Sun Princess - Original

[Wishing on a star]

I find it interesting hearing the details of how the ICON went into service.

Especially since Feb. is still winter, and def. not a high demand time to cruise Europe...

I am with those who are placing responsibility squarely with Princess, even if the shipyard was a big factor.

They should NEVER have tried to go forward with these Feb. sailings, especially if there was any question that every detail was not worked out and approved.

[eroller]

5 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

I find it interesting hearing the details of how the ICON went into service.

Especially since Feb. is still winter, and def. not a high demand time to cruise Europe...

I am with those who are placing responsibility squarely with Princess, even if the shipyard was a big factor.

They should NEVER have tried to go forward with these Feb. sailings, especially if there was any question that every detail was not worked out and approved.

 

It’s a good point.  February in Europe is a horrible time to bring out a new ship.  Not many want to sail the Med in the dead of winter.  In fact I saw airline interline rates being offered on several of the first SUN sailings at heavily discounted pricing.  Kind of crazy to see that for a brand new ship.  
 

It would have been the perfect opportunity for Princess to take delivery of the ship and test it out with shake down cruises for a few weeks. Make sure everything is up to speed before the first paying guests embark.  

[SouKnoMe]

4 hours ago, lstone19 said:

 

Well, I'm retired from an airline. WN (that's the code for Southwest) had their big problem in 2022 but other carriers (including mine) have had meltdowns as well over the years. And I agree, the lack of communications is frustrating and it happens because things don't scale well when hundreds of flights are impacted. A single disrupted flight can be handled manually. But when it's hundred of flights, that manual process just doesn't work. My carrier had a lot of decision support tools (25 years ago, I was part of the team that developed them but even they don't scale well). Crews need rest, planes need to get to maintenance stations for their periodic checks (some of which are as frequent as every other day), you basically end up needing to build a firewall and restart from a known state.

 

Others have commented about people arranging vacation time only to have the cruise cancelled. Above I mentioned being retired from an airline. I was always in a management position in a small group. I could take vacation when I wanted. But if you're in a large group (pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, airport service), you bid vacation time, usually before the start of the year. Their staffing plans are based on a certain percentage of that work group being on vacation every week of the year and some people get junior-manned into undesirable times. Not every pilot or flight attendant can have Christmas off. Some people move heaven and earth, make trades with other people, take an otherwise undesirable schedule, in order to get the time off. They may not have a chance to do that again for a few years.

Totally understand what you’re saying. Attempting to schedule PTO, and managing stress until you make it is tough. I’m not downplaying any of it. I’m truly sad for all of those affected. It’s crazy. I don’t take anything said lightly. 

[kathy49]

1 hour ago, eroller said:

 

It’s a good point.  February in Europe is a horrible time to bring out a new ship.  Not many want to sail the Med in the dead of winter.  In fact I saw airline interline rates being offered on several of the first SUN sailings at heavily discounted pricing.  Kind of crazy to see that for a brand new ship.  
 

It would have been the perfect opportunity for Princess to take delivery of the ship and test it out with shake down cruises for a few weeks. Make sure everything is up to speed before the first paying guests embark.  

Agreed...it is simply not a good time for many of the ports...but they got top $$ from passengers to basically "shake down cruises".

[memoak]

Building anything new has risks. Also you have union issues, supply issues etc .  What if Princess waited to sell cabins until the ship was ready ?  Then people would be screaming why can’t we book. You can’t have everything. So maybe don’t sell cabin until ship is delivered and have a huge price increase

[lstone19]

2 hours ago, eroller said:

 

It’s a good point.  February in Europe is a horrible time to bring out a new ship.  Not many want to sail the Med in the dead of winter.  In fact I saw airline interline rates being offered on several of the first SUN sailings at heavily discounted pricing.  Kind of crazy to see that for a brand new ship.  
 

It would have been the perfect opportunity for Princess to take delivery of the ship and test it out with shake down cruises for a few weeks. Make sure everything is up to speed before the first paying guests embark.  

 

My thought had been all these Feb/Mar/early April cruises are pre-season cruises. But starting April 27, Sun Princess goes into what I consider to be the core Med schedule Princess has had for years the three seven-night cruises Rome to Athens, Athens to Barcelona, and Barcelona to Rome that can be booked B2B for 14 nights or B2B2B for 21 nights. And even early on, I had been wondering what Princess would do if Sun Princess was not ready. Do they jettison a core schedule or do they cancel something else and put a Royal-class ship in its place (not as much capacity but better than zero)? While nothing credible suggests a lengthy delay, the lack of open communications does make you wonder. Enchanted Princess is scheduled for the Caribbean this summer. Princess used to completely pull out of the Caribbean in the summer so if I were the decision-maker, I'd protect the core Med schedule over the non-core summer Caribbean schedule. But hopefully this is just idle speculation on my part. 

[eroller]

24 minutes ago, memoak said:

Building anything new has risks. Also you have union issues, supply issues etc .  What if Princess waited to sell cabins until the ship was ready ?  Then people would be screaming why can’t we book. You can’t have everything. So maybe don’t sell cabin until ship is delivered and have a huge price increase

Waiting a couple weeks after delivery to start revenue cruises doesn’t mean they can’t sell the cabins years in advance.  Just pick a start date 2-3 weeks after the scheduled delivery day  It’s just adding some cushion time to ensure the ship is ready for paying pax.  It’s actually quite common and the prudent thing to do, especially with a prototype ship.  

[eroller]

8 minutes ago, lstone19 said:

 

My thought had been all these Feb/Mar/early April cruises are pre-season cruises. But starting April 27, Sun Princess goes into what I consider to be the core Med schedule Princess has had for years the three seven-night cruises Rome to Athens, Athens to Barcelona, and Barcelona to Rome that can be booked B2B for 14 nights or B2B2B for 21 nights. And even early on, I had been wondering what Princess would do if Sun Princess was not ready. Do they jettison a core schedule or do they cancel something else and put a Royal-class ship in its place (not as much capacity but better than zero)? While nothing credible suggests a lengthy delay, the lack of open communications does make you wonder. Enchanted Princess is scheduled for the Caribbean this summer. Princess used to completely pull out of the Caribbean in the summer so if I were the decision-maker, I'd protect the core Med schedule over the non-core summer Caribbean schedule. But hopefully this is just idle speculation on my part. 

 

I would agree, although post-COVID the Caribbean market has been a very high performer.  I think one reason we are seeing more year round ships there.  
 

Hopefully it will be a non-issue and nothing will have to repositioned.  I truly think SP will sail as scheduled this “3rd” maiden voyage.  lol.  It’s the time they needed which should have been scheduled from the get go.  

[memoak]

16 minutes ago, eroller said:

Waiting a couple weeks after delivery to start revenue cruises doesn’t mean they can’t sell the cabins years in advance.  Just pick a start date 2-3 weeks after the scheduled delivery day  It’s just adding some cushion time to ensure the ship is ready for paying pax.  It’s actually quite common and the prudent thing to do, especially with a prototype ship.  

So why are people screaming about cancelled cruise. I would expect this and never book a new ship that far out. If you book a brand new cruise ship you should expect issues

 

[lstone19]

12 minutes ago, eroller said:

Hopefully it will be a non-issue and nothing will have to repositioned.  I truly think SP will sail as scheduled this “3rd” maiden voyage.  lol.  It’s the time they needed which should have been scheduled from the get go.  

 

Story time: Not cruise ships but transportation none the less. Let's turn the clock back to March 1989. Earlier I mentioned I was retired from an airline but my airline employment was still over a year away. I was arriving SFO on an international flight and we pulled into a gate next to a Singapore Airlines plane. It looked like a 747-300 except it had winglets. What is that? Well, it was a 747-400 but I hadn't seen one before as the first had gone into service a little over a month earlier. Some digging turned up it had just arrived from Seattle (delivery from Boeing) and was going into service that night at SFO.

 

Compare that to my carrier. I went to a delivery once to see the figurative handing over of the keys. We then flew on the plane back to one of our hub airports where the plane went into maintenance for a week or so so that things could be fully checked out as well as some additional interior upgrades done. In other words, some slack in the schedule between planned delivery and putting it in the schedule.

 

So Princess is like Singapore Airlines was - put it in service as soon as you can while my carrier was like Royal Caribbean with some slack in the schedule despite how expensive an asset it is. 

[eroller]

9 minutes ago, memoak said:

So why are people screaming about cancelled cruise. I would expect this and never book a new ship that far out. If you book a brand new cruise ship you should expect issues

 

 

I totally agree it’s very risky booking a brand new ship on the first couple cruises.  This being said it’s pretty rare to have not one, but two cruises canceled, and both only days prior to departure.  That is what makes this so unusual. Plus the very vague statements from Princess that say nothing.  Normally the cruise line is well aware of delays months in advance. They have an entire team at the shipyard overseeing the progress and reporting back to head office.  Normally if they have to cancel cruises it’s not so last minute.  

[Vinnyv20032003]

Take this for what it's worth, the March 19th sailing has shown Closed availability for all cabin categories for weeks now. It was one of the only sailings that actually said Closed for all categories, for whatever reason.

 

It now shows Waitlist availability for just about every cabin category for the March 19th sailing. All other upcoming sailings have shown Waitlist availability for weeks now, this remains the same. The April 17th sailing being the 1st sailing to show availability for booking, as of now.

 

I guess I just keep looking for confirmation that this ship is actually going to sail soon. Since we all don't have much else to go off of. 

 

 

[timcahill98]

Another interesting aspect to the story....I'm scheduled on the Feb 28th sailing and today I got an email from Princess about booking shore excursions.  That's normal.  But in prior emails the voyage was entitled "10 Day Grand Mediterranean," but in today's email the voyage is tagged as "Europe - Southern."  I checked the itinerary on my account page and it's still the same, but I wonder if they plan on completely changing the itinerary and not announcing it beforehand....?

 

[Vinnyv20032003]

2 minutes ago, timcahill98 said:

Another interesting aspect to the story....I'm scheduled on the Feb 28th sailing and today I got an email from Princess about booking shore excursions.  That's normal.  But in prior emails the voyage was entitled "10 Day Grand Mediterranean," but in today's email the voyage is tagged as "Europe - Southern."  I checked the itinerary on my account page and it's still the same, but I wonder if they plan on completely changing the itinerary and not announcing it beforehand....?

 

 

I got the same email today for my March 19th sailing and had the same voyage title change to 'EUROPE - SOUTHERN'. 

Edited February 16 by Vinnyv20032003

[Cruising Forever!]

Again, as I said earlier, Princess cannot be held responsible for any delays on the Sun prior to taking possession on 2/14/23.  I thoroughly reject the idea that Princess was involved in cover-ups, or already knew that Sun wouldn't be ready to sail on 2/8 or 2/18.

 

Further, speaking as a Customer Service Rep (CSR) myself (no, I don't work for Princess), if information you are given sounds wildly incorrect, it's not responsible to report it in any social media forum without first following up with multiple other CSRs and their superiors.  I'm not surprised at all that a Princess rep asked for that post to be removed.  Note: this does not mean that Princess monitors posts on social media, btw.  What it probably means is that they got hit with a torrent of calls from people that read that post and were terrified by the false info of cruises cancelled thru September.  Princess was already busy trying to help customers with actual problems created by the 2/18 cruise cancellation.  They didn't need the added headache of false information about additional cancellations.  (Frankly, when I read that first post, I laughed out loud.  I knew that this couldn't possibly be true.  Any avid cruiser would know that Sun was probably going to be scuttled, if that were the case! lol)

 

In CSR work, you can get some misinformation, and yes, even from a Supervisor.  Supervisors aren't demi-Gods of information (people really need to get over this idea that managers are fonts of wisdom.).  Some are excellent, and some are idiots.  Who knows, the Supervisor might have said something he/she thought the CSR would interpret as a joke, but that CSR robotically repeated the information. I know some CSRs like that.  I'm 100% sure that the call will be traced (we are a small firm where I work, and we record ALL calls), and that Supervisor and maybe even the CSR will be fired. As a CSR myself, I would've ignored that Supervisor and I would've gone to another to report/confirm that statement right then and there.  This would've stopped this whole fiasco right in it's tracks.

 

Further, when the Princess Rep contacted the poster about this post, he asked if the 2/28 sailing was still on, and when she told him that it was... and then he went on, "pressing" for some sort of guarantee that it was on no matter what?  Come on!  How can anyone "guarantee" anything?  If the Princess Rep replies Sun will sail as scheduled on 2/28 "no matter what", but then there's some port strike... or the ship is damaged in violent weather in the Med, or there's an outbreak of Noro/Covid/Leprosy, or there's a fire somewhere on the ship, whatever, and that cruise has to be cancelled... what will be the passenger's reply then?  "But they promised!!! Princess lied to me!!!"  It's a no-win situation.  That Princess Rep was giving the only responsible reply she could, and bravo to her for not saying what he wanted to hear.  That would have been a lie.  Nothing is guaranteed in life. (other than death and taxes)

 

This has been an unintended setback for Princess.  An absolute embarrassment for them.  The whole "it's a conspiracy" notion is without any sort of merit.  Financially, it's probably very expensive for Princess.  The "fire everyone at Princess" camp's position is idiotic.  Princess is making a good-faith, and in my opinion, going above and beyond, attempt to make their passengers happy.  Threatening to "never" sail with Princess is something they don't want to hear, but it's also something they can't control.  If that's your position, do so.  That just means more of a chance for us to score a place in The Sanctuary on my next Royal class cruise.  LOL

 

Finally, for those who will call me a "Princess apologist" because, God-forbid, I should disagree with their opinions on what's really "going down", you're wrong.  I still haven't posted my review on our Enchanted Princess Med sailing from last October (I've been very sick since mid-November)!  In a nutshell, the cruise food, entertainment, service and public venues were all five stars out of five.  On the other hand, dirty carpets in the hall ways, in our Mini suite (as in filthy old stains), and black stains on the couch in the room were horrible!  And this on a ship only a couple of years old!  I almost stepped on an ice cream cone that someone dropped right outside of the elevator on my floor that had melted into the rug.  No one called!  (I called as soon as I got to a phone)  We saw a hot tub with green (deep green!) water in it on embarkation day and no explanation or indications that it was closed!  The Medallion app was mostly unusable all week.  The excursions we took were hit or miss.  I am not a Princess apologist.  I just believe in placing blame where blame is due.

 

Again, to all those who had their cruises cancelled, I'm truly sorry.  It absolutely sucks. I would take this lesson (and it's hard to know this if you're a first time cruiser) and NEVER book any inaugural cruise ever again.  As a seasoned cruiser, I always want the ship to be at least six months old.  Here's another tip, booking Caribbean cruises in late August to late October carries tremendous risk!  Always buy travel insurance for ANY cruise at ANY time of the year. NEVER fly to a port on the day of embarkation... always fly down at least one day before.  Read that last sentence again.

 

[PS- despite my earlier joke post about the diesel in the water systems, I read an article on a reliable website that this was fixed previous to the cancellations.  I'm keeping my Sun Princess booking... for now.  I am still holding out on final payment choice based on videos and images and reviews.]

Edited February 16 by Cruising Forever!

[insidecabin]

2 hours ago, eroller said:

Waiting a couple weeks after delivery to start revenue cruises doesn’t mean they can’t sell the cabins years in advance.  Just pick a start date 2-3 weeks after the scheduled delivery day  It’s just adding some cushion time to ensure the ship is ready for paying pax.  It’s actually quite common and the prudent thing to do, especially with a prototype ship.  

This happens with quite a few ships and is probably just as common as delays.

Plenty of ships are sold with a buffer and when they are ready early they slip in extra shake down sailings,, then the moans are about I wanted to be on the first sailing now I am on the 3rd.......
 

1. I suspect there may have been contingency in the original schedules but that got used up(and more) ages ago  and attempts to bring the schedule back just failed.

IME cruise lines sail(new build or drydock) to retain revenue even if the hotel is not ready, unless there is a fundamental problem(eg, no aircon, toilets...),  we have been on ships where cabins not finished, venues closed, entertainment not ready, IT like TV phones and screens not fully operational etc.

They sail and finish the jobs with contractors staying on board.

 

It is looks like something that is keeping the ship in port.

With 20 extra days, they don't need further hotel failures like shows not ready, closed venues  ...    

 

[eroller]

19 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

This happens with quite a few ships and is probably just as common as delays.

Plenty of ships are sold with a buffer and when they are ready early they slip in extra shake down sailings,, then the moans are about I wanted to be on the first sailing now I am on the 3rd.......
 

1. I suspect there may have been contingency in the original schedules but that got used up(and more) ages ago  and attempts to bring the schedule back just failed.

IME cruise lines sail(new build or drydock) to retain revenue even if the hotel is not ready, unless there is a fundamental problem(eg, no aircon, toilets...),  we have been on ships where cabins not finished, venues closed, entertainment not ready, IT like TV phones and screens not fully operational etc.

They sail and finish the jobs with contractors staying on board.

 

It is looks like something that is keeping the ship in port.

With 20 extra days, they don't need further hotel failures like shows not ready, closed venues  ...    

 

 

If it’s new build 3,4,5,6, etc in an established series, yes for the most part cruises can begin days after delivery.  The yard, crew, and cruise line new build team have experience with the ship, its design, and all the technical and hotel aspects of the vessel.  
 

If it’s the first of a new prototype design, built at a shipyard that has never built that technology before (true of LNG and Fincantieri), then you absolutely build in a substantial buffer after the delivery date.  You run shakedown cruises and get everything up to speed.  This is what a smart cruise line would do.  The delivery date is established well in advance, so the buffer and first cruises can be scheduled accordingly.  If delays happen, which is often the case, then it’s usually known well in advance and everything can be pushed back accordingly.  Yes people will be disappointed but they won’t be finding out days before a sailing and already enroute to the embarkation port. If a last minute issue arises, then the buffer is there to absorb it.  
 

Princess failed on this one for not being proactive and planning as they should have, and also in their communication.  Two fails.  

[insidecabin]

1 hour ago, Vinnyv20032003 said:

Take this for what it's worth, the March 19th sailing has shown Closed availability for all cabin categories for weeks now. It was one of the only sailings that actually said Closed for all categories, for whatever reason.

 

It now shows Waitlist availability for just about every cabin category for the March 19th sailing. All other upcoming sailings have shown Waitlist availability for weeks now, this remains the same. The April 17th sailing being the 1st sailing to show availability for booking, as of now.

 

I guess I just keep looking for confirmation that this ship is actually going to sail soon. Since we all don't have much else to go off of. 

 

 

In Jan  I was looking(UK) at these early cruises as they were very reasonable for a new ship, only the first sailing was "sold out" with reasonable availability for the others into March.
NO insides available on those cruises, probably capacity control,  sell the more expensive and keep the insides for contractors. 

IIRC one UK vlogger said they got a balcony for £700pp on 28th Feb 10n which is good. 

Suddenly sold out, I forget exactly how many but it was into March normally they drop off one at a time.

For anyone disrupted there is a decent itinerary/price on Celebrity infinity out of Athens 23 Feb 2024    

[Jimmys Chippy]

6 hours ago, memoak said:

So why are people screaming about cancelled cruise. I would expect this and never book a new ship that far out. If you book a brand new cruise ship you should expect issues

 

Probably because the one’s who are screaming the loudest are those self important, comped cruise vloggers who simply have to be the first on board. I couldn’t imagine a place as awful as an inaugural cruise nowadays, it’s like a floating Whicker Island.

[Schnufkel2403]

6 hours ago, memoak said:

So why are people screaming about cancelled cruise. I would expect this and never book a new ship that far out. If you book a brand new cruise ship you should expect issues

 

I know my thoughts are a bit naive. But my booked trip for March 9th has not yet been canceled. There is no reference in my travel documents to a potentially risky booking. I also didn't get any risk discount. The product was announced at a certain point in time, I don't find anything wrong with relying on that point in time..

[kamelia]

42 minutes ago, Jimmys Chippy said:

it’s like a floating Whicker Island

I learned something new already this morning, thank you!  I'll never be able to see another inaugural cruise offer without being tickled by this reference.  🤭

[h20skibum]

5 hours ago, eroller said:

If it’s the first of a new prototype design, built at a shipyard that has never built that technology before (true of LNG and Fincantieri), then you absolutely build in a substantial buffer after the delivery date.

It appear they did have a buffer built in, but not a large enough one for this first ship in the class.  They were originally supposed to take possession in December 2023, but obviously something impacted that schedule.  They simply had to know well in advance, and they probably did, but made the decision to try and rush things at the end.

 

I wonder if anyone is looking at the schedule of the Star, because if it follows the same trajectory as the Sun, those August 2025 cruises would be wishful at best.

 

They did the keel laying for Sun on June 8, 2022, and didn’t have float out until March 8, 2023.  Here we are, almost a year later until the, now revised, inaugural sailing.

 

Star just had the keel laid on December 11, 2023, which would put the float in mid September this year.   Tack on the same schedule after float out, and you are looking at the end of August, 2025, but inaugural is being sold for August 4th.

 

 

[Vinnyv20032003]

This is the link for the official weekly ship schedule for the Port of Civitavecchia. I am interested to see over the next week if we see Sun Princess on schedule to arrive prior to the 28th. 

 

https://civitavecchia.portmobility.it/en/port-civitavecchia-arrivals-and-departures-real-time

[dides]

Just now, h20skibum said:

It appear they did have a buffer built in, but not a large enough one for this first ship in the class.  They were originally supposed to take possession in December 2023, but obviously something impacted that schedule.  They simply had to know well in advance, and they probably did, but made the decision to try and rush things at the end.

 

I wonder if anyone is looking at the schedule of the Star, because if it follows the same trajectory as the Sun, those August 2025 cruises would be wishful at best.

 

Remember that Sun is the first in the newly designed Sphere class and later ships in the same class, unless incorporating radical changes, will be carbon copies and the shipyard will have a pattern to follow. So maybe less of a risk.

[CruiseCrabs]

11 hours ago, memoak said:

So why are people screaming about cancelled cruise. I would expect this and never book a new ship that far out. If you book a brand new cruise ship you should expect issues

 

With a completely new fuel system, larger capacity, complex entertainment venues, etc. that have not been seen on Princess before, we passed on the 1.0 version, the Sun, and booked fall on the Star so all glitches could (hopefully) be dealt with on the new LNG ships could be worked out and Princess corporate’s odd, seemingly protracted and delayed partner negotiations (Love by Britto, Spellbound) should not be an challenge like I think those also were. I also think the Sun was conceived under one leadership team and revised under Padgett’s “carnivalization” of the brand, which would certainly result in delays. 
 

By now, I would expect more ship tour videos from Princess of this is a truly revolutionary experience that was ready to sail, even if that may create confusion as it is so different from the other ships in the fleet. Let’s hope we have seen the last of the cancellations for the passengers’ sake and that Princess can share some good news soon.