Princess plus package cost questions

[dreaminofcruisin]

12 minutes ago, fedexretiree said:

And doing that 60.00 on the 1st day on board you get wi-fi gratituties casual meals with that too....correct?

 

Yes.

The only risk is that the price COULD go up between now and when you cruise.

[BamaVol]

Two points that may have been overlooked.

 

Both passenger one and two in a cabin must be on the same FARE.  So if you select the Plus FARE, so must your cabin-mate.  A single individual may purchase the Plus beverage package at no obligation to others in the cabin.  This is why it MAY make sense.

 

If you pay to have your medallion shipped, but purchase Plus fare on board, you may contact Guest Services to obtain a $10 OBC refund.

[ReadyToCruise2]

We purchased the Princess Plus package once we boarded the ship on our recent cruise.  From my viewpoint, there is almost no reason to purchase the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package pre-cruise.  The only reasons I can think of would be that the price goes up (it didn't, it was still $60) or as noted, they limit it/sell-out, which seems highly unlikely.

 

The reasons not to purchase the Plus or Premier package pre-cruise:

 

1) It becomes part of the cruise fare and the cancelation guidelines.

 

2) Princess has your money earlier than purchasing on-board.

 

3) In our case, we had some on-board credits and the Plus package included everything we would purchase, so we were able to use our OBC's against the purchase of the package.  We made the mistake on a prior cruise pre-purchasing the Plus package and then ended up using the OBCs buying stuff we didn't really want/need in the ships stores. 

 

4) If you purchase the Princess insurance, the insurance goes up when you purchase the Plus/Premier package pre-cruise (added 8% of the Plus package cost to the insurance). Obviously there was no bump to the insurance cost purchasing the Plus package on-board.

 

We wondered how hard it would be to find a crew member trying to "sell" us the Plus or Premier package once onboard.  We bumped into a crew member holding up a advertising flyer in about 10 feet after boarding.  We knew we wanted to buy it, so we were a really easy sell.  It just took a minute - he just entered the purchase in his hand-held computer.

 

The package was activated in their system immediately upon purchase.   

 

Checking our on-board account, it showed a refund of $10 against the Plus package purchase price for both my wife and my statement ($20 total) to compensate for the medallion shipping without even asking.

[fedexretiree]

6 minutes ago, ReadyToCruise2 said:

We purchased the Princess Plus package once we boarded the ship on our recent cruise.  From my viewpoint, there is almost no reason to purchase the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package pre-cruise.  The only reasons I can think of would be that the price goes up (it didn't, it was still $60) or as noted, they limit it/sell-out, which seems highly unlikely.

 

The reasons not to purchase the Plus or Premier package pre-cruise:

 

1) It becomes part of the cruise fare and the cancelation guidelines.

 

2) Princess has your money earlier than purchasing on-board.

 

3) In our case, we had some on-board credits and the Plus package included everything we would purchase, so we were able to use our OBC's against the purchase of the package.  We made the mistake on a prior cruise pre-purchasing the Plus package and then ended up using the OBCs buying stuff we didn't really want/need in the ships stores. 

 

4) If you purchase the Princess insurance, the insurance goes up when you purchase the Plus/Premier package pre-cruise (added 8% of the Plus package cost to the insurance). Obviously there was no bump to the insurance cost purchasing the Plus package on-board.

 

We wondered how hard it would be to find a crew member trying to "sell" us the Plus or Premier package once onboard.  We bumped into a crew member holding up a advertising flyer in about 10 feet after boarding.  We knew we wanted to buy it, so we were a really easy sell.  It just took a minute - he just entered the purchase in his hand-held computer.

 

The package was activated in their system immediately upon purchase.   

 

Checking our on-board account, it showed a refund of $10 against the Plus package purchase price for both my wife and my statement ($20 total) to compensate for the medallion shipping without even asking.

THANKS for this info!  This is what we are going to do!

[FancyPants21]

There is one disadvantage for not taking the package pre-cruise and that is that it means you then cannot take advantage of any offers that might be available from your TA. I booked a cruise for November this year... the offer was Premier for the price of Plus. As we were likely to get Premier anyway it made it quite a bit cheaper as it is a 12 day cruise.

 

I do accept that buying it on board is a great way to do it for all the reasons stated and if there are no offers like this one then we will likely buy on board in future 🙂

 

 

[p.pete]

2 hours ago, FancyPants21 said:

There is one disadvantage for not taking the package pre-cruise and that is that it means you then cannot take advantage of any offers that might be available from your TA. I booked a cruise for November this year... the offer was Premier for the price of Plus. As we were likely to get Premier anyway it made it quite a bit cheaper as it is a 12 day cruise.

 

I do accept that buying it on board is a great way to do it for all the reasons stated and if there are no offers like this one then we will likely buy on board in future 🙂

 

 

But similarly if you've already bought it and then a new or better offer comes up, what do you do?

[FancyPants21]

Just now, p.pete said:

But similarly if you've already bought it and then a new or better offer comes up, what do you do?

If I have already bought it as part of my cruise fare then there in nothing I can do except cancel and rebuy... but I take your point 🙂

 

It is a risk either way I suppose 🙂 

[ElmwoodPark]

Just want to make a clarification to something that has been posted here. We made our reservation with the Plus package and put in a non-refundable deposit. Upon reading some previous comments, we decided to cancel the Plus package and buy it on board instead. I called our TA and she was able to cancel the Plus package seperately without touching our cruise fare. Others have written in here that the entire cruise would need to be cancelled which was untrue for us.

[metairiegal]

13 hours ago, ReadyToCruise2 said:

We purchased the Princess Plus package once we boarded the ship on our recent cruise.  From my viewpoint, there is almost no reason to purchase the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package pre-cruise.  The only reasons I can think of would be that the price goes up (it didn't, it was still $60) or as noted, they limit it/sell-out, which seems highly unlikely.

 

The reasons not to purchase the Plus or Premier package pre-cruise:

 

1) It becomes part of the cruise fare and the cancelation guidelines.

 

2) Princess has your money earlier than purchasing on-board.

 

3) In our case, we had some on-board credits and the Plus package included everything we would purchase, so we were able to use our OBC's against the purchase of the package.  We made the mistake on a prior cruise pre-purchasing the Plus package and then ended up using the OBCs buying stuff we didn't really want/need in the ships stores. 

 

4) If you purchase the Princess insurance, the insurance goes up when you purchase the Plus/Premier package pre-cruise (added 8% of the Plus package cost to the insurance). Obviously there was no bump to the insurance cost purchasing the Plus package on-board.

 

We wondered how hard it would be to find a crew member trying to "sell" us the Plus or Premier package once onboard.  We bumped into a crew member holding up a advertising flyer in about 10 feet after boarding.  We knew we wanted to buy it, so we were a really easy sell.  It just took a minute - he just entered the purchase in his hand-held computer.

 

The package was activated in their system immediately upon purchase.   

 

Checking our on-board account, it showed a refund of $10 against the Plus package purchase price for both my wife and my statement ($20 total) to compensate for the medallion shipping without even asking.

Great tips!

[sherryf]

13 hours ago, ReadyToCruise2 said:

The only reasons I can think of would be that the price goes up (it didn't, it was still $60) or as noted, they limit it/sell-out, which seems highly unlikely.

I've seen several comments in various threads about the danger of them "selling out" before you board, but has anyone ever actually encountered this problem?  Nowhere on the Princess site have I read anything to indicate that they limit the number of Plus packages.  Why do people keep mentioning this issue if it doesn't actually exist?

 

We plan to purchase Plus on board for some of the reasons you mention (mainly the cruise fare/insurance reasons) and our TA agreed that it was a good idea.

[Arizona Wildcat]

2 hours ago, p.pete said:

But similarly if you've already bought it and then a new or better offer comes up, what do you do?

If before final payment my TA calls and the fare is reduced.  Have done twice on my upcoming 21 day TA.  First time $600 reduction.  Second time a flash sale on the plus package and another $600.  Cruise is in October.

I note that we have only minimal OBC as my TA paid for other stuff.  We do not purchase Princess insurance as we have our own for trip and health.  Final payment 90 days pre cruise so not a big deal giving Princess some $$ pre cruise.

PS - on a Christmas cruise the beverage packages were not available.   Never saw that before.

Edited April 17 by Arizona Wildcat

[BamaVol]

1 hour ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

If before final payment my TA calls and the fare is reduced.  Have done twice on my upcoming 21 day TA.  First time $600 reduction.  Second time a flash sale on the plus package and another $600.  Cruise is in October.

I note that we have only minimal OBC as my TA paid for other stuff.  We do not purchase Princess insurance as we have our own for trip and health.  Final payment 90 days pre cruise so not a big deal giving Princess some $$ pre cruise.

PS - on a Christmas cruise the beverage packages were not available.   Never saw that before.

RE: giving money to Princess in advance.  For a 7 day cruise for 2, I give Princess $840 for Plus.  I can earn 4% interest in my money market account.  That amounts to $2.80 for every month Princess holds my money.  I don’t worry about numbers that small when I’m paying thousands for the cruise.

[voljeep]

your move over offer will be more if you have previously purchased PLUS or Premier as it is included in the cruise fare for future refundable OBC

[HaveDogWillTravel]

17 hours ago, fedexretiree said:

THANKS for this info!  This is what we are going to do!

@ReadyToCruise2 gave the most complete & correct answer.  They are absolutely spot on. 
Book the standard fare and then add any extras once onboard with OBC. 

The only thing that you might want to buy before boarding is the cases of water if you are not getting a package and want bottled water. It’s $7 for 12 before boarding and then $2.50 a half liter bottle onboard if you don’t have a package. 

And yes a good Princess CVP can remove a Plus or Premier package if that’s the fare you booked and revert it to a standard fare. If you’ve already made final payment the refund will be $60 or $80 per day depending on the package back to the credit card used to book the cruise otherwise you’ll just get an updated travel summary with a the same booking number. Go to your CC meet & greet and ask for recommendations for a good Princess CVP. 

Will they sell out?  I would say no after my recent experience on the Discovery March 31 of this year.  Our little 3 day Easter weekend sailing out of San Pedro was oversold with 4200 passengers (3600 is considered a full ship). My friends boarded and were able to purchase the premier package (drinks, specialty dining, grats, WiFi, blah, blah blah…..) without issue.  If ever they were going to limit the number of packages (especially premier with that specialty dining benefit) it would have been on this 3 day, oversold ship.  

Edited April 17 by HaveDogWillTravel

[MacMadame]

 

10 hours ago, BamaVol said:

RE: giving money to Princess in advance.  For a 7 day cruise for 2, I give Princess $840 for Plus.  I can earn 4% interest in my money market account.  That amounts to $2.80 for every month Princess holds my money.  I don’t worry about numbers that small when I’m paying thousands for the cruise.

I'm paying for my cruise with Princess gift cards. I can only buy a certain number per month so I'm buying them as I go. If I was paying with cash, I wouldn't do that but I want that 8% discount!