First it was alternative dinning on all the cruise lines, then it was getting charged when eating a hamber at johnny rockets. Now Princess has annouced that it will offer an extra charge option in the dinning room. Am I missing something here? I thought that in the dinning room you are not charged? So correct me if I am wrong, If I want premium food, I have to pay for it. Does that mean that I can expect peanut butter and jelly and water now and if I want meat, I have to sell my first born? Should I feel this way or am I just getting cheap with the money? What was once was a grand vacation is now being over shadowed by the constant demand for money to fulfill the real cruise experience. I knew this was going to happen. The last time I posted a nickel and diming post some time ago, a great number of the people here said it was fine, just go along with it. Well those of you that said it was ok, you gave the cruise lines the fuel they were looking for. Hey maybe they will give us an oar to keep the fuel cost down and they can introduce it as new type of fitness program. They will charge your account for each stroke. Any takers?
mara, I'm only going to criticize you because I am in the group that doesn't always post perfectly.....
Your first line denotes a list, so a colon is missing
lines 3 and 4 are not saying anything correctly
dining and hamburger did not need to be capitalized because they are not proper nouns and did not begin a sentence
line 4 was missing a verb so it too is not a sentence
but my point is that despite the errors I completely understood what you were saying, just as you understand this post (which has lots of grammatical errors)
so lets give it a rest
PLEASE!!! -
banker
(ok i'm editing 10 hrs later to say that I posted this to make a joke, and a point at the same time - no personal attack on you mara)!!
Perhaps you should try an all inclusive vacation at a resort. My sister tells me it is the only way to go, because you write one check and it covers all.
All inclusive resorts are very good, to our experience, for shorter, single-destination land vacations. To us, all inclusive makes good sense when one is in a "temporary monopoly" as to food, beverages, and activities.
We have been cruising Radisson, which is close to (but not quite) all inclusive, because specials on that line have made the TOTAL cost less for us than on the larger lines, if rooms are made comparable. Note that Silversea (which is all inclusive except for most excursions) has also had some attractive specials lately. Haven't checked Seaborn (inclusive, like Silversea), but they may have some specials too.
When they start charging for ALL food, I'm not cruising anymore! At this point, we still have a choice of a nice dining room or the "pay" super clubs. I disagree with the ships charging for sodas too. Fortunately for us, we don't drink sodas
Banker, thank you for your input on grammar. That was cute. I got a little chuckle out of that.
69 days until the Conquest again! (my cheater clock)
Well, the concern here is that every time a cruise line offers an "option", it at the same time downgrades the "included" item to drive guests to pay more for the "option." This is a real concern, as most NCL cruisers will tell you.
But the immediate question is whether this is true of Princess or not. Mickey SR, what is your source?
I'm not certain that every option results in downgrades of included features and I do understand charging for sodas, but maybe the price is a bit stiff. Restaurants charge for them and many do not offer refills, though some do; theme parks charge and so on and so on: you get the picture. No, non of us are crazy about some of the changes we have seen in the cruise industry over the past 20 years, but it is a vacation that has become affordable to many due to these changes. The market seems to warrent the changes. The one nickel and diming that I thinks is awful is Princess's charging a service card if you get money from the casino and put it on your sign and sail card. That is totally inexcurable in my opinion; the alternative dining, the sodas, the high price of Bingo, the higher prices charged by the photographer etc are all things I can cantrol. NMNita
A cruise ship is NOT a bank! Before leaving on a cruise I always go to the bank and make sure I have enough $$, and a large available credit on my credit card. I can understand why there is no more FREE money!
We use to be able to go to the casino and get money on our Sail and Sign account. Then turn around and cash in the chips for real cash. The charges for those chips showed up as a charge on the rewards credit cards and you could gain points for free cruises.
Think how easy it was: You could get $5000 in chips one day, turn the chips back in for $5000 cash. Do that 7 days on your cruise and you just earned 35,000 points toward a free cruise without spending a dime.
Back to the subject of this thread. I still haven't found any evidence of Princess having any kind of extra options and charges in the dining room. I believe the original poster was confused by the charges for speciality dining.
The extra charges are for a couple of the personal choice dining rooms..If you use the main dining room early or late seating..now extra charge..also if you drink a lot of soda tje 20 somthing charge is well worth it...I bad for me...and the charge acct. prefer wine..lol
Laurie, where did you get this information. I do not believe there is a charge for the main dining room early or late seatings. I think your information is confused. There are two or restaurants onboard that I know of that charge extra, ( Sterlings and Sabatinis) but the other dining rooms PC or not are included.
Somtimes people jump to conclusions based on heresay , If Princess has really made such a huge change why hasn't it been published somewhere?
I must say that I think charging for soda at the dinner table is very low, dinner is free but we only offer water for free? So filet migion and tap water, yum!
I understand that on Carnival they offer lemonade, that at least would be better then that stuff they pretend to call ice tea.!
Not to defend the nickel and diming but, I was thinking recently that the possible rationale of the cruiselines for charging for certain types of food is that there is a group of passengers who come on every cruise with the intent of "getting their money's worth" by gorging themselves on the food because it is "free".. or worse, taking food they have no intention of eating and leaving it to be thrown away. It's incredibly wasteful! If RCI, for instance, were to open a Johnny Rockets and decide not to impose the surcharge.. would the same passengers always be in there or would they realize that there were other passengers who'd like to give it a try?
On another note, I completely disagree with the policy of charging extra for any food served in the main dining room.
i meant to say no not now charge for early or late seating in the main dining room....just a charge in one or two of the specialty rooms sorry......mistyped...
Cruising is an industry whose policies, prices, and offerings are determined completely by the marketplace. If a cruise line offers a product that the public does not like or want, that company will be out of business very soon.
Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and NCL are the three biggest cruise lines in the world. They are the most financially successful cruise lines in the world.
Every ship in their fleets sails fully booked nearly every cruise.
All three nickel and dime you to death.
Seabourn, Crystal, and Silver Sea are nearly all inclusive cruise lines.
All three cruise lines are bleeding money.
Their ships rarely sail with more than 50% occupancy.
They have no nickel and diming.
If you were a cruise line president or owner, what lessons would you learn from the examples above??
If you are a cruiser who hates nickel and diming, why aren't you cruising on Seabourn, Crystal, or Silver Sea?
Actually, the only thing Crystal includes that CCL, RCI and NCL don't is soda and bottled water. Other than that, it is the same drill. Seabourn and Silversea are pretty close to all inclusive. Radisson is semi-inclusive.
I have no info on the profitability of the more inclusive lines, as all except for Seabourn are owned by private corporations, and Seabourn is part of CCI. I'd be eager to see the financials on these, if anybody has them.
Much of the success of CCL, RCI, and NCL is in the first time cruiser market, which is huge. They put out attractive base fares, which sell in this market. And there are many repeat cruisers who like the idea of low base fares, and the ability to buy whatever "extras" they want and not buy what they don't want. Also, some cruisers need a ship with good childrens' programs, and the "lux lines" don't emphasize this.
For us, we find that we are better off catching Radisson on "special" than we are on the nickel and dime lines, by the time we make the accomodations equal and figure in the value of the inclusions.
Nickel and diming is hardly a new concept in cruising.
The first ship that had an extra charge restaurant was the SS Bremen in 1906.
The second ship that offered alternative extra charge dining was the SS Titanic.
The First Class Dining Room on the Titanic (also known as the Ritz Restaurant) charged approximately $100 per person for food only at dinner. Wine, cocktails, and tip added another $100 per person to the bill. That same year, the average American earned $300 annually.
Wouldn't it be great to go back to those good old days instead of listening to complaints about the price of a coca-cola today?
what's the name of the new cruise line to be launched in Europe this spring "EasyCruise", where they charge a very low cabin rate and then charge you for everything else ?
it will be interesting to watch how they do and if they are successful, one of the cruiselines will copy them in the USA
Yes, I've heard of that new line that is totally "ala carte." Per diems are supposed to be around $50 per day, but these include only room and transportation (via ship) Everything else ( even food) is extra. Well, here, at least prospective guests will know rather exactly what to expect, and will have no "surprises" once onboard.
I wonder why all inclusive cruising is usually on the luxury lines. On land resorts, most of the all inclusives are more budget resorts usually in Cuba, Mexico, and dominican Republic. Other than Sandals, most of the upscale resorts on upscale islands we've been to have not been inclusive of food and drinks.
We have stayed at several VERY upscale all-inclusive land resorts in Playa del Carman for example. There are MANY of them that exist all over the tropics. The real mystery to me is why one has to go to such an upscale cruise line to get all inclusive,.You are correct in stating that there is a good selection of BUDGET all inclusive land resorts as well. What I don't understand is why there are no budget all inclusive cruise lines.
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