How will Princess' new smoking policy affect your cruising?

[PartyAllDaTyme]

For those unaware, Princess recently announced that they are changing their smoking policy to prohibit smoking in cabins or on balconies. We started out on Princess but switched to Celebrity because of the better smoking policy. We plan to stick with X for the most part because Princess still allows smoking in part of the casino, and because they were there for us when no one else was. We will go with Princess only for those itineraries we can't get from X. But I was wondering if the policy change would result in a large loss of business for X. Hence my little poll!

 

Please note that the questions are intended to reveal the comparison between these two cruise lines. If you regularly sail many other lines, please consider the poll choices from the standpoint of what your decision would be for choosing Princess over X, or vice versa. So if the smoking policy doesn't enter into your decision, the correct response would be "I'm not at all likely to change."

 

Carnival and HAL also announced changes to their smoking policies-- no smoking in the cabin, but still okay on the veranda. I don't think this will have nearly the impact, so I'm not including them.

 

If you're reading this shortly after I've posted it and are wondering where the poll is, please be patient-- it takes some time to type in the poll questions. The poll is anonymous and you have one selection possible, so please pick the answer that best applies. If there's a "none of the above" situation I haven't thought of, please post about it!

[tip]

Princess should be welcomed to the 21st Century! May more cruise lines get with the program.

[Christine Frances]

I am not about to sail with them yet. They still need to make more inside areas smoke free - most importantly - the casino:D

[wwcruisers]

We've always sailed Royal and Celebrity -- but Princess is a definite possibility, now. Since RCCL virtually abandoned the West Coast, the only thing has that kept me from considering Princess was their wide-open smoking policy. But PartyAllDaTyme, I agree with you that the paradigm adopted by Carnival and HAL will not work -- any better than it does on RC. When you only allow smoking on balconies, guess where all the smokers go? :eek:

[PartyAllDaTyme]

We've always sailed Royal and Celebrity -- but Princess is a definite possibility, now. Since RCCL virtually abandoned the West Coast, the only thing has that kept me from considering Princess was their wide-open smoking policy. But PartyAllDaTyme, I agree with you that the paradigm adopted by Carnival and HAL will not work -- any better than it does on RC. When you only allow smoking on balconies, guess where all the smokers go? :eek:

 

Exactly. "Can't smoke in the cabin, guess I'll step outside." At least it's a step in the right direction, but I'd be even less inclined to cruise with Carnival or HAL now.

[Denny01]

As you can see on our signature below, we do cruise Princess. But the reason is for an itinerary Celebrity doesn't have. We will continue to cruise Celebrity as our primary Line. So I checked No Chnge. The smoking rule change means we'd look to Princess as the Cruise Line for itineraries that Celebrity doesn't cover but not replace Celebrity. Princess obviously has more options because it has more ships but I still find Celebrity a definite cut above.

 

Den

[bellybutton530]

Both Princess and HAL have itineraries that interest me, but I have problems with smoke. I don't frequent the casino, but occasionally find myself passing through. Those casinos smell like dirty ashtrays.

 

I think it will take Princess a couple of years to tweak the no smoking in staterooms and balconies; so I'll continue to sail Celebrity, with an occasional RCI from Galveston (only 100 miles from where I live.)

 

C'mon HAL, get with the program....

[dmwnc1959]

I voted for "I will now be as likely to cruise with Princess as with Celebrity".

 

I actually love Princess ships. I haven't yet ventured into the Celebrity Solstice-class so "I don't know what I'm missing" yet, and my first Millennium-class cruise is this year (10-night) after only having sailed the three Century-class ships a total of four times.

 

I cruised Princess before I found Celebrity, and now have booked a 14-night B2B on Grand Princess for next year as soon as I heard the new smoking policy was established.

 

I am excited to get back. I don't use the casino, and I don't think it will take that long to whip the violators into abiding by the new rules so by time my Dec. 2012 cruise comes around it should be all good.

[cruzeluver]

I will still look primarily to Celebrity, but would consider Princess if its an itinerary we like or we are ready to shake things up a bit. I'm thinking after our next X cruise we may be ready to sample a different line, and Princess could well be it.

[BettyCruiser]

I chose the same going forward. I am not a brand loyal cruiser as you can see by my sig. The smoking policy of Celebrity was more of a nice to have rather than a deciding factor, so now it will be nice to have on Princess and just in time I had two cruises booked with them already. The biggest factor that still sways me toward Celebrity is the availability and variety of drink packages.

[kellyclayt]

I love Celebrity, but will now consider Princess if there's an itinerary that I want, especially since I live on the west coast and they seem to have a lot more available out here. I do wish that they were banning smoking in all of the casino because my husband spends a lot of time there, but the balcony issue is the huge one for me.

[Captain Jake]

Princess has perked my interest to say the least.They will certainly force RCCL's hand as they are more of a family friendly line.

:cj

[ORV]

Smoke is not an issue for me. Having sailed both lines once I feel X offered a better product. I'll sail either if the price and itinerary are what I'm looking for.

[miched]

If Princess prices are around the same as X I will sail X as I like it more, if there is a reasonable difference and X is more I will still choose X because of the more stringent smoking restrictions.

 

Princess would have to be a whole lot cheaper than X, if the smoking policies were the same I would still choose X.

 

 

 

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[Orator]

Received an e-mail from X offering an Elite experience for Princess Captain's Circle members. More details in another post. Seems to be Celebrity's response to Princess' smoking policy change. I've cruised Princess many times, but X is my line of choice. To me, it's a lot more than smoking.

[hulamoon]

I hope I get one of those emails.

[PartyAllDaTyme]

As of this post, there were 102 votes-- thank you for everyone who took the time to vote! If you haven't already, please do so.

 

Preliminary analysis-- 75 out of 102 either said it was not likely to change their cruising habits at all, or that they would continue to cruise the same amount on Celebrity but would take additional cruises on Princess. In those cases, X will not lose any business.

 

Fifteen cases were reported wherein a cruiser could go either way, so Princess was now as likely as X to get the business, representing 7.5 cases where X would lose a customer. This assumes that their overall level of cruising remains the same. Three people said they were, in effect, switching to Princess completely. So that's an average of 10.5 customers lost.

 

Six said they would mostly cruise with X but would occasionally use Princess, three that said the opposite. Three from one column and three from the other would cancel each other out, so we get another six who would split their cruising down the middle. An average of another three customers lost. As for the remaining three who would cruise mostly with Celebrity, it's hard to put a figure on how much this means-- 9 out of 10 cruises with X, 3 out of 5? Let's assume the best case scenario for X, something like 999 out of 1,000, or for all practical purposes, still loyal to X.

 

That totals 13.5 out of 102 customers that X can expect to lose to Princess, or about 13%. Please keep in mind that this is a highly unscientific poll, and the margin of error is great. Still, if it's anywhere close to accurate, Celebrity can expect to take about a 10% hit in their bookings, which would be rather significant. Small wonder they're targeting Princess customers with their email marketing campaign.