cruise_critical

I booked my Dec cruise earlier this year with Premier and I'm still on the old premier package. I don't intend to upgrade to the new Premier. In my Booking Confirmation PDF that they emailed me this week after my full payment, I see following in the Payment Details section so you should see if you see that also. >> As you have booked on Princess Premier, Guests 1&2 will receive the following: *Premier Beverage Package (when aged 18 years or over or 21 on some international voyages). *Wi-Fi (4 devices per person). *Fitness classes (unlimited). *Premium Desserts (unlimited). *Speciality Dining (2 meals per person) *Photo Package & Princess Medallion. *Casual dining unlimited *Reserved theatre seating *Juice Bar *Ocean Now access *Complimentary room service

What ship will you be sailing on? If you google that ship and check the Princess ship's page, it will show which are the casual dining venues.

Yeah.. Hard to tell if they are just implementing tiered QoS on existing bandwidth, or if they are actually increasing total bandwidth along with it. Either way, "max" should be faster than before but will be interesting to see by how much, and also if standard will become slower or not.

Oh interesting. I just checked the website (and the app), it still doesn't show "Max" for me under the list showing in the Extras tab. Hmm. Maybe it's because Royal Princess doesn't have the new Premier package activated yet. Will report back after the 14th when it is supposed to roll out.

I purchased Premier for upcoming cruise before this recent change. My booking's Premier only mentions "Wi-Fi MedallionNet(up to 4 devices per guest)". Also, in the fine print, it says: What’s changing with Princess Plus and Princess Premier? We have added the following benefits to our Princess Premier package: unlimited Premier beverage package — enjoy an unlimited number of drinks up to $30 each, unlimited specialty dining — indulge in meals at world-class specialty dining locations every evening, and MedallionNet® Max Wi-Fi — our highest quality and highest performance bandwidth available anywhere in the world. All of this and more is now available for AU$100 per person per day for Princess voyages departing August 31, 2024 and beyond. Does this mean I need to upgrade my current Premier to the new Premier to get the MedallionNet Max Wi-Fi?

Deck 6 Double Down Bar on the smaller section of the Casino can be dead quiet at times I found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU9eN_oetEk&t=518s

I've done embarkation lunch at CK both times I was on the Ovation. Last one being April last year. (10 night NZ Cruise in Owners suite) Well worth it if you want to feel pampered from the moment you get on. We try to eat there every day for lunch / dinner and some breakfast. Btw, if you booked a full suite, then you'll get an email from the Suite Concierge about a week before the cruise with all the fine details on what is included and available as a full Suite guest. You can ask him/her any questions over email also.

Yes, we embarked around 12:30 and went straight to Reserved Dining entrance of Concerto, and sat in the Reserved Dining area. It was completely empty so had the place to ourselves.

We did Reserve Class Mini Suite on our last Royal Princess cruise and had 12 of 13 dinners in Reserved Dining. Extra menu was mostly an extra pasta dish which was cooked / prepared within the Reserved Dining area via popup mini kitchen. I guess this was done to prevent putting any extra load on the main kitchen? During sea day lunches, there were no extra "Reserved Dining" menu items from what I can recall except during the embarkation day lunch.

On our last 13 night Princess cruise, we had premier and the most we drank in a day was 28 alcoholic beverages between the two of us and that was stretching it to the max. Most days we averaged about 8 drinks per person. And as we have kids, not worth doing SD every night either. So we won't be upgrading to the new Premier from my current pre-paid Premier in our upcoming cruise in December. For the new Premier package, it would have been nice to have more inclusive access to the menus on the casual dining venues such as special pizzas at Alfredo's, wider choices at Ocean Terrace and free choice at Gelato etc. I would have upgraded if that was the case.

Oh thanks for this update. I just checked again and I can also now book the Crown Grill for all days all times and allowed me to book both reservations using the (current) Premier package dining credit with no charge to my credit card. 🙂

I have a 14 night cruise booked in December on Royal. Pre-booked it with Premier ($95 AUD/day) months back. Seems it has only gone up $5 AUD (like $3 USD) after this change to $100/day now. https://www.princess.com/en-au/cruise-deals-promotions/plus-premier-cruise-packages At $5 per day, seems it's a no brainer as long as I can book a couple more SD. BUT... According to the app/website right now, Crown Grill is fully booked out for every time slot / day of the cruise. But nearly every time slot of every day is available to book on Sabatinis. So this seems a bit odd. Maybe they are doing something and blocked off from booking the Crown Grill temporarily? Would be amazing if they opened during lunches on sea day like on RCCL.

HSBC Everyday Global "debit" card is a good free debit card as it has no account, overseas ATM, transfer or transaction fees etc.. And with it, if you become a premier member (see criteria), you can apply for their Premier World Mastercard which is close to being the best high-end Qantas reward point earning "$0 annual fee" credit card in Australia IMHO.

From the press release, this is how I read these blurbs: > MedallionNet Classic will offer the same service performance, reliability, and global coverage that Princess guests enjoy today. Going by what they say at least, it seems the ala-carte internet will stay the same as now or very similar. I doubt it will get much worse considering it wasn't that great anyways lol. I was barely able to stream Youtube at 480p smoothly last time I was on the Royal Princess about 8 months ago, and that was months after they installed Starlink on it. > MedallionNet Max will now be the highest performing service tier with prioritized access to the highest quality and highest performance bandwidth available anywhere in the world which is typically Starlink. Going by how they reckon it is now good enough to host online gaming tournaments, it surely has to be better than what it was before this announcement for both ping times and bandwidth. > The appropriate service level will be assigned based on each guest's package, as indicated on the Princess app. A single guest network will remain, reduce guest confusion related to network names or any complications being added to the onboard experience. I assume they enabled higher priority QoS for the Plus/Premier devices' traffic since they say it will still be a single network. There is also an assumption that they have increased the network's total bandwidth since if they didn't, it will mean much worse speeds / service for the ones on ala-carte plans while the MAX users gobble up more of the total bandwidth with priority. But yeah, who knows... I have an upcoming Royal Princess cruise on a premier package in a few months, so I should be able to test how it is once onboard. I'm all for faster internet myself so this announcement is good news. Just hope they don't raise the price anytime soon.

I've been on numerous Ovation & Quantum RCCL cruise with my 2 boys from when they were both in primary school to young teens that they are now. 7 months ago, we went on a 14 night Princess cruise (on Royal Princess which is near identical to Majestic) for the first time. Both my kids raved on how much better the kids club in Princess is compared to RCCL ones. Better facilities and supervised / non-supervised activities So, we've booked another Princess cruise his summer holidays as they really enjoyed it. (wife & I did also!) Not exactly the same as the age group that you are asking about, but seeing the kids club rooms, I think the young ones will also have a ball! Check out this vid for how the area looks inside them. https://youtu.be/FdUHuY6QjCk?t=1301

On my Royal Princess cruise about 6 months ago, I could get my kids to connect to my 4 device acess (Premier) by logging in using my account on their phone's princess app. (to get their device to be recognized as mine). Then IIRC I just logged out and got them to login using their account and the phone still had internet access. Not sure if that was how it should be done but yeah.. Another tidbit. I couldn't get the Firestick to work off the ship's wifi as the portal site that opens when you first try to connect a device to wifi (like a hotel) wouldn't work properly on the Firestick. So I used a laptop, connected it to wifi then set it up as a wifi hotspot for the firestick.

I'll be on the Royal later this year. Can't wait! Do magnets stick to the ceiling on most staterooms?

Afaik it's 24 hours prior to boarding date from my last cruise few months back. Also mentions it here: https://www.princess.com/en-au/plan/oceanready/ Complete no later than 24 hours before you embark^

How much % of your current booking would that $4k be? Going by past and recent pricing, if it's about 25-30% extra, then it is pretty much what it would have cost extra at original time of the booking. As for the room/perks. Room partitioning via curtain is nice to have, especially with my young teens. We also prefer mid-ship location for convenience, so that works for us. But the real benefit that we find worth while is the reserved dining as it's stress free with a more personal service. Not quite Coastal Kitchen in RCCL, but close enough. If you feel you see value in those, then yes it's worth it. If not, spend that $4k on something else like a Premier package if you weren't going to but both like to drink. 4 device per person internet, unlimited casual dining, and VIP seating in production shows are all awesome perks that we really found valuable as well.

correct. and the app even tell you how many got charged to your account and how many you have left for the day as a result. Just need to be careful as, if you and your partner go to a bar or restaurant, and order a few drinks over a period of time, they might be putting them all on your account, and not yor partner's and you might go over the limit without realizing. So it's defintely good to keep an eye on it.

If you can do without internet, on-demand lobster, alcohol, mocktails, soft drinks and barista coffees for 14 days, then everything else is included. No need to spend more, no bottomless money pit. If you think you will want internet and buy a lot of drinks while onboard, get the Plus or Premium package as it's a no brainer and is a better deal than any other cruise line period.

Just wanted to share a scanned PDF of the Teen Club's schedule on our last Royal Princess cruise. My two teen boys both went there every single day and had a blast. Both said the Princess teen club on the Royal Princess was much better than their past RCCL Ovation & Quantum cruises. Having their own private table tennis, foosball, arcade games, multiples of PS4 and XBOXs, private hottub & outdoor alfresco area etc. was a huge it. RCCL Teen Club is mostly just a seating area, so both found it boring. Security was also excellent as Princess had multiple employees inside, and a security personnel guarding the entry (RCCL doesn't). Anyways. Hope someone finds it useful! beach_house_royal_princess_december_2023.pdf

I was on Royal princess 13 night cruise just 2 months ago. Was our first time on Princess (we only cruised RCCL before this) and wife & Ioved it so we booked another later this year. Heck, even my 2 teens said it was much better than previous RCCL (Ovation of the Seas) cruises. Not sure if it would be like that for everyone but for wife & I (not very active lol) it was definitely a better fit. (premier package was a big part of it as well) Would love to do an Alaska cruise on Princess one day.

I was able to ask for cans of red bull and coca cola at the bars on my recent royal cruise as part of my premier package. I think there were few othe soda cans but can't remember what.

On my recent Royal cruise, embarkation lunch was nice, but other days weren't that great tbh. (we had reserved class dining as well). So we had lunch mostly at Ocean Terrace and Alfredos. (had Premier) It would be nice if Princess opened Crown Grill and Sabatinis for Lunch like what RCCL does with Jamie's Italian and Chops Grill on sea days, with a cheaper upcharge and smaller menu. But yeah, maybe they think it won't be that popular? I was on RCCL Quantum last week and Jamie's Italian was packed nearly every sea day lunch. But Chops Grill was mostly empty. Having a celebrity chef name does help for sure I think.