Book 14 day cruise or b2b 7 days cruises

[pdobrynski]

I booked a 14 day cruise which is also available as 2 7 day cruise on the Sky Princess over Christmas and New years.  We have the plus package.  My question is will we only get the 2 casual dinning option or will the package reset and give us 2 casual dinning for each of the 7 day voyages?

[J13C85]

We are on the same cruise (cannot wait). While it is basically a B2B since it was booked as one 14 day cruise, all perks are as if 1 cruise (for example, on Premier you only get 2 Specialty Dining dinners over the entirec14D and not 2 per each 7D). The best part of that is the stockholder benefit is $250 b/c it is considered a 14D cruise.

[palolake]

Management really needs to rethink the 2 casual dining per voyage!

[cjpj]

You're only going to get 2 casual dining and one shareholders credit if you book as one cruise. Do the math and see if it is better to book as 2 cruises and get 4 casual dining and 2 shareholder credits. Another reason I like to book back to back as  separate cruises is if you are using EZ aire, you can manage each flight separately.  Try to get the same room for each leg, but if you can't the crew basically moves you.

[Steelers36]

14 hours ago, pdobrynski said:

I booked a 14 day cruise which is also available as 2 7 day cruise on the Sky Princess over Christmas and New years.  We have the plus package.  My question is will we only get the 2 casual dinning option or will the package reset and give us 2 casual dinning for each of the 7 day voyages?

One.  I always book separate voyages for many reasons.  If I did book with Plus, there are additional reasons to do do now.  It is better for EZ-Air as well.  I'd be re-booking if the fare has not gone up.  Generally there is not much fare difference, if any at all (at least when voyages first released).

 

6 hours ago, J13C85 said:

We are on the same cruise (cannot wait). While it is basically a B2B since it was booked as one 14 day cruise, all perks are as if 1 cruise (for example, on Premier you only get 2 Specialty Dining dinners over the entirec14D and not 2 per each 7D). The best part of that is the stockholder benefit is $250 b/c it is considered a 14D cruise.

I have same advice for you.  You are saying the best part is getting an extra $50 in SOBC.  Well, you lost the opportunity for two more SD dinners at $35/$39.  If on Plus plan, there is more free Casual Dining opportunities at the for-fee locations.  If PCL or the TA has additional OBC (often group OBC from a TA), you would get an extra one of those.  It is often way better to have EZ-Air flights split so that you can re-fare either the outbound or return independently if there is a price drop.  There are many ways to make-up that $50 in either SOBC or MOBC.  If PCL ever changes the Elite mini-bar setup rule, you will certainly get it if booked separately.

[susancruzs]

In the past I've booked 1 cruise, Grand Adventures, however, for my Spring TA/+ 12 day cruise, it worked out better booking separate.  My TA was able to get me an obstr. view deluxe balcony on Emerald deck for both. 

 

I don't like guarantees and don't want to change cabins.  It's an individual preference thing, I've never found the price differences to be huge.  I'm paying double, a price bothering one person might not concern me.

[J13C85]

1 minute ago, Steelers36 said:

One.  I always book separate voyages for many reasons.  If I did book with Plus, there are additional reasons to do do now.  It is better for EZ-Air as well.  I'd be re-booking if the fare has not gone up.  Generally there is not much fare difference, if any at all (at least when voyages first released).

 

I have same advice for you.  You are saying the best part is getting an extra $50 in SOBC.  Well, you lost the opportunity for two more SD dinners at $35/$39.  If on Plus plan, there is more free Casual Dining opportunities at the for-fee locations.  If PCL or the TA has additional OBC (often group OBC from a TA), you would get an extra one of those.  It is often way better to have EZ-Air flights split so that you can re-fare either the outbound or return independently if there is a price drop.  There are many ways to make-up that $50 in either SOBC or MOBC.  If PCL ever changes the Elite mini-bar setup rule, you will certainly get it if booked separately.

In my case please understand that first, I did not choose Premier b/c it made zero economic sense for this Voyage. Secondly, when I booked this cruise (want to say in Oct/Nov of last year) we did the math on booking a suite on a 14D or a B2B. For the 14D our "out the door" was just under $11K (including as they call it now "Plus 50" and insurance).  Same cabin on the B2B XMas and NY Cruises was just over $15K). Neither price included air as it was too early to add air. None of the perks would make up that difference.

[Steelers36]

25 minutes ago, J13C85 said:

In my case please understand that first, I did not choose Premier b/c it made zero economic sense for this Voyage. Secondly, when I booked this cruise (want to say in Oct/Nov of last year) we did the math on booking a suite on a 14D or a B2B. For the 14D our "out the door" was just under $11K (including as they call it now "Plus 50" and insurance).  Same cabin on the B2B XMas and NY Cruises was just over $15K). Neither price included air as it was too early to add air. None of the perks would make up that difference.

I freely admit there will be exceptions and "high holiday" periods could be prime situations for that.  But generally I have seen little to no pricing difference in most cases.  Perhaps Suites are a different situation since they are in short supply (we don't book Suites and I have not really looked into their pricing at all).

[J13C85]

3 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

I freely admit there will be exceptions and "high holiday" periods could be prime situations for that.  But generally I have seen little to no pricing difference in most cases.  Perhaps Suites are a different situation since they are in short supply (we don't book Suites and I have not really looked into their pricing at all).

We thought the price was insane (in a good way) on this one. At the time we booked we were booked on a 7D Retreat Suite on X Apex (Dec 3 2023 Out the door was just over $7K) and I was looking around Princess' site and found this 14D for XMas/NY at this incredible price. Honestly, I thought it would be about $16K (figuring the previous suite we booked on Princess went for appx $7K for the week and allowing for extra b/c we were sailing over both Holidays). Realizing I could have 14 days of cruising in a suite for under $11K was just too good bypass. We booked this and cancelled X. Funny thing is, within a week price really jumped for this (went to close to $14K) so very glad I booked it when I did.

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, cjpj said:

You're only going to get 2 casual dining and one shareholders credit if you book as one cruise. Do the math and see if it is better to book as 2 cruises and get 4 casual dining and 2 shareholder credits. Another reason I like to book back to back as  separate cruises is if you are using EZ aire, you can manage each flight separately.  Try to get the same room for each leg, but if you can't the crew basically moves you.

Except the 2 shareholder obc benefits will be $200 (100 per 7 day cruise) vs 250 for 1 14 day cruise.

[shirazcruiser]

We have an Owners Suite on the new Sun Princess for 21 days and saved $2,300 booking the 21 days instead of 3 - 7 day cruises.  Also, we are able to book ship tours (Rome, Athens) on the turn abround days instead of tying ourselves up having to go through the process of scanning out/rescanning the new medallion process. 

[chrysalis]

2 minutes ago, shirazcruiser said:

We have an Owners Suite on the new Sun Princess for 21 days and saved $2,300 booking the 21 days instead of 3 - 7 day cruises.  Also, we are able to book ship tours (Rome, Athens) on the turn abround days instead of tying ourselves up having to go through the process of scanning out/rescanning the new medallion process. 

there is no scanning out/rescanning process while in Europe...so no tying yourselves up.

[shirazcruiser]

10 minutes ago, chrysalis said:

there is no scanning out/rescanning process while in Europe...so no tying yourselves up.

That's good to know - Thanks!  The last time I had a B2B in Europe was some time ago on RCCL and we had to do it every time.  However, the tours on the turn around days indicate "This tour is not available to passengers beginning or ending their voyage in Piraeus (Athens)/(Rome)".  So, I'm assuming that if you book 7 day legs, Princess would not allow you to book a ship tour on turn around days because technically your sailing has ended or do they allow you to book tours and still treat your 3 legs as 21 days?

[cjpj]

23 hours ago, ldtr said:

Except the 2 shareholder obc benefits will be $200 (100 per 7 day cruise) vs 250 for 1 14 day cruise.

For that particular cruise. That's why I said "do the math". We usually do longer cruises.

[LACruiser88]

On 8/6/2023 at 8:10 AM, Steelers36 said:

But generally I have seen little to no pricing difference in most cases

Since the restart, we have found that when booking as one voyage vs b2b there has been substantial savings on our longer voyages.

 

We always bring out the calculator and work the math.  💰

[startedwithamouse]

If it's two per voyage, aren't voyages numbered by Princess, i.e., X123, X124...

 

You could argue that. 

 

 

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, cjpj said:

For that particular cruise. That's why I said "do the math". We usually do longer cruises.

Just making the math clear for the particular cruise being discussed in this topic.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, startedwithamouse said:

If it's two per voyage, aren't voyages numbered by Princess, i.e., X123, X124...

 

You could argue that. 

 

 

Won't work.  Take a B2B.  One voyage will be something like J123 and the next J124.  The B2B as a virtual will be something like J123A. 

[startedwithamouse]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Won't work.  Take a B2B.  One voyage will be something like J123 and the next J124.  The B2B as a virtual will be something like J123A. 

Ahhh didn't even notice that. We don't have any B2B on the books to look at, and I can't see voyage numbers of our past bookings.