MY ONE PROBLEM I'M HAVING WITH PRINCESS CRUISE LINE 

Believe it or not, there are still people out there who do not use a smart phone. There should be nothing you can do on the app that an agent on the phone can't take care of for you. That's called Customer Service.

I wish these companies would learn everyone isn't running around with a smartphone. It's great they have that as an option, but it shouldn't be the only way to handle things!

I agree with you Don. Everything that you can do on the app, you should be able to do online on the computer. The app is ok...but can be tricky to use....I hope Princess sees this video and can somehow make it right for you. Thanks for sharing.

Don has cruised almost exclusively on Princess recently. His last cruise was on Princess, his present one is on Princess and his next one is on Princess. If he is not happy with their service, why continue cruising with them?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Send a certified letter to each person up the ladder: names, dates, etc. Send all copies to your ‘contact’. You aren’t just helping yourself, you’re improving service for the rest of us peons, whom are fed-up with Princess’ lack of guest services.

Don...this is beyond sad. If YOU cannot get them to book you with your known presence and provider of bookings for them, how the heck can Joe or Jane Schmoe have a chance. For me, this is another nail in the coffin of even thinking about cruising on a ship so big you have to have an app to communicate with them.

Customer service is a thing of the past 😡

Travelling is stressful enough and for an app not to work is not acceptable

On my last Princess Cruise, I scheduled all my dining on the phone once on the ship and didn’t even try the app. I also used the paper copy of the daily itinerary. I’m probably too old school, but that’s my preference. Then again, I even refuse to use credit cards in restaurants at home, preferring to just pay cash. If the app is required for dining on future cruises and it can’t at least be done on the computer, I’ll just skip the specialty dining and save the $$$.

That is so frustrating, Don. I agree my elderly mom cruises a lot, and she is not tech savvy and cannot use the app. So, what is she supposed to do and other people that are not tech savvy. It’s a real problem for them when they can’tdeal with a person to reserve the things they want to do. She can get on a computer and do them, but she doesn’t have a smart phone and doesn’t know how to use the app. It’s a real problem.

I agree with you Don......You should be able to book and do everything via any of the 3 methods (PC, app, calling).

Princess is a Carnival Corp. line and Carnival corp doesn't care about customer service.

There is absolutely no excuse for forcing people to use a phone app to do anything unless they are actually on board the ship. I have a desktop at home with a wide screen high-definition monitor and a real full-sized keyboard. But someone thinks I'd prefer to use a tiny phone display and touch screen keyboard instead.

Agree with you Don. If nothing else, you should be able to phone in and make reservations.

I definitely miss the functionality on the web page version. It was more intuitive and easier to use. Hopefully Princess will listen to us and put it back - even though I know it will be more work for them to maintain two versions.

Hey if you’ve exhausted all the “regular channels” to no avail and you know some higher ups, then I’d let them know because you may not be the only one this is happening to. Most managers want to know what’s falling short in their company, I’d let them know.

I am a person who prefers doing things on my computer instead of with an app. Not sure why it can’t be set up so passengers can use computers when at home.

I think in this instance you do need to take it higher. If you can’t get it resolved, think about how many others there are with the same issue

Hi Don. I don’t like all these apps! It drains your phone and it takes away from the human contact. You can never explain issues because there is never an option for your issue. I don’t like talking to these darn machines! Hope you can get your dinners set up. Have a great Monday!

Don thanks for this video. My wife and I have the same issue with Princess Cruises. Princess never should have removed the option to make dining reservations from the computer. Year after year, app after Princess app they just can't get their app to work correctly. At this point it appears to me that the app developer is the issue. Why can't this app developer produce an app that works correctly? Looks like its time for Princess Cruises to contract with an app developer that can make an app that works correctly.

The app situation with Princess is just unacceptable.

You need to put this on your travel page.....because someone from Princess is watching.

That's not fair, you're missing out. Customer service is declining unfortunately.

Dude! I still have a flip phone! I need things to work on the computer!

I totally understand Don, Never been on Princess but have had this Type of Problems with other Cruise lines APPs. Some of these APP are totally screw up and have Constant problems. I like to do everything through the Crew lines web sites always seem to be easier.

I agree Don. You shouldn't have to go around the proper channels to get real issues resolved. Princess should be addressing your concerns and communicating with you in a timely manner. They should also be accommodating your needs via an alternative method when they can't. Cruises are expensive, and you should be able to partake in the opportunities they offer if you choose, to make that cruise the best experience it can be! Clearly if it's happening to you, it's happening to others. It probably has something to do with it being Canadian credit cards/currency vs. American cards/currency. I'm guessing now that you've put them on blast, the issue will be resolved quickly.

That is so frustrating when you do everything you are suppose to do and they don't do their part

I had the same problem with my recent Alaska Cruise on Celebrity Solstice. And that was with my Celebrity Credit card!

I think you should use your contacts to inform them about your experience both with the app and with customer service. The service you are receiving is horrible. You shouldn't assume that your concerns have been passed on up the line, so the right people know about the issue.

Princess needs a new IT department. I ordered medallions, received an email that they were shipped, went from Green Line now to Blue Line. So far, the medallions are missing in action. Princess cannot locate them or even open my order. The app told me to reorder my medallions but it won't take the order. The computer and the app have different information on me. I'm waiting to find all of my dining and excursions canceled when I board. Can't make this up.

It seems to me that there are a lot of places that are pushing you to use their app which is just annoying especially when they don't work. Not everyone has a smart phone and not everyone has data.

That's why you have contacts. Don't abuse them but use them and let them pass on the problem.

Hi Don, watching from Sydney, Australia. My husband and I have had the same problem loading a credit card and onboard payments. I went to the travel agent and we worked out that my card expires before the cruise starts and we proved this by putting in the travel agents credit card and that worked so make sure your credit cards expire after your cruise ends.

Exactly, I have reached out to my Princess Rep and told him that if he couldn’t get my dining between 5 and 6 pm I was cancelling. He has emailed the Dining department!

Been there and got that T shirt, Princess are a fantastic cruise line but the back office where the customer service is must be terribly understaffed because they never return calls or emails. I ended up pestering a sales rep on the telephone, but I'm in the uk and it might be different over here. However Don, you are not alone on this one and maybe this time you do need to use your unique privilege and go for the top as those in management are so often shrouded in mystery as to actually what is going on in their company.

We have been on one Princess cruise and you have just reminded me how horrendous the app was to do anything on it. Had to use it for check in etc, so took a absolutely ages. Not the only thing we did not like about Princess, but will not be back, so no need to worry for us. You could try a civilised cruise line Don, there are a number of them out there.

You are a lot more patient than I am. I would have gone up the ladder after a couple of weeks of them not emailing back and me following up the first time. I would have been done at this point and spoke to the next level.

I worked in technology my entire career (in media not travel). My experience is that travel companies (hotels, cruise lines, airlines, etc) are all working with a mix of old and new systems that don't work well together. My guess is that there is something with the newer app that is not interfacing with an older back end system.

We had a similar problem try to book shore excursion with NCL. Had to use their help desk. It took hours.

When you phone from Australia you get a call centre in the Phillipines. The guys there are helpful but have never cruised before. They know little about cruising. They are focussed on upselling or transferring you to someone else. Then the call drops out. So sad they are closing the Sydney office. " Your call is important to us, please hold on until it is no longer important to YOU".

I agree 100 per cent. Not everyone has smart phones. Where is customer service these days😂

That’s a real pain, I’ve never booked Princesses and I’ve been watching your latest trip thinking I’d like to do that cruise but this issue sounds like a problem I’d rather not have to deal with. What a shame.

Great job as an experienced Travel Agent you use the same tools we use. That way when I try there is a good chance it will be fixed for us “cruisers “. Probably shouldn’t tell you but this happens to me I enjoy the follow up and up and up until it’s fixed. Good luck see ya in December 🎉

My wife and I admire you and your courage facing your medical issues while continuing your travel adventures. You are a hero for sure. I’m sending this as a friend that just wants to give you some constructive feedback. It seems to me that much of your content is your being angry about cruising issues. FYI , we enjoy more positive content while watching RU-vid. Thanks, Dan and Cindy

I had an interesting experience. I had a cruise booked for 2026. The price went down so I called to get the price change. They refused to do it. Instead I had to cancel the cruise, then rebook the same cruise at the New rate. This was never a problem on RCL and Celebrity. But Princess wouldn't let me do anything about the rate change.

That really sucks haven't checked in in a while, and I'm glad you're healthy and well don.

I couldn't agree more. I'm over the app. We have a trip booked that already has my America Express approved for shoreside purchases, but won't take that same card for my onboard account.

Hi Don, I just tried to book specialty dining from my Princess App and it won't let me. So maybe there's an IT gliche somewhere. I'm not that fussy about my eating arrangements anyway, and will happily go to the buffet or the Dining Room for my meals. I'm even happy to get a hamburger and fries up on the Lido deck if necessary or for a change. But I can understand your frustration, and I hope Princess gets to read your Just Don channel and makes some steps to correct things.

The app is not terminating the credit card you used on the last cruise. The service desk can and will terminate the card and then you should be able to re-input the original card

I agree with you Don. You should still be able to do it on the computer. I hate it when someone says, I'll get back to you, an never do. And you got to keep calling. I'm not very app savvy either to confusing some times.

One solution to your app problem is to call Celebrity and book a cruise :)

I would like to think that while you are on Princess Cruise that they could help you with bookings on other Princess Cruises using their app.

Wow Don, I think you are being way too patient. When they didn't get back to me the first time I would call and ask to speak to a Supervisor. I would strongly suggest that the Supervisor book it for me and put in my Credit Card, reminding them that I want to book early to avoid missing out because they have delayed my case. I would be calm and polite, but firm. I wouldn't tell them this, but by stiffing you on Customer Service they are risking their reputation especially since you are a Travel Professional and send lots of business their way. Even if you are a "only" a Loyalty Customer, If they don't understand the damage that ignoring a Customer can do they don't belong in Customer Service.

What is frustrating with Princess dining and with the app with me is that not all of the specialty restaurants for a particular Princess ship are listed on the app. So I can make ahead of time reservations for the ones that are listed on the app for a particular Princess ship but I have to wait until I am onboard to try and get a reservation with the other specialty restaurant that I want to go to.

Thanks for the video Don. This type of problem is becoming “the rule”. these days not the exception. I’ve had similar things happen in my land based trips too, especially app features not working and not taking preferred credit card for my trip expenses Very frustrating when it’s a travel card that gives features and perks to use for travel. Sad thing is it’ll likely only change for the better if corporate profit or shareholders get affected negatively, not the actual guests/paying customers.

Hopefully someone at PCL sees this and rectifies your situation

I know people who choose to not have smart phones and instead have flip phones. So that means they can’t do anything with the cruise? This is unacceptable!

You should be able to do everything on the website and the app.

I totally agree. I can’t order and pay for water on the app. You order and pay for it on the website. That app can be a nightmare.

I love Princess and I love the App. But. The dining section of the app did work properly on the old app or the new app. Princess needs to do some serious IT improvements. I have had the problem and calling for IT issues and never get any help.

Too much technology is getting involved in traveling nowadays and most apps are crap anyways. I agree that these things should work on the computer too.

We generally book on Carnival. They are going app based too. For someone like my mother who is technology challenged and doesn’t even have a cell phone, let alone a smart phone this is a big issue.

Wow, this makes me kind of glad I'm unable to cruise any more. I used to love Princess but I do not do apps. Even if they work...

This year I was in Royal Princess from Japan to Alaska. It was a long trip, and my first time with Princess cruise ship. My only problem was the laundry. I had to go to laundry room to get to washer and dryer; otherwise to have the attendant to do laundry, it would cost bigger money because it has be calculated items to be washed. For some reason, my floor only had one dryer available, and all the other dryers broke. I remember to be waken up at 4 am to go to the laundry for washing and drying, otherwise the laundry room could be crowded later on. And for all this time, no one came fixed the dryers, although it said “we are on it”. Anyway, the trip was wonderful because of my first time in Japan 🇯🇵 and it was very memorable.

I had three cruises booked with Princess this summer. I had the exact same issues with the credit card and dining on the app. So frustrating that I CANCELED the third cruise that I should be on right now! When will they finally realize that this is COSTING THEM MONEY AND CUSTOMERS!

All of which begs the question "How did all those others book THEIR reservations?", although I'm confident that Don will be accommodated once on board. Wait and see!

Hi Don. I’m having issues with trying to book dining room reservations for my October cruise. I have spoken with customer service twice now and the last time was told that they haven’t opened dining yet for reservations. Not sure I buy that! I’m sure your video will get you some action now. Good luck!!

Just a thought - Try calling your preferred credit card company and alerting them that you are trying to book with xyz app - just in case they are flagging your charge - since it is most likely coming from other than Canada. I have had my cards flagged when out-of-state let alone out-of-country. Some card companies are Goofy when it comes to certain charges - in the last couple of years, the "Flagging" has gotten more restrictive.

I believe you have to call your credit card company to let them know you will be making overseas transactions on that card it helps to know where that ship is registered because bank will ask your destination, we had to do this Japan , Singapore because our transaction were not going through. Every bank has different rules but check into that because we had the same problem and it’s tuff to be on phone on hold with bank at your destination. Call the Bank.they ask for a time period of these transactions you expect to use your card so do it before your first purchase we had tried to book online excursions and they didn’t go through until we called the bank.

i booked a specialty restaurant via the app before a cruise and it charged my credit card. That was fine but when I canceled it once onboard I never did get a refund. They kept telling me it would take 10 business days to come through. I eventually just cut my losses

This is absolutely unacceptable. Memo to Princess: Not everyone has a smart phone. Period. Get it?

sounds like Peter doesn't know what Paul is doing at the cruise line. Customer service is atrocious everywhere

Don, I have had similar issues paying with credit card sometimes. sometimes on the payment screen there is a small icon showing the country you are paying from. It’s often set to USA, if you don’t change it to your country the payment fails with a misleading error.

Try borrowing a friends phone and installing the app on their phone with your info Also test installing on friend's apple phone if you have android and vice versa. If all that fails try entering a credit card with US address instead of canada address.

We were on a Princess Cruise earlier this year. We could not book any kind of dinning before we were on the ship. Very frustrating!!!!

I had the opposite problem with booking a couple of casual dining restaurants on my recent cruise on the Emerald. They're NOT bookable on the computer OR the app OR the TV and are NOT bookable in advance of the cruise. They're ONLY bookable in person OR through their special dining number. I thought it was very 2004 of them and not fitting with the modern casual theme the restaurants otherwise project. Both did offer good food though, so there is that.

Don, it’s Colin here. I just wanted to let you know that but I have opened up the Princess app on my phone, there were time to worry told me to update and I’ve been able to do that via the app because my phone is an iPhone 14 and if it wants me to update the app, I mean, I’m willing to do that but as far as you know fucking Short excursions and all that I can try doing it on the computer, like to three months in advance and try to put the cruise like 45 months out and then book short excursions three months in advance and then if I ever choose to book any specialty dining, that is the one I’m gonna have to really look at when it comes to that because specialty dining could be quite expensive so I’m gonna have to check it out myself a little bit and see what I can so again, I can always book your excursions via the app or on the computer or I can do it through a representative over the phone, but if it seems like you know, specialty dining or dining on your private balcony, that is the one I’m gonna have to check kind of check out a little bit, but I can always check it out when it’s convenient and get back with you with what I find out come up with

You should be able to use either the app or website to do everything except maybe check in. I hate having to bounce back and forth.

That is crazy. If you can do shore excursion, why not the specialty dining? Do they think that everyone has their cards on there phones, especially in my age group, don't have confidence in the security.

We are having the worst time with our Royal Caribbean app. We can't book shore excursions or the internet and it still doesn't work. We finally had to do it on their website. We sent them an email and chatting with them and no response. So it's not just a Princess problem.

What a frustrating issue. I'm tired of crummy app upgrades and being forced to use an app for everything. That said, here is a suggestion. I've had similar issues with other apps, and the way I resolved it was to temporarily turn off the secure VPN function on my phone. I'm not sure if you have a VPN running on your phone or if you've already tried that, but I thought I'd suggest it, just in case. Thanks for the interesting videos. Cheers.

What used to happen when on the computer and booking a specialty dining, it would automatically be paid by the OBC if you had some. Well, the last time I book a specialty dinner my credit card was charged even though we had plenty of OBC. I don't care for that so when we get onboard, I will go to the specialty dining and book our reservations that way. People cancel dining reservations all the time, so we usually do not have an issued booking it while on the ship. Now with the customer service being so bad, that is a red flag. Thanks for sharing!

That’s terrible not everyone has a phone. With Ncl you can book dining, excursions etc by phone, website and via the app. It’s great.

I was looking at Princess cruises for Ireland. Now I will figure out something else.

As an app developer, this is a huge pet peeve of mine. Companies are making the app critical, but then not investing in building strong teams that will build a good app. Built cheaply, and it affects revenue, but they don't see the need to pay for good devs and teams to build a good app. So frustrating.

After being unsuccessful in the app, I called the Ocean Ready department and they could not book my specialty restaurant either. I ran to specialty dining the first day and they told me they had no availability but would work on it. It appeared in my app later that evening with s date & time. We went to the restaurant that day but they had a different time but we're able to accommodate our group of 10 early. Thank you Princess. Their app & website need work that's for sure. Several in our party had to delete and reload the app. Sad.

I totally understand. We lost a government security site because they want to go digital.

You went thru the right channels now use your contacts

We used the computer and then the App and booked dinner reservations and after boarding found out that the reservations were found. And like you Don we had a problem with credit card and had to reenter which worked. I will say that once on-board Princess bent over backwards to make us happy in all respects other than one venue.

I agree with you 100% I should be able to do everything on both formats. Unfortunately, princess has been having issues with both systems, the app and website.

This seems to mostly be an issue for guests who reside outside the US. Not sure what the behind the scenes firewall issue is for non-US consumers, but it is something they REALLY need to fix. There was some BS reason why dining can "only" be on the app now I think related to it being "live" inventory linked tot he ships systems, not a landside server. Whereas pre-cruise shore excursion inventory and bookings are linked to shoreside servers that do a pre-cruise data dump to the ship for each sailing.

We purchased the glass blowing experience for our next cruise which is on Celebrity, we could only book it online. I’m concerned because it isn’t showing on the app anywhere. I really hope they know we have it when we get onboard!

You are the most patient person, I also love Princess but this is making me pull my hair out. I have been a Travel Agent for over 30 years, this is the worst service I have ever received. The crew on the shop are great but try to resolve anything from land and it is a nightmare.

I’m so sorry, Dan. That stinks. We’ve had some troubles too. I hope someone sees this and get some things fixed.

Booking my first cruise in a first month. Thanks for the head's up about Princess Cruises

I certainly feel for you! I’ve had several of the same issues with dinners and excursions .

You would think that Princess would have a top knotch app for its customers

As a TA, I hate their booking system too!!😢

I have had the exact same problem and it is extremely frustrating Love you Don for posting this

Don, it's past time to go higher to get this resolved. You are NOT an occasional cruiser and they can check and see that. You might be helping many others who can't get it resolved, you have the "clout" to get something done.