pompeii

Someone may have already suggested this, but your parents need to enable some sort of alert from their credit card companies when a charge is made. Whether it be text or email. They would have seen the charge almost immediately, at least well within the cancellation period. EDIT: I just saw that they didn't have wifi on this cruise. Even so, make sure they have immediate charge alerts enabled.

Maybe email Jen Wright in the meantime so you don't get locked into an interior, unless that's what you want. My pvp called me first thing this morning, and again this afternoon to finalize everything. No problems reaching her at all. Didn't mention anything about training.

The $200 obc is also on your travel summary. EDIT: oops, I just saw that someone else already said this. Sorry, didn't mean to be repetitive.

I think you'll love Greenland. We went in 2019 and are going again on the Island this summer. Start looking for excursions now though, because they are few and far between in the Greenland ports. And expensive.

I think we're going to keep the booking as well but move to a deluxe balcony. We did one cruise in an interior and that was enough for us, lol. I realize that over the next year and five months the prices will probably go down so the cabin won't be as great a bargain as it seems now, but I'm betting that it won't end up under $630. Besides, we were able to snag one of the huge balconies in the front of the ship and if we waited those would be gone. Plus, by the time it's all said and done, we'll have $800 total in obc so we can make up for some of the loss of the premier package. So see you onboard!

I originally booked a mini on the Star but now I'm looking at a deluxe balcony. Special pricing for a deluxe balcony is $630 additional pp and the current price when I log onto the website is $2292. The $630 is on top of the $200 deposit we've already paid, but we're getting that $200 back in obc. So in my eyes, the balcony is $630 vs. $2292. About a 73% discount. The mini would be $1050 additional pp, and under my login, the current rate on the website is $2474. So not quite as good a deal as the balcony.

We had the exact same thing happen in 2015 when the Regal was still new. A full suite on their 23 day fall TA was offered for $1,089 instead of $10,890. As comparison, interiors on that cruise were starting around $3900. I have no idea how long it was advertised like that or how many people grabbed the fare. We booked it quite a few months in advance and Princess never tried to correct or rescind our fare. The trip was great and went off without a hitch. We spoke with Princess customer service several times leading up to the cruise for various reasons (that was in the good old days when customer service was worth calling) but no one ever batted an eye at the fare. We didn't mention the fare beforehand on social media or even while we were on the ship to fellow passengers, because I had a picture in my head of management finding out and security pounding on my stateroom door demanding that we pay up or else!

Do we know for sure that we can bid on upgrades with a comped cruise? I was wondering about that. Has anyone done it?

Well, I actually emailed my pvp asking for more information this morning just before 8am and cc'd Jen Wright, along with customer service. I received an email back from Jen at 9:06, so it was very fast. Barely an hour. Of course, she might be busier now that it's later in the day.

email Jen Wright, or whoever was on the email you received. That's how I got the pricing for the Star cruise. Be sure to tell her you tried customer service and they were clueless.

Here is the discounted pricing for the various cabins on the Star October 2025 cruise, per Jen Wright: Hello Susan - I am including the pricing options below should you be interested in the discounted upgrade. We can honor the interior room complimentary, meaning at the rate you have already paid, but it does not include the Plus or Premier package. The offer does include a $200 per person onboard credit. Should you choose to purchase the package onboard you can use the OBC to offset some of the cost of the package which I highly recommend given all that's included. The rates below are per person, in addition to what you have already paid. Oceanview: $280 Deluxe Balcony:$630 Mini suite: $1050 Cabana mini suite: $1120 Sincerely, Jen

Besides not honoring the offer or offering something better than an IE guarantee interior, my major gripe is that the email didn't tell us what the pricing would be to keep our originally booked cabin. Or the other cabin types. They had to have known before the email went out so there was no reason to not give us the information we would need to make an informed decision. And sending the email Friday evening so we can't contact our pvp until Monday was very poor customer service.

Does anyone have information or photos of the DE forward deluxe balconies? They look quite a bit longer than the other balconies but the photo and layout on the website are the same.

I agree 100% with keeping an eye on your bookings. A few months ago, with no notification or reason whatsoever, Princess removed my fcd's from my two upcoming bookings and then tried to reapply them. But they reapplied them backwards and put the fcd with the oldest date on the booking I made the most recently, which would have been fine except then I had only recently-purchased fcd's to put on my older booking. And the rule is that the purchase of the deposit has to predate the booking. So I also lost my $150 obc for that cruise. I didn't notice it for about a month because 1) I was on the other cruise in S. America and Antarctica, and 2) I knew I hadn't made any changes and so wasn't checking my obc or deposits to see if they changed. When I saw it after I returned from the Antarctica cruise, I contacted my pvp who said there was nothing she could do because the oldest deposit had already been "used" on the cruise I just got back from and they couldn't backdate the other deposit. She said to contact customer service and ask if they could possibly do something for me as a courtesy. I was able to find out the date they took the deposits off, but she would not say who did it or the reason why. The funny thing is that they did not touch my husband's deposits, only mine. I had to push quite a bit and insist that she contact customer service herself without me wasting my time going back and forth begging them for a "courtesy". After all, this was not my mistake or my doing. I got an email from her a few days later saying she had reached out on my behalf, and then a month or so later they reinstated my deposit and $150 obc. So yes, keep an eye on your bookings because Princess can do some strange things.

It shows as refundable on your account on the Princess website? My husband also gets military obc and his is clearly marked nonrefundable for both of our upcoming cruises. IIRC, it changed from refundable to nonrefundable last fall. It also states this in the FAQ about the military benefit. But to answer your original question, in our experience, nonrefundable is used first.