Princess Cruises

Review by eFreeware

Most cruise line apps stop at being a brochure. The Princess Cruises app is built to be used at the terminal and then on the ship itself, which is what separates it from a page of deck plans and dress codes. It carries your check-in, your reservations and, once you are aboard, a set of tools for finding your way around and ordering what you need.

That makes it a companion for a specific trip rather than a general travel utility. If you have a Princess sailing booked, the app is where the paperwork and the planning live. If you are still comparing itineraries, there is little here for you yet, because most of what it does assumes a reservation already exists.

Getting the admin out of the way before you sail

The pre-cruise side is where the app earns its keep first. Check-in runs through a guided sequence called OceanReady, which walks you through submitting the travel documentation the line requires. Doing that from home rather than at the port is the obvious appeal, and it is the kind of task that benefits from being finished days in advance rather than in a queue.

Dining is handled in the same place. You can reserve tables in the main dining rooms and in the specialty restaurants, so the meals you care about are settled before you board. Shore excursions are bookable per port day, and the Lotus Spa takes bookings for treatments and salon services through the app as well. Anyone who has tried to arrange all of that after boarding will recognize the value of doing it early.

The app also sells the line's two bundled packages, Princess Plus and Princess Premier, and gives you a way to read up on onboard activities and events and study detailed deck plans. I would treat the package purchase as the one item here worth thinking through carefully, since it is a spending decision rather than a booking.

Once you are aboard

On the ship, the app depends on the vessel's MedallionNet wifi. Connect to that and a second set of features opens up. OceanNow covers ordering food, drinks and amenities wherever you happen to be, with a one-time fee that is waived if you hold either of the two packages. That fee structure is worth knowing about in advance, because the ordering service is not simply included for everyone.

Wayfinding is the other half of the onboard experience. The app gives directions to venues and points of interest, and it can locate your travel companions in real time and route you to them. On a large ship, that combination is more useful than a paper map, particularly in the first day or two when nothing looks familiar.

There is also a daily events view where you can bookmark the activities you want to attend, dining reservations you can view, make and manage, and shore excursions you can still book. Spending and package redemption statuses update in real time, and CrewCall chat puts you in touch with help around the clock. The Safety Essentials steps, which have to be completed before the ship sets sail, are handled here too.

What you need before it does anything

Two requirements shape the whole experience. The first is a cruise booking, since the check-in, reservation and excursion features all hang off an existing voyage. The second is the ship's MedallionNet wifi, which is the gateway to the onboard tools. Ordering, wayfinding, shipmate locating and the rest are tied to that network.

Setup itself appears to be a matter of working through the guided steps the app presents, with check-in as the natural starting point. The developer advises leaving automatic updates on so the app keeps pace with features added over time, and the most recent release is described as bug fixes and performance work rather than anything new to learn.

A 2.9 average and what to make of it

The app has been installed more than a million times and holds a 2.9 average across roughly 3,500 ratings. That is a lukewarm figure for a free app with no ads and no in-app purchases, and it is the number I would weigh most heavily when deciding how much to depend on it.

The app's job is unusually demanding: it has to work at the port, on the ship's network and across a voyage that may last a week or more. An app carrying that much of a trip's logistics is judged harshly when any part of it disappoints, and a middling score is a reasonable signal to keep a fallback in mind for anything time-sensitive.

Who will get the most from it

The clearest fit is a passenger with a Princess cruise already booked who wants the paperwork, the dining reservations and the excursion bookings settled before travel and a single place to handle the onboard side afterward. Traveling companions who want to find each other on a large ship, and anyone who would rather order a drink without walking to a bar, sit squarely in the app's territory.

It also suits people who like to plan a day in advance and bookmark what they want to attend, since the events view and the spending tracker reward that habit. The app is free, carries no ads and asks nothing for in-app purchases, so trying it costs nothing.

Where it asks more of you is in the two conditions attached to its best features: a booking, and the ship's wifi once aboard. The OceanNow ordering fee, waived only with Plus or Premier, is the kind of detail that shapes how much you will lean on the app during a sailing.

A companion worth setting up before you sail

The Princess Cruises app is best understood as trip infrastructure rather than entertainment. It consolidates check-in, dining, excursions, spa bookings and package purchases on the planning side, then shifts to ordering, wayfinding, shipmate locating, event bookmarking, spending tracking and 24/7 chat once you are on board. That is a broad remit, and the developer keeps it current with periodic fixes.

I would install it as soon as a sailing is booked and work through check-in early, so the port day is shorter and the reservations you want are secured. The 2.9 average is a fair reason to treat the app as helpful rather than essential, and to keep your own notes on anything that matters.

It is for booked Princess passengers who want their voyage admin in one place and are willing to connect to the ship's wifi to use the onboard half. Anyone planning a cruise on another line will find it aimed elsewhere.

What's new in version 1.10.2

This release includes bug fixes and performance improvements to help keep your experience smooth and reliable.