Is the Captain Circle Loyalty Program sailing in the wake of the future?

[caribill]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

with the following changes I was able to get a discount on excursions, not available 12 years ago

 

Like many other long time cruisers I often do not use cruise line excursions. Overall, my cruising history is about 1/3 cruise line excursions, 1/3 independent vendor excursions and 1/3 exploring on our own.

 

Via Cruise Critic we have been able to have many excellent independent excursions and have never been disappointed with any of them. Yet there have been a number of Princess excursions that have been a very poor experience, usually due to the tour guide the Princess contractor hired. (If you want, I can give examples.)

 

And although one can now get a 10% discount on Princess excursions, one can often save up to 50% with a private excursion that is equivalent or better, with a smaller group, and without a mandatory stop at a Princess or vendor favored shopping venue.

 

Sometimes we actually pay more for a private excursion than what Princess charges because the private one is a significantly better experience. One example is whale watching in Juneau. When we did it with Princess, it was a very crowded boat and when a whale was spotted, it could only be seen by those on the correct side of the boat. But when we did it with a private vendor that charged more than Princess, there were only six people on the boat and all six could see every whale that was spotted.

 

[MissP22]

10 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

At 10 bucks a drink, that's 4 for me and 5 for DH.  Any more plus soda, coffee, San Pellegrino etc is all gravy.

Maybe they can increase their prices a little more so you can feel even better. 😄

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Coral said:

We used to have unlimited minutes. I would give up the excursion discount as I usually book private excursions. Private excursions are cheaper and have smaller groups.

Hoe quickly people forget and I give myself at least a 50% discount every time I book an excursion with an outside vendor.

btw- we always see the same Princess people on our tours anyway.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, caribill said:

I said benefits, I did not limit them to just being elite.

a) Loyalty OBC

b) Swapping minibar for coffee package equivalent (also a full suite benefit lost)

c) And yes, the free minutes. Yes, I realize that it is impractical to have the system monitor minutes anymore. But, until the recent price increase, the cost of the unlimited Internet package was about the $$ value of the old free minutes. To give an equal benefit, it should be free to platinum/elite passengers.

 

On an upcoming cruise, with the old minutes benefit we would have had a total of 1000 minutes, more than enough for our needs. Instead we now will need to pay $495 (with the platinum/elite discount) to have equivalent usage. You may think switching from free to paying $495 is a great benefit, but I do not.

People have already forgotten about the loss of the $100 loyalty OB credit and the coffee trade in will be soon to follow. 🤒

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, caribill said:

I said benefits, I did not limit them to just being elite.

a) Loyalty OBC

b) Swapping minibar for coffee package equivalent (also a full suite benefit lost)

c) And yes, the free minutes. Yes, I realize that it is impractical to have the system monitor minutes anymore. But, until the recent price increase, the cost of the unlimited Internet package was about the $$ value of the old free minutes. To give an equal benefit, it should be free to platinum/elite passengers.

 

On an upcoming cruise, with the old minutes benefit we would have had a total of 1000 minutes, more than enough for our needs. Instead we now will need to pay $495 (with the platinum/elite discount) to have equivalent usage. You may think switching from free to paying $495 is a great benefit, but I do not.

Since a limited number of minutes was fine then a sharing a single package should also be fine. So I guess your cruise must be for 66 days. If you are taking a shorter cruise then you are buying more than the minimum package that would still give you more time than the minutes would.

 

Loyalty OBC was not an Elite benefit. It was a separate program.

 

While the coffee card was one of the swaps when the program was available. The entire program is gone and thus not a available for purchase or swap. The actual defined benefit is the minibar set up which we still get.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

Maybe they can increase their prices a little more so you can feel even better. 😄

 

 

 

Hoe quickly people forget and I give myself at least a 50% discount every time I book an excursion with an outside vendor.

btw- we always see the same Princess people on our tours anyway.

 

 

 

People have already forgotten about the loss of the $100 loyalty OB credit and the coffee trade in will be soon to follow. 🤒

The loyalty obc was based upon number of cruises taken, starting at 25 after 25 cruises.

 

It was not an Elite benefit, though you certainly needed more cruises than required for Elite to get it.  Did not reach 100 until 100 cruises. increased each 25.

 

 in my case I am getting my excursions paid for with Princess OBC generating additional OBC. So my out of pocket cost for excursions is less than yours.

[Guest ldtr]

3 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Like many other long time cruisers I often do not use cruise line excursions. Overall, my cruising history is about 1/3 cruise line excursions, 1/3 independent vendor excursions and 1/3 exploring on our own.

 

Via Cruise Critic we have been able to have many excellent independent excursions and have never been disappointed with any of them. Yet there have been a number of Princess excursions that have been a very poor experience, usually due to the tour guide the Princess contractor hired. (If you want, I can give examples.)

 

And although one can now get a 10% discount on Princess excursions, one can often save up to 50% with a private excursion that is equivalent or better, with a smaller group, and without a mandatory stop at a Princess or vendor favored shopping venue.

 

Sometimes we actually pay more for a private excursion than what Princess charges because the private one is a significantly better experience. One example is whale watching in Juneau. When we did it with Princess, it was a very crowded boat and when a whale was spotted, it could only be seen by those on the correct side of the boat. But when we did it with a private vendor that charged more than Princess, there were only six people on the boat and all six could see every whale that was spotted.

 

Sometimes we do our own thing as well. Since we book Princess excursions with OBC the excursion which generates 10% additional obc does not result in any out of pocket expense. Just because you choose not to use a benefit, does not mean that it is not there.

 

Just like sometimes we take much smaller ships such as the 50 passenger Elysium because it goes where big ships cannot. 

 

It all comes down to value.

 

Use the benefits or not your choice but they still exist and are available to those that choose to use them.

[MissP22]

4 hours ago, ldtr said:

in my case I am getting my excursions paid for with Princess OBC generating additional OBC. So my out of pocket cost for excursions is less than yours.

Money is money no matter how you look at it unless you consider OBC as someone else's money. Princess has never known to have the most economically priced excursions. 

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

Money is money no matter how you look at it unless you consider OBC as someone else's money. Princess has never known to have the most economically priced excursions. 

money is money, but not all obc can be converted to money, since most is non refundable.

[MissP22]

1 minute ago, ldtr said:

money is money, but not all obc can be converted to money, since most is non refundable.

So, use it to gamble. End of problem. 

[PescadoAmarillo]

4 hours ago, MissP22 said:

People have already forgotten about the loss of the $100 loyalty OB credit and the coffee trade in will be soon to follow. 🤒

Um, to put this delicately…hell no we haven’t.

[Steelers36]

10 hours ago, MissP22 said:

People have already forgotten about the loss of the $100 loyalty OB credit and the coffee trade in will be soon to follow. 🤒

I don't think do.  There are a lot of elephants posting in this forum.

[Steelers36]

6 hours ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Um, to put this delicately…hell no we haven’t.

See my post above (#185), posted while reading and before seeing your post.  Somehow I knew you would have an opinion on that suggestion.  And of course I mean elephant in the dearest of terms.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Steelers36

[d9704011]

3 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

I don't think do.  There are a lot of elephants posting in this forum.

And the barrel chairs although that pretty much hurt everybody.

[Teechur]

14 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

And the barrel chairs although that pretty much hurt everybody.

Do you know why Princess removed the barrel chairs from the cabins? The panoramic video of balcony cabins still shows them, but the cabin pictures don't include them. 

If you order room service, does one person have to sit on the bed if the weather is not good for balcony dining?

[Musky Ike]

27 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

I don't think do.  There are a lot of elephants posting in this forum.

Yes, there are a lot of us who remember, however many new elites may not know or even care what used to be. Like when I'm talking to someone younger and I start a sentence with "back in my day" and get the eye roll. 🙄

[Redwing55]

22 hours ago, caribill said:

 

At one time platinum and elite passengers as well as full suite passengers had unlimited free minutes. So, yes, I would like to go back to when the benefits included that.

Unlimited free minutes?  I must have missed that.  It was so many minutes IIRC.  And inspite of many comments, we've found the current internet much better.  And soon it will improve more with starlink.

[Guest ldtr]

58 minutes ago, Redwing55 said:

Unlimited free minutes?  I must have missed that.  It was so many minutes IIRC.  And inspite of many comments, we've found the current internet much better.  And soon it will improve more with starlink.

That was back when you pretty much had to go to the internet Cafe to connect or maybe if you packed a heavy laptop with you. The first I phone came out in 2007. It was about the same time when demand started moving out of the Internet Cafe that they limited the minutes.

[Steelers36]

22 hours ago, caribill said:

 

At one time platinum and elite passengers as well as full suite passengers had unlimited free minutes. So, yes, I would like to go back to when the benefits included that.

It did not include Platinum - we only had a set number of minutes based on cruise length.

[Steelers36]

42 minutes ago, Redwing55 said:

Unlimited free minutes?  I must have missed that.  It was so many minutes IIRC.  And in spite of many comments, we've found the current internet much better.  And soon it will improve more with Starlink.

Yes, Platinums did not have it unlimited, but the others did - for a time.  It's all wake behind the ship now.

[XBGuy]

2 hours ago, Teechur said:

Do you know why Princess removed the barrel chairs from the cabins? The panoramic video of balcony cabins still shows them, but the cabin pictures don't include them. 

If you order room service, does one person have to sit on the bed if the weather is not good for balcony dining?

 

I doubt if anybody hear definitively knows why Princess removed those chairs.  However, after a 40-year corporate career, I would be willing to bet money that it was a cost saving measure.  You have to believe that there is cost involved with having to repair these chairs.  Also, spares have to be available while repairs are in process.

 

When we walked into our balcony cabin (A201, our regular choice) for the first time after the chairs had been removed, Mrs. XBGuy, who, unlike me, does not visit Cruise Critic daily, and, so, was unaware of the change, remarked, "Ooh, there's so much more room."

 

When we wanted another chair--Mrs' XBGuy absolutely loves Room Service--we would just pull in one of the ones from the balcony.  It worked fine for us.

[Kay S]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I don't think do.  There are a lot of elephants posting in this forum.

I resemble that remark?

[PescadoAmarillo]

2 hours ago, d9704011 said:

And the barrel chairs although that pretty much hurt everybody.

Funny…I don’t miss them in the least. 

[Teechur]

14 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

 

I doubt if anybody hear definitively knows why Princess removed those chairs.  However, after a 40-year corporate career, I would be willing to bet money that it was a cost saving measure.  You have to believe that there is cost involved with having to repair these chairs.  Also, spares have to be available while repairs are in process.

 

When we walked into our balcony cabin (A201, our regular choice) for the first time after the chairs had been removed, Mrs. XBGuy, who, unlike me, does not visit Cruise Critic daily, and, so, was unaware of the change, remarked, "Ooh, there's so much more room."

 

When we wanted another chair--Mrs' XBGuy absolutely loves Room Service--we would just pull in one of the ones from the balcony.  It worked fine for us.

Or perhaps the reasoning was that you aren't spending money while sitting in your cabin?

[PescadoAmarillo]

16 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

 

When we walked into our balcony cabin (A201, our regular choice) for the first time after the chairs had been removed, Mrs. XBGuy, who, unlike me, does not visit Cruise Critic daily, and, so, was unaware of the change, remarked, "Ooh, there's so much more room."

I said the same thing when we had an inside cabin without the little round table. The first thing we used to do was put it in the closet. 

[PescadoAmarillo]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Yes, Platinums did not have it unlimited, but the others did - for a time.  It's all wake behind the ship now.

Back in the day 😆, I think Platinums did have unlimited internet. I recall my first cruise at the platinum level. It was a transpacific and DH was supposed to have been with me to celebrate the end of his military career. He was stop lossed and I ended up going with a friend instead since he wouldn’t be home for the holidays. I spent a lot of time emailing him during those 31 days.  A LOT. 

[CynCyn]

On 4/30/2023 at 2:28 PM, shorne said:

Princess's loyalty programme doesn't make much sense. The red level, for instance, offers nothing of value beyond the level below it.

I would say the insurance discount is a benefit.