Now that you can pre-book the Thermal Suite....is the Sanctuary next?

[canadarocks]

Just noticed that we can now pre-book the Thermal Suite for our upcoming Princess cruise. Has anyone heard if the Sanctuary might soon be available to pre-book as well? 

[skynight]

I would say the odds are in favor. At the sanctuary you have to select your lounge, thus the difficulty of pre-booking. But, for Princess it's all about maximizing on board revenue and I imagine one way is to allow pre-booking.

[Steelers36]

I'd be surprised, but you can never say never.

[grouchomarx]

Thank you for posting this!  I may just book it. I love a thermal spa.

[grouchomarx]

But wait I'm confused. It says 7 day pass but then when you go forward it is listing one date only. Can someone clarify?

[Janie001]

2 hours ago, grouchomarx said:

But wait I'm confused. It says 7 day pass but then when you go forward it is listing one date only. Can someone clarify?

I am having a similar issue for our upcoming 15 day cruise.  It is offering a 5 day, 7 day and 10 day pass.   The 7 day and 10 day pass are offered only on one date (the first date of each leg) which makes sense to me.  I assume those passes start on the first day of each leg and finish on the last day of each leg.

 

The 7 day couples pass that I am interested in is only being offered on the disembarkation day of the cruise. I called and was told that I wouldn't be smart to buy that (no kidding).  When I pointed out that it was probably an error on the website the only solution provided was to email customer relations.  Will let you know if I find out anything more.

[jondfk]

I really doubt advanced booking for the Sanctuary is close (though I would LOVE it if it happened).  The loungers are positioned every so slightly differently ship to ship (at least on the several Grand class ships we've been on).  Perhaps this is less an issue on the Royal class ships, my first experience there is in a weeks time.  

 

I will say that the process for booking the Sanctuary was completely streamlined on our last Grand cruise in April.  No more writing up tickets for payment in agonizing longhand person by person.  They simply showed you the map, colored out the loungers and days you wanted, wrote the ticket up overnight and had you sign on your first day.  This probably saved 5 minutes per person over the old system which means a lot at the tail end of a line of 15.   

[DebbieMacG]

HAL take bookings for their sanctuary in advance over the phone, they give you a choice of cabana location and take payment for it. For a 14 night cruise I was given the option of booking 7 or 14 nights. It was just over $21 each for the full day. ($599 full 14 night cruise for 2) 

 

I guess Princess could do this even if you couldn’t book online.

[Tak8]

Anyone know if you can pre book The Enclave for the Royal class ships?

[scott4020]

2 hours ago, Tak8 said:

Anyone know if you can pre book The Enclave for the Royal class ships?

I just did for the Sky. 

[Tak8]

scot4020:  Thanks for the info.  I'm going to check it out for my Sky cruise in March.  I'd rather get stuff done before boarding.

 

[Pam in CA]

I would be very surprised if you could pre-book the Sanctuary. I’ve seen loungers change position from day-to-day. How would you know which loungers were available, which are in some shade, which are in the sun, etc. if you weren’t already familiar with the Sanctuary on that ship? 
 

I haven’t cruised HAL in a while so I’m not familiar with their Sanctuary. When you pre-book it, does it show which loungers are available? How do you select a specific location? 

[CATGUY7]

21 hours ago, grouchomarx said:

But wait I'm confused. It says 7 day pass but then when you go forward it is listing one date only. Can someone clarify?

I booked the couples pass.  This is the way the confirmation looks.  

[grouchomarx]

I booked the couples 7day pass and they charged the credit card, but I received no confirmation email and it doesn’t show up anywhere in my booking. So I wonder if this worked or not. I’ll be disappointed if it didn’t. 

[grouchomarx]

It seems they had a glitch on their website and now it’s working fine. I can see my reservation for the thermal suite now. It is weird when you book the couples pass you only choose one person but whatever. Glad they got it working!