Princess Air Flight Delay Question

[ExDean]

How long does Princess wait for late Princess Air passengers?

 

I'm thinking specifically of our flying to the ship in YVR for April Hawaii cruise and encountering a situation like the recent Delta computer crash and we are delayed for many hours.:eek: Getting us to the next port, Hilo, is five days away. Do they fly us to Hilo giving us a "Hawaiian vacation" until the ship arrives? Or...?

 

We already have our Princess Air flights booked for same day arrival. Considering changing to our usual one day early arrival. Any experiences?

[Colo Cruiser]

How long does Princess wait for late Princess Air passengers?

 

I'm thinking specifically of our flying to the ship in YVR for April Hawaii cruise and encountering a situation like the recent Delta computer crash and we are delayed for many hours.:eek: Getting us to the next port, Hilo, is five days away. Do they fly us to Hilo giving us a "Hawaiian vacation" until the ship arrives? Or...?

 

We already have our Princess Air flights booked for same day arrival. Considering changing to our usual one day early arrival. Any experiences?

 

 

There is no set time that the ship will wait. If the delayed time does not work for the Captain then they will leave. There are many factors involved and no way to tell ahead of time.

 

If the next port is in Hawaii then they will have to accommodate you somewhere.

 

Certainly not worth the chance coming to Canada the day of.

Yeah 99% of the time there will be no issues. But........

Edited August 17, 2016 by Colo Cruiser

[caribill]

Princess does not specifically wait for Princess Air passengers.

 

They will wait when possible for any delayed passengers they know about.

 

How long they will wait depends on a number of factors from how long it takes to get to the next port to the cost of staying longer to the availability of any tugs that may be needed.

[satxdiver]

We have been on cruises in the winter time when planes have been delayed by weather in the north. The ship has waited several hours for late arriving pax. There is no guarantee though that the ship will wait depending on many reasons. Princess will fly you to the next port, Hilo, of course if you miss the ship and yes you will get some land based Hawaiian vacation. I always arrive at least the day before and sometimes several days before depending on the port location and possible weather. You might think about arriving the day before. Vancouver is really beautiful and worth spending some time seeing the city.

[Valley Girl of VA]

I was just in Vancouver for the first time in May and it is worth a vacation. Would suggest the Westin Bayshore as it is extremely convenient to the cruise terminal and next to Stanley Park. We enjoyed watching the ships come in and leave the cruise terminal and the float planes that would fly from their as well.

[likeadisguise]

Keep in mind that while Princess will fly you to the next port where you can legally board, your lodging and meals until you meet the ship will be our of your pocket. If you have insurance some or all of that may be reimbursable afterwards.

[scott4020]

Learn from those of us who have been left behind, arrive the day before.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I wouldn't risk it; you'd miss so much of your cruise if something went wrong! They wait as long as they deem fit. Vancouver is a tricky sail out that has to be timed with the tide, so they don't have much wiggle room. We almost missed our Vancouver sailaway using Princess transport, and they said they were about to have to leave because of the limited tidal restraints.

 

 

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[Lucky TGO]

Learn from those of us who have been left behind, arrive the day before.

This is very good advice!!

Tony

[mzlinda]

I was impacted by the Delta issue last week. Our plan was to fly to anchorage Tuesday. Our cruise started Wednesday. Our 1st port was Saturday. Delta could not rebook us until Thursday so we were going to miss embarkation on Wednesday. Princess said we could take the Thursday flight and stay in Alaska at our own expense and they would get us to the ship before it left Skagway Saturday. It was a Voyage of the Glaciers cruise and we would have missed the glaciers days of Thursday and Friday and we likely would have missed at least our morning excursion in Skagway which was the White Pass Railway, and we might have missed our afternoon dog sledding excursion too. We ended up buying same-day tickets on American Airlines to get to the port for the original embarkation time.

 

We mistakenly assumed Princess would be responsible for rebooking us on new flights since we used EZAir, or Delta would be more accommodating due to the amount of business they get from Princess. Also, we thought we didn't need insurance with EZAir.

 

It was a very expensive lesson. Always get insurance (I usually do) and really look at your itinerary to figure out exactly how 1 or 2 day air delay would impact your trip. In our case, our delta flight was supposed to get us to anchorage at 6:40 pm Tuesday. The ship sails from Whittier at 8 pm Wednesday. So even if Delta had rebooked us for the very next day (Wednesday), we could not have made it to ship by 8 pm.

 

In hindsight, there just aren't that many flights that would get us from SC to Anchorage. Flights can be cancelled for any number of unexpected reasons. If you're traveling a great distance to get to a cruise, make sure you have a workable "plan b" for getting to the ship. In our case, if we were even delayed 1 day, it would not have worked.

[cruisequeen4ever]

mzlinda, that's very disconcerting to hear! I always assumed based on what I read about EZAir that they're responsible for getting you to the ship, including hotels and airfare if needed. I'm very disheartened to hear they were going to have you pay for your own hotel! You would have missed the best days of the cruise. I'm so glad you got yourself there in time!

 

 

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[easyboy]

Princess does not specifically wait for Princess Air passengers.

 

They will wait when possible for any delayed passengers they know about.

 

How long they will wait depends on a number of factors from how long it takes to get to the next port to the cost of staying longer to the availability of any tugs that may be needed.

I agree.

[PescadoAmarillo]

I was impacted by the Delta issue last week. Our plan was to fly to anchorage Tuesday. Our cruise started Wednesday. Our 1st port was Saturday. Delta could not rebook us until Thursday so we were going to miss embarkation on Wednesday. Princess said we could take the Thursday flight and stay in Alaska at our own expense and they would get us to the ship before it left Skagway Saturday. It was a Voyage of the Glaciers cruise and we would have missed the glaciers days of Thursday and Friday and we likely would have missed at least our morning excursion in Skagway which was the White Pass Railway, and we might have missed our afternoon dog sledding excursion too. We ended up buying same-day tickets on American Airlines to get to the port for the original embarkation time.

 

We mistakenly assumed Princess would be responsible for rebooking us on new flights since we used EZAir, or Delta would be more accommodating due to the amount of business they get from Princess. Also, we thought we didn't need insurance with EZAir.

 

It was a very expensive lesson. Always get insurance (I usually do) and really look at your itinerary to figure out exactly how 1 or 2 day air delay would impact your trip. In our case, our delta flight was supposed to get us to anchorage at 6:40 pm Tuesday. The ship sails from Whittier at 8 pm Wednesday. So even if Delta had rebooked us for the very next day (Wednesday), we could not have made it to ship by 8 pm.

 

In hindsight, there just aren't that many flights that would get us from SC to Anchorage. Flights can be cancelled for any number of unexpected reasons. If you're traveling a great distance to get to a cruise, make sure you have a workable "plan b" for getting to the ship. In our case, if we were even delayed 1 day, it would not have worked.

Thank you for this firsthand account. I'm sorry it worked out this way for you but you have helped many other by reporting your experiences here.

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

Have been last to board, we were booked as a package gives us in UK great deal of rights etc were told that ship would wait we were around 4 hours late arriving

ship itself was only a couple of hours past its allotted sailing time,

 

however once we had a flight change that meant we could not do same day flight, so Princess had to fly us to England day before hotel, taxi, new flights

all costs met by Princess

 

yours Shogun

[Cruisin' Chick]

Keep in mind that while Princess will fly you to the next port where you can legally board, your lodging and meals until you meet the ship will be our of your pocket. If you have insurance some or all of that may be reimbursable afterwards.

 

If this is an one-way from Vancouver to Hawaii, wouldn't starting the cruise in the first port in Hawaii violate the PVSA? This would be the same for an one-way northbound Alaskan cruise...if you don't board the ship in Vancouver, you can't board in the later ports.