tserface

I still don’t see the difference between sharing 4 meals from the Plus Package or eating 4 meals. I think if you get 4 meals included you should be able to use them however you want. It just seems petty to make people use the credits when they aren’t eating the meal. Yeah, I know, it’s only $14.99, but it used to be included. You’d think they could be a little flexible and not add insult to injury.

Thanks for the update. Not what I was hoping to hear. So, I guess we’ll have to get two even if don’t use one… otherwise, they’ll probably double sell it.

Apparently Princess can do whatever they want. They’re obviously not doing this for the benefit of the customers. Doesn’t surprise me that they’d even steal one of the included meals if you don’t use it. I was just hoping they might be fair for a change… alas!

Thanks for the reminder. It’s easy to forget…

Yeah, I didn’t think of that. For $14.99, one time charge, you can order from app or TV so calling seems kind of like extra hassle.

Seems to me if, for a 7 day cruise, one paid $50/day instead of $60, the $70 saved covers the new perks … mostly… $14.99 x 2 = $29.98 ($30) $14.99 ($20) $14.99 ($20) $70 It’s actually $70 savings on a 15 day cruise since the benefits are the same as a 7 day even though we pay a daily rate now.

On our last cruise they would deliver pizzas anywhere on the ship using Medallion. Of course, then the pizza was free so there was no accounting. Princess has opened a can of corner cases to figure out.

Yeah, please report back with your findings. Frankly, it makes perfect sense that you could use your two meals for whatever you want, but, as usual, Princesses rules are kind of ambiguous. Have a blast on your cruise!!!

What if you both have Plus Package? Do you have to burn two credits if you only eat one meal to share? It’s already kind of unfair that you only get two visits on a 15 day cruise and same on a 7 day cruise, but pay the same daily rate on either. Just trying to understand the changes and maximize our options. What’s the difference, really, between sharing a $14.99 meal or using one of two of your $14.99 credits? I can totally understand not sharing an unlimited part of the benefit like drinks. To make it worse, since we only eat enough for one of the meals, we will, essentially only get two visits if they make us use two credits each visit. It seems like if they give you 2 meals you should be able to use them as you choose. For example, I get 5 free drinks per day on RCI cruises and I can use them however I want. It’s a finite number that they give us as the perk. Similarly, if I’m Elite an Princess they give us a minibar setup and we can let anyone use it.

When my wife and I got to Alfredos we always share the pizza. I wonder if we go there now and share a pizza, appetizer, and whatever normally costs $14.99 if we'll only be charged for one? There's no way we could eat 2x of everything they give you for a lunch.

Ah, cool then. $35 is still a good deal for Sabatini's in my opinion. It makes me happy that Princess is still keeping some things affordable. On our last cruise bingo was like $39 a game and it was 2x that last time we were on an RCI ship.

We are long time Celebrity cruisers as well and lament some of the things we've lost through the cut backs, but we still enjoy Celebrity cruises. We are just also enjoying other cruise lines now as well since we don't have the same incentive to stay as loyal. So, we look at price, itinerary, specials offered, etc. We find Celebrity and Princess to be pretty comparable. It used to be that Celebrity offered more than Princess, but not so much any more. That doesn't mean we're saying no to Celebrity. It just means we look around a lot more these days. Obviously, Celebrity is still filling ships and making $$$ or they wouldn't be cutting back on quality and features and raising prices so quickly.

In our experience, lowly Elites still, the biggest problem with the internet perk is it's the slow version of the internet so it takes almost no time at all use up the included minutes (I think 90 for us). At least with the AI (whatever that stands for these days) is it's unlimited. Sometimes if I wanted to upload some pictures I can just leave my iPad in my room doing it until it gets done and it doesn't really matter if it took 2 hours to do it. Of course, for people that just want to download a few emails it works OK... so long as they can figure out a way to only get the actual emails they want. Fortunately, these days, most pictures and other content in email are optional until something is pressed or clicked so that's helpful. But, there's also so much spam that doesn't get caught that it's kind of maddening. I started using a web based email for traveling and that also helps since it doesn't really have to download anything like the iPad email does.

Don't "All Include" and "All Inclusive" kind of mean the same thing? To be fair, I think X came up with the original All Inclusive definition and tried to change it to Always Included so they could redefine what they were going to always include or decide not to always include those things any more and include other always stuff instead ... it's no wonder people are confused. All we can do it take one cruise at a time and decide on each cruise if it's worth it to us to pay the price for what we get. We can't count on anything being the same next cruise. At least Celebrity is not like Princess where they take stuff away *after* someone's already booked with the understanding they would get it. Like X doesn't say, "Oh, now you have to pay for tips because we changed our minds". They tend to only change it on future bookings which is fair since, as I said, we can make our decision based on each cruise and the offerings at the time. Saying "All Included" or "Always Included" or "All Inclusive" is kind of dumb since none of those things is true, and, really never has been.

Wow, when we went last fall (October-November) on Island Princess we went twice for $25 a night. So it's almost doubled in price is less than a year. Dang. Another good love gone bad ...

We love Sabatini's and Crown Grill. On our cruise last fall Princess still had pretty good prices for specialty restaurants (about 2/3 of what other cruise lines charge) so it's still a reasonable deal.

Add me to the list of people who like the Medallion and the Apps. I have apps on my phone for 3 cruise lines now and I like all of them. I also use ShipMates app as well. I also love the new tech on the ships like tag-a-longs and being able to play a pick up trivia game in the hallways. We've had a lot of fun with this feature. We've also used the delivery features and I love that I can see, approximately, where my wife is on the ship if I'm looking for her, or her me. I figure if people don't want to use the app or Medallion they should be able to cruise without it, but I can't figure out why anyone would not want to use them. These days, we're mostly carrying our phones around to use as a camera and book reader anyway.

Including things someone else already has doesn’t penalize the person who already has the benefit. Elite and above would still get internet, and, perhaps more and better internet if it was included. This assumes the new price isn’t substantially more for the added benefits.

It's still a little rude to not show up and not cancel the reservation; if you have the chance to. I mean, how long should the keep the table available for the people they think are coming? While the are keeping a table for reservations they might not be allowing someone else to use that table. I think this is especially true if you reserve the same table after your first night like many people do.

This is a very good point. These prices change all the time and, depending on how far out your cruise is, they could easily raise the price any time. This is especially true if people are accepting the new prices and features and starting to sign up for Plus because it seems more tempting.

I don't hate, but I think you are very lucky and I feel a little jealous 🙂

I agree with you. I often see people say the food on Celebrity is better, but on our recent Celebrity cruises, comparing with Royal, I think the food is about the same. The MDR is a little quieter on Celebrity, but the quality of the food is not much different, if any. The entertainment totally depends on the ship and cruise director. Royal, of course, has some interesting things like skating, diving/water, and other shows with specialized theaters (like Cafe 270). I absolutely love the Aqua Theater shows. Celebrity just has the normal theater shows, but they get some good talent (magicians, singers, other). For me, the biggest difference is, for kids, there's tons more to do on Royal. That doesn't mean Celebrity doesn't have good kids programs, but Royal has so many fun things like arcades, carnival type rides, slides, flow rider, etc. that Celebrity doesn't have. Now that some Celebrity ships are going to Coco Cay there will be some water sports, at least, but it doesn't compare. For adults only (when we don't go with the kids) Celebrity works much better for us. Celebrity also has some longer itineraries and it's obvious they are sailing as much for the destinations as they are or the ship. On Royal, the ship kind of is the destination so you get a lot of same itineraries.

Just to add to all of the refreshingly direct and civil answers about cruise line favorites 🙂 Be sure to check itinerary and price. We've found that Royal cruises are getting way more expensive for similar or not as good itineraries. Royal has a better family factor and lots more to do for kids like arcades, zip lines, rock climbing, carnival rides, etc. Celebrity has none of that, but pretty good kids clubs. When we go with our grandkids we go on Royal, but we often do a Celebrity cruise the week after to decompress. My all time favorite ships are the E-class (Celebrity), but the S-Class are a close second. So, if you're adulting, definitely consider Celebrity, but if you are going with a family with teens or younger Royal will be more fun for them.

We loved it, 2 times, on our Norway cruise. The food was wonderful and the dessert even more so. The service was great, and, at the time, the price was $25/each which, we thought, was pretty fair. Crown Grill, if the ship has one, is also quite good, but completely different. We like doing both.

On our Summit cruise a couple of months ago, there were not only no prizes, but some of the staff joked about how people could win a free cruise brochure. It was humor, but ... They had some stick on phone holder things at one of the games, but it was not a trivia. I don't really need more keychains, but I do miss the dumb prizes kind of...