stinsonm

We did this about a month ago to meet Sky in Southampton. Princess offered a charter bus the morning of embarkation from Victoria Coach Station. We spent the night before in a Doubletree about 3 blocks away. Walked to the station in the morning, boarded the bus about 10a. 

Ditto. Times became available to reserve on the app 60 days before our 25 Jun cruise on Sky Princess. 

We did exactly what you’re describing last week. They do indeed charge you for the new reservations immediately. Refund for the cancellation showed up about 48 hours later. 

2 hours ago, 3kidsncats said:

So we are home now, and have functioning internet (yesterday I was in a weird logged into CC but not able to post, and error messages if I tried to log out, etc.)

 

I’m going to back track slightly in my post review, to cover a bit more about what we were and weren’t able to do on the app pre cruise, and then how it went onboard.

 

So we booked 11 days before sailing.  On the app I was able to do all the check in stuff, and schedule MDR times pre-cruise.  That’s it.  The app did not show ANY info about specialty dining, not even the names of the restaurants. On the website personalizer  I was able to book water and a bottle of bourbon for our cabin, as well as the enclave.  

 

Once on board, you have to connect to the Medallion Net option for WiFi, in order for the app to function/connect to the specific ship and sailing stuff.  Once that was done, I was able to watch the muster video and have it noted as complete in the app, see my location onboard, add my “shipmate”, see his location and send him chat messages.  I could use the ship map to get directions to venues from where I was located.  MDR reservations continued to work (actually best function of the app, reservation adjustment was super easy).  I could access my onboard account until the final morning — so no way to check my bill without going to customer service. Not available on the tv, no paper copy delivered, and app indicates it didn’t get my booking number even though I was logged in and it didn’t ask for my booking number when clicking “onboard account”

 

I could NOT access specialty dining in ANY way even onboard.  I could NOT access the onboard delivery service in ANY way. (Ie, no menu of any kind, just a blank screen that crashed the app and required me to reboot it. ). The menu button for the for the MDR also just brought up a blank screen causing a crash of the app.  There were also other minor things that I clicked in my efforts to see what worked and what didnt — more didn’t than did.  It was just a really frustrating experience, and give that you can’t book dining anyway other than the app, it was a problem.  The hours were not listed that I could find on the patter.  I got chewed out by the customer service lady on the phone for calling 5 minutes after the reservation desk closed (because yes, I’m supposed to know the hours just through my amazing psychic ability)

 

For me, the app issues are enough that I would skip considering Princess until after they fix it.  I had a recent great experience with Royal’s app in August, and it really put a spot light on the frustrations for me.  

 

The medallion worked great though.  We loved the cabin door unlocking as we approached, and the bar staff and spa staff knowing who we were without asking for our names, cabin number, etc.  

How did Enclave work for your cruise?  Others have posted about having a pass and going whenever they wanted, but when I just purchased a pass for me and DW, it shows a scheduled time that simply won’t work (5:00 pm). Wondering if they enforce the scheduled times or not?  Thanks for doing such a great review for all of us. 

It seems likely that the drink packages are a better money-maker than BOGO ever hoped to be -- so why distract from trying to sell those drink packages? Eliminate all other good deals on drinks and you can nudge the herd over toward the drink packages. Wouldn't have to sell very many of them to earn more than BOGO did.

First river cruise, and it’ll be hard to beat. AMA provides a first class experience — fantastic meals, memorable excursions with extra touches other cruise groups weren’t getting (biggest surprise: tour of Serbia’s Royal Palace included an impromptu meeting/photo with the Crown Prince), comfortable accommodations, and a staff that works hard to ensure you have an unforgettable vacation. Our cruise manager, Bojan, managed every detail with a smile — and made it look easy. We’re already planning our next AMA cruise.

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Only input I feel strongly enough to offer is taking the longer Tundra Wilderness Tour vice the shorter Natural History Tour from Denali Lodge (echoing Thrak). We didn't realize we were booked on the shorter one, managed to negotiate for the last couple seats on the longer one the night before departure. At the point where the guide told us the shorter one would've turned around, we hadn't yet seen a single animal -- everything we saw came in the second half of the trip, deeper into the park. Later in our land portion, we overheard a number of frustrated people who spent 4 hours on the Natural History Tour and didn't see any animals at all. I'd rather spend the extra time/money to increase the likelihood that I'm going to see some wildlife. Otherwise, I don't think there're many activities you could choose that you'd find dissatisfying.

Why not just wait to check in at the airport? Though there're clearly reasons to check in 24 hours early with some airlines (Southwest comes to mind), I'm not sure there's any urgency to check in early with Delta.

Like others have said, we found a card in our room with a reservation already made for us. We preferred a different restaurant and time, so we took the card to the restaurant and the Maitre D rescheduled us.

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We booked excursions for an upcoming cruise last week via Cruise Personalizer. At checkout, available OBC was deducted and balance was charged to our credit card.

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We’ve never gotten feedback from Princess, but we’ve definitely gotten feedback from crew. We wrote a lengthy input praising our favorite bartender in a post-cruise survey, saw her on another cruise (over a year later) and she immediately thanked us for what we’d “done for her.” We didn’t learn what the exact outcome was, but it was evident speaking to her that she thought the reward to be both significant and a direct result of our survey. We take more care now than ever to praise our favorite crew members with great detail in our surveys.

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Thank you all for letting us know that the "within 90 days" restriction has been lifted. I faxed my paperwork in for a Feb 2019 cruise this morning, credit appeared about 3 hours later. Appreciate your help!

Not sure I remember which cruisetour we did, so apologies if I’m offering input on something other than “O.” Ours visited Fairbanks, Denali, and Mt McKinley Princess lodges. All were very nice places, but we’d probably skip Mt McKinley lodge if we had a second shot at the trip — not much to do there, and any activities available nearby were generally a long trip. We actually got bored at that particular lodge and were very eager to move on.

The train was nice (good food, great service), but it was table seating (2 forward facing seats, 2 backward per table) and there wasn’t much room to get comfortable — our 5 hour ride was more than enough of the experience. We’d ride the train again, but wouldn’t want one of the 8-9 hour journeys — too much.

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Glacier Bay was definitely the highlight of the cruise for us. I’d recommend going to the extra effort to see it.

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We got documents/Princess luggage tags (for the ship) via the Cruise Personalizer 75 days before departure. For the land portion, luggage tags were provided separately for each stop along the way, usually while we were on the bus/train to the next location.

When we disembarked Star Princess in Vancouver in August, they were piloting a new program to expedite the process. Sign up in advance and you’re escorted directly from ship to airport without the Canadian immigration stop. We were bussed to a back door at the airport and escorted directly to airline check in counter. You can only use the service if you’re going to leave immediately after your cruise (spend no time in Canada). Eliminated a step and got us to the airport in record time.

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We just made Platinum a couple months ago too. We got a congratulations card and lapel pins in our cabin, card outlined new benefits we’d get with our NEXT cruise. So I wouldn’t expect you’ll be able to use any benefits.

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Just off the Star Princess a few weeks ago, Cmdchiefthom. Had a great time and visited Shooters — they’ll definitely have what you’re looking for.

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On Princess, we avoid buffet eggs sitting in pans. Cooked-to-order omelets are usually fine, but most of the other eggs are way undercooked.

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We took the package once a couple cruises ago. Did some simple math on how much we needed to drink to "break even" and thought it'd be a good deal. We found, however, that while we typically had the 4-5 drinks during a sea day that make this a deal, we almost never drank that much in just an evening on the boat after a day ashore. We'd only take the package again if the itinerary included a large number of sea days.

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Not sure if it matters much if you're just doing the cruise. We decided to do a Princess cruisetour with a week ashore, and that was the deciding factor for us. Both directions offer train service directly from/to port in Alaska, but Northbound cruise disembarked at very inconvenient times (I recall 3am, but not certain) as compared to Southbound cruise, where you finish land portion and ride the train during the day to meet ship around 5-6p. We preferred that approach, so it made our decision for us.

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We were given the same instructions you're describing when we cruised Princess out of Fort Lauderdale last year. We arrived well before our scheduled boarding time and asked the local staff. They reacted like they'd never heard of staggered boarding, told us that we'd need to wait for Platinum/Elite, then we could board. We were aboard in under an hour (and about 2 hours earlier than our scheduled boarding time). I'd recommend you just try to board as soon as you arrive.

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azbirdmom-

Late to the party, just found your kind offer to share SB Star Princess Patters. Would you please send a copy to stinsonm@gmail.com?

Thanks,

Mike