Princess delusions regarding "Upgrades"!

[john watson]

6 minutes ago, nini said:

I do not think I can go through Princess as we have a TA.

 

That is correct.

 

Regards John

[nini]

All midship balconies are not available.

[PacnGoNow]

9 minutes ago, nini said:

We were in an angled cabin on the Dolphin deck (middle of the ship). What is so strange, is that all of the aft Dolphin cabins are available. It looks fishy!

That is really strange.  They wouldn’t put quarantine in the middle of the deck. 
Where are you going now?  Aft or Fwd or Sun deck?  To get that bigger balcony…

We’re on it, but not till 2023 Europe.

[nini]

We were originally in D428 (nice angled balcony) and moved to C508 (tiny!). All of the aft balconies show as being available, which is where I would like to move to but can not get through to anyone. We lways book aft, but on this trip, our friends wanted midship.

[PacnGoNow]

4 minutes ago, nini said:

We were originally in D428 (nice angled balcony) and moved to C508 (tiny!). All of the aft balconies show as being available, which is where I would like to move to but can not get through to anyone. We lways book aft, but on this trip, our friends wanted midship.

We like the aft, there are nice balconies too.  With all the availability, you should be fine getting through to your agent on Monday.  What a pain. Good luck to you. 
Loved the Baltic cruise, we did it on the Regal.  

[john watson]

9 minutes ago, nini said:

I understand what Princess calls an "upgrade". In their opinion it is due to being higher, etc. But we went from a nice balcony to the tiny one. It is due to CDC orders. Right. So, quarantined people and crew will be in a highly regarded cabin.

 

The ships are sailing under capacity something like 60% - 70% and what we do not know for definite  what they are trying to achieve.  Logically if they were clearing your deck completely your companions would get the same cabin change notification.  There is a clause in the cabin change notification to say they try to keep companions close but this might mean them losing their original cabin too. Princess might be spreading the passengers booked in to be evenly spaced so each area of the ship has an even proportion of passengers on each deck and vacant cabins between and in addition creating a quarantine cabin area which probably would include disabled access cabins in another area.  It is impossible to work out what the objective is.

 

Regards John

 

 

 

.  

[nini]

2 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

We like the aft, there are nice balconies too.  With all the availability, you should be fine getting through to your agent on Monday.  What a pain. Good luck to you. 
Loved the Baltic cruise, we did it on the Regal.  

Thanks for the encouragement. However, this just seems so odd to have D711-725 and D728-731 all available when they closed down mid Dolphin deck (or so it appears).

[Dall]

59 minutes ago, hllwdcruiser said:

I was responding to Sea Hag - I totally understood your point and 100% empathize.

We weren't offered anything extra for this change. I think they could at least offer us a free specialty dinner or some OBC. We actually changed the baja cabin and chose a "downgraded" cabin on the sun deck in order to get a larger balcony.

Off topic, but I’m curious, we have a balcony on sun deck on Enchanted, when you say balconies are bigger are you referring to suites or regular balcony cabins?

[john watson]

46 minutes ago, voljeep said:

Princess does NOT consider 'balcony size' as a factor in an upgrade  -  strictly location and cabin category

 

and be sure to 'link' cabins if more than one is involved

 

but also know Princess has final say - marked no upgrade or not

 

To be pedantic upgrades are based solely on "grade" where cabin types are ranked as higher grade as well.  Linking applies to bookings, not cabins because a family may have one booking covering two cabins. A strong link is needed in this type of situation.  They might also want to be near grandparents who have booked separately but nearby in which case you link the bookings.  Linking of bookings may be achieved using the app these days, each party loading the others booking reference on the smartphone. Once onboard you can also mutually add shipmates for rendezvous at venues etc.

 

Regards John

Edited January 22, 2022 by john watson

[nini]

2 minutes ago, Dall said:

Off topic, but I’m curious, we have a balcony on sun deck on Enchanted, when you say balconies are bigger are you referring to suites or regular balcony cabins?

Take a look at the deck plans on the Princess website and compare D428 to C508. People like the angled balconies, as in D428. Suites DO NOT necessarily have larger balconies and is quite the misunderstanding. Foe example, take a look at S109 through S115. S109-307 are small balconies, a suite or not.

[Steelers36]

21 minutes ago, john watson said:

 

To be pedantic upgrades are based solely on "grade" where cabin types are ranked as higher grade as well.  Linking applies to bookings, not cabins because a family may have one booking covering two cabins. A strong link is needed in this type of situation.  They might also want to be near grandparents who have booked separately but nearby in which case you link the bookings.  Linking of bookings may be achieved using the app these days, each party loading the others booking reference on the smartphone. Once onboard you can also mutually add shipmates for rendezvous at venues etc.

 

Regards John

A guest does not actually "Link" bookings by adding Travel Companions in MC App (as far as I understand it).  The purpose of the Travel Companions could be hidden in the sense that the ship might use if to identify other guests if a Covid quarantine is required.  But the open purpose is to be able to register for things as a group such as dining reservations.  A guest can add anyone else on the ship for that voyage as long as they know the booking number.

 

The linking done in POLAR is something different and has been in existence long before MC App. 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

Princess does NOT consider 'balcony size' as a factor in an upgrade  -  strictly location and cabin category

In an indirect way, balcony size can come into play.  For example, on Grand Class ships, the coveted Caribe deck balconies are a premium category which means they would be an upgrade from a standard balcony.  Mid-ships in Royal Class have a number of extended balconies and mid-ship location is always a higher category than more forward or aft.  So, it depends, but certainly a guest may have a larger balcony on purpose and get a move to a higher category which has a smaller balcony. 

 

One of the worst cases of this could be a BW mid-ship on Royal Class to a BB which is several categories different, but can be a serious change in balcony size.  

[john watson]

I think when you use the app linking bookings is different from adding shipmates.  One is linking bookings as we have known for awhile whereas adding shipmates is more relevant to meeting people on board and deciding to do things together. You know which cabin they are actually in or what venue they are currently in at any moment so should not be done lightly. You can locate your children even if they are older.

 

Regards John

[cr8tiv1]

Disclaimer:  I have never been on a Royal Class ship  (nor intended to ever), but it seems as though one of the biggest complaints seem to be the stateroom balcony and lack of walk around Promenade (although with new smoking on Grand Class ships closing off aft...).

 

What was Princess thinking?  And continues down this same path over and over again.  Rhetorical question...just spouting!

[Steelers36]

26 minutes ago, john watson said:

I think when you use the app linking bookings is different from adding shipmates.  One is linking bookings as we have known for awhile whereas adding shipmates is more relevant to meeting people on board and deciding to do things together. You know which cabin they are actually in or what venue they are currently in at any moment so should not be done lightly. You can locate your children even if they are older.

 

Regards John

Yes, they are different, but guests have never been able to link bookings as to what is offered in the App.  This to link another of your own bookings into the App that isn't already there.  I am not sure how often it would be used since all of a guest's bookings should be showing in the App by default.  (I am aware many have posted about missing voyages in the App and IDK if this feature page would do any good to enter the missing voyage or not).

[PacnGoNow]

2 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Yes, they are different, but guests have never been able to link bookings as to what is offered in the App.  This to link another of your own bookings into the App that isn't already there.  I am not sure how often it would be used since all of a guest's bookings should be showing in the App by default.  (I am aware many have posted about missing voyages in the App and IDK if this feature page would do any good to enter the missing voyage or not).

No it does NOT link a missing booking.

It assumes it is there already.  It might work on a separate booking, that

is not a b2b.  IDK.  None of my separate bookings have problems.  Only my b2b’s.

I assume I’ll have to go to guest services OB for them to fix it.  Ughhh

 

Wait until I add another one on the end of these!  Lol  Maybe the missing one on the end will show up?  🤣

[dog]

My booking on the Sky marked No Upgrade changed from dolphin angled balcony to mid forward MB mini suite. Due to my cabin being used for quarantine 

[PacnGoNow]

27 minutes ago, dog said:

My booking on the Sky marked No Upgrade changed from dolphin angled balcony to mid forward MB mini suite. Due to my cabin being used for quarantine 

We’ve been discussing that same issue with the dolphin on Enchanted.  
Wonder why they would take midship?

Is your sailing coming up soon?

[Shelly97060]

3 hours ago, nini said:

I am going to change as soon as I can get through. But Princess will be closed tomorrow.

Princess customer service is open until 5 pm pacific time so still a couple of hours left today. Perhaps try the Chat feature or call and get into the hold queue.  

[dog]

2 minutes ago, Shelly97060 said:

Princess customer service is open until 5 pm pacific time so still a couple of hours left today. Perhaps try the Chat feature or call and get into the hold queue.  

Hearing more on cc getting through to chat. Try it. Or Call first thing when they open. 

[Shelly97060]

Regarding the subject of linking bookings,  @Steelers36 is correct, the app doesn’t link multiple bookings on the same voyage. You enter travel companions into the app so you can make dinner reservations, send messages and locate each other on the ship. 
 

For people traveling together ( like families in multiple cabin) your TA or Princess can assign an identifier called a TWID which is placed on both bookings in the computer system. This identifies that the bookings are in essence linked ( but it has nothing to do with what you see in the App). 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Shelly97060

[Buckeye10640]

4 hours ago, Dall said:

Off topic, but I’m curious, we have a balcony on sun deck on Enchanted, when you say balconies are bigger are you referring to suites or regular balcony cabins?

Just spent 10 days in one on the regular Sun Deck cabins. The balconies are deeper than a regular balcony cabin on other decks. We actually loved this deck and booked a  cabin a few doors down for November. 

[back to the islands]

6 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

 

 

This says CDC operational…surely, their not using the Dolphin deck for quarantine?  Were you in an Aft cabin?

 

We were in one of the Dolphin deck angled balconies at Christmas, starboard side. They were using port side for the quarantine area. From what I've read it sounds like they have expanded it to both sides, but I don't know for sure. I have also read they were using part of Caribe. That is a LOT of quarantine rooms!

[geoherb]

5 hours ago, nini said:

Take a look at the deck plans on the Princess website and compare D428 to C508. People like the angled balconies, as in D428.

 

 

D428 is a Cat. BA with a larger angled balcony. C508 is a Cat. DB with more interior space, including the room for the loveseat. 

 

We had one upgrade from an obstructed view to an unobstructed one that ended up being laughable. It was to P201 on the Caribbean. It's a tiny cabin--so small that there was room for just one nightstand. The window is a recessed porthole. I thought it should really be reclassified as an obstructed view. And it seems to me that after nearly 19 years of operation, Princess could accurately label which cabins have portholes on the deck plans instead of just putting up a generic warning that "Select staterooms may have a porthole instead of a picture window." Princess has had plenty of time to label which ones they are.

[MsSoCalCruiser]

6 hours ago, Sea Hag said:

They "upgraded" us once from a completely non-problematic, unobstructed OV to an OV with the window washer parked outside the window all the time except when they were actually washing windows. An additional "benefit" of the "upgrade" was that the cabin was under the outside eating area of the buffet, treating us to sounds like a bowling alley in the wee hours every morning.

That’s horrible!