Vinnyv20032003

I had seen overnight they had gotten up to over 20kts post-fix pre-medevac. So that was promising to see.

You’d have to think with the distance between Port Canaveral and Baltimore, the ship would arrive back in Baltimore by PM Sunday. Hopefully it can arrive by 3pm-4pm so the next cruise’s guests can board at a reasonable time in the evening.

Heading into Port Canaveral now

Sun Princess is currently still in Monfalcone, but has updated its destination to Zelenika, Montenegro for tomorrow (2/24). BTW, they’re dealing with some rough weather conditions in that region right now.

Horizon Dining Room. They really want to move people in and out.

Civitavecchia’s official port schedule updated this morning for the upcoming week. It has the Sun Princess arriving on the morning of 2/26. Remaining at the same dock 25 thru 2/27, likely to load all the provisions and supplies needed. Sun Princess then repositions over to dock 12BN on 2/28 for the inaugural voyage. All seems like such a time crunch, but I had figured the ship would need a minimum of 2 days in Civitavecchia for preparations before the inaugural. This means we should see the ship departing Monfalcone sometime Friday. Or at the absolute latest sometime Saturday, in order to follow this published schedule for Civitavecchia.

At this very moment, the Feb 28th sailing has new availability at the Suite level! This is very exciting. 😀

Yes, March 19th sailing, I’ve had the ability to make dining reservations for nearly a month now.

www.CruiseMapper.com www.MarineTraffic.com Civitavecchia’s official port website (for a possible arrival date/time) ^^ Right there with you! I almost considered listing out each website I’m checking in my post above lol. Too long of a list.

My new daily addiction is searching the internet for any article, post, or hint that signals toward the Sun Princess departing Monfalcone. 🤣🤪

We are on the March 19th sailing in a Deluxe Balcony cabin. Reserve Collection dining recently came up in the App. It allowed me to go all the way through and book a reservation. I cancelled it right away out of respect for those who have paid for this level of accommodation. Signature dining came up this morning in the App but gives me an ‘Error’ message when I try to complete a booking. I’m sure it’s Princess still working on the kinks in the App. Neat to see new things being added.

I am 99% positive I saw Inside cabin availability at some point in time. I was specifically monitoring Feb 8 thru March 29th 2024 sailings, starting in June/July 2023.

We noticed the February/March sailings all go ‘Sold Out’ right around the same time. Something tells me this occurred right around new years. Princess may have blocked rooms on these sailings when they recognized there were going to be delivery issues. I wouldn’t be surprised if rooms were blocked for contractors to assist with completing work on the ship or more likely Princess blocked rooms to ensure these first 6-7 sailings would not sail at full passenger capacity. Nonetheless, that Barcelona disembarkation/embarkation will be interesting to say the least!

Maybe they changed the title from ‘10 Day Grand Mediterranean’ to ‘EUROPE -SOUTHERN’ because they’re just going to allow us to enjoy the ship while it’s being worked on in Monfalcone.

This is the link for the official weekly ship schedule for the Port of Civitavecchia. I am interested to see over the next week if we see Sun Princess on schedule to arrive prior to the 28th. https://civitavecchia.portmobility.it/en/port-civitavecchia-arrivals-and-departures-real-time

I got the same email today for my March 19th sailing and had the same voyage title change to 'EUROPE - SOUTHERN'.

Take this for what it's worth, the March 19th sailing has shown Closed availability for all cabin categories for weeks now. It was one of the only sailings that actually said Closed for all categories, for whatever reason. It now shows Waitlist availability for just about every cabin category for the March 19th sailing. All other upcoming sailings have shown Waitlist availability for weeks now, this remains the same. The April 17th sailing being the 1st sailing to show availability for booking, as of now. I guess I just keep looking for confirmation that this ship is actually going to sail soon. Since we all don't have much else to go off of.

Considering how little information has been released by Princess as to the technical issues being worked on.. you really have to wonder how ready the ship will be for paying guests if it were to sail Feb 28 or sometime in March? We all know it takes some time for a new ship to sail at full capacity with all planned venues operating at 100%. If these upcoming sailings are booked full (I hope they were at least smart enough to not book them full), the cruise experience for these first paying guests may not be the best despite being on a brand new ship. And this will come after all the anxiety of what we have been dealing with. If these upcoming “inaugural” sailings are booked to near full capacity, Princess, in advance, would be smart to offer voluntary cancellation packages to guests. With the proper compensation of course. Oh wait, I said “Princess, in advance, would be smart..”

I should have specified, my apologies, I meant I work in the airline industry which is a forever changing work environment on a daily basis. I was not comparing flight cancellations to cruise cancellations. You're absolutely correct when comparing the personal day-to-day impacts these cancellations have on people. And the stress that comes with travel, in general.

I agree vacation should bring stress relief. I work in the airline industry, changes have rarely brought me undue stress. I have always had the mentality of just rolling with the punches, as many of us have with the lives we live. This time around is a bit different, mostly because this particular cruise vacation has so much meaning to all of us. It would be bad enough if we were talking about an inaugural season of short Bahamas cruises (3-4 nights). Those LAST-MINUTE cancellations may still afford those inconvenienced with the opportunity to find another viable option. That example brings with it many other cruise departures of varying lengths from the same region to the same region, around the same dates. Or may be those inconvenienced decide on a hotel beach vacation, or an amusement park vacation instead. The fact is there are option people would be OK with! The Sun Princess inaugural season of Mediterranean itineraries is a far different situation from the aforementioned. For many, this is a trip of a lifetime. Deciding to travel from the USA to Europe may be a once in a lifetime thing, and it is a big decision for many to make. The amount of planning, coordination is tremendous. It's not a matter of do you want to do the waverunners or the beach cabana at Princess Cay. There are not many other viable cruise itinerary options Feb - April in that region. And many people will not be as comfortable traveling Europe via another means. The level of inconvenience here is significant. Don't get me wrong it's beyond exciting planning all of it. But you plan and coordinate all of it, with the expectation of doing it. Not having control over the situation AND not receiving good information from the corporation is disheartening.

I wonder what the expectation amongst the crew is as for when they believe the ship may be ready 'enough' for the inaugural sailing? They have to be asking many of the same questions we are. Especially considering they're there, they've been there, living amongst all the work and 'issues'.

It appears as though it was published this morning according to the Italian media's webpage.

If this ends up being true you would have to think we’ll likely see multiple cancellations. likely the reason we haven’t gotten the official press release yet.

Still waiting for an official press release to come out today from Princess. only thing we have really seen is the notification sent to the guests on the Feb 18 cancellation. hopefully the official press release provides some additional transparency.

@dides I appreciate your posts and I hope you enjoy your cruise! But if you see any Sun Princess crew social media posts today, please pass them along! Thanks for everything.