Princess is filling their ships

[Cruise Raider]

So, I’ve read countless complaints about the new perks to the Princess packages as passengers that book the standard fare will have some extra costs.  
people who feel as though they’ve been ‘loyal’ to Princess are being let down.  I hadn’t realized that there were so many passengers that don’t regularly book one of the packages.  Maybe it is just that these are a minority and the squeaky wheels.  I’ve seen the same people that complained about never again with Princess during CoVid back to complain about never again with Princess due to these changes.  
Of course, there is so much misinformation out there on this site and on Facebook.  We cruise a lot and help others book a lot of cruises.  So of course, I am getting a lot of messages from these people as well, also peppered with a lot of misinformation.  

 

On our next cruise, we have the $50 a day pp plus package.  Will we feel the need to upgrade to the new $60 package for the perks?  Nope!  
We will continue to order food through the app.  That will be a $15 charge.  Because we will be on the Ruby, there’s no Alfredo’s or GiGis onboard so no change for us there.  We will be able to go to the GastroPub and get an a la carte menu item so will save there from the previous $18 cover charge pp.  This will actually be a savings for us there, enough to cover the $15 OceanNow feature activation.  
We may order a pizza with salads over the app.  The pizza has gone from $3 to no charge to $8 over this year.  Not a deal breaker to me to pay $8 for a whole pizza to be delivered .. it’s the same as we’d have paid without these new changes.  
 

But, with all these “loyal” passengers jumping ship, I am hoping to get an invite to the most traveled passenger luncheon during the brief period they go elsewhere!  😂 

They are most likely not going to feel that the grass is greener on the other side.  
We are elite on both Princess and on Celebrity, as well as Diamond on RCCL and have lower level tier status on a few other lines. 
We recently went on a side by side cruise, one on Celebrity followed by one on Princess while in the same port.  While there is nothing wrong with Celebrity, which used to be our favorite line, we just felt like Princess is a much better fit for us.  
Celebrity charges $12 for all room service orders (except for the continental breakfast, just like on Princess) and the only place you can order it is to your room.  It isn’t delivered anywhere else on the ship like Princess does.   We found the food venues during the day were either up by the pool or in the buffet.  Only sweets were offered at Cafe Al Bacio.  I much prefer savory over sweet, so the IC has my vote.  
The specialty restaurants are twice as much as on Princess and they charge an 18% gratuity on top of the price of the meal.  
Their choices of wine was pretty bad.  I had to upgrade to the premium package just to get a wine that is offered under the Plus package on Princess.  
I also didn’t like they had very few onboard activities or entertainment during the day.  
The buffet was pretty good but it’s also been improved on Princess.  Celebrity doesn’t serve one shrimp, EVER, in the buffet, though.  I did have shrimp in the MDR one day and it wasn’t all that great.  My DH didn’t like the food in the MDR there at all.  
There were some things on Celebrity that we did enjoy, so I’m not saying it was a bad cruise.  We just felt more at home when we stepped onto the Princess ship after a week on Celebrity.  Others that we met on the same side by side itinerary we did just thought Celebrity was boring!  To some extent, I do agree with that assessment.  Once we got onto the Princess ship, we all had a blast!  So much bang for our buck! 
 

Anyway, my point is Princess is adding more value to those that book the fare with one of the Packages.  They are filling their ships, maybe with a different demographic but possibly with many more that purchase the package fare.  
We still find great value in it and now more so, especially with the premier package with all the alternate dining options and great wines.  




 

[DUCHESSRN]

We will stay with Princess, just like familiarity . I am Diabetic so the deserts are of no value at all .

However we watched a good Video on U Tube on the breakdown of the new policies.

Decided to upgrade to Plus less stress , and just have a good time .

I guess that is what they are hoping people will do.

[Steelers36]

22 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

But, with all these “loyal” passengers jumping ship, I am hoping to get an invite to the most traveled passenger luncheon during the brief period they go elsewhere!

Good one!!!!!

[kywildcatfanone]

Princess has no need anymore to be loyal.  Trading black for blue makes them more money.  Simple economics.

 

How you respond as a past passenger is up to each person.

[roadster08]

I think it's important to recognize that Princess has a problem.

 

My personal opinion is that they have become almost schizophrenic in attempting to appeal to too many different demographics that mix as well as oil and water. Not only do these different demographics have issues with Princess, they have issues with the each other.

 

You would think Carnival corporation would be able to segment who they target with their various cruise lines. However, they seem to randomly spar over the same demographics across all their lines now as they make changes to their ships and services offered. 

 

[brynmelyndavid]

I have noticed that Cruise forums tend to be dominated by people who have a grievance of some kind as opposed to those who simply have had a good time, (maybe the latter don't feel any need to vent their opinions?). We have in the last year sailed twice with P&O, once on Iona and once on Arcadia. In both instances I had been a  keen follower of posts on Cruise Critic and Facebook as I like to be as informed as possible prior to boarding, and in both instances by the time it came to commence our holiday I was genuinely concerned because the overall postings on here and on Facebook had been so negative. However in both instances we found our own experience to be utterly different to that we had anticipated on the basis of everything we had read. Both were immensely positive and enjoyable and we realised that forums like this tend to amplify minor issues until they become huge monsters threatening the pleasure of everyone's future cruises! 

I have no doubt that there are people who have genuine problems and issues, and many who mourn the loss of perks and privileges and services that they had in the past and that are now no longer available or maybe available but at a premium. But most people I think simply let these sorts of things wash over them and allow them to be, in the context of their overall holiday, nothing more than minor issues. No holiday has ever been perfect, but they have still been wonderful experiences.

I shall keep watching these forums and reading what people say, not least because we will be sailing with Princess for the first time next April and are really looking forward to it. But I also know now not to pay that much attention to what a lot of people have to say because I know that whatever issues people have will generally speaking have little of no real impact on my holiday. 

[Steelers36]

2 minutes ago, brynmelyndavid said:

I shall keep watching these forums and reading what people say, not least because we will be sailing with Princess for the first time next April and are really looking forward to it. But I also know now not to pay that much attention to what a lot of people have to say because I know that whatever issues people have will generally speaking have little of no real impact on my holiday. 

Quite sure you will enjoy cruising on Princess.  For me, it isn't so much the changes that are the issue, but rather they could execute a lot better IMO.

[kywildcatfanone]

6 minutes ago, roadster08 said:

I think it's important to recognize that Princess has a problem.

 

My personal opinion is that they have become almost schizophrenic in attempting to appeal to too many different demographics that mix as well as oil and water. Not only do these different demographics have issues with Princess, they have issues with the each other.

 

You would think Carnival corporation would be able to segment who they target with their various cruise lines. However, they seem to randomly spar over the same demographics across all their lines now as they make changes to their ships and services offered. 

 

New ships look to be carnival and royal Caribbean like.  They should have left it more like previous.  They are merging their lines and competing with themselves.

[Purplsmurf]

1 hour ago, Cruise Raider said:

So, I’ve read countless complaints about the new perks to the Princess packages as passengers that book the standard fare will have some extra costs.  
people who feel as though they’ve been ‘loyal’ to Princess are being let down.  I hadn’t realized that there were so many passengers that don’t regularly book one of the packages.  Maybe it is just that these are a minority and the squeaky wheels.  I’ve seen the same people that complained about never again with Princess during CoVid back to complain about never again with Princess due to these changes.  
Of course, there is so much misinformation out there on this site and on Facebook.  We cruise a lot and help others book a lot of cruises.  So of course, I am getting a lot of messages from these people as well, also peppered with a lot of misinformation.  

 

On our next cruise, we have the $50 a day pp plus package.  Will we feel the need to upgrade to the new $60 package for the perks?  Nope!  
We will continue to order food through the app.  That will be a $15 charge.  Because we will be on the Ruby, there’s no Alfredo’s or GiGis onboard so no change for us there.  We will be able to go to the GastroPub and get an a la carte menu item so will save there from the previous $18 cover charge pp.  This will actually be a savings for us there, enough to cover the $15 OceanNow feature activation.  
We may order a pizza with salads over the app.  The pizza has gone from $3 to no charge to $8 over this year.  Not a deal breaker to me to pay $8 for a whole pizza to be delivered .. it’s the same as we’d have paid without these new changes.  
 

But, with all these “loyal” passengers jumping ship, I am hoping to get an invite to the most traveled passenger luncheon during the brief period they go elsewhere!  😂 

They are most likely not going to feel that the grass is greener on the other side.  
We are elite on both Princess and on Celebrity, as well as Diamond on RCCL and have lower level tier status on a few other lines. 
We recently went on a side by side cruise, one on Celebrity followed by one on Princess while in the same port.  While there is nothing wrong with Celebrity, which used to be our favorite line, we just felt like Princess is a much better fit for us.  
Celebrity charges $12 for all room service orders (except for the continental breakfast, just like on Princess) and the only place you can order it is to your room.  It isn’t delivered anywhere else on the ship like Princess does.   We found the food venues during the day were either up by the pool or in the buffet.  Only sweets were offered at Cafe Al Bacio.  I much prefer savory over sweet, so the IC has my vote.  
The specialty restaurants are twice as much as on Princess and they charge an 18% gratuity on top of the price of the meal.  
Their choices of wine was pretty bad.  I had to upgrade to the premium package just to get a wine that is offered under the Plus package on Princess.  
I also didn’t like they had very few onboard activities or entertainment during the day.  
The buffet was pretty good but it’s also been improved on Princess.  Celebrity doesn’t serve one shrimp, EVER, in the buffet, though.  I did have shrimp in the MDR one day and it wasn’t all that great.  My DH didn’t like the food in the MDR there at all.  
There were some things on Celebrity that we did enjoy, so I’m not saying it was a bad cruise.  We just felt more at home when we stepped onto the Princess ship after a week on Celebrity.  Others that we met on the same side by side itinerary we did just thought Celebrity was boring!  To some extent, I do agree with that assessment.  Once we got onto the Princess ship, we all had a blast!  So much bang for our buck! 
 

Anyway, my point is Princess is adding more value to those that book the fare with one of the Packages.  They are filling their ships, maybe with a different demographic but possibly with many more that purchase the package fare.  
We still find great value in it and now more so, especially with the premier package with all the alternate dining options and great wines.  




 

When is the last time you were on a Celebrity ship? They have delicious boiled shrimp on every cruise. We are sailing Princess in October for only the second time. So far, I’m not so sure it will be for us, but definitely going to be comparing it to Celebrity!

[cr8tiv1]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

2 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

But, with all these “loyal” passengers jumping ship, I am hoping to get an invite to the most traveled passenger luncheon during the brief period they go elsewhere!

Good one!!!!!

I had the same thought, but still pretty low on the totem pole.  I check each time I’m on board a ship.  This cruise….149th and there are less than 400 Elite.  

[Cruise Raider]

2 hours ago, Purplsmurf said:

When is the last time you were on a Celebrity ship? They have delicious boiled shrimp on every cruise. We are sailing Princess in October for only the second time. So far, I’m not so sure it will be for us, but definitely going to be comparing it to Celebrity!

We were on Celebrity in April of this year.  It may have been a one off but I only saw 3 shrimp on my noodle dish in the MDR on the entire cruise and there were none to be found in the buffet.  My shrimp were slightly overdone but the noodles were good.  I used to enjoy the shrimp salad at the sandwich bar .. no more.  I also used to get them in my Chinese stir fry, nope, not one little shrimp in the entire buffet.  I even asked.  For me, the food was just ok in MDR my DH didn’t care for his at all.  
There were still things we enjoyed but Princess is a much better fit for us!  
 

I like the bathrooms and couches in the standard balcony rooms on Celebrity.  The coffee at Cafe Al Bacio was out of this world. All their glasses, water glasses, wine glasses, martini glasses were all Riedels.   But, we even paid for the premium package because the wines they had were of poor quality in the classic package.  Even the premium package had very poor choices for decent wine!  
The Apple Store onboard was a huge reason we went on that cruise.  This had been a cruise that was canceled a couple of times for a charter pre-Covid and then a few more times during CoVid.  We finally just booked it so far out so, it wouldn’t be canceled another time.  We just had so much OBC so, couldn’t let it go to waste.  We were able to get two  new iPads and upgrade to the premium package with all our OBC.  
I also love their smoking inside anywhere policy.  
The service was great except we did have to go to the guest services desk to get our WiFi added as we had paid for it with the package but it was not showing that we did.  That was very minor for us, though.  I think the process of immigration in San Diego was handled poorly.  It may have just been the port of San Diego and not the cruise line itself, though.  It’s been done better in the past.  Princess handled perfectly in San Francisco on Princess since then.  Again .. maybe it was just the port of San Diego was the issue there.  

 

[Cruise Raider]

2 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

I had the same thought, but still pretty low on the totem pole.  I check each time I’m on board a ship.  This cruise….149th and there are less than 400 Elite.  

We do tend to cruise out of our home port of San Francisco whenever possible.  There is a real dedicated group of people that live in the bay area and cruise very often.  No matter how hard we try, our only chance to get to that MTP luncheon again is if some of them are driven away by these new changes .. 😂 

We were invited only once and I gasped with glee when I saw the invite in our room!  There were only 800 passengers onboard.  Others at our table only had like 200 days.  That’s not happening again!  
 

 

[doghog]

Looking forward to our March 2024 Enchanted cruise. But we do sleep around. 

[sfpd3000]

14 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

We do tend to cruise out of our home port of San Francisco whenever possible.  There is a real dedicated group of people that live in the bay area and cruise very often.  No matter how hard we try, our only chance to get to that MTP luncheon again is if some of them are driven away by these new changes .. 😂 

Hi Cruise Raider!  When's your next cruise?  I did not ask for any slots for August because the ship days did not correspond with my regular work schedule.  I'll try and do some port days in September.

[LibertyBella]

Guess I am in the minority, because I rarely go on CC to complain (just once about Viking airfare), and I usually don't ask questions. 

 

After 50 years of cruising, I have seen cruise lines come and go, so I tend to hop around, depending on itinerary, budget, mood, etc.  Also, we have NEVER purchased a package, because--we started cruising before the Internet existed, so we do not want to use it on vacation, we are light drinkers so only order a la carte, I usually purchase the most elaborate shore excursions so the small amount provided is meaningless, and we are small-average eaters (one entree, each, please.)

 

I just sailed Enchanted Princess out of Rome last week, and we had a very busy schedule of touring, so no time for leisurely room service, or trying out specialty restaurants, or even relaxing by the pool or in the spa. 

 

Oh well, I saw the most magnificent historic and archaeological sights while on the cruise, which was the main reason for sailing.  We enjoyed all of our meals, and liked the shows, all the activity, etc.  

 

But we sailed the Greek islands on Celebrity in 2019 out of Venice, and equally enjoyed that cruise, also extremely port heavy.  And we sailed Cunard last year, and also loved all the dressing up and traditions.  And we were on Viking just a few months ago.

 

And I would not hesitate to book many other different cruise lines just for the complete joy of cruising! (Yes, we like Carnival, NCL, and RC just to relax on the ships.) I am SO happy to see the cruise industry survived Covid and is forging ahead.  I am always ready to say, "Bon Voyage!"

Edited July 30, 2023 by LibertyBella

[Cruise Raider]

1 minute ago, sfpd3000 said:

Hi Cruise Raider!  When's your next cruise?  I did not ask for any slots for August because the ship days did not correspond with my regular work schedule.  I'll try and do some port days in September.

It’s in two weeks on the Ruby .. so we will be there on the 15th and leaving on the 25th.  
In September, we’re doing something new and flying up to Seattle for our next cruise.  
I looked all over for you last time, asking all the SFPD if they knew who Alan was .. none did.  You will have to let me know where you will be stationed so we can at least meet in person.  Too bad we didn’t meet each other formally when we sat right next to you on that one cruise.  
 

[sfpd3000]

4 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

It’s in two weeks on the Ruby .. so we will be there on the 15th and leaving on the 25th.  
In September, we’re doing something new and flying up to Seattle for our next cruise.  
I looked all over for you last time, asking all the SFPD if they knew who Alan was .. none did.  You will have to let me know where you will be stationed so we can at least meet in person.  Too bad we didn’t meet each other formally when we sat right next to you on that one cruise.  
 

I was actually stationed at Pier 27 for 13 hours the day after Ruby had her "accident".  I got to go on board and grab a bite to eat.  I also got to go to the Future Cruise Desk and buy a couple more FCC for next year (didn't buy enough when we were on the Royal).

[Cruise Raider]

5 minutes ago, LibertyBella said:

Guess I am in the minority, because I rarely go on CC to complain (just once about Viking airfare), and I usually don't ask questions. 

 

After 50 years of cruising, I have seen cruise lines come and go, so I tend to hop around, depending on itinerary, budget, mood, etc.  Also, we have NEVER purchased a package, because--we started cruising before the Internet existed, so we do not want to use it on vacation, we are light drinkers so only order a la carte, I usually purchase the most elaborate shore excursions so the small amount provided is meaningless, and we are small-average eaters (one entree, each, please.)

 

I just sailed Enchanted Princess out of Rome last week, and we had a very busy schedule of touring, so no time for leisurely room service, or trying out specialty restaurants, or even relaxing by the pool or in the spa. 

 

Oh well, I saw the most magnificent historic and archaeological sights while on the cruise, which was the main reason for sailing.  We enjoyed all of our meals, and liked the shows, all the activity, etc.  

 

But we sailed the Greek islands on Celebrity in 2019 out of Venice, and equally enjoyed that cruise, also extremely port heavy.  And we sailed Cunard last year, and also loved all the dressing up and traditions.  And we were on Viking just a few months ago.

 

And I would not hesitate to book many other different cruise lines just for the complete joy of cruising! (Yes, we like Carnival, NCL, and RC just to relax on the ships.) I am SO happy to see the cruise industry survived Covid and is forging ahead.  I am always ready to say, "Bon Voyage!"

Like you, we have traveled on many different cruise lines and settled in nicely with the new Princess.  We love the new ships and the benefits of the packages.  
On July 25th, 2021, since then, we cruise an average of once a month.  It was much less before that!  But, after being locked down for over a year, I was so ready to throw caution I the wind and if I got CoVid, so be it.  
I am happiest when I’m on the ocean and don’t particularly like to fly, so most of the cruises we go on, the ports of call aren’t even important to us.  
 

We are also light eaters and usually have our largest meal at lunchtime.  We’ve more or less stopped going to the MDR for dinner, with some exceptions.  We do like the Crown Grill on occasion but now that’s even a stretch for us to eat that much for dinner.  
we tell them, just bring the very smallest portions they can find.  

My problem is that I really love good wine so, we even upgrade to the premier package every so often.  I am going to check to se if I can gift the specialty dinners to a couple of the crew members that we like.  We are just as happy to eat soup and a salad at Alfredo’s or a small plate at the GastroPub.  


 

[Cruise Raider]

8 minutes ago, sfpd3000 said:

I was actually stationed at Pier 27 for 13 hours the day after Ruby had her "accident".  I got to go on board and grab a bite to eat.  I also got to go to the Future Cruise Desk and buy a couple more FCC for next year (didn't buy enough when we were on the Royal).

We were just coming back from the Emerald when we saw the story while we were waiting at the airport.  It made me sad to hear it.  Glad she’s all repaired now.  
im forever running out of those FCDs .. so we each bought three extra ones on the Emerald, as well as booking a bunch of those cruises that were 50% off.