ReadyToCruise2

We purchased the Princess Plus package once we boarded the ship on our recent cruise. From my viewpoint, there is almost no reason to purchase the Princess Plus or Princess Premier package pre-cruise. The only reasons I can think of would be that the price goes up (it didn't, it was still $60) or as noted, they limit it/sell-out, which seems highly unlikely. The reasons not to purchase the Plus or Premier package pre-cruise: 1) It becomes part of the cruise fare and the cancelation guidelines. 2) Princess has your money earlier than purchasing on-board. 3) In our case, we had some on-board credits and the Plus package included everything we would purchase, so we were able to use our OBC's against the purchase of the package. We made the mistake on a prior cruise pre-purchasing the Plus package and then ended up using the OBCs buying stuff we didn't really want/need in the ships stores. 4) If you purchase the Princess insurance, the insurance goes up when you purchase the Plus/Premier package pre-cruise (added 8% of the Plus package cost to the insurance). Obviously there was no bump to the insurance cost purchasing the Plus package on-board. We wondered how hard it would be to find a crew member trying to "sell" us the Plus or Premier package once onboard. We bumped into a crew member holding up a advertising flyer in about 10 feet after boarding. We knew we wanted to buy it, so we were a really easy sell. It just took a minute - he just entered the purchase in his hand-held computer. The package was activated in their system immediately upon purchase. Checking our on-board account, it showed a refund of $10 against the Plus package purchase price for both my wife and my statement ($20 total) to compensate for the medallion shipping without even asking.

The earliest boarding group time on the Medallion app for our 11/23/2022 cruise on the Emerald Princess is 1:00pm out of Ft. Lauderdale / Port Everglades. The last arrival time goes out to 4:30pm. The travel summary indicates boarding will be at 12:30pm (which I think is their generic time) but indicates to check the Medallion App to confirm your time. We had been used to boarding before 12 noon there in the past at Port Everglades. We did get to the terminal one time pretty early (maybe 10am or so) and they didn't even have the door open to get inside until 11am or so (don't remember the exact times, it was awhile back 🙂). Everyone arriving early just formed a line outside the door. The later than normal boarding time on the 11/23/2022 cruise is most certainly due to the Emerald Princess coming in from a TA cruise that morning. My understanding is that the Coast Guard, CDC, etc. do a more through check on ships coming into the country for the 1st time in awhile, which delays the boarding.

I have the app on 3 devices (2 cell phones and an android tablet). The app has locked up on one device, but not another one day. I guess this is Princess' version of the "blue screen of death" - but just on the app 🤔. Then I have the problem on a different device the next day. Same problem this morning. Each time (after trying the reboot of the device, etc. with no luck) I have uninstalled the app and reinstalled it from the Google Play store and it then worked. I might just be picking up an update by doing this.

We got our Medallions on 11/12 for our 11/23 cruise. Had gotten the link to the tracking number via email. Originally looked like the Medallions had gotten hung up in Carson, CA for a few days. Now I'm thinking that may be some sort of customs center before being transferred to the USPS because they were delivered there by 4PX from China (I could enter the same tracking number in the 4PX system to see some earlier data). Once the Medallions got into the USPS system, the tracking information was pretty solid and they moved pretty quickly. Anyway, got them in hand. Now the funny part. If I go to the app, the status still says for my wife that hers have shipped and for myself the status is to pickup order at port! If I go one step deeper in the app and hit "Order History", it shows the status as "Order delivered" - which of course they are. I wouldn't have even noticed the discrepancy (no reason to look anymore - I have them) but I was starting to input the information for another cruise next year, but got taken to the page for our 11/23 Medallion order instead.

I wouldn't think the Medallion is specifically linked to a cabin, just your overall booking. They should do the linking between the Medallion and a cabin and any packages you may have purchased within their computer system. Kind of the same thing they would do if you lost a Medallion on the ship and got a replacement - they would just deactivate the old Medallion and link a new one. At least that is what I suspect they would do!

I got an email on Nov 5th that the medallion had shipped for our Nov 23rd cruise. There was a tracking number and a link in the email. BTW, the same tracking information is also available on the Princess app (kind of buried going through the "Choose your Medallion wearable" section then the "Order History" tab. The odd part was the tracking number took me to the USPS website and showed shipped and delivered to California on Nov 4th (looks like it came out of China) but had not actually been handed off to the USPS for final delivery. It took until Nov 9th to get into the actual USPS system. Estimated delivery to me is now showing on Nov 15th - a week before our cruise.

Coral, Great information! We will be boarding the Emerald Princess after you arrive on Nov. 23 for a 10-day Panama Canal cruise. Even though yours is a longer cruise, I suspect there will be some commonality (some menus, entertainment, etc.) between your cruise and ours, so your review is very helpful of what to expect (and at the very least getting us more excited to be onboard!). Also, based on the number of still available cabins on our cruise, I suspect our passenger load will be similar to yours at maybe 2/3 of full capacity. One question: Are they using all 3 main dining rooms on your cruise? I've noticed on our cruise in pre-reserving dining times in the DMW app that only the Da Vinci and Botticelli dining rooms are available to select. The Michelangelo never comes up as an option.

We are obviously on the same 10 day Emerald cruise in November. We are in a regular balcony cabin, so the minimum bids for each category for us are higher (apparently accounting for the fact that we are starting at a lower booked cabin rate). We were only given options to bid on a premium balcony minimum at $65pp, a Mini Suite at $150pp and a Club Class Mini at $270pp. It is also interesting that we weren't given the option to bid on any of the other categories that you were offered for the Penthouses or Premium/Vista Suites (but wouldn't have been interested in those anyway). So Princess apparently regulates which levels are offered that can be bid on based on what cabin level from which you are starting.

Good point. We booked the Princess Plus package at the time of booking the cabin. In the booking confirmation/invoice, it is just part of the total fare (not separated at all, i.e. no indication of what the added cost was for the plus package over basic standard fare), but with a note indicating that the elements of the Plus package were included. That most likely puts the whole fare (including the Plus Package) subject to the cruise fare cancellation schedule provisions - which are of course much more severe than the 3 days before sailing timeline. We got a separate email called a "Special Service Order Summary" which also showed we were getting the 3 elements of the Plus package (no cost break-out except what was being applied for the crew appreciation). Also interesting in the Travel Summary, it breaks out the Plus Package as "Special Services" showing the full/standard cost of each element (total cost way above the price paid for the Plus Package) but doesn't connect those cost values to anything else. So, I think you are right. That would probably put the Plus Package cancellation cost on the standard cancellation schedule provisions.

I had wondered about this myself before I ordered it anyway. Some terms and conditions are buried pretty deep several levels down. You will probably say "Geez" to yourself when you follow below. If you are booking a cruise online, when you get to the page where you are selecting Princess Plus (or Princess Standard or Princess Premier) there is a link at the bottom right above the price (what that link says varies based on promotions, but get you to the same point). Way down in the page that link takes you to, you will find another link "full terms & conditions for Plus Beverage Package". Once you get to that page, there is another link to "View Plus Beverage Package Terms & Conditions". In the Terms and Conditions of the Plus Beverage package, last bullet under the Package Details and Qualifications: The package is NOT refundable or transferable once purchased on board, and for advance purchased packages, NOT refundable or transferable within three days of sailing. It is not clear from all this wording about the cancelations of the other portions of the Princess Plus Package (the Wifi and Crew Appreciation), but I would guess the same might apply. They would probably say you forfeit the regular value of the Plus Beverage package, which is way more than the total cost of the Princess Plus package. But it also looks to me if you buy this all onboard separately (the Beverage package on the first day and the wifi package) and pay the crew appreciation the regular onboard way, it would be a lot more expensive.

We have not cruised since the new system of making dining reservations through the Medallion App, but it appears you can make a fixed reservation every night, with the same wait staff to make it just like the old fixed Traditional Dining (early or late). And supposedly choose (and change) who you want to dine with - just it looks like that system doesn't work as advertised based on other comments here. But if you met someone on a cruise and had the old traditional fixed dining (with original fixed table mates), you wouldn't have be able to solve the changing table mates easily in the old system either. To me, the big problem the new "Dine My Way" system solves was what continued to happen to us on previous cruises. In the past, Princess allocated one (or two, depending on how many signed up for traditional dining) of the 3 dining rooms to traditional dining and the others to my time dining. What was happening all the time was that a lot of the traditional diners decided they wanted to dining later (or earlier) than their fixed time on a selected night and just showed up at the my time dining rooms. This was jamming up the my time dining venues and the traditional dining rooms were half empty (with that rooms waiters doing nothing). While the staff could turn away a traditional time diner away from the my time dining rooms, they seldom did. It was also apparent to me that a very large majority of cruisers prefer the flexibility of being able to dine at different times. I wonder how many of the issues everyone is seeing is more staffing issues (that are going on everywhere and not just cruise ships) or an App that is just not working the way it should. Seems like the new system would solve everyone's likes, but apparently doesn't.

We have made a Specialty Dining reservation in the Medallion App for our upcoming November 2022 cruise. Our credit card has been charged and the reservation shows up in the App correctly. All looks good to go. But now we've decided we would prefer to change the night of the SD reservation. I can't find any way to modify the reservation and it seems I can only cancel it (and get a credit card credit?). I'm assuming that is what I have to do and then add in a new reservation for the different night, incurring a new credit card charge. The only issue I see is that apparently some folks are having trouble getting the credit card credit back. Just curious if anyone knows a way to simply modify the reservation (without involving credit card credits/new charges). We don't want to wait until we are on the ship to make the change.

Great suggestion! We recently wanted to book a Deluxe Balcony cabin on a Feb 2023 cruise for 2. When we looked on-line, all the Deluxe Balconies showed either with "No Longer Any Stateroom Available . . ." on most decks or on a few decks got the "Reserve a Guaranteed Stateroom". If you looked on-line for regular balconies, lots showed up available. We were planning to use a Princess Cruise Vacation Planner anyway and had just wanted to do some pre-homework and pick a general location on the ship. When we called our CVP to see what she could do, she had no trouble booking us a specific cabin. We didn't think anything about it until we saw your suggestion. So we went back in on-line and indicated 3 guests and took a look at the same cruise. Sure enough, cabins showed up available everywhere (even on the decks that had the "No Longer Any Staterooms Available . . ." notation when trying to book for 2. Looks like you may be able to look at availability using the 3 guests approach and then calling a Princess CVP to workaround this problem. Not sure if an outside travel agent could do the same thing.