Is Carnival about to announce sailings from San Juan again?

[Tapi]

Hi:

 

I went on the Carnival website this morning and I noticed that San Juan has been added as one of the embarkation ports when doing a cruise search, but no sailings have been loaded yet. Has anybody seen any information, rumors, or insight that may indicate that this may be happening?

 

I would love to see Carnival sailing from San Juan again. Pretty much every other cruise line that was sailing from San Juan before the pandemic will resume sailings from there plus a few more. Even Virgin Voyages will be sailing from San Juan next season. 

[jsglow]

Keep a sharp eye out.  I would LOVE that.

 

Edit:  I really think your on to something Tapi.  They've also added Barbados, historically the mid week embarkation port on that same cruise.  Companies don't do meaningful web page modifications 'by mistake' typically.

 

Carnival has had challenges associated with the San Juan port.  I'm not recalling the exact details but it drove their decision to exit pre-pandemic.  But it's entirely possible that the world is sufficiently different now that either those differences got ironed out or simply aren't as relevant in the current climate.  Seems like if they could get a ship to cash flow, they'd jump on it.

 

Very good sleuthing there Tapi!

Edited October 9, 2021 by jsglow

[Indiansbaseball]

Oh I would love that ! We did the San Juan itinerary 4 times in a row, we loved it so much ! 4 different ships too !

[BlerkOne]

Would love for Cuba cruises to restart.

[tidecat]

Could this be the landing spot for a Sunshined Costa Magica? We actually don't have that long before bookings should open if the "mid 2022" date is good.

[BlerkOne]

11 minutes ago, tidecat said:

Could this be the landing spot for a Sunshined Costa Magica? We actually don't have that long before bookings should open if the "mid 2022" date is good.

Certainly possible. Destiny was based in San Juan for a while.

[mondello]

Destiny out of San Juan 2006 was my first Carnival cruise. I was hooked after one on Costa and one on Royal. Carnival keeps playing my siren song.

[vwrestler171]

I wouldn't hold your breath.  Especially with a ship larger than the Fantasy class.  There is a reason they kept switching to smaller ships.  

[jasong38501]

14 hours ago, vwrestler171 said:

I wouldn't hold your breath.  Especially with a ship larger than the Fantasy class.  There is a reason they kept switching to smaller ships.  

I'm betting Elation ends up going to San Juan and they put the converted Magica in Canaveral doing the 4/5/5.

[vwrestler171]

1 hour ago, jasong38501 said:

I'm betting Elation ends up going to San Juan and they put the converted Magica in Canaveral doing the 4/5/5.

That is a possibility.  I do know Carnival is insisting that there are no plans to resume sailing from San Juan, but they also say that the day before cruises are canceled and you are unable to pull up any bookings or sailings for the ships that will be canceled. 

[mondello]

Anyone know why they left San Juan? If I had to guess, it was maybe having to discount fares to make up for the higher cost of airfare for guests? We cruised from there years ago and didn't notice any obvious problems. I'm just going off what was posted above that Carnival left pre-Covid.

[tidecat]

21 minutes ago, mondello said:

Anyone know why they left San Juan? If I had to guess, it was maybe having to discount fares to make up for the higher cost of airfare for guests? We cruised from there years ago and didn't notice any obvious problems. I'm just going off what was posted above that Carnival left pre-Covid.

The San Juan port was undergoing privatization in 2019. The maintenance needs were apparently extensive (up to $250 million, although that included Ponce as well. Then the pandemic happened, which allowed Carnival to exit San Juan as a homeport. Not sure about the status of any repairs or renovations, but this could just be a case of Carnival needing to fill an existing contractual obligation.

 

Obviously since San Juan can't be driven to from the US mainland, that doesn't help.

For what it's worth, Carnival Fascination is still listed as one of the ships on the search filters on Carnival's site. Are we sure Barbados and San Juan are really new additions? Did Carnival reacquire Carnival Fascination?

[mondello]

@tidecat, I was just going off post #2 where they posted that Carnival had left pre-pandemic. Didn't know about the renovation of the port facilities and related costs. I was lucky to use ff miles for free flights to a memorable Southern Caribbean cruise.

I hope they come back to FLL and NYC soon.

[Indiansbaseball]

We actually paid less for a flight to San Juan than a flight to Miami. We did the San Juan itinerary 4 times in a row and never paid a ton for our flights on any of them. We did Victory, Valor,  Liberty and then Fascination ! Other then missing the Dive In, we like Fascination a lot ! 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Indiansbaseball

[mondello]

Yeah, for some reason Miami always was more expensive than FLL, too. Even though they're not far apart.

[jsglow]

32 minutes ago, mondello said:

@tidecat, I was just going off post #2 where they posted that Carnival had left pre-pandemic. Didn't know about the renovation of the port facilities and related costs. I was lucky to use ff miles for free flights to a memorable Southern Caribbean cruise.

I hope they come back to FLL and NYC soon.

You are correct.  All decisions to leave San Juan were pre-pandemic.  And it did have something to do with port ownership along the lines of "rent is this much and CCL's bill for renovations was that much'.  It was never fully detailed publicly other than Carnival chose not to pay the bill and left.

[Tapi]

On 10/9/2021 at 8:45 PM, vwrestler171 said:

I wouldn't hold your breath.  Especially with a ship larger than the Fantasy class.  There is a reason they kept switching to smaller ships.  

Anything is possible. But I do have a feeling that Carnival will return to San Juan. There are more cruise lines scheduled to sail from San Juan post pandemic than before, with some pretty big ships including Norwegian Epic and Explorer of the Seas. The fact that even cruise lines like Virgin and Disney have seasons scheduled out of San Juan makes me think that the cruise industry has confidence in this market. 

[WhiteOptima]

We loved our Fascination cruise out of San Juan.  That was truly one of our best cruises.  I hope they go back!

[live.love.cruise]

This would be great news! Carnival’s sailing out of SJ has been on my list for years, hope they return soon!

[mondello]

I liked it because they could do 5 ports on a Southern Caribbean 7 day cruise, if I remember correctly.

[pe4all]

Loved that Southern itinerary from San Juan.  Would definitely look to booking it if it re-opened.

[jimbo5544]

16 hours ago, Tapi said:

Anything is possible. But I do have a feeling that Carnival will return to San Juan. There are more cruise lines scheduled to sail from San Juan post pandemic than before, with some pretty big ships including Norwegian Epic and Explorer of the Seas. The fact that even cruise lines like Virgin and Disney have seasons scheduled out of San Juan makes me think that the cruise industry has confidence in this market. 

Good points.  San Juan will fit for ports as they come back on line (covid reasons) as well.  Have seen recent positive changes in the ports that would be serviced from a SJ homeport.  We will see.