is Pacific Princess being sold

[waltd]

Looks like the attached PDF file came from a Cruiseship.homestead website. They seem to list cruise ships that are up for sale. Not sure how updated the website is.

[Lucky TGO]

I agree, but the cruise lines are just following the money :(.

I agree it's all about the $$$$$$$$.

Tony

[CineGraphic]

Here's the home page, listing all of the ships up for sale:

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

[joeyancho]

Here's the home page, listing all of the ships up for sale:

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

 

Check ebay

[IECalCruiser]

There are still cruises scheduled on the Pacific through May of 2018. Who knows what will happen?

[JimmyVWine]

Here's the home page, listing all of the ships up for sale:

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

According to the home page, the QE2 and the SS United States are still available to be "rescued". Just think. Instead of a "I 'heart' my Rescue Dog" bumper sticker, you could have a "I 'heart' my Rescue Ship" bumper sticker.

 

$15m for the QE2 and $100m for the Pacific Princess.

[peety3]

There has been no announcement that the Pacific is sold or even for sail.

I'm sure the Princess is for sail...sailing the seas that is.

 

(Sorry, I try to not be the spelling/grammar police too often, but that one was way too good to pass up.)

Edited September 20, 2016 by peety3
Close Parens

[shredie]

According to the home page, the QE2 and the SS United States are still available to be "rescued". Just think. Instead of a "I 'heart' my Rescue Dog" bumper sticker, you could have a "I 'heart' my Rescue Ship" bumper sticker.

 

.

 

DH sailed the United States back from Europe in his youth, and he would love to rescue it. I guess I'd better go check the couch cushions for change. :D

[Host Jazzbeau]

DH sailed the United States back from Europe in his youth, and he would love to rescue it. I guess I'd better go check the couch cushions for change. :D

 

Crystal just spent a bunch of money and time doing a business plan to bring the United States back to sailing -- and concluded that it can't be done. But I hear the S.S. Minnow is available for rescue...

[clueless2]

But I hear the S.S. Minnow is available for rescue...

 

But only for three hour cruises.

[Wehwalt]

I take it with a grain of salt. HAL's Prinsendam has been for sale for years, for about the same price as the PP. There are a limited number of potential purchasers. I doubt if they get many cold calls.

 

There have been a number of news articles about the SS United States and the devoted (some might say obsessed) people who are trying to reviver her. I'm not in the least surprised there's no hope of bringing her back. An honorable history, but would enough people want to cruise her to fill her or pretty close every single sailing?

Edited September 20, 2016 by Wehwalt

[oskidunker]

What do they do to make it more profitable? How about refurbishing like Oceana did for the Ocean and upgrading the food, cabins and then the price. Sort of a Luxury Princess ship. A different class. Could be publicized.. Although, the demand for small ships may not be there.

 

So the price must come down if they want to sell it.Someone will always buy if the price is right. Sailing 10/30/17 so I hope it is still here by then

[JimmyVWine]

What do they do to make it more profitable? How about refurbishing like Oceana did for the Ocean and upgrading the food, cabins and then the price. Sort of a Luxury Princess ship. A different class. Could be publicized.. Although, the demand for small ships may not be there.

I thought about that. But often times, when you upgrade a Chevy to make it on par with a Cadillac, people will just go ahead and buy the Cadillac. Since Carnival already has a luxury small ship line in Seabourn, if Princess tried to make a single ship into a Seabourn experience, people might simply move over to Seabourn. And what of the Platinum and Elites? Won't they want to stay loyal to Princess? Maybe. But if the overall experience is upgraded to the point of being on par with Seabourn, then whatever perk you get for being Platinum or Elite will probably be a feature that all passengers on the ship get with their (significantly) increased fare. Can't very well charge people a small fortune and not give them a Mini-bar setup or free laundry or free internet. Is there room in the pricing to upgrade the experience to make it "almost as good as" Seabourn and charge people some mid range price? Probably. Just not sure that the mass market customers of RCCL, PCL, X and HAL will fill those cabins, and I am not sure that the Seabourn and SilverSea passengers will move down a notch. Maybe the Oceania and Crystal loyalists would be the market.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I thought about that. But often times, when you upgrade a Chevy to make it on par with a Cadillac, people will just go ahead and buy the Cadillac. Since Carnival already has a luxury small ship line in Seabourn, if Princess tried to make a single ship into a Seabourn experience, people might simply move over to Seabourn. And what of the Platinum and Elites? Won't they want to stay loyal to Princess? Maybe. But if the overall experience is upgraded to the point of being on par with Seabourn, then whatever perk you get for being Platinum or Elite will probably be a feature that all passengers on the ship get with their (significantly) increased fare. Can't very well charge people a small fortune and not give them a Mini-bar setup or free laundry or free internet. Is there room in the pricing to upgrade the experience to make it "almost as good as" Seabourn and charge people some mid range price? Probably. Just not sure that the mass market customers of RCCL, PCL, X and HAL will fill those cabins, and I am not sure that the Seabourn and SilverSea passengers will move down a notch. Maybe the Oceania and Crystal loyalists would be the market.

 

But you've said it: they are loyalists. They aren't going 'down market' to Princess even if it would be as good and at a lower price. But if Fathom succeeds, they could use another ship.

[Wehwalt]

I would expect Princess to give customers a years' notice of any sale, simply because they do not want passengers to be mad about having to cancel air reservations.

 

I consider it unlikely that Princess could make the PP into a Seabourn equivalent, and it would have a very unproven market, because they cannot offer benefits in Seabourn's loyalty program. And even if they could undercut the price for the same experience, still not sure that would attract Seabourn's customers.

 

As for Fathom, I suspect I am not the only one to receive their emails trying to fill the Dominican Republic runs. A second ship wouldn't help, especially as Cuba opens up.

[RedEarth]

P&O were very sketchy about Adonia's future just before Fathom was announced but they had to come up with a story about why she didn't feature in the 2016 schedules when they were announced for the rest of the fleet so they said something suitably vague along the lines of 'exciting new plans in the Caribbean' but conveniently not mentioning the fact that it would be with a different and new cruise line. So keep an eye out for any similar tactics from Princess...

[Bruin Steve]

For those concerned, this thread is now actually a year and a half old...

Cruises for the Pacific Princess are now posted up through the end of May 2018...so at least it APPEARS that Princess intends to keep it...

 

However, realize that it always is a possibility they sell the ship and cancel any future cruises...or...that they sell the ship with the actual transfer date at the end of May 2018. Anything is possible...it's business...

 

You've got to consider what this ship is and its history...

 

The ship is a 30,000 gross ton, 684 passenger SMALL (in today's terms) cruise ship...It was originally built as one of 7 sister ships for the now-long-defunct Renaissance Cruise Line...

When Renaissance went under, the seven ships were bought up by different cruise lines...

3 were purchased by former Renaissance executive Frank Del Rio who started a new cruise line--Oceania.

2 ended up with Royal Caribbean--who originally intended to place them in their Celebrity Cruises, but realized they didn't really fit the mold and marketing of Celebrity and started a new cruise line around them--Azamara...

And two were bought by Princess (actually, first bought by an investment group who leased them to, then sold them to Princess). Princess took a different course than RCCL and just placed them directly into the Princess fleet.

 

But the ships really didn't fit the Princess mold. Most Princess ships were large 100,000 gross ton, 3,000 plus passenger ships with typical big ship amenities (ie showroom with full backstage facilities). These two really needed to be handled a whole lot different. IT is a strong possibility that Princess HAS realized that these are a different animal, hence difficult to manage in the scale it manages the rest of the fleet...

 

After all, they've already sold the other R-class ship, the former Tahitian Princess/Ocean Princess. It left the Princess fleet in March 2016 and was refurbished and entered into service for Oceania as the "Sirena".

 

So, if Princess has sold one, why not the other? Well, for starters, Oceania can probably only absorb so much capacity at one time...and they've grown from those first three ships to include two larger newbuilds plus, now, the Sirena...But they'd be the most likely suitor as the ship fits their blueprint. Azamara might be a buyer--but I am not sure that expanding Azamara is in RCCL's current plans. Then, there are a number of foreign cruise lines--but it's hard to picture any of them buying this ship when the typical pattern is to go cheaper with older discards from the major cruise lines--with greater capacity...

 

So, at least for now, it appears that Princess will keep operating this one...but, you never know...

[JimmyVWine]

For those concerned, this thread is now actually a year and a half old...

Cruises for the Pacific Princess are now posted up through the end of May 2018...so at least it APPEARS that Princess intends to keep it...

 

After all, they've already sold the other R-class ship, the former Tahitian Princess/Ocean Princess. It left the Princess fleet in March 2016 and was refurbished and entered into service for Oceania as the "Sirena".

 

So, if Princess has sold one, why not the other?

 

So, at least for now, it appears that Princess will keep operating this one...but, you never know...

 

It appears that throughout your post, you are going around in circles. It appears that the ship is not being sold, but the ship doesn't fit the Princess model and they sold the other R Class ship, but it doesn't look like it is being sold. Quite simply, the ship is being offered for sale at a price of $100M. That cannot be disputed. whether or not they find a buyer is an entirely different question.

[beg3yrs]

I would expect Princess to give customers a years' notice of any sale, simply because they do not want passengers to be mad about having to cancel air reservations.

 

I consider it unlikely that Princess could make the PP into a Seabourn equivalent, and it would have a very unproven market, because they cannot offer benefits in Seabourn's loyalty program. And even if they could undercut the price for the same experience, still not sure that would attract Seabourn's customers.

 

...

 

I believe it was at least a one year notice when the Ocean Princess was sold. I'm too lazy to look up the date of the announcement on this board.

 

Regarding Princess moving into Seabourn's market, IMHO it would be frowned upon at high levels for one brand under the Carnival Corp umbrella attempt to poach customers from another brand.

[Host Jazzbeau]

You've got to consider what this ship is and its history...

 

The ship is a 30,000 gross ton, 684 passenger SMALL (in today's terms) cruise ship...It was originally built as one of 7 sister ships for the now-long-defunct Renaissance Cruise Line...

When Renaissance went under, the seven ships were bought up by different cruise lines...

 

Not to be picky [OK, being picky...] there are eight R-ships. Oceania has 4 (R-1, 2, 4 and 5); Azamara has 2 (R-6 and 7); fathom has 1 (R-8); and Princess has 1 (R-3). The first five were all identical, with most of deck 8 as mini-suites; and next two had only half of deck 8 as mini-suites; R-8 has no mini-suites. That meant that R-8 was the best of the group for fathom, with its egalitarian vibe. It also means that R-3 is a perfect fit for Oceania, as it is identical to their other ships. It could also work for Azamara, but posters on Cruise Critic are adamant that CCL will never sell anything to RCL.

[kennicott]

It's hard to speculate on what Princess is going to do next, the last word I heard came from Stein Kruse himself who said, over a year ago, in the near future the smallest ship for Princess would be in the 140,000 gross ton range (Regal and Royal now) and HAL would run in the 100,000 gross ton range for their average size ship.

 

However, back in 1997 Princess announced they would be getting rid of all their small ships in favor of the soon to be launched the Grand Princess the first of their Grand Class all slightly over 100,000 gross tons. But by 2002 they reversed this decision and purchased three of the eight R ship sisters from the then defunct Renaissance Cruses. They bought, R-3 which became the Pacific Princess which is still in service with Princess, R-4 which became the Tahitian Princess and then changed to the Ocean Princess which they have now sold to Oceania. They also bought R-8 the last of the Rs and it became the second Royal Princess, later yet it was transferred over to P&O as the Adonia.

 

But then, by 2003, they had become a subsidiary of Carnival Corp.

 

Carnival Corp's business model used to lean toward permitting each of their cruise lines to maintain their own identity. However, this obviously goes only so far. The best and most recent contradictory example I can think of involves where Carnival was having trouble with Princess, HAL and Carnival Australia continually cutting each others throats. So, three years ago they took away considerable management prerogatives and autonomy from all three.

 

They accomplished this by creating the "Holland America Group" to which they appointed Stein Kruse as CEO and also placed Stein Kruse in as Chairman of the Board of the UK-based MANCO which operates Carnival Australia and P&O Cruises. Holland America Group is now, Princess Cruises, Holland America, Seabourn and the merged Princess and HAL Alaska land operations.

 

At the time the newly created Holland America Group operated 41 cruise ships with over 36,000 employees worldwide who accommodate 25 million guests per year. If one wants to get the inside skinny of where Princess is headed, get to know Stein Kruse. Hope they wait a bit on the Pacific though as we get on her in seven weeks.

Edited September 21, 2016 by kennicott

[Madison3]

We were on the Pacific for 28 days in July of this year. We were told by the Future Cruise Consultant that the Pacific would be with Princess for another seven years.

[chessbriar]

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

 

Looks like her on the right column of pictures

[spyro1952]

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

 

Looks like her on the right column of pictures

 

Yep, you can see the sea witch on the smoke stack.

[JF - retired RRT]

We were on the Pacific for 28 days in July of this year. We were told by the Future Cruise Consultant that the Pacific would be with Princess for another seven years.

Makes sense, since they just paid big bucks for a refurb. and a new paint job.;)