow up email, still no response.  On the 4th business day I reached out again, and after another hour wait was told to give it a few more days.

 

Today it has been one week since the submission so I have reached out again. Live chat worked but they could not help and referred me first to the non-working phone number and then the general number. I have now been transferred 3 times and on the call for 2 hours and 40 mins and counting. I was also told to email customer relations, and this email bounced back as a non-working email.  At this point I will be cancelling the shore excursion and booking directly with the company, saving us $120 for a family of four. However I am extremely disappointed in the level of customer service. If Princess cannot honor their stated policy, they need to remove this from their website. At the very least they should have a working number. It does not give me confidence in cruising again. It seems they are not ready to serve their customers. I hope this helps anyone considering booking excursions through Princess and utilizing the Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee.

[Jadn13]

2 minutes ago, youngkona said:

I placed an order for shore excursion in Cabo San Lucas through Princess, even though I know the same company located in Cabo Princesses uses is advertising this for $30 less per person, because I have on-board ship credit. I quickly submitted the Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee to the email address following all of the steps. The terms and policy states they will let you know within two business days whether it meets the guidelines to match the price (plus 10%). Two business days come and go and I heard nothing. I followed up with a phone call on the 3rd day. The number listed in there Terms and Conditions is no longer in-service so I had to go to regular customer service number. On that day Live Chat was also unavailable. I waited over an hour to talk to some and then was transferred and then disconnected. I then sent a follow up email, still no response.  On the 4th business day I reached out again, and after another hour wait was told to give it a few more days.

 

Today it has been one week since the submission so I have reached out again. Live chat worked but they could not help and referred me first to the non-working phone number and then the general number. I have now been transferred 3 times and on the call for 2 hours and 40 mins and counting. I was also told to email customer relations, and this email bounced back as a non-working email.  At this point I will be cancelling the shore excursion and booking directly with the company, saving us $120 for a family of four. However I am extremely disappointed in the level of customer service. If Princess cannot honor their stated policy, they need to remove this from their website. At the very least they should have a working number. It does not give me confidence in cruising again. It seems they are not ready to serve their customers. I hope this helps anyone considering booking excursions through Princess and utilizing the Shore Excursion Best Price Guarantee.

I was warned about using this in the past.

I was told that if the Princess excursion includes even just  a bottle of water more than booking the  excursion direct it voids your claim of it being the same tour offer. 

[geoherb]

I was successful in getting Princess to honor the best price guarantee a couple of summers ago on an Alaskan cruise. It was for the glacier boat excursion in Whittier on my turnaround day. Sorry that you're having problems, but it seems to be endemic with Princess right now--much longer wait times on the phone and longer processing times for things such as shareholder credit.

[Bgwest]

As @Jadn13said, it's hardly worth the effort. We tried to do this three times in years past and they always found one tiny detail or another to wiggle out of it. 

Gave up on wasting the time and just stopped booking Princess tours. 

[Mom_of_Al]

I only tried this once, and Princess never notified me of any decision one way or another.  Then, about 2 weeks after I submitted the best price guarantee form, a credit showed up in my travel summary.  This was 3 years ago.

[kluv2cruz]

I’ve been waiting a couple weeks to hear back on this. I may just cancel and book with the private company. Very strange that they offer it, form says you’ll hear back in 2 days, but nothing.

[linaka625]

I used the best price guarantee on our Sky Princess cruise to the Norwegian Fjords in April. The first excursion I submitted came through within 2 days. The second one didn’t come through until I was onboard, about 2 weeks later. I was given over $100 per person in onboard credit plus the 10% price difference. 
I recently submitted another Best Price Guarantee for our Alaska cruise on June 4th. I think I remember reading that it takes 2 weeks now instead of 2 days ( to get a response). 

[kluv2cruz]

I just asked on chat about the status of my request and they too advised it takes 2 weeks. Unfortunately the form says 2 days so sets an unrealistic expectation. They could put an auto responder on that email saying “due to volume/staff shortage….” Then folks like me wouldn’t get so antsy!