lstone19

1 hour ago, NavArch64 said:

The Royal Princess (and in theory the class) is listed as having a height of 217 feet and a draft of 28 feet. If, and this is a big if, they mean height to be from the keel to the top of the highest mast or structure, then the air draft is 189 feet. Apparently, the air clearance under the center of the Bridge of the Americas at high tide is listed at 201 feet, although it is possible that the local authorities limit the air draft of ships passing beneath to 190 feet. If all of the above is true (and I am not certain that that is so ... I have not measured this myself), then Discovery Princess has 1 foot to spare. However, only Carnival Corp knows for sure.

That 217' number has been around for years but it must be over the keel, not the waterline, as there are some other bridges it wouldn't fit under at 217' above the waterline. Royal Princess has been under the Lions Gate Bridge (Vancouver) which is listed as 200' clearance and I've been under the Storbaelt Bridge in Denmark on Regal Princess which is listed as 213' clearance.

13 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

If you look at the form, you can do this all by yourself, or you can wait for your TA to do it.

It took me just a few seconds to fill out, so i did it myself and saved my TA the trouble.

You don't even have to wait for an email from Princess to make your choice.

I figured I could do it myself but I want to make sure that my TA will still get credit and commission for the replacement cruise. I would assume that that would be true but it is Princess we’re talking about. Anyway, I will be talking  to my TA tomorrow as we have a cruise that is still available for this fall we want to book.

One thing not clear to me is if you are booked through a travel agency, do you work through the agency to select which option you want (refund, FCC, or replacement cruise) or does everyone fill out the Princess online form?  (perhaps the answer will be in the Princess email about the cancellation but we haven't received that yet but of course, they have thousands of emails to go out)

A quick check says all Enchanted Princess cruises for 2021 are now unavailable to book. Only Caribbean cruises starting in November are available.

My opinion is all those cruises out of Rome and a few fall cruises out of Barcelona are in the process of being cancelled. As for what Enchanted Princess will do, it may be nothing or it may be 7-night cruises out of Piraeus but Princess asked the Port of Piraeus to remove the listings until Princess officially announces it (I did see HAL announced Greek Isles cruises out of Piraeus earlier this week for summer and fall so likely that Princess will do the same).

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion as to what is happening. We’ll know better when Princess officially announces it.

2 hours ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

 

Those show dates that Carnival Corp (Princess) has reserved berthing space at Port of Piraeus for Enchanted Princess.  Until Princess announce actual itineraries, and the cancellation of Rome departures,  it IS a backup plan.  If they do not need the berthing space at Piraeus, they will cancel it with the Port.  Port schedules can and do change frequently as cruise lines adjust their plans.  Things are still very much in flux in Italy and Princess are obviously holding out as long as possible to try and honor the current schedule they have published and are selling from Rome.

 

Except that the port schedule does not show space reserved for Enchanted Princess on the dates that the current Princess itineraries show it in Piraeus (Athens) such as 10/16 for the 10/13 cruise out of Rome. For 10/16, it shows seven other ships at Piraeus. Perhaps it is a backup plan but if the current Princess published cruises do happen, then it appears other itinerary changes will be needed to make them happen.

12 minutes ago, nini said:

 

Thank you; I understand the definition of "hearsay". I must be gullible when it says that this is the schedule for 2021. Even so, the heart of the matter is: the schedules do not match the Princess website and that alone is the entire point.

If you're talking about how the current official Piraeus port schedule does not match what Princess has published, I agree with you (and we're booked on Enchanted Princess for mid-October so this is a matter of interest to us) as both are authoritative sources and they are in conflict. As for what crew-center.com says, I don't care as they are not and never have been an authoritative source for cruise schedules. Their data is worth what you paid for it.

1 hour ago, nini said:

These are the links. AND, I have been watching the changes as well, and have been noted by other posters.

 

http://crew-center.com/piraeus-greece-cruise-port-schedule-2021

http://crew-center.com/civitavecchia-rome-cruise-ships-schedule-july-december-2021

crew-center.com is not an authoritative source (nor is cruisemapper.com, also cited upthread). They just take the data they get from authoritative sources and re-publish it. If the authoritative source changes the data and a secondary source such as crew-center.com does not notice the change or does not update their site, then the secondary source will have wrong information. Using a non-authoratative source such as crew-center.com is often no better than "my hair stylist heard from her sister who heard from her auto mechanic ..."

In this case, the schedule crew-center.com is showing for Enchanted Princess for Piraeus and Civitavecchia is the schedule Princess cancelled in September 2020 so crew-center.com is very out of date and worthless.

Others in another thread about Enchanted Princess and Piraeus have provided a link to the what appears to be the official Port of Piraeus schedule and is therefore an authoritative source. 

On 5/3/2021 at 5:42 PM, HappyCruiserettu said:

Note the three-week intervals in those schedules. Now factor in the previous posting about the 7/14/21 night sailings. They are perfectly aligned.

I have no idea where Nini got those port schedules in the OP but I'm guessing from some cruising website that is not up to date. That was the schedule prior to Sep 2020 which was when Princess cancelled the 7/14/21 night rotation from Rome to Athens to Barcelona to Rome that was traditionally run in the summer. However, when they cancelled that last September, they put out a schedule of 7-night cruises all from Rome. Now that appears to be being changed again as the current port schedule being posted by the port of Athens (their own website, not some cruising website that aggregates data) shows Enchanted Princess in Athens every Sunday from July 4 to Nov 14. On the other hand, Civitavecchia's (Rome's) port appears to still have the old schedule but only through July (no schedule published beyond then).

So we have three schedules being tossed about - the original Rome-Athens-Barcelona-Rome schedule that Princess cancelled, the every seven days from Rome schedule Princess is selling followed by it doing 11-night OW cruises between Rome and Barcelona in October and November, and the every seven days from Athens that the port of Athens is showing. Who know whether the second one or the third is right at this point.

From what I've read, the ships need to go to sea every so often to do "marine functions". One I've seen mentioned is desalinating sea water for use onboard requires the ship to be underway. 

13 minutes ago, Bruin Steve said:

I am not sure where Larry was coming from (and, maybe more importantly, why?), but I don't think I'd recommend this to anyone.  First of all, the "Silver Line" runs from El Monte to San Pedro via Downtown LA...or, at least half of its buses do...the other half end their run at the "Harbor Gateway Transit Center"--which is in Gardena on the border of Compton--really nowhere near the Harbor. And only half the buses are of the "Express designation" --which skip the stops at 37th St, Slauson, Manchester and Rosecrans--as it passes through some of the worst areas of the city...so, assuming one had a reason to actually stay in Downtown LA (or one of these other godforsaken areas)--which I completely recommend against, or if one came in on Amtrak, then, yes, one might have the opportunity to ride this bus--and one had better make sure to get on the right bus...

But, you might feel ill at ease trying to schlepp your luggage onto it...and expect looks of disdain from the locals who use this bus as their mode of transportation to get to and from work. 

I'm not sure the why is important or even the where - it was just another data point to say that walking in from the street is allowed as the OP was concerned that they might be required to be in some sort of vehicle to enter the cruise port.

The rest of your rant is not worthy of a response except I'll point out that the Silver Line buses run on the Harbor Freeway, not on city streets, through the areas you think are so bad.

Last cruise out of San Pedro, I took the Silver Line bus to the Harbor/Beacon Park and Ride Stop (right across Harbor Blvd. and Beacon St. from the cruise terminal parking lot) and walked the rest (about 1/4 mile). Looking at the line of cars trying to get into the cruise terminal parking lot, it was a very good decision (two ships totaling 5,500 passengers boarding that day).

8 hours ago, gardenbunny said:

We had Capt McBain on what would be our last cruise in 2020 on Coral Princess to Antarctica. (We got home Feb 6 just as the virus was making the headlines).   IMO he made that cruise even more special due to his unique style. ... He was so approachable,  always around the ship, gave THE BEST updates/reports at any time there was something he thought we should know. 

And earlier I had said:

On 1/18/2021 at 9:50 AM, lstone19 said:

 

When the captain and other senior officers are visible during the cruise, service tends to be very good. ... one of the best [cruises] had a Maitre D' who seemed to be everywhere (was pleasantly surprised to find him and the executive chef up in the buffet one morning just keeping an eye on things). And having the hotel manager just sit in a bar for 30 minutes observing does wonders.

And who was the Captain on that "one of the best" I mentioned in what I quoted? Captain McBain! As someone else said, a good captain can set the tone for the rest of the senior officers as the captain does have daily meetings with the other senior officers.

10 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

Agree that trying to predict who will be the captain on any particular cruise is pretty much like forecasting the weather, you know what is likely but it can change at almost any moment.

 

I've always felt that the captain does affect the cruise although in a more subtle way. Seems that their demeanor quickly percolates down through the crew and staff and is reflected in their attitudes. I've seen this a couple of times when we had a change of captains during long cruises.

 

Regardless of who the captain is, we still enjoy our cruises, just sometimes a little more.

When the captain and other senior officers are visible during the cruise, service tends to be very good. When they're largely invisible, service suffers as the crew knows no one above them is paying much attention. My two worst cruise had largely invisible senior officers and Maitre D' who was only seen for his ceremonial jobs such as the champagne waterfall; one of the best had a Maitre D' who seemed to be everywhere (was pleasantly surprised to find him and the executive chef up in the buffet one morning just keeping an eye on things). And having the hotel manager just sit in a bar for 30 minutes observing does wonders.

1 hour ago, joepeka said:

Another follow up on this cancellation situation specific to Royal. We know all of Royal's sailings have been cancelled through the end of April. It's first scheduled sailing after being out of service for over a year is 5/1/2021 from LA to Vancouver (a repo for the Alaska season). I'm wondering: why has Princess kept that repo cruise on the schedule rather than just send Royal directly to Vancouver for it's first Alaska sailing on 5/8? Is there some legality (e.g. PVSA) requiring it to sail from a U.S. port after being out of U.S. waters for so long or before calling on Canada? 

Not PVSA but the Coast Guard usually inspects a ship when it returns to U.S. waters after extended time away and that's probably a lot easier to do at San Pedro on (or before in this case since they could bring it there early) a turnaround day that during the port call at Ketchikan, the first U.S. port it will see after departing Vancouver.

9 minutes ago, joepeka said:

Ah yes. In looking at the list of cancelled Royal sailing and the lengths, they were all consecutive 14 day cruises. Did they just break those 14 day itin's into two 7 day itin's each to comply with the 7-day or less rule from the CDC? 

No. The schedule was always alternating 7-night Vancouver to Whittier and Whittier to Vancouver that could ALSO be booked as a 14-night round-trip out of Vancouver. They've cancelled the ability to book two B2B 7-nights as a 14-night but the ship's schedule has not changed, as far as I can tell, at all.

Many actual ship itineraries are, in normal circumstances, available to book as a number of different cruises as marketed. One of the most complex is the normal summer Med itineraries where the ship rotates through three 7-night itineraries from Rome to Athens to Barcelona to Rome. But it can also be booked as 14 nights from any of the three ports as well as 21 nights from any of the three ports. Which means that for, for example, when the ship leaves Rome, the passengers could be on any of six different cruises as sold by Princess:

- 7 nights Rome to Athens

- 14 nights Rome to Barcelona

- 21 nights Rome to Rome

- 14 nights Barcelona to Athens

- 21 nights Athens to Athens

- 21 nights Barcelona to Barcelona 

31 minutes ago, joepeka said:

Glad you mentioned this but there's one itinerary on Royal, 5/1-8/2021 (we're booked on it), California coastal ending in Vancouver that is not on the cancelled list. However, all the subsequent Alaska itin's for Royal are cancelled. Puzzling..... 

Not quite. The subsequent Alaska cruises they cancelled are the 14-night B2Bs. The 7-night Vancouver to Whittier and Whittier to Vancouver cruises are not listed as cancelled.

Except for the lack of voice calling capability, an iPad is just a very large iPhone. The only difference you should see is that some apps and websites will detect that they are on an iPad with a larger screen and display things differently.

It's only about five minutes from the airport to the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks. Also, despite what they say, various reports and our first-hand experience in 2018 is even if you haven't paid for the transfer, they'll still put you on the Princess bus. Nobody at the airport was checking to see if we paid for it and when we picked up our "welcome envelope" (which will be at the airport whether you have paid transfers or not), we were then directed to the bus. Plus, I believe the Lodge advertises a free shuttle for guests staying there not part of a Cruisetour so the paid transfer really isn't adding anything.

4 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Why would they change ship time for a port you were not stopping at?

I wondered that and asked! They wanted the ship on local time to avoid any confusion with the local port officials and canal pilots.

I asked this of one of the bridge officers (watch-standers) who work a 4 on / 8 off schedule. This was on Coral Princess which had just come from Alaska. I had incorrectly assumed that in Alaska the watch-standers stayed on Alaska time as Vancouver was the only port different from the other ports but he said they changed with the rest of the ship every cruise. The change for them is done by adding or removing 20 minutes to a watch making one 11 hour period where it's 3:40 on / 7:20 off or a 13 hour period where it's 4:20 on / 8:40 off.

I've never had a Princess ship not switch to local port time, even if it meant lots of changes. On a Pacific partial Panama Canal cruise last fall, after leaving Los Angeles, it was ahead two hours for two Mexican ports, then back an hour for a Guatemalan port, then ahead an hour for Panama (even though we didn't dock or tender there), then back an hour for Costa Rica and Nicaragua, then ahead an hour for another Mexican port, then back two hours for the return to Los Angeles.

30 minutes ago, npcl said:

They were using the ship tonnage (cargo carrying capacity) for the estimate in  the Costa Concordia article when they came up with the $400 figure.

Interesting way of doing it. Thanks for the clarification.

12 minutes ago, npcl said:

An article for the Costa Concordia  estimated $400 per ton in 2013. So your 100k  ton ship would be worth about 40 million as scrap at that price.  Iron ore commodity price is about 25% lower than in 2013 so the scrape price might also be lower.

A ship's tonnage is not its weight. It's a measure of it's cargo-carrying capacity. From Wikipedia: Tonnage is a measure of the cargo-carrying capacity of a ship. The term derives from the taxation paid on tuns or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically refers to a calculation of the volume or cargo volume of a ship. Tonnage should not be confused with displacement, which refers to the actual weight of the vessel. Tonnage is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping.

I have never seen displacement stats published for any Princess ship but some further checking suggests that the weight of the typical cruise ship is 50% or less of its gross tonnage. So a cruise ship published as 100,000 gross tonnage probably weights 50,000 tons or less with the metal content of that being even less.

6 hours ago, aimee0715 said:

I really hope Grand Princess is not on the chopping block. It was the first ship we sailed on and I love it so much!  Also, I hope it's not Pacific Princess.  We have not been on Pacific Princess but we have been on Azamara Journey which is the same "R" class ship.  We loved the size of the ship and the places you can go with a smaller ship.  I have been looking at Pacific Princess itineraries for 2021.  

I'd assume if they reduce the fleet, the biggest opportunity will be in the Grand-class ships. Grand as the oldest would make it a target. From reading some of the other notes, some people think it will just be the oldest ships but I'm hoping Princess has more sense than that and knows that long-term, there are markets that will require smaller ships even though they might be older. They need to keep something Panamax or smaller to go through the old Panama Canal locks - I personally would put Coral Princess at the top of the list of smaller ships to retain.

I can't see Sun Princess and Sea Princess being retained unless there's something about the Australian market that makes it worth doing so. If I had to pick four Grand-class ships to drop, it would be Grand, Caribbean, Diamond, and Sapphire (plus Star Princess whose exit is already planned). Grand and Caribbean because they're the oldest and Diamond and Sapphire because they're the only ships in the Grand or bigger part of the fleet not built at Fincantieri which means they probably have less in common with the rest of the fleet.

2 minutes ago, oskidunker said:

Dont recall but an analyst   when I did a search of ccl. He said there will be a bloodbath Monday with regard to the stock. He could be wrong and Do not know how reliable. Lets see what happens tomorrow. 

Makes no sense at all. The market is always pricing in all known information. If bad news was expected Monday, it would already by priced in. CCL is expected to report earnings for the latest quarter soon (not sure of the date). Earnings will be bad but if better than expected, price will probably rise as the bad new is already priced in. If worse than expected, than it should go down more.

9 minutes ago, gmjc2 said:

It seems to me that the company you buy into should have a record of the number of shares a person owns! If they send out a meeting letter they must have some record, but yet Times Prince had a burden of proof!!

 

They don't. As I posted much earlier in the topic, when you hold the stock in your brokerage account (known as holding it in "street name" (street meaning Wall Street)), the brokerage is shown on the company's books as the owner. When a dividend is paid, the company sends it to the brokerage who then has the responsibility to send it on to the beneficial owner (that's you). Likewise when there's an annual report, notice of annual meeting, etc. to be distributed, the company sends them to the owner of record (the brokerage) and they then send them on to you. Most of that stuff is electronic these days but if you look at any emails you get about them, they come from the brokerage or the company the brokerage has hired to handle it - they do not come from the company itself. Bottom line is most companies do not know who most of their stockholders are.