THINK TWICE ABOUT PRINCESS CRUISES
THINK TWICE ABOUT PRINCESS CRUISES, READ THE REVIEWS ON YELP, GOOGLE, AND SOCIAL MEDIA, AND GOOD LUCK GETTING A REFUND CHECK FROM PRINCESS CRUISES AFTER YOUR CRUISE IF YOU'RE OWED A REFUND $!!! We pre-paid cruise, excursions, etc before sailing (Plus package) for our 7-day Alaska cruise from Seattle. Our most expensive excursion was canceled by the ship or vendor the day of and no one even notified us until we packed up and got ready to leave the ship. No notification in the room, on the app, or anywhere about it being canceled. Although it was disappointing, we understood because it was a flight canceled due to weather which was unavoidable, and better safe than sorry. The bad part is that we stayed within our package and have an overpayment that our credit card was billed for due to the canceled excursion ($1,314). It's a lot billed to our credit card, now interest so we could use our refund to pay it back. I just got off the phone with 1-800-PRINCESS AND the agent told me “It’s not a lot of interest.” I've contacted customer service, customer relations, email, live chat, and everywhere almost 20-30 times within the last 6 weeks. I must've spent 8-10 hours so far on this to get our refund $ back. They all give different information, timeframes, etc. The customer service line is so loud with outside noise and strong accents that I couldn't hardly understand. Emails come back with an auto delay message, blah, blah, blah. They never even mailed us our expenses (portfolio) after the cruise and I had to call, request, and email multiple times to even get that (they won’t give it to you onboard and say it will be emailed). I think they want you to not realize, forget, or give up if you're owed $. Good thing I took a screenshot of the account on our room tv monitor as we were walking out to go home. Did you know that they "assume" if you have an overpayment that you want it kept as a "future cruise credit?" unless you contact them and beg, plead, and demand your $ back? The food was not even that great. They charged $1,028 for the drink package once we reviewed the breakdown and our portfolio (that’s $514 per person for 7 days). Drinks were average $10 so between the 2 of us we'd have to drink around 100 drinks in 7 days (that's about 14 drinks per person/day) to even break even on that portion. Our medallion didn't work properly as advertised. We hung our room service breakfast order on our door hanger as we had an early wake-up day and no food came. Ordered food on the app with our medallion to come to us and it never came either after waiting in our room for 2 hours. We requested 2 twin beds and had 1 queen bed. We requested robes in our room and there were none (not really a big deal but if you’re paying $7,500+ for a 7-day vacation it would’ve been nice for my wife). Also, just a head’s up: as of August 12, 2023, some things that were previously included now have a charge from my understanding and they are: Vines, Salty Dog Gastropub, O'Malleys, Ocean Terrace, Alfredo's and Gigi's — will now offer three-course, fixed-price menus. Regular passengers will pay $14.99 for these meals, but Princess Plus and Princess Premier guests can dine for free. A one-time activation fee of $14.99 for OceanNow on-demand food and drinks delivery to your location on the ship, no matter where you are (app/medallion location food service did not work on our Royal Princess cruise). The fee will be waived for passengers who book either of the all-inclusive Plus & Premier packages. Princess Plus or Princess Premier packages can get free room service delivery. Everyone else will have to pay a newly added $5 delivery fee per order. And lastly, I believe they may now be charging to mail your medallion to you. Our port time in Victoria B.C. Canada was cut short only 3 hours from 9 p.m. to midnight so why even bother? We spent over $7,500 on a 7-day cruise for 2 with excursions, not including airfare, and will never go back to Princess!!!
