likeadisguise

The itinerary on your Cruise Personalizer should show embarkation times, usually.

Well they sent the email, saying it was a sale price, we book the cruise, they sent confirmation back, we where getting all excited, they are a big company, things like that should be checked before sent out.

You received a marketing email from Princess stating there was a sale for suites on a 26-day cruise for $700?

I booked a cruise online with Princess cruises, they sent me a email with sales, but because they say the price quoted was a mistake they are not honouring the booking, doesn't sound fair to me.

Someone posted on the Princess FB about booking a 26-day Asia cruise in a Suite for $700, and Princess cancelling their bookings. That's a pretty obvious error, because no one in their right mind could think they'd cruise for $26/day even in an interior cabin, let alone a suite.

Like airlines, cruise lines do not have to honor obvious pricing errors. Sometimes they will choose to for PR purposes, but for a suite that's an error of over $12,000 (and an error of over $3,000 even for an interior), so I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect Princess to let the bookings stand.

The reason the benefit is for the first night is because the specialty restaurants tend to be pretty empty on the first night. It's at the discretion of the ship whether it can be changed.

What a lovely review! I'm enjoying this so much, and your pictures and videos are amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing this!

A float is ice cream added to a soda. Most common one is probably a root beer float, root beer with vanilla ice cream "floating" in it.

I have an obstructed view on the crown would my upgrade be to an "ocean view" if I had it noted META upgrade?

No, the next meta is balcony.

I always book directly with Princess UK and whenever I have spotted a cheaper price or other perks I phone up and they have always matched or bettered the offer including OBC , TA's do not work for nothing so you must be paying a bit extra along the way somewhere IMHO

Of course TAs don't work for nothing -- Princess pays them a percentage of your price as commission.

For an automatic complimentary upgrade, the notification never goes out until after the change is made -- it gets sent out automatically by the system to the TA if you have one, or to the email address under the first person listed on the booking if you booked direct with Princess.

Anything under $10, yes.

Not only is there no 13th floor on Princess ships, there are no cabin numbers that end with 13.

I agree. I thought it was especially cheap when Princess didn't grandfather in people who had booked and paid for suites and who were not platinum or elite when they changed the internet policy.

Everyone who booked before the cutoff date (July 15, 2012, I think?) was grandfathered in. They didn't receive it automatically, they did have to request it, but Princess didn't just give the grandfathering to people at a certain CC level.

They did handle the whole thing pretty terribly, though.

Thanks, "likeadisguise," for your answers too. May we ask for one clarification? You stated that the AIBP "only includes food items (gelato, crepes) that can be purchased with a punch from the coffee card, and right now, that's only available on Royal and Regal". Are you saying that only those two ships provide gelato and crepes in return for a coffee-card punch? If so, we would not be surprised, because, when we were on the Ruby and Emerald (in years past), we were not told that the IC's gelato was available for a punch. Also, we don't even remember seeing crepes on those two ships. Where are they prepared?.

There's a gelateria on Royal and Regal called "Gelato" (http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/rp/amenities_publicrooms/ship_facts/) where you can buy gelato and crepes, and you supposedly can purchase them with a punch of your coffee card. Those are supposed to be included with the all-inclusive beverage package, obviously on those two ships only.

You can't use your coffee card for gelato from the IC on any ship, and it's not part of the all-inclusive beverage package.

Good evening.

We have done a lot of reading, both here and at the Princess site, about the new All-Inclusive Beverage (or "Bar") Package, which we'll call AIBP for short. But we still feel a bit uncertain, so we would like to ask folks who have actually USED it recently (especially on the Crown/Ruby/Emerald sisters) to answer our questions.

 

1. Are the milkshakes available at the pizza bar INcluded as "beverages," or are they EXcluded as though they were a kind of food that must be purchased separately? Yes, they're included. Although there are no shakes available at all on Royal or Regal Princess, apparently.

 

2. Have we made any mistakes in thinking that each of the following items would be included, as long as its price is not greater than 10.00 per glass/cup?

a. wine, beer/ale, spirits (rum/gin/vodka/tequila), cocktails, liqueurs, cognacs

b. bottled water

c. fresh-squeezed juice

d. espresso-based beverages and specialty teas (at International Cafe, etc.)

e. soft drinks (i.e., carbonated soda pop and the like)

f. non-alcoholic mixed drinks (so-called "mocktails") and smoothies

All of these are included.

 

3. Can soft drinks be requested in cans OR from the fountain -- or is only one of those permitted? Either one is allowed.

 

4. This may be a bit too hard to answer, but ... We came across photos of bar menus, and we noticed that some of our favorite spirits were sold at $5.50 per shot. Does this mean that someone with the AIBP could not be served a "double," since that would seem to cost $11.00 (thus over the $10.00 limit). Or is a double-shot's price normally reduced to $10.00 or less? People have reported that they couldn't get doubles with the all-inclusive package, but it's hard to say if that's a rule or just one particular ship's interpretation.

5. We saw a CruiseCritic official-review-site page (from last December) stating, to our surprise, that the AIBP -- despite being a "beverage" package -- would be covering the cost of gelato and crepes at the International Cafe and wherever else they may be sold. Is this correct, or did CrCr get this one wrong? It was mentioned at the time of Princess's "unveiling" of the AIBP on just two ships.

It only includes food items (gelato, crepes) that can be purchased with a punch from the coffee card, and right now, that's only available on Royal and Regal. Someone on Regal's maiden voyage reported that they couldn't get gelato with the all-inclusive package, but I'm not sure if there have been any updates since then.

 

6. In point #2, have we accidentally omitted anything significant that is included in the package? (We know about the 40% discount on wine in bottles costing under $100.01.)

I think you've hit all the key points!!

 

Many thanks for your help. :D

See answers in red above.

Generally anything Princess doesn't feel like explaining further! It's their catch-all excuse.

Princess is not very good about notifying passengers of a cabin change. :(

For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure notifications of upgrades go out automatically -- they're generated by the booking system when the upgrade is made. If someone who booked directly with Princess didn't get a notification of an upgrade, it's likely because there wasn't a valid email address entered for the first person listed on the booking.

And I totally agree with Pam that OP needs a new TA!

If your booking is open to an automatic, complimentary upgrade and you receive one, you will receive a notification if Princess upgrades you to a different room (if you're booked through a TA, the TA will receive it).

Generally if you contact Princess within 48 hours of receiving an upgrade and tell them you want to decline it they can get your room back for you, but they don't guarantee it (the rep you talk to on the phone will submit a request to another department).

They will NOT check with you first to see if you approve the upgrade.

The only cabin changes that happen automatically are upgrades (whether or not people think their upgrades are actually better cabins is a whole different topics). If you're in a LOWER category than what you booked and paid for, something very weird happened. Sometimes Princess will contact a booked passenger or their TA and ask them to accept a lower category, but as someone else said, there's generally compensation involved, and your TA would have had to have agreed to it.

I would highly recommend not only contacting your TA, but asking to be conferenced in with Princess when he/she calls them so you can hear what's going on.

was that promotion from the 3 for free deal, if so we booked one of those cruises and nothing mentioned about receiving any chances of an upgrade

The way the promotion worked at one point (there were a few different "3 for free" versions) was that you could book any category within the meta for the same price -- so an IF was the same price as an IA. That was subject to availability though, so if all the IA and IB cabins were gone by the time you booked, you'd get an IC for the same price as an IF. If nothing was left by IF, then you didn't really benefit from the upgrade.

If OP's booking is an IF guarantee, they're not guaranteed anything better than an IF.

If you change ships it does not violate the PVSA I did it last year with one ship from Seattle to Vancouver switching the same day to a ship from Vancouver to San Francisco

Correct. If you change ships, it's not a violation. But the voyages in question here are on the same ship... the poster wanted to know if they could disembark and embark to get around the regulation. While that might have worked in the days before everything was computerized, Princess's computer system will flag it now.

Princess UK is at 0843 374 0014.

Are you booked through a TA? They would have received the notification, though for noro Princess often follows up with an email directly to passengers the next day.

You can call Princess UK, they can't make any changes on your booking, but they can see it and any notifications that went out (don't know that number offhand, sorry!). Or email customerrelations@princess.com?

We would certainly switch ships if there was one to switch too...unfortunately, both are on the same ship. We could just do the 1-day since near Seattle or drive to Vancouver and catch the 3-day but it sure would be nice to do both.

 

I'd still like to hear if anyone has other thoughts, please; my fingers are crossed this can be figured out!

Unfortunately, on one ship, this would be a violation. There's really no way around it.

Maybe just do the Vancouver to Los Angeles cruise?

It's likely they have LAX listed as your gateway city. I'm not sure if you can change that yourself, but call Princess and have them change it to the airport code for Fresno, and I think eZAir will work for you.

Not to add to any thread drift, but has anyone been able to locate any written official word from Princess as to what services are provided by the concierge lounge on the Royal and Regal? Obviously some of the info on the above links is as much as two years out of date...but is the lack of anything on the record regarding the concierge lounges intentional?

http://www.princess.com/news/backgrounders_and_fact_sheets/factsheet/Royal-Princess-Deck-by-Deck.html

Concierge Lounge

For the first time on a Princess ship, suite passengers have use of a dedicated concierge lounge, an exclusive area to relax or work, with access to full front desk services, plus light snacks and beverages. Here, these passengers have dedicated staff to assist with such things as shore excursions, specialty dining or Lotus Spa reservations. The space also serves as a private disembarkation lounge for suite passengers. Seat 24

(random tip: if you put site : princess.com (without the spaces) in your Google search, it will return search results from that website!)