p.pete

I assume a call centre in the Philippines can have well trained staff, just as well as a call centre in the US or Europe can have incredibly poorly trained staff - either way you have to put the effort in to train people properly and reward them properly to retain them. I think it's a bit of a red herring in the conversation that it's easier to do x or y via the website or by waiting until you get onboard - assume it's a different issue - some people will always want to contact the company. If the app is poor, and the chat bot is poor, and the call centre is poor, there are going to be frustrated people. I'd definitely endorse the route of complaining directly - but I think these kind of threads must do harm too. If I was thinking of going on a Princess cruise (first one very soon and I'm excited!) and I came on here to get a sense of what to expect, I'd very quickly be looking to see what my other options are. Luckily there's lots of very happy people on here too, posting great things, but complacency is never good! It's a "service" industry - if Princess is associated with poor service before you even get onboard then that's a poor starting position with potential customers who don't know everything yet.

But similarly if you've already bought it and then a new or better offer comes up, what do you do?

Good info - the only way of coming even slightly ahead by getting just a drinks package would be to cancel gratuities and then sit at the bar and not want smoothies / coffee / wifi etc - I wouldn't be in a rush to serve that person!

Cool. I think the confusion is around the Plus package including the Plus beverage package - as you rightly point out they are not the same thing. I'm comfortable that if I'm switching to 'Princess Plus' then that is multiple things that I'm purchasing, one of which being the beverage package. If someone tries to upsell me something that just claims to be a 'beverage package' I'll say that's not what I want 🙂

Hmmm - this is not the understanding that I had built up in my head!!! I was aware that there were 'drinks packages' with the same name - but actually what you're saying is that if we buy Plus onboard the *only* option is the drinks-version of the same-named package. So there is no way to purchase 'Plus' onboard and for that to include wifi and gratuities? [but it costs the same per day as if you had purchased it in advance as a Plus cruise fare - which is doubly sneaky if they make it sound like you're upgrading to the same thing for the same price, but actually it's of far less value]

We are expecting OBC via the site that we booked through, but I don't think it's visible to us yet - we are assuming that it appears once we are onboard and I think I have seem messages here saying this is standard for some types of OBC. If we still can't see it by the time we're onboard and looking to purchase Plus is that important with regards to one being used to pay for the other? If the package is netted against the OBC is that just something that happens at the end of the cruise, so we don't really need to think about it until the last day - ensuring that we have managed to identify (and leave intact!) the OBC by then - at which point they will balance against each other?

Our upcoming sky cruise has a few 'optimise your life' type talks early in the day in Take5 - don't think there are that many but worth being flexible until the schedule starts to flesh out so you don't clash...

Really, "Great fiscal sense right there"? I was agreeing with you, and my second sentence expanded upon why I agreed with you. I feel privileged to be able to send myself on a cruise and that's definitely not something we should take for granted and there needs to be flags for people as to when they might be over-extending themselves. It's nice to treat ourselves, but that has to mean different things for different people. I could take issue with your use of the word 'clearly', but yes the packages are an extra - I would definitely enjoy a cruise without them - and they need to be justified, for me at least.

Great fiscal sense right there. If paying for a package seems like 'a little extra' to you - you can probably afford it - go on your cruise. If it's more than a little extra to you, like for most people, put some thought into how you are spending your money - should you be spending a large chunk of money on a cruise and more than a little extra for a package. After that, a very different question is whether a package is good value for you - a very real part of the value is in not having to think about things on board once you get there. Although I've said above that I'm likely to only spend a small amount on a bottle of wine day to day, not having to think about it once I'm onboard means a lot to me. Sadly I'm not in the minority where I don't have to do a little math before I take that route - but luckily I enjoy spreadsheets and it adds extra time that I'm thinking and planning for being on board.

If they are fiscally conservative then it's a great idea if you can stretch to a package to be able to just switch that part of their brain off for a few days. I think doing the math is important but it's obscured by several big things for me: The prices they list are often nonsense ~$30 for a 30-minute exercise class? some people won't ever go near them anyway - I would but - I probably wouldn't for $10, maybe for $5... So when I look at plus with 2 free classes, yes I'll do them but what's that worth to me? Definitely not $60! I like wine, and booze generally, but I don't spend that much on it. I can buy bottles of wine that I'm perfectly happy with for < $10 for home - $25-30 if I'm out for a meal - so I'm not bothered about plus-wines having vague titles but I definitely wouldn't ordinarily indulge in many $15 glasses - they're worth half that price to me at best and I'd drink more only if I'm at home when it costs even less. Casual and specialty dining have questionable value, on their own they seem 'reasonably' priced to me, but... You can only eat so much in the day, time / money spent eating at Alfredos is food that you're not eating in the MDR, buffet or IC. You can eat perfectly well elsewhere, so in addition to whatever charge there is for these venues you factor in that you already had that meal covered, what's the value (to you) of the meal your paying extra for as well as the meal that you're not having elsewhere? Duration of cruise - as often stated - will affect things for most people. X number of drinks makes the package worth it for you, and you'll happily drink that much because you're on a cruise, but personally I might not want to keep drinking at that rate beyond a few days. Similarly if you have lots of port days you're less likely to reach X. These are factors that obscure 'the math', but it's still worth doing. So, 8-day cruise coming up and I'll very happily get the plus package. It's not too many days for us to fork out for (just!), I think the cost will balance just about, but I won't have to think about things which is worth a lot. I'll try not to go with the mentality of needing to make sure that I consume enough - do things because I want to, have things because I want them, and not need to think too much about cost.

Replication studies are where it's at

Thanks, I was able to do this with the link - on my phone the contract never appeared for me to scroll through.

similar issue - I click the tick-box, it pops up with please read carefully / Can't load the content / 'next' button greyed-out, click back and repeat clicking the tick-box and the same thing happens. Any chance they're allowing themselves scope to update the contract as late as possible? 5 weeks til we cruise. Alternative option is that my phone isn't great, the app seems to be running okay but I know that my phone needs replacing sooner rather than later...

Thanks, really helpful. An alternative perspective is people upgrading while onboard getting the $10 for non-lanyard-shipment as OBC - why doesn't it get deducted against the cost of their upgrading? I know such a small amount is likely to disappear anyway, so maybe that's just a case of swings and roundabouts. At the moment I'm thinking a good option would be to just wait to decide whether we upgrade when onboard - at that point we could do it based on whether there are actually SD reservations that suit us. I get the impression that you can purchase packages from lots of places when you board - is there somewhere we could go to directly that could upsell us premier that also has knowledge of what SDs are bookable?

Thanks, very thorough. Assuming the same prerogative, of repeating myself 😄, I'm interested in getting perspectives from additional people. You raise really good points re time of dining and length of cruise. I can definitely see why there'd be more capacity at SD over longer cruises - and if we were happy eating at 5pm, is that early enough for it to be a bit quieter again (assuming the busiest time might be 6-7:30)?