BVE with California Coastal cruise?

I have a cruise booked for the California Coastal. I have relatives in LA. I would like them to have a BVE.

Is the BVE offered on the West Coast?

I have a cruise booked for the California Coastal. I have relatives in LA. I would like them to have a BVE.

 

Is the BVE offered on the West Coast?

YES! we have BVE here at the port of Los Angeles/San Pedro. I recommend calling Princess on a weekday and ask for the BVE department for details and assistance booking. It can not be booked on the Princes website. And, if it is in 2018 they may not have it set up in their system yet.

What is a BVE?

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What is a BVE?

 

 

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BVE = Bon Voyage Experience

I found an old post with this description:

Posted January 24th, 2016, 02:13 PM

Bon Voyage Experience enables passengers to extend an invitation to their guests to join them onboard during sailing day for a four-course dining room lunch with wine, a ship tour and even a souvenir photo. Passengers and their guests can enjoy priority embarkation and will be able to spend approximately four hours together on the ship before it sets sail. The cost for the program is $39 per person, which can be applied toward a future Princess cruise.

In addition, all BVE guests must provide all required Passenger Immigration information via the Cruise Personalizer at princess.com no later than six days prior to visit. On the day of the visit, guests will be asked for their Boarding Pass (which can be printed from the Cruise Personalizer on princess.com), a valid photo ID and a credit card.

The Princess FAQ includes info about the BVE

This is what it says:

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Bon Voyage Experience

The Bon Voyage Experience is an innovative new program harkening back to the nostalgic tradition from the early days of cruising, allowing guests the opportunity to invite family and friends aboard your ship on embarkation day. The program's new twist also allows cruisers new to Princess to see the inside of a Princess ship and experience the excitement of cruising first-hand -- even if they're not affiliated with booked guests.

Guests will spend up to four hours onboard before the ship sets sail, where they'll enjoy a four-course dining room lunch (including wine), a guided ship tour, and a souvenir photo! Plus, the $39 per person cost of the program can be applied toward a future cruise with Princess. Only 50 guests are able to participate in the Bon Voyage Experience on any given embarkation day, so make sure you make your reservations soon!

To learn more about Bon Voyage Experience reservations and availability near you, please contact your Travel Consultant or call 1-800-PRINCESS (1-800-774-6237) as long as it is not within 7 days of sailing.

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As noted by others above, what it does not say is that doing a BVE requires an actual booking. Guests will need either a passport or some other official ID. My son used his California Drivers License when we treated him to a BVE. The guests (or you on their behalf) will need to create an actual booking and should probably be sure to have it linked with your booking so that you can board early with them.

Had a great time today enjoying a BVE on the Grand Princess in San Francisco. My whole purpose was to buy 4 FCCs while onboard. Happy to report that these were posted to our accounts at 4:22 p.m. Also got emails from our Credit card processor that Princess Cruises charged $400 to our accounts. Now the $39 pp credit, waiting for their accounting systems to run tonight before I get concerned.

The $39 credit possibly gets processed by home office, so you may not see it until Tuesday at the earliest.

As expected our $39 BVE credits showed up tonight (probably because they started to run their batch accounting systems tonight, retired software engineer here).

We are good. Two CSRs said that we could NOT buy FCCs unless we SAILED on a cruise, they were wrong.

As expected our $39 BVE credits showed up tonight (probably because they started to run their batch accounting systems tonight, retired software engineer here).

 

That was fast for a "batch" processing!

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As expected our $39 BVE credits showed up tonight (probably because they started to run their batch accounting systems tonight, retired software engineer here).

 

We are good. Two CSRs said that we could NOT buy FCCs unless we SAILED on a cruise, they were wrong.

Typical of people who answer the phones - lots of folks do BVE solely to buy future cruise deposits and it really should be in their book.

Had a great time today enjoying a BVE on the Grand Princess in San Francisco. My whole purpose was to buy 4 FCCs while onboard. Happy to report that these were posted to our accounts at 4:22 p.m. Also got emails from our Credit card processor that Princess Cruises charged $400 to our accounts. Now the $39 pp credit, waiting for their accounting systems to run tonight before I get concerned.

We once did a BVE in San Francisco for that purpose as well. We foolishly ran out of FCD so we booked the BVE in order to buy more. It was great except for the fact that we had to disembark before the ship sailed.