Sun Princess - Original

[antsp]

6 hours ago, Cdude said:

Greed is a pretty good motive. Poorly run companies put their short-term profits ahead of long-term interests. Stuff happens all the time; it’s how a company deals with it that makes the difference! Their handling WILL cost them future revenue. Personally, I’m done with Princess. Just booked Celebrity Apex over the holidays yesterday. I have also shared this story with lots of family, friends, and coworkers. Word spreads really fast now with social media including this forum for cruise enthusiasts, their target market.

Now I've read this post, I've cancelled all 6 Princess cruises I've got booked. Thank you for the advice 

[Cdude]

7 minutes ago, antsp said:

Now I've read this post, I've cancelled all 6 Princess cruises I've got booked. Thank you for the advice 

Some people think a company can get away with anything and that competition is not enough to drive change. Remember MCI Worldcomm, AIG, Lehman Bros? All too big to ever fail until mismanagement sunk the ship, pun intended! Somehow other companies survived.

[insidecabin]

30 minutes ago, Vinnyv20032003 said:

We noticed the February/March sailings all go ‘Sold Out’ right around the same time. Something tells me this occurred right around new years. Princess may have blocked rooms on these sailings when they recognized there were going to be delivery issues.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if rooms were blocked for contractors to assist with completing work on the ship or more likely Princess blocked rooms to ensure these first 6-7 sailings would not sail at full passenger capacity.

Nonetheless, that Barcelona disembarkation/embarkation will be interesting to say the least!

When I started looking no Insides were for sale this was before the cruises were blocked.

 

That was upto 460 held back.

 

Did the us ever have insides available?

[Vinnyv20032003]

7 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

When I started looking no Insides were for sale this was before the cruises were blocked.

 

That was upto 460 held back.

 

Did the us ever have insides available?

I am 99% positive I saw Inside cabin availability at some point in time. I was specifically monitoring Feb 8 thru March 29th 2024 sailings, starting in June/July 2023.

[Hobby3333]

I am still waiting for Princess to be forthcoming and be fully transparent and explain to their paying customers exactly what is going on.   For full transparency, I am not sailing until July and the delay has not affected me.  But, I have been on over 50 cruises on other lines.  I have never cruised on Princess.   Inquiring minds would like to know why the delay.  I promise I can handle the truth but have a difficult time Princess not being forthcoming.  We plan on still cruising on the Sun in July and see if we want to book Princess in the future or stay with HAL and MSC YC.

[fpsphil]

1 hour ago, machmack said:

And then there is the €s. How much does Princess have to pay to stay at Malfacone vs Civi?

Always a factor.

Would assume it’s cheaper/free to stay in Malfacone due to the fact there is likely work still being done by fincantereri

[MountainEER74]

Changing the subject from what a rotten, greedy, horrible company Princess is, I for one am still looking forward to my April cruise on the Sun Princess. I saw this on Facebook today and have not seen any mention on this thread. BritsOnAShip have a web site that details almost every article and social media post, pictures and reels about both the Sun Princess and Star Princess. You might want to check it out at BritsOnAShip.com.

[insidecabin]

37 minutes ago, fpsphil said:

Would assume it’s cheaper/free to stay in Malfacone due to the fact there is likely work still being done by fincantereri

If you can you get out, to avoid charges you leave promo  and go slow to save fuel.

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, lstone19 said:

 

Probably a little less. I make it a little under 1,000 nautical miles from Monfalcone to Civitavecchia. At 20 knots (I expect the ship can do a little better - most cruise ships seem to have a top speed of 21 to 22 knots), that's a little under 50 hours (2 days, 2 hours). Add a little time for undocking and docking. So long as it sails by 4:00a on the 26th, it can be in Rome by 6:00am on the 28th.

I understand but I would think they leave some safety leeway fudge-factor in there.  I did a sea plot on a random website I came across using Google.  Was it seaports.com - something similar.  Anyway, the route plotted was not direct but did seem to go outside a lane I thought.  There are some islands to go around at times such as north of Sicily.  Anyway, I doubt the Captain would cut it that close.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, Mara4166 said:

Are upgrade bids available in the UK?  I have not been following recently as no cruise booked, but last I heard UK residents were excluded.

 

[TRLD]

2 hours ago, Hobby3333 said:

I am still waiting for Princess to be forthcoming and be fully transparent and explain to their paying customers exactly what is going on.   For full transparency, I am not sailing until July and the delay has not affected me.  But, I have been on over 50 cruises on other lines.  I have never cruised on Princess.   Inquiring minds would like to know why the delay.  I promise I can handle the truth but have a difficult time Princess not being forthcoming.  We plan on still cruising on the Sun in July and see if we want to book Princess in the future or stay with HAL and MSC YC.

Pretty simple it was not ready for a quality cruise experience.

 

From news reports it was turned over so it was sea worthy, it was staffed because there have been reports from various crew members, from news articles referenced earlier they were planning to sail to the port with a large number of contractors on board to finish during the 4 days before the cruise.

 

Then they decided to cancel because apparently they felt they could not complete enough to deliver a good cruise experience.

 

I doubt they will publish the exact punch list of what those contractors still had to complete or the exact reason why they decided to cancel instead of heading to the port with the contractors. A delayed shipment, tasks getting finished slower than expected, etc.  Could be any number or combinations of reasons.

 

Bottom line it was not ready for a quality cruise experience. Better to cancel and refund, then to sail with things not fully complete, potentially not all venues open and maybe contractors occupying some cabins like an NCL Panama Canal cruise after dry dock a few years ago.

Edited February 18 by TRLD

[Mara4166]

39 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

Not certain which of the posts in this topic is relevant to the UK and bidding for upgrades.  There are a few too many for me to read them all.  Last I read I was at page 53 and now there are 82 pages of comments on the bidding system

[Wishing on a star]

I know that, at this point, this is all about how, if, and when the SUN will finally sail...

But, I am just wanting to confirm that the Dining reservation on the APP is not open or operational for cruises in the future.

DH downloaded the new APP...  And you can pull up Dining Reservations, but it always just shows that none are available for booking.

[lstone19]

4 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

I know that, at this point, this is all about how, if, and when the SUN will finally sail...

But, I am just wanting to confirm that the Dining reservation on the APP is not open or operational for cruises in the future.

DH downloaded the new APP...  And you can pull up Dining Reservations, but it always just shows that none are available for booking.

 

As far as I know, that's true for all but what the first two or three cruises. We board Apr 27 and cannot make dining reservations yet.

[UKWildcatCruiser]

On 2/17/2024 at 12:20 AM, timcahill98 said:

Perhaps they did.  But like me, my travel insurance doesn't consider a cancellation by the carrier to be a covered loss.  So please don't assume that "travel insurance" covers all expenses or situations.

Exactly!  This was not a covered loss under my insurance plan.

[dides]

Just now, MountainEER74 said:

 BritsOnAShip have a web site that details almost every article and social media post, pictures and reels about both the Sun Princess and Star Princess. You might want to check it out at BritsOnAShip.com.

Ahem - points to my signature. C'est moi 

[SouKnoMe]

@dides the post with the links that you posted, the first lady had several other good images of the ship. Thank you. 
 

Oh may I ask, did you rebook on a later itinerary of the Sun?

[dides]

Just now, SouKnoMe said:

@dides

Oh may I ask, did you rebook on a later itinerary of the Sun?

We have placeholder bookings for the September TA and US inaugural but my project at work may prevent us from going. Though Princess UK PR have invited bloggers and vloggers for a day/evening visit when she stays overnight in Southampton.  Not exactly making up for our lost inaugural though! 

 

 

 

Edited February 18 by dides

[MountainEER74]

1 hour ago, dides said:

Ahem - points to my signature. C'est moi 

Thanks for compiling all this information.

[Meldrum]

2 hours ago, lstone19 said:

 

As far as I know, that's true for all but what the first two or three cruises. We board Apr 27 and cannot make dining reservations yet.

Same here, we are on the March 29 sailing and booking a restaurant is not possible yet. The message is: ‘There are no available restaurants’. 
 

[jwattle]

23 minutes ago, Meldrum said:

Same here, we are on the March 29 sailing and booking a restaurant is not possible yet. The message is: ‘There are no available restaurants’. 
 

Yours might be because you have Reserve Collection? 🙂

 

[Meldrum]

4 minutes ago, jwattle said:

Yours might be because you have Reserve Collection? 🙂

 

We stay in a Reserve Mini Cabana Suite on deck 9. For us, a very new kind of cabin. Very excited about this :-). Yes, we can dine in the Reserve restaurant without reservation. But we also want to try most of the speciality dining restaurants (apart from Kai Sushi). I'm pretty sure we are also obliged to make reservations for these, but they are not yet available for online reservation. I have to be very patience...

[MacMadame]

 Personally, I think canceling with 4-5 days' notice is really bad and I understand those people being even more upset than the ones who got canceled on with more notice who I can also see being upset that they are no longer going on the "inaugural" cruise.

 

I really hope that, if the next cruise gets canceled, there is much more notice.

 

OTOH, I have friends who booked that 3-year cruise so I know it can be worse, much much worse. 🤣

 

11 hours ago, Cdude said:

 have also shared this story with lots of family, friends, and coworkers. Word spreads really fast now with social media including this forum for cruise enthusiasts, their target market.

And if any of them cruise, and decide to book a cruise and Princess has the best price for the itinerary they want, I'd be shocked if they didn't book it.

 

I certainly am not going to cancel my cruise on a completely different ship that is almost a year away because this happened. It would take a lot of missteps over a longer period of time that would point to us not enjoying that particular cruise. I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.

[New2cruise2022]

5 hours ago, Hobby3333 said:

I am still waiting for Princess to be forthcoming and be fully transparent and explain to their paying customers exactly what is going on.   For full transparency, I am not sailing until July and the delay has not affected me.  But, I have been on over 50 cruises on other lines.  I have never cruised on Princess.   Inquiring minds would like to know why the delay.  I promise I can handle the truth but have a difficult time Princess not being forthcoming.  We plan on still cruising on the Sun in July and see if we want to book Princess in the future or stay with HAL and MSC YC.

They are going to put the Sun out on the water. They will never provide the transparency you want. And they shouldn’t have to. We don’t need to know how the sausage is made. We either like the sausage or we don’t. 

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

3 hours ago, lstone19 said:

 

As far as I know, that's true for all but what the first two or three cruises. We board Apr 27 and cannot make dining reservations yet.

Dont worry. Just follow this thread. As soon as we can book specialty restaurants or the dinning room, we will let this board know!  🤪

 

I’m on the April 8th sailing and I’ll post immediately after it takes my specialty reservation.  We are in a suite so I can’t comment on the Main Dining Room.