Lessons Learned - Working with Princess

A couple of quick notes before I discuss what I learned about working with Princess:

• This will not be a vent about Princess (or its parent company, Carnival). We had a wonderful cruise and so much more went right than wrong.

• While I've shared stories about other passengers in other posts, this post will only be based on our personal experience.

We've discussed so many factors about planning and taking a world cruise that should help make it successful. We've discussed life on board, excursions, food, cabin selection, etc. BUT, even moreso than all that, success of the cruise is dependent on two things:

• Perspective

• Expectations

Perspective + expectations = attitude.

In other words, if you manage perspective and expectations well, you can manage satisfaction with your cruise. Set expectations too high and you'll likely be disappointed. Set them reasonably, and you have a great chance at having an amazing experience. But how do you set your perspective and expectations reasonably in the context of a world cruise? It's such an anomaly. Before our world cruise, we didn't know anyone who had done one to even ask.

Let's start by putting things in perspective. There's a (how should I phase it?) an anxious relationship between you and any cruiseline, but especially a world cruise cruiseline. I remember the day our payments were no longer refundable. It was scary, exciting and anxious. I won't bore you with explanations of the scary and exciting, they're two ends of the same continuum about all you imagine your cruise will be. But anxious is this awkward emotion in the middle. Here's my take on it.

When you sign up for a world cruise, you are essentially putting your life in the hands of the Cruise line for almost 4 months. That sounds crazy but its actually true. "Control" might be a strong word and as long as nothing goes wrong, it's irrelevant. But when something goes wrong, they're holding most of the proverbial cards. They control where you live, where you go (or don't go), what food is available and so on. And other than an expensive satellite option through our cell service provider, they control your contact with the outside world when at sea. Other than jail or rehab (ps, I don't have experience with either), I can't think of too many situations where you give control of your life over to another entity.

Adding to this twist in the relationship between you and Princess, in most service related transactions, services come first, payment comes second. Right? But in the case of the world cruise, you pay almost everything up front, including your gratuities, long before the service is provided. This eliminates almost all the leverage you have when something goes wrong. So they're in control of your life for 4 months AND they've been paid in full.

What could go wrong?

They can cancel a port, you have no recourse. They can move you to another stateroom, you have no recourse. They can cancel tours, you have no recourse, they can require you to covid test and then quarantine you, you have no recourse. Their ship, their rules. It reminds me of my parents, and likely your parents too. "As long as you're living under our roof, you'll do as we say". As long as you accept that things will go wrong and you have very little leverage, you'll accept those issues better than those who may feel taken advantage of. Most of it is FWP's. (Read on for what that means). But all that accounts for the anxiousness in my opinion.

Expectations

This is a massive undertaking.....for Princess and us. What could go wrong? Remember the Titanic? Ok, that was the exception. How about the Carnival Triumph: What was supposed to be a four-day jaunt to the Caribbean became an eight-day nightmare when an engine fire left the ship floating in the Gulf of Mexico without power, air-conditioning, or a working septic system. How about the Celebrity Mercury: More than 400 of the 2,600 passengers and crew onboard the Mercury were stricken ill in 2010 in what the Centers for Disease control deemed a norovirus outbreak. The virus caused widespread vomiting and other gastrointestinal ills on the ship, which left from Charleston, S.C.

Shall I go on? No? Ok, I agree. The point is that this is a floating city that needs to be all things to all people. Different ages, different cultures, different mobility, and the list goes on. Other than the Titanic, the Triumph and the Mercury, I classify most of the issues as FWP, first world problems. You're mad about the wait for a table in the diningroom? FWP. Your stateroom wasn't made up till noon? FWP. They ran out of your favorite liquor between restocking ports? FWP. Set your expectations reasonably using the FWP acronym and you'll enjoy your cruise much more

So now that perspective and expectations are set appropriately and reasonably, how does that translate into working with Princess? Good question. Let's break this into 3 parts:

• Pre-cruise

• During cruise

• Post cruise

Pre-cruise

We booked directly through Princess and I was candid that I wouldn't book a world cruise through them again till they dedicate a team of cruise consultants specially trained in the WC. For example, the WC is really 5 cruises (segments) back to back. Some things remained the same between segments, some things changed....drastically. Every time I dealt with a different cruise consultant, I got different answers. For example, we skipped from silver, to ruby to platinum loyalty levels during the cruise. Would we receive the higher benefits during the cruise or not till our next cruise? I was told, because it's one booking ID, we wouldn't be upgraded till our next cruise. But I was also told we'd be upgraded at the beginning of each segment. Turns out, the latter was correct. To Princess's credit, we got a letter in our stateroom each time letting us know what our new benefits were.

In another exchange, when I agreed with clients to work on the cruise. I needed more internet device connections. It was candidly difficult to get information on our choices. The options were:

• Pre-purchase an internet specific package

• Wait till we embark but prices go up

• Upgrade to the Princess premier package that included all the devices I needed

In the end, we upgraded to the Princess premier package, which turned out to be the right decision but not for the internet. It included entry in their Princess prizes program where we won a cruise and $850. More on that later. In fact from an exclusively internet perspective, it was the wrong decision. The internet is abysmal on the ship. I had to wake up at 3am so there'd be enough bandwidth to download and send files. I was able to organize my work so I only did that 1x per week. In the future, I'll purchase it by the day. We only used it sea days and not every sea day. It would have been far cheaper a la carte and I'd have organized my work into full days.

But I digress. The reason for all that background is once we decided to upgrade to the premier package, we had our first big issue with Princess. We were quoted various upgrade fees from $4,400 - $17,500. I tried 13x to go thru their process, which is:

1. Call 1-800#

2. Wait 15-20 min

3. Get connected to a cruise consultant, request a manager, they refuse till the cruise consultant gets a chance to resolve your issue.

4. Explain the issue

5. Get put on hold while they research it.

6. Get disconnected.

7. Steps 1-5 again

8. They quote an amount different than what's advertised.

9. They agree to transfer to a manager

10. Get disconnected

11. Steps 1-9 again

12. Get thru to a manager

13. Repeat steps 4-6

Finally, I emailed the presidents of Princess and Carnival with a very respectful letter that explained my frustration. They connected me with an issue resolution specialist and it went well from there.. not perfect, but far better.

So lessons #1 and #2 and #3 are:

1. Get everything in writing or make them show you where it is stipulated in the cruise contract

2. You have the most leverage before your final deposit. Be relentless in getting the information and clarification you need before that.

3. Take good notes. Hopefully you don't need to recount who told you what, but you may.

During the cruise:

During the cruise, your best recourse for an issue is a comment card submitted to guest services. They really do read them. Sometimes there's not much they can do but say they're sorry. Sometimes they'll send a bottle of wine to the room. It depends on the issue. Remember they hold all the cards. You can't really walk out 😉. That first step is a doosey and the waters deep. Our main issue that was more than a FWP was related to the Princess prizes program. In segment 4, the program was revamped. Prior to the revamp, we won a cruise and $800 in segments 1-3. But at the beginning of segment 4, all we won was $25 and then another $25 at the end of segment 5. In fact segment 4-5 winnings were both on my wife's medallion. So she went about 30 days without winning anything. I went 40 days without winning anything and still haven't. After our experience in segments 1-3, I was convinced we weren't activated properly....I still am. I filled out a comment card and I met with them but there was nothing they could do. Unfortunately, they couldn't or wouldn't provide any information on what was being won, so there's no way to prove it. Again, they're holding all the cards. In the end, it's gambling and while it's highly improbable to go from winning something consistently every few days to winning nothing for 40 days, it is possible. I will re-voice my concern in the survey.

Post cruise

As we're still onboard, I can't accurately advise, but in my survey, I will share both the high highs and the low lows.

High highs:

• The service was consistently good. They always tried to accommodate most requests.

• I thought the embarkation at the outset was outstanding. Once the gates were open, we were onboard in less than 15 minutes.

• The medallion and the medallion app are stellar. They replaced so many inefficient processes.

• The variety of entertainment was terrific. Every bar had a different genre every night. Bravo to whoever pulls that all together.

Low lows:

• The internet is my #1 issue. It was awful. It negatively impacted work and personal commitments. Most anyone can "unplug" for a week. But for a world cruise, it is simply requisite there be adequate internet

• Singapore customs & Disembarkation - it was by far the longest and worst process of all ports. It took some people 3.5 hrs to disembark. We were lucky at 45 min. It was the only port where we were finger printed. I'm not suggesting it's Princess's fault. But they can have influence to make it better. I would boycott the port till Singapore's cruise port gets their act together.

• Transparency - there was a general lack of transparency. For example, we missed quite a few ports for a variety of reasons. We simply have to trust that the captain made the right decision despite other ships going where we couldn't. But beyond that, we have no idea how much the port charges were or if the right amount was refunded. Many passengers including me asked for details and we were told they didn't have any.....it's all done by corporate. That's just one example but lack of transparency was a consistent problem.

• Folio overcharging was rampant the first segment. We had the beverage package so no drink charges should ever have hit our folio. Literally every day, I would go to guest services to have the erroneous charges removed. All I ever got was an apology, never an explanation why it was happening or why they couldn't fix it. If it had happened 10x or less, it would be a FWP. But everyday to the tune of about $500, it was more serious than an FWP.

And that's it. My last blog from the ship. On Saturday, I'll do a recap and then I plan to turn this into a coffee table book. We'll see. 111 blogs, avg 2-3 pages each.....I'll have to build a very sturdy coffee table.

It has been a pleasure essentially writing a public diary. All your comments and likes were so appreciated and validating. I hope you enjoyed the blog and found it interesting. If you're on the WC2024 or WC2025, I hope this information truly helps make your experience the very very best it can be.