Princess and the Cays - what a mess!

[DEERINH2O]

I agree that if we miss Grand Cayman I too will be bummed, but it is not the reason I cruise.

 

I would however like to know if anyone has any current information as to whats going on with Princess Cays? When it will reopen if any, my itineary has not been changed at all, but I'm just curious. I love the private islands and would love to go, instead of four sea days.

 

Kathy

[lstone19]

Somehow Princess is finding it in their cruising abilities to now make it to Grand Cayman between Cozumel and Ochos Rios :D

I'm not sure how that's relevant to my post that you quoted with that message. Perhaps you did not understand what I was trying to say which breaks down into two different key points about cruise realities in that part of the Caribbean:

1) If the ship is scheduled to be in Cozumel (or any other Yucatan port) on day X and Jamaica on day X+2, then X+1 can only be a port call in the Cayman Islands or a sea day (at least until such a time as ships can go to Cuba) and

2) If the ship is scheduled to be in a Yucatan port (e.g. Cozumel) on day X, the earliest it can get to Jamaica for a daylight port call is day X+2 - Cozumel and Jamaica cannot be on adjacent days

This same issue with distance is one that has caused no end of problems along with unrealistic expectations for replacing Cartagena on Panama Canal cruises - the distance from the Canal to Aruba is long enough that there must be a sea day or a Cartagena port call in between the Canal and Aruba and consequently, Aruba cannot substitute for Cartagena without other substantial changes to the itinerary even though lots and lots of people want it to be otherwise.

A great resource for finding the distance between ports is Great Circle mapper that a friend of mine runs at http://gc.kls2.com/. You will need to know the airport code for an airport near the port you're interested in and it calculates great circle routes which will sometime take you through land making the sea distance longer but it's still a great tool for coming up with a reasonable estimate for cruising distances. Given a cruising speed of 20 knots (some ships do a little better than that) and assuming a 5pm departure one day and an 8am arrival in the next port the next day, you'll see that 300 nautical miles is about the limit between ports to be visisted on adjacent days (Cozumel to Grand Cayman is 323 nm - greater than the 300 nm I mentioned but handled by deparing earlier in the afternoon or arriving later in the morning - looking at Star Princess's itinerary for this winter, it doesn't arrive in Grand Cayman until noon).

[karenandbrian]

Well apparently everyone took ALL of my posts way to serious. If I offended anyone by whining a little bit because I was not going to get to goto a 4th island (which we are now .. whining must have worked HAHA just kidding) then I am soo sorry. I can't remember who posted this, but yes going to the islands is one of the main reasons we are cruising. I work in a school and he works in carpentry. This is going to probably be our biggest vacation for a long time and our honeymoon to boot. If I want to whine about not getting to goto a 4th island I think I can, just like people have the right to come on and complain about a cruise they took. It is all one persons opinions. If I get the navigations wrong.. oh well .. this is why I am not a ship's captain. Either way we are going to have a great cruise. Hope your cruises are great as well.

 

:cool:

Karen

[randolph]

When we sail the western caribbean route, we always bring our

diving gear and arrainge diving excursions on each island

independant of the ships excursions. A Grand Cayman cancellation

would be a blow but we will still get to dive the other islands.

We're just spoiled with the magic kingdom below. Poor us, then

we have to go back to the ship and relax and eat...oh my god

the thought of it.

 

Still Princess, as with the other cruiselines, should be in politics

with their up front honesty.