Why the Fascination out of SJU

I've sailed a handful of times out of San Juan and it's probably one of the best cruise itineraries I've ever experienced. I'm so confused why Carnival would put one of their oldest ships in the fleet on this itinerary? I'm really disappointed, older ships like the Fascination, Ecstacy, Imagination, etc need to be for short runs, not the 6-9 itineraries.

I agree, they should leave her in Jax where she belongs.

They can keep the Elation in New Orleans...

In my opinion, ship does not matter on that itinerary. We were on itinerary on the Valor last year, which many claim is a floating rust bucket because it does not have a Guy's Burgers on it, and it was perfectly fine.

Im on this itinerary in May. Certainly wouldnt have been my first choice for a ship but it is so port intensive that I dont think its going to make a big difference for us. Time will tell!

This is a premium itinerary. Unfortunately for Carnival, they couldn't charge premium prices for it. The way to address that was by artificially adjusting demand by decreasing supply. With considerably less cabins to sell each week, Carnival can now charge as much (if not more) than its competitors out of San Juan which include Royal, NCL, Celebrity, and Disney. This is similar to what Carnival does in Alaska where they have a lonely ship during the season which allows them to charge as much as premium cruise lines in this market.

Also, Carnival needs their newer ships in the US mainland in order to compete with other cruise lines in markets where the ships are the main attraction and not the itinerary (most notably in Eastern and Western Caribbean ones where the ports are secondary in importance). NCL and Royal are currently providing some stiff competition with their newbuilds.

We may not like to see an older Fantasy class ship out of San Juan, but it's better than the alternative which would've been to eliminate Southern itineraries from there altogether. Carnival is banking on people who are loyal to Carnival no matter what, people who always assume that Carnival has the lowest prices and will not compare prices with other cruise lines, and on a very loyal local passenger base.

The answer probably has to do with capacity and not the age of the ship.

Royal Caribbean sails the 15 year old Adventure Seas year round and the 12 year old Jewel Of The Seas seasonally.

Celebrity sails the 15 year old Summit seasonally.

None of the above are the newest and largest in their fleets.

I agree with capacity. It has to be hard to fill the ship every week with all the competition from the other cruise lines, in addition to needing a lot of people to fly in to Puerto Rico every week. Have to figure $500pp for airfare, plus hotel (if you don't fly in day off) meals and transport, it makes for one expensive trip. I was surprised for my January 2015 cruise, that the ship pretty much sailed full except for several junior suites went went unfilled.

We have sailed this itinerary 3 times now from San Juan. We sailed the last Liberty sailing a week ago.

I am disappointed at the change in ship class. While it is port intensive, I enjoyed the guys burgers when returning from port, as well as the adult only aft pool. Our room of choice is always the 4j at the front of the ship which doesn't exist on this class of ship.

I looked ahead to next years sailing and the prices are higher than we we booked the past cruise a year out.

I will look into other cruise lines if we wish to sail from PR again!

The Fascination and it's sister ships were old when I sailed them 10 yrs ago. I am amazed at the pricing that Carnival is getting for the southern itineraries, it must be for the islands, it's certainly not for the ship.

IMO, Celebrity Summit is the best ship sailing out of SJU. Pricing is comparable to Carnival, and sometimes less. The Summit has a great indoor thalasso pool and the food choices, entertainment and restaurants on Celebrity blow Carnival away. If you can get the drink package for free on Celebrity, I can't understand how Carnival can even compete in this market.

My point exactly! The location does! Carnival has marketing, does studies, reads reviews... There is a BIG difference in clientele. That being said it makes perfect sense for Carnival to put a nasty ship in with the "nasty" people..

 

Let's just say that ship fits in San Juan and a classier and newer one elsewhere would fit in with a more mature crowd that has class. That is all I was trying to say.

Yes, I read reviews. And unfortunately I read many reviews that are filled with ignorance and flat out intolerance for other cultures.

I wholeheartedly disagree with your comments about placing a "nasty ship" where the "nasty people" are. As you may (or may not) know, Carnival may have the Fascination in San Juan, but more premium cruise lines like Celebrity and Disney, as well as true luxury cruise lines like Windstar have ships sailing from San Juan. I doubt that they decided to base their ships there to cater to the "nasty" people.

Which brings me to pricing which is a bigger indicator of what clientele a particular sailing will attract. You price a sailing cheap enough and you will most likely attract a few undesirables who unfortunately are not familiar with the basic concepts of human behavior. This is not a San Juan phenomenon but a phenomenon that you will see at any port of embarkation regardless of whether it's aboard the Fascination or another ship.

Your last comment about placing a newer ship where a classier and more mature crowd sails from is a bit comical. Once again, the ship does not make the crowd. Marketing and pricing does.

I will be on the fascination for the first time in May and it would not have been my first choice for the ship but I am sailing for the ports ... I am sure that the ship will be fine :)

I've sailed a handful of times out of San Juan and it's probably one of the best cruise itineraries I've ever experienced. I'm so confused why Carnival would put one of their oldest ships in the fleet on this itinerary? I'm really disappointed, older ships like the Fascination, Ecstacy, Imagination, etc need to be for short runs, not the 6-9 itineraries.

I agree. I want to do this itinerary but not excited about the Fascination. I will look into the other lines but I'm curious about the Fascination. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good balcony cabin on the Fascination? Thanks.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I enjoy Carnival's older ships. We're taking this cruise with my entire family (party of 15) next July and I think the ship will give the first time cruisers a good intro to cruising without overwhelming them.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I enjoy Carnival's older ships. We're taking this cruise with my entire family (party of 15) next July and I think the ship will give the first time cruisers a good intro to cruising without overwhelming them.

There was a time when these ships were the largest and most modern out there. When Fascination (and Monarch of the Seas) were brand new and sailed from San Juan in the 90's, very few ships were anything like them. Few people had sailed on ships like these, specially from San Juan.

That sense of awe that these ships elicited from cruisers back then can still be sensed by first time cruisers simply because they haven't experienced other ships before. Unless someone purposely tells your family members that the Fascination is an older, smaller ship, chances are that they'll have a great experience, and don't be surprised if some of them comment on how big the ship is!

I also like the older smaller ships but I think the limited number of balcony cabins cause an inflation of the price.

If I am paying over $500 pp to get to San Juan, there is no way I am going to settle on the Facination.

In fact we just booked RCCL Adventure and I didn't even check the prices for Facination.

My 2nd choice would have been Celebrity Summit - but I really liked the Adventure itinerary - St Maarten, St Kitts, Aruba and Curaçao.

Jane

There was a time when these ships were the largest and most modern out there. When Fascination (and Monarch of the Seas) were brand new and sailed from San Juan in the 90's, very few ships were anything like them. Few people had sailed on ships like these, specially from San Juan.

 

That sense of awe that these ships elicited from cruisers back then can still be sensed by first time cruisers simply because they haven't experienced other ships before. Unless someone purposely tells your family members that the Fascination is an older, smaller ship, chances are that they'll have a great experience, and don't be surprised if some of them comment on how big the ship is!

Tapi, I usually agree with you, but not on this one. Ten years ago, these ships were old and they are 10 years older now. Yes, one time, long ago and far away, they were "state of the art", but so was dial up internet. Remember that? Today's 2 and 3 year old toddlers would walk away from a dial up connection.

A newbie cruiser gets on board one of these relics and looks across the harbor at a modern, up to date ship and says what am I doing here? Especially if he/she did some comparision shopping and found out they could sail for comparable pricing or less on a newer, better ship. Plus get a booze package or free gratuities or free specialty dining all week as add ons? While Carnival pushes FTTF sales in San Juan where it is basically useless with a 10 pm sailaway?

I was on the Disney Dream in Port Canaveral and it was brutal to hear comments from those Disney cruisers as they looked down on the puny Carnival Fantasy class ship below it with its plastic lawn grass and plastic palm trees. This was after we had baby lamb chops, king crab legs and unlimited jumbo shrimp for lunch. Some things you can't compare because there's no basis for comparision, it's not even apples to oranges, or diamonds to zirconium. The Fantasy class ships should be sold to Costa or another European cruise line. Good Riddance to them.

If I am paying over $500 pp to get to San Juan, there is no way I am going to settle on the Facination.

 

In fact we just booked RCCL Adventure and I didn't even check the prices for Facination.

 

My 2nd choice would have been Celebrity Summit - but I really liked the Adventure itinerary - St Maarten, St Kitts, Aruba and Curaçao.

 

Jane

Same here for October.

That sense of awe that these ships elicited from cruisers back then can still be sensed by first time cruisers simply because they haven't experienced other ships before. Unless someone purposely tells your family members that the Fascination is an older, smaller ship, chances are that they'll have a great experience, and don't be surprised if some of them comment on how big the ship is!

That would be us. We've only done one other cruise, and it was on the NCL Dawn. If you read the NCL boards, you will hear a lot of the same comments there about the Dawn that you have in this thread about the Fascination.

We picked the Dawn because we live near the port and wanted to go to Bermuda. We picked the Fascination because we want to see the ports as we haven't been to the Caribbean. When I booked our cruise in January, I looked at the other lines and Carnival was the winner. There are five of us, so even another line being "essentially the same" (e.g. maybe $40-50 higher than Carnival's prices) starts to add up when you have to account for that for five people. We booked all but one airline ticket to San Juan with credit card miles, so that isn't really an issue for this particular trip.

I know I'm in the minority here, because we have only done one other cruise and we do mostly land vacations. I have joked to my DH that we don't really know what we are missing, and perhaps that is best for now. We definitely fall in the camp of "sailing for the ports" and not the ship. It might not always be that way, but for now, it is. We loved our cruise to Bermuda on an older ship (My then six year old's favorite part of our entire cruise vacation to Bermuda? The T-Rex slide on the kiddie pool of the Dawn. :)) I'm sure we'll love our Southern Caribbean itinerary as well, even without the bells and whistles on the ship.

We booked Fascination because of the price. At the time we booked NCL Gem was $800 more. The last time I looked that difference had spread out to $1100. Since we booked Fascination has been scheduled to receive the upgrades and will have Guys onboard when we sail. We booked this cruise more for the itinerary than the ship but I don't expect that we'll hate the Fascination at all. From all that I've read she has a great crew and is well maintained. (And we got lucky on airfare- $260 each out of Boston.)

We booked Fascination because of the price. At the time we booked NCL Gem was $800 more. The last time I looked that difference had spread out to $1100. Since we booked Fascination has been scheduled to receive the upgrades and will have Guys onboard when we sail. We booked this cruise more for the itinerary than the ship but I don't expect that we'll hate the Fascination at all. From all that I've read she has a great crew and is well maintained. (And we got lucky on airfare- $260 each out of Boston.)

Where did you read that Fascination will be getting upgrades this year? It just was in dry dock last year so I'm surprised it's going back again so quickly.

Where did you read that Fascination will be getting upgrades this year? It just was in dry dock last year so I'm surprised it's going back again so quickly.

Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Did she not get the 2.0 upgrades?

You beat me to it. I was just going to say the same thing. Yes, we are newbie cruisers but when we were on the NCL Dawn we heard the same stuff. Its Old, Its outdated, Food sucks, showing its age on and on. Call us simple people, but we dont care about fancy restaurants, we ate mostly at the buffet to save time. We saw some good shows, we enjoyed our time in the pool and hot tubs, having a few drinks and walking around the deck. We LOVED our cruise aboard the Dawn. In fact, last year on the Breeze, while we loved being on the cruise/vacation/Caribbean, we hated the numbers of people, 4k people being herded like cattle trying to get off the ship at every port, the pool basically you stood in the water and swayed with the ship as there were so many people you couldnt do anything else. Never had that on the smaller, older ship. Some people cruise for the ship and seldom debark at the ports. So far thats not us, maybe if it were, we would have a different point of view.

I think everything is subjective. We sail for the love of being on the sea, the love of the beautiful Caribbean and the ports. Every person could find SOMETHING they hate about just about anything depending on their personal likes/dislikes.

I may be proven wrong come May, but I believe we will have a great time on our cruise and the ship wont have much bearing on that.

That would be us. We've only done one other cruise, and it was on the NCL Dawn. If you read the NCL boards, you will hear a lot of the same comments there about the Dawn that you have in this thread about the Fascination.

 

We picked the Dawn because we live near the port and wanted to go to Bermuda. We picked the Fascination because we want to see the ports as we haven't been to the Caribbean. When I booked our cruise in January, I looked at the other lines and Carnival was the winner. There are five of us, so even another line being "essentially the same" (e.g. maybe $40-50 higher than Carnival's prices) starts to add up when you have to account for that for five people. We booked all but one airline ticket to San Juan with credit card miles, so that isn't really an issue for this particular trip.

 

I know I'm in the minority here, because we have only done one other cruise and we do mostly land vacations. I have joked to my DH that we don't really know what we are missing, and perhaps that is best for now. We definitely fall in the camp of "sailing for the ports" and not the ship. It might not always be that way, but for now, it is. We loved our cruise to Bermuda on an older ship (My then six year old's favorite part of our entire cruise vacation to Bermuda? The T-Rex slide on the kiddie pool of the Dawn. :)) I'm sure we'll love our Southern Caribbean itinerary as well, even without the bells and whistles on the ship.

Sparks,

No, she got the 2.0 Lite version. No Guys or Blue Iguana. She has a waterslide and the Punchliner I believe and maybe a few smaller things.

A side note, I see you are another VTer! We are an hour or so away from you in Lake Elmore!

D

Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Did she not get the 2.0 upgrades?

Maybe that's what I was thinking of. Did she not get the 2.0 upgrades?

I'm pretty sure none - just general maintenance. I can tell you for sure after I cruise in April.