mevs904

We accepted a similar offer from Princess for our 14 night Mediterranean on the Enchanted last April. They rebooked us for the same itinerary in June and we received everything that Skiah mentioned except the $440 Customer Goodwill. They rebooked our EZ Air flights and absorbed the increase in plane fare for the new flights. As they promised, we received a check for our reimbursed cruise fare about 5 weeks after we got home. An additional benefit was that the weather was much nicer on our rebooked cruise than it would have been on our original one. It was basically a free 14 night cruise. We’d love to get another Move Over Offer in the future.

At one point when medallions first came out we did have ours mailed to us. Since then we have picked our medallions up at the port and have waited no longer than 5 minutes, if that. That includes departures from Port Everglades and Europe. We often leave home a week or two before our cruise and don’t want to worry about not getting our medallions before we leave. We’re usually onboard between 11 and noon.

Yes, it may not be a spectacular beach, but it does offer an opportunity for a nice swim and beach experience without having to take a bus or taxi to a beach in other ports. We always spend a little bit of time there when it is on our itinerary. Concerning the OP’s thought that Princess ma be making money on the stop there. Given the effort and preparation that has to be done to provide Princess Cays as a stop (food, beverage, and crew transfers, tendering passengers, maintenance of the beach, port fees, etc.), I doubt that Princess is making any money on this stop…just the opposite.

We prefer the older ships with a promenade deck. The Coral is our favorite and the Caribbean is our least favorite. We were on the March 17 cruise a few weeks ago. It was our second time on the Caribbean and we were a little underwhelmed. The crew, as on all of our Princess cruises, was great. One cabin in our area had flooding problems and there were fans in the hallway for two days. We felt that there was a decline in both the food and entertainment (with the exception of “Bravo!”). We usually love Crooners, but on this cruise the pianist they had there played rock music, not the standard music usually associated with Crooners. Also, there is no Alfredo’s/Gigi’s on the Caribbean. In summary, it was not a bad cruise, but just not as enjoyable as our previous Princess cruises. Admittedly, we may have been a little spoiled by our Mediterranean cruise on the Enchanted last summer, but we have decided that we won’t be sailing on the Caribbean again.

Another thought: We bring water shoes as parts of the swimming area floor can be rocky.

Yes, we were on the CB last month and sorely missed Alfredo’s/Gigi’s.

We were on the Discovery a couple of weeks ago and they were serving the whipped dabs in the MDR. I do have to say that thankfully, there was no taste of margarine there. I will not eat margarine. I suspect that the butter that they use is whipped up to include a lot of air (cost saving) thus resulting in the artificial texture. As far as salt is concerned, I was introduced to unsalted butter as a young teenager when my family stayed at a nice resort and have used unsalted butter ever since. I did some research on salted vs. unsalted butter and, according to Consumer Reports and other eaters the highest rated butters are unsalted and serious chefs and bakers prefer it because they don’t want additional salt to alter the taste of their creations. If other people prefer salted butter, that’s fine. I just appreciate that unsalted butter offered. I would never eat margarine, but understand that for some folks with cholesterol issues it may be a necessity.

We were on the Caribbean Princess two weeks ago and had reserved a table for 2 for each night. We never had to wait and always had the same table and same servers. This may have been because we chose a later dining time. We do have to say that we missed traditional dining. We always enjoyed the people who were seated with us.

Interesting to read that someone was able to get just gelato scoops without all the junky candy. I got one on the Enchanted last summer and just removed the candy. I’d be very happy with just getting gelato and hot fudge.

Thanks, reedprincess. Your post was very helpful!

Wow! Thanks so much for the photos. It looks excellent and definitely worth a try. I’m curious as to how they calculate the two casual meals that come with the plus plan. Must you order two boards for two people or would they allow you to share? We would hate to waste some of that gorgeous looking food.

Thank you both. Although we do like charcuterie, it doesn’t seem like a meal, more like an appetizer. We will probably try Planks or Steamers and think longingly about the minestrone and pizza that we will miss at Alfredo’s.😔

We have the plus package and will be on the March 17 Caribbean Princess voyage. We know there is no Alfredo’s/Gigi’s on the ship and will miss it dearly. What other casual dining options are there?

😄 Wasn’t even thinking of that.

Thanks, Ken. I appreciate the suggestion. I did read that information up thread, but didn’t remember it. We’ll see how things are going when we book our next cruise. We will purchase a FCD when we are on the ship next month, but right now we’re focusing on our booked Viking river cruise and on some Rick Steves Europe tours. In any case we feel fortunate that we have the health and resources to vacation and see the world.

We will be on the CB next month and it appears that the casual dining options are very limited. We will dearly miss Alfredo’s/Gigi’s.

I submitted an email to SBPCL@PRINCESSCRUISES.COM last month and received a similar letter to the one kamelia received. I responded to the letter expressing my displeasure at being forced to share my financial information with a third party app. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had an incident in our family where a large amount of money was electronically stolen from a family member.) I don’t care if the process is “easy”. As I considered my next options I discovered that Princess did go ahead and apply my Shareholder’s Benefits to my cruise. For the future I am going to watch this process evolve. In the meanwhile we have started to explore another cruise line (Viking).

We will be docked in St. Thomas next month and are just looking for a relaxing beach day. We saw the photo of the current taxi rates from Havensight, but what about return to the ship? How available are taxis at Magen’s Bay? We are also considering Sapphire Beach and had the same question. We’ve enjoyed Magens in the past, but are considering a new experience. Is Sapphire worth the extra ride?

Very sorry to hear about your less than ideal start and sending positive wishes for the rest of your cruise. San Juan is our favorite Caribbean port. We will be on the CB for this itinerary on March 17th.

Excellent assessment, Lady Arwen. As a very moderate drinker this is a very accurate reflection of why I choose the Plus package. My only variation is that I would drink at least two bottles of water each day, especially when going ashore. Another benefit of having the Plus plan is the ability of trying a new drink from time to time without worrying about wasting the money if I don’t care for it. I loved discovering Italian Sunsets on last summer’s Enchanted Mediterranean cruise. Our server at Take Five also introduced us to a couple of new interesting drinks. Off topic, I love your screen name. As a lover of The Lord of the Rings it always makes me smile. Your posts always offer accurate and reasonable information in a respectful manner.

I also emailed sbpcl@princescruises.com and told them that I was not comfortable using an app with my personal financial information. They responded that I should go to the Stockperks/Carnival website to learn how to apply for my perks. I was pretty annoyed as Princess also wouldn’t accept the stock information from my TA as they had in the past. Today I decided to go to the website that they suggested, but before I did I remembered your post and decided to check my Personalizer. Sure enough, it was already there. My annoyance has diminished, but I still think that in this age of increasing hacking and security breaches Princess should not force its loyal customers to get involved with a third party. Recently I was notified that there was a security breach of information at one of the doctor’s offices that I go to and my sister has had almost $10,000 lifted from her bank account. There’s too much monkey business going around.

I agree with reedprincess. We feel no need to be among the first to board, especially since you usually can’t go to your cabin until 1:00. We have done well with a 12:00 arrival for boarding.

We paid through our TA and completed our forms on the website Personalizer and didn’t have to provide any information for shoreside purchases. For our last couple of cruises we have preferred to pick up our Medallions at the port.

Last year we took a Move Over offer for our Mediterranean cruise. The cruise fare was given back to us as refundable OBC on our new cruise and since we already had quite a bit of OBC we didn’t use any of the money that was returned to us. As Princess promised the refundable OBC was sent to us in a nice check six weeks after we returned home.

We had a fine experience on a previous Royal cruise however, we do prefer ships with a full promenade deck, especially for Alaska.