Princess Cruises introduces all-inclusive Premier Package

[socmft]

19 hours ago, CruisinFinsUp said:

Well for us it really is going to be based on what new over $12 booze they stock. 

 

Before covid, the beverage package covered everything we wanted to drink.  There were very few items on the ship that were over the package.  We bought the package at full price as there was no "Plus" fare then.

 

March 2022 we cruised the Enchanted at Plus fare -  the ship was out of stock of a lot of spirits, both those within and over the $12, and out of stock of many wines, both by the glass and bottle.   It was a dismal selection at best compared to what we were used to pre covid.   Supply chain issues I presume.

 

Prices everywhere are going up.   It doesn't matter what I'd pay elsewhere ... it matters what I'd have to pay on my vacation to determine which plan is good for us.   I had downloaded the March 2022 menus from all the bars (scanned the qr codes.... ), so I will be interested to view bar menus from after this new program starts to compare prices of all the drinks that they offer, and see what new ones they claim they will have.   Only after I see the new menus / offerings will I be able to decide if Plus is still good enough or if Premier will have to be our new norm.    If they bring back the spirits they had pre covid that were covered by the old beverage package, but up the prices to be over $12  I won't be happy but I won't be at all surprised.   I'm hoping they actually offer some new higher end stuff over $12 but won't hold my breath.   

The Plus fare was a steal for us.  We'll see what the new math is once the new menus are released.   

 

 

 

[socmft]

I am NOT tech savvy so I have to ask…is there any way you could share the bar menus you have? I am in exactly the same thought as you that I want to see the price difference (if any) of drinks. We sail in October.

thanks!

[cruzin4us]

2 minutes ago, socmft said:

I am NOT tech savvy so I have to ask…is there any way you could share the bar menus you have? I am in exactly the same thought as you that I want to see the price difference (if any) of drinks. We sail in October.

thanks!

 

At this point no one knows if the drinks are going up in price.   Or at least no one has reported they have.    I'm sure the minute the drinks go up in price, there will be a HOT thread with people talking about it 🙂

 

[travelhound]

21 hours ago, toofewcruises said:

Good luck with that.  Until Covid goes away, and it is making a resurgence, testing will remain in place.  It is a pain, but necessary at this time.  Of course, the alternative is to not cruise or not travel...

 

I don't think Covid is ever going away, but with high vaccination rates, I think it could become more like the flu, and should be treated as such. 

[cactusrose]

12 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

The Plus Beverage Package is about $60/pp/day - before 18% bar gratuity.  Add that on and you are at $70/pp/day.  

 

You stated PLUS costs additional $750/pp for  10-night voyage.  At $75/pp/day, this is the Premier Package.  The Plus moved from $40 to $50.  If you were already booked with Plus, you can upgrade for $25/pp/day.  Note that the Plus and Premier are cruise fare packages and include bar gratuities in the pricing. 

 

So, the Plus pricing is now $50/pp/day and the separately sold drink package is ~$70/pp/day.

Premier is $75/pp/day and the separately sold drink package is over $90/pp/day. 

 

If the cruise fare package has value for you, it is definitely better than buying a drink package in the Personalizer.  Cannot imagine why anyone would do that when both Crew Incentive and Internet are also included in the cruise fare package.  You can pretty much pay for two cruise fare upgrade versus one separate drink package.

Yes,  I kind of messed that explaination up.  But that just makes the pricing I'm seeing worse.   Example, when I look at the cruise I referenced the standard fare for a balcony (before taxes) is $2,159, for Plus it's $2,909.  That's a $750 difference for a 10 day cruise.  For Premium it's showing $3,424, a difference of $1265 which is a lot more than $75 per day.  Take a look at the Royal on February 19, 2023 for a balcony.  Here's a screen print of the pricing.

 

 

 

 

 

[Thrak]

On 5/25/2022 at 11:07 AM, chamima said:

When we were on the Caribbean Princess in January any drink above the $12 limit was charged in full - not just the difference.

I know that on Celebrity we just pay the difference but, unless something has changed, on Princess any drink above the $12 limit was not covered at all.

 

That is no longer the policy. Just got off of Royal Princess. The very first drink my wife ordered was a glass of wine. Turns out she ordered a $13 drink so we got charged $1.18 -- the extra dollar and the 18% gratuity. The new terms of the package actually spell out the new policy so there's no ambiguity.

[cruzin4us]

42 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

That is no longer the policy. Just got off of Royal Princess. The very first drink my wife ordered was a glass of wine. Turns out she ordered a $13 drink so we got charged $1.18 -- the extra dollar and the 18% gratuity. The new terms of the package actually spell out the new policy so there's no ambiguity.

 

This one thing I'm happy Princess has done!

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, cactusrose said:

Yes,  I kind of messed that explaination up.  But that just makes the pricing I'm seeing worse.   Example, when I look at the cruise I referenced the standard fare for a balcony (before taxes) is $2,159, for Plus it's $2,909.  That's a $750 difference for a 10 day cruise.  For Premium it's showing $3,424, a difference of $1265 which is a lot more than $75 per day.  Take a look at the Royal on February 19, 2023 for a balcony.  Here's a screen print of the pricing.

 

 

 

 

 

Those prices are definitely whack - at least the Premier.  I checked a couple of our voyages and similar thing.  The difference in our October voyages is still $40/pp/day for the PLUS (so no price increase).  However, the PREMIER is another $62.50/pp/day, so total $102.50/pp/day.  That is totally ludicrous, so I think they have made mistakes in building the new pricing plan in.  Yours is $126.50 for PREMIER over STANDARD.  Looney tunes if they think anyone is going to pay for that.

 

If I actually wanted to book a Premier Fare (no thanks even at the true price), I'd be phoning for a supervisor to explain to me how they are advertising +$50 for Plus and +$75 for Premier and the difference is way over $100. 

 

Otherwise, seems like wait and see if enough people have pointed out the issue, they will fix the pricing.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Steelers36

[caribill]

On 5/25/2022 at 9:15 PM, caribill said:

Looking at what is included in the Plus and Premier packages it says in part that the Plus package has the "Plus Coffee & Soda Package" and the Premier package has the "Premier Coffee & Soda Package."

 

Is there any actual difference in what is included in the Coffee and Soda Package in Plus and Premier?

 

So as an exercise in futility I called Princess to ask what is the difference between the Plus and the Premier "Coffee & Soda" packages.

 

I was told that the Premier package covers coffee and soda items that cost over $12 such as the extra special milk shake.

[memoak]

8 hours ago, caribill said:

 

So as an exercise in futility I called Princess to ask what is the difference between the Plus and the Premier "Coffee & Soda" packages.

 

I was told that the Premier package covers coffee and soda items that cost over $12 such as the extra special milk shake.

I have never seen coffee or soda priced over $12

[cactusrose]

11 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Those prices are definitely whack - at least the Premier.  I checked a couple of our voyages and similar thing.  The difference in our October voyages is still $40/pp/day for the PLUS (so no price increase).  However, the PREMIER is another $62.50/pp/day, so total $102.50/pp/day.  That is totally ludicrous, so I think they have made mistakes in building the new pricing plan in.  Yours is $126.50 for PREMIER over STANDARD.  Looney tunes if they think anyone is going to pay for that.

 

If I actually wanted to book a Premier Fare (no thanks even at the true price), I'd be phoning for a supervisor to explain to me how they are advertising +$50 for Plus and +$75 for Premier and the difference is way over $100. 

 

Otherwise, seems like wait and see if enough people have pointed out the issue, they will fix the pricing.

Crazy huh?  I did try to explain this in a live chat and they just said call the phone number.  Of course that one was busy for way too long so I gave up.  Fortunately, I'm not looking to book anything right this minute.

[caribill]

14 hours ago, memoak said:

I have never seen coffee or soda priced over $12

 

agree

[vikkiw]

On 5/15/2022 at 9:17 AM, Daniel A said:

We got the digital photos with our Renewal of Vows package and the digital photos were in a video slide show.  None of the photos could be viewed separately or copied or printed at home.

 

We did the vow renewal in April on the Grand and purchased a photo package for all digital AND a slide show AND 10+ prints. The digital are of high resolution and look great!

[Dar & Bob]

On 5/25/2022 at 2:07 PM, chamima said:

 

When we were on the Caribbean Princess in January any drink above the $12 limit was charged in full - not just the difference.

I know that on Celebrity we just pay the difference but, unless something has changed, on Princess any drink above the $12 limit was not covered at all.

 

 

 

If prices are raised they will probably be raised across the board - not just those in the Plus package.

 

I am not sure why that was on the Caribbean Princess.  We were on the Regal in January and one of our favorite wines was above the $12 and we got charged the difference plus gratuity on each drink.  We wanted to have it in the Crown restaurant and assumed we would have to buy the bottle. The waiter got it from Vines and only charged us the difference.  We were both very happy!

 

 

Here is the wording in the T & C for the Plus Package:

 

Terms and Conditions

• Alcoholic drinks are limited to 15 beverages per 24-hour period (6 a.m. to 6 a.m.). Alcoholic drinks requested above the daily limits are at the discretion of the shipboard management and crew and charged at regular menu prices.
• Non-alcoholic drinks do NOT have this limitation, nor do they count toward this maximum.
• Items selected that exceed the $12.00 USD or $16.00 AUD price are charged according to the difference in price.
• Packages may NOT be shared, are NON-transferable and NON-refundable.

 

[Daniel A]

1 hour ago, vikkiw said:

 

We did the vow renewal in April on the Grand and purchased a photo package for all digital AND a slide show AND 10+ prints. The digital are of high resolution and look great!

We didn't purchase any additional photos, we just took the photos that came with the Renewal of Vows package.

[Bwana Tom]

A couple of cruises we have been watching are on the Diamond Princess. One is going to Hawaii on Jan. 6th, which we booked with Princess Plus prior to the cost increase of that package. Today the Princess Plus package for that cruise runs you an additional $59/person/night. The other is also on the Diamond and departs on Jan. 22nd to Mexico. In order to book it including Princess Plus it will cost you an additional $57.50/person/night. I didn't check the pricing of the Princess Premier because I simply do not believe it is worth it at all. 

It looks like Princess might just jack the price up for the Princess Plus in lieu of raising the price of the drinks. 

[memoak]

11 minutes ago, Bwana Tom said:

A couple of cruises we have been watching are on the Diamond Princess. One is going to Hawaii on Jan. 6th, which we booked with Princess Plus prior to the cost increase of that package. Today the Princess Plus package for that cruise runs you an additional $59/person/night. The other is also on the Diamond and departs on Jan. 22nd to Mexico. In order to book it including Princess Plus it will cost you an additional $57.50/person/night. I didn't check the pricing of the Princess Premier because I simply do not believe it is worth it at all. 

It looks like Princess might just jack the price up for the Princess Plus in lieu of raising the price of the drinks. 

Per my PVP the price for Princess Plus  in the future will go up approximately $10 per day per person. Thank goodness I have all my cruises through 2023 already booked

[Tedferg]

28 minutes ago, Bwana Tom said:

A couple of cruises we have been watching are on the Diamond Princess. One is going to Hawaii on Jan. 6th, which we booked with Princess Plus prior to the cost increase of that package. Today the Princess Plus package for that cruise runs you an additional $59/person/night. The other is also on the Diamond and departs on Jan. 22nd to Mexico. In order to book it including Princess Plus it will cost you an additional $57.50/person/night. I didn't check the pricing of the Princess Premier because I simply do not believe it is worth it at all. 

It looks like Princess might just jack the price up for the Princess Plus in lieu of raising the price of the drinks. 

Just checked Balcony, no frill $1,998 Plus $2,798 = $800 or $50 per day. Same for OV and Interior.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Tedferg

[rheathslc]

Just a quick update. I DID upgrade our two 5-Day B2B cruises in September to the Premier plan which increased our cost for each segment by $250 total ($125 per person per 5 day segment). I was just able to book specialty dining reservations in the app without having to pay for them. So it is registering the credit for that benefit of the Premier plan. I know this was a concern some had since the app does NOT take OBC into account and you do have to pay to reserve in those cases and there was speculation that it would be the same situation with the Premier plan. I'm happy to report that's not the case. 🙂 

I know a lot of people don't think Premier is a good value and I agree that for anything more than 5 or 6 days it's really not since several of the benefits are fixed, not per day. But for these two 5-day cruises we would have paid for specialty dining (maybe not 4 during 10 total days but we'll still use them) and photos and multi device wi-fi anyway so it WAS a value to me in this case. 

 

The Travel Summary does show a long list of the the prices of all the different parts of the package which is the value that Princess gives them, NOT the cost to us to add them. Strangely enough the "value" Princess lists for TWO specialty dining credits was only $30.70 per person. Not even $30.70 per credit. Just per person for the two credits each. The math on the Travel Summary is definitely interesting. But I can confirm that the cost to us was just the additional $25 pp/day.

 

[Tedferg]

2 hours ago, rheathslc said:

 

I know a lot of people don't think Premier is a good value and I agree that for anything more than 5 or 6 days it's really not since several of the benefits are fixed, not per day. But for these two 5-day cruises we would have paid for specialty dining (maybe not 4 during 10 total days but we'll still use them) 

Interesting that the 2 Specialty Dinners have more apparent 'value' on a shorter cruise. As others have said, PCL should adjust Specialty Dinners with the length of the cruise.