Pre cruise docs are gone - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

sue miller · 11-03-2009, 10:35 PM

As part of Princess Cruises’ ongoing commitment to service innovation, we are transitioning all North American bookings to fully digital travel documents. In the past, we've printed and mailed a high volume of paper documents. We believe eliminating these pieces is the responsible thing to do.

For voyages departing January 21, 2010 and later we will no longer be mailing pre-cruise documents to our booked passengers. Instead, we have launched a series of digital enhancements that will provide your customers with more timely, more personalized and more comprehensive information about their upcoming cruise than ever before.

- Personalized Pre-Cruise Emails
- Princess Countdown Connection™ widget
- Personalized Online Luggage Tags
- Shore Excursion eBooks

Char · 11-03-2009, 11:22 PM

I see this as being the harbinger of things to come from ALL the cruise lines.

Cruise lines have had e-docs and printable luggage tags as an "option" but the paper docs were still available.

I wonder when there will be no more option for paper docs? Welcome to the future.

cruisin' chick · 11-03-2009, 11:48 PM

If someone doesn't have access to a computer and printer, will TAs print out the materials for a client? And what about those who book through the cruiseline or from an online agency?

And now, will passengers do the virtual doc dance?

Char · 11-03-2009, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cruisin' chick

If someone doesn't have access to a computer and printer, will TAs print out the materials for a client?
That is the practical answer.
And what about those who book through the cruiseline or from an online agency?
If they book from the cruiseline or online agency they will using a computer, so they will have access to the online docs. If not their own computer they can use the library.

And now, will passengers do the virtual doc dance?

The same way we do it here!

timwilloughby · 11-04-2009, 03:28 PM

I must admit, I really like this advancement. Can you imagine all of the paper Princess Cruises, alone, will save. Those are cost savings, as well as green savings made by the company...who will hopefully pump that money back into service upgrades or price savings.

I can understand people lamenting the "end of an era"...and I imagine that any decent Travel Agent will print out the documents on request.

Well Done, Princess Cruises.

Any Travel Agents on the board want to let us know how you plan on dealing with this recent change from Princess Cruises.

LuLu · 11-04-2009, 07:50 PM

For our Thanksgiving Cruise on Crown we were sent the normal luggage tags, etc.

ALSO ... The FIRST EVER for This: We just received received TODAY "Personalized Pre-Cruise Emails". (Basically, they look like the page on My Princess.) Also, there was one from the Captain (form letter).

My TA told me, when it was first announced by Princess, that it would make lots of extra work for her so she IS planning to do this for many ....

The only thing I really dislike about this is having to print my own luggage tags!

Lanky Lad · 11-04-2009, 08:09 PM

I hope it's a long time before Cunard start this, but since they are run by Princess it may not be.

I like to have real documents arrive in the post and email is just not the same. Plus I have to print things out. So yes Princess are saving on printing and paper, by passing that cost on to us.

cruisin' chick · 11-04-2009, 09:20 PM

Before I got the shore excursions book for my last cruise, I had already checked out the excursions online from the Hawaii area on Princess.com, narrowed down with my hubby what we were interested in, and printed out the info sheets so we can make our final choices, assuming these were going to be offered for us.

Then as soon as we were able to, we booked our choices online. If we had waited for that booklet, we may have missed out on our first choices.

We can also access the cruise booklet online too...and probably won't even need to print that out either.

For many, especially those with several cruises with Princess, this makes sense and would save paper.

MCcruiser · 11-04-2009, 11:15 PM

Holland already has gone to e-docs as the only option. While I was sad not to get my copy from the cruise line - how can you do the document dance without a document? - the real problem I saw was with the luggage tags.

If you are flying to your port, you don't want to put your cruise luggage tags on before you fly - the staples can't be expected to hold during all the handling and conveyoring. I brought twist ties and a badge holders for our tags and put them on at our pre-cruise hotel.

A lot of people show up at the terminal without tags, and they will tag them for you there. BUT the American numbers and European numbers do not look the same. We received luggage for the wrong people our first day because of that! Turns out that they were at our dinner table.

MD11F · 11-05-2009, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timwilloughby

I must admit, I really like this advancement. Can you imagine all of the paper Princess Cruises, alone, will save. Those are cost savings, as well as green savings made by the company...who will hopefully pump that money back into service upgrades or price savings.

I can understand people lamenting the "end of an era"...and I imagine that any decent Travel Agent will print out the documents on request.

Well Done, Princess Cruises.

Any Travel Agents on the board want to let us know how you plan on dealing with this recent change from Princess Cruises.

I agree with you Tim, I like the advancement. I also understand the "end of an era" thing, but personally, I really don't care.
I don't have any clients booked on Princess at the moment, but I do print their e-docs, specifically, the Travel Summary and keep that info in a file. I've had many call me for their booking number as they deleted or misplaced the email/copy I faxed them.