Caribbean Princess Late Again to Curacao?

[Worn out mailman]

It takes x amount of time to go from Princess Cays to here, so the only way to have "good planning" is to spend less time at Princess Cays.

Amen, I wish they would do this.

[bled01]

Princess just changed the itinerary of my 2/16 cruise to arrive in Curacao at 2pm instead of 1pm. Has anyone else seen theirs change at all?

[SkyMaster]

Just returned from our 1/12/13 sailing of CB, and YEP,,we too were about two hours late getting into Curacao. We were told that prevailing head winds caused our late arrival.

 

"SKY"

[catsdinner]

We are on the 1/19 sailing of CB and in looking at the bridgecam now, they are just arriving in Curacao...1.5 to 2 hours late. This seems to be a recurring issue. Hopefully it is not propulsion problems again.

 

Maybe she is not in the time zone as you are and is actually on time?

[cmitch9999]

We are on the 2-23 sailing and I checked my personalized and see we also show a 2pm arrival. does anyone know if the current sailing arrived on time today??

[Mississippian]

I am currently on the Caribbean Princess. We arrived in Curaco at 4 instead of 1pm. We were delayed by heavy seas slowing down our progress. To make it from Princess Cay the ship needs to go near full speed but we had rough seas starting yesterday afternooon and continuing most of the day. Overnight the waves were around 3.5 meters.

All tours except 2 were cancelled and to avoid a couple thousand people crwoding the disembarkation area at 4 they set up a tender ticket type process. It took about 35 minutes to get through the main rush getting off. We stayed on the ship and had the anytime dinning around 6 - the dinning room was near empty.

Other than the wind and rough seas the weather has been great.

So if Princess would have been willing to skip Princess Cay, a worthless stop, and instead gone straight to Curacao for a 24-hour stop there would have been no problems.

 

Princess Cay is fine when there is plenty of extra time, but when there is a need for a long sailing to Curacao and Aruba, why force people to spend their precious time at this second-rate stop and miss something great?

 

Just my opinion.

[dread_pirate]

The 2/2 sailing also shows us arriving in Curacao at 2 PM.

[Host Jazzbeau]

Remember what Einstein said about insanity: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

 

How many weeks is this ship late to Curacao? Airlines now have to post their on-time record, and suddenly flight schedules have been adjusted to be more realistic.

[Roce48]

We are on the 2-23 sailing and I checked my personalized and see we also show a 2pm arrival. does anyone know if the current sailing arrived on time today??

 

We also are on the 2-23 cruise, and just checked my on-line itinerary which is showing a change of arrival to 2pm. My AAA TA has not yet sent me notice of the change. Should I expect one?

 

We also have a Trolley Tour scheduled for 2:30pm. Since it is a ship sponsored excursion, do you think the ship staff will get us off in time to catch the Trolley Tour?

 

I recently e-mailed Princess with my concerns about the CB arriving late in Curacao quite frequently, and asked them how many of these late arrivals were due to propulsion problems vs weather related. No answer so far.

[bphman]

We were on the Westerdam 1/6 sailing and were fortunate enough the arrive in Curacao on time. Gale force winds were in effect with winds at 60 knots and very rough seas. An RCI ship was in port. Oceania Marina was almost 8 hours late because of the weather and was sitting outside the harbor for hours before docking. I believe CB was also docked.

[bubba98]

So if Princess would have been willing to skip Princess Cay, a worthless stop, and instead gone straight to Curacao for a 24-hour stop there would have been no problems.

 

Princess Cay is fine when there is plenty of extra time, but when there is a need for a long sailing to Curacao and Aruba, why force people to spend their precious time at this second-rate stop and miss something great?

 

Just my opinion.

Speak for yourself on this on I for one love this stop and find it a very relaxing enjoyable beach day. This stop is one of the reason we picked this cruise I would not consider it second rate by any means.

[steve777]

I guess i dont care if we are late in curacao, have excursion with irie tours. Will change plans if late. Guess thats why we have these boards so you can find out and plan everything.

[caribill]

We also have a Trolley Tour scheduled for 2:30pm. Since it is a ship sponsored excursion, do you think the ship staff will get us off in time to catch the Trolley Tour?

 

 

As long as the Princess tour will still be done, they will get you to it on time.

[Mississippian]

Speak for yourself on this on I for one love this stop and find it a very relaxing enjoyable beach day. This stop is one of the reason we picked this cruise I would not consider it second rate by any means.

It might come as a surprise to you, but Princess Cay is included in ALL Princess Caribbean cruises. So by picking the Aruba-Curacao cruise to get Princess Cay you picked the one cruise where that port truly interferes with the ship's ability to reach the other ports on time.

 

If Princess were to spend a full 24 hours in Curacao would you not find some of that time to be enjoyable beach time? Do you prefer crowded, unfun beaches to delightful, uncrowded beaches? Just asking.

[bubba98]

It might come as a surprise to you, but Princess Cay is included in ALL Princess Caribbean cruises. So by picking the Aruba-Curacao cruise to get Princess Cay you picked the one cruise where that port truly interferes with the ship's ability to reach the other ports on time.

 

If Princess were to spend a full 24 hours in Curacao would you not find some of that time to be enjoyable beach time? Do you prefer crowded, unfun beaches to delightful, uncrowded beaches? Just asking.

 

Princess Cay is not in every Princess Caribbean cruise and I do not find Princess Cay to be crowded or unfun in fact the last time we stoped there two years ago while on the Emerald my wife and I had one of the best days on our cruise. We went to the far end of the beach had two nice loungers under a tree and relaxed very much. It does not bother me that you get into a port a hour or so late. You have your feeling about it I have mine so be it.

[sunsetbeachgal]

We leave this weekend on the Emerald for a ten day cruise and it does not include Princess Cay. For us, that was a plus as we have been there numerous times and our cruise visits Turks and Caicos instead..

 

My friend that we are doing the Emerald with is on the Caribbean Princess now so will email to ask if they got to Curacao on time yesterday.

[mamaboss]

March 2 cruise is also showing a change to arrive at 2 pm. Our tour through ship is 3 pm so I guess we won't get any shopping in.

[Mississippian]

Princess Cay is not in every Princess Caribbean cruise and I do not find Princess Cay to be crowded or unfun in fact the last time we stoped there two years ago while on the Emerald my wife and I had one of the best days on our cruise. We went to the far end of the beach had two nice loungers under a tree and relaxed very much. It does not bother me that you get into a port a hour or so late. You have your feeling about it I have mine so be it.

Princess Cay is not in Texas departures but it is in the overwhelming majority of Florida 7- to 11-day cruises. In looking at the next year there are a few Emerald Princess trips that don't include it plus a couple more. But I still say that if you chose the Curacao-Aruba cruise specifically because it included Princess Cay you included the one itinerary where the stop has the potential to be highly disruptive.

 

I do recognize that many people love Princess Cay and perhaps I shouldn't speak of it so harshly. However, I would much prefer to spend my time at an actual port than at Princess Cay. At Curacao, in addition to enjoying a walk through a very clean downtown area we went to Blue Bay resort, where we paid a small fee and had an experience that was head and shoulders above that offered by Princess Cay. To have this put at risk so passengers can be forced to spend a full day at Princess Cay just seems wrong.

 

A Princess Cay stop does work well with many Princess itineraries, and in those cases I think stopping is fine. I just think it is crazy to stop there when Princess knows up front it is going to have trouble reaching the next port stop on time. And let's face it, arriving at Curacao at 4 p.m. means your day there is going to be very limited.

[bubba98]

Princess Cay is not in Texas departures but it is in the overwhelming majority of Florida 7- to 11-day cruises. In looking at the next year there are a few Emerald Princess trips that don't include it plus a couple more. But I still say that if you chose the Curacao-Aruba cruise specifically because it included Princess Cay you included the one itinerary where the stop has the potential to be highly disruptive.

 

I do recognize that many people love Princess Cay and perhaps I shouldn't speak of it so harshly. However, I would much prefer to spend my time at an actual port than at Princess Cay. At Curacao, in addition to enjoying a walk through a very clean downtown area we went to Blue Bay resort, where we paid a small fee and had an experience that was head and shoulders above that offered by Princess Cay. To have this put at risk so passengers can be forced to spend a full day at Princess Cay just seems wrong.

 

A Princess Cay stop does work well with many Princess itineraries, and in those cases I think stopping is fine. I just think it is crazy to stop there when Princess knows up front it is going to have trouble reaching the next port stop on time. And let's face it, arriving at Curacao at 4 p.m. means your day there is going to be very limited.

 

It is no different then when you sail the partial transit of the canal on either the Island or Coral and your time in Aruba is only 7-12 I would have loved to stayed there a little longer but it was not the end of the world. I take a cruise to be at Sea and relax and get one or two nice beach days in. So the time I stay at a island does not bother me if I was going on a cruise to go to a certain island then I would take a weeks vacation there instead like we did in Aruba because we love that place.

[sunsetbeachgal]

My friend who is on the Caribbean this week says they arrived at Curacao yesterday approx. 45 minutes late.

[Host Jazzbeau]

It is no different then when you sail the partial transit of the canal on either the Island or Coral and your time in Aruba is only 7-12.

 

There is a Coral Princess partial-canal itinerary that does not include Princess Cay and stays in Aruba from 8am-7pm. There are two full sea days between Fort Lauderdale and Aruba, so they should be able to stay to schedule.

[bubba98]

There is a Coral Princess partial-canal itinerary that does not include Princess Cay and stays in Aruba from 8am-7pm. There are two full sea days between Fort Lauderdale and Aruba, so they should be able to stay to schedule.

 

 

I was saying we sailed the Island in November and our scheduled stop in Aruba was from 7am until 12pm not a lot of time to do anything there as nothing was really open that early.

[pablo222]

It might come as a surprise to you, but Princess Cay is included in ALL Princess Caribbean cruises.

 

Yes, that really would come as a surprise to most people.

[ashhill]

March 2 cruise is also showing a change to arrive at 2 pm. Our tour through ship is 3 pm so I guess we won't get any shopping in.

 

Same with March 9th cruise.we are very disappointed

[flying fingers]

I am with those of the opinion that Princess should scrap the Princess Cays stop on the CB itinerary and allow for a full day in Curacao. I would love to be able to spend time there at a beach/resort, have time to shop and enjoy drinks or dinner in the Fort area. If we don't get there until after 2:00 p.m. by the time we leave the ship the day will be almost over. We no longer even get off the ship in Princess Cays.