Princess Air to Venice Italy?

[mikjr]

We are planning a cruise on the Emerald for late next year (Grand Mediterannian). We have booked the cruise and are wondering if we should book our flight through Princess or book it on our own. I believe we were quoted $1700/person round trip by Princess.

 

I have look through a few past forums and found a few comments, but I'm curious as to anyone that has flown to Italy from the United States, and what their experience was with Princess Air.

[Fredr]

Hello,

 

If $1,700. per person is for air only, you can do better on your own (but be very careful of luggage restrictions if you use a foreign air carrier). And make absolutely sure that you arrive in Venice a minimum of one night before your cruise.

 

If the amount of $1,700 per person includes a hotel stay in Venice before or after your cruise, all transfers, and a tour of Venice then the $1,700 is still high but not unreasonable.

 

By way of comparison, we are going on a transatlantic in April of 2008. I booked our air separately. The fare is $759.00 per person...LAX to Fort Lauderdale, and Barcelona to LAX. Princess wanted $1,000 for air only.

 

Hope that this helps.

 

Fred

[slomotion]

After checking out the air fares on our own and realizing that we were actually booking two one way fares, one LA to Barcelona and one Venice to LA, I decided to try a RT LA to Venice, with a one way on Alitalia from Venice to Barcelona plus a overnight at a hotel near the Venice airport.

 

We will arrive in Venice at about 5:00 PM and leave there at about 7:30 the next morning.

 

Check out Swiss Air & Air France.

 

a

[paul929207]

You can also check the fares on an open jaw arriving in city A going out , but returning from coty B on the return. We found this was much cheaper and easier than Princess air for our cruise next week from Venice to Rome.

[AliceS]

You can also check the fares on an open jaw arriving in city A going out , but returning from coty B on the return. We found this was much cheaper and easier than Princess air for our cruise next week from Venice to Rome.

 

I don't understand. Please tell me about the open jaw and what's coty B?

[Toto2Kansas]

I don't understand. Please tell me about the open jaw and what's coty B?

 

Alice, I think I must read typos well as I would venture to guess 'cody B' was meant to be 'city B'. ;)

[paul929207]

Sorry about the typo. Yes, I did mean city B. That is you are flying to one city but returning from another. In my case, my cruise is from Venice to Rome. So I have an open jaw between those to cities. I fly to Venice. Arrange my own transport from Venice to Rome (the cruise) and then fly home from Rome. The rates are much lower for this if I purchase as an open jaw than if I purchase two one-way tickets. I believe the open jaw must be the shortest of the three distances. Again in my case, both home to Venice and Rome to home are longer trips than Venice to Rome. So I qualify for an open jaw fare.

[phillipahain]

Watch it on European flights though ........luggage allowance is ONLY

One 50 lb bag per person plus only one small size carry on

 

and some European airlines the luggage allowance is only 25 or 30 lbs

The excess luggage charge if you have 2 bags each could be large

[BJS]

.I have look through a few past forums and found a few comments, but I'm curious as to anyone that has flown to Italy from the United States, and what their experience was with Princess Air.

We have Princess air to Italy for Dec. 1st. I don't know where you will be flying from but this is what we did. We are using flying miles from CA to Miami and back.

 

Princess put us on Lufthansa from Miami to Frankfort and then to Rome and we are very pleased with the flights. We leave Miami around 4 pm and arrive in Rome around noon. There is plenty of time in the Frankfort airport, which is a night mare, to make our connections and get something to eat.

 

We have used Princess air before always having paid the "air deviation" fee to get the flights we want but this time we just let them choose the flights since there was only one connection and it is only a one way flight.

 

This is a TA cruise from Rome to Florida so even from CA Princess flights were much cheaper than any we found on our own. If the flights are round trip from Europe you can frequently do better booking your own air. It is the flights that do not return from Europe that are very hard to find anymore for a price that is less than what Princess quotes.

 

 

 

.

[junglejane]

That fare sounds high for late in the year. Try posting on the Cruise Air forum. There are some regular posters on that board who know a lot about airfare.

 

We recently bought our air for our Venice-Barcelona cruise next June. I spent a lot of time looking into this. Venice is a little hard to get to. I absolutely did not want to make more than one connection. I also wanted to avoid London's Heathrow (lots of posts about that on the Cruise Air board, or just google it and you'll get lots of articles about the problems at that airport). Delta has an ATL-VCE nonstop (weekends only, at least in June) and a JFK-VCE nonstop. US Airways has a nonstop from PHL-VCE.

 

I don't see any advantage in your using Princess air. You'll pay more and have no control over your flights. You could pay for custom air, but again you'll usually pay more. That's why I bought my own air (and also bought my own travel insurance). Also look at farecompare dot com. You can see how average fares vary by month. It's not really relevant what someone else pays to fly peak season, if you're flying off peak, and vice versa.

 

--Junglejane

[ylmama]

I am booked on the Aug 16 Grand Med. from Venice to Barcelona. I have looked around between Princess and various other airlines. You can definately do better and with less stops. For example, AA in now flying to Milan. So we are flying LAX to JFK, and then on to Milan. We are spending the night and visiting the Duomo Cathederal and visiting the Last Supper By Leonardo da Vinci. The following day we are taking the train, 2 1/2 to 3 hours to Venice and will get to see some great scenery. American quoted over the phone with tax less then 1400.00 as an open jaw ticket.

Good Luck

P S the flights that I am considering shows the seating is still wide open. So I am going to wait in case there is something special over the next few months.

[Hlitner]

We are planning a cruise on the Emerald for late next year (Grand Mediterannian). We have booked the cruise and are wondering if we should book our flight through Princess or book it on our own. I believe we were quoted $1700/person round trip by Princess.

 

I have look through a few past forums and found a few comments, but I'm curious as to anyone that has flown to Italy from the United States, and what their experience was with Princess Air.

 

 

$1700! Wow! We were just looking at round trip fares for Italy (we are doing a transatlantic to Italy in May and returning on the Emerald in October) and we can get round trip fares for about $800 from the East Coast. Sometimes there are situations where you need 1-way and cannot get a good price. Folks have been known to book round trip and only use half the ticket. We never use cruise line air unless they offer a really good deal that we cannot approximate on our own. Several years ago we did use Princess Air to Venice and I recall we flew through (and changed planes) in Frankfort.

 

Hank

[AliceS]

Thanks Paul929207, I thought it might be a typo, but, someone once told me to use a code that sounded stranger than that and it got me a rt ticket to FLA for less than $200 all tax included. I always ask. No disrespect intended.

[sunsetbeachgal]

We used Princess air on our Med Cruise last year-into Venice and home out of Rome (also your price sounds high-we flew out of Raliegh-Durham and the roundtrip fare was in the $1,100 range), and Princess put us on USAir which worked out fine-not sure where you are flying out of, but US Air has a non-stop flight out of Philadelphia, so we only had one connection. Agree with previous poster-avoid connections in London-Heathrow and also you should avoid Paris-Charles De Gaulle-very large and multi-terminals. I really prefer to do my connections in the US whevever possible-much easier!

[Tina G]

The best thing about arranging your own air transportation is that you will have control over times and carriers! Princess has been known to book VERY inconvenient schedules, and if you do want to spend an extra day in Venice, you will have to pay Princess extra to arrange it. As for their hotel arrangements - $$$$:eek: . No, it is not neccessary to arrive the day before, because I belive that your cruise spends the first night docked, and leaves Venice the following day, so you can save money by not spending a night in a Venice hotel. You do not need Princess transfers, either. Taxis are plentiful, and the waterbus is cheap. Save your money and spend it on a gondola ride on the Grand Canal!:)

[ilmk31]

We are going Sept. 11, 08 on the Grand from Rome to Venice. We have a pre in Rome and a post in Venice. (mostly cause there are some in our party that have never been to either city)

 

We booked on Iberia air from Chicago Ohare for under $1000 pp. Our Princess air is quoted as $1400. Big savings.........

 

Good Luck!

[chasetf]

The best thing about arranging your own air transportation is that you will have control over times and carriers! Princess has been known to book VERY inconvenient schedules, and if you do want to spend an extra day in Venice, you will have to pay Princess extra to arrange it. As for their hotel arrangements - $$$$:eek: . No, it is not neccessary to arrive the day before, because I belive that your cruise spends the first night docked, and leaves Venice the following day, so you can save money by not spending a night in a Venice hotel. You do not need Princess transfers, either. Taxis are plentiful, and the waterbus is cheap. Save your money and spend it on a gondola ride on the Grand Canal!:)

I agree about the air..... We did our own and did it much cheaper than the OP is quoting. We did CA to Rome (on this ship) then (off the ship) Venice to London (stayed over for a few days) then London to CA...... all cheaper by hundreds of $s.

 

I disagree about Venice. I would definitely recommend arriving early and spending time in Venice. It is definitely worth more time than what you will have off the ship which will be a partial day at best counting time to embark and get settled. If the hotel cost is an issue, do what we did.... stay in Mestre. It was only 1 euro each way to catch a train..... and all trains go to Venice...... and all leaving Venice stop at Mestre which is just across the causeway.

[Tina G]

Chasetf, you are right about Venice! I would love to spend an extra week there! However, my point was about the neccesity of flying in the day before (which I would absolutely do on any other cruise) to avoid missing the sailing! If your flight is late for this cruise, you will not miss the ship, as it leaves port the following day. Some of us have time constraints (or pinch pennies like DH). :rolleyes: