Bye Bye Princess

[Iamcruzin]

As Princess send additional ships to be charters in China and more ships to other areas of Asia and also to Australia, there are less ships available for the North American market and thus less varied itineraries available.

 

And as Princess gradually gets rid of the smaller ships, a number of itineraries no longer are possible. For example, itineraries that go up the Amazon River or cruise just among the islands of French Polynesia are no longer offered.

 

Of course some good itineraries are no longer offered because they were hard to fill the ship. For example cruises out of San Juan that could visit Southern Caribbean Islands without needing sea days from Florida. Likewise the true two-week itineraries out of Fort Lauderdale could not find enough passengers who had that much time available for a cruise. (The current two week itineraries with two stops at Princess Cays and a return to Fort Lauderdale in the middle just do not sound interesting.)

 

I would not waste my time or money for the flight to get to one of those back to back itineraries. I wouldn't tender to Princess Cay on one of the 3500 passenger ships once let alone twice. If I wanted to sit elbow to elbow on a crowded beach I would just stay home and drive 20 minutes to our local beach.

 

Shogun, I hear you loud and clear. I made the break to Celebrity. They sail from San Juan for the Southern itineraries and they also call on Bermuda. I'm Platinum on Princess and even with that I'm not compelled to sail those the bland Caribbean itineraries on the new ships. I'm glad that I'm not all wrapped up in these loyalty programs that the cruise lines offer. There are many lines that sail to the Caribbean from a port that I can drive to. Unfortunately Princess isn't one of them.

 

I look forward to reading your assessments of the other lines that you sail on. You have been a wealth of knowledge on this board. Thank you for sharing with us.

Edited November 8, 2015 by Iamcruzin

[Shogun]

Hi crow nests club

 

The issue of charter flights is interesting, its generally accepted that a charter

 

flight is cheaper than scheduled flights, Carnival Corp would have no issues

 

filling planes from London to Ft L even if some folks had an over night stay

 

the number of ships and passengers is far higher than a few years so why

 

end charter flights.

 

 

yours Shogun

[keithm]

I am not bashing you.

 

How many times have you cruised the same cruise line without trying another?

How can anyone truly base an opinion on one cruise?

 

My only point is -

One cruise on a cruise line can be very good or so-so. We have done many cruises on Celebrity and find the crew very friendly and very visible throughout the cruise. Officers and staff.

Entertainment was both good and fair. However, what you may like we may not and the other side of the coin, too.

Cabin was small? What ship and what category of cabin?

Crew members move constantly from ship to ship. That is a norm on all cruise lines.

 

Again, I owe no loyalty to anyone cruise line. I am not a 'cheerleader' for any cruise line. I am just expressing my opinion and what I have experienced based on many cruises on many different cruise lines.

We've done Cunard 6 times & Celebrity(Eclipse)2 times. Would have done the Eclipse again but found the price to have gone up by $600pp for the same category we had this past Jan. so we're trying the Regal Princess. It appears to be a lovely ship, but the amenities seem quite a bit less than Cunard/Celebrity(according to posters)obviously we'll find out how true this is once we sail.

[Woobstr112G]

Your Posts will be missed, but I understand. I am Elite on Princess and that is the "hook", but I am getting restless and ready to try some of the lines I have been on before and some that I have not been on such as Celebrity. I am also looking into a River Cruise.

Please check in here and let us hear of your new adventures.

WCC

 

I have to admit, that I am also getting the itch to try something else. We've cruised Princess exclusively since 2008 and have noticed many changes since then to include a noticeable lack or lessening of the Wow factor....:(:(:(

 

Bob

Edited November 8, 2015 by Woobstr112G

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

Dropped in on HAL board, thought I was back here,

 

new ship, folks chatting about prom deck lack off,

 

then proposed changes to bars, eating places etc.

 

Sound familiar

 

yours Shogun

[Cruiserkenn]

Hi, Shogun:

 

Please keep in touch with your friends here on the Princess board. We will always welcome and need your thoughts and input.

 

Your upcoming cruise sounds wonderful. Please let us know how the food and service compares tp Princess.

 

Bon voyage:)

[Oxo]

I have to admit, that I am also getting the itch to try something else. We've cruised Princess exclusively since 2008 and have noticed many changes since then to include a noticeable lack or lessening of the Wow factor....:(:(:(

 

Bob

Yes, try something new in the way of a different cruise line. However, any cruise line that you cruise over many years will feel the same. They are all cutting back on FOOD, Entertainment, etc., but raising prices on everything. Example: Celebrity and RCI tipping percent is now 18%. Specialty Restaurants (SR) on Celebrity are $45 - 50 per person. Princess is the most reasonable of the three that I just mentioned in the way of SRs.

Drinks are more expensive on Celebrity.

You will find that most of these cruise lines are abut equal in experience. Been there, done that and continue to do so. LOL

[Shogun]

Hi cruisinrabbit

 

Thanks, it will be almost a year before our HAL cruise if this is what DW wants,

 

Princess does a summer solstice which I would like to do but price needs to come down by 30 or 40 %

 

Emerald has a cruise in spring which keeps dropping in price, if its only a few hundred dollars for a week, happy to spend that level of money.

 

yours Shogun

[Oxo]

We've done Cunard 6 times & Celebrity(Eclipse)2 times. Would have done the Eclipse again but found the price to have gone up by $600pp for the same category we had this past Jan. so we're trying the Regal Princess. It appears to be a lovely ship, but the amenities seem quite a bit less than Cunard/Celebrity(according to posters)obviously we'll find out how true this is once we sail.

 

We are doing both Celebrity and Princess each year. Have done the Eclipse 2 times this year and have done Royal and Regal. What amenities are less on Princess when compared to Celebrity? I have not seen or recognized that. Thanks!

Yes, Celebrity does cost more in many ways.

[Dietemann]

That was a great cruise. I like HAL, I think my first cruise was on the old Westerdam. Beautiful ship. I wish HAL had kept her.

 

Just got off the current Westerdam - what a beautiful ship and wonderful crew. Food was very good. We also were on the Eurodam this past summer, on the cruise following the Baltics' cruise. Itinerary had us sailing to Scottish Islands and then to Scotland before returning to Copenhagen. Terrific cruise.

 

We did a B2B starting 10/22 in the Caribbean, first on the Royal Princess, then on the Westerdam to get an immediate comparison. What a difference from Princess and not in a good way. We had a Deluxe Balcony on Princess and a standard Veranda on the Westerdam. The "upgraded" towels on Princess were almost Motel 6 type. The towels on HAL were plush every day. We did not have to ask for a top sheet under the duvet, it's standard.

 

We went to a few shows and our ears did not bleed. Crew was very friendly and really tried to interact with passengers

 

We are Elite on Princess, now 3 Star Mariners on HAL. We have booked on their new ship "Koningsdam" next summer, will see how we enjoy the new larger ship.

 

We will still continue to sail with Princess, but now also look more closely at itineraries.

[Grego]

Hi All

 

Thanks for the kind words, I do not think the perfect cruise line is out there,

 

so do not expect we will find a ship or cruise that will tick ever box,

 

some may ask why now, well we have a big date coming up next year

 

and while my first choice was Princess Alaska the price was just becoming

 

silly I would rather buy DW a new car instead,

 

just now Eurodam has a cruise that covers the right time frame with a nice group of ports, what like is how late we are in port for,and not too many sea days

 

1 Fly from the UK Venice 00:00 21:00

2 At Sea

3 Dubrovnik, Croatia 08:00 23:00

4 Kotor, Montenegro 08:00 17:00

5 Kerkira, Corfu11:00 20:00

6 At Sea

7 Naples 08:00 18:00

8 Rome (Civitavecchia)08:00 20:00

9 Florence & Pisa (Livorno)08:00 20:00

10 Monte Carlo 08:00 23:00

11 Toulon 08:00 18:00

12 Barcelona 12:00 00:00

13 Barcelona 06:00 00:00

13 Fly to the UK

 

 

yours Shogun

 

A lot of what you posted on the thread starter is true. We are about as loyal to Princess as you can get - shareholder - stakeholder - cheerleader, etc. but....

 

Seems like the pencil neck accountants have taken over the decisions. Fill the ship with market priced fares, make up the profits with all the extra charged activities and products. Produce itineraries that are cost effective to execute and maximize sea days to generate additional revenue aboard ship.

 

Net result is a floating bus that will allow bib overalls in the MDR during Formal Night and not say a word because they want to have them back, to heck with the rules.

 

I miss the romantic cruising days of 20 years ago, but we will keep on cruising on Princess because we enjoy too much of the life aboard and visiting most of the venues for the 1,000th time. We can avoid the annoying, rude and arrogant passengers and manage to have a good time in spite of it all. Heck we have 4 voyages aboard the Royal class ships planned through September of next year because we actually like this ship design a lot.

 

Princess will have to make some changes to separate itself from the cruise herd. Get to different ports and offer some quality cruising feeling.

 

Hope you aren't gone for long because you are a valuable resource here.

[hpeabody]

I agree with you about Princess and it's downward spiral. Will it ever end? The cutbacks keep coming and are very noticeable. I have also become a little bit bored as well, same-old, same-old. I have recently started to be invited to the most traveled functions, so that means I have done a few Princess cruises now. That said, I too am trying something else I am booked on the HAL Koningsdam 16 day "Passage To America" inaugural trans Atlantic from Rome to Fort Lauderdale in late Oct 2016. Actually my very first cruise was on the HAL Zaandam and got me hooked on cruising. I just found Princess a better fit for me.

 

I will never forget how helpful you were on my Crown Princess British Isles cruise many years ago. You were not even booked on it but added so much value to our roll call.

 

We will miss you not being here as often, but I suspect you will come visit.

[Shogun]

Hi hpeabody

Nice to hear from you, Crown is back in 2017 will be nice to see ship again,

Yours Shogun

[Hlitner]

Having just come off the Regal (last Tuesday) we can understand some of the sentiments expressed by the OP. Hard to imagine building a modern cruise ship without a single bar/lounge with a decent sea view. And whatever idiot decided not to extend a center stairway above deck 7 should be banished to a deck 14-15 mid ship cabin. Also not impressed with the cabin size/layout, MUTS blasting all day long, and the smoke chamber called the Casino! However, there is also a lot to like about Princess.

 

Hank

[Plant]

Shogun, I agree with you, too. We're recently off Coral Princess doing a very long cruise and I found myself comparing it to Carnival-not favorably :(.

 

Our Room Steward's (we had several since Princess was "not able" to book us into the same cabin for any of our B2B's, although we booked over a year ago.) were overworked and not as "caring" as they used to be.

 

The food was just okay and the show's were tired. We had a gift of a dinner in the steak house and didn't find it to be any better than what we could get in the dining room.

 

The best part of the cruise was Crooner's Bar, which we've found to be excellent on every Princess cruise.

 

But for the $$ we're going back to Carnival for longer cruise's and their "normal, what we expect" service.

 

P.S. Calling Coral Caribe 202 an 'Obstructed Mini-Suite" is a joke! It's "obstructed" by a WALL and a small window.

[Roses2]

Shogun, you have been a stalwart Princess cruiser and font of knowledge on CC for a long time. We hear what you are saying and we agree.

 

We too were sorely disappointed with our last Princess cruise, our first on the Royal. It was in a full suite that had less space than a mini suite on the Dawn and a balcony too narrow to eat a comfortable lunch. The saving element was the cabin steward and dining staff that continued to provide superb service.

 

While we have looked at other options, the perks we have built up make changing cruise lines difficult. Starting a cruise with $1000 or more OBC (which is the same as cash) is very hard to give up.

 

Certainly, Princess management appears to be targeting a different demographic and the design of the newly built ships that cut the size of all cabin categories marks a change in management philosophy.

 

Princess appears to have surrendered to the " it's my vacation and I'll wear what I like in the dining room" crowd. Perhaps, tempus has fugited and there is no return.

 

We have 2 additional Princess cruises booked. Perhaps then, like many others we too will reconsider.

 

P&J

[DebJ14]

We definitely believe in mixing it up. In the past 2 years we have sailed RCI, Princess, Carnival and MSC in the Yacht Club. We have Princess, Royal Caribbean and Azamara booked for next year as well as a week at an all inclusive.

 

We thought the grass was not greener anywhere until we tried the MSC Yacht Club - definitely greener over there. It was a great product for us and we will definitely sail MSC again, but only in the YC.

 

We just got off a quick, cheap Carnival cruise yesterday and I have to say the service we received was as good as any we have had on any line. We were one of a handful of Diamond passengers and were treated royally by the crew.

 

Many of the things OP misses are out of the control of the cruise line. We too remember flying into a port and never having to touch our luggage until it was in our cabin. But, security and stricter immigration and customs policies have done away with those perks. It is a different world now. Also, the airlines are not giving the cruise lines the sweetheart deals that they had in the past. We had a great Panama Canal trip on Celebrity with $99 airfare to Acapulco and home from Ft. Lauderdale.

 

I have been cruising since 1968 and boy have I seen changes in all the cruised lines over the years. All of the lines have had cutbacks while keeping prices below what we paid in 1981 in order to make cruising affordable for the masses. Unfortunately, what you get are cutbacks and the passenger demographic has also changed.

Edited November 9, 2015 by DebJ14

[SoCal Cruiser78]

Sorry to see you go Shogun but your HAL itinerary sounds amazing...But you are right, sometimes you have to search for that WOW factor...

 

I agree. I have enjoyed many cruises on HAL, so hope you do as well. Best of luck!

[Mackenzie1]

I'm happy that you've found an itinerary that you're looking forward to so much. HAL caught my interest because they stop in Greenland for a transatlantic, which would be very interesting to see. Please don't forget us, though, and let us know how you liked your cruise.

[ICUQT]

I have cruised solely on HA 25+ or so times. Like some of the posters who have expressed here I have become complacent in my "comfort zone". This January my wife and I cruise on Princess. Short 7 day cruise on the Regal. It will be the biggest ship that we have sailed compared to HAL size. We are trying to get a feel for another cruise line other than HAL and feel Princess is a good fit for us. I do think it is going to take more than one cruise , on any cruise line, to see if it works. We are looking very seriously at an itinerary that the Crown has for So. America for January 2017 and will probably book it. I have nothing negative to say about sailing HAL but like the OP I think I am at that place where a change is needed for us. RuthC on the HAL board asked me once on a thread (para phrasing) would I get tired of eating the same meal every night? Her point was that "change" is a good thing and that there are many cruise lines out there that offer great itineraries, size ships, amenities and pricing that we may enjoy.

[mkazmer]

So sorry to hear that - I just wrote about the same thing about our not cruising Celebrity any more. We have bounced back and forth between Celebrity and Princess for the past few years - however we will stay with Princess.

 

We began cruising in 1987 and, of course, things were different then. Never thought I would love a ship with 2600 people - but the Grand was it - we have been on a good many Grand class ships and love the new Regal - they suit the way we have to live on a ship these days. My husband has mobility problems and having to walk front to back of the ship a number of times a day just can't be done - he cannot fly - and we live in FL - so we cruise the Caribbean a number of times a year just to "get away" from real life so to speak.

 

Our last cruise a few weeks ago on Celebrity's Infinity will be our last one on Celebrity. We are booked on the Emerald in December and we enjoy the 5 day cruises these days - as we have gotten older, we go more frequently and shorter cruises. Everything changes and there is a cruise out there for everyone - I hope you find what you are looking for and really want to hear about your HAL cruise - we have enjoyed our cruises with them too.

[Mackenzie1]

I have cruised solely on HA 25+ or so times. Like some of the posters who have expressed here I have become complacent in my "comfort zone". This January my wife and I cruise on Princess. Short 7 day cruise on the Regal. It will be the biggest ship that we have sailed compared to HAL size. We are trying to get a feel for another cruise line other than HAL and feel Princess is a good fit for us. I do think it is going to take more than one cruise , on any cruise line, to see if it works. We are looking very seriously at an itinerary that the Crown has for So. America for January 2017 and will probably book it. I have nothing negative to say about sailing HAL but like the OP I think I am at that place where a change is needed for us. RuthC on the HAL board asked me once on a thread (para phrasing) would I get tired of eating the same meal every night? Her point was that "change" is a good thing and that there are many cruise lines out there that offer great itineraries, size ships, amenities and pricing that we may enjoy.

 

If you enjoy a smaller ship, the Star Princess will also be covering the South America itinerary in 2017. It has a 2,600 passenger capacity whereas the Crown has a 3,080 passenger capacity.

[ICUQT]

If you enjoy a smaller ship, the Star Princess will also be covering the South America itinerary in 2017. It has a 2,600 passenger capacity whereas the Crown has a 3,080 passenger capacity.

 

Thank you Mackenzie I was aware that the Star Princess also sailed the same itinerary but I did not take a look as closely as I should have as yet. We are still in our planning stage but the Crown sailing the first week of January falls into my wife's semester break from college and she will not sail in December because of the grand kids. But I will take another look at the Star. Again, thank you.

 

bob

[Fore on the Floor]

They are losing us next year after 9 cruise due to lack of itineraries. We always go the second week of November and next year they only have one 7 day for that time slot. I like St.Thomas and St. Maarten but we would like to see other islands.

[WISH84]

Shogun I've always enjoyed your posts. Very entertaining and informative. Between you and Keith, I've learned much about cruising with Princess.

 

I find myself in the same boat as you although the name of my boat is Carnival. We are Platinum members with Carnival (really having just become so two years ago) and I'm finding that even with that status, my desire to cruise with them has just really gone away.

 

So we find ourselves on Princess this December and next. I would probably book our 2017 cruise with them knowing for us, Princess is still a step above from where we have come. However we both still work and all the itineraries we are interested in with Princess are 14+ days and will probably wait to take those adventures once we retire which is still many years away.

 

We love to cruise but I see ourselves spending a week in France for 2017 and Germany for 2018 and unless something pops up between 2016 and 2019, taking a break from ships for a few years. Of course, I've said that before and then "cruise fever" hits me like a ton of bricks and I end up booking something.

 

I hope you enjoy your next adventure and look forward to reading about it once it is complete. And whatever the "big event" is coming up that makes you want something with a WOW factor, I hope its everything you need and that it makes the event even that more special.

 

Cheers Mate! :)