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?
