MacMadame

My bread motto is: if a piece of bread is only edible if you slather butter on it, then it's not worth eating. That doesn't mean I won't add butter to good-tasting bread because good bread with a bit of butter is even better.

I got that call last week. The guy said he'd send me an email and he did and he was a real CVP. He wasn't from that ONE company that does Princess Promotions and didn't try to sell me anything.

Probably. 😄

FYI: The Yellow Fever vaccine is not recommended for people 60+. I would ask your tour company. We're doing a tour in Columbia and it is *required* to use US dollars to pay for it. No CC, no local currency. Different tours have different requirements so it pays to check. Is this an upgrade offer? I read here that someone put in multiple upgrade offers and all but one were canceled and then a day later they got the notice that the uncanceled offer was accepted. If it's not an upgrade offer, ignore me. 😄 Close enough. 🤣 Seriously, Miami and FFL are right next to each other and you can fly into either airport if you want.

They were talking about the Plus Beverage Package, not the Plus Fare. I had to read it a few times to make sure I was reading it correctly. Confusing names.

I do agree that tipping culture in the US is out of control. Part of me rejects all these new places to tip and these new base amounts. But I don't want to be one of those "when I was a kid....!" people who complain about tipping the counter person at McDonalds (I never had to do that before!) and how can the basic tip be 18% and not 10% like it used to be when I was a kid? Things change. Bread is no longer 25¢ a loaf either. 🤷‍♂️

Yes and it's not like by not giving them to you, they can make more money. Once you are off the ship, is there a way to order prints? I haven't seen any. I bet they delete the files to make room for future sailings at a certain point if not right away.

That's what we did! We saved almost $1000 and got a better location. I called the CVP line and got some random person whose name I forgot to write down. It was very easy.

Why didn't they take her somewhere and have her print the document? Or did it need to come from China with some sort of seal on it?

Coral Princess, full-transit, east to west. It's a pretty typical Princess itinerary with Cartegena, full transit with the next day stopped in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and PV in Mexico before heading home to SF. Going east-to-west we have a port-side cabin because not only is that recommended for the locks but it should give us some really good sunsets for the 2nd half of the trip. When deciding on a balcony vs. inside, at the time we booked, the price differential wasn't *that* much. I have looked at downgrading to an inside but there are so few left and they are all in bad locations like butting up to the laundromat.

Could be. Also, just because they have most in the 18-34 range, doesn't mean they don't have a good amount in their 40s, enough to be worth it. Plus, now that I think about it, when they came back after a few years of a format change during the pandemic, they came back as "we're back!" but they play a LOT more classic alternative and stuff popular a few years ago than they used to. So maybe they are changing to match their aging listeners rather than keeping after that younger demographic? I'm not in their target demographics either way. I just thought it was interesting especially since all these ships are sailing at 100% capacity. Why advertise at all? I guess Princess knows something we don't know.

Then what's the point? I guess they figure they are only going to be used to post to the web? I've had good luck res-ing stuff up in Photoshop but I'm not sure you could do that with 16-20kb. That's obscenely small.

And now I'm boosting mine correcting yours. 🤣

For pool exercise, I use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Flotation-Equipment-Resistance-Adjustable-Accessory/dp/B07PVPRJ4S/ref=asc_df_B07PVPRJ4S/

Pricing is the hardest part of owning a business IME and there are a lot of data and formulas that go into it. When I had my event photography business, I sold a single CD with all pictures in digital format for way less than selling a single print. I made a lot more money selling something that didn't cost me much to make to people who never would have spent that much in single prints, which cost more to make. Sure, some of those people may have spent more a la carte if I didn't offer the package but most wouldn't so I came out ahead. Crew appreciation, wifi, and the zero alcohol package = 16 + 25 + 35 = $76/day. The Plus package is cheaper than that. If they were to offer those 3 things as a package, what would you pay and would it be worth it to Princess? The drink portion of Plus is about $20 a day. 16 + 25 + 20 = $61. So the same cost as Princess Plus! How about only $10 more for the drinks? That's still around $50 pp / day. And it wouldn't include free room service, free Medalion shipping, free OceanNow, 2 fitness classes, 2 casual dining, etc. that you get with Plus. Would that make sense for you? It seems a bit expensive to me. I think the packages are great and have Princess Plus myself even though dh and I aren't big drinkers. But they just don't add up for some people. 20-25% of the people, it appears according to Princess' numbers. I don't think it would be useful for that. Can you drink $76+ worth of drinks in a day? That's a lot.

I've always sailed with inside cabins before. They were all Caribbean cruises that were port intensive so we were only in the cabin to change clothes and sleep and I prefer to sleep in the darkest dark. And also save money. 🤣 For our Panama Canal cruise, we decided on a balcony because I figured after being out and about for the first set of locks and at least part of Gatun Lake, we might want a bit of a rest and to enjoy the view from the balcony before going out again to experience the second set of locks. And having a balcony to enjoy sunsets on multiple evenings might be fun too. I was also thinking of setting up a time-lapse camera from the balcony to capture the whole thing.

Princess has started heavy advertising on my local Alt Rock radio station which appeals mostly to the 18-34 demographic. They seem to actively be going after a younger demographic.

My wish is to stop talking about children in bars. 🤣

If they could make more with this kind of package, then they would. IMO. Companies make money on bundles when a certain amount of the offerings in the package don't get used by everyone. For example, most of us won't drink 15 drinks a day. Many won't use the fitness classes. Hardly anyone uses the 'premier' desserts, at least not 2 per day. If you make a cheaper package that only includes the things everyone wants at a price cheaper than buying them a la carte which is then closer to the actual costs, how do they make money?

Boones Farm. Am I dating myself? 🤣 I love a good spreadsheet!

Some of them are for the better IMO. I am happy that I don't have to figure out who and how much to tip, for example. You are comparing apples to broccoli. If you want a fair comparison, compare it to the sailing the Titanic. 😉

That's on my Princess wish list. 😄

They do on some ships.

So appropriate! 😄 It sounds like there is still 2x a day cabin service but what most of us think of as "turn down" might not be part of it. i.e., the bedclothes turned down with the chocolate on the pillow is not exactly happening 100% of the time. It's been *so long* since we cruised that pretty much everything is different! No more set serving times for dinner, a 24/7 buffet, gratuities automatically added to the folio, non-alcoholic drinks not included, and many, many more add-ons such as specialty dining, extra food in the MDR, and special activities. Some of these changes did throw me for a loop but some are welcome. None of them are going to stop us from having a good time but they are going to make cruising more like a regular vacation where you have to think more about your choices.

Are you sure about this? I've seen people who were sure they were going to stop doing it but not that they actually had.