Baltic cruise/ is this new?

[mysaddlebred000]

Looking into a Baltic cruise for August 2017 and most of the cabins are already sold out. It is 11 days and there are about four a month for three months so what is up with this?? I couldn't find a rollcall which was strange on such a booked up cruise. After doing some checking, I discovered that they are doing round trip Copenhagen, round trip Berlin and round trip St Petersburg. It looks like a third of the cabins are available for each cruise. I wasn't pleased with the selection of cabins we have and it is not like a cruise that sells as 7 or 14 days where you can get a cabin from the other one if it isn't booked after final payment. BUt if they are doing this for three months, then there will not be any switching of cabins.

Is this new or is it just something that happens with the Baltic cruises?

[fishywood]

Princess has been offering this option for at least the past two years, as well as upcoming this summer and next. It is unusual for a cruise line to offer the ability to board at any of the three turnaround ports to residents of all countries; it would be much easier--both for cabin assignment and customs/immigration purposes--to only allow non-European citizens to embark and disembark at one of the three ports.

 

But this is the way Princess has chosen to work it. Even 17 months in advance your best option for locking in your preferred boarding date and port may be to book a guarantee for that date and just keep an eye out for any cabins that may open up as available for all of your particular "segments" (or hopefully have a TA that does high volume with Princess and will spot one for you).

Edited March 6, 2016 by fishywood

[Jeremiah1212]

Do TA's hold more cabins on Princess than compared to other lines? Our Caribbean cruise for next February seems abnormally 'booked' as well. On a Caribbean cruise my first reaction is to Google to see if there is a partial charter or large group, but no dice so far.

[mysaddlebred000]

thanks for the fast reply

[DrivesLikeMario]

Do TA's hold more cabins on Princess than compared to other lines? Our Caribbean cruise for next February seems abnormally 'booked' as well. On a Caribbean cruise my first reaction is to Google to see if there is a partial charter or large group, but no dice so far.

 

No, not particularly. From what I've seen, the larger agent consortiums will hold Group cabins on every ship, twice a month on Princess and even more on other cruise lines that don't limit you to 2 cruises per ship a month.

[caribill]

Do TA's hold more cabins on Princess than compared to other lines? Our Caribbean cruise for next February seems abnormally 'booked' as well. On a Caribbean cruise my first reaction is to Google to see if there is a partial charter or large group, but no dice so far.

 

TAs do not "hold" specific cabins. They have claim to a number of cabins, but when you book with that TA, you can pick any available cabin in the category you are booking.