Changes to Princess Plus, room service fees, Alfredo's and others. Fee changes. Etc

[Astro Flyer]

Based on a webinar slide the $14.99 OceanNow fee is only for delivery & not to use other app functions.

 

OceanNow

• Princess Standard: Princess Standard guests can enjoy OceanNow delivery for a nominal one-time $14.99 access fee per guest, which will be applied to their first order.

[Barbara B]

We generally saw our steward about 3-4 times/day in the corridor. He always asked what else we might need. Never had to use Ocean Now for anything. Never had the need. FWIW, we liked the Premium although we are not drinkers. We do like a glass of good champagne and enjoyed the two special dinners as well as the gelato bar. The specialty desserts just looked too rich to actually eat 🙂

 

Our main reason was that we each have multiple wifi devices, and use them simultaneously, for example sharing photos with family while on our laptops. We also had cell service and what's app, so if anyone back at home needed to reach us, they could. So that was a great convenience. Just adding the multiple-device wifi was worthwhile to select Premium (at least for us). The math simply added up.

[tothemall&beyond]

1 hour ago, lolo11 said:

As far as Alfredos goes, it still (at the moment) is not described on the Princess website as having an additional charge, while Sabatinis for example is clearly described as specialty dining and "additional charges apply." We love Alfredos (and the fact that it is free) so much that we always choose  a ship that has one. Not happy that our upcoming cruise on the Royal will be subject to new charges after we booked. 

It's not on the website yet because the new fees/charges don't start till August 12th. Then it will be there for sure.

[Ombud]

43 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

From today’s webinar:

Thank you. I feel much better. Not so bad. I only eat at MDR, IC, Afredos, and SD Gastropub (which is closing but currently costs as much or more)

 

I do use RS and will continue to do so. But I'm batching my orders. Maybe get 3 Key Limes & that covers a few days. I can get everything else at IC or buffet (like fresh uncut fruit, cookies, tea)

[cali-croozer]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

On the other hand it has worked quite well when we have used it.  The orders have been delivered fairly promptly.  For example about 20 minutes for a burger and fried to be delivered to Holly would pool area on Majestic.

 

Have noticed that it works better on some ships than others.  For example if using it to order coffee (blended mocha) while setting in the Piazza, have noticed on some ships the order goes to the IC and delivered pretty quickly from the normal IC waitstaff.  On other ships the order seems to have be sent to room service and the order is delivered by room service staff.

We were on a short trip on the Royal. Just to see how it worked, I ordered a drink on the lido, pretty close to one of the bars. It never came. I went up to the bar to inquire and they said it goes to room service! An officer overheard and told the bartender to make up my drink. I tried several more times during the cruise, even on port day when few were on the ship. Never did get any of the orders, in fact, most were mysteriously canceled. 

[gsmith2424]

Here is a question I'm not sure that has been answered or not: how does this apply to someone who has the pre Premier/Plus package? We got a cruise coming up in December and we got the legacy (pre dessert/drink price limit change) Premier and not sure how this will affect it. Luckily the cruise in March we got has the new/latest Premier. 

[Ombud]

Unless you upgrade, you do not get the "new  benefits:"

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by Ombud

[Jeter02]

5 minutes ago, cali-croozer said:

We were on a short trip on the Royal. Just to see how it worked, I ordered a drink on the lido, pretty close to one of the bars. It never came. I went up to the bar to inquire and they said it goes to room service! An officer overheard and told the bartender to make up my drink. I tried several more times during the cruise, even on port day when few were on the ship. Never did get any of the orders, in fact, most were mysteriously canceled. 

Yeeesss! Same thing here I said that earlier that anytime I would order a majority time it was always canceled. And I'll never forget the one time I decided to order tacos I literally saw the guy come with the tray about 2 hours later cuz I want to see how good the GPS was and behold I saw him turn around and he left and never gave me my order but he marked it as being delivered.

[Kay S]

Ah, the New Princess.  Charge for something that once was free and call it "no additional charge."  Padgett thinks we are all dimwits. 😒

[roxievegas]

25 minutes ago, TenneSea said:

I think this change is going to have a major backlash.  It doesn't really effect me (we always go Plus) but it looks like a PR disaster.  That being said,...

 

IS ANYONE GOING TO STARVE ON A CRUISE SHIP DUE TO THESE CHANGES?

the point is - Princess has offered choices to eat and not pay.  Slowly that is going away.  Soon, no free buffet and cost to eat in the MDR - stop the madness

[mtnesterz]

48 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Princess is not a premium cruise line.  It is and has been an adult focused mass market line, along with HAL and Celebrity.  Not to be confused with the family focused mass market lines (Carnival, NCL, Royal Caribbean)

Here's a video you might enjoy from Gary Bembridge, with his thoughts on the 4 classes of cruise lines. If you don't care to watch, he puts Princess in the Premium category. 

Of course this was from 2017 and we all know what has happened since. With changes as they have unfolded over the years, you might rightly ask, where does Princess stand today?

https://youtu.be/Y1hiYS0Y8uA

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by mtnesterz

[DougH]

I am a long time Princess cruiser (64 cruises 640 days) and like all of you very unhappy. I sail in about 10 days and was looking forward to Alfredo's and lot of times I choose a ship that has it. $15 for a pizza I sure don't like plus now a room service charge. I'm basically a 4X Elite and all they seem to do is take away perks and never add any. Maybe no that can give back room service and pizza as an Elite perk. Or at least add a higher Elite tier with some of these included. I don't drink so there is no benefit for me to buy a package. I always tip the crew and purchase the internet ( what happened to my unlimited free?) Why should I have to pay for stuff I won't use? Will see how this all effects me in 10 days

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, cali-croozer said:

We were on a short trip on the Royal. Just to see how it worked, I ordered a drink on the lido, pretty close to one of the bars. It never came. I went up to the bar to inquire and they said it goes to room service! An officer overheard and told the bartender to make up my drink. I tried several more times during the cruise, even on port day when few were on the ship. Never did get any of the orders, in fact, most were mysteriously canceled. 

yep one some ships the order goes to room service on others such as Majestic it get routed to the closest bar  that can service the order based upon location  For example on the Grand a burger order on Lido went to room service. On Majestic it went to the Lido grill.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, mtnesterz said:

Here's a video you might enjoy from Gary Bembridge, with his thoughts on the 4 classes of cruise lines. If you don't care to watch, he puts Princess in the Premium category. 

Of course this was from 2017 and we all know what has happened since. With changes as they have unfolded over the years, you might rightly ask, where does Princess stand today?

https://youtu.be/Y1hiYS0Y8uA

 

People classify it different ways. The cruise lines themselves liked to call themselves premium. TAs liked to use premium as well as part of the sales speel.

 

What he calls mainstream are what I refer to as family focused mass market.

 

If you look at Royal, ncl and Carnival and compare that to Princess, Celebrity and HAL the business practices are pretty much the same as far as offerings, inclusions. The major difference is one group family focused, the other group adult focused. But other than demographics pretty similar.

 

  if one looks at revenue per customer, level of inclusions, size of ship and other similar criteria Princess is in mass market. Adult focused mass market, but still mass market.

.

Go back 10 years or so and the term premium mass market used to be thrown around to describe the adult focused side.

Edited July 27, 2023 by ldtr

[MissP22]

55 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Pricing has changed. It's not going to change back. I don't have to necessarily like it but life goes on. Heck, I used to get Regular gas for 19¢ a gallon. These days I'm lucky if I can find it for $4.32 a gallon. I still buy gas.

 

Yes, but peple can still choose to live without a vacation if the pricing get out of hand.

 

 

29 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

Based on a webinar slide the $14.99 OceanNow fee is only for delivery & not to use other app functions.

 

OceanNow

• Princess Standard: Princess Standard guests can enjoy OceanNow delivery for a nominal one-time $14.99 access fee per guest, which will be applied to their first order.

Except that there are things that are only offered on OceanNow that you'll have to pay to get if you don't have the package. 

[dweeb]

34 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

Based on a webinar slide the $14.99 OceanNow fee is only for delivery & not to use other app functions.

 

 

Better yet,   Keep the Medallion and just give me the old key card.  That way I won't mistakenly use the medallion.

Edited July 27, 2023 by dweeb

[Level six]

So if I get sick on a cruise, I will have to pay for room service?  Wouldn't that just encourage people to go out and pass along their germs to others???  

[kstrittm]

I understand that people don’t like having to pay for things that were previously free.  However, all of the competition is doing the same thing - Oceania calls it “Simply More”; HAL calls it “Have it All”; and some others have been doing this for a while.  I’m actually a bit surprised that it took Princess this long to come to the party.

 

So, what do you do?  I watch prices of many cruise lines, and I think Princess still provides a lot of value for the money.  You can jump ship - but you’ll end up paying more and may not be as happy.  I view this as inflation hitting the cruise industry.  I’ll just buck up and pay it - and I’ll still enjoy myself!  

 

I do cruise other lines, but that is because I select my trips based mostly on itinerary.  I continue to cruise on Princess periodically, though… It has a special place in my heart.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Level six said:

So if I get sick on a cruise, I will have to pay for room service?  Wouldn't that just encourage people to go out and pass along their germs to others???  

Unless you go to medical and get them to waive the charge, which would pretty much require quarantine.

[Sailaweigh]

After hearing this news and reading all the comments,  initially I was mad because generally I  don't like nickle & diming. But then I again, I  don't want the cruise fares to go up. I'm a big believer in "user fees", and I guess that is what these are. People that use the amenities should pay for them. 

We always go standard fare. We would drink too much if we got the package. This way,  with the Elite bar set up and a drink at the Elite lounge  before dinner, we feel that's enough alcohol for us for the day.

After 36 cruises on Princess, we have never gone to the casual dining venues ( not even Alfredo's) We never have ordered from the Medallion and have never order RS ( except for the occasional carafe of coffee for breakfast).  So this is no change for us.   

Everything is costing more, and we like everyone grumbles about costs going up and package sizes getting smaller. But when I look back to our first cruises in the 80's, we were paying $1200 for an inside cabin for a 7 day on Carnival and it puts things into perspective.

 

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, dweeb said:

Better yet,   Keep the Medallion and just give me the old key card.  That way I won't mistakenly use the medallion.

The medallion does nothing, it is the app on your phone that accesses the services that might trigger a charge.

[Sea Hag]

1 hour ago, lolo11 said:

As far as Alfredos goes, it still (at the moment) is not described on the Princess website as having an additional charge, while Sabatinis for example is clearly described as specialty dining and "additional charges apply." We love Alfredos (and the fact that it is free) so much that we always choose  a ship that has one. Not happy that our upcoming cruise on the Royal will be subject to new charges after we booked. 

I'm not happy either. We have four cruises booked with Princess, not nearly as many as some here. When I booked these, to my mind I was buying a "product." Some parts of that product were Alfredo's/Gigi's at no charge, room service at no charge, and the daggone medallion functions for drink and food deliveries that they so strenuously marketed at us. Now, they've changed the product. I expect prices to go up, and I certainly haven't been surprised about that, but I don't expect that a purchase I've made will change into something else. I'm not saying I wouldn't have booked these cruises if the switcheroo happened before I booked, but I will say that I'll be looking long and hard at other options for three out of four of the cruises we have booked.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Sea Hag
grammar

[Astro Flyer]

30 minutes ago, gsmith2424 said:

Here is a question I'm not sure that has been answered or not: how does this apply to someone who has the pre Premier/Plus package? We got a cruise coming up in December and we got the legacy (pre dessert/drink price limit change) Premier and not sure how this will affect it. Luckily the cruise in March we got has the new/latest Premier. 

Another slide from the webinar might give you an answer.

 

 

[coo359a2]

6 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

 

We're still up in the air about dropping our flight to Melbourne and, instead, booking an additional 31 days (SF to Melbourne) for about the same price. If we do drop the hammer on that option it will be in n inside cabin with Standard fare. If we do that the changes will definitely affect us as, in the 31 days we would definitely hit Alfredo's a few times. I have to wonder how this will play out as our booked cruises and the "possible" cruises are all on Grand Princess and Alfredo's only has pizza on that ship.

For us it's going to be a long 49 days without free Alfredo pizza.  Then hopefully our Plus package for the last 14 days is the right one to give some Alfredo's visits.  Good thing for OBC as I see it spent at Alfredo's and the Crown Grill.  

[gsmith2424]

2 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

Another slide from the webinar might give you an answer.

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing.