Happy Hour

Just like when people emailed about pre-paying for excursions.....how did that work? Not. When earnings are involved complaints, don't seem to make a difference. I also believe we will not see another sip & sail promo.....as more people seemed to take the OBC or if they originally booked the sip & sail they changed it to another promo before sailing.

they will change it when enough people stop spending money in protest. Changes like this are to increase the bottom line.

Officer confirmed at the Regal’s CC M & G this morning that BOGO$1 is officially gone (at least on this ship). He actually joked that they still have it but now it’s buy one & buy another at regular price. [emoji848]

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This is the response I got Friday.

The Customer Relations Departmentis in receipt of your email. Thank you for contacting our office. We appreciatethe opportunity to respond.

As our onboard events and offerings are alwayschanging, Happy Hour isin the process of being phased out across the fleet while we develop newprograms and promotions for your enjoyment.

again, thank you for contactingour office. We look forward to welcoming you aboard the Regal Princess for what we hope will be a completely enjoyable cruisevacation. Until then we send our kind regards.

Sincerely,

Princess Cruises

Customer Relations

R U talking about me.....Judy, the double vodka lady.

This is the response I got Friday.

The Customer Relations Departmentis in receipt of your email. Thank you for contacting our office. We appreciatethe opportunity to respond.

 

 

 

As our onboard events and offerings are alwayschanging, Happy Hour isin the process of being phased out across the fleet while we develop newprograms and promotions for your enjoyment.

 

 

 

again, thank you for contactingour office. We look forward to welcoming you aboard the Regal Princess for what we hope will be a completely enjoyable cruisevacation. Until then we send our kind regards.

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Princess Cruises

 

Customer Relations

I just received the exact same response.

It sure would be appreciated if they would be a little more personal and mention something stated in your email instead of sending such a cold and canned reply.

This is the response I got Friday.

The Customer Relations Departmentis in receipt of your email. Thank you for contacting our office. We appreciatethe opportunity to respond.

 

 

As our onboard events and offerings are alwayschanging, Happy Hour isin the process of being phased out across the fleet while we develop newprograms and promotions for your enjoyment.

 

 

again, thank you for contactingour office. We look forward to welcoming you aboard the Regal Princess for what we hope will be a completely enjoyable cruisevacation. Until then we send our kind regards.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Princess Cruises

 

Customer Relations

Sounds ok to me. Looking forward to the new programs and promotions.

I just received the exact same response.

 

It sure would be appreciated if they would be a little more personal and mention something stated in your email instead of sending such a cold and canned reply.

That may be an indication that they’re being overwhelmed & are now merely sending form letter email replies.

Posts by those who immediately emailed Princess when becoming aware of it received phone calls or personalized email replies. I emailed my unhappiness about this change & reasons why I think HH benefits both passengers & Princess: a lower profit margin on many drinks is better than a higher profit on many fewer drinks.

All I’ve received is an automated acknowledgement that they received my email & not even a form letter. Maybe they’re now merely keeping a tally sheet of how many negative emails they’re receiving to share with upper management.

I’m not buying their rhetoric that “while we develop new programs and promotions for your enjoyment”. If that were true, a new program should have replaced HH. They developed a new promotion when BOGO became BOGO$1 which certainly was not for passengers enjoyment.

I just sent my email about BOGO and the drink menu in the Elite lounge. It would not cost Princess anything to bring back some of the favorite drinks.

I guess I will go back to Celebrity.

Cindy

I guess no drinking for me on my 28 night cruise. Just as well - better for me anyways.

I just sent my email about BOGO and the drink menu in the Elite lounge. It would not cost Princess anything to bring back some of the favorite drinks.

 

Actually, Princess might benefit financially from the new drink menu in the P-E-S lounge. If you do not like the new list of discounted drinks, then you might order your favorite drinks at full price.

Sort of like "Economy Coach" on airlines. Delta says it judges the value of their Economy Coach by the number of people who do not book it, but who instead pay more for higher priced seats.

As a solo traveller, the H.hour is a way to meet up with the same group from a shore excursion or dinner companions,it's one reason I'm a return cruiser with this company,I find it hard to believe the profits would be low, it has been my exp.that standing room only in wheelhouse bars and feel it should be spread across other bars on ship.i phoned about diamond princess 22.3 leave Sydney to Japan told no BOGO available. there's no way I would 55 to 60 worth of alcohol per day,I take the soft package no bottled water included.wonder about all that space now empty at that time of the day when a cool cider was welcome, in that special time of the day for me and other great people

So disappointed that BOGOF $ Been removed, I have booked a princess cruise, it was choice between NCL and princess we have done both, I told my daughter and family travelling with us how good princess where, they have never cruised Princess, and how they had things like this offer........now just before our cruise it's removed along with other things. I just met a friend who has donea 3 week cruise with Princess recently to the Far East she told me yesterday they will never cruise with Princess again, as so many things removed, including toiletries from cabins, and they are Elite.

At earlier folks' suggestions, I went ahead and contacted Customer Relations AND Jan Swartz (President Princess Cruises) via email on this topic. I also posted on their social media profile directly. While I simply got the similar form letter responses from Customer Relations and the Facebook social media managers, I did get a personalized call from someone at the direction of Jan Swartz. It wasn't any more helpful or descriptive as to the cruise line's rationale for removal or plan for replacement, but the choice to call (when I didn't provide a phone #) and reference an already upcoming cruise showed some professionalism I appreciated. The person seemed to simply say it was the Food and Beverage department's call (now and future) just didn't have other information to provide.

That being said, this is likely to reduce alcohol intake / expenditure on my part moving forward. I can't understand the rationale when the same manpower is present. Some profit is better than no profit on drinks. The drink packages just aren't realistic for the average cruiser to even consider. The economics of it and health considerations of drinking that many drinks / day to make up for the economics don't add up to improving my experience.

I HIGHLY encourage folks to write and call all venues possible to ensure your voice is heard. That is the only way Princess may understand the scale of the frustration...or perhaps we don't understand the scale of the frustration (and it is actually much lower than I predict because I'm personally connected).

I still won't walk away from Princess at this point, as I enjoyed their experience prior to BOGO existing. It does reduce my enjoyment though. I truly hope they reconsider or find some great alternative to meet customer needs. Princess' and customer needs don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Just spoke with a Princess rep regarding another question, so I played dumb and asked about the BOGO. Her response from an internal email was something to the effect: " the program is being phased out ship by ship and will be fleet wide soon, the Food and Beverage director on each ship will have the duty to end it. The replacement program will be something like a set time on each ship for a gathering/party/meet and mingle, final decision will be out at a later date, no date given." She also stated that they are being flooded with complaints regarding BOGO and she seemed to think the complaints are having an effect on Princess's decision making. She also said if the new program bombs that BOGO may return sooner than later. One more thing, my in-laws just got of the Ruby last Friday from doing a B2B2B and Ruby still had BOGO on all 3 legs.

I guess no drinking for me on my 28 night cruise. Just as well - better for me anyways.

That will show them! You will be missed at Wheelhouse, mind if I take your seat before someone else gets it.

I drink primarily beer (draught) as does my DW. We see no value in the current beverage package. $86cdn per day per person for 21 days works out to $3600cdn. I will pay as you go. Even at 1/2 the price the package would be a poor deal. For $3600cdn I can buy 720, 20oz glasses of micro brew or 72, 500ml cans of German Dab beer at our highly taxed government liquor stores (LCBO). To say that Princess is gorging is a bit of an understatement. After all we have 15 ports of call where we can spend our $ at local pubs. Princess becomes the loser in the end.

Just spoke with a Princess rep regarding another question, so I played dumb and asked about the BOGO. Her response from an internal email was something to the effect: " the program is being phased out ship by ship and will be fleet wide soon, the Food and Beverage director on each ship will have the duty to end it. The replacement program will be something like a set time on each ship for a gathering/party/meet and mingle, final decision will be out at a later date, no date given." She also stated that they are being flooded with complaints regarding BOGO and she seemed to think the complaints are having an effect on Princess's decision making. She also said if the new program bombs that BOGO may return sooner than later. One more thing, my in-laws just got of the Ruby last Friday from doing a B2B2B and Ruby still had BOGO on all 3 legs.

Thanks for the update.

Princess Customer Service Reps can only repeat the script given to them by upper management & forward passenger input to those decision making managers.

It’s doubtful to me that any replacement is being planned unless there’s a significant drop in drink profits. If they were replacing one program with another one for passengers enjoyment then there’s no other reason to delay it...except to see the affects of eliminating HH.

It’s apparent that management believes that higher profits on a few drinks is better than less profits on many drinks during slow times for drink sales.

We finished an 8 day ABC cruise on the Crown. When I asked a bartender about the happy hour buy 1 get one $1 I was told it was not on our ship this time. When I questioned him more was told it was available on certain ships - but not our sailing. Booo!! Not the answer I was looking for. We did survive and drank plenty! Lol!

RIP Happy Hour :(

As suggested, I emailed Jan Swartz as well as Customer Relations expressing my disappointment over the demise of the BOGO+1 Happy Hour. I received a call from a Customer Relations rep in regard to the Swartz email. (That is where those emails go, she told me.) She had done enough research to know my cell phone number as well as my upcoming cruise schedule. She confirmed that the BOGO+1 has been discontinued fleet-wide but that they are "tracking" the emails - No apologies.

RIP Happy Hour :(

As suggested, I emailed Jan Swartz as well as Customer Relations expressing my disappointment over the demise of the BOGO+1 Happy Hour. I received a call from a Customer Relations rep in regard to the Swartz email. (That is where those emails go, she told me.) She had done enough research to know my cell phone number as well as my upcoming cruise schedule. She confirmed that the BOGO+1 has been discontinued fleet-wide but that they are "tracking" the emails - No apologies.

Thanks for the update.

I'm actually surprised they got rid of the night time BOGO+1. It's usually extremely quiet in the nightclub, it was a good way to draw people to the venue from either 10-11 PM or 11-12 AM that otherwise wouldn't go near there.

If they want to increase bar revenue they should rethink the idiotic policy of opening the bar in Skywalker's at 10 PM. On our last cruise the majority of passengers went to bed around that time. I went to Skywalker's most nights to see if there was anybody in the place and the first week of the cruise it was just me and the staff. Almost every night they ended up calling the supervisor to say the place was dead and getting permission to close early. If they had opened the bar at 8 PM they may well have had a couple of hours of good business. By the end of the cruise there were actually some people - maybe 8 or 10 - in the venue the last week or so. (The cruise was 28 days.)

Just wait, most Hilton Hotel Bars are using electronic liquor management. Each bottle in fitted with a ring that auto counts the pour, no extra, exact pours. The day of slipping the bar keep a few greens for a double up are going the way of the Dodo. Cruise industry will likely follow this path soon as profit is the driving force for executives. Customer satisfaction and loyalty take the back seat.

Just wait, most Hilton Hotel Bars are using electronic liquor management. Each bottle in fitted with a ring that auto counts the pour, no extra, exact pours. The day of slipping the bar keep a few greens for a double up are going the way of the Dodo. Cruise industry will likely follow this path soon as profit is the driving force for executives. Customer satisfaction and loyalty take the back seat.

Yes, sadly I see this coming also. Too bad these executives never learn that customer satisfaction and loyalty are the real driving force for profit.

Thanks for the update.

 

I'm actually surprised they got rid of the night time BOGO+1. It's usually extremely quiet in the nightclub, it was a good way to draw people to the venue from either 10-11 PM or 11-12 AM that otherwise wouldn't go near there.

Yes, I'm surprised too. The BOGO was a revenue generator as well as a generator of customer goodwill and loyalty.

Little off topic but do they have draft beer? If so could anyone comment on type/brands and cost. I am a big draught lover.