20165

16 minutes ago, Shippy said:

    It is not how much you win or lose but how much you run through the machine. I play only penny machines & try to keep my bet at about $2.00.

Example...I put $40. in the machine & lose it all in 5 minutes. I have almost no points.

I put $40. in and hit a jackpot & walk away. I have almost no points.

I put $40. dollars in & get a lot of play and constantly hit $5, $20, etc. I might play there for an hour. I call these my point machines because whether or not I come away with any money, I have gather a lot of points.

You will get on an email list with a few different cruise lines because they share the gambling info. The offers can be quite good.

 They seem to be catering to gamblers lately. Just off the Discovery & the casino was constantly packed.

I find cruise casinos, on the whole, to be just as good if not better than a land casino.

I lost on this last cruise but was in the casino A LOT so just got a VERY GOOD offer. 

My husband actually came out ahead. He bets higher because he likes the Wheel of fortune machine. So, even though his bets were higher which built points faster, I was in the casino much more than him so I got a better offer.

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.

9 hours ago, Shippy said:

IF you get an offer. it will usually be for 3 different category upgrades.

 They will give you a minimum bid. Sometimes I think their minimum is to high & I will not bid. If I think it low I will go $35 to $50. over that..

You win some, you lose some    :O)

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??

14 minutes ago, Crookshanks said:

I just went back to my emails in November. 

I booked on the 13th and got the email to upgrade on the 15th. 

I bid for upgrade on the 16th.

My bid was accepted on December 13th.

perfect, thanks for the info.

4 minutes ago, Crookshanks said:

I did have to wait for final payment to be confirmed. So that makes sense.  Did you book with a casino offer?

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

11 minutes ago, flying boat said:

If you go into your cruise personalizer on the Princess site, under your booking on the Summary page at the bottom is a link to upgrade bidding.  You will need to enter your last name and booking number, it will bring up available categories to bid on or tell you if your not eligible to bid for some reason.

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

2 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Their post said "just booked".  That certainly suggested within 24 hours 

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...

12 minutes ago, lola2013 said:

I have sailed on both ships…each twice.  I would definitely pick the extra two days on Princess.  From a strictly “girlie” standpoint, Princess has the bigger closet and self serve laundry on each deck although maybe not that important on a seven night cruise.  We did 14 nights on Caribbean Princess and the laundry was a life saver.  One downside is the dreaded shower curtain on Princess.  
You don’t mention itinerary, but I would still prefer Princess.

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.

5 hours ago, joeyancho said:

Be careful and don't run with those scissors.   It's funny until someone gets hurt,  then it's hilarious 😂 

 

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?

32 minutes ago, Rick&Jeannie said:

The wine was supposed to help you forget about what you were seeing on the folio...you didn't follow their guidelines! 😄

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

11 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

It only takes a few minutes but it's best to review your folio daily. That way there are no surprises when you get home. Some folks have said they were charged for a drink from a bar they never stopped at. Or if an excursion gets cancelled you want to make sure the refund shows up correctly.

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

23 minutes ago, reedprincess said:

It's a hybrid.

You'll have several pending/pre-authorization charges throughout the week - depending on what you spend aboard, as Princess checks that you have appropriate credit available.  

These charges are pending, and generally in the $26-36 range, give or take..  

You can monitor your actual onboard account on the app, at the freestanding kiosks near guest services (get a printout) or get a printout from guest services.. 

Final day, you'll have one single lump sum charge of total balance due and all the pre-authorizations will be released - how long those take to drop off depends on your bank.  

The final accounting is emailed a day or two after end of sailing.. (there's no longer a hard copy of final bill under your door or at door mailbox final morning).

I always screenshot my final bill morning of departure in case there's any discrepencies... (I often forget to get s final printout the night before or morning of departure).

 

Personally, I've never had any problems with MSC with erroneous final charges or such. Same pre-authorizations during a cruise like Princess and pending charges dropped off as expected..  

 

Enjoy! 

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.   

13 hours ago, reedprincess said:

It is not automatically mailed out. I don't think that was actually addressed... 

You do have to actually order it for delivery in the app/website.   Your check-in isn't complete til you've "ordered"  for delivery or pickup.

It is currently only delivered to US addresses.. 

 

It's super handy, more so in some ways than even the MSC bands (which we love).  The medallion itself is basically just the cruise card reimagined.   And you can use the large interactive screens around the ship (mainly elevator and stairwells) to locate companions, check current events aboard, and so forth. Plus there's the app, which allows for checking account, playing casino games, checking daily planner, locating companions, messaging, and Ocean Now, the food and drinks delivery section ($14.99 for activation onboard, or included at no additional charge for Plus or Premier cruise purchasers).  So, lots more functions with the app/screens then MSC bands, plus unlocks your room from further out, a couple feet instead of having to tap the door pad.  

Enjoy! 

 

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.

31 minutes ago, dlh015 said:

Not a problem with the Medallion...works great at a distance...

 

ETA: They can find you all over the ship!

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