huskerdan25

Start panicking. This happened to a booking where air was not involved as the "cancelled" booking was for people who would be driving to Port Everglades!

Wow, well I won't start panicking but I do check our booking almost everyday on the Princess website and everything has looked just fine since final payment. Let's hope they get this glitch resolved quickly!

I have friends that cruised the Grand recently too and they had a great time! They echo many of your observations!

Always good to hear positive comments for a ship we are taking in 39 days to Hawaii. The oldest ship I had been on before the Grand was our cruises on the Sapphire. Can't wait for all those sea days to relax!

So glad you were not discouraged by previous negative comments and really enjoyed your cruise!

 

 

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This! You can't please everyone and everyone has different expectations so just because someone had a particular issue doesn't mean you will. Glad you have a great first cruise with Princess!

So, in order to keep people from panicking about this and their bookings, I just want to confirm some facts about this issue. I read the entire thread and this is what I have determined:

1) This happened only for a couple of people on these boards that are using EZ Air for their flights. So, for those that don't use EZ Air, most likely you would not be impacted by this computer error.

2) It sounds like the payment of the EZ Air was not made when final payment was made which is what resulted in the cancellation of the booking. They definitely need to fix their bug in their software. My understanding is that when you make final payment, that is supposed to include your cruise fare and EZ Air fare as your cruise fare total includes the EZ Air fare as well, correct? I have never used EZ Air so I am not sure. I always book my own flights.

Now, if others have this happen to them that aren't using EZ Air, then it might be time to start panicking :) Otherwise, those with just normal bookings not using EZ Air should be fine.

Did I miss anything?

Sorry you had to experience this and I would truly be in panic mode if I found that my cruise that I had already paid for got cancelled without me knowing. Sounds like in difficult circumstances, you kept a level head and you should be commended for that. Others might have come on here saying they would never cruise with Princess again and some have done that over much smaller issues. Mistakes happen, especially when computer software is concerned (I am a software developer) as as long as it was fully resolved then you can relax again and look forward to your cruise :)

I think they started going up there in April in 2018 as well. I do know that on other threads it was stated that you could run into not all sites being open as they may still be "digging" out for winter and I believe the season gets into full swing in May maybe full open by mid May...just what I have read...

I am wondering about that myself. I thought that Alaska cruises usually don't even start until near the end of May so these would be a month earlier. I am asking for pricing from my TA just to get an idea but these seem too early in the season. Next think you know, we'll see cruises to Alaska into October :)

We are interested in returning to Alaska in 2019 and just saw for April 23, 2019 (isn't that kind of early?!) a roundtrip on the Ruby from LAX! 12 day cruise. Very interesting! Also April 27 on the Star.

We have never done a car service...where would you meet them at the dock? We have either had a princess transfer as part of the pkg or close enough just got a taxi or hotel shuttle. Do they have a sign with your name?

We have directions to call the driver when we get off the Grand and I believe we will get picked up the same location as where the cabs are lined up. We haven't done this in SF before but we have to and from San Pedro and it worked out well. Called the driver and he told us where to meet the sedan.

We booked execucar for SFO to our hotel and from the pier to SFO. $58.50 each way and we have it all to ourselves so no stopping along the way for others. Premium sedan, curbside pickup and holds up to 3 passengers.

We were just on Celebrity Summit for 14 days and didn't see one mean or nasty person, people were polite even in the elevators, and trivia was fun, and they happily used the hand sanitizer as well.............. we wonder what the difference is between Celebrity passengers and Princess ones?

 

We didn't really feel Celebrity was for us, but the politeness and food was way better than Princess recently.

There is no difference. The people on Princess were just as friendly as on Celebrity and there are just as many rude people on both. Food is subjective but I will take Princess over Celebrity any day. We were led to believe Celebrity was an upgrade over the Princess experience. Not so for us. We will still cruise Celebrity but our preference is still Princess.

Yes, and it was a great embarkation lunch with hardly anyone there and great service! If the ship has an Alfredo's, we make sure to go there for lunch once we board.

I always order two of the eggplant rollatini! (not sure if that is the correct spelling)

A great attitude makes for great travel and a great life. An attitude of always complaining and seeing the worst in things, will find plenty to complain about and lead to a very miserable travel and life experience. Life is too short and cruising is way too much fun for that.

This! We can't stand being around negative people and little things don't impact our enjoyment of our much needed vacations. I am amazed sometimes of what little can happen that will cause someone to threaten to never cruise with Princess again or cruise at all. As if the issue isn't experienced anywhere else. Stuff like "my water didn't get refilled immediately after I just finished drinking the last drop means terrible customer service and it just ruined the entire cruise" makes you wonder if some people have no ability to deal with small stuff. Or, the crew was so unfriendly, they never smiled at us. Funny, we always smile and say hi to crew members when we pass them in the hallways and we've always gotten a smile back and even had some crew members stop and talk with us. Maybe if people treated others the way they want to be treated, they would see how friendly the crew really is.

We don't spend thousands of dollars each year to cruise only to whine and complain constantly during our vacations. A positive attitude is the key on whether you will enjoy your cruise or anything else in life for that matter.

We did this through Chilkoot Charters in 2015. It was excellent. Really enjoyed being at the lake. I suggest taking a walker with you. Getting on and off the train will be a problem. https://chilkootcharters.com/?product=bennett-scenic-journey

We too took this excursion through Chilkoot. Book directly with them and you won't be on a crowded car. I remember that the people who booked via Princess were in a very crowded car on the train.

When I first read the OP, I wasn't willing to make a judgement because there are two sides to a story. We've only heard from one side and we really don't know the exact words or how they were spoken. So, I wouldn't just assume that the OP is the exact true story and that's that.

Even so, to say that this kind of rudeness continued and therefore impacted their cruise as much as the OP says, makes you wonder if this is being blown up to make it seem like there were rude people all around and that rudeness was pointed directly at the OP's mother throughout the cruise or maybe, just maybe, the OP's mother had something to do with the responses people were directing towards her. Again, I am just raising some questions, not insinuating anything. But we've been on 11 cruises and while we have witnessed few cases of rudeness, I've never seen enough that would ruin our cruise or make me not want to cruise ever again. You can experience rudeness anywhere but its how you respond to it that will determine if it significantly impacts your experience or not.

I should add that I think we all have experienced the elevator rudeness but most of the time, I just look at my wife with a funny face, we snicker a little and then we go on enjoying our vacation. Hardly a significant enough of an experience to let it ruin our cruise.

95 days until our 15-day Hawaii cruise on the Grand out of San Francisco!

11 cruises and we have never really experienced very rude people. I have seen older folks who think that because they are old that they can be constant whiners and think they are entitled to get in front of a line such as in the buffet or whatever. But in general, have found most people to be friendly. It wouldn't ruin our cruise since we would just stay away from them.

He'll definitely qualify. Just needs to submit a copy of his DD214 (black out the ssn) and fax in with the paperwork and he will get the onboard credit. Won't have to reapply after the initial application.

We thank him for his service!

The TA resolved this issue we have the Sip and sail back and Princess let us keep the $200.00 lower booking price .

 

 

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Good news and thanks for letting us know it got resolved. People make mistakes and since you have used this TA for a few years with no problems, don't assume you won't have issues if you book directly with Princess. Things happen. And your TA came through and fixed it. There is still way more positives to using a TA than booking directly so don't let others make you change unless you really feel that you will get better service by booking directly. There are plenty of negative stories of those booking directly.

I didn't know about it my first few cruises until I read something about it on this forum. I think I had done 3 or 4 cruises before finding out about this. Then, I thought it was only for one veteran in the cabin and found out just 3 cruises ago that since both my wife and I are veterans that we both get it, that it isn't per cabin but per veteran up to two in a cabin so for our Hawaii cruise coming up, we both get $250 in military OBC.

Thank you to fellow veterans for your service and this is definitely one of the reasons we continue to cruise with Princess.

Has anyone personally experienced a "Faster Internet Experience" on any Princess ship? If so, do you have any speed test results? How reliable was it etc ? What are your thoughts on it?

 

If it's the same old slow-n-stupid connection capping premium data usage to 500MB per day is a joke. I doubt you could even download 500MB in a week.

This! Has anyone been able to confirm that the superior experience is just that? I suppose I would probably purchase one day to validate if it is worth it instead of paying for the whole week until we know if it is really a good experience or not.

Wow, we would have been disappointed as well as the main reason we would take the Panama Canal cruise is for enjoy the lectures on the history of the canal, especially if this was our first cruise through the Canal. Sorry you were disappointed but certainly understandable.

If you have on-board credit applied to your cruise account, you can use it to pay for these but I think this policy changed earlier this year as this was not in place when we took our late January Caribbean cruise this year. If you book enough excursions that any OBC you have applied is used up, then you will have to pay via credit card for the balance not covered. I had to do this for an excursion coming up on our January 2018 Hawaii cruise as I had booked another ship excursion that ate up most of my OBC. I was required to pay the balance after the OBC was used up to reserve an excursion.

Let’s hope that the assumption of platinum and elite internet loss is wrong

No doubt! Would be very disappointed if we lose this perk on our 15 day Hawaii cruise in January!

I guess I should have read more of the posts on this thread :) Glad that the free minutes is not going away. The 500 total minutes we get for our next cruise will be more than enough for what we do while on a cruise.

Outstanding, thorough review! Really appreciate the comparisons you have provided. We haven't considered an RCCL cruise but when you do take your Viking Ocean cruise, I hope you will post a similar review as we are very interested in trying them as an upgrade to our previous cruise experiences. We thought Celebrity would be that upgrade but found Princess much more to our liking.

Again, thanks!

Hi everyone. Getting excited for our 15-day Hawaii cruise from San Francisco in January and trying to finalize our plans for the ports. At the moment I have a private tour that goes to Volcano National Park for when we stop in Hilo but after reading a number of threads about Mauna Kea, I am thinking about changing our plans. Princess is offering this tour and it is expensive ($299 pp). I have been looking for private tours but not finding many for our visit on January 27, 2018. If you have taken this tour, can you please provide input on your experience and if you felt it was worth it? The difference between our visit to VNP via Mary Lou's tour ($85) and this tour is significant but it might be worth it.

I posted this here because it is a specific Princess tour. I know I could post on the Hawaii port of call but seems many of the posts there are from people who have taken the Pride of America cruise. Anyway, would appreciate hearing of experiences on this tour to help me decide whether to spend the money for it or not.

Thanks in advance!

For us, the ship is the destination and the ports are icing on the cake. We love sea days and when we book our Caribbean cruises, we look for just a few ports and mostly sea days. We love to be able to relax and do various ship activities or nothing at all. Love the choices! We are going on the Grand to Hawaii in January and are looking forward to the many days at sea. In fact, we think that having the sea days after 4 straight days in port will be great for relaxing before getting back to San Francisco. And I understand there are many cultural activities on the way to the islands that we will definitely partake in.