AtlantaCruiser72

Just looked in the travel agents system and inventory has been zeroed out on all sailings up to and including March 29th. The first sailing showing availability is now the April 8th 9nt departure. I am unsure if any of these sailings previously had any open inventory as I have not been tracking it.

well they’d have to call the offshored call centre to get that assessment, which means a lengthy hold time, and then getting a canned response from an ‘agent’ reading from a knowledge base article written by an outsourced team …… I think that alone sums up what’s going on with Princess.

This is very disappointing and shows a lack of contingency planning by the shipyard, Princess and Carnival Corp. My deepest empathy for all those affected, especially guests who are already enroute to or in Rome. Much harder to shift gears and make alternate arrangements once you have left home.

On my January 26th sailing the water was in 12oz “pop” style cans. I bring a refillable water bottle for poolside or going ashore so never ordered any canned water, just refilled my bottle in lido

I’m not sure what the specific product they use is but it does not bother my skin or respiratory system at all. I am very sensitive to laundry products, especially anything with perfumes/scents/dyes.

I too am a fan of the unlimited wash/fold service. Laundry usually returned next day, nicely laundered and pressed either folded in a basket wrapped in tissue or hung in a valet bag and almost unfailingly delivered with a nice note. I usually write them a note back and attach it to the laundry slip. Just one more way HAL stands out against their peers

Same as above for me in 1/26-2/4 sailing. Not sure what time early dinner was at, but late seating was 7:30, which timed perfectly for the 9:30 show. Times tend to be later for shows in Alaska and Europe generally than in the Caribbean. Same for dining times.

Viking economy air is standard main cabin, not basic economy, and most carriers typically include 1 checked bay per person. Their premium economy upgrade applies to long haul flights only. Any intra US/Canada or intra Europe flights will have main cabin seating with standard legroom and the long haul flight will be in the premium economy cabin. In general premium economy seats are similar to domestic US first class seats but with slightly more legroom. As others have said the seats are wider as there is generally 1 less seat per row than main cabin. Most carriers allow for two free checked bags when flying premium economy. Service standards (catering specifically) vary widely between carriers. If carrier is important Viking do allow for Viking air plus ($100 service fee plus any additional airfare required) to select specific airlines/flights/routings up to 300 days prior to departure. Other than that they will auto-assign flights at around 150 days prior to departure. If you are unhappy with these flights you may be able to change using your MyViking Journey account, though alternate flights may incur additional air costs. Premium Economy and Business Class pricing has been quite a bit higher recently than in years past, so $1200pp round trip does not seem out of line with the market generally.

I’m onboard now and it’s very pervasive. Can smell it just as you enter bb kings all the way past the casino and RSRR/billboard. I was at the deck 4 forward elevator/stair last night and the smell was strong there too. This is 2024 people. There are multiple ways to mitigate the smoke (enclosed smoking casino area and high flow smoke scrubbing system attached to aircon for example). I guess Carnival Corp is just too cheap to take proper mitigation efforts. Closing in the hole between the casino and RSRR/billboard will only serve to push more of the smell to the forward stair lobby and bb kings I fear

well, rumor is she hates you too so I guess we can call it even! 🤣

Barry Rocklin aka Barry from Boston is a great piano bar performer, but I fear he has long moved on to other ventures and may no longer be interested in being a shipboard performer.

Update…… we finally got our room assignment, midship deck 4. I can stop stressing now 🤠 Thanks for all those that told me not to worry and that everything would be fine. You were right!

Spoke with them Saturday and the agent in the overseas call center, after several minutes on hold, assured me that I would have a cabin. I was not trusting of their canned, scripted response. Can print luggage tags, but they have no room number. I leave for Miami in the morning, boarding Regent Grandeur Wednesday for a 2nt travel agent/media preview cruise then headed to Miami Friday when we disembark to go to Ft. Lauderdale and boards Rotterdam. If I arrive at the pier and am told “no cabin for you!” There WILL be a scene, and a demand for compensation.

I’m definitely of the mind that it was a glitch. The answer I got about certain countries and not being able to pre pay reeks of having smoke blown up me you know where 🤣

Well, three days out and still no cabin assignment. HAL did open some space and three other bookings were made in the last few days as gty rooms through my agency group. All three were assigned earlier this evening. My reservation still remains the only booking (out of over 80) through my agency group that does not have a room # allocated. Inventory has been moved mostly to “c” (closed to new bookings) status. I have access through POLAR fyi. I’m still getting “you will be denied boarding at the pier” vibes on this one.

The grounding only affects the Max-9 variant, and it is uncertain how long it will last. United most likely will not make any schedule adjustments related to the Max-9 fleet until within 2 weeks of your scheduled flight. In the airline world March is a long, long, LONG way off and you could have multiple routine schedule/equipment changes between now and then totally unrelated to the Max-9 grounding.

While HAL may not be selling as many "Grand Voyages, they do not lack for longer itinerary options. I like the new moniker of "Legendary Voyages for these options. 2024/2025 Legendary Voyages 2025/2026 Legendary Voyages That said I do think there will be one or two more Grand Voyage for fall 2025 or early 2026 in addition the traditional World cruise. Hoping for a fall grand Asia and winter Grand South America

I too got the survey and indicated that until Brazilian visa rules change I would be unlikely to book any of the options that are Brazil heavy. The requirement to disclose private financial details in the visa application process in a country known for fraud disturbs me. Especially as the application is not done through an official government agency but a third party contractor. I also agree on the lack of Japanese, Korean and Chinese ports being an overall negative.

There has been more chatter related to overbooking and denied boardings of late, which is what prompted me to post in the first place. That said, 7 days out and no cabin assignment, though all other guarantee bookings for my agency consortia have been assigned. Limited inventory (both for guarantee and assignments) has opened and closed for this sailing over the last 3 days. Meanwhile I await a cabin assignment, still remaining nervous and hoping I am not bumped at the last second.

So the option to prepay gratuities is back on both consumer and agent websites. I did speak with my contact at Avalon and evidently a few countries have passed laws that no longer allow or make feasible the pre-payment of gratuities and their IT team temporarily removed the option while they sorted which sailings will be excluded going forward. They expect to have website updated in a few days with country specific guidance. she said it is a bit of a mess right now as they just got the new guidance this week.

I wonder what this change means for booked guests with prepaid gratuities before this change who are not yet paid in full?

When shopping Avalon cruises online (either consumer or travel site) up until Wednesday of this week there was always an option to add pre-paid gratuities. As of Thursday that option seems to have been removed and I can no longer find information on suggested gratuity amounts anywhere on their website. Are they going gratuity inclusive and somehow I missed the memo?

I work for a large online agency and can affirm that 60-70% of onboard bookings we never get notified by the cruise lines and only find out once we speak with the client. This is one of many reasons a good TA will do a welcome home call within 7-10 days post sailing If the agent is part of a larger agency/consortium the email on the booking may have gone to one central email for the agency, not directly to the agent. You’d be surprised at the thousands of emails large agency’s get a day and how difficult is is to route those to the correct agents. Things get lost in the shuffle frequently.

That is the difference pre-cruise between the package prices if purchased as stand alone items. From my understanding the price differential once onboard is $10pp/day + 18% = $11.80. Since the upgrade from SBP to EliteSBP is not available pre-cruise for guests with HIA, only once onboard, the onboard differential is what you pay to upgrade.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent drink price increase. Lets suppose that the bean counters at HAL have their act together (I know right?). With that in mind let’s also suppose they have good analytical tools that will allow them to determine how much orders for a specific drink fall off once it exceeds the limits of the SBP. Let’s also assume they can then forecast how much savings or additional revenue the decreased sales, or increased upsells, of higher cost beverages will gain/lose them on a per ship/per annum basis. If the trends/forecasting after, let’s say, 45-60 days shows that the increased pricing is neither gaining significant positive revenue, nor significant cost savings then they may increase the threshold of drinks covered under the SBP to cover the increased drink prices. However if the data shows significant uptake to the ESBP, or significant per drink upsells, or significant cost savings due to an increase in consumption of lower cost beverages then the higher beverage prices and current $11 SBP limit will stick (or potentially increase again). Carnival Corp has been very transparent in their goal to increase onboard spending. I feel like HAL may be one of the lower profit subsidiaries in this area and this maybe one way they are looking to change that. Now, this doesn’t mean I like or approve of these tactics, but it sure smells like testing the waters to see where they can find incremental revenue gains.