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Wow, that is great info and i do exactly what you described. Put in $40 loose it in 5 min and walk away. Ill your way next time. That would definitely explain how our friends get away with not loosing a ton of money to get those offers. Thanks again for the info

We sailed HAL and Princess pretty much exclusively in the late 90s early 2000s when we were in our 20s and 30s. Lived in FL at the time and easy to just hop on a ship with no airfare. Definitely the youngest people on most cruises, but we loved the laid back atmosphere and we pretty much had the bars to ourselves after 10ish. Fast forward 20 years of having kids and cruising RCL, NCL, we cant wait to get back to Princess and HAL. Although this time, we will be the ones going to bed at 10... We have recently done a couple X cruises and we think thats a good line when our older kids go with us, 18 and 20. We're taking our first Princess cruise in 20+ years in april so fingers crossed its still somewhat how we remember. Im sure some things have changed.

I know this is a personal question but im going to ask anyway. How much do you usually have to gamble to get the offers? Friends of ours say they only gamble $500-1k per cruise and they get offers all the time on RCL. And, they say they usually come home even or ahead. That sounds odd to me that they would get a free cruise and the max they would ever loose is $1k??

perfect, thanks for the info.

No, just a regular cruise from the princess website. Thx

Thank you, found it. But cant bid. Maybe it takes some time for my payment to finalize?? The cruise is in 65 days and i booked through the princess website so i assume i would be eligible based on the criteria it listed. Guess i have to wait a couple days. Thanks

That is correct. Last night. I remember correctly i got an email with how to bid on upgrades but that may have been another cruise line.

Hi, we just booked a last minute cruise in April on Enchanted and i thought princess had some upgrade bidding process. Did we miss that with a booking this late or would we still have the ability to bit for an upgrade? Thanks

Thanks everyone for the info and my wife nixed the Caribbean princess after reading this and watching some youtube videos. However, we are stuck on the 2 extra days and are now looking at Enchanted princess compared to Reflection. 7 day Eastern Caribbean, same mini suite, about $200 more than Reflection. Enchanted is newer, but we are concerned about the issues listed above on Caribbean so do we just bit the bullet and go with the 5 day reflection? Thanks again. Decisions decisions...

Thanks for the reply and the two itineraries are below. However, we most likely wont even get off the ship at any port or if we do, it will be a quick walk around the port. Been to all of them a lot and this is more of a decompress last minute cruise for my wife and I so not looking for an excursion time...

My wife and i are trying to decide between a 5 day Celebrity Reflection April 21 or a 7 Day Caribbean princess April 20th. And yes i know im posting on the celebrity board and the reason for that is because im leaning toward Princess from a value standpoint, she loves celebrity so i told her i would post the question here. Differences, Celebrity is a retreat guarantee suite with the classic drink package and WIFI. Princess is a Mini suite, their premium drink package, gratuities, wifi, 2 speciality restaurants, and a photo package. and of course, it 2 additional days. Cost are Celebrity, $3136 and Princess, $3336 I think from a value standpoint its obvious, but we havent been on princess in a long time, 20+ years, and we loved Silhouette last year. Retreat is also a bonus but does it out weigh the value and more days? Has anyone done both and have any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

wow, this thread got resurrected. Happy to record that we had no issues with washcloths on our cruise earlier this year. Plenty of others, but washcloths were not one of them...

Thanks everyone. YC is where im leaning as well, but my wife is still not on board with another MSC cruise. I guess PTSD from the last one... Thanks again

We have a particular date we are looking at a cruise that meets everyones work and school schedules and have narrowed it down to 2 lines. MSC Seascape in the yacht club or celebrity Apex non retreat cabin. Both itineraries and prices are similar as well as the cruise length. We have been on MSC Seascape and although it was a nice ship, we did not have a good time. Overcrowded, bad experience with other rude passengers, service wasnt great. My question is would Yacht club remove those issues and do i roll the dice on MSC again? When i read reviews from others that were on the same cruise we were on in the yacht club, it was night and day different than what we experienced. thoughts?

Ha good point. However, it all worked out in my favor so all good. thx

we did, but they would lump them all together so we couldnt tell what was in the lump sum they charged our credit card. For example, if we charged $150 one day for drinks, specialty restaurant, etc, in the next day or two, they would charge us $450 because they lumped a bunch of charges together from previous days, but we had no idea what those charges included. Last day, day and a half, 2 days, etc.

We have 2 cabins that are supposedly linked, but when i go to book shore excursions, i can only see the two people in the cabin im logged into. On RCL and I think NCL, when our cabins were linked, i was able to pick all of the people in the linked cabins for shore excursions and pay for them all at once. Is that possible with Princess? I dont want to waste my time trying to explain what im trying to do with customer service if its not a thing on princess. Thanks

Thanks and great. However, that is not how it worked for us on MSC in June. We never got a final bill and there were over 20 charges on my amex at the end of the cruise that didnt match against anything that was in the app. Maybe they had a computer issue during that cruise, but it did work out in the end for us because they couldnt explain to AMEX what the charges were for either.

Thanks and definitely sounds like it does more than MSC. Speaking of that, do you get a final bill at the end of the cruise that outlines all of your charges? What im use to from every other cruise line we have been on is i get a final bill at the end of the cruise, say $1500 for example, and then i get that charge on my credit card and all of the pending charges throughout the week go away. Not so with MSC, i got over 20 charges that didnt map back to what was on my account in the app. I assume they were bundling them. So messed up they couldnt even explain what the charges were for to AMEX... However that did play in my favor but it was a major hassle to get straightened out.

Oh good. Almost reminds me of an apple airtag. The MSC one was like the chip in your credit card. It had to be held against a reader. Thanks

Thanks Everyone. One more question. On MSC, we usually had to give our wristbands to the bartenders because the readers were either too short to reach where we were sitting or now working at all. Is that an issue on princess? It seemed like MSC was still trying to figure it out. thx

Is there anything we have to do to get our medallion sent to us in the mail or does it just happen automatically after we check in? Also, do they give you some type of wearable like a watch band to wear it? MSC had it built into a watch like band and it was really nice because it was small, lightweight and we just wore it everywhere so we didnt have to think about taking our cruise card with us. thx

is there a age limit for the Concierge lounge?

Thanks for the info everyone. Sounds like location and a smaller balcony are the only negatives, but neither are issues for us. In fact, we really wanted the window suite because we dont use the balconies but we couldnt get 2 on the same deck. Thanks again for the great info.

Hi, We just booked the premium suite, however it seems bigger than a Penthouse but it was cheaper. The location of the premium cabins we booked seem good, front corners of deck 10, unless someone tells me that's a bad location. Cabins in red in the pic below. so is there anything else that would make those cabins cheaper than a penthouse? Thanks