Luvmyrotti

...sadly, if you are thinking about doing this "next spring", Princess's existence in Texas will be nothing more than a memory - and history!

 

As of April 17th (I believe is the exact date), Princess will be gone from Port Houston, for good.

 

However, if you choose to embark in another Port, I do wish you an amazing cruise wherever the SeaWitch takes you!

 

:)

I should have been more clear. We've done the CB previously and will be looking to sail on her again, but out of FLL.

Thanks for your review. We're considering doing the CB again next spring, so this is helpful.

Wow! 10 years has passed since the fire on the star princess. I was also on that cruise with my family. I wrote a first person report as well. If you want you can search use mg my name for it. We have the MAIB report from the event. The conclusion was that it started with a cigarette smoldering in towels on a balcony. The plastic furniture and flooring ignited and fueled by wind spread quickly to other bAlconies. Since this event sprinklers have been added to Val the balconies and the floring and furniture have been changed.

Glad to hear another first person chime in. I hope you are still cruising?

I don't think it was unnecessary at all....it was NEVER proven or verified a cigarette started that fire and the anti smoking crowd here on CC has tried to promote that theory from DAY 1 since the fire was reported and as seen by comments here, they STILL ARE.

 

I don't smoke BUT I do have an issue with those who take tragedies and try to spin them to promote their own agenda regardless of the issue. Bottom line is Princess does not know what started the fire then and to this day they still don't.

Let's play the law of averages. My guess is the a burning device is more likely the cause of a fire than . . . Oh, nothing. I have a friend who is an NTSB investigator so I actually believe the outcome of the official investigation over the random person who says, "hey, maybe it wasn't a burning cigarette butt brown overboard."

Again, thank you OP you and the wonderful Princess crew.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg545/docs/documents/Starprincess.pdf

 

 

And here's the official report.

 

 

 

"probably" a discarded cigarette end, which blew onto toweling left on the balcony.

 

 

Probably. Which doesn't mean absolutely. Which means they don't really know.

 

I don't hear any of you complaining about the jerk who left his towels on the balcony. Which has always been against cruise ship rules.

Just whining again about smoking, which wasn't against the rules until recently. Really recently, so obviously that wasn't the reason that Princess and then finally Carnival removed smoking from balconies.

 

 

Just thought someone needed to throw the truth back out here. This thread was getting deep with the other stuff.

Are you kidding me?? This is an unnecessary comment. Toweling didn't ignite itself. A cigarette likely did that and maybe it wasn't even due to toweling, perhaps it just smoldered on the floor matting and caught that on fire. It is the most likely assumption by trained fire investigators and NTSB that this file was a result of a burning cigarette butt thrown overboard.

This is a very nice thread with someone who experienced first hand the scariest thing at sea and is taking the opportunity to laude the wonderful crew. Please don't spoil it

Thanks so much for sharing this with us.

I'm amazed that you continued to cruise, especially since this was your first. I don't know if I could have done the same.

You must have been horrified to see the extent of the damage after you disembarked. It's a miracle there wasn't more loss of life than there was.

Thanks for your nicely balanced review! I've seen those veggie burgers and the look aweful!

Are you planning that your service will be poor. Don't you think the the crew (those you see and those you don't) deserve to be appropriately comp'ed via the service charge?

OP, you do realize that many, many cruisers do not play bridge, right? The ide that they flew someone on from Australia because you complained incessantly is kinda crazy.

As for your issues with allowing pre-booking excursions and "clogging them up", I actually appreciate that they allow pre-booking without paying up front.

Perhaps you should search for cruises for bridge enthusiast groups.

Lovely, thanks for sharing!

I booked my upcoming cruise under that promotion. It was the Twice as Nice promotion.

The general answer when this has been asked recently is that they will likely be released in March or April. Contact your TA who will likely get a preview several days before release.

So the question is, since you seem to have really enjoyed your first cruise, did you book another already? :D

This has to b one of the worst reviews ever. Nothing like having to wait a week for the next day that happened back in January. Why even bother starting this if you aren't going to finish it?

Then you should not come back to the thread. Don't spoil it for the rest of us. I personally think it's a wonderful review.

Perhaps a better analogy would be renting a Compact for $2 a day and then complaining about the tank of fuel not being discounted.

Love the analogy! You're right, they are trying to like two essentially unrelated items.

How would you feel if the airlines started charging automatic gratuities, or hotels, or your hospital, or Walmart.....it's a wage not a tip but Princess does not have the courage to call it that!!! People can do what they want no matter what people rant about on CC!!

No matter what you try to compare it to, the analogy doesn't work. Cruising is a different industry. One in which a service charge is applied. You can either afford to pay it, in which you can afford to cruise, or you cannot, in which case you cannot afford to cruise.

The resort charge at luxury hotels irritates me, but I like luxury hotels, so I pay it.

Like it or hate it, it is the model.

Calm down..... Again, they did this so they could honor the quote they gave you. It expires quickly. There are things in this world worth getting worked up about. This is not one of them.

Love this Coral! You're so right.

Thank you for your responses.

Socceric9 - thanks for the lovely welcome to cruise critic - not! For your information I paid a lot for this holiday and it is probably a one off. We are not high earners and having a better price could have helped us with excursions etc.

But don't you realize travel fares are a crap shoot? You'd be perfectly happy if it had gone the other way and those booking fares after you were paying more than you, correct? So why is this any different?

Get some perspective. Realize that the market drives price and availability or lack thereof, will dictate pricing.

Move forward and enjoy your vacation.

These posts always leave me scratching my head. The purchaser deems the cruise to be a fair deal' date=' plunks down their cash and looks forward with great anticipation to a great holiday! Suddenly all the joy and anticipation is gone simply because someone else pays less??? How many people in this world have the resources to even consider such a frivolous expenditure? :confused: :rolleyes: :([/quote']

 

Great response! I totally agree.

I've definitely seen shorts on men and women on the 1st night.

They let it go on the first night as sometimes people haven't received their bags yet.

This is a wonderful itinerary, but you have to enjoy sea days as there are at least 4 going and 4 coming back. We love sea days, so we were very happy with the chance to relax both before Hawaii and after the busy port days.

We were on the Emerald last March for a Western Caribbean itinerary and did not see any shorts in the MDR in the evening.

We did not see any staff introduction on our last Princess cruise. Perhaps there was a Staff introduction and champagne waterfall on that cruise and maybe we just missed it.

 

This is very surprising. Did you go to the first formal night or to the piazza on the afternoon of the first formal night (when they start setting up the giant pyramid of champagne glasses for the waterfall)? This is typically a huge draw and well-advertised in the patter. It may be corny, but it is one of our favorite events as it is very festive and I enjoy seeing the officer intros and hearing the captain speak (as Norris said, either with fun British banter or in a very heavy Italian accent).

I'm not sure about a reprimand, but I did hear them ask for a new cabin because theirs was full of smoke. The hotel manager told them the ship was sold out but he would see to it the cabin was "refreshed".

 

man o man :mad:

That is some serious gall on their part. I would have told them that the natural consequence of their stupid and reckless action was to spend the rest of the cruise in a stinky cabin.

I find this website useful for the Princess ships maintenance & modification schedules which is usually accurate even though it is "unofficial".

 

https://sites.google.com/site/princesscruisesfaq/ships/fleet-drydock-schedule

Yes, that's where I got the information.