Day 1 of the new Premier Package has arrived

[grimace95120]

Good day all. So todays the day we get our first glimpse of the new Premier with unlimited SD and drinks ( Enchanted sailing to Canada and new England)

There's been a lot of speculation, myself included, on how this will be handled, so hopefully today we will start to gather some first hand facts 

 

Should be very interesting ! 

[PacnGoNow]

Let us know, please. 

[grimace95120]

15 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

Let us know, please. 

My sailings not until the 21st, I was referring to the fact we should start seeing some "live from" reports and such here on cruise critic. I am extremely curious as to how this will be handled. Selfishly, I am hoping most of the kinks will be worked out by the time we board the enchanted on the 21st . I was able to book 7 night of SD for my cruise, but not all were at what i would consider my ideal times. One of the most unanswered questions/speculation so far is will there be tables held back to support demand from suite guests/casino guests, and passengers in general to book onboard. really hoping to get some insight into that from the folks on Enchanted this week !

[Cheriro]

I boarded the Enchanted today. Sabatini’s has a couple openings tonight & the 5th day, all other days nothing available. Crown has few more options but mainly around 8pm. And Rudy’s has everyday available with multiple time slots. This is all based on what the app is showing. 

Edited August 31 by Cheriro
Fixed

[grimace95120]

Cheriro, Thank you for the update !

[cruising.mark.uk]

2 hours ago, Cheriro said:

I boarded the Enchanted today. Sabatini’s has a couple openings tonight & the 5th day, all other days nothing available. Crown has few more options but mainly around 8pm. And Rudy’s has everyday available with multiple time slots. This is all based on what the app is showing. 

Have you actually asked at the restaurants?

We boarded the Caribbean on Thursday.  I went to the speciality restaurants on day 1 and managed to book 2 additional reservations for dates and times that were showing as unavailable on the App and had been for some time.

We ate at the Crown Grill tonight.  When we arrived for our 1920 booking, there were only 6 occupied tables and the App was showing only a 2040 slot available for the rest of the evening.  We left just before 9 and, in the intervening period a further 3 tables were occupied.  I'm almost certain it would have been possible to walk up and secure a table for tonight anytime after 1920.

I know the new Premier 90 doesn't start on the Caribbean until the next cruise.  But, from my experience it seems almost certain that they hold back plenty of capacity from the App for on-board bookings, suites and walk-ins.  If that is the case (and if it's a fleetwide policy) it will be interesting to hear whether they'll continue to do that after implementation of Premier 90.

[555]

14 hours ago, Cheriro said:

I boarded the Enchanted today. Sabatini’s has a couple openings tonight & the 5th day, all other days nothing available. Crown has few more options but mainly around 8pm. And Rudy’s has everyday available with multiple time slots. This is all based on what the app is showing. 

Would you happen to know what times were open?

[Coral]

16 hours ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

 

We ate at the Crown Grill tonight.  When we arrived for our 1920 booking, there were only 6 occupied tables and the App was showing only a 2040 slot available for the rest of the evening.  We left just before 9 and, in the intervening period a further 3 tables were occupied.  I'm almost certain it would have been possible to walk up and secure a table for tonight anytime after 1920.

 

I walked up to an empty Sabatini's once. I had a reservation but decided to see if they could seat me earlier. When I arrived, they indicated that they were full for the evening. I then added I had a reservation for 30 minutes later and then, they did seat me. Others walked up and were turned away. My entire time there, there were half the tables empty. I am guessing it was staffing issues that was preventing them from taking more people.

[cruising.mark.uk]

6 minutes ago, Coral said:

I walked up to an empty Sabatini's once. I had a reservation but decided to see if they could seat me earlier. When I arrived, they indicated that they were full for the evening. I then added I had a reservation for 30 minutes later and then, they did seat me. Others walked up and were turned away. My entire time there, there were half the tables empty. I am guessing it was staffing issues that was preventing them from taking more people.

That certainly wasn't the case last night.  The staff could very comfortably have dealt with twice the number of tables that were occupied.

 

And, as has been discussed on other similar threads, I'm confident that - following a little testing and adjusting - it will be more than possible to staff the SD restaurants in future to handle maximum capacity without diminishing the service anywhere else.  Most people only eat one dinner per night.  So, if there are sufficient staff to make that happen now, there will still be enough staff to make it happen when the new arrangements are fully in force.  There's no extra people to be fed.  All that will change is where some of them are fed, with an uptick in SD and a corresponding reduction in numbers for the MDR.  How many pax will eat in which SD will basically be known in advance, so all that will be required is to flex the staff to match the demand.

 

I know some posters don't think that will work, but I see no reason at all why it shouldn't, even if a few days extra training might be needed for some.

[Coral]

8 minutes ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

That certainly wasn't the case last night.  The staff could very comfortably have dealt with twice the number of tables that were occupied.

I was just giving an example of my recent Sabatini's experience. 

 

I actually worry that they are putting this perk out but they won't be able to accommodate people with out having many more speciality restaurants per ship.

[cruising.mark.uk]

3 minutes ago, Coral said:

I was just giving an example of my recent Sabatini's experience. 

 

I actually worry that they are putting this perk out but they won't be able to accommodate people with out having many more speciality restaurants per ship.

I agree. 

 

Hopefully, all will become clearer over time and after they've had a chance to make tweaks.  Personally, I sense that they are going to have to limit the number of Premier 90 passages they sell per cruise, so that there is sufficient capacity across SD for all those who purchase it and also enough spare capacity over and above that for non-Premier package holders to still benefit from SD.  The difficulty will be that, to be effective, the limit will probably have to vary cruise-by-cruise rather than being a blanket e.g. 10 or 20% of pax.  And only time and experience of the new system in operation is likely to provide accurate stats on how to calculate those limits depending on short vs long cruises, the onboard demographic, the number of SD venues on each ship etc etc.  So, I won't be surprised if they have to get it wrong before they get it right in the longer-term.

[Coral]

4 minutes ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

I agree. 

 

Hopefully, all will become clearer over time and after they've had a chance to make tweaks.  Personally, I sense that they are going to have to limit the number of Premier 90 passages they sell per cruise, so that there is sufficient capacity across SD for all those who purchase it and also enough spare capacity over and above that for non-Premier package holders to still benefit from SD.  The difficulty will be that, to be effective, the limit will probably have to vary cruise-by-cruise rather than being a blanket e.g. 10 or 20% of pax.  And only time and experience of the new system in operation is likely to provide accurate stats on how to calculate those limits depending on short vs long cruises, the onboard demographic, the number of SD venues on each ship etc etc.  So, I won't be surprised if they have to get it wrong before they get it right in the longer-term.

I haven't followed this enough but I wonder if they are going to honor covering uncharges in the dining room for specialty steaks, etc....

 

I also agree it would be good to limit premier purchases as opposed to having many passengers unhappy that they can't get reservations.

 

I don't drink so even going to Plus is a stretch for me, let alone Premier.

Edited September 1 by Coral

[lx200gps]

On 8/31/2024 at 7:50 AM, grimace95120 said:

Good day all. So todays the day we get our first glimpse of the new Premier with unlimited SD and drinks ( Enchanted sailing to Canada and new England)

There's been a lot of speculation, myself included, on how this will be handled, so hopefully today we will start to gather some first hand facts 

 

Should be very interesting ! 

I "Chatted" in to Princess a short time ago and requested an upgrade, for three of our four upcoming trips, from our current Plus to the new Premier. The CSR came right back and said no problem, I can do that for you. He processed all three upgrades, but pointed out that we would not see the upgrades in our Personalizer until the dates that the upgrades go live on the specific ships. In our case, that was September 1 for the Sky and Majestic, and September 15 for the Royal. It's now September 1 and there is no sign on our Personalizer, or in the App, of the upgraded Packages. Has anyone yet had any luck seeing such upgrades on their bookings?

[canadarocks]

10 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

I "Chatted" in to Princess a short time ago and requested an upgrade, for three of our four upcoming trips, from our current Plus to the new Premier. The CSR came right back and said no problem, I can do that for you. He processed all three upgrades, but pointed out that we would not see the upgrades in our Personalizer until the dates that the upgrades go live on the specific ships. In our case, that was September 1 for the Sky and Majestic, and September 15 for the Royal. It's now September 1 and there is no sign on our Personalizer, or in the App, of the upgraded Packages. Has anyone yet had any luck seeing such upgrades on their bookings?

Check your Travel Summary. It should show both the Plus and the Premier benefits listed. It will also show when you check Beverages and Extras on your Personalizer.

Edited September 1 by canadarocks

[memoak]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

I was just giving an example of my recent Sabatini's experience. 

 

I actually worry that they are putting this perk out but they won't be able to accommodate people with out having many more speciality restaurants per ship.

Especially on ships like the Grand where there is only Crown Grille and Sabatini’s which are not all that large and even 4 weeks ago they were booked close to capacity every night 

[Geoffa30]

Delete.

Edited September 1 by Geoffa30

[lx200gps]

1 hour ago, canadarocks said:

Check your Travel Summary. It should show both the Plus and the Premier benefits listed. It will also show when you check Beverages and Extras on your Personalizer.

Already tried that, thanks. Still no sign of the upgrade anywhere. In the past when I have upgraded from Plus to Premier the upgrade shows on the Personalizer under the "Extras" tab, either as a straight Premier or as the Premier upgrade. So far, nothing. It's only Day One of the new upgrade for these two ships (and IIRC it only started yesterday on a few other ships) so it's very early. Given Princess IT's stellar reputation, I have my doubts it will go well, but I'll give them a few days and Chat in again for an explanation.

[lx200gps]

37 minutes ago, memoak said:

Especially on ships like the Grand where there is only Crown Grille and Sabatini’s which are not all that large and even 4 weeks ago they were booked close to capacity every night 

We were on the Emerald last month. another "smaller" ship with only those two restaurants. Sold out on-line ahead of the cruise, but lots of openings for booking via the DINE line or in person at the restaurants immediately upon boarding. We booked five nights as soon as we boarded, though admittedly we prefer to eat early.

[cruising.mark.uk]

1 minute ago, lx200gps said:

We were on the Emerald last month. another "smaller" ship with only those two restaurants. Sold out on-line ahead of the cruise, but lots of openings for booking via the DINE line or in person at the restaurants immediately upon boarding. We booked five nights as soon as we boarded, though admittedly we prefer to eat early.

Exactly the same situation on the current cruise on the Caribbean.  Sold out on the App in advance.  No problem at all getting bookings on board.

[startedwithamouse]

Two of our upcoming cruises are on Royal class ships, so we've upgraded to Premier on those just to be able to eat at Catch every night. Hope this will be the case. 

 

Edited September 1 by startedwithamouse

[lx200gps]

1 minute ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

Exactly the same situation on the current cruise on the Caribbean.  Sold out on the App in advance.  No problem at all getting bookings on board.

+1.  There's more than enough anecdotal evidence here on CC to convince me that Princess still hold MANY slots for on board reservations. I've seen a number of estimates of the number being 50% but I doubt anyone knows for sure, and Princess aren't exactly forthcoming with their details. That being said I would not want to try and do a walk up half way through a cruise and try for a 7PM booking at a Crown Grill. We have always had almost perfect luck getting our desired slots by booking immediately upon embarking.  The only exception was during the first few cruises after the pandemic re-start, when they clearly had personnel and staffing problems and had to keep the bookings lower. For the last few years, we are 100% successful in our on board booking.

[memoak]

1 minute ago, lx200gps said:

+1.  There's more than enough anecdotal evidence here on CC to convince me that Princess still hold MANY slots for on board reservations. I've seen a number of estimates of the number being 50% but I doubt anyone knows for sure, and Princess aren't exactly forthcoming with their details. That being said I would not want to try and do a walk up half way through a cruise and try for a 7PM booking at a Crown Grill. We have always had almost perfect luck getting our desired slots by booking immediately upon embarking.  The only exception was during the first few cruises after the pandemic re-start, when they clearly had personnel and staffing problems and had to keep the bookings lower. For the last few years, we are 100% successful in our on board booking.

Same here we often get reservations once we see a menu we don’t especially like. Never had a problem getting seated after 7:30 or 8:00

[lx200gps]

5 minutes ago, startedwithamouse said:

Two of our upcoming cruises are on Royal class ships, so we've upgraded to Premier on those just to be able to eat at Catch every night. Hope this will be the case. 

 

Superb restaurant, we've eaten there multiple times on any of our cruises that have one. To maximize your chances of getting your desired booking, make very sure to board as early as you possibly can and immediately call the DINE line or visit any of the Specialty restaurants to make the booking(s). On our last few cruises we had boarded even before the DINE line opened (boarding around 10:30AM) but we kept at it and made the call; got every one of our desired restaurants and times by about 11AM.

[PacnGoNow]

This will be the rush to the SD, instead of the Sanctuary….upon boarding!  😆

[lx200gps]

15 minutes ago, memoak said:

Same here we often get reservations once we see a menu we don’t especially like. Never had a problem getting seated after 7:30 or 8:00

+1. In our case we prefer to eat very early, as soon as the restaurant opens. Easier to get to the Theater for the early show, the staff is relatively fresh and the restaurant is VERY quiet and virtually empty for the first hour at least. I would expect the same for the later seatings as well.