Trying to find movements of a ship to look at B2B options???!!

Hi ya'all, notice a lot of cruisers book B2B cruises on same ship, and I'm tryin' to find how to identify where a ship is going to see what options for B2B may be available. However, when I do a search by specific ship there seems to be large gaps in dates.

Now, I'm pretty sure that Princess won't be leaving ships hanging around in a port somewhere when it could be out on the water earning money, so what am I doing wrong?

I'm just trying to learn how to do it - because this is for an idea for a cruise in 2020 - and yes, I do plan waaaaay in advance. So I know I'm not gonna see anything for that year yet, I just need to know HOW to find the B2B cruises please:halo:

Find out the easy way and get your travel agent to find them for you!

You'll love taking B2B cruises. :D

Hi ya'all, notice a lot of cruisers book B2B cruises on same ship, and I'm tryin' to find how to identify where a ship is going to see what options for B2B may be available. However, when I do a search by specific ship there seems to be large gaps in dates.

 

Now, I'm pretty sure that Princess won't be leaving ships hanging around in a port somewhere when it could be out on the water earning money, so what am I doing wrong?

 

I'm just trying to learn how to do it - because this is for an idea for a cruise in 2020 - and yes, I do plan waaaaay in advance. So I know I'm not gonna see anything for that year yet, I just need to know HOW to find the B2B cruises please:halo:

2020 may still be too far out to find a schedule.

For those with schedule, we refer to http://www.cruisetimetables.com/

I see that you're in NZ so your website experiences may be different than in the USA. I'll narrow my search criteria to find cruises we're interested in sailing & sometimes down to the ship & month. Then I can view the schedules for the cruises we're considering including B2B cruises.

Cruises in 2020 might be available near the end of this year. If you're searching for cruises closer to NZ, some cruises are only marketed exclusively within China. That's why you might see some gaps in schedules for some of the ships that sail for the Chinese market only.

I can download or order brochures from this Princess webpage which might require being signed in to an account:

https://book.princess.com/captaincircle/brochureList.page?selectedBrochures=

The Cruise Atlas brochure shows a lot of useful information (itineraries & deck plans) and the last couple of pages have a color-coded chart showing where each ship is sailing. The current 2017/2018 version shows ships & itineraries from January 2017 until March 2018. Each year in late summer they created an updated version of the Cruise Atlas which will probably contain information for cruises through Spring 2019.

https://book.princess.com/images/cc/brochure/downloads/princess-cruise-atlas-2017-18.pdf

When you're doing a search, make sure you search only by ship name and a date range, not by itinerary. If you include itineraries, you will see gaps if a ship does alternating itineraries.

For many of our b2b trips, I find a cruise that interests us and check the ones) before and after to see if any are acceptable to us.

A few years ago, we took the circumnavigation of Australia. I found that the following cruise on the Dawn Princess was going to Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. We took both.

Agree that you should only use dates and ships name in your search but I can think of two other reasons why a ship might disappear from the planner for a short time. One is if it has a planned dry dock for that period. Remember Princess loves to keep the ships at sea but they must periodically take them out of service for a period of time. Another is if the ship has been chartered for a week or two by a private entity. Even though the ship is still at sea, you cannot book a cruise through Princess, only through the chartering entity. These can be tricky to find depending on who is it as they may only be interested in selling to members.

Follow the instructions from others here: ship, month desired. Then when the list comes up, go to the top of the page and select the drop down menu that says "Sort by: High to Low". Choose "Date". That lines them up in the order that the ship is sailing from month to month, week to week.

We've taken back-to-back cruises twice. In our case, there were short cruises that fit our schedule (back before DH retired from teaching at a community college). I contacted our travel agent to book us on the consecutive cruises. The first time we did b2b cruises, we were able to get the same cabin for both cruises. The second time, there were not any cabins available for the type we wanted, so I booked us guarantees. We did have to switch cabins on the turn-around day, but it was not too much of a hassle (other than DH forgetting us car key in the room safe).

I guess the same way to search for a B2B but on different ships. DH would like to do different ships but from reading CC I find that those of you that do B2B prefer the same ship.

Question have any of you done B2B on different ships and what were the pros and cons??

Thanks for your replies:)

If you wish to stay on the same ship just go to the Princess web site and follow the dates. If there happens to be a gap in the schedule then it is either a dry dock or it might be a charter. Just avoid the gaps if any.

If you wish to change ships then you have to lay out a schedule of what ships are in what ports when. We have done this by printing out monthly calendars and plotting certain ship's schedules. We then see if any can be put together for longer cruises.

Princess sells some voyages as b2b's. There is no easy way, but you have lots of time to develop the learning curve.

I guess the same way to search for a B2B but on different ships. DH would like to do different ships but from reading CC I find that those of you that do B2B prefer the same ship.

 

Question have any of you done B2B on different ships and what were the pros and cons??

 

Thanks for your replies:)

Unless the itinerary is highly desirable on another ship (pro) then we remain on the same ship for an easier in-transit turnaround day.

The con for me with switching ships would be a disembarkation process & probably processing by CBP and then the check-in process for the next ship. By remaining on the same ship you merely wait in the cruise terminal's in-transit area to reboard the ship. Even if going into town you'd simply return to the ship like from any port & walk onboard with your cruise card. In some non-USA ports it wasn't required to get off the ship because formalities were conducted onboard for in-transit passengers.

I've experienced an exception to this procedure during a transatlantic cruise & having everyone going through CPB at the first USA port...Ft Lauderdale. The cruise ended in Galveston but being the initial USA port it was like ending the cruise in Ft Lauderdale & required processing all passengers (including crew) to exit the ship for CPB inspection.

Hey thanks everyone, the information you have all given is really helpful; particularly the

Atlas! I am not eligible to receive that yet, so the PDF is really helpful:)

Hey thanks everyone, the information you have all given is really helpful; particularly the

Atlas! I am not eligible to receive that yet, so the PDF is really helpful:)

You are not eligible to receive it automatically, but once the next one is issued in print, you can contact Princess and ask for one to be snail mailed to you.

Cool thanks for that! Didn't know I could do that:)