Response from Princess to email re changes

[Steelers36]

14 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

 

Curious if there will be a charge for elite/suite to order afternoon tea in the stateroom - that was a benefit that never incurred a charge...

No.

1 hour ago, startedwithamouse said:

Doubt it since it's not something that can be ordered through OceanNow.

Yes.

1 hour ago, ceilidh1 said:

But it is ordered through room service phone...so $5 charge?

No.

[JimmyVWine]

2 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

I actually think what they are doing will increase demand - now they are pushing these services as benefits of buying the package I would imagine that many who wouldn't use it previously will now use it as its part of their perks. Additionally, those that upgrade to a package or pay for the services are going to use it more to get their moneys worth.

Perhaps.  But you can only fool these people once.  On Day One they might be excited to make use of this feature.  But when they receive cold French Fries an hour after ordering them, will they go back to that well?

[Oxo]

16 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Perhaps.  But you can only fool these people once.  On Day One they might be excited to make use of this feature.  But when they receive cold French Fries an hour after ordering them, will they go back to that well?

Will this new change or change cause the French Fries to be delivered an hour later and they will be cold. 

SMH

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

Perhaps.  But you can only fool these people once.  On Day One they might be excited to make use of this feature.  But when they receive cold French Fries an hour after ordering them, will they go back to that well?

Either way Princess wins. If they continue to use it and put load on the resources they pay, if they do not use it then it reduces load on the system improving performance for others.

 

Either way Princess wins.

[gilboman]

39 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Perhaps.  But you can only fool these people once.  On Day One they might be excited to make use of this feature.  But when they receive cold French Fries an hour after ordering them, will they go back to that well?

Royal and Celebrity have been doing great despite much worse food quality especially post covid and pushing people to paid restaurants and people are loving it based on their pax numbers. 

 

but unless someone's a total noob and never had room service elsewhere, everyone knows room service is for convenience, not hot food. i mean even common sense if they can bring food to you right away, it'll take easily 10-15mins to get to you at least. 

[Guest ldtr]

3 hours ago, caribill said:

Currently on the Princess web site:

 

Order Food, Drinks + More On Demand

Hungry during Movies Under the Stars®? Realize you forgot sunscreen by the pool? Want to skip standing in line? Order whatever you need — burger, beer, extra towels, aloe, etc. — and we’ll deliver it to you.

Additional charge applies.

---

 

Note it says "Order whatever you need."

It does not say: "Although we have it, what you need might not be available this way."

As I asked before and you did not reply what specific drink item did you try to order on the app and could not get it without going to the bar?

 

To me the menus seemed rather expansive. Certainly any drink I wanted could be ordered on it, including some rather complex coffee drinks.

 

Though I have noticed that the selection will change based upon where you are in rather ship and which bar ends up getting and servicing the order.

[Guest ldtr]

3 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

It's available to anyone in a suite, too. I will be curious to see if the $5 fee applies to either one. The ABILITY to have afternoon tea delivered is the benefit - is the waiving of the fee to do so also a benefit? That remains to be seen...

There have been posts on CC were people have gotten the answer to this question and that answer is no charge for the Elite benefit items including tea, minibar change out, etc.

[Steelers36]

13 minutes ago, ldtr said:

As I asked before and you did not reply what specific drink item did you try to order on the app and could not get it without going to the bar?

 

To me the menus seemed rather expansive. Certainly any drink I wanted could be ordered on it, including some rather complex coffee drinks.

 

Though I have noticed that the selection will change based upon where you are in rather ship and which bar ends up getting and servicing the order.

Take liquor for example.  Does Ocean Now support ordering a double, ordering neat vs on rocks?  I cannot order a Yellowbird or other tropical concoctions I and bartenders can be aware of.

 

[suzyed]

3 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

I actually think what they are doing will increase demand - now they are pushing these services as benefits of buying the package I would imagine that many who wouldn't use it previously will now use it as its part of their perks. Additionally, those that upgrade to a package or pay for the services are going to use it more to get their moneys worth. I have a feeling this is merely a "testing of the water" to see what the market will bear in terms of possibly ditching standard and going to all inclusive/packages only, or how much they can tweak these fees before all out riots happen. I'm not happy with the fees, not because of the "nominal" amount, but the way it was handled and the fact that it's just tacky and cheap and I thought/hoped Princess was better than that. I know other lines are doing/have done this and I know Princess is within their rights to do it, but just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. 

Agree with all your points!
I just want what we were told was included in our package when we chose it and paid final payment 2 months ago for our upcoming sailing.
And as long as we are still discussing it, it makes no sense to me that someone on a 25 day sailing just gets the same 2 casual meals as someone on a 7 day cruise.  JMHO.

Edited August 22, 2023 by suzyed

[suzyed]

32 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Either way Princess wins. If they continue to use it and put load on the resources they pay, if they do not use it then it reduces load on the system improving performance for others.

 

Either way Princess wins.

And who loses?  The customers.

[suzyed]

26 minutes ago, ldtr said:

As I asked before and you did not reply what specific drink item did you try to order on the app and could not get it without going to the bar?

 

To me the menus seemed rather expansive. Certainly any drink I wanted could be ordered on it, including some rather complex coffee drinks.

 

Though I have noticed that the selection will change based upon where you are in rather ship and which bar ends up getting and servicing the order.

There is no Bloody Caesar on the menu.   And when I thought about adding some vodka to my Strawberries on Fire drink, that option was not available.  If I wanted to replace the Gin in a drink with vodka I didn't see that option either.

[memoak]

33 minutes ago, ldtr said:

As I asked before and you did not reply what specific drink item did you try to order on the app and could not get it without going to the bar?

 

To me the menus seemed rather expansive. Certainly any drink I wanted could be ordered on it, including some rather complex coffee drinks.

 

Though I have noticed that the selection will change based upon where you are in rather ship and which bar ends up getting and servicing the order.

I like my Manhattan’s stirred no shaken with a small amount of ice and just a dash of vermouth. I always order once my butt is on the barstool 

[Guest ldtr]

25 minutes ago, suzyed said:

And who loses?  The customers.

If you buy a package that has it included then you win because it costs you nothing extra and service is better due to reduced demand.  In other words the customers Princess wants win, the customers that are fare only lose, if they used it in the past.

[JimmyVWine]

56 minutes ago, gilboman said:

Royal and Celebrity have been doing great despite much worse food quality especially post covid and pushing people to paid restaurants and people are loving it based on their pax numbers. 

I'm not sure that one can draw a straight line between pushing people to paid restaurants, serving poor quality food and passenger numbers.  Ever hear of "in spite of, not because of"?

[Guest ldtr]

37 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Take liquor for example.  Does Ocean Now support ordering a double, ordering neat vs on rocks?  I cannot order a Yellowbird or other tropical concoctions I and bartenders can be aware of.

 

I recall on my last cruise that one could order some options including with or with out ice (neat vs on the rocks).  Are they on the normal bar menu?

 

The person I was responding to indicated that there were drinks on the menu that was not available on the app.

[JimmyVWine]

2 minutes ago, ldtr said:

If you buy a package that has it included then you win because it costs you nothing extra and service is better due to reduced demand.  In other words the customers Princess wants win, the customers that are fare only lose, if they used it in the past.

WINNER!  Lost in much of this back and forth is that these features cost NOTHING to the people who are buying packages.  They had all of these features a month ago, and they will have these features a month from now, all at no cost.  

[Guest ldtr]

26 minutes ago, suzyed said:

There is no Bloody Caesar on the menu.   And when I thought about adding some vodka to my Strawberries on Fire drink, that option was not available.  If I wanted to replace the Gin in a drink with vodka I didn't see that option either.

Is a Bloody Caesar on the printed bar menu?   Clearly an app cannot provide every possible way of preparing and ordering a drink. 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

Is a Bloody Caesar on the printed bar menu?   Clearly an app cannot provide every possible way of preparing and ordering a drink. 

Which is why I don't understand why they couldn't have an OTHER text box.  After all, a guest can order a drink that isn't on that bar's menu, nor any menu for that matter.  The bartender figures out a price based on similar drink AFAIK.  (Or maybe they have more common drink names in their computers to punch up and charge).  I am not enough of a drinker to push this idea, but it would make sense unless Princess wants to stifle the App usage somewhat.

[rosevew]

5 hours ago, startedwithamouse said:

Everything is a push to buy Plus or Premier. 

 

We always buy Plus with the exception of cruises 14/15 days or more. 

Interested to know why that's a cut off point for you?

[rosevew]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

WINNER!  Lost in much of this back and forth is that these features cost NOTHING to the people who are buying packages.  They had all of these features a month ago, and they will have these features a month from now, all at no cost.  

We have a plus package and a month ago we had the option of multiple visits to Alfredo's during a 24 night cruise at no cost. Now we have to pay $14.99 each for anymore than 2 visits so I don't call that no cost.

[caribill]

 .

[Guest ldtr]

44 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Which is why I don't understand why they couldn't have an OTHER text box.  After all, a guest can order a drink that isn't on that bar's menu, nor any menu for that matter.  The bartender figures out a price based on similar drink AFAIK.  (Or maybe they have more common drink names in their computers to punch up and charge).  I am not enough of a drinker to push this idea, but it would make sense unless Princess wants to stifle the App usage somewhat.

Usually you design an app to handle X percentage of orders.  It varies what X is depending upon company.   Might be that they do not include a text box because they do not want to incur a lot of variation.  Biggest problem with a text box is what happens when someone orders a variation that they cannot deliver. Do they deliver what they can? do they cancel the order? do they track the person down and have a discussion?  If the goal is to minimize resources you include the options that are most popular, with the intent of hitting a percentage of demand.  Where that percentage is make vary by a number of things to balance out work load vs service level.

 

I expect that will change over time as they work through that complexity vs convenience level decisions.

 

The prices need to be in the App if it is being used by those not on a package.  Which means any option that impacts cost needs to have the price in it.  Otherwise you would need to go back to the requestor with the price and get their agreement.

 

The question is being able to process 90% of the orders acceptable?  how about 95% or does it need to be 99.999999999999999999%.

 

From what I saw the people ordering specific variations tended to be sitting in bars ordering from waiters or directly to bar tenders.  Those out and about in various venues seemed to mostly to be happy to get alcohol in their hands ordering drinks by common name.

Edited August 22, 2023 by ldtr

[suzyed]

2 hours ago, ldtr said:

If you buy a package that has it included then you win because it costs you nothing extra and service is better due to reduced demand.  In other words the customers Princess wants win, the customers that are fare only lose, if they used it in the past.

Hmmm?  I DID buy a package that had included casual meals.  Somehow I don't feel like I'm winning when they changed what was included in my Plus package and now will charge me for more than 2 Casual dining visits.  Winning? Uh, no!

[SCX22]

1 minute ago, suzyed said:

Hmmm?  I DID buy a package that had included casual meals.  Somehow I don't feel like I'm winning when they changed what was included in my Plus package and now will charge me for more than 2 Casual dining visits.  Winning? Uh, no!

 

At this point, it's only Princess' feelings that matters.  Already being done whether you like it or not or agree/disagree with implantation. Take it or leave it.  If you cancel, you're out money, so just take it.

[Guest ldtr]

4 minutes ago, suzyed said:

Hmmm?  I DID buy a package that had included casual meals.  Somehow I don't feel like I'm winning when they changed what was included in my Plus package and now will charge me for more than 2 Casual dining visits.  Winning? Uh, no!

My response was in response to some posts about room service and ordering by App.  That is the context of this comment.  Replace  each it with (Room Service/App ordering)

 

If you buy a package that has it included then you win because it costs you nothing extra and service is better due to reduced demand.  In other words the customers Princess wants win, the customers that are fare only lose, if they used it in the past.

Edited August 22, 2023 by ldtr