The 71st Cruise with Princess was the worst cruise experience ever! Inaugural Sun Princess

[Easyrider949]

 

#PrincessCruises #ILoveThis

After 70 cruises with Princess, the 71st was the worst cruise experience ever! Their new slogan is #ILoveThis, but I don’t think so. If you are planning on booking with Princess be cautious, you might want to look elsewhere. Here is our story, and nobody within Princess even cares.

 

My wife and I decided to book three back-to-back cruises on the new Sun Princess for February 8th, 18th and 28th (Booking numbers 5PDK5T, 5PDK8K and 6KXJDL), and we were very excited to be on these inaugural Sun cruises. We had booked a side trip to Madrid to see some of my wife’s family before we boarded the ship in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Now comes #ILoveThis! 

Princess decided to cancel the February 8th cruise ten days before we were flying out to Madrid due to the ship not being ready to sail. As you can imagine, we were upset about this last minute cancelation of the cruise and our airfare for that segment which was linked to it. We also lost money on housing and sightseeing activities we prepaid for prior to the trip. We had to rebook our new airline tickets via Princess’s EZair site, which then resulted in a few hundred dollars more for our one way flights. However, we were still excited to go on the next two cruises. Princess did a great job on refunding the cost of the first cruise and original airfare. 

 

Now comes the second part of #ILoveThis

Princess decided to cancel the second cruise for February 18th and our linked airfare three days before we were flying out to Rome, Italy. Now, we had no airfare to get to Italy, so we had to rebook new flights one day before we were to leave! Now, you can imagine what international Business Class airline tickets cost one to two days prior to a flight. Our new airline pricing went up over 100% over the original EZair pricing to $9,325.60 for a one-way ticket for both of us. We were very upset, so we asked Princess to honor our original flight pricing due to their failure to give us reasonable notification in canceling our cruise and flights. They did not! If we didn’t pay for the new airfare pricing that day, they would cancel our third segment for lack of payment, and we would lose the cost of the third cruise. We were held hostage by Princess! 

 

Now comes the last part of #ILoveThis 

Now, we finally made it to the new Sun Princess on February 28th, we decided to make the most of the third segment, but Princess wasn’t done with us. No, they weren’t. We made it to our room, and we quickly walked out to our large premium balcony in order to look out over the port, but guess what happened? #ILoveThis, a worker on the ship just painted the trough in front of the balcony railing with no signs of wet paint up, so we stepped on to the freshly painted area, and we ruined our shoes which in turn left footprints on the new decking!

 

After all the many long phone calls and emails to various departments and people within Princess to resolve our issues, no one within Princess’s organization cares about the customer experience. It’s all just talk, #ILoveThis.

 

If you are a current customer OR a prospective customer of #PrincessCruises be aware if they cancel your cruise due to their issues, they won’t help you or make you whole, and they don’t really care about your loyalty to them. We talked to other customers that were recognized as being the “Forty Most Traveled” with 70+ Princess cruises that had similar issues on their Sun Princess B2B bookings.

 

But for their late cancellation and lack of transparency, we would not have been financially injured. 

 

[NeutralNovice]

I'm really sorry you had to go through all of this. Hopefully this is just the growing pains of a brand new class of ship. I'm hoping that it will all be smoothed out come for my November 9 cruise on the Sun.

 

Best of luck on your future cruises!  Hopefully there's nowhere to go but up!

[PacnGoNow]

What a nightmare!  

 

No excuse for cancelling so close to departure, especially the 2nd cruise. 

No excuse for the EZAir flight protection and twice?  I thought the cancellation letter said your EZAir flight would be protected.

Was there nothing available to protect?

 

So sorry this happened and even worse….twice.
SMH

 

BTW, I’d ask @Host CJSKIDS

if it’s possible to delete those booking numbers in your post.  Private information.

[Shippy]

I have read many reviews that have said ....no matter how appealing it sounds to take an Inaugural Cruise....Do Not Do It !

   most always LOTS of problems including ones like you mention.

So sorry for your experience    :O(

[Lady Arwen]

So sorry you had to go through this.  Exactly why we never, ever book a sailing on a new ship for the first six months or more.  Inaugural sailings sound like so much fun, but so many people have been seriously disappointed.  This is applicable to the entire cruise industry, not just Princess.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, PacnGoNow said:

What a nightmare!  

 

No excuse for cancelling so close to departure, especially the 2nd cruise. 

No excuse for the EZAir flight protection and twice?  I thought the cancellation letter said your EZAir flight would be protected.

Was there nothing available to protect?

 

So sorry this happened and even worse….twice.
SMH

 

BTW, I’d ask @Host CJSKIDS

if it’s possible to delete those booking numbers in your post.  Private information.

Those booking numbers are superfluous to the post, but also do not mean much since the voyages are completed and you would need a name and birthdate at the least to do anything with them.

[PacnGoNow]

10 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Those booking numbers are superfluous to the post, but also do not mean much since the voyages are completed and you would need a name and birthdate at the least to do anything with them.

True, unless you are a TA or a ONE employee looking for leads.

 

[Easyrider949]

5 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

Those booking numbers are superfluous to the post, but also do not mean much since the voyages are completed and you would need a name and birthdate at the least to do anything with them.

As you know, Princess does monitor these posts. From my perspective, those booking numbers are not superfluous to me and/or to Princess. They were meant for Princess to know exactly who we are and not for the general CruiseCritic viewers. I can understand from your view point you don’t like them, so I’m sorry you had take millisecond to read them.
 

I’m still hoping Princess will step up to the plate and make this right for us.

[AZjohn]

Did you have cruise insurance??

[Easyrider949]

1 minute ago, AZjohn said:

Did you have cruise insurance??

Cruise insurance will not cover this situation, for the fact that this was a new Airline ticket and not a canceled ticket, Princess did refund the original EZair ticket amount, but they did not honor our original airline ticket pricing amount. Had they done that, this would not be an issue. This situation just falls outside of any insurance coverage.

[Esprit]

Sorry to read your misfortune.

With all your cruise experience I would have thought you would have had a "Plan B"? 

Taking non direct flights also cost considerably less when flying "last minute".

Whilst beneath some, I would have accepted economy seats just to get where I wanted to be.

Edited March 15 by Esprit

[Steelers36]

31 minutes ago, Easyrider949 said:

As you know, Princess does monitor these posts. From my perspective, those booking numbers are not superfluous to me and/or to Princess. They were meant for Princess to know exactly who we are and not for the general CruiseCritic viewers. I can understand from your view point you don’t like them, so I’m sorry you had take millisecond to read them.
 

I’m still hoping Princess will step up to the plate and make this right for us.

Ahh.. I see what you were looking to do there.

[Easyrider949]

21 minutes ago, Esprit said:

Sorry to read your misfortune.

With all your cruise experience I would have thought you would have had a "Plan B"? 

Taking non direct flights also cost considerably less when flying "last minute".

Whilst beneath some, I would have accepted economy seats just to get where I wanted to be.

First, We did not have direct flights. Second, it’s not beneath us to fly economy, we used to always fly that way, but due to physical/medical conditions now are we willing to pay extra to help out our conditions. As far as “Plan B” is concerned, it was either fly to make our cruise or not fly and forfeit the cruise and lose all of our money. All due to Princesses last minute cancellation. If they would have canceled both the 8th & 18th at the same time, we probably would have avoided this problem.

Edited March 15 by Easyrider949

[SunshineCoast]

18 minutes ago, Esprit said:

Sorry to read your misfortune.

With all your cruise experience I would have thought you would have had a "Plan B"? 

Taking non direct flights also cost considerably less when flying "last minute".

Whilst beneath some, I would have accepted economy seats just to get where I wanted to be.

Really!  If that is your 'sorry' reply, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of something you wasn't empathetic about.

[Bemidji Ty]

Reminds me of the old joke, "Other than that, How'd you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

[tonit964]

So sorry this happened to you, very disappointing for sure. I couldn't image how it would feel to see that cancellation notice come in.

I hope your next cruise makes up for it ten fold.

[memoak]

Just one more example of why I will not cruise any ship for the first 2 months.  There are always things that aren’t ready or need to get fixed

 

[KKB]

Unfortunately inaugural sailings are a risk--they just might not be ready to sail.

And even if they sail, it is likely they will still be working out issues.

And booking B2B2B out of the inaugural--sadly, that compounded it.

 

I have always thought an inaugural would be fun...but MAYBE NOT.

 

Sorry this all happened to you.

Hoping Princess is paying attention.

 

[PacnGoNow]

I understand your intention to get the attention of PCL.  I really hope you have sent this to them directly and ask they compensate you for your losses.

 

You could send it to customer relations and/or top level management.  Then, of course, include those booking numbers.

 

 

 

[dog]

3 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

I understand your intention to get the attention of PCL.  I really hope you have sent this to them directly and ask they compensate you for your losses.

 

You could send it to customer relations and/or top level management.  Then, of course, include those booking numbers.

 

 

 

I might of given that advise in the past.

 

customer relations responded to my issue by passing the buck to a self appointed CVP that gave me the run around.

 

if anyone gets any acceptable compensation for all this mess re: SUN, I’d like to hear from them.

 

Many of the glowing reports on fb etc are coming from those in the travel industry.

 

Sorry to OP.

[DallasGuy75219]

2 hours ago, Easyrider949 said:

As you know, Princess does monitor these posts. From my perspective, those booking numbers are not superfluous to me and/or to Princess. They were meant for Princess to know exactly who we are and not for the general CruiseCritic viewers.

If multiple calls and emails to directly to Princess didn't get you anywhere, I don't understand why you think you'll get different or better results hoping someone from Princess reading this cares to look up your booking numbers and get involved. 

[CU64]

The original poster must have had travel experience with 70 cruises, which is why I would ask a simple question: Why? Why did you need to go now…knowing any inaugural cruise problems…and supply issues for anything, especially since Covid. Then to add 3 cruises. What were you thinking? And to use EZ Air in this era of flight problems. Now you want Princess to take care of your lost money? I am in disbelief.

[IndyKid]

Reminder to self - never EVER book a cruise ship until it's been in service at least a year. 

[icat2000]

Isn't this a matter for lodging a travel insurance claim.

Edited March 16 by icat2000

[GonzoWCS]

Bad news to be sure