Concerned on upcoming trip

[kreese5]

We're scheduled to cruise at the end of June and it has not been a good experience yet. I heard such good things about Princess and already disappointed. I am understanding that there is a lot that has changed and they are trying to get caught up from COVID cancellations. We were supposed to take this cruise last June (2021) and it got rescheduled. When our cruise got rescheduled we were put on a different cruise with different destinations. Fine, we will go with the flow. There is 10 of us on this trip so we tried to schedule our excursions early with so many of us. Since then, one of our excursions has changed what they offer. We were also just notified that our ship is scheduled for routine engine maintenance and we will not be cruising full speed so we are leaving Seattle an hour earlier, a port has been removed from our itinerary (which cancels one of our excursions), we arrive at another port hours later (which is after one of our other excursions was supposed to start) and we have a reduced amount of time at this port as well as others. When I call to find out what we are supposed to do about that excursion, they said that they have no details for us so right now we just have to sit and wait. With 9 out of the 10 of us doing excursions, it's not that easy to get us all in another excursion. I feel bad for the customer service reps because the company hasn't really provided them any tools to handle these calls. I am hopeful that the actual trip is better than what my experience has been with them thus far but I'm already concerned.   I wrote the above May 10th. I have been reading the reviews go those who cruised in May and I'm even more concerned.  I'm not sure how "scheduled maintenance " goes on for months. If anyone is on this trip now, is there still bathroom issues?

Cruise smarter

[mnocket]

I'm sorry this is happening to you.  It does seem that the changes required by "routine" engine maintenance are impacting the desirability of the cruise for your group.  I put "routine" in quotes because it seems something other than routine if the ship must sail at reduced speed until the maintenance is performed.  That's probably cruise-speak for "there's something wrong with the ship, but we don't want to say that - it's just routine". 

 

As much of a PITA it is to reschedule for a future sailing, it may not be practical (10 people's schedules, yikes).  The best course of action may well be to set these disappointments aside and make the best of your cruise.  Remember, any cruise is better than a day in the office!

[kreese5]

My question is if anyone is currently on this same boat ( Crown Princess) now to see if they are still having raw sewage in the halls, toilets overflowing - not flushing, not enough power from 1 engine to power everything.  I was wondering if they've been able to fix these items since early May.

Edited June 5, 2022 by kreese5

[PacnGoNow]

1 minute ago, kreese5 said:

My question is if anyone is currently on this same boat now to see if they are still having raw sewage in the halls, toilets overflowing - not flushing, not enough power from 1 engine to power everything.  I was wondering if they've been able to fix these items since early May.

Are you possibly booked on the Crown to Alaska?  
I would suggest you ask on a current roll call for that ship.  They may be able to answer your question.

 

 

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, kreese5 said:

I have been reading the reviews go those who cruised in May and I'm even more concerned.  I'm not sure how "scheduled maintenance " goes on for months. If anyone is on this trip now, is there still bathroom issues?

Cruise smarter

It would be helpful to know: which ship?

what date?

I can answer the above question, regardless of ship: bathroom issues come and go, because some cruisers simply can't keep from throwing items that don't belong into a toilet.

You could look at some roll calls for the ship for "up to date" information.

[mtnesterz]

1 minute ago, kreese5 said:

My question is if anyone is currently on this same boat now to see if they are still having raw sewage in the halls, toilets overflowing - not flushing, not enough power from 1 engine to power everything.  I was wondering if they've been able to fix these items since early May.

Well, here's the thing. That I can see, you didn't mention which ship you are asking about. Sorry if I missed it, a long post. You're posting on the Princess board, so that narrows it down to 15 of the 300+ cruise ships out there.  There has been some generator issues on the Crown, but doing a Cruise Critic search, I cannot see any mention of bathroom issues using the two words "Crown and bathroom."

You also mention one engine to power everything. The Crown has six generators. The only two ships Princess has with two engines are the Island and the Coral, which have not had troubles.

I would direct you to the roll call section, the ship and the cruise that you are curious about. Hope that helps. 

 

[wallyj]

Hi @kreese5, I see from post #3, you have confirmed you are on the Crown, which there have been a few threads already from past and future sailings. There is a current thread Crown, past, present and future sailings. I think there is a live from the current sailing.

 

From my reading of the past threads, a recent engine/generator issue seems to be resolved, but the major one causing the ship’s reduced speed requires parts that are not readily available. Princess has announced the next 4 sailings of Crown with the greatly  revised/reduced port itineraries and it has been unclear if the only compensation will be $100 OBC for the missed port of ISP that was supposed to be the replacement for Ketchikan? 
 

It appears a few passengers were able to switch to another Princess ship, but the latest reports are to switch, you would have to cancel and rebook which seems impractical for your party and the extra expense.

 

The weather has been pretty good so far, but since you are still a few weeks away, I hope it nice for you too.

[suzyed]

41 minutes ago, wallyj said:

Hi @kreese5, I see from post #3, you have confirmed you are on the Crown, which there have been a few threads already from past and future sailings. There is a current thread Crown, past, present and future sailings. I think there is a live from the current sailing.

 

From my reading of the past threads, a recent engine/generator issue seems to be resolved, but the major one causing the ship’s reduced speed requires parts that are not readily available. Princess has announced the next 4 sailings of Crown with the greatly  revised/reduced port itineraries and it has been unclear if the only compensation will be $100 OBC for the missed port of ISP that was supposed to be the replacement for Ketchikan? 
 

It appears a few passengers were able to switch to another Princess ship, but the latest reports are to switch, you would have to cancel and rebook which seems impractical for your party and the extra expense.

 

The weather has been pretty good so far, but since you are still a few weeks away, I hope it nice for you too.

Next 4 sailings?  Which ones?  And what is going to change after they sail to make it better?

[wallyj]

3 hours ago, suzyed said:

Next 4 sailings?  Which ones?  And what is going to change after they sail to make it better?

See thread Crown Princess Alaska sailings, past , present and future, post #1. For Grand Princess Juneau stops on June 6, 13, and 20 they know the Grand will now be arriving at 5:30 pm. and I believe Princess finally updated the itineraries on the website for these sailings and I think booked passengers were to receive email notification opposed to some of the previous sailings where they were notified after embarkation or the day before. 

 

it is not clear if Princess plans on having the problem fixed for the following sailings or they only officially announced the Juneau revisions for the next 4 sailings and not more sailings beyond to not cause panic/cancellations? I think info from someone currently on board would be able to give an update as I think the Captain held a Q&A this sailing or the last as reported in the ‘live’ thread.

[PacnGoNow]

15 hours ago, kreese5 said:

We're scheduled to cruise at the end of June and it has not been a good experience yet. I heard such good things about Princess and already disappointed. I am understanding that there is a lot that has changed and they are trying to get caught up from COVID cancellations. We were supposed to take this cruise last June (2021) and it got rescheduled. When our cruise got rescheduled we were put on a different cruise with different destinations. Fine, we will go with the flow. There is 10 of us on this trip so we tried to schedule our excursions early with so many of us. Since then, one of our excursions has changed what they offer. We were also just notified that our ship is scheduled for routine engine maintenance and we will not be cruising full speed so we are leaving Seattle an hour earlier, a port has been removed from our itinerary (which cancels one of our excursions), we arrive at another port hours later (which is after one of our other excursions was supposed to start) and we have a reduced amount of time at this port as well as others. When I call to find out what we are supposed to do about that excursion, they said that they have no details for us so right now we just have to sit and wait. With 9 out of the 10 of us doing excursions, it's not that easy to get us all in another excursion. I feel bad for the customer service reps because the company hasn't really provided them any tools to handle these calls. I am hopeful that the actual trip is better than what my experience has been with them thus far but I'm already concerned.   I wrote the above May 10th. I have been reading the reviews go those who cruised in May and I'm even more concerned.  I'm not sure how "scheduled maintenance " goes on for months. If anyone is on this trip now, is there still bathroom issues?

Cruise smarter

 

[jk04]

7 hours ago, suzyed said:

Next 4 sailings?  Which ones?  And what is going to change after they sail to make it better?

After the first few sailings when it was clear Crown could not make the schedule, Princess published the altered itinerary to an arrival time of 1730 in Juneau and completely removed Icy Strait Point.  These were for the May 28th, June 4th, June 11th, and June 18th sailings.

 

I don't know that they have the parts necessary to make the repairs.  One of the threads I read said they were having difficulties due to supply chain issues.  @OKCruiseMan was just off the 28th sailing and indicated the engines stopped (not intentionally) while in Glacier Bay.

 

I'm not exactly sure what is supposed to happen at this point to correct the problem and have Crown sail better.  Piertotum Locomotor?  (If you are a Harry Potter fan) 

Edited June 6, 2022 by jk04

[Dar & Bob]

6 hours ago, wallyj said:

See thread Crown Princess Alaska sailings, past , present and future, post #1. For Grand Princess Juneau stops on June 6, 13, and 20 they know the Grand will now be arriving at 5:30 pm. and I believe Princess finally updated the itineraries on the website for these sailings and I think booked passengers were to receive email notification opposed to some of the previous sailings where they were notified after embarkation or the day before. 

 

it is not clear if Princess plans on having the problem fixed for the following sailings or they only officially announced the Juneau revisions for the next 4 sailings and not more sailings beyond to not cause panic/cancellations? I think info from someone currently on board would be able to give an update as I think the Captain held a Q&A this sailing or the last as reported in the ‘live’ thread.

You are stating the Grand has changed it's port time for Juneau?  According to the website the Grand is still there at 8 am to 5 pm.  Is the ship having issues, curious since this is the first I have heard about it.  We on on the Grand July 6th and this is a little concerning.  

[wallyj]

4 minutes ago, Dar & Bob said:

You are stating the Grand has changed it's port time for Juneau?  According to the website the Grand is still there at 8 am to 5 pm.  Is the ship having issues, curious since this is the first I have heard about it.  We on on the Grand July 6th and this is a little concerning.  

Hi @Dar & Bob, please read my post carefully. Princess has only officially updated the sailings arriving to Juneau up to June 20th arrival. Your sailing in July has not be changed as of now. Please read the previous threads on the Crown and the , past ,present, future thread for more info.

[PhotoGal07]

17 minutes ago, wallyj said:

Hi @Dar & Bob, please read my post carefully. Princess has only officially updated the sailings arriving to Juneau up to June 20th arrival. Your sailing in July has not be changed as of now. Please read the previous threads on the Crown and the , past ,present, future thread for more info.

I think you might be confusing the Crown and the Grand.  I'm still seeing arrival time of 6:30am for Juneau for the Grand for upcoming cruise on June 15th (arriving in Juneau on the 20th).  Do you by chance mean the Crown, which does have sail dates of the May 28th, June 4th, June 11th, and June 18th which you previously mentioned?  The Crown does indeed show the updated 5:30pm arrival in Juneau for the June sailings. 

Grand has sail dates of the 8th, 15, 22nd, and 29th, and has no such changes.  

[Dar & Bob]

2 hours ago, wallyj said:

Hi @Dar & Bob, please read my post carefully. Princess has only officially updated the sailings arriving to Juneau up to June 20th arrival. Your sailing in July has not be changed as of now. Please read the previous threads on the Crown and the , past ,present, future thread for more info.

I read it carefully and checked the Grand's schedule on both the Princess website and on Cruise Mapper.  Neither show any changes in June.  I understand the Crown is having problems but have not heard of any on the Grand.  I am concerned if there are issues they may continue into July and if that is the case along with the maskings etc I want to know sooner than later to make a decision on going.  Please show me a link or something where the sailings on the Grand have been changed.

 

June 8th sailing https://www.princess.com/search-cruise/details/?voyageCode=A216

 

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Dar & Bob

[Dar & Bob]

2 hours ago, PhotoGal07 said:

I think you might be confusing the Crown and the Grand.  I'm still seeing arrival time of 6:30am for Juneau for the Grand for upcoming cruise on June 15th (arriving in Juneau on the 20th).  Do you by chance mean the Crown, which does have sail dates of the May 28th, June 4th, June 11th, and June 18th which you previously mentioned?  The Crown does indeed show the updated 5:30pm arrival in Juneau for the June sailings. 

Grand has sail dates of the 8th, 15, 22nd, and 29th, and has no such changes.  

Thanks PhotoGal07, that is what I saw and was thinking.  He mentions the Grand twice and as far as I can see those itineraries are not changed at all. 

 

I think @wallyj needs to reread what he posted. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Dar & Bob

[Tiggerontheseas]

3 hours ago, wallyj said:

Hi @Dar & Bob, please read my post carefully. Princess has only officially updated the sailings arriving to Juneau up to June 20th arrival. Your sailing in July has not be changed as of now. Please read the previous threads on the Crown and the , past ,present, future thread for more info.

 

Hi wallyj.  I think the confusion is arising because you wrote Grand instead of Crown in your post when talking about the Crown's schedule.   Are you able to edit it?

[wallyj]

Hi @Dar & Bob, sorry, I typed Grand but meant Crown. My posts repeated mention see Crown Princess Alaska past, present and future, which should have been a clue and the dates for Juneau arrival were for Crown not the Grand. I do not think your Grand  sailing has itinerary changes. Sorry about the confusion.

[LovetheSea]

Obviously the Crown Princess. I had heard from videos and posts on CC all about the bathroom issues and engine issues. Since we will be on the Aug 13 sailing  I have been paying close attention. The itinerary for Aug is showing they will not be the usual time in these ports. So I am assuming from this ,they have NO intention of solving this issue with the mechanical problems until it goes into Dry Dock in Oct. If I had known this before I booked , I would not have chosen this ship. But I will make the best of it. As long as it doesn't get worse and change our itinerary by dropping some ports altogether

Edited June 7, 2022 by LovetheSea

[wolvey]

2 hours ago, LovetheSea said:

Obviously the Crown Princess. I had heard from videos and posts on CC all about the bathroom issues and engine issues. Since we will be on the Aug 13 sailing  I have been paying close attention. The itinerary for Aug is showing they will not be the usual time in these ports. So I am assuming from this ,they have NO intention of solving this issue with the mechanical problems until it goes into Dry Dock in Oct. If I had known this before I booked , I would not have chosen this ship. But I will make the best of it. As long as it doesn't get worse and change our itinerary by dropping some ports altogether

I thought crown skipped a week at the end of July to get this fixed? But looking at the website, she has sailings every week.  Thru end of July, it’s only Juneau and Skagway. But when you get into Aug and sep sailings, they put back the original schedule with Ketchikan. So exactly when were they planning on fixing the engine? Or are they hoping for a miracle between the July 30 and Aug 6 sailings?

 

at this point, without any time to fix the issue, I would assume the Aug sailings will be changed last min and everyone again is screwed.

Edited June 7, 2022 by wolvey

[jk04]

2 hours ago, wolvey said:

changed last min and everyone again is screwed

The only thing they seemingly can do consistently...