Price Rises: Gratuities, Wifi, Medallion Shipping 🤑💰

[Shelly97060]

9 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

So, how do you prepay for gratuities, drinks and wifi (not plus package) before the 14th for a cruise after February 2023?  We have a booked sailing in March, and I want to purchase these separately as we do not drink alcohol so the plus package is way overpriced.  Do you have to have your TA add them, or are you supposed to be able to add and pay on the app for all of these individually?  Or the website?  I have not tried to do that before.

You can pre-pay the gratuities via the Cruise Personalizer on the Payments tab. You can purchase the Internet in the Medallion App ( select MedallionNet).

[cr8tiv1]

You do not need to go through your TA for Future Cruise Deposits.  An agent or live chat can extend the deadline and/or refund your certificate.  

 

The only thing Princess will not do if you are working with a TA is give you any financial information and/or modify your booking $$$.  Anything outside of your booking can be handled by phone.

 

29 minutes ago, Shelly97060 said:

If you have a TA there’s a form they can fill out for you to request a refund. If you don’t have a TA call Princess and the Rep can fill out the request form on your behalf.

 

[shamrockace]

No one is talking about the reserved seating or the extra desserts. We cruised in November on Enchanted and noticed a reduction in dessert and food selections. Now you’ll have to pay extra. 
 

we’ve cruised on Royal Caribbean for our kids/grandkids and the reserved seating at events means 1/2 the seats are roped off from us regular people.   It was one of the things I hated about Royal. That and you had to pre- schedule shows.
 

 Now Princess is following their lead. Leave Princess alone. 

[Incognito1]

On 12/5/2022 at 7:38 PM, ChemistBabe said:

 why on earth would you brag about being to(sic) cheap to not pay the people who take care of you on vacation??

Why on earth would you care what someone else does with their money?

 

We take them off and then tip individually.  With this blasted Anytime Dining, waiters have no incentive to provide excellent service when they're getting the same pay as someone who doesn't give full effort.  We tipped per meal for great service; only saw a few others doing it, but talked to a few of the wait staff who absolutely HATE the change.  They and the room stewards are the ones getting shortchanged.  Usually they have had to work their way up and now the reward of having done that is gone.

 

And, no, I don't think those tips make their way into a pool to be divided by everyone else.  So, go ahead and "tip" your waiter his "share" of that prepaid gratuity (a dime? a quarter?).  I'm sure he'll appreciate it just as much as a $5, $10, or $20. /s

[Incognito1]

On 12/6/2022 at 12:11 PM, Sailaweigh said:

 And then, when we were giving the extra tip to the waiter, he took it ( of course) but emphasized what he would like was a very good review.

This is interesting because I had no fewer than five staff members repeat their names to me and ask me to please give them a commendation on the review survey.  I wonder what they get for this.

[Shelly97060]

39 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

You do not need to go through your TA for Future Cruise Deposits.  An agent or live chat can extend the deadline and/or refund your certificate.  

 

 

 100% correct, but the TA may be easier to reach than Princess 😄

[Shelly97060]

Regarding the question of the $10 for medallion shipping. This will only apply to people who book Princess Standard Fare on or after 12/14/22. Plus and Premier will continue to receive free shipping. See this information Princess sent to Travel Advisors:

.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Shelly97060
Added photo of the text from Princess since it seems like some of it was cut off in my original paste job.

[JimmyVWine]

1 hour ago, Incognito1 said:

We take them off and then tip individually.

Totally get what you are saying. But in the food service industry and cruise ships generally, there are soooooo many people who add to the enjoyment of your experience that when you limit your tips to the people who are “front and center” expecting that they are not going to share, you leave out many people behind the scenes who contributed, but you just don’t see them. The whole “behind the scenes” thing is exactly why the daily gratuity system developed in the first place. 

[Incognito1]

Those people behind the scenes are not working for free; they're getting the wage they agreed to (which is considerably higher than they'd get in their home countries).  When I go to a restaurant here in the US, I don't tip the cook, the busboy, the cleaner, or the manager -- only the server. 

 

When a waiter gets paid exactly the same whether he works hard or not, what do you think he's going to do?  Eventually those with strong work ethics are going to get tired of pulling more than their share for the same compensation as the lazy.  The whole concept feels grossly unfair. Hopefully Traditional Dining will return on Princess.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Incognito1

[JimmyVWine]

28 minutes ago, Incognito1 said:

When I go to a restaurant here in the US, I don't tip the cook, the busboy, the cleaner, or the manager -- only the server. 

Then clearly you don’t understand how “tipping out” works in the US. If the waiter you tip is not sharing with others, s/he would be fired pretty quickly. The people on the ship who you tip are also earning exactly what they agreed to which is more than what they would earn in their home country. I am not at all sure how earning more than what they would earn back home is a factor in deciding who to tip. 

[Guest ldtr]

34 minutes ago, Incognito1 said:

Those people behind the scenes are not working for free; they're getting the wage they agreed to (which is considerably higher than they'd get in their home countries).  When I go to a restaurant here in the US, I don't tip the cook, the busboy, the cleaner, or the manager -- only the server. 

 

When a waiter gets paid exactly the same whether he works hard or not, what do you think he's going to do?  Eventually those with strong work ethics are going to get tired of pulling more than their share for the same compensation as the lazy.  The whole concept feels grossly unfair. Hopefully Traditional Dining will return on Princess.

Actually in a lot of venues you actually are. Tip pooling is pretty common. Especially service quality at a well run restaurant depends upon a lot of people beyond the waiter. Many of which do not come in direct contact with the customer, but do things the waiter depends upon to provide quality service.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Shelly97060 said:

Regarding the question of the $10 for medallion shipping. This will only apply to people who book Princess Standard Fare on or after 12/14/22. Plus and Premier will continue to receive free shipping. See this information Princess sent to Travel Advisors:

.

Have they clarified or addressed outside USA shipping now that they are charging $10/booking?  Seems to me they ought to be mailing to Canada and perhaps more for that new fee.

[Incognito1]

1 minute ago, JimmyVWine said:

Then clearly you don’t understand how “tipping out” works in the US. If the waiter you tip is not sharing with others, s/he would be fired pretty quickly. The people on the ship who you tip are also earning exactly what they agreed to which is more than what they would earn in their home country. I am not at all sure how earning more than what they would earn back home is a factor in deciding who to tip. 

Servers typically tip out the busser and the kitchen, but it's closer to 15% of what the server gets rather than even across the board.

 

From comments from our waiters on the cruise this past month, they are not happy with the change.  Neither am I.  You go ahead and do you.  We'll tip by the meal.  I'm sure the nickel that would've gone to the bathroom cleaner and deck hands won't be missed.

 

 

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Actually in a lot of venues you actually are. Tip pooling is pretty common. Especially service quality at a well run restaurant depends upon a lot of people beyond the waiter. Many of which do not come in direct contact with the customer, but do things the waiter depends upon to provide quality service.

And often, you may have a different staff member in a restaurant deliver you a course of a meal, a drink, a bottle of wine, that is someone other than your primary waiter.  They are operating a team system in many places.  I fully expect that when I add a tip to my check or when processing the self-serve CC payment, the amount is shared among multiple staff members.  Not my business how they do it, but I do consider overall service and attitude in the process.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

Soda and soft drinks were included once upon a time in the dining rooms with meals.  They send a lovely bound small notebook with your boarding pass and itinerary and ship information to your home FREE a month or so before sailing. The only extra used to be an envelopes you used for tipping the cabin steward, your waiter and his assistant. Now they ask for tips to everyone from entertainment to their revenue generating dept AND Princess keeps and admin fee which could be high, it's their secret. 

By attrition they removed included items and made them charged items.  

 It's now a vacation that has to be scrutinized and added up and compared to other styles of vacation to know if the value is worth while to each individual.  

So how far are we winding the nostalgia clock back?  

[mthomp5]

2 hours ago, Incognito1 said:

This is interesting because I had no fewer than five staff members repeat their names to me and ask me to please give them a commendation on the review survey.  I wonder what they get for this.

Our room steward on the Discovery said that if they come in first place in the survey, they get a day off.  She said the last one, she came in second.  They work so hard.  I could tell she really treasured that day off.  She didn’t say how frequently, they tally them up.  I was assuming It was done for each cruise.   But that’s just a guess.  

[JimmyVWine]

1 hour ago, Incognito1 said:

When I go to a restaurant here in the US, I don't tip the cook, the busboy, the cleaner, or the manager -- only the server. 

 

31 minutes ago, Incognito1 said:

Servers typically tip out the busser and the kitchen, but it's closer to 15% of what the server gets rather than even across the board.

So which is it?  Are you only tipping the waiter or is the server sharing with others? No one ever suggested that tips were split evenly either in the US or on a ship. 

[capriccio]

7 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

You may be leaping to conclusion here.  Perhaps now that a fee is being charged, Princess is going to ship to other countries like Canada.  I think part of their excuse/reason before was additional cost.  I have seen where Medallions came in bulk to US from Singapore then were re-sent out.

 

Has anyone seen documentation or asked someone in-the-know at Princess if they are now going to mail to other locations if guest ponies up the $10.

 

I haven't seen any Princess documentation but as I was writing up my own documentation for our kids to use the App to order their family's medallions for our cruise in July  (which took much longer than actually just walking them through it if necessary😄), at this moment the only Country/Territory that can be chosen in the shipping address is still United States or Puerto Rico.

 

Maybe there will be another update of the App next week.

[Expo67]

On 12/6/2022 at 5:54 PM, azbirdmom said:

 

I am floored that a manager actually called you back!  It's your lucky day - buy a lottery ticket!

 

Seriously though the language in the email yesterday implied that you'd have to pay for shipping of the Medallion if you have an older Plus plan unless you upgraded to the new one.  I hope they do end up grandfathering anyone with the older plans but as I said several posts ago I'll just pick it up at the port if they don't.

Thanks for the idea. 👏 Went and did exactly this. I thought the Medallion and Medallion App was nuts but this new change tops it all. My European wife used to laugh when we had discussions with friends about how the European cruiselines got harassed about their class fare pricing. Guess Princess has decided to bring that concept over here. 🫣 No wonder Carnival stock prices continue to hover below $10 a share. Glad we have gotten our return on investment multiple times in the Shareholder OBC. 

[Expo67]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

 

So which is it?  Are you only tipping the waiter or is the server sharing with others? No one ever suggested that tips were split evenly either in the US or on a ship. 

Good point. Of course we in general do not tip the laundry service during a hotel stay for our towels and bedding but we all do on a cruise. 🤔 Wish these cruiselines would stop the shell game with regards to tips and just include whatever that cost in the base price of the cruise. It would make it much simpler but of coarse then we would not have any long discussions here on CC. 😂

[Expo67]

Well like a few others the days of us cruising on Princess are numbered. Saw that coming from our 44 nights in Europe on Princess this year. When my wife asked for some type of berries for her breakfast yogurt and was told oh sorry madam but we do not have berries anymore. Problem solved as at every port we brought back several types of berries for her breakfast and had people drooling that sat around us. Will not even discuss about being in Scotland and the ship not having Single Malt Scotch. 😳 Pretty sad is about all that can be said. 

[Ombud]

3 hours ago, Incognito1 said:

Hopefully Traditional Dining will return on Princess.

I have cruised many times since the restart and always with the same wait staff, table, & time. How does that differ from traditional dining?

[caribill]

9 hours ago, Shelly97060 said:

If you have a TA there’s a form they can fill out for you to request a refund. If you don’t have a TA call Princess and the Rep can fill out the request form on your behalf.

Even if you have a TA, you can call Princess to have a FCD refunded.

[caribill]

9 hours ago, shamrockace said:

we’ve cruised on Royal Caribbean for our kids/grandkids and the reserved seating at events means 1/2 the seats are roped off from us regular people.   It was one of the things I hated about Royal. That and you had to pre- schedule shows.
 

 

Was that roped off area only for those with high enough priority to have this privilege or was it for all those on board who had made reservations before the show?

[chamima]

6 hours ago, Expo67 said:

Well like a few others the days of us cruising on Princess are numbered. Saw that coming from our 44 nights in Europe on Princess this year. When my wife asked for some type of berries for her breakfast yogurt and was told oh sorry madam but we do not have berries anymore. Problem solved as at every port we brought back several types of berries for her breakfast and had people drooling that sat around us. Will not even discuss about being in Scotland and the ship not having Single Malt Scotch. 😳 Pretty sad is about all that can be said. 

 

On every cruise (on Celebrity, Disney and Princess) we've been on in the last twenty years  or so at least,  they start running out of berries after 6 or so days.First it's raspberries,  then blueberries and finally strawberries.  The ship  takes on provisions at the beginning of the cruise and , since berries spoil, they try to take on only as much as they can use before they begin to spoil.You can go to local markets in port but the ship -due to health dept. regulations - cannot.

And as far as NO single malt scotch on the whole ship   - I find that hard to believe.