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1 hour ago, gottagocit said:

 

Well it didn’t take them long to kill this page or else the link is a bad oneness because it isn’t working for me. 

No, it's the right link, but they're probably rolling the change out across their entire server farm slowly. I'm sure I'm just hitting a different server than you are and eventually they'll update the one I'm using as well. Nothing we can do to stop them. That old page will continue to work for some people for some period of time, but eventually it's going away completely.

I've bookmarked a couple of travel agency websites that allow for searching by ports en route, and provide pricing for each category in the search results. Those are the things I need to make a search engine useful for me, so luckily I don't need to use the princess site at all any more. 

This link is still working for me: https://www.princess.com/find/search.do (in the U.S.)

We booked an IF at the last minute on the Ruby back in May and got our cabin assignment and upgrade to category IB on the Monday or Tuesday before our Sunday departure. An inside is an inside, an IB is the same size as an IF, they're just in nicer locations. We ended up on Caribe deck with neighbors on only one side. It was a partially accessible cabin though, so we had the folded stool in the shower which took up some space and caused a couple of bruises as I kept forgetting it was there. Ruby is a nice ship, we really enjoyed it.

Yes, once you've been migrated to the new search, you won't ever be able to click on "Plan a Cruise" and get to the old search screen. Each time you click that link it will start a new search using the new screen.

If you want to do multiple searches with the old screen, you have to remember to use your browser's back button or use your bookmark to the old search instead of clicking on Plan a Cruise.

The old URL still works for me. https://www.princess.com/find/search.do

2 hours ago, steelers36 said:

You are all overly wrought over nothing IMO. 

 

The so called horrible new thing has a neat little link in the upper right:  "Advanced Search" which will take you right to where you want to be.  Also, if you click on "Plan a Cruise" and then "Find Cruises" under that, you will get to where you want to be.  Not too difficult IMO.  Simple search or the more familiar "Advanced" search.  Problem solved.

 

 

It's great that you still have an Advanced Search option, but not everyone does. Enjoy it while it still works! 

Here are the screenshots of the new home page and Find Cruises page that you'll be switched over to soon enough. 

It sounds like he's still waiting for or negotiating the offer for the new job? I've hired lots of people who had vacations coming up and I've even been in the situation of starting a new job shortly before a vacation once myself, and it's really never been a problem to get the time off. Well, once there was a summer intern who wanted to take almost half the summer off, so that was a problem, but I assume your DH's situation is not anything like that! 

As an employer, I do want to know about these plans during the offer negotiation phase and not on the first day of work. I might delay the start date until after the vacation if it makes more sense for the business (e.g. if he'd only be there for a week and then be gone for 2+ weeks). Also, I would expect the new employee to offer to take this time off as unpaid, though I'd probably find a way to let him get at least a few days paid.

Good luck to your DH! I hope he gets the job.

3 minutes ago, cruzsnooze said:

I went to your link and worked for the first cruise I looked at but when I went to plan a cruise the second time it went to the horrible thumbnail version. Princess has a terrible IT dept. Thanks for link though. 

Yes, if you click Plan a Cruise on the website, it will take you to the default (new) page. You have to bookmark the old search entry link and use it each time you want to do another search.

This is the link to the old search engine: https://www.princess.com/find/search.do

It still works for me in Chrome.

Regular texting may work over the ship's wifi even if you don't pay for Internet. I was on the Ruby in April and was very surprised that I could text back and forth with my daughter who was at home while we were out at sea. I did not have any type of paid Internet plan, and we were way out of range of any land-based cell tower, and my phone doesn't work with ship-based cell towers. I just connected to the ship's wifi to use the Princess@Sea Intranet site, and I am 100% sure that they didn't give me Internet access by mistake because I kept having to disable wifi whenever we were near land so that I could use cellular data to read email. DD and I both have Google Fi as our cell service. 

This is just my own experience. YMMV if you're on a different ship or have a different cell service provider, but I'd say it's worth a try to see if it works in your situation.

For me, this seems to be browser dependent. On my Windows laptop, if I visit princess.com in three different browsers, here are the results I get when clicking on Plan a Cruise:

- Microsoft Edge: https://www.princess.com/cruise-search/cruises

- Firefox: https://www.princess.com/cruise-search/cruises

- Chrome: https://www.princess.com/find/search.do

So Chrome is the only one giving me the old experience that many seem to prefer. All of my browsers were at full screen width and my screen is plenty wide enough to show the entire page with margins, so that has nothing to do with which default search page appears. Logging in or out of the site also does not have any effect.

I tried the old page by pasting the link into Firefox and Edge and it still works fine in both browsers. The old search results page loads much, much faster on all three browsers than the new one does too. It's very noticeable if you just click on the default 635 results button. 

That's nice that they still do the regular cocktail party when there are smaller groups! On the cruise I mentioned above, the Gold & Ruby passengers pretty much filled the theater, so I guess that was the only venue that could hold that many people.

17 minutes ago, Astro Flyer said:

The Future Cruise Deposit (FCD) of $100 provides a varying amount of onboard credit which since your’s expired you should have received a refund of your FCD & they cannot be reissued.

It sounds like these were not FCDs that he purchased. These were a freebie given because of some problem on a prior cruise. Princess said something like "we're sorry for the problem, to make up for it, we'll give you $xxx off your next cruise if you book it within 18 months." When that happens, if you don't book within the time frame they give, you are out of luck and you can't get the credits back. 

I'd prefer the aft section's port side balcony so as not to be under the sea walk bar, though if you're far enough aft or forward in the midships section, or if you're on a lower deck, it probably doesn't matter.

Just wanted to mention that although the form says you must request the OBC at least 14 days prior to departure, they were able to grant it earlier this month for a last-minute booking where we only had a week's lead time. I really appreciated the quick and professional response when I asked about it.

Last week on the Ruby they had a gathering in the theater for Gold & Ruby members. They showed a marketing video about the next new ship, then the cruise director and future cruise salesperson came out and talked a bit. There was a drawing for a couple of bottles of champagne and elite amenities in one cabin. The singers from the production shows gave a short performance. Then as we left the theater, they gave us each a coupon for a free drink. There were no ship's officers in attendance as far as I could tell. It was held at 4:00 PM on formal night, and the officers were at the ship-wide event with the champagne fountain in the atrium later that evening. 

What time of year and what activities appeal to you?

Santa Barbara, LA, San Diego, Catalina are definitely Southern California ... great beaches, year-round good weather, very outdoorsy. Technically all of So Cal is a desert with very low rainfall. History and culture are both influenced by proximity to Mexico and Spanish settlement. Ocean is cool, but usually a bit tamer than up north.

Astoria, Victoria, Seattle are Pacific Northwest. Also outdoorsy, but a much wetter, cooler climate with more forests. The historical backgrounds in these areas are all different and their current foreign cultural influence is more Asian than Hispanic. Ocean is likely to be rougher and colder than down south.

Either trip can be fantastic, but if you can only do one, you just have to pick whichever one appeals to you more.

For U.S. citizens on a closed loop cruise departing from the U.S.:

- passengers age 16 and over need either a birth certificate and government issued photo ID, or a passport

- passengers under 16 need either a birth certificate or passport

So, if your son now has a drivers license or state ID, he could use that with his birth certificate. Nobody needs a social security card. Don't bring those on vacation with you.

Unbelievable! The whining over a $2.33 cappuccino after spending $$thousands for a cruise.

Not everyone pays "$$thousands" for a cruise. The email I got from Princess yesterday has Alaska cruises at $35/day, so a daily cappuccino at $2.33 is 6.6% of the cruise fare, which is not exactly small potatoes.

We only occasionally drink the specialty coffees, so we save a coffee card from one cruise and use the extra punches on the next one. The new expiration date that was added retroactively means that we'll lose some punches on our existing card (which we paid for with actual money) since we won't be sailing again before they expire. A $15 or $20 loss is obviously not going to break us, but it leaves an unpleasant taste, and this new policy means that coffee cards are not a good buy for us any longer. We'll end up drinking less specialty coffee and Princess will make less money from us.

All this talk about the Coffee Card, and getting brewed coffee with it. Does this mean that coffee is not included on Princess? This will be my first Princess Cruise, and I am just wondering what type of coffee they serve without the coffee card, and how much is the coffee card? It is not on my Cruise Personalizer as an option like the other beverage packages.

On most Princess ships, the included coffee is made from a concentrate, sometimes called a syrup. It's real coffee, but it's not freshly brewed. On Regal and Royal, they do have normal brewed coffee included in the fare.

The coffee card can be used for unlimited amounts of freshly brewed coffee, Mighty Leaf tea*, and hot chocolate on the cruise where you buy it.

The coffee card can also be used for 15 specialty coffee drinks, such as latte, mocha, cappuccino, macchiato, iced blended coffee drinks, etc.

It costs USD $35.65.

* Other tea brands, such as Bigelow, are available without a card.

If you purchased the cards while in port they would add LA tax...which they do not, so not even an issue. They charge all beverage packages later in the evening to avoid the sales tax.

There is no sales tax when purchasing gift cards in California. I believe you when you say they put the charges through after sailing out of CA ports, but the reason for doing that with coffee cards should not be related to sales tax as they shouldn't be collecting it anyway.

The U.S. code of federal regulations also includes this paragraph in section 205.20:

I guess if Princess has never charged anyone for a coffee card while in U.S. waters, or ever let anyone pay for one via the website, then they can say the law doesn't apply and they're allowed to retroactively change the terms of the sale.

Interesting that they have changed the rules on already purchased coffee cards. I bought the card on the understanding that any unused punches were valid indefinitely - this is now not the case.

 

Classic mis-selling (bait and switch). Don't know about US law but that is defintiely illegal in the EU.

I think this is also illegal for any coffee cards that were purchased while in a California port, and possibly some other states as well. I believe these would be treated under the law like prepaid gift cards which are not allowed to have an expiration date. Even if you decide that a coffee card fits into a loophole that allows for expiration dates, you cannot add them retroactively. Such dates must be in 10 point type on the front of the card before the purchaser pays for it.

Going through travel stuff and lo and behold ... found a coffee card from 2012 on the Star Princess and it HAS PUNCHES LEFT ON IT!

 

Anybody have any experience with that? Will they honor it? It's a little ratty but it's still clearly a princess coffee card.

I had a card from the Coral in 2009 ("King of Cups" style) and was able to use it on the Royal in April with no problem. All the baristas either said they hadn't seen one before, or commented that it was a really old card, but they were all willing to accept it.

I didn't know there was no ice cream place on Royal and Regal. My kids will be disappointed - sailing Royal in March for the first time. Do they not have cups and cones?

Royal has soft serve ice cream on the pool deck and gelato on deck 5. They will not have a problem finding cups and cones.

The fridge is empty when you board if you don't have a minibar setup due to being in a suite or being an elite cruiser. We get our steward to put a bucket of ice in the otherwise empty fridge, and then we use that with our reusable water bottles filled from the tap to have cold water during the day. Otherwise, there's hot or iced tea, coffee and lemonade all day and various juices at breakfast.

If you do want soda a few times, you can always get one at any of the bars or in the dining room and it'll just be added to your folio.