It’s more of the fact this is a longer sailing. Majority of guests on those trips are the upper 2 levels. The perks won’t be available is because almost everyone on the trip has them. Can’t give priority if almost everyone has it.
@@texasboykc09 - Yep! I’ve been loyal to RCCL, NCL and Celebrity for many years. Reached Pinnacle with RCCL a few years ago and a few crossings lately we’ve seen dedicated space for Pinnacle members fill up. RCCL had Diamond, then Diamond Plus, and now Pinnacle. I look for RCCL to add yet another level. Diamond and Diamond Plus are a dime a dozen these days.
It is grandfathered - if you want to stay at the original Premier inclusions. You will only be charged the extra $10/ day if you ask to change to the new Premier.
Princess is nickle and diming to the point of mass confusion and insult. Changes after you have booked should not apply. You should get what you signed-up for. Soon the luxury lines will have new guests tired of the Princess games.
Pretty soon there will be a charge evertime you enter/exit your cabin. Apparently, Princess (and most other cruise lines) think their passengers are made out of money.
A big problem I have with the premier package and especially now as it might get used even more, and I'm speaking through experience, is the dining reservation for the speciality restaurants. You can buy the package with its sales pitch of unlimited dining, but depending on when you buy it might have a massive bearing on your ability to actually book a table as the can sell out fast, even more so on a ship like Emerald or Caribbean. So if you spend $90/day there is absolutely no guarantee that you can get your seat in the crown grill and you might have just wasted your money, and that is plainly not right.
I can't speak one way or the other about the value of the upgrades. All I know is that just recently I was looking into going on a Princess cruise for next year. The basic cost seemed reasonable but once you got any "upgrades" it rapidly priced out of what I'm willing to spend. My husband & I like the occasional cocktail but we really just drink water, coffee & tea. As for specialty coffee I would only drink those once or twice in a week (normally I would drink one maybe once a month). I don't know what "casual" dining covers and the descriptions are not specific nor do I know what is considered part of the so-called "included" foods for the basic price. Because of this my first cruise is going to be a river cruise which really does have "all-inclusive" pricing. Yes dining times are set in stone but I can live with that for 9 nine days and we can get all the water, coffee & tea we want without paying an outrageous price for it. Bonus points that they're not Mega-Ships. 😉🙃
@@camilledextraze7104well, we were on HAL lately, and I can't confirm that. We found the prices on the Nieuw Statendam high, but that "Have it all" did not make it cheaper! The point is You pay it once and forget about how much you actually paid - that is their trick!
In my experience on Celebrity: water, coffee, teas, basic juice like apple, cranberry from the dispenser are always free and available at the buffet and beverage stations. I paid for one glass of wine one night at dinner and that was it. No beverage package needed.
So… if you are a non-drinker, it doesn’t make sense to get the package - but what it does do is fill the speciality dining rooms so there prob won’t be room for those without the package, fill decent theatre seats with those with the package who technically could show up at the last minute and other privileges. It’s going back to a class system. So as a non- drinker, I’m relegated to steerage for many venues unless I want to pay for drinks at the highest end package. Doesn’t seem right.
Cruising use to be an all inclusive type of vacation, Now it is how much more can you pay to get a lot of things that should be included. Going to start making people chose other types of vacations soon. I may start using my time share more as when I do the all inclusive there they don't make me pay more to the restaurants.
We did our first Princess cruise last December on the Caribbean Princess, we did the Premier package and it was nice, but we decided to go with the Plus package for our cruise next spring. The specialty restaurants are nice, but it was hard enough to get reservations for 2 nights, and I'm not confident we would be able to get them for all 7. And I don't think I got even close to the 15-drink limit, including my morning mimosas and cappuccinos. Now that it's $30/day/pp more I'm really convinced it's not worth it. That's an extra $420 we can use for shore excursions and other things like an Ultimate Balcony Dinner, which I highly recommend.
Carnival is just getting worse and worse. I'm sure carnival isn't giving anything to replace those lost perks. It's just a "sorry Charlie, your loyalty doesn't mean crap to us anymore".
Enjoying your tips and trips on the ships. Followed you and Tony a few days ago and because I don't do cold weather I get to see places through your eyes
It's not worth it to me. The additional cost is another cruise, at least to me. I am content to book a "Standard" cruise with Princess and pay as I go if there is something I want.
The new premier is not worth it unless they expand dining hours for specialty restaurants. On my last 2 cruises making reservations was difficult. On one trip I couldn’t get dining at all and the other the only time slot they had was 8:30 pm. For me 8:30 PM is way too late considering we had an early port the next morning
I hear and respect your comment, but don't speak to fast. Usually the cruise lines tend to watch what each other is doing and if NCL are not doing it now doesn't mean they won't soon.
I did a Princess cruise as a solo earlier this year and bought the Plus. I knew I needed WiFi and would be paying the tips anyway so the extra $20 spent covered drinks. Never felt like I would have benefited by upgrading to Premium. BTW, the ice cream bar is worth it!
I can not understand the need to take away the perks of early boarding and disembarkation for diamond and platinum members on Carnival. All they have to do is give out these perks in the order that members requested them. Once they have given out all of the early boarding, etc. then people will board at the regular time but in the diamond and platinum lines. I think that would make people happier than taking away the perks all together.
The operative word IF you can Afford them. Maybe the only upside to a price increase is that the law of economics is that demand will drop. This might present some cruise price specials like in the old days and less crowded ships.
The Princess upgrade in the Premier package makes it an easy choice and it's a big NO. I will stay with the Plus package. When I first saw this I booked my specialty dining for my Mar 25 cruise because it will sell out fast.
The most interesting part of plus is getting gratuities since we pay that anyway. The other things are ok. Premier holds no interest for me. It’s good for the because they need the super internet. Not me.
gratuities are compulsory, I don’t begrudge that at all…..but make it part of the ‘ticket’ price like the port taxes etc. are. They have to be shown up front, so no surprises.
We’ve booked Princess Plus for our Panama Canal cruise. I think it will be fine. I will make sure I get a few special coffees on our last day. Princess makes tons of $$$ on disembarkation days!
Plus has 2 desserts per day. 3 of us shared 2 desserts per day and we all had plus. Those giant cake slices from the International Cafe hit the spot late night.
I purchased Princess Plus on my last cruise and it worked for me just fine. Not sure that the Premier package is worth it to me, especially if getting a reservation at specialty dining is going to be difficult.
Princess website is terrible right now. I see the technical difficulty sign more than anything else. I sure am glad my cruises are not till April 2025. I can't pay anything, or search for excursions or check flights. It has been bad for a month or more and has been almost totally non functioning for the last week.
ikr. They seem to be the only line that can never get their tech to work, as much as they like to hype it up! Wish they'd just fix what they already have in place before trying to "improve" and change to new things.
I have been on 8 Carnival cruises where they have sent us that type of email. Not once has it been done. Guess they just send it incase they have to one day enforce the rule. Also it’s only that one ship; it’s not fleet wide. They send the notice every 4 or 5 months whenever there is a large number priority guest on that cruise, it’s not fleet wide.. But I fell for the click 😊
We were on a Carnival cruise where there were so many Diamond and Platinum cruisers that we didn’t get the early off the ship at any of the cruise ports. We had to wait to get a tender boat to shore and we were already late leaving the ship due to some customs delays. We were worried about getting to our tour on time. Most of the gifts on-board were very limited and were available until they ran out.
Problem is Carnival is not one cruise line, it's the holding company for many cruise lines. They do this to drive customers to other lines they own, where the base fare has always been higher (ie. Princess or Holland America both owned by Carnival).
Checked and the Ambassador docked at IJmuiden, about 23km from Amsterdam Centraal. Docking there avoids the time needed to cross the locks and vavigate the river ever so slowly to the "downtown" dock. There is no train in IJmuiden but a station about 10 minutes away gets you to Amsterdam Centraal betwene 30 and 58 minutes depending on train. Service every 30 minutes. I,d say the time needed to travel to downtown from IJmuiden is less than it would take ship to travel same distance, so it is a net win in terms of times spent in Amsterdam itself. OIf they force people only slow buses stuck in traffuc, that is the cruise line's problem. Amsterdam is a city transformed to make public transit the fastest way to get around.
Premier package is ridiculously expensive. There is no way on earth I’ll ever see any good reason to purchase it. And who wants unlimited desserts. Why would we need 4 appliances to connect to the internet while cruising. I don’t understand their logic for this change, at all.
Totally agree! Not worth it to me and DH either. We pick Princess Standard and are happy as a lark! Hope on Wi-Fi when in a port if need to. Pay the fee for specialty dining if we want to splurge but 9/10 never do.
What “appropriately deal with” actions would you suggest? Would you be happy if that was done in your own country? In the US a permit is about all I can point to. And yes I remember the farming tractors on the mall in DC. And the annual protests outside the Supreme Court, on 22 January as I recall. The monthly protests that nearly block an entrance to the Pentagon. And then there were the Vietnam protests etc. some chaining themselves to gates and fences. Yes, some were arrested but usually after they refused to comply with a police order not because they were there.
Liberalism is a cancer to America. They allowed Antifa to take over entire blocks and BLM to burn and destroy cities! They didn't do anything. Blame Biden and the liberals for this madness.
"Unlimited" looks great on paper, but for a specific cruise, you need to look at what activities you have planned and how many of those unlimited services you would actually use. A while back, you were on a ship with a gazillion different drinks, and for such a cruise, a high drink limit would be worth it if your plan is to sample as many as you can. But for another ship, your drinking habist might be such that the drinks package isn't worth it. I think where those packages have non-math value is early access to disembarquation, reserved seats in theatre etc, perks that you cannot buy separately, so can't place a value on them. (or priority access to reserved restaurants). The tough part is when you use only those intangible benefits, you can't quantify their value so can't know if it is with the price of the paclage if you only use those perks.
Princess Plus is perfect for us. Not worth the extra for Premier. I would like the old photo package where you could pay for unlimited but now we buy a 5 or 10 photo package and pick the best.
Anytime when you cruise a Journey cruise (10 days or more) with Carnival you never have priority embarkation or disembarkation because typically everyone on the cruise is Platinum and Diamond
The wife and I have done several Princess cruises to include 2 transatlantics. We have always bought the standard cruise felt no need for the over priced upgrades. We bring on our 2 bottles of wine, 12 sodas and that's it. There is no way any drink package would be cost effective for us. I might buy 2 beers on board. WiFi, really? Just disconnect during the cruise. Our phone service gives us unlimited data and text in just about everywhere. We thoroughly enjoy Princess as is.
Hi Don, not a criticism, but I know a lot of us Aussies are subscribed to your channel, and often comments about the Princess packages create confusion. For bookings made on the Australian Princess website, crew appreciation is not included in the Plus or Premier Packages, and we pay a lower $ amount for those packages compared to what you pay. The reason is that generally cruises that start in Australia do not have a requirement for crew appreciation payments as it is expected that crew members are paid appropriately and do not need to rely on "tipping". On the other hand, if we book an overseas cruise, the crew appreciation payment is added on a daily basis, even with a Package. Theoretically, you can request that the daily amount be reversed, but I have never done this as I understand that "tipping" in the US etc is a significant part of getting a livable salary. It is amazing the number of people In Australia that get hot under the collar about crew appreciation not being in our Packages without realising that we actually pay less for the Package.
There's only so much nickel and diming cruises can do before people just refuse to sail with them. But they'll push it until they just about reach that point
We usually get Princess Plus Package which is good enough for us. We are not heavy drinkers or utilize the Specially Dining. Premier package certainly not worth it for us but I can see it can be for others.
If you can take advantage of all the inclusions in Premier, it is probably a good deal, but we probably will not go to it. We do not drink alcohol so the beverage change is useless. My husband doesn't do Internet at all so we don't need 4 devices. I believe it will be hard to get reservations for specialty dining once passengers on Premier can book it multiple times so that remains questionable as well. Plus is probably what we will stay with because an extra $60 per day just doesn't make sense for us.
@sleepyJem1982 I do understand, but the package for Plus already covers all the nonalcoholic drinks like coffee, soda, etc so no reason to upgrade for drinks from Plus unless you DO drink alcohol. If my husband did Internet, that would be advantage, but he does not so no reason to upgrade there either. For us, it just doesn't make sense to go from Plus to Premier unless we want the unlimited specialty dining option, which is very dependent on getting reservations when you want them.
They should add on staff to accomdate what they promised for benefits...they make record profits...I am never gonna be that high in points but to me this is the problem with the point system...if you promise something you need to follow through
Priority embarkation and disembarkation are good perks. Shame they are being cut. There's nothing the cruisers can do, though. Premier changes sound great, however.
I’m tired of seeing cruise lines creating a Cast System on ships. I enjoy going on cruises for what they’ve been since cruise lines did away with first class and Steerage. Now they are going backward catering to the “elite” that are able to pay more and not have to rub elbows with the “common folk”. This idea of making the majority of their loyal cruisers feel like obvious second class people is not going to work well as they move more and more in this direction.
So very true. Cruise lines need to be careful. For most the cost of a cruise makes it a once in a lifetime "Special" occasion and you feel Special. If the cruise lines continue the separation that special will soon sink to feeling like S@#^.
What’s happening that many are getting the higher status and too many to deal with! Royal is the same with Pinnacle- costal kitchen limits its guests depends on first the suite guests, next the higher Pinnacles then those who just have low or Zenith ones from Celebrity. So, just having the status competes with the ones having highest points within the category!
Unlimited drinks sounds like a great idea since Carnival never has had any problems with people over drinking and causing problems. Perhaps they should rethink that.
The cruise lines who offered double and triple points during covid are now reaping what they sowed. I never saw the benefit of Premier anyways, so I'll stick with Plus. Let's just say, those premium sundaes are not for us.
I'm totally pissed that princess has not allowed me to take advantage of this new promo. I booked 3 months ago for a cruise at the end of this year. AND NOW NEW COMERS GET A PERK!!! WTF!!! It's fine. I don't drink enough to hit the max and I'll probably only have 2 of those delicious sundaes the entire cruise.
I’m wondering if you have a suite booked will this still be included? I’m not platinum but since we booked a suite, we should also get priority embarkation/debarkation.
Hi Don Maybe you also mention in news what Tahiti/Matquesas and Norway are planning to do te : large cruise ships. See Gary Bembridge video on possible cruise port closures within a few years. By the way the Phillippines building 4 new cruise ports. Great but what other infrastructure are they doing as some of the locations are remote and 3000-4000 people in one hit is not good. Cheers keith
Not 100% sure but I would guess the Carnival cruise from Singapore to Australia is a 'Journeys' cruise. It is SOP that those perks do not apply on Journeys cruises and is listed on the website. This is not something new but I have noticed that they seem to go out of their way to announce it due to the number of people that NEVER read any of the terms and conditions.
No 🧁 thank you, trying to avoid diabetes. Same with alcohol, I as m not a young adult anymore, I don’t drink as much. I would not even upgrade to plus.
I don't have a problem with $90 a day for premier i think its a great deal, but if you can not get reservations to specialty dining, it's plain robbery. i want my money back. That's selling something you can't produce. Also, if i try to make reservations ahead of time on the app it makes you pay then and there for the dinner or you can not make the reservation, why should i pay if i have premier and have to deal with trying to get my money back ? They definitely need to fix a few things.
Think local govt.in Amsterdam should have taken action with those protesters right away. As far as Princess Premier pkg. price increase is concerned, don't think it's fair that those with cruises already booked with Premier aren't grandfathered at the $80 price & should not be charged the extra $10. now. Personally, we've booked with the Plus pkg., which is enough for us.
Amsterdam will slowly phase out cruise ships and ultimately shutter its cruise terminal. The city will cap cruise ships to 100 per year starting in 2026. By 2035, Amsterdam's terminal will close.
When everyone is special, no one is.
People with a alcohol addiction
Thanks Don wow why bother being loyal to a cruise line if they keep taking things away, one way to lose loyal cruisers.
Businesses only have loyalty to one thing: money.
Carnival, Holland and Princess is the same company. Almost a monopoly. Your choices are severely limited.
It’s more of the fact this is a longer sailing. Majority of guests on those trips are the upper 2 levels. The perks won’t be available is because almost everyone on the trip has them. Can’t give priority if almost everyone has it.
@@texasboykc09 - Yep! I’ve been loyal to RCCL, NCL and Celebrity for many years. Reached Pinnacle with RCCL a few years ago and a few crossings lately we’ve seen dedicated space for Pinnacle members fill up. RCCL had Diamond, then Diamond Plus, and now Pinnacle. I look for RCCL to add yet another level. Diamond and Diamond Plus are a dime a dozen these days.
Not grandfathering a purchase price for a purchase made prior to a cruise line change is just plain wrong.
Typical Princess.
Isn’t it YOU purchasing a cruise considered a “contract”?
Lol
Welcome to cruising. They just change the rules anytime they want to. The loyalty programs have been gutted.
It is grandfathered - if you want to stay at the original Premier inclusions. You will only be charged the extra $10/ day if you ask to change to the new Premier.
Princess is nickle and diming to the point of mass confusion and insult. Changes after you have booked should not apply. You should get what you signed-up for. Soon the luxury lines will have new guests tired of the Princess games.
Thank you, Don, for the news and keeping us informed.
Pretty soon there will be a charge evertime you enter/exit your cabin. Apparently, Princess (and most other cruise lines) think their passengers are made out of money.
A big problem I have with the premier package and especially now as it might get used even more, and I'm speaking through experience, is the dining reservation for the speciality restaurants. You can buy the package with its sales pitch of unlimited dining, but depending on when you buy it might have a massive bearing on your ability to actually book a table as the can sell out fast, even more so on a ship like Emerald or Caribbean. So if you spend $90/day there is absolutely no guarantee that you can get your seat in the crown grill and you might have just wasted your money, and that is plainly not right.
100% agree! they are trying to oversell these special dining venues but they are always overbooked to begin with!
It’s 11PM and we haven’t left Port yet. They said we are leaving sometime overnight.
Princess premier is too much for me, I wouldn't upgrade as I wouldn't use most of those perks.
We were looking at Princess, but looks like we will just stick with Carnival!
@@lummoxx8586 I guess you haven't experienced the difference. The food on Carnival is 2nd rate. Always has been.
How many devices can you be on at once?
I can't speak one way or the other about the value of the upgrades. All I know is that just recently I was looking into going on a Princess cruise for next year. The basic cost seemed reasonable but once you got any "upgrades" it rapidly priced out of what I'm willing to spend. My husband & I like the occasional cocktail but we really just drink water, coffee & tea. As for specialty coffee I would only drink those once or twice in a week (normally I would drink one maybe once a month). I don't know what "casual" dining covers and the descriptions are not specific nor do I know what is considered part of the so-called "included" foods for the basic price. Because of this my first cruise is going to be a river cruise which really does have "all-inclusive" pricing. Yes dining times are set in stone but I can live with that for 9 nine days and we can get all the water, coffee & tea we want without paying an outrageous price for it. Bonus points that they're not Mega-Ships. 😉🙃
@@Lynn-kh5rs Don't buy a package!
Next cruise…try Holla d America Line. Their “Have it all” package is half the price of each item all put together.
@@camilledextraze7104well, we were on HAL lately, and I can't confirm that. We found the prices on the Nieuw Statendam high, but that "Have it all" did not make it cheaper! The point is You pay it once and forget about how much you actually paid - that is their trick!
Love river cruising, Uniworld for the win!
In my experience on Celebrity: water, coffee, teas, basic juice like apple, cranberry from the dispenser are always free and available at the buffet and beverage stations. I paid for one glass of wine one night at dinner and that was it. No beverage package needed.
Premium desserts…ran out on our cruise last year. How can you run out of ice cream? And, this was early in the cruise.
So… if you are a non-drinker, it doesn’t make sense to get the package - but what it does do is fill the speciality dining rooms so there prob won’t be room for those without the package, fill decent theatre seats with those with the package who technically could show up at the last minute and other privileges. It’s going back to a class system. So as a non- drinker, I’m relegated to steerage for many venues unless I want to pay for drinks at the highest end package. Doesn’t seem right.
Cruising use to be an all inclusive type of vacation, Now it is how much more can you pay to get a lot of things that should be included.
Going to start making people chose other types of vacations soon. I may start using my time share more as when I do the all inclusive there they don't make me pay more to the restaurants.
We did our first Princess cruise last December on the Caribbean Princess, we did the Premier package and it was nice, but we decided to go with the Plus package for our cruise next spring. The specialty restaurants are nice, but it was hard enough to get reservations for 2 nights, and I'm not confident we would be able to get them for all 7. And I don't think I got even close to the 15-drink limit, including my morning mimosas and cappuccinos. Now that it's $30/day/pp more I'm really convinced it's not worth it. That's an extra $420 we can use for shore excursions and other things like an Ultimate Balcony Dinner, which I highly recommend.
Carnival is just getting worse and worse. I'm sure carnival isn't giving anything to replace those lost perks. It's just a "sorry Charlie, your loyalty doesn't mean crap to us anymore".
Not worth it to us, not at $1,800 for our 10 day cruise for 2 people.
We paid $7756 for an upcoming 7 day cruise. We dang well BETTER get free ice cream. LOL!
Enjoying your tips and trips on the ships. Followed you and Tony a few days ago and because I don't do cold weather I get to see places through your eyes
Looking to book a 33-day cruise from Rome to Boston in 2025 on Princess. The Premier Package would cost $5,940 - probably gonna pass.
It's not worth it to me. The additional cost is another cruise, at least to me. I am content to book a "Standard" cruise with Princess and pay as I go if there is something I want.
The new premier is not worth it unless they expand dining hours for specialty restaurants.
On my last 2 cruises making reservations was difficult. On one trip I couldn’t get dining at all and the other the only time slot they had was 8:30 pm. For me 8:30 PM is way too late considering we had an early port the next morning
Now I know why I will never go on any Princess cruises . I am a NCL person and have been for years and don't plan to change.
I hear and respect your comment, but don't speak to fast. Usually the cruise lines tend to watch what each other is doing and if NCL are not doing it now doesn't mean they won't soon.
It is going to be harder to book specialty dining, especially on smaller ships.
I did a Princess cruise as a solo earlier this year and bought the Plus. I knew I needed WiFi and would be paying the tips anyway so the extra $20 spent covered drinks. Never felt like I would have benefited by upgrading to Premium. BTW, the ice cream bar is worth it!
I can not understand the need to take away the perks of early boarding and disembarkation for diamond and platinum members on Carnival. All they have to do is give out these perks in the order that members requested them.
Once they have given out all of the early boarding, etc. then people will board at the regular time but in the diamond and platinum lines.
I think that would make people happier than taking away the perks all together.
The upgrade sounds great IF you can afford them!
The operative word IF you can Afford them. Maybe the only upside to a price increase is that the law of economics is that demand will drop. This might present some cruise price specials like in the old days and less crowded ships.
Coming soon. "You want a cabin with that?"
Correct!
LOL!
The Princess upgrade in the Premier package makes it an easy choice and it's a big NO. I will stay with the Plus package. When I first saw this I booked my specialty dining for my Mar 25 cruise because it will sell out fast.
The most interesting part of plus is getting gratuities since we pay that anyway. The other things are ok. Premier holds no interest for me. It’s good for the because they need the super internet. Not me.
Thank you Don for keeping us informed 👍 🙏
Those who booked the larger premier should be grandfather'd in.
gratuities are compulsory, I don’t begrudge that at all…..but make it part of the ‘ticket’ price like the port taxes etc. are. They have to be shown up front, so no surprises.
Thanks for the update Don!
Can't get reservations for all venues! There are too many people on board now.
Don you are doing and excellent job on keeping us inform on different cruise line keep up the good work
We’ve booked Princess Plus for our Panama Canal cruise. I think it will be fine. I will make sure I get a few special coffees on our last day. Princess makes tons of $$$ on disembarkation days!
Thanks for the update on Carnival Vista. I'm heading out on her Sept 7.
Thankyou Don for sharing cruise news!! Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!!
Plus has 2 desserts per day. 3 of us shared 2 desserts per day and we all had plus. Those giant cake slices from the International Cafe hit the spot late night.
I purchased Princess Plus on my last cruise and it worked for me just fine. Not sure that the Premier package is worth it to me, especially if getting a reservation at specialty dining is going to be difficult.
Thanks Don, for all the news as always
Thanks!
Princess website is terrible right now. I see the technical difficulty sign more than anything else. I sure am glad my cruises are not till April 2025. I can't pay anything, or search for excursions or check flights. It has been bad for a month or more and has been almost totally non functioning for the last week.
ikr. They seem to be the only line that can never get their tech to work, as much as they like to hype it up! Wish they'd just fix what they already have in place before trying to "improve" and change to new things.
@@sarapugh6700 I agree. The app is unreliable also. They have great ideas, but are failing at the implementation and maintenance.
Unlimited dessert . Lol 😂 then only two exercise classes. Princess has “jumped the shark “
I have been on 8 Carnival cruises where they have sent us that type of email. Not once has it been done.
Guess they just send it incase they have to one day enforce the rule.
Also it’s only that one ship; it’s not fleet wide.
They send the notice every 4 or 5 months whenever there is a large number priority guest on that cruise, it’s not fleet wide..
But I fell for the click 😊
We were on a Carnival cruise where there were so many Diamond and Platinum cruisers that we didn’t get the early off the ship at any of the cruise ports. We had to wait to get a tender boat to shore and we were already late leaving the ship due to some customs delays. We were worried about getting to our tour on time.
Most of the gifts on-board were very limited and were available until they ran out.
Problem is Carnival is not one cruise line, it's the holding company for many cruise lines. They do this to drive customers to other lines they own, where the base fare has always been higher (ie. Princess or Holland America both owned by Carnival).
Checked and the Ambassador docked at IJmuiden, about 23km from Amsterdam Centraal.
Docking there avoids the time needed to cross the locks and vavigate the river ever so slowly to the "downtown" dock.
There is no train in IJmuiden but a station about 10 minutes away gets you to Amsterdam Centraal betwene 30 and 58 minutes depending on train.
Service every 30 minutes. I,d say the time needed to travel to downtown from IJmuiden is less than it would take ship to travel same distance, so it is a net win in terms of times spent in Amsterdam itself. OIf they force people only slow buses stuck in traffuc, that is the cruise line's problem.
Amsterdam is a city transformed to make public transit the fastest way to get around.
Premier package is ridiculously expensive. There is no way on earth I’ll ever see any good reason to purchase it. And who wants unlimited desserts. Why would we need 4 appliances to connect to the internet while cruising. I don’t understand their logic for this change, at all.
Totally agree! Not worth it to me and DH either. We pick Princess Standard and are happy as a lark! Hope on Wi-Fi when in a port if need to. Pay the fee for specialty dining if we want to splurge but 9/10 never do.
Fantastic Sunday 🎉
We have Princess + for an upcoming cruise and not sure it’s worth the extra money for premier since we don’t drink. But it does have some nice perks.
Good updates. Have a nice day Don !
Same for our sailing on Panorama to Japan. Too many Platinum and Diamond guests. It’s very typical on Journey cruises.
Princess Premier package- better have that Medevac helicopter ready.
It's sad that the government is so spineless they won't appropriately deal with the protesters.
What “appropriately deal with” actions would you suggest? Would you be happy if that was done in your own country?
In the US a permit is about all I can point to. And yes I remember the farming tractors on the mall in DC. And the annual protests outside the Supreme Court, on 22 January as I recall. The monthly protests that nearly block an entrance to the Pentagon. And then there were the Vietnam protests etc. some chaining themselves to gates and fences. Yes, some were arrested but usually after they refused to comply with a police order not because they were there.
Liberalism is a cancer to America. They allowed Antifa to take over entire blocks and BLM to burn and destroy cities! They didn't do anything. Blame Biden and the liberals for this madness.
Do you remember what happened on Jan 6, 2021 ?
@@johnmiller8778 They allowed people in and then Pelosi and the dems covered it up.
They have had it, including cruise ducks deployed in the canals! Enough trash, mobs, etc.
My sister and I are planning to get the Premier package. Now with the unlimited dinning makes it even better.
"Unlimited" looks great on paper, but for a specific cruise, you need to look at what activities you have planned and how many of those unlimited services you would actually use. A while back, you were on a ship with a gazillion different drinks, and for such a cruise, a high drink limit would be worth it if your plan is to sample as many as you can. But for another ship, your drinking habist might be such that the drinks package isn't worth it.
I think where those packages have non-math value is early access to disembarquation, reserved seats in theatre etc, perks that you cannot buy separately, so can't place a value on them. (or priority access to reserved restaurants). The tough part is when you use only those intangible benefits, you can't quantify their value so can't know if it is with the price of the paclage if you only use those perks.
Just get a travel router, that way when you are in the cabin you can have as many devices online as you want.
Princess Plus is perfect for us. Not worth the extra for Premier. I would like the old photo package where you could pay for unlimited but now we buy a 5 or 10 photo package and pick the best.
We didn't get priority boarding in January because of amount of platinum and diamond on board. It's all good
Anytime when you cruise a Journey cruise (10 days or more) with Carnival you never have priority embarkation or disembarkation because typically everyone on the cruise is Platinum and Diamond
The wife and I have done several Princess cruises to include 2 transatlantics. We have always bought the standard cruise felt no need for the over priced upgrades. We bring on our 2 bottles of wine, 12 sodas and that's it. There is no way any drink package would be cost effective for us. I might buy 2 beers on board. WiFi, really? Just disconnect during the cruise. Our phone service gives us unlimited data and text in just about everywhere. We thoroughly enjoy Princess as is.
Hi Don, not a criticism, but I know a lot of us Aussies are subscribed to your channel, and often comments about the Princess packages create confusion. For bookings made on the Australian Princess website, crew appreciation is not included in the Plus or Premier Packages, and we pay a lower $ amount for those packages compared to what you pay. The reason is that generally cruises that start in Australia do not have a requirement for crew appreciation payments as it is expected that crew members are paid appropriately and do not need to rely on "tipping". On the other hand, if we book an overseas cruise, the crew appreciation payment is added on a daily basis, even with a Package. Theoretically, you can request that the daily amount be reversed, but I have never done this as I understand that "tipping" in the US etc is a significant part of getting a livable salary. It is amazing the number of people In Australia that get hot under the collar about crew appreciation not being in our Packages without realising that we actually pay less for the Package.
There's only so much nickel and diming cruises can do before people just refuse to sail with them. But they'll push it until they just about reach that point
I received a survey from Princess asking about this a few months ago. Glad to see the changes.
I thnk its worth it but issues would be specity.special dinning will never get a chance to enjoy now since everyone will book them
We usually get Princess Plus Package which is good enough for us. We are not heavy drinkers or utilize the Specially Dining. Premier package certainly not worth it for us but I can see it can be for others.
The Princess premier seems like a great deal. Now I’ll have to look into Princess
If you can take advantage of all the inclusions in Premier, it is probably a good deal, but we probably will not go to it. We do not drink alcohol so the beverage change is useless. My husband doesn't do Internet at all so we don't need 4 devices. I believe it will be hard to get reservations for specialty dining once passengers on Premier can book it multiple times so that remains questionable as well. Plus is probably what we will stay with because an extra $60 per day just doesn't make sense for us.
The unlimited drinks, is not just alcohol, why is this s so hard for pepper to understand 🤔!!!
@sleepyJem1982 I do understand, but the package for Plus already covers all the nonalcoholic drinks like coffee, soda, etc so no reason to upgrade for drinks from Plus unless you DO drink alcohol. If my husband did Internet, that would be advantage, but he does not so no reason to upgrade there either. For us, it just doesn't make sense to go from Plus to Premier unless we want the unlimited specialty dining option, which is very dependent on getting reservations when you want them.
They should add on staff to accomdate what they promised for benefits...they make record profits...I am never gonna be that high in points but to me this is the problem with the point system...if you promise something you need to follow through
I had one of the specialty desserts most days on my Alaska cruise (we got two per day per person). Probably why I gained a few pounds!
Royal Caribbean did something similar to their Diamond rewards group.
Angelina signed me up for Princess Plus! The other week. I’m happy with all those amenities! My opinion, do not need Princess Premier!
Very good report Dan, I’m glad to see you out, cruising. The trip you and Tony took was excellent a real travel log.
Amazing how this yutz has barely missed a week this year at sea.
Priority embarkation and disembarkation are good perks. Shame they are being cut. There's nothing the cruisers can do, though. Premier changes sound great, however.
We were on the Vista in June and it was having issues then. Did they tell us? No.
I’m tired of seeing cruise lines creating a Cast System on ships. I enjoy going on cruises for what they’ve been since cruise lines did away with first class and Steerage. Now they are going backward catering to the “elite” that are able to pay more and not have to rub elbows with the “common folk”. This idea of making the majority of their loyal cruisers feel like obvious second class people is not going to work well as they move more and more in this direction.
So very true. Cruise lines need to be careful. For most the cost of a cruise makes it a once in a lifetime "Special" occasion and you feel Special. If the cruise lines continue the separation that special will soon sink to feeling like S@#^.
*Diamond, on Carnival is above Platinum in the membership tiers. Just letting you know!
What’s happening that many are getting the higher status and too many to deal with! Royal is the same with Pinnacle- costal kitchen limits its guests depends on first the suite guests, next the higher Pinnacles then those who just have low or Zenith ones from Celebrity. So, just having the status competes with the ones having highest points within the category!
I think they should have grandfarthered the old premier to the new premier without an additional charge
Unlimited premium desserts sounds like a bad idea. I would need the fitness classes to work off the desserts.
Unlimited drinks sounds like a great idea since Carnival never has had any problems with people over drinking and causing problems. Perhaps they should rethink that.
Wow, so much!
The cruise lines who offered double and triple points during covid are now reaping what they sowed.
I never saw the benefit of Premier anyways, so I'll stick with Plus.
Let's just say, those premium sundaes are not for us.
I'm totally pissed that princess has not allowed me to take advantage of this new promo. I booked 3 months ago for a cruise at the end of this year. AND NOW NEW COMERS GET A PERK!!! WTF!!! It's fine. I don't drink enough to hit the max and I'll probably only have 2 of those delicious sundaes the entire cruise.
I’m wondering if you have a suite booked will this still be included? I’m not platinum but since we booked a suite, we should also get priority embarkation/debarkation.
Thank you for going over the changes in the Princess plus/premiere
That premier package looks like a great deal...the whole package costs about what just the alcohol package costs on icon
Hi Don
Maybe you also mention in news what Tahiti/Matquesas and Norway are planning to do te : large cruise ships. See Gary Bembridge video on possible cruise port closures within a few years. By the way the Phillippines building 4 new cruise ports. Great but what other infrastructure are they doing as some of the locations are remote and 3000-4000 people in one hit is not good.
Cheers keith
Not 100% sure but I would guess the Carnival cruise from Singapore to Australia is a 'Journeys' cruise. It is SOP that those perks do not apply on Journeys cruises and is listed on the website. This is not something new but I have noticed that they seem to go out of their way to announce it due to the number of people that NEVER read any of the terms and conditions.
I need to examine the changes. I didn't take a package on my last Princes cruise
Thanks, Don for talking about the princess package. I cam handle my booze, but 15 drinks a day is good. Too old for hangovers
Loved your vacation video! As far as did the protesters accomplish something? YES they kept port businesses from making money from tourists 😮
Upgrade sounds expensive but if I had that type of money I would do it
Thanks, Don
No 🧁 thank you, trying to avoid diabetes. Same with alcohol, I as m not a young adult anymore, I don’t drink as much. I would not even upgrade to plus.
Keep up the good work!!!! Maybe one of this days I will take a cruse.
Not sure about upgrading
I don't have a problem with $90 a day for premier i think its a great deal, but if you can not get reservations to specialty dining, it's plain robbery. i want my money back. That's selling something you can't produce. Also, if i try to make reservations ahead of time on the app it makes you pay then and there for the dinner or you can not make the reservation, why should i pay if i have premier and have to deal with trying to get my money back ? They definitely need to fix a few things.
The VIFP items mentioned are no different than on any other Journey cruise that Carnival does. I don’t know why it’s being blown out of proportion.
I have been watching your adventure with Tony on la Lida loca and enjoying it. I’m glad you teamed up . Have a blessed Sunday.
That was really fun as they get along so well yet show different aspects of the same something.
they will probably change it again, within the year
Think local govt.in Amsterdam should have taken action with those protesters right away.
As far as Princess Premier pkg. price increase is concerned, don't think it's fair that those with cruises already booked with Premier aren't grandfathered at the $80 price & should not be charged the extra $10. now.
Personally, we've booked with the Plus pkg., which is enough for us.
Amsterdam will slowly phase out cruise ships and ultimately shutter its cruise terminal. The city will cap cruise ships to 100 per year starting in 2026. By 2035, Amsterdam's terminal will close.