2MellowCruisers

Thank you for updating us with your experience. Since this is the cruise and cabin we cancelled, I was wondering how it went. So glad you enjoyed the cruise!

On our recent Discovery cruise, someone charged 4 drinks from the juice bar to our cabin for $32.00. We had the plus package so it did not show on our folio as a charge. I only noticed it because I went into the app to reorder drinks from recent drinks tab and noticed an additional order I never placed. At that point, we didn't even know where the juice bar was. Even though there was no actual charge to us I did let customer service know.

I agree with your statements. My DH was a programmer and his mind always seems to be "on" and always analyzing things. I really believe he wants to turn that part of the brain off for vacation! We look at all of the items you posted as well. I call this the "fuzzy" part of the math. We look at all the offerings and completely disregard what we will not use or have little interest in. Then we factor based on sea/port days. Then we add in some items we may want for that particular cruise. My DH has found that he actually likes one of the specialty deserts so we add that in. Just the total cost for a couple, not two per day. We generally have no use for internet but did miss an urgent text once on a trip so we add that in sometimes depending on the cruise. It seems to vary cruise to cruise but we always seem to be right on the border, just up or down a little so the plus package usually is just a no-brainer for us. For us, the premier is a no. That is what I love about the packages. It gives everyone an option depending on how they cruise. For some it will definitely not be worth it, for some, it is absolutely worth it and some, like us, fall in the middle. We can all make our own choices.

Funny thing, once I put it in writing on here, my DH all of a sudden started to change his mind. He is more fiscally conservative than me but he said he does like not worrying about the charges on a cruise and enjoys when we order drinks to be delivered to wherever we are. Usually when playing cards together. Our cruise is still a month and a half away so I told him we will go over the math again closer to the cruise. Either way, I'll report back. We still have another cruise later this year if we decide to get the Plus onboard for this one.

We are not big drinkers but so far have always decided to get the Plus package. In "real" life we only have alcohol in our house if we are having company and only drink occasionally, usually wine, when going out to dinner or visiting family/friends for dinner. On a cruise before the packages we might have a glass of wine with dinner one or two nights or order a bottle to have for a few days and that was it because we didn't want a large bill at the end of the cruise. We do pay gratuities and have no real need for internet. We "do the math" before every cruise and it is always on the borderline of what we would normally spend to have bottled water/coffees and juices. We end up deciding to go with the package because of exactly what you say above. We still enjoyed our cruises before the package but now we have found that that little extra freedom of ordering what we want when we want has added a lot to our experience. We have tried new drinks we would have never tried before. Some great and some not so great. And for anyone wondering, no, it does not open us up to be drinking alcohol all day long. Neither one of us has yet to be drunk on a cruise. It is a great way to look at the packages. For us, it doesn't just come down to $$ but also the experience. To get or not to get a package is just a decision everyone has to make for themselves and their own experiences. Since we are fiscally on the border with the packages, we decided not to book it on our next cruise to see how it comes out financially and if it changes our experience.

On the Discovery last year we could substitute one of the other menu items for the specialty but this month on the Discovery they did not allow it. I tried a specialty desert for the first time and just asked them to hold off on all the candy on the version I ordered. They had no problem with that. My DH does enjoy these specialty deserts and may get one or two a cruise but he was disappointed in how they made his on the Discovery vs how it was made on the Crown. I would say that you can ask and see if they will substitute as it seems that this can vary from ship to ship or even cruise to cruise. On the Discovery the gelato was on Deck 5 and I believe it is the same on the Royal.

You quoted my post and since I cannot hear the inflection in your voice, I’m not sure how to take it. A great question was asked and great answers and experiences have been given. I was just giving our experience to see how it compares with others. We don’t gamble for the comps. It is something we enjoy and the comps are a nice bonus. We budget what we want to spend, sometimes based on what we would spend for the cruise if not comped. Sometimes we come out ahead, and sometimes not. The casino counts on us doing the latter. The times I shared are an average and not always in one sitting. There are also others things on a cruise we enjoy so we may play a little go do other things and maybe go back. But playing in a casino if definitely something we enjoy on a cruise. We are currently on a cruise and I am up by almost $2600.00 and that was the result of the free play I was given. I haven’t spent a penny of my own money. My DH is only down a tiny bit so our plan is to go home ahead in this one. We didn’t go to the casino at all yesterday and don’t have plans to spend a lot of time today. If the casino is not your thing then please spend those 3-4 hours doing something you enjoy. I want you to keep your beautiful head of hair. 😁

Also for reference: On our recent Crown Princess cruise in January, I earned a little over 20,000 points and got an offer for a Balcony and $600 casino cash. No Plus package. Maybe because our cruise was 16 days vs 7 days? I wish I could figure out how they decide what they will offer. We spend maybe 3- 5 hours in the casino daily playing mostly slots. We used to always get balcony and free play offers with Plus Package via email but lately they have been reduced insides, lower free play and no Plus Package even though we haven't reduced our play. To OP: I'm not sure if anything is different for Australia but we are also able to just go online and after logging in, we can check out cruises and it will show our casino discount. Either $0 or a reduced amount if we want to upgrade. I will say that I checked on cruises this week and a lot of the offers went away on cruises I was just checking out last month. Also, check to see if you have given princess your email address and I believe there is somewhere in your profile that you can check to receive promotional offers.

I generally don't like to get in to these tipping debates but I did find this article. It touches briefly on the idea that the automatic gratuities don't go to the crew, the idea of rolling them into the fare, which can be a complicated issue and also touches on removing the auto tips. This seems to be about CCL but may also relate to Princess. Quotes from John Heald. I know nothing about this site, or the management structure at the Carnival Corporation or what happens behind the scenes. I make no warranty about the reliability of this site or the truthfulness of the quotes. I'm just a person who likes to cruise hopefully will help ease the debating back and forth a little. https://www.cruisehive.com/carnival-cruise-line-addresses-gratuity-nonsense/109106

We just did our first UBD recently on the Crown. I don't know what is considered good and tipping is personal to everyone, I'll just give you our experience. We tipped both of the servers $20 each. They were excellent and it does seem to involve a lot of work for them, especially the one that has to keep running back and forth to get food. They seemed really appreciative of the tips. I did notice a charge to our folio of $19.80 a few days later and had to ask customer service what it was for since it was worded oddly. They said it was the gratuity for the UBD. I thought it was part of the price we paid before the cruise but I guess not. We didn't remove the $19.80. In the future we may not tip as much the night of since it seems we tipped about 54%. It was a great experience though!

Question for those that like the aft suites. Does the noise from the wake cause any issues? We are booked in a Forward S5 suite on the Discovery and placed a upgrade bid to an aft suite. We just got off the Crown and I love hanging out on the promenade deck looking at the aft view. Since we have a bid, we noticed that it is pretty loud but figure the higher up, the less noise. We changed our bid from pretty high to almost the minimum. Pretty sure it is a long shot on getting the upgrade, but curious about the noise. TIA

I haven’t looked at this thread in a few days so not sure if anyone posted that it was fixed or their experience but I was 6 out of 7 because of shoreside and blue lane on the new app. But this morning before my cruise that all went away and I was green lane with a barcode in the new app.

So far pretty good. Asked someone in the parking garage how their trip was and they said they had a great time. There was plenty of rocking and rolling but nothing knocked them off their feet. We had about a half hour wait to drop luggage and then maybe 15 minute wait for security. After security they split the line into blue and green. Blue looked to be pretty long but for green we walked right up to an agent. I’ll try to update later but not the greatest at typing on my phone. 😁

Yes, thank you. It was 2022. We were on the Royal for Alaska 2023. We had a great trip on the Crown. Heading to the port right now to board her again today.

We will be on the Crown Sunday for our first trip to Hawaii. Curious about what is going on. We were on the Crown last year for a cruise to Alaska and if I remember correctly, this was when they were having issues and people were switching to the Discovery cruise around the same time. We stayed with the Crown and really enjoyed the cruise. I do remember vibrations in the dining room sometimes but nothing too bad. I was hoping that was fixed.

Just FYI- Just got a call from our CVP asking if we had any questions about our upcoming cruise. Just mentioned that the new app requires the shoreside transaction credit card. I just let her know we have our medallions and have no interest in the shoreside part. She said we will be fine and they have been getting questions regarding the requirement and have submitted requests to have this fixed. No real details from her and I didn't press, but at least I know from the call that they are also submitting requests to have it taken care of. Hopefully Princess will update the app to either require or decline this part.

I see you are from Scotland and I don’t know where you are sailing from. I can only speak to my experience out of US ports. We are the same and are not dress-up people. Years ago we would avoid the MDR on formal nights and then felt that we were missing out so we both decided to buy suits just so we could do formal nights. Well, then the suit, for me anyway, started to be too small. Too many cruises, I guess! I stressed again about doing formal nights and just started to wear nice clothes but still felt worried about it. Now I am over all the stressing about it and worrying what others in the dining room think about us. I have to tell myself we are on vacation for goodness sakes! For the regular casual nights, we wear nice jeans and short sleeve button down shirts. For formal nights, we wear some nice slacks and a long sleeve button down shirt. We wear the same clothes for specialty dining. I don’t believe they will deny you entry into the dining room unless you are wearing something truly inappropriate. This is our experience and will not tell others how we think they should dress. I will just offer advice from my own experience, please don’t stress about it and enjoy your cruise!

Thanks! Haven't seen that term before and didn't know what it actually consists of. Nowadays, I figure that most personal information is available to many people/companies no matter how much we may try to keep it private. In this case, I am, to the extent that I can, keeping it between Princess and myself and have no need for shoreside transactions (Radiqal). I don't think there would be any issues when I check in Sunday but if I encounter any issues, I will come back and post.

I checked out the "Stored Payment Authorization" and "Terms & Conditions" on the app. I'm the first to admit that I don't always understand "Legalease" but I attached a bit below of the info they collect. I'm not sure it "Payment Intent Token" includes the number but it appears they do collect quite a bit of data, including security photo. Also in the Terms & Conditions, 3.4(b) says something about not taking liability for warranty, refunds, charge backs or disputes but under personal data collected it states they want email, phone to reach out in case of disputes or charge backs. Do we lose control of disputes with our credit card company directly? In any case, we are green in the old app and have our medallions for our upcoming cruise and will not be adding a CC for shoreside transactions. The personal data we collect We collect personal data about individuals from various sources described below. Where applicable, we indicate whether and why individuals must provide us with personal data, as well as the consequences of failing to do so. A. Information that we collect when a merchant’s customer interacts with a Radiqal POS (i) Information that we collect when individuals make a payment When you make a payment at a merchant using a Radiqal Medallion Pay Point of Sale system (“Radiqal POS”), we collect information about the transaction, which may include personal data. Information about transactions includes the tokenized representation of the payment card used (“Payment Intent Token”), name associated with the payment card, ship or vessel that the card user is currently sailing on “(“Ship Name”), customer photo (“Guest Security Picture”), electronic signature, name and location of the merchant at which the transaction occurred, date and time of the transaction, transaction amount, transaction details, and information about the goods or services purchased in the transaction. (ii) Additional information merchants’ customers may provide through the Radiqal POS We may collect additional information, depending on how a merchant configures its Radiqal POS. This information may include: Your email address or phone number, for example, to reach out to you in case of disputes or chargebacks, if you choose to receive an electronic receipt or opt-in to receive marketing communications Your marketing preferences, such as whether you wish to receive marketing communications or newsletters Information about your participation in a merchant’s loyalty program, if offered and if you choose to participate Information about your participation in a merchant’s warranty program, if offered and if you choose to participate Other information you choose to enter into the Radiqal POS, such as your birthdate, interests or preferences, reviews, and feedback

I have three upcoming cruises. For the cruise next week, I won my bid (first time winning). For the cruise in March, I get the message that says "This reservation is not eligible for Princess Upgrade at this time." For the May cruise, I get the message "This reservation is not eligible for Princess Upgrade." but also shows the table showing the info about the time frames. It sounds like not all guests or even entire cruises may be eligible for bidding. It is up to the discretion of Princess. The terms state "Select booked guests" so who knows how they determine who is eligible. These Terms govern the Princess Cruise Lines, Ltd. ("PCL") stateroom bidding upgrade program (the "Program"). The Program provides select booked guests with an opportunity to submit an offer to PCL to upgrade from their originally purchased stateroom category to a higher stateroom category for select PCL cruises. Program is not open to general public and is only open to guests that PCL has selected to participate. Eligibility: The Program is only available to PCL guests ("Eligible Program Guest" or "Guest"), which guests will be determined by PCL in its sole discretion. Guests who are determined by PCL to be eligible for the Program can confirm their eligibility by visiting the Site as set out in the paragraph below. Some Guests will also receive a Program email invitation from PCL. Invitation and eligibility as a Guest may not be transferred or shared. Selection of Guests will be in PCL's sole discretion, but all Guests must be at least 21 years of age or older (18 years of age or older in Australia), must have booked a PCL Cruise (as defined below), and provided final payment on such Cruise. Individuals deemed Eligible Program Guests for one cruise does not guarantee that such guests will also be Eligible Program Guests for future PCL cruises, if any. In addition to the official Program email, guests can check to see if they are Eligible Program Guests by accessing the Program landing page website (the "site") via links on princess.com or via the Cruise Personalizer on princess.com to see if they are able to submit a bid. If the Program does not show as available on such page or the guest is not able to submit a Bid (as defined below), then such guest is not eligible for this Program. Eligible Cruises: PCL will select the exact cruises, dates, and stateroom categories that will be available for the Program, all in its sole discretion (each eligible cruise, an "Eligible Cruise" or "Cruise"). Not all cruises, stateroom categories, or bookings will be selected for participation, regardless of availability.

We had this exact cabin booked for the Solar Eclipse cruise but ended up cancelling it. Since we had never been in a forward facing cabin before, we decided to book this cabin on a cruise earlier this year so we would know if we would like it for the Solar Eclipse cruise. We ended up really liking this cabin. Everything Lady Arwen posted was also our experience. I did ask the cabin attendant if we were allowed to go on the balcony while at sea and was told there was no problem with that and they would not lock the doors. He said that we did need to keep the curtains closed after dark. I thought the metal wall would be a problem for me but it really wasn't. Yes, sitting down does limit your view and I was worried but if I remember correctly, that was very short lived for me. The fantastic views on sail away and the balcony size more than made up for it. We would definitely book one of these rooms again. We had to think long and hard about cancelling the eclipse cruise. Enjoy the cruise!

Thank you for the advice! I want to enjoy every bite. I just got the email that the medallions have shipped. It's getting real now.

I did pick the Kona day and will contact room service about a time. Thank you! I'm really looking forward to this dinner!

We are taking our first cruise to Hawaii next month and after reading this thread, we want to add another first since the dinner sounds so wonderful. I paid for the UBD online but I couldn't figure out how to pick a time. I was hoping to have the dinner while in Kona since we don't have anything scheduled for this day and I was thinking it might be too cold while at sea. Is the time something they assign once you are on the ship?

We've only done the bid a few times. If eligible to bid, you should get an email or you can log into Princess, go to My Account then Manage This Booking. From there scroll down and you click on the Princess Upgrade box. It will show you what you are eligible to bid on. You cannot bid on a particular room, just a catagory. In our case, we booked a regular balcony and our choices were Premium Balcony, Mini Suite or Club Class/Reserve Mini Suite. You won't know if you have won the bid until closer to the crusie. Ours was at about 30 days and we got the Premium Balcony but we also have been notified that we did'nt win while already on the cruise. When I bid, I just went on the website to see what rooms were available in the catagories I bid on and made my decision to bid based on if the lowest room in the catagory would be good for us. You don't get to pick the room, it is assigned when they approve the bid. I've read that some were able to change after winning by calling and asking to change to another room in the same category if some were available. I've not done this so I don't know if this will always work. There are time frames involved and I don't know what they are but 2025 seems too far in advance to bid. There are many who have done this much more that us and can correct me if I'm wrong or left anything out.