Princess New York cruise this fall - need hotel but Princess hasn't announced terminal yet

[pearlinky]

I am a total cruise newby... and I don't know NY at all. We are flying into NY the day before our cruise leaves, but Princess hasn't posted whether the cruise will depart from the Manhattan or Brooklyn terminals. I've asked about it, and was told they won't know for awhile yet. I'd like to find a hotel that I can get a taxi/etc. that will take us to whichever terminal is announced. Or do you have a better idea for me? I appreciate your help.

[navybankerteacher]

I’m surprised that you have not been advised.  I do know that Princess regularly sails from Brooklyn - you might want to look at hotels in lower Manhattan: more interesting, safer neighborhood, with good restaurants, very convenient to the passenger ferry which takes you to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

[TheOldBear]

The NY Cruise web page has schedules through year's end. Princess seems to be using the Brooklyn terminal - schedule at https://cruise.nyc/BCT-Schedule 

 

There are several threads on this forum where hotels are recommended for Brooklyn departures [we are almost local, so have not explored any hotel options].

[lx200gps]

15 hours ago, pearlinky said:

I am a total cruise newby... and I don't know NY at all. We are flying into NY the day before our cruise leaves, but Princess hasn't posted whether the cruise will depart from the Manhattan or Brooklyn terminals. I've asked about it, and was told they won't know for awhile yet. I'd like to find a hotel that I can get a taxi/etc. that will take us to whichever terminal is announced. Or do you have a better idea for me? I appreciate your help.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. This is a strange issue peculiar to Princess, and nobody can figure out why they are confusing in this one issue. Their web site, and all their documents you receive for your cruise, will say "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn)", but it's 99.9% guaranteed that you will, as others have said, be sailing from Brooklyn. As a general rule with Princess, they use Brooklyn for cruises that start and end in NY, but use the Manhattan Cruise terminal on the Hudson as an intermediate stop when a ship visits New York. There are very few exceptions to this rule. Keep checking your documents and the Cruise Personalizer for your specific voyage though. IIRC, there will be one of your docs (Travel Summary, Booking Confirmation etc) or the Personalizer page showing the itinerary (Sorry, can't remember which) that will give the actual terminal you will be sailing from. It will still confusingly say "New York City (Manhattan or Brooklyn)" but will then give the street address of the BCT, confirming that you would be sailing from Brooklyn.

Edited April 6 by lx200gps

[1025cruise]

Princess sales from Brooklyn.

[pearlinky]

I am so glad I posted here! You've taken so much stress out of my trip planning. You have saved me hours of fumbling through sites. Thanks.

Edited April 6 by pearlinky

[Nitemare]

There's no guarantee that they won't change, but I'd count on it staying Brooklyn.  The good news is, it's pretty easy to get to either port from anywhere in Brooklyn or Manhattan.  Subways, ferries, uber/taxi all run all the time

[CQG67]

They are also listed from Manhattan on the manhattan schedules for this fall.  My Oct 19 cruise is listed in both terminals.  My question is how pricey are vehicle services to get me from my hotel near jfk to one of these terminals?  Old days it would have been $100.  That ship has sailed.  I got a recent quote for $330.  Ouch!

[njhorseman]

36 minutes ago, CQG67 said:

They are also listed from Manhattan on the manhattan schedules for this fall.  My Oct 19 cruise is listed in both terminals.  My question is how pricey are vehicle services to get me from my hotel near jfk to one of these terminals?  Old days it would have been $100.  That ship has sailed.  I got a recent quote for $330.  Ouch!

Assuming you're on the Enchanted Princess, the official port schedule has your departing from Brooklyn. There are no Princess cruises departing Manhattan on that date. Why Princess continues this nonsense of saying Brooklyn or Manhattan is beyond me. Those arrangements are made months, indeed probably years in advance.

https://cruise.nyc/BCT-Schedule

 

As for transportation, I don't know who's quoting $339, but something around $100 or even less is more like it via taxi, Uber/Lyft or a car service such as Carmel Limo or Dial 7. 

[princeton123211]

3 hours ago, CQG67 said:

Old days it would have been $100.  That ship has sailed.  I got a recent quote for $330.  Ouch!

 

3 hours ago, njhorseman said:

As for transportation, I don't know who's quoting $339, but something around $100 or even less is more like it via taxi, Uber/Lyft or a car service such as Carmel Limo or Dial 7. 

Agree-- $330 is not what the market bares and you were getting gouged. Even for top end black car services (higher end than what Carmel or Dial7 provide) it's more like $180-200 to go from JFK to Manhattan Cruise Terminal or Brooklyn Cruise Terminal all in with tips, tolls, etc. Personally I would just Uber for a lot less than that. 

[CQG67]

Thanks. I’m thinking Uber or our hotel uses a service that’s affordable.  I know a lot of these private services are a joke.  We found that out on a trip to Annapolis last year.  Needed transport from Baltimore to Annapolis and they wanted over$300.  Uber cost us $98.  When I go on the Manhattan cruise schedule they continue to show the Enchanted on the 19th but I’ve always gone out of red hook on princess.  Thanks for your help.

[TheOldBear]

The Manhattan schedule https://cruise.nyc/MCT-schedule does have a few Princess sailings, but the Manhattan October 19 sailing is a Viking ship. 

Note that the cruise.nyc schedules are the official schedules as posted by the cruise terminal operator [always subject to update - but they are the current schedules].

Some terminal operators [e.g ABP in Southampton UK] have schedules including arrival and departure times, but cruise.nyc only lists the scheduled day.

[njhorseman]

50 minutes ago, CQG67 said:

When I go on the Manhattan cruise schedule they continue to show the Enchanted on the 19th but I’ve always gone out of red hook on princess.

It does not show Enchanted Princess leaving from Manhattan, it shows that  the ship departs from Brooklyn. In my previous post I gave you the link to the Brooklyn schedule page of the official port website. Here it is again: https://cruise.nyc/BCT-Schedule .

 

[CQG67]

Thanks. I believe you honest.  I just know last week when I typed in cruise schedules out of Manhattan pier they listed the enchanted on the 19th which had me really confused since it was also listed to leave out if the Brooklyn port.  I’ve always understood red hook was the main Princess port.  Today it’s not posted there any longer.  It was there I promise.  If I remember last time we sailed out of red hook we passed the Statue of Liberty which was pretty awesome.  We are flying into jfk only the night before (I have NO desire - sadly- to subject myself to what that city has become.)  It’s a shame.  We are staying at a Hilton right by airport and then getting driven to red hook next morning.  I was told that trip should only run around $100 and a 25 minute ride. It’s a Saturday so no work traffic. Same thing going from port to airport.  Almost same distance and also a Saturday.  I have Uber app on my phone and guess it’s safe there daytime. And there’s four of us mean old ladies! 

[lx200gps]

1 hour ago, TheOldBear said:

The Manhattan schedule https://cruise.nyc/MCT-schedule does have a few Princess sailings, but the Manhattan October 19 sailing is a Viking ship. 

Note that the cruise.nyc schedules are the official schedules as posted by the cruise terminal operator [always subject to update - but they are the current schedules].

Some terminal operators [e.g ABP in Southampton UK] have schedules including arrival and departure times, but cruise.nyc only lists the scheduled day.

We need to dig a bit deeper to find out the real situation here. If you look at the Princess site and drill down to the SPECIFIC dates that have Princess ships at the MCT, it is very clear that all of them are in-transit stops where the MCT is an intermediate stop on a longer voyage, so NOT the origin/destination of the trip. As has been stated many times on this (and other) threads, Princess trips that start and then return to New York, will be from Brooklyn.  There will be very, very, few exceptions to this rule.

[Brighton Line]

The Brooklyn Terminal was specifically built for Princess and Cunard, I've only sailed Princess from NY from the Brooklyn Terminal except returning after Hurricane Sandy since the Brooklyn Pier and parking lot were underwater we went up to the Manhattan Terminal to disembark and embark the next cruise. 

[Nitemare]

On 4/17/2024 at 12:14 PM, CQG67 said:

Thanks. I believe you honest.  I just know last week when I typed in cruise schedules out of Manhattan pier they listed the enchanted on the 19th which had me really confused since it was also listed to leave out if the Brooklyn port.  I’ve always understood red hook was the main Princess port.  Today it’s not posted there any longer.  It was there I promise.  If I remember last time we sailed out of red hook we passed the Statue of Liberty which was pretty awesome.  We are flying into jfk only the night before (I have NO desire - sadly- to subject myself to what that city has become.)  It’s a shame.  We are staying at a Hilton right by airport and then getting driven to red hook next morning.  I was told that trip should only run around $100 and a 25 minute ride. It’s a Saturday so no work traffic. Same thing going from port to airport.  Almost same distance and also a Saturday.  I have Uber app on my phone and guess it’s safe there daytime. And there’s four of us mean old ladies! 

You really SHOULD see the city, it's vibrant and alive and pretty darn special.  We were there 2 weekends ago for 4 days and it was amazing.  Clean, fewer homeless than we expected, the subways were running on time and are cheap, and we walked and walked all over the place.

 

Ignore what you see on curated TV and websites and ask people who have been there

[navybankerteacher]

3 hours ago, Nitemare said:

You really SHOULD see the city, it's vibrant and alive and pretty darn special.  We were there 2 weekends ago for 4 days and it was amazing.  Clean, fewer homeless than we expected, the subways were running on time and are cheap, and we walked and walked all over the place.

 

Ignore what you see on curated TV and websites and ask people who have been there

Good to see an objective, reality based post concerning New York.  Sure, there are some problems in our society, but NYC is handling them a lot better than most other communities - the press likes to hype stories - but the city is actually very safe in most areas.

[CQG67]

Glad to hear this.  It’s always been such a vibrant city.  My last visit was really great and we walked all over the place - never saw anything threatening or scary.  That was a few years back though.  I have talked to a few people who have been recently and they tell a somewhat different story.  Maybe depends on where you wander. No matter what city - four older women alone should always be cautious.  

[Nitemare]

1 hour ago, CQG67 said:

Glad to hear this.  It’s always been such a vibrant city.  My last visit was really great and we walked all over the place - never saw anything threatening or scary.  That was a few years back though.  I have talked to a few people who have been recently and they tell a somewhat different story.  Maybe depends on where you wander. No matter what city - four older women alone should always be cautious.  

Let's see, we walked from the east end of Canal street by the river, along the bottom of the island, up to midtown (45th street?) along the Hudson, across to midtown (as far as 5th avenue).  Probably walked every street and avenue from 5th to 9th and from 50th to 36th.  Also walked Broadway from Tribeca to Midtown and 5th and 7th avenues from midtown to Tribeca.

 

So I can say those areas were clean and felt safe for us two staying on an AARP rate.

 

It was tough to get restaurant reservations and theater tickets were harder to get than our other post covid visits, so I guess one could say that was a negative?

[CQG67]

2 hours ago, Nitemare said:

That’s a whole lot of walking.  Wow! We probably did almost as much on our trip but we were a few years younger.  There was four of us - My hubby and myself and our best friends.  That kind of walking sadly isn’t in our future any longer.  Hubby recuperating from total knee replaced and we both of arthritis in our backs.  Getting old isn’t fun for sure.  But I’m glad we did the things we did when we could.  My niece and great niece were just up in NYC a couple of weeks ago and walked all over and said they never saw anything bad.  They did avoid the subway.  They were scouting out living arrangements ( a big yikes) as my great niece starts her job with a large law firm up there in October.).  Should be interesting.  She comes from having lived in a 5000 square foot house with her folks. Graduating from Richmond Law School in May.  I appreciate your info and thank you kindly.