Just off Royal - southbound Alaska

[Coral]

According to DebDays website, she spoke to the Captain in May concerning this. It is the British Columbia Marine pilots that are not allowing Princess to sail East of Vancouver Island.

 

So if people are going to be mad, be made at British Columbia Marine pilots. Princess wants to sail the route their other ships do. I personally don't think they will be allowed to - this ship is just too large IMO. Though I am not a Marine Pilot or Captain obviously. I wish Heidi would pipe in.

 

https://www.debsdays.com/search?updated-max=2019-06-08T10:34:00-06:00 

[tetleytea]

Per your own words, she spoke in MAY with the Captain.  So why am I getting a mail on June 7th saying that Princess is sailing the Seymour Narrows?   Princess is selling passengers something which they have no right to sell, and that is breach of good faith, breach of contract, and I would argue wire fraud.  

 

Princess is absolutely the right people to be mad at, because they already knew it was not theirs to sell.  It's not like the weather just suddenly changed.

Edited June 25, 2019 by tetleytea

[Coral]

5 hours ago, tetleytea said:

Per your own words, she spoke in MAY with the Captain.  So why am I getting a mail on June 7th saying that Princess is sailing the Seymour Narrows?   Princess is selling passengers something which they have no right to sell, and that is breach of good faith, breach of contract, and I would argue wire fraud.  

 

Princess is absolutely the right people to be mad at, because they already knew it was not theirs to sell.  It's not like the weather just suddenly changed.

Well - again, they can change their route anytime they want based on passenger contract. You have no case. 

 

In honesty - Princess does Alaska far better than most of the other lines. I did RCCL and they did not have anything Alaska onboard. No naturalist, no Alaska menus, no speakers onboard, etc.... You are luckier than you know.

 

I am not going to comment anymore on this thread because it has become unreasonable.

[lstone19]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

Well - again, they can change their route anytime they want based on passenger contract. You have no case. 

 

 

Of course they can. But at a certain but hard to define point, a cruise becomes so different from what was sold that despite the legal language, it clearly is misrepresentation.

 

Often, an absurd and extreme example proves the point. Suppose you boarded a ship in Seattle for an Alaska round-trip cruise only to be told at boarding that due to whatever, the ship would instead sail south and do a round-trip to California instead of Alaska. Clearly permitted by contract but is it reasonable? Would you be upset if they did?

 

Right now, it appears Princess is advertising a routing that the ship is incapable of doing. When the ship then does a different route because it was incapable of the advertised itinerary, is that right? It may be contractually correct but it's still false advertising. Princess has no more right to advertise (advertising including any representation of route in any marketing materials such as the website map) something they know they can't provide than I have to advertise that I'm a lawyer (I'm not so I can't say I am).

[tetleytea]

Given that Princess was already just fined for illegal dumping, thanks to a whistleblower (and followed by Princess telling me over and over again on the PA and the stateroom TV how committed Princess is to the environment), I'd say Princess is quickly painting a big bullseye on their forehead.  I doubt it would take much more before those big wig lawyers in Kansas City who put on the Mesotheioma ads on TV, or "Have you been diagnosed with non Hodgkins lymphoma and you used Roundup?" are ready to take up the case.

 

[Kingofcool1947]

11 hours ago, tetleytea said:

Per your own words, she spoke in MAY with the Captain.  So why am I getting a mail on June 7th saying that Princess is sailing the Seymour Narrows?   Princess is selling passengers something which they have no right to sell, and that is breach of good faith, breach of contract, and I would argue wire fraud.  

 

Princess is absolutely the right people to be mad at, because they already knew it was not theirs to sell.  It's not like the weather just suddenly changed.

 

So,  did you feel you got your money’s worth on this AK cruise?

Or with all the lying,  fraudulent claims, and false promises made by Princess,  will that cause you jump ship to another cruise line?

Good luck, and enjoy your next cruise.  👍

Edited June 25, 2019 by Kingofcool1947

[BarbinMich]

We have sailed to Alaska from Vancouver once and we probably sailed between the island and the mainland, but wouldn't most of that be at night?  It looks like the distance from the city to the end of the Seymour Narrows is about 100-150 mi.  I don't know how many miles a ship can traverse in 12 hours (5 pm departure-5 am next morning), but I would think it would take less than that to reach the north end of the Narrows.  One certainly gets a lot of scenery in the 400 miles (I think) between Vancouver and Ketchikan and points north during daylight hours so I'm not sure what the big fuss is about not going thru the Narrows during the day.

Edited June 25, 2019 by BarbinMich

[lstone19]

21 minutes ago, BarbinMich said:

We have sailed to Alaska from Vancouver once and we probably sailed between the island and the mainland, but wouldn't most of that be at night?  It looks like the distance from the city to the end of the Seymour Narrows is about 100-150 mi.  I don't know how many miles a ship can traverse in 12 hours (5 pm departure-5 am next morning), but I would think it would take less than that to reach the north end of the Narrows.  One certainly gets a lot of scenery in the 400 miles (I think) between Vancouver and Ketchikan and points north during daylight hours so I'm not sure what the big fuss is about not going thru the Narrows during the day.

 

Seymour Narrows can only be transited at slack tide (about every six hours). Ships can do a little bit better than 20 knots as top speed. Figure about six hours minimum to get there from Vancouver plus however much time until slack tide (ships will adjust speed to get there at the appropriate time). So northbound, the Seymour Narrows transit will probably be somewhere between 11pm and 6am. But southbound, with the need to be approaching Vancouver by sunrise, it will be in the evening - say between 6pm and midnight. From Seymour Narrows to/from Ketchikan is about 20 hours minimum so whatever time is lost on one side of Seymour Narrows can be made up on the other side given most schedules allow better than 36 hours between Vancouver and Ketchikan.

 

For a northbound cruise, when slack tide is early in the window they need to hit (and still make it to the next port on time), they can tolerate little delay in their departure from Vancouver. But when it's late in the window, they can accept a long delay if needed (they just make up for it by running faster than originally planned). 

 

[Cruiserkenn]

On June 25, 2019 at 7:51 AM, lstone19 said:

 

Of course they can. But at a certain but hard to define point, a cruise becomes so different from what was sold that despite the legal language, it clearly is misrepresentation.

 

Often, an absurd and extreme example proves the point. Suppose you boarded a ship in Seattle for an Alaska round-trip cruise only to be told at boarding that due to whatever, the ship would instead sail south and do a round-trip to California instead of Alaska. Clearly permitted by contract but is it reasonable? Would you be upset if they did?

 

Right now, it appears Princess is advertising a routing that the ship is incapable of doing. When the ship then does a different route because it was incapable of the advertised itinerary, is that right? It may be contractually correct but it's still false advertising. Princess has no more right to advertise (advertising including any representation of route in any marketing materials such as the website map) something they know they can't provide than I have to advertise that I'm a lawyer (I'm not so I can't say I am).

 

I am thinking that some flexibility is a good thing.  If the judge had banned Princess from Alaska ports,   I was hoping that  they would go to other ports in Canada and Mexico.  I am glad this was not necessary, but flexibility would have been good.

[tetleytea]

One certainly gets a lot of scenery in the 400 miles (I think) between Vancouver and Ketchikan and points north during daylight hours so I'm not sure what the big fuss is about not going thru the Narrows during the day.

 

No fuss from me on that one.  It is exactly as you describe it: there is plenty of scenery between Vancouver and Ketchikan during all the daylight--IF they had actually sailed the Inside Passage.  

 

My issue with their northbound sailing is that Princess specifically told us we all need to board the vessel 30 minutes earlier so that we could sail the Seymour Narrows--knowing they were never going to sail the Seymour Narrows at all.   They flat out lied!   They didn't want us to board earlier so we could see all the fantastic scenery we paid to see--we boarded earlier because they were sailing around the west side of the island.   Similar story with southbound, minus the Seymour Narrows part.

 

My issue is that Princess knew--and lied.  It's getting marketing-spun around as this whole set of "unforeseen circumstances" which us laymen wouldn't understand, so they had to change their route.  But it's not.  They did NOT change their route.   They knew all along they were sailing west side, but they told us something else.   And we based our purchasing decisions on wrong information.

[nusail]

On 6/23/2019 at 10:16 AM, fishywood said:

Expecting a refund for a deviation that advance warning was provided for does conjure up the infamous quote "...but other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?" 

 

Thanks for that, fishywood. I read these boards primarily for information but every so often am rewarded with entertainment value as well. 😁

[BarbinMich]

On 6/23/2019 at 5:34 PM, zalusky said:

 

I saw them jumping/breaching out of the water and splatting back in them and to me thats flying.  I wish I could have captured it but this view was just as lovely.

 

There is a species named "flying fish" and we have seen them on Alaskan cruises.  

[zalusky]

On 8/5/2019 at 10:06 AM, BarbinMich said:

There is a species named "flying fish" and we have seen them on Alaskan cruises.  

 

I understand but the fish I saw were not flying like a knife through the swells instead they would jump up from the water and splat  on their sides.  Sort of belly flops so to speak.   One explanation is that salmon do it clean their gills and scales.