Booking Princess Excursions

[Haveuseen1]

My cruise is May 11.  I wanted to go ahead and book some excursions but the website and  the app will not let me add them to my cart.  Cruise is to Alaska.   I tried the Princess chat function but it never connects to anyone.  It just counts down and then asks if I am still waiting and then eventually it says you are back in the que.  Am I to early to book?

[rj59]

If it's not in your Cruise Personalizer on the Princess website, it's too early. Princess chat rarely works, so you'd be better off calling, and on future cruises using a Travel Agent, who will handle all the calls and details for you. The problem with Alaska is that there was record cruise visits last year, probably more this year, and there's sky-high cost of living in Alaska, so handling all the excursions for more and more huge ships depends on staffing and paying Americans enough to encourage them to come to Alaska during cruise season. A lot of the seasonal employees might not even be up there at the beginning of May. Ports like Juneau also have kiosks when you get off the ship offering excursions like whale watching and a bus to Mendenhall. In the meantime, look at excursions for each port on their booking page, and then google to see if a local company has a cheaper option, or a site like shoreexcursionsgroup, which will show excursions for your specific cruise--they sometimes have excursions that are the same as the ship but cheaper, or more interesting ones that aren't offered or that sell out. 

[Paula_MacFan]

Are you logged into the Personalizer?  It shouldn't be too early to book -- we've had our May Alaska excursions booked for quite awhile now.  If you're logged in to your account it should show available excursions by port.  Does it give you an error message when you click on the selected excursion?  

 

[Paula_MacFan]

2 minutes ago, rj59 said:

If it's not in your Cruise Personalizer on the Princess website, it's too early. Princess chat rarely works, so you'd be better off calling, and on future cruises using a Travel Agent, who will handle all the calls and details for you. The problem with Alaska is that there was record cruise visits last year, probably more this year, and there's sky-high cost of living in Alaska, so handling all the excursions for more and more huge ships depends on staffing and paying Americans enough to encourage them to come to Alaska during cruise season. A lot of the seasonal employees might not even be up there at the beginning of May. Ports like Juneau also have kiosks when you get off the ship offering excursions like whale watching and a bus to Mendenhall. In the meantime, look at excursions for each port on their booking page, and then google to see if a local company has a cheaper option, or a site like shoreexcursionsgroup, which will show excursions for your specific cruise--they sometimes have excursions that are the same as the ship but cheaper, or more interesting ones that aren't offered or that sell out. 

We've had our Alaska excursions booked with Princess for months and most of them are sold out already.  From what we've heard it's record setting bookings for next year and some outfitters are taking reservations for 2024 already. 

[Generator515]

2 hours ago, Haveuseen1 said:

My cruise is May 11.  I wanted to go ahead and book some excursions but the website and  the app will not let me add them to my cart.  Cruise is to Alaska.   I tried the Princess chat function but it never connects to anyone.  It just counts down and then asks if I am still waiting and then eventually it says you are back in the que.  Am I too early to book?

Believe it is a bug with the site and app. Was another thread on this two days ago. 
 

my solution was loading the excursion I want to book, wait until fully loaded, hit refresh and then immediately add to cart. Once I did that I could book. 

[no1racefan1]

3 hours ago, Haveuseen1 said:

My cruise is May 11.  I wanted to go ahead and book some excursions but the website and  the app will not let me add them to my cart.  Cruise is to Alaska.   I tried the Princess chat function but it never connects to anyone.  It just counts down and then asks if I am still waiting and then eventually it says you are back in the que.  Am I to early to book?

Not too early. Keep trying. The website is sooooo annoyingly glitchy. 

[Haveuseen1]

The load the page and refresh suggestion worked on my laptop.  Thank you.  I couldn’t get that to work on the app.  Once again thanks for the help.

[TIBTEE]

On 11/20/2023 at 10:20 AM, Generator515 said:

Believe it is a bug with the site and app. Was another thread on this two days ago. 
 

my solution was loading the excursion I want to book, wait until fully loaded, hit refresh and then immediately add to cart. Once I did that I could book. 

Thanks! 

[TheDawg79]

Not too early. I have a June 2025 cruise booked that has about a dozen excursions available for each of the 9 ports scheduled. 

[kluv2cruz]

Chat works but I’ve def had hiccups using … either my iPad or phone. One works but not the other, so consider a different device.

[richart]

On 11/20/2023 at 10:20 AM, Generator515 said:

Believe it is a bug with the site and app. Was another thread on this two days ago. 
 

my solution was loading the excursion I want to book, wait until fully loaded, hit refresh and then immediately add to cart. Once I did that I could book. 

Generator515 thank you for that tip! It worked. I have been trying to book excursions for a week and was beyond frustrated with the Princess website and app. I had two other excursions cancelled and Princess never notified me—I found out when there was a credit on my credit card bill. So far the customer service experience has been LESS than acceptable. I sure hope the cruise goes better.