Jerry Limone
Princess Cruises offers two add-on packages, Plus and Premier, and the line pours considerable effort into persuading guests to buy one of them. If guests purchase before the cruise, Plus is $65 per day and Premier is $100 (the packages are slightly more expensive if bought aboard the ship).
Are they worth the money?
Earlier this month, my family returned from a seven-day Alaska cruise aboard the Discovery Princess, and we went home satisfied that the Plus package delivered value. We bought the package when booking the cruise months before its departure.
Princess includes multiple things in the Plus package that seemed to add up to good value: 15 bar drinks per day, bottled water, specialty coffees, high-speed WiFi for one device, crew gratuities and four meals in a casual-dining restaurant.
Having never sailed on a Princess ship before, we weren't sure of the value of casual dining, but it turned out to be a hit. We like sushi, and we spent three of our casual-dining credits on the Ocean Terrace Sushi Bar, located on Deck 6 in the Piazza area. There's cozy couch seating and a few seats at the bar in this small establishment; despite its small size, we never had to wait long to dine there.
Guests who buy the Plus and Premier packages get a set menu at Ocean Terrace. On this Discovery Princess cruise, it was edamame and seaweed salad to start, followed by one roll and three pieces of nigiri (two salmon and one tuna). It was all fresh and delicious, and a welcome alternative to the busy World Fresh Marketplace buffet for lunch.
We also tried Gigi's Pizzeria, a casual-dining restaurant on Deck 7 in the Piazza area, and thought that was very good, too. If you get a craving for pizza on a cruise, Gigi's makes a pie that is considerably better than what they're serving on the pool deck.
We didn't try the other casual-dining establishment on the ship: O'Malley's Irish Pub on Deck 5 in the Piazza.
The Premier package: Specialty focus
The Premier package is mostly about Princess' specialty restaurants. Guests who buy it get the items in the Plus package, plus unlimited specialty and casual dining, a wider selection of wines and liquors, WiFi for up to four devices and a $100 excursion credit.
Although Princess' specialty restaurants are excellent (we dined at two of them on the cruise: the Crown Grill steakhouse and The Catch by Rudi seafood restaurant), I felt the Premier package didn't deliver enough value to justify the $100 daily expense.
First of all, it's my understanding that buying the package doesn't guarantee a reservation at the specialty restaurants. I considered myself fortunate to get into Crown Grill and The Catch, but I wasn't able to book Sabatini's, the ship's specialty Italian restaurant. If I had bought the Premier package, I wouldn't have felt very good about that.
Crown Grill and The Catch are $66 per person, including gratuity. At that price, I think passengers need to dine at a specialty restaurant four times to make the Premier package a value.
And while the specialty restaurants are terrific, the more meals you eat there, the fewer you eat in the main dining room, which is included in the cruise fare.
Good food throughout the Discovery
I've had experiences on two cruise lines where the food in the main dining room was hit-and-miss, but that wasn't the case on Discovery Princess. Every meal there was excellent. You don't have to step foot in a specialty restaurant to eat gourmet cuisine on a Princess ship -- the best food value is the main dining room.
That being said, the specialty restaurants are special. And if guests want to dine there multiple times and perhaps buy the Premier package for unlimited specialty dining, I recommend that their advisor suggest they pay their cruise fare in full when they book, which gives them access to the Princess app to book specialty dining. Booking early is key.
In other words, a travel advisor who specializes in Princess can help them navigate the booking process.