Future cruise sales office on Sun

[Sea and Me]

We filled out the future cruise papers to take advantage of the shipboard credit and having a few years to decide on our next cruise. We left it with the pursers office and the girl told me that "Vivian" would pick it up from her mailbox. Our credit card statement arrived yesterday and no $200 for future cruise on there!!! Called credit card company and nothing was charged on there for $200. I called Princess and she checked, nothing for us. I told her that Vivian didn't send any letters notifying us of getting the paperwork that we filled out. Vivian told my friend that she does it later and will send it to her home. WELL that isn't the practice that should be followed, we should have gotten something while on board ship. So now my TA is going to talk to the Captains Circle people tomorrow and find out if they have any information on us at all. I'm wondering are there any others out there with this same problem?? Did anyone receive paperwork while still on board?? Now that we don't have any charges on our credit card bill I'm wondering if she processed the paperwork. Hopefully it won't be a matter of not having the time to choose a future cruise and the shipboard credit. Oh well the mystery continues!!:(

[kristacpa]

I booked w/Vivian on board the Sun last January. She was extremely busy...and knowing that appointments were hard to get I made one the very first day. I truly felt bad for the folks later in the week who were told to 'drop off paperwork' with the hope that they were booked and given the apprpriate credits. Although she was nice enough...she was just too busy to handle the many requests for bookings.

Since I booked via an appiontment, I did recieve a confirmation back in about two days...was waiting in the little mailbox at the room. It was for a Baltic cruise on the Star Pincess in May...but that is another story.

[Toto2Kansas]

Normally there is a box to place your future cruise sheet in if they are busy or closed at the future cruise office/desk. We have always received confirmation in our mailbox the following day onboard. We have never dropped it off at the purser's desk.

I doubt you will receive this at home as the confirmation has always been completed before we have leave the ship.

What can you do about it now? I have no answer for that question.

But a lesson learned, always, always make sure you get confirmation of that future cruise before disembarking the ship.

[chapdaddy]

We always do future Cruise. We were on the Sun in Feb and found Vivian rather short, and uncomfortable to talk with. I am told that she was ill during the cruise so I will give her the benefit of doubt. This was the only time a just dropped the form in the box and she responded within a day with the confirmations. My TA says that she always knows when we do the future cruise as she gets a fax the same day. If you leave the ship and have not received a confirmation I would guess that you will not see one. Good Luck:cool:

[chapdaddy]

We always do future Cruise. We were on the Sun in Feb and found Vivian rather short, and uncomfortable to talk with. I am told that she was ill during the cruise so I will give her the benefit of doubt. This was the only time we just dropped the form in the box. Vivian responded within a day with the confirmations that were outside our stateroom in the box. My TA says that she always knows the day we do the future cruise as she gets a fax the same day. If you leave the ship and have not received a confirmation I would guess that you will not see one. Good Luck:cool:

[A Sixth?]

The future cruise deposit (FCD) may be the most poorly explained and executed thing Princess does. We too felt sorry for Vivian last January when we wanted to make a FCD. She needs an assistant.

The Princess people say that the thing's self explanatory, but what if you want to book a back to back? As a Canadian, may I make the deposit in US? What if you change a booking? Why do we have to decide if we plan to use a Travel agent on the form? We had several questions but there was no one to ask....:mad:

[asctony]

Just got off of the Sun last week and book 3 cruises with Vickie. The first 2 were done directly with her in the FCC Office in the Wheelhouse Bar area. The 3rd one done via the drop box. We did receive the confirmation and all the paperwork back from Vickie the very next day. The only problem we encountered with our first 2 bookings was that we wanted to change TAs and we were told that we could not do that. Either we had to book directly with Princess, our current TA or do future Bookings. Well to make a long story short, we booked with Princess onboard directly then had to transfer the bookings from Princess to the new TA. That was an exercise in itself. The TA called Princess and Princess told our new TA that the new TA could not pick up the bookings without my permission, which I had given already to Vickie and the new TA verbally and via email. Then I talked to Vickie to let her know and all she could do was email Princess who did not transfer the bookings. Then I called Princess personally and had them transfer the bookings to the new TA. I talked to 2 different Princess personnel to get this done and that took some time and talking.
Princess said that it is a secruity issue. Princess also said that many times in the past people were giving the wrong TA information or the TA was not registered with Princess. Why not check the Princess TA database? LOL
The future cruise was open so my TA can pick that up anytime.
The hours of the FCC onboard is limited as they haved appointments that I beleive are ever 30 minutes or more. So it is not a matter of just going there and seeing the FCC without an appointment. Anyway it is all corrected now and my new TA has all 3 of our Princess bookings for this year. I guess you can say we like Princess.
Happy Cruising!

[HELENROSE]

Our last 7 cruises, we booked future cruises. On the Sun in Jan. was the only one that was hard to book. Vivian was something else. She was the only one that saw you by appointments, Lucky we did a b2b so we signed up at the end of the first cruise to see her at the begining of the second one. She kept saying how BUSY she was. So were the other 6 people we saw on the other cruises. She had appointments every 30 minutes. We only took 10 minutes of our time. She saw no one in the 20 minutes we had left, we stayed in the bar area just to see if she saw any one else. She didn't. It took her 3 days to get our letters to us. Glad to hear she isn't there any more. Good luck in getting your future cruises credited. I would definately have your TA call Princess about this.

[asctony]

Sorry, it was Vivian not Vickie on the Sun 3/06. It was the same lady and yes, she did only appointments. Happy Cruising!

[Sea and Me]

Thanks to all of you for your replies. Yes Vivian is still the one and only cruise gal!! Since some of you said that she was short with you, I can say that my friend said she was "rude" to her. She didn't want to be bothered with you unless you were booking a cruise. Meantime she even told my friend that she would get a letter at home. This is not procedure and since neither of us got letters I'm just wondering what she did with the information. My TA told me that she gets a fax from the cruise line when we are aboard ship with our info. She didn't receive anything from Vivian. I complained about this to Princess and they gave me a website to air my complaints. I'm not going to do this because I never had any dealings with her face to face. If my paperwork is not processed my TA will talk to someone in the Captains Circle. This should never have ended up like this, however, my friend put her paperwork in the box by her office and still no reply. Go figure!! Last April we dealt with Marcia and she was not so nice either. She wanted us to book on the spot and we didn't even know where we wanted to go. I wonder if they know how important their jobs are afterall they represent Princess and future cruise sales. Hopefully this will all end up the way we planned if not I can honestly say Yes I'll cruise again.

[Skylarr29]

Can anyone tell me what you get if you rebook onboard??? I know for dcl its a 10% discoutn and a room credit. DOes princess give you the 10% discount??? TIA

[chapdaddy]

I was being nice when I said short, but the general feeling that I got from people that talked to her was yes, she was rude. One long time princess cruiser said that she told them that what they wanted to do for a cruise was "dumb". I didn't get the details so I can't expound on it. We love Princess and always sail with them, but yes the future cruise is not well explained, esp. to new cruisers. It is a great deal in spite of the future cruise rep. On a lighter note, why is future so hard to spell whne typing fast? (furture).:D

[AliceS]

We booked with Vivian on Sun earlier this month. I made an appointment because I wanted to know about the children's programs for a future cruise with our family (grandkids) and she was helpful. I had already filled in the form for our FCC and dropped it in the box. Confirmation always comes while you're on board. If you book directly with Princess, you don't need to choose a specific cruise, just a future cruise within 4 years. You can change that booking to a TA at anytime.

[NancyK0904]

We also had an appointment with Vivian last week. We realized there was a problem when we were rudely greeted when we arrived for our appointment so we excused ourselves because it was apparent that she had other things to do.
We completed the form listing our cruise choice and marked our own TA would take care of it and dropped this form in the box. This cruise was confirmed via a letter two days later that there were "technical difficulties" and we would get a letter from Princess at our home. Earlier in the cruise we completed and "open booking" by dropping the form in the box and had confirmation the next day.
Vivian was the only staff member we encountered that did not greet us nor smile and this was included on our evaluation on the last day.