What are the top tips for having a phenomenal cruise on Princess Cruises?
I'm Gary Bembridge, and this is another of my tips for travellers. I'm on a Sky Princess on a
Princess Cruise, and I thought I'd collect together my top ten tips for
having a great cruise on a Princess Cruises, starting with this one. First of
all, make sure that you choose the time of year and the length of cruise that's
going to match the type of passengers you want to be with. During the course of the
year, based on the itinerary, the passenger mix on board Princess Cruises
changes quite a lot. For example, if you want to travel with lots of families
and kids and perhaps multi-generational families, take a look at cruises in the peak summer
periods because there will be a lot of families on board. On some
of the Royal Class category of ships like I am on now like the Sky Princess, they can have up to
800 kids on board during the peak season and 400 kids in the kids clubs. However if
you go on the more shoulder seasons, so perhaps june or October, you're
going to find almost no families and it's going to be slightly older and more
mature couples. Make sure as you think about the itinerary, the
length of cruise and time of year you plan to travel, think about who are the passengers you
want to be with. Do you want to be with lots of families? It will perhaps be a bit
more noise and a bit more boisterous, or do you want something
a little bit more quiet, civilised and more couples? It is important to
choose the itinerary and the time of year based on the passenger mix you're
looking for. The second tip I have, which is a little bit left-field, is get more
onboard credit! There's various ways you can get onboard credit. If
you're looking to book well in advance, you often find that Princess
Cruises or your travel agent will have offers where you can either
get upgrades or get extra onboard credit or drinks packages
bundled in. Sign up for the newsletter, and make sure that you know the
different promotions that are available. There's another one, and that's
something that I use, as I own shares in Carnival Corporation. On any of
the Carnival brands, of which Princess is one, if you apply you can get a
shareholder benefit of extra onboard credit of up to $250
per cabin if you go on a cruise for 14 days or longer.
There's a little bit of a admin involved because you do have to send away for it,
but it's definitely a way if you cruise of getting extra onboard credit. Another
important tip is make sure that you understand exactly what your fare
includes and excludes, so you don't have any nasty surprises and can
budget properly for your Princess Cruise. The obvious things that are included are your
accommodation, access to pretty much all the facilities, the
entertainment, the quizzes, fitness centre, use of the swimming pools and all that stuff
is included. Of course you can eat pretty much 24 hours a day. But there's a
bunch of things that are not included: gratuities are not included, Wi-Fi is not
included and excursions are not included. I mentioned there's lots of complimentary
food included in your fare, but if you want to do some of the specialty
dining you are going to pay extra for that. Then some of the obvious things like if
you're going to gamble or do shopping you will pay extra. If
you want to use the Sanctuary, the beautiful quieter
space which you pay a fee for using. One of the other big costs
that can mount up are drinks. Specialty teas and coffees are not
included. Regular teas and coffees up in the Lido and in the restaurants are
included, but you can buy various drinks packages ranging from a premium package,
which can cost around $59 dollars per person per day, you can buy soda only
packages which are much less - but drinks can mount up. So, Wi-Fi, excursions drinks
and gratuities are the big extra on costs that you need to understand and make
sure that you've budgeted for. Building on that, another key tip that I have is
really think about what dining experiences you're going to want to have,
so whether you do want include speciality dining or not. Personally I
think there are a plenty of included dining options.
One of the most important things you need to decide when you're making your
booking is do you want to go with the more traditional fixed dining? Princess
have an early sitting and a late sitting where you'll have the same table, same table
companions and waiting staff. Perhaps if you're traveling with a group of friends or you
doing a multi-generational family trip, you might want that so you all know you've got
your table eating together, or you can go for Anytime dining. I
recommend when you make a booking that you make that choice, so you get your
preferred option by making sure that you ask for it very early on. The other thing
I would suggest is make sure that you do try all of the different options that are
available. For example on Sky Princess on the cruise that I've been on, I've
gone to the main dining room, I've gone to the World Fresh
Marketplace which is the buffet dining option,
I've eaten burgers at the Salty Dog Grill, I've had pizzas both up on the
pool deck at the Slice and also down in Alfredo's, I've ordered room service and I've
gone to the International Cafe which is open 24 hours a day. There's lots of
different dining options dotted around the place that you can choose from, so
make sure that as you look at your cruise you think about all the different
options are available and you plan your dining options for each
evening and take advantage of the different options that are available to shake
things up. There's a lot of dining options, so take advantage and try all of
them. The next key tip is if you're cruising on a Princess cruise ship (which
soon will be all of them) that has the Ocean Medallion which is a small device
which replaces your cruise card, it's really important that you get Ocean
Ready before you come on the cruise. Go onto the app and upload a
photograph which they can use for security. You upload your ID document and your
passport, and this means that you have everything that they need to get you on
the ship really quickly. In some countries they'll post to this medallion
to you while for other countries you collect it at the port. This little device becomes
the Medallion that checks you in, gets you on the ship really quickly and it even
does things like opens your cabin door by itself, it helps you do
location-based ordering where you can order drinks wherever you are around the ship
and they'll bring it to you. It helps you track your friends and family so you
know where they are, and it has a whole bunch of other personalised services
that you can use either on touchscreen devices around the ship or on the App.
Another really important thing for making the most of your Princess Cruise
is really understand the dress code. Princess Cruises is a pretty traditional
cruise line, and they do have dress codes. To make it simple there are two dress codes.
You have smart casual where in the evenings they suggest you
dress as if you are going out to a restaurant in your local town and
dress appropriately. You can get away with you smart
dark jeans, not faded and torn jean, but you can't wear
shorts but you can wear pretty casual things like chinos and similar smart trousers if you're
gent and smart dresses if you're a lady or
blouses and slacks. They then have formal nights. Formal nights
are roughly about one every five days of a cruise. Formal is where
some people wear tuxedos but at least gentlemen are expected to wear a jacket or a
suit with a tie, and ladies the equivalent cocktail
dresses, there's no need for glitzy ballgown stuff unless you want to!
The dress code people are asked to follow,
so make sure that if you choosing Princess Cruises you're packing
appropriately because if you go on a cruise of more than five days you're
going to have a formal evening and you need to bring the right gear for that and
will want to feel comfortable and dressed appropriately.
Understand the mix of dress codes and bring the appropriate
clothing. My next tip is take advantage of all the activities that are going to
take place on your Princess Cruise. They have everyday the Princess Patter, or you can
also look on the app, to see what's on. There's a wide range of
entertainment like quizzes, golf putting competitions and all
sorts of things going, even line dancing classes and trivia. Make sure
you see the production shows. One of things that I think Princess are
doing is trying to increase and up the ante in their
production shows. For example on Sky Princess they premiered a new show
called "Rock Opera" while I was onboard and they clearly spend a lot of money with
a big cast and incredible costumes, and the audience absolutely went crazy
and all people talking about it as one of the best shows they've seen at sea.
There's lots going on and to get good value from your cruise get stuck in
and take advantage of all the different activities. Another key tip
for getting the most out of your cruise is before you go, think about and plan
what you're going to do in every port. A lot of people like to go with
the Princess excursions as the advantage of going on an excursion organised by
Princess is they guarantee that if there's any problem with the excursion the
ship will wait until it gets back. If you go self-exploring they do not
guarantee they will wait for you at the all aboard time the ship will leave
without you potentially, so many people rather
just go with Princess Cruises, so bear that in mind when you're looking at
tours. However, I would encourage you to look at other options
before you go on the cruise at the different ports to see
what is on offer. One of the things that I
suggest consider is taking a couple of days where
you self tour. Princess Cruises will help you with as they'll give you a
port guide, they have talks which the shore excursions people run where
they talk through each of the individual ports obviously buying their tours
is encouraged, but they will give you lots
of tips around self exploring. They often arrange to have local
representatives from the Tourism Board either on board or port side and the
excursions desks will answer many questions. There's
lots of options to mix it up by doing some Princess tours and some self
touring if you've been to a port before. One of my favourite things to look
at is, first of all Princess Cruises will normally have some sort of shuttle into
the town if it's not within easy walking distance which you can take advantage,
and you'll often find that the hop-on hop-off bus will come to the port
area where Princess Cruises docks. On the television you'll normally find
there are videos around excursions and the different ports of call. My next tip
is around some little sneaky packing tips. I've already mentioned the dress
codes but a couple of other key things you might want to think about when
you're packing for your Princess Cruise is think about adapters. On board
you're going to find on the ships normally a US and possibly a European two pin
style, so make sure you always bring at least the
USA. adaptor if you don't naturally have USA plugs on your derives.What's increasing
on the more modern ships is you're going to find
USB ports to charge your various devices. Secondly you don't necessarily need
to bring shower gels and shampoos, because you will find those provided
within your cabin and if you run out of any toiletries you can buy
those in the shops or of course in the ports. My next tip is around some
money-saving ideas and there's a couple of things that you can do to save money on
your Princess Cruise. First of all, Princess Cruises allows you to bring
some of your own alcohol on board. It's strict limits but you can bring
some on board so just double check what the current allowance is and make sure
you bring that on board, because you're going to save money. The second thing to
do is take a look at the different packages and there are a range of
packages for different things so for example there are drinks packages and
Wi-Fi packages,
and so check out those packages. Definitely check out if
there's any offers, deals or packages. You can often book those in advance
online, but once you get onboard see what is on offer on embarkation day, as
you'll find there's often lots of deals. The other key thing is, if you love
Princess Cruises, consider booking your next cruise
onboard as they will normally give you extra discounts or extra onboard credit,
and it's worth doing it on board rather than waiting to get home because you
don't get those benefits once you get back home. The other thing is you can
also save money on pretty much all Princess Cruises ships by doing your own
laundry with the coin-operated laundromats across the various and
different ships. That's ten tips on how to have a great phenomenal cruise on
Princess Cruises, I hope you found that helpful. I have many more
videos packed full of tips on Princess and other cruising tips, so why don't you
watch another one of those right now?