Riley_Mon

Yesterday was an exceptionally bad day to fly. Original flight was canceled, put on connecting flights , then departing flight was delayed by 12 hours, then delayed again so that we were arriving 30 minutes after the connecting flight, 2 hour wait time on the phone so we go to the airport, agent said take that flight, go to Atlanta, spend the night and we will comp you a hotel. He advises to get my luggage in Atlanta. The delayed flight is then canceled. Now catch last minute flight to Orlando so that I can catch connecting flight to Atlanta. Orlando gate agent says do not get your luggage, we will send it to Seattle. Orlando flight is delayed, arrive with 10 minutes before Atlanta flight, luckily Atlanta flight is also delayed. arrive in Atlanta around Midnight. Line for customer service is about 100 people deep. They announce after standing in line for almost an hour and nowhere close to the desk they have no more hotel rooms to give. By then it was after 1am and we were going to have to be back at the airport anyways around 5am to see if we can get on a Seattle flight as we are on Standby on a flight that gets us in at noon. We have seats on a later flight but it is cutting cut too close for the ship departure. We are sitting in Atlanta at the moment with a bunch of angry people surrounding us. No idea at the moment where our luggage is, we checked baggage claim last night and it wasn’t there. Hopefully gate agent can shed some light when they open up

I looked at my options and they didn't really do much for me. I was going thru Atlanta no matter what. It happens, in this case it just compounds what is already a vacation that was a bit of a downer.

the main culprit here is called obligation to stockholders and the decisions that go into driving that.

Thought I'd start this thread for tomorrow's cruise. One thing I've learned the hard way on this 3rd attempt to cruise since 2020 is you absolutely cannot have a tight schedule. After arriving at our hotel close to the airport last night to make sure we had plenty of time to get on our 6:00am direct flight thru Delta, at 2:10am we received notification our flight was canceled and we were rebooked on a flight departing at 5:40PM now connecting thru Atlanta, middle row seats assigned. The flight to Atlanta was a delayed flight from 8:10am earlier. Will this flight actually take off? Its anyone's guess at this point. Today we had planned on hiking near Mt. Rainier with a non refundable rental car and hotel booking. Looking back in order to make sure we could have hiked Rainier we should have booked our flight for Thursday night. So , setting aside the generally salty attitude I had with Princess, I am now out roughly $350 due to Delta not being able to have flights for whatever reason not counting the hotel money spent last night. I'm sure the cancellation is staffing related. I really , really wanted to hike the glacier basin trail today. I try to understand, its all part of the world we live in now, but no one who plans a once in a lifetime trip for 3 years wants to approach it with a be thankful for whatever you get attitude, and I especially don't want to hear it from anyone else who isn't going thru it. So my advice to anyone planning a vacation is, the best insurance is put in plenty of downtime between major vacation events. We made sure to book our arrival flight the day before so our cruise is not in jeopardy - at least not at the moment, but whatever plans we had for the day are gone. Quite frankly the reason we didn't cancel the cruise after all the nonsense Princess is putting us thru was the hiking we had planned to bookend the trips. Seems like our battle to have a memorable vacation (in a positive way) is lost even with the substantial amount of planning effort. Perhaps the real punch in the stomach from Princess and Delta in all of this is that this is just now business as usual. Delta's email conveyed no empathy or acknowledgement with the level of inconvenience they have put on us. The "your flight is canceled , you have been rebooked to the best available option - connecting flights thru Atlanta in middle row seats just has a certain level of callousness to it I'm not prepared for - and yes I am a frequent flyer, while Princess provides us with itinerary changes that includes a note at the bottom reminding us we signed a cruise contract allowing them to cancel ports they were using as selling points to sell the cruise in the first place. Anyways maybe I'll make it to the ship, maybe I won't, who knows. Looks like I have plenty of time to read the details on my vacation insurance I bought from Princess.

I would guess their excuse is they are hoping to improve the performance of the ship to make those stops but no one at this point would really believe it. I can't imagine how angry I would be signing up for cruise in July/August without knowing these issues and then finding out Princess had known all along this ports were in jeopardy. I'm pretty angry signing up for the June 18th cruise as it is.

canceling the cruises is probably the right thing to do. Princess is taking a hit everywhere with disgruntled passengers who are unhappy with how this has been handled and the service delivered. I know some people make the best of it and kudos to them for having that kind of outlook. But putting people on a ship that is not mechanically sound is just a bad decision no matter what the economic situation is for them.

we work with a TA thru our company, they always offer something above and beyond whatever the cruise line is offer - a $50 gift card or OBC I wish I had worked with them from day one. I will never book a cruise directly again

what would be a really bad move is to announce that IPS is now dropped for cruises in July - timing the announcement with that 30 day no cancellation clause. At this point I wouldn't doubt that is the motivation.

perfectly fine English - yes any desire to help me - no

as I understand they have dropped it, but that may not extend beyond the 18th sailing

very cool

hope it offers enough positives to overlook the negatives I'm focusing on staying healthy leading up and during the cruise now (I'm on the 18th)

so since my last posting they have moved me into another whale watching excursion, the 6:30 one I mentioned earlier. It is $60 cheaper per person than my original one I assume because it does not include a meal. At this point I guess I'm just happy for the opportunity to have an excursion.

that is straight up unacceptable

one is, but it was posted already booked full with a new time of 6:30-10:30 mine was scheduled to begin at 5:15 which was the "evening whale watching". The link for it no longer exists, so at the moment I am assuming it is canceled and no one has told me. When the cruise was still beyond the 30 day window, I didn't cancel because we didn't have anything scheduled for Ketchikan and I had the evening whale watching, so we figured ok, at the moment this cruise hasn't dramatically changed for us. Then the notice for dropping Icy Point and late times for Juneau came out after the 30 day window had passed for us Its sad that I've waited 3 years for this cruise, had it canceled twice due to Covid and when it finally arrives, I don't even want to go on it - its not anything close to what I signed up for. Each day I get a little bit more motivated to go on a PR nightmare tour for Princess over this.

got the letter last night too. $100, probably $50 of which is returned port fees for Ketchican that we already paid. still irritated with the updated excursions for Juneau. 11 excursions listed, anything with limited numbers was posted already booked full. No notice of removed excursions being updated or cancelled.

looks like the facebook group is lighting up with Crown complaints

it looks like they updated the shore excursions for Juneau on our trip. Several are missing at the moment. I clicked on a whale watching excursion that is not scheduled to begin at 6:30pm. It may be that they kept the original people and adjusted their times, but its sold out My excursion is no longer listed and the link to it - at the moment at least , is dead Every day is just a little more disappointing dealing with this cruise

I plan to make the most of it as well. I don't know that I will ever go back to Alaska which is why this is so frustrating, but I'm hoping for the best experience possible. I won't take my frustrations out on the crew, who I suspect at this point is very weary of unhappy cruisers coming on board and knows it will continue until late July. But I do plan to continue my efforts to receive something meaningful in return from Princess for putting us in this situation. If I do happen to get an FCC , the next Princess cruise I take will not be port focused. Cruise around the Caribbean and drink all day.

I haven't heard about room but I have heard people say to avoid the Boticelli ? dining room as the vibration and noise is very apparent

a youtuber posted the ship had propulsion issues in Glacier Bay, implying it was severely impacted. Seems like duct tape and bailing wire engineering is keeping this thing going.

The calculus for this is to cross the pain threshold for them. At the moment they saw a reduced cruise and made the decision that it was still a good enough cruise with Icy Point that customers in general would accept it - I think they miscalculated that but still with the early people jumping to the Discovery they were still at a net zero game. Then with the reality the quality of the cruise is severely impacted by dropping Icy Point and limited time in Juneau, the passengers have a responsibility, I believe , to pursue equity in this situation. That means use every and all resources at our disposal to show Princess we are unhappy with their solution and expect satisfaction on our part. I think the building consensus is a 50% FCC. Until it gets to the point that Princess can't turn around without being reminded how poorly they have handled the situation, they will continue to attempt to maximize their profits while delivering a sub standard cruise experience. A good start would be hundreds of passengers sending emails to executives and just as many hitting social media. Perhaps reaching out to social media cruise influencers like La Lida Loca and Dons Family Vacations. Don actually did a story already on the Crown saying Cruise Lines are letting customers down, but that was focused primarily on the May 7th cruise.

I emailed as well. I just wonder if anyone will get a direct response.

This has probably been answered 5 times already. I have read about people getting a notice their excursion was canceled once they were already on board for Juneau Looking at the existing ones, I think there aren't any currently scheduled after 5:30, there are a couple at 5:15PM. I am currently signed up for a 5:15 one. Are they adjusting the times on excursions or just canceling them? Now that they now we are arriving at 5:30, I would hope that the excursion bookings would be updated. I really don't want to stand in line at customer service on the boat after I get a notice my excursion is cancelled when at the moment I am 2 weeks out an could address it now

I'm will be on the Crown in 2 weeks At this point I'm so flexible I could be a contortionist