Update for Sapphire Princess

[CruzinNoony]

I am interested as to what happened to the Sapphire Princess since we got off on the 13th.  Is she anchored somewhere?  What happened to the crew and officers?  Were they all sent home?

[Kenswing]

Bridge cam shows her docked in Singapore.. 

[beg3yrs]

29 minutes ago, CruzinNoony said:

I am interested as to what happened to the Sapphire Princess since we got off on the 13th.  Is she anchored somewhere?  What happened to the crew and officers?  Were they all sent home?

 

Marine Traffic also shows her docked in Singapore, not at the cruise center though.

 

I doubt all the crew and officers were sent home. Maybe some but ships need on-going maintenance even when they're just sitting dockside.

[sailingskyward]

Princess sent a notice to Australian travel agencies that Sapphire would be repositioning to Australia 6 months earlier than planned, and would begin operating Aussie itineraries of varying lengths. I saw the itineraries this morning on a doc, but don't recall the itineraries. I do recall there were 44 new itineraries added, and available for purchase from February 26 2020 (US guests) and February 27 2020 (AUS/NZ guests). 

[snoozecrooze]

Sapphire is currently wet docked at Sembawang Shipyard and was scheduled to get a two-week dry dock in April, presumably at the same shipyard. But I wouldn't be surprised if the schedule was modified to get the ship in earlier or extend the dry dock, as this article mentions Sapphire will be fully capable of providing the MedallionNet upgrade earlier than anticipated, on June 4 (instead of July 27), meaning there could be time for more of the ship to go under the knife for upgrades/changes/etc.

 

Coming from the ED on-board, prior to the extended cancellations of all of Sapphire's Asia cruises, it sounded as if the crew were just spending their time together, anticipating returning to service shortly. With what we know now, knowing that there will be no cruises scheduled between now and May, I can only assume that some portion (or just all) of the crew will continue to stay on-board helping to prepare it for the renovation and work it will go under before heading to Australia. I would assume contracts will still rotate as planned, but maybe with adjustments to some of their schedules.

[23ros]

The Sapphire is currently in for a 2 week refit in Singapore, and will be updated with the Medallion.

Also it is coming back to Australia earlier instead of going to Asia.

For Australians this is a great, because normally Princess don't sail here during our Winter season, and P&O Australia do, so a bit of good competition will be welcomed. 

We are still awaiting to see what Princess will be doing with the Majestic Princess as she is no longer going back to Asia either.

Someone posted these itineraries on FB yesterday - so here they are.  🙂 

[Thrak]

Weird. The last cruise listed is a 2 day starting October 26, 2020. It ends October 28 in Melbourne. We sail from Melbourne on November 10, 2020. What happens between October 28 and November 10?

[snoozecrooze]

18 minutes ago, Thrak said:

What happens between October 28 and November 10?

There will be a 13-day round-trip New Zealand cruise from Melbourne.

[Thrak]

Ahhhh... Thanks. We have a 6 day Southern Australia and then this same 13 day you listed followed by a 14 day. They all leave out of Melbourne and we keep the same cabin for all 3 cruises. I just told my wife we could book this one as well and turn the 33 days into 46 days but, for some reason, she isn't really interested in doing that.

[Not happy Jan]

Bookings open on Thursday 27th Feb for the new Sapphire Princess itinerary. The prices advertised are just AMAZING especially for Perth/Fremantle cruises! (eg: starting from $69 per night inside, for a 10 day cruise).  In WA we sadly don't get a lot of variation of cruise ships/lines and they are usually very mid range vessels. Unlike Sydney, Melb and Brisbane, you guys are absolutely spoilt for incredible OPTIONS!!!

Anyway, I will be HOT on the phone next Thursday ready to book!

 

[getting older slowly]

have been looking at the itineraries, it is going to be interesting as most of them are overlapping,

 

Also most of the east coast prices are pretty much ball park.... so a bit cheaper .... but not so much as a great bargain.....  ( glad you are getting a great price over west )

 

Will see our TA next week and see....

 

Cheers Don

[leck57]

2 hours ago, getting older slowly said:

have been looking at the itineraries, it is going to be interesting as most of them are overlapping,

 

Also most of the east coast prices are pretty much ball park.... so a bit cheaper .... but not so much as a great bargain.....  ( glad you are getting a great price over west )

 

Will see our TA next week and see....

 

Cheers Don

 

I agree that the prices are not as low as I might have expected. However I believe the prices at the start are usually the highest and prices will go down. I'm not one that books as soon as cruises are launched as I don't want a specific cabin. There are plenty of people about, like me, that now have future cruise credits thanks to the Asian cancellations so they are probably trying to see if people spend on these, therefore keeping the base prices higher for a while. 

I'll just sit and wait, but the warmer weather Northern cruises appeal. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 hours ago, getting older slowly said:

have been looking at the itineraries, it is going to be interesting as most of them are overlapping,

 

Overlapping itineraries are quite common with Princess, especially for longer cruises with different start or end points ie Sydney to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne, Brisbane to Sydney could all be part of the same cruise, sometimes with short Getaway itineraries mixed in as well. You should have seen how many itineraries they made out of linking the Australia circumnavigation, Hawaii/Tahiti, world cruise, Hawaii/Tahiti, circumnavigation cruises lasy year on Sea Princess. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

24 minutes ago, leck57 said:

I agree that the prices are not as low as I might have expected. However I believe the prices at the start are usually the highest and prices will go down.

Not necessarily, especially on popular itineraries like the circumnavigation. Sometimes they go down a little, but often they go up and stay up.

[Thrak]

5 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Not necessarily, especially on popular itineraries like the circumnavigation. Sometimes they go down a little, but often they go up and stay up.

 

We often book quite far in advance and watch as prices go up. We always hope they will go down but it's not the norm. One of our 3 for this winter did go down. We have a 6 day/ /14 day B2B2B booked. The 6 day dropped over $500. The 13 day is pretty much the same as when we booked. The 14 day is over $100 more per person than when we booked. The $500 drop was a great surprise. The TA looked at the bookings when I asked about something else. She got the reduced price and also got the WiFi added onto all 3 cruises for free. Great service on that one. 😁

[OzKiwiJJ]

51 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

We often book quite far in advance and watch as prices go up. We always hope they will go down but it's not the norm. One of our 3 for this winter did go down. We have a 6 day/ /14 day B2B2B booked. The 6 day dropped over $500. The 13 day is pretty much the same as when we booked. The 14 day is over $100 more per person than when we booked. The $500 drop was a great surprise. The TA looked at the bookings when I asked about something else. She got the reduced price and also got the WiFi added onto all 3 cruises for free. Great service on that one. 😁

It certainly was great service.

 

It does vary. We did a Med cruise in 2017. Initially I booked direct with Princess, then discovered significant savings (at least AU$2000 or more) if I booked through a US TA so I could get the Sip and Sail. Some months later I noticed the Australian price had dropped significantly, contacted my TA who got me the US price drop even though the cabins in the category I booked were sold out. We ended up saving over AU$5000 on a 21 night cruise.

 

On the other hand I've seen the prices on popular Australian cruises like the Australia Circumnavigation or the round trip Hawaii/Tahiti cruise just go up and up. 

 

I tend to book early - either when the itineraries are released or soon after when I've realised it's time to book another cruise. 🤣 There are no disadvantages to booking early as you can always refare if the price drops, and are smiling sweetly when the prices rise. 

[leck57]

7 hours ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Not necessarily, especially on popular itineraries like the circumnavigation. Sometimes they go down a little, but often they go up and stay up.

 

Yes I have read plenty of comments where people agree with you but that is not my experience. I've only done 6 cruises though so I'm not that experienced in that regard. My Baltics cruise in July has dropped over $1000 per person since we booked that in December and even though doing a re-fare is not as common here I was able to do it twice plus add the Oceans of Offers deals.

I think we might be going in to a period of time for a while though that cruise fares will be dropping, certainly not going up, but we'll see. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

46 minutes ago, leck57 said:

 

Yes I have read plenty of comments where people agree with you but that is not my experience. I've only done 6 cruises though so I'm not that experienced in that regard. My Baltics cruise in July has dropped over $1000 per person since we booked that in December and even though doing a re-fare is not as common here I was able to do it twice plus add the Oceans of Offers deals.

I think we might be going in to a period of time for a while though that cruise fares will be dropping, certainly not going up, but we'll see. 

I've never had a problem refaring here. You got a great saving. I've had good ones, and little ones but they all help. 

 

We've only done one non-Australian cruise with Princess and price drops might be more common on international itineraries.

 

I agree, cruise fares could drop for a while. That's why Princess is so good, it's easy to refare when there are price drops, although you have to factor in the value of perks when determining whether a price drop is good value for you. We've chosen not to refare a couple of our cruises under the Oceans of Offers deal as we don't like being restricted to wines by the glass. We've had issues with that in the past under drinks packages so now we pay as we go and buy our dinner wines by the bottle. We're Elite (finally) so get some free internet and a minibar that we can exchange for coffee cards.

Edited February 23, 2020 by OzKiwiJJ