pzsdd6

This too is mostly true, however, a single person uses less: electricity water eats less food less impact to room services, one bed, one towel, etc This is the side of the equation that they won’t acknowledge because it evens out and cancels their excuse for the unreasonable supplements that they take great pains to inflict on solo travelers

Yes it has, and while no solo travelers feels happy about paying double, most have just chalked it up as a price of doing business so to say. My heartburn comes from the price gouging of 300%, 400% and more! I’m sorry but there is no excuse or rationale that can validate this practice.

Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy cruising on Celebrity. If you take a look at all the changes the new CEO has made, none have been well received. Trying to make Celebrity like Royal is just wrong. If I wanted to sail on Royal, I would have booked Royal! This particular change doesn’t sit well with me. I’m going to continue to place topics and comments, calling out the lies and poor decision making by management.

I know this has been hashed out here many times, so much so that the last webinar with the new CEO, this was brought up and she was adamant that this would stop, she even agreed it was wrong! Well, I guess she just can’t tell the truth! This has to do with the highly distasteful practice of gouging solo travelers. According to Celebrities CEO, this issue was addressed many months ago, well not true! See below……. Before any of the Celebrity cheerleaders pipe up about how cruise lines can do as they please, just stop! This practice is WRONG! Period! What do you have to say now Laure Hodges Bethge? Seems as though ever since you were made CEO, all you do is piss of cruisers with all of your changes. Do everyone a favor, stop lying and go back to your old job! You clearly don’t have what it takes. Bring back Lisa Lutoff-Perlo!

Thanks for sharing your experience. I’m also sure that we are not the only ones this has happened to. Again, to all, I know this is really not that serious of a situation, but Princesses handling of things bothers me more. It’s like dealing with a narcissist, deflect, deny, and defend. It’s wrong period! Man up and do what’s right…….fix their crap.

I have not left Celebrity, in fact I have several booked with them later this year, I only came on this one because our friends invited us and got us their discount, but trust me, I won’t book another with Princess. Until such time that Carnival and Princess pull their head out and make the changes necessary to stay relevant, I’ll stick with Celebrity.

This one aspect alone shows how much the cruise line values its customers. It’s not just the cruise companies, they all outsource call centers to places like India and the Philippines to cut costs, unfortunately, they never learn that moves like that do nothing but aggravate and insult customers.

Well said. I tend to believe incompetence, never really thought it was malice, just that this problem only benefits Princess that’s why it is still here.

Thanks for that suggestion. I just may have to do that, especially in light of all the help Princess is giving me…..lol

As a retired global director, I’ll tell you what I told all of my managers… ”If you can describe a problem in detail, then you can solve it!”

Lol….touche’ pretty much every commercial

I appreciate your viewpoint, however after being in engineering and IT for my entire career, a problem as obvious as this one and the fact that it’s as well know and for quite some time, should have been resolved, and if it hasn’t, then it’s done on purpose.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did try the chat……I guess it the weekend staff because they were even less helpful. Apparently everyone who works the chat desk or customer service is a CEO or VP. because every time I ask to elevate this to a manager or supervisor, I’m told there is no one higher to speak with………hard to imagine………smh

Not to worry, not resentful nor would I let it ruin a great time with friends. I was just hopeful that they would be different or better than Carnival, so disappointed in them. I just hate that customers have to deal with issues like this that are easily avoidable and don’t have to be made worse by poor management decisions. Makes me so angry!

No conspiracy theories. It’s just slimy business practice. Princess may not force OBC on anyone, but when given the choice of instant OBC or wait a potential 90 or 120 days for a refund, most will choose the OBC. Princess plays the numbers, each OBC is just additional cash flow for them. Once again, I hope karma bites down hard!

At the end of the day, as posted above, it’s not life or death or anything close. It just frosts my you know what’s, that 1) they think we are fools and won’t notice, 2) they do it because they can get away with it and there’s nothing we can do because of their cruise contract. My only hope is that karma bites them all good and hard!

Stick to your guns, they are still stink! Try Celebrity, that’s where we have been for the past 4 years, not a single problem or regret.

And there you have it folks! Thank you for your comments. I was told by several people that know, Princess does this on purpose. They want to give it back to you as OBC so that you will spend it on the ship, that way they make money 2 ways. They go out of their way to make it difficult. Not that this is anything new but it’s all about the money, they get it up front as much as possible and then make it a pure nightmare to get your money back. Some things never change.

Unfortunately, not enough to deal with this kind of foolishness. Tying my money up for 5 months or more for something that is a simple programming fix.

I quit traveling with Carnival several years ago for many obvious reasons, extremely poor customer service being the biggest issue. Several weeks ago I was talked into booking a cruise with some friends. One of my friends started working for Carnival about a year ago and now gets employee discounts on Carnival and Princess. They all know that I won’t cruise on Carnival! ( Diamond on Carnival). So they talked me into trying Princess again. Only one other on Princess and that was back in 2006. Booked on Enchanted Princess for 7/6, added premiere package which includes 2 specialty dinners. Long story but we were encouraged to make dining reservations ahead of time because the desirable times book up early. So we did, and lo and behold, Princess charged my credit card for the specialty dining. Should be simple to correct you would think……not so with Princess. They tell me they can’t refund the charges because the “package” hasn’t been activated yet. They said I have to wait till the cruise starts and then go and request my refund. Am I the only one that thinks this is wrong? To me this is just another illegal scam run by Princess to get your money ahead of time. Think of this in larger terms, Princess books thousands of cruises like this, if they do this to enough people, it’s an interest free loan for Princess. They keep all of our money tied up for months while they sit on it, use it and collect interest on it! Just an additional thought…….. if Princess cares as much as they say about their customers, then why is it that when you call to book a cruise, the call is routed to a U.S. based vacation planner, they answer almost immediately, they take your money immediately, but if you have a concern or problem, most of which are caused by Princess, they route you to some third world country call center that takes sometimes hours to answer, answered by someone that can barely speak English and most times can’t answer your questions or solve your concerns. Then they tell you it will take anywhere from 90 to 120 days to get a refund. Once again they sit on your money to use as their own.

P.S. Was able to upgrade classic to premium drink for $80 for entire cruise. Hope others can find a break, take anything we can get. Happy Sunday!

FWIW - Another data point. We had a casino offer for the Summit, premium inside deck 11, tips, classic, Wi-Fi. Dec 16th Decided to check the Black Friday sale just to compare. Not sure how it came to this…. Upgraded to premium Aqua class, same deck, all current benefits move across, Captains points go up. ding ding ding…..net, $25 per person. $99 cost but they give back $50 OBC. Go figure! Take the time to check any of your already booked cruises…..just might find a duck!

Hello Everyone! I have been frustrated with all the lines and the way they prioritize “solo” cruisers. My understanding is they all give solo travelers a lower priority, even when adding a supplement of between 0-100%. One reason is only 1 person to”buy” things. This usually goes away when you have a sailing that is below a threshold, usually low bookings. It’s all business algorithms. As stated by the quoted post, it happens, just have to play the wheel and hope you’re checking constantly. I was fortunate enough to catch the same cruise as above. I was able to book solo, no supplement, inside guarantee, 3 days ago, for 226.00 (love quick last minute getaways). Within 24 hours my cabin was assigned, ended up with a deluxe balcony deck 15. So the story is…..it’s frustrating for solo travelers, but with perseverance, occasionally a deal can be had! Keep trying…….feel free to share deals you may find with all our solo travelers here.

Thank you for all the responses and suggestions. Took me a minute to get back here. Seriously, I’m making fun of this but I’ve check quite a few places and the results are the same, the cruise lines, most of them, have just eliminated or quashed single category. One TA told me that’s it’s not just the supplement but the cruise lines count on the additional money they “expect” each cruiser to spend while on the trip. Sell, sell, sell! I mean I get it but I have to say it definitely plays a huge part in deciding where to next spend my cruise travel dollars. State of the business…….😤

I am wondering if anyone has encountered difficulties trying to make a booking for a single cruiser? I’m hoping that’s is just me an a user error, however every booking I have tried for the next 4-5 months in the Caribbean gives a pop up message stating the cruise is fully booked. If you try with 2 people, no problem. Again, I hope it’s something I’m doing incorrectly, otherwise I’m going to be really offended that they have chosen to treat single cruisers this way, definitely not the right thing to do. I will add this for clarity, I have no issue with paying the usual single supplement, but to purposefully exclude singles…..not right, just my opinion.