wintrev

We are currently in a Vista suite and only bid to move more midship due to my motion issues. When we placed the bid the other suite was available and then the sold out came up at least three time over the last three weeks but this is the first time it has stayed for more than seven days. To be honest why would they accept our bid if someone was prepared to pay the full price and understand that that is what they are hoping for. Just be up front if things have changed. Notice 2 days before the cruise leaves is not good for people like us who go the port earlier and don’t have good access to secure internet to pay off the credit card charge. Still very happy to just be going on a cruise though.

We are on the Coral on 15/9 and received an email to bid. At the time the cruise was sold out and then 1 suite became available midship. Put in a bid but have since cancelled as the cruise has been showing Sold out again for the last week - would be nice if they let you know as soon as there is no chance instead of leaving people hoping.

Sorry but this information doesn’t apply to our Coral cruise. We are sailing on 15th September, fully paid, elite and suite. Reserve as per your screen shot does not appear on the reserve dining. What a mess again!

We are unfortunately the first cruise on Coral (cruise starts the 15th September) with this dining mess. On the app it doesn’t tell me what dining room is doing what as there is only a selection of two. However the Provence is not available for the entire 11 days to book at all! I guess having a suite means I don’t really need to bother with trying to book as we will go to the Reserve section - but I don’t even know which one has that as it is not listed! I still can’t book our embarkation dinner in a speciality restaurant without paying - don’t want OBC thanks.

Thanks Geoff. As this is a celebration cruise for us and our friends (we are celebrating all four of us being officially retired) thought it would be nice to start the cruise with a special dinner. Glad we have reserve dining as I am not going to spend my time hoping that Princess do launch the dining app on time. Reckon it will probably crash in the first hour!

Love this thread! Down under we don’t expect anything from Princess - we should consider ourselves lucky that they still want to send ships down here!

We are sailing on September 15 on the Coral from Australia. We have paid in full and are both in a suite and Elite and we don’t have access to any dining times other than Speciality. I will not book our free embarkation dinner in a speciality restaurant as it is ridiculous that I have to pay and then go to guest services to get my money back as OBC. So it seems that qualifying for all the things Princess is telling people is incorrect!

We’re on the Coral in September - the cruise coming to Singapore before she goes into dry dock. My final payment is June 17 - have not received ANY reminders to pay by email or snail mail. Just waiting for them to pull all ships from Australia as they don’t seem to care two hoots about us.

A poster on the AUS/NZ boards has said that Princess is promising them a similar itinerary on a replacement ship - details to be revealed by the end of the month. Hope it works out for all concerned.

Someone just posted on the Princess boards that their cruise in March 2026 on the Sun has been cancelled due to redeployment - looks like they are moving ships all over the place - won’t be making any plans - will have to wait and see what the final shuffle looks like.

Well what has Australia done to be treated so poorly???? https://www.travelgossip.co.uk/product-news/grand-princess-to-homeport-in-san-juan-for-winter-2025-6/ Feel sorry for all those people who booked a cruise. Now Australia only gets Crown and Discovery. But Discovery is listed as being in two ports at the same time - being Los Angeles and Australia/New Zealand in Feb 2026 - so who is fibbing to us? Beginning to think that if you book a cruise don’t count on it going!!!!!!

https://artifacts.portsamerica.com//wbct/pdf/2026-la-calendar.pdf Well I am beginning to wonder if Princess is going to pull Discovery altogether. The above link (hope it works) was posted on the Virgin Voyages boards. The link shows the Los Angeles port schedule for 2026 when Discovery is supposed to be here in Australia. Discovery is slotted in on Feb 19th and 23rd - so who are we going to believe?

Dog Good luck to those who have gotten in on this special deal. Australians are always given the short end of the stick by ALL cruise lines whether it be pricing or the oldest ships in the fleet being sent here. Didn’t mean to cause you stress but we are just fed up with the unfairness of the whole situation.

Starting to get really annoyed with cruise lines. First Virgin abandoning Australia and now Princess favouring the Americans! Do they think we can’t fly to Europe?????? Why am I not given the same equal opportunities??? Come on Princess lift your game - looks like cruising altogether is dropping done my list of things to do - will go spend my hard earned dollars with companies that treat everyone equally and keep it here in Australia!

Well this is typical - Aussies get nothing!!! When I search the cruise mentioned it definitely doesn’t show $0. Suites are sold out and mini’s start at $4,149. There are prices for every cabin

Sorry but don’t think this list is right. Discovery Princess will not in in LA in Feb 2026 as it will be in Australia/New Zealand. Mind you after Virgin pulling all Australian cruises for 2024/2025 you can’t trust anything that is published!

This is a first believe me. I am not at all lucky in most things. The difference is $1,680.00 for a MB mini suite so I am happy to take it. In 19 cruises with them have never seen that message ever.

Thanks OzKiwiJJ and Arxcards for your replies. I had already presumed that we had to pay the crew appreciation on top of the cruise fare so don’t have problem with it but find it interesting that the app can’t distinguish the difference. As a point of interest we booked this cruise and then 2 days later noticed a significant increase in the cost. When I logged into the cruise personalizer on my laptop I got an obscure message stating that because it recognised me as a loyal customer we had been charged a lower price than the new revised one - have never seen that before? Nothing has changed in the payment due but unsure what to make of it all.

I have a question regarding the crew appreciation. I understand the difference between Australian cruises and the rest of the world. i have booked a Japan cruise for August next year. When I log on via the web page on my laptop the crew appreciation box comes up - they have kindly changed the dollar value from the $17USD to the full total for the cruise in AUD - was a bit confusing at first until I figured out that they had done the conversion. However my question is why does it say in the review packages app on my mobile (we purchased plus) that crew appreciation is included?? I am presuming that this is an oversight and glitch with the app?

Sir Richard’s usual trick - how many Aussies have missed out on their free cruises when he did the same performance here? He will have to give away more than a free cruise to get half of the annoyed people who have lost money back on his ships - this little black duck will never bite no matter how much they throw free at me.

No it is not about travelling far it is the drinks. One only has to scroll through the blogs on this site and see that most Americans using Virgin are only interested in drinking and partying. Doing a daily count of how many drinks they consume is ridiculous. Virgin needs to stop wasting money on giving away free champagne at every sailaway - some bloggers even documented how many they could get whilst it was flowing - not everyone goes on a cruise to get drunk.

Yep they have certainly won the award for pi...... off some many people!

If you want a refund you need to contact them. i got two emails today - one saying that as I cancelled my cruise and it was after the 7 day window I would not be getting a refund - idiots!!!! !! The second email was to say my refund had been processed (I rang them to cancel yesterday on receipt of the email from them confirming that THEY were cancelling the cruise) and would take between 7-10 business days. Seems to me that Virgin are totally useless in all departments - NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!

I am so sorry to hear your story. We also booked flights and accomodation prior to our cruise in December but have managed to change some things to still have a holiday. I don’t think Virgin really cares about their customers or the problems this decision has caused. They will care if they ever decide to return - I for one will be telling anyone who will listen to avoid them at all costs - I will NEVER book a cruise on them again.

On phone with Sailor Services here in Australia and the girl has come back and told me that she has to speak to her manager to cancel my cruise - obviously they have been caught out!!!