beg3yrs

This answer is a common misconception. EZ Air does not change your flights or connections, the airlines do because of schedule changes. This drawback is the same whether you book through EZ Air, through a TA or direct with the airlines. So as a drawback of using EZ Air, it is not. If this does happen, you must use EZ Air if you haven't yet been fully ticketed and you need to correct something. Once you're fully ticketed, you can call the airline to get things straightened out if necessary. I check my airline reservations almost daily. Typically it's a Sunday morning when changes can be found but not always.

I laughed at this post but still want to make a point, without starting yet another fight, that tipping in the USA is usually optional with the exception in some dining establishments, large parties will be automatically assessed an 18% gratuity (for us that usually less than what we'd leave). Otherwise it's up to the customer. Society here doesn't believe in "forced tipping" but does believe tipping is customary and the amount is based on the subjective quality of the service received. And, yes, it is funny to make a big deal out of the 1.1% CC surcharge as in the USA the credit card companies typically charge around 3% or more. Heck, even direct bank transfers (ACH) are starting to get surcharges. I think the OP is just surprised that there even is a surcharge and is wanting to understand. I remember my first visit to Oz and learning about the fee. Good thing my hotel stay was on loyalty points!

This was my thinking as well. I look at purchasing gift cards with the 8% discount as kind of pre-paying for a cruise with the benefit of getting the discount. I don't however, use the GCs to pay up until it's final payment time. That way if something comes up and we aren't going to cruise, it's so much simpler without having to get GCs refunded.

They were in place before Covid as well but then were discontinued and came back with Covid.

To add a GC to OBC before sailing you have to call the Princess customer number. Some reps aren't sufficiently trained to add GCs to your booking as OBC but it can be done. If you strike out you can call again and try to get another rep. Otherwise as you said, just wait until you're on board. If you choose the on board option, be sure and take printed copies of the screen with the GC number and PIN as I've had GS demand to keep those copies. I used to just have a spreadsheet which was good enough until they changed their policy. Fortunately I had kept the original screens on my laptop. I had to email them to myself, go to the Internet Cafe, log in to my email and then print the files. I wouldn't try to cash in the GCs on the first day as GS is swamped. It's ok to wait until they're not too busy.

That's very odd to me. Seems like somehow that card was refunded from another source. I'm not sure I'd call the gift card support folks (they can see all the transactions on the card) as if it's an error then bye-bye free money!

We've done both as well, multiple times. As @Lady Arwen described, New Year's Eve is definitely a lot of fun. Every time we've enjoyed this it was a formal night and the vibe was amazing with lots of party dresses and suits and tuxedos. Of course everything else was acceptable too. What was really amazing was the next morning all the confetti, popped balloons and streamers were nowhere to be found. We really enjoyed Christmas on the ship. Festive decorations, organized Christmas Carol singing, visits from Santa and so on. On one of the ships the officers were allowed to bring their families on board (this was just before COVID). We had our grandkids with us and they got to pal around with children from other countries all week. To this day they still keep in touch.

@Rick&Jeannie have given you excellent information. Once I was putting almost $6K on account at Guest Services and a supervisor came over and wanted to make sure I wasn't overdoing it. He basically said it's difficult to make refunds if the funds aren't used. I can understand that as they'd have to go back through all the different cards and determine which ones to refund. Then he saw our current balance and when I told him we intended to play a bunch more Bingo he wasn't worried. 🤔

Heck, even driving in the same day makes me nervous. We are driving to San Pedro from Tucson in April. Originally were driving a day early and overnighting by the port but DW doesn't like the super long drives. Our compromise was to overnight in Palm Springs and drive to San Pedro that morning. Given the unreliability of Southern California and especially Los Angeles traffic, I'll be pushing for a very early departure from Palm Springs.

The limit is five cards per month per person. If you purchase cards on the last day of the month, you can purchase again the next day.

Disembarking at Victoria is fraught with peril as that port is often missed.

You will get to know the crew, especially the cruise staff, pretty well and they'll start calling you by first name if you'd like. You will stop saying you're going back to the cabin and will say you're going home. You will start wondering how you can live permanently on a ship. Specialty restaurants are a good option when the menu gets boring. Personally on a repeat menu I will select something that I would normally pass on. I am often surprised that I enjoyed it.

Definitely not from my TA. That's a screenshot right off the Travel Summary I get from the Princess website. It's down at the bottom under Special Services. Here's a more complete summary:

I wouldn't expect the new app to be available until December 1 when it's released to the general public.

With all that, they'll probably have only one "Fun 21" table on board. I hate slots as they're mindless and for me, "Fun 21", with its low minimum wager, slow play and strategy differences because of an odd deck, is a way to spend some time with other like-minded players just having some fun.

My mistake!

@jagoffee I booked with a TA so I don't have the pricing section you show in your summary. But, I do have a list of special services down toward the end. It lists the Specialty Dining 2 Nights just one time for each passenger however if you do the math on the pricing, $176.40 for 6 dinners works out to $29.40 which seems right as if Princess intends to provide 2 Specialty Dining Nights per segment. Still looking for someone to verify this specific instance. @memoak just replied that they got two 360 Experience invites per segment on a B2B booked as a single journey which is a similar concept but still has minor differences. Fingers crossed!

Was this loyalty earned before 2017?

No problem. We too usually only cruise with the Plus package. For some reason our TA was able to procure the Premier package at no additional cost on a B2B2B (each segment is 7 days) this coming June on the Sun Princess. Hoping it's not going to be one of those "once you try it you can't go back" experiences like we had with overseas business class air travel.

We have firsthand knowledge and can confirm that as of last January it was $1500 per person. We've paid over $10K using gift cards for final payment. It was done through a TA.

Thanks, yes for suites and Elite mini-bars, Princess has always treated each segment as a new cruise regardless as to how it was booked. Previous posters opined way back that the Premier package specialty dinners would be treated differently. Trying to get some first-hand rock-hard no-doubt been-there-done-that answers on this question.

Now that the packages have been around for a while, I'd like to hear from people who booked a multi-segment cruise with a single booking number and the Premier Package. Specifically I want to know if you received two specialty dinners for each segment or were you limited to two for the whole booking? Looking at my travel summary, it lists the "value" of the specialty dinners as if it was for two dinners for each segment. However way back there were posts (before this was well established) that regardless of the number of segments, you would only get two dinners. Now it's time for first-hand experiences to be shared!

That's been the behavior for as long as I can remember (and that length of time is getting shorter every day ... ) but @Host CJSKIDS recently had a different experience where the excursion was outright cancelled with all bookings being refunded. Then the same excursion reappeared at a higher price.

We did this itinerary in 2022 on the Island Princess and we're going to do it again on the Emerald Princess in 2025. Yes, for us it was that good! IIRC, excursions in Alta were available for both days the whole time. That said, I just took a look at our excursions for 2025 and see exactly what you do for 2024. Only excursions for the first day are listed. In 2022 unless it was a late night or overnight excursion, the second day pretty much offered similar excursions to the first day. BTW, sailing out that late was amazing. The Northern Lights put on quite an amazing show as they were the backdrop to all the islands of the channel. Stay up, it's worth it.

Yes, I prefer to say "included".