Mailing letters on board Star princess

We sailed around Cape Horn on the Star Princess in January of this year.

We decided to send a couple of letters home to Canada for two reasons, one was a thank you letter and the other was because the stamps available on board the ship looked so cool - they had pictures of penguins on them. We also sent some postcards to the US and Europe.

We asked the front desk if the mail would leave from Ushuaia or would they be kept on board until we ended the cruise in Valparaiso. The answer was that they would go from the port where we were docked at that particular time.

We waited and waited to hear that our messages had arrived at their destination but nothing happened until about two months after the day we gave them to the front desk. They arrived at their destinations with a Mexican post mark and a Mexican stick-on label over the original stamp.

Hmmmm .... is Princess trying to save money here by charging us over $2 for the stamp then keeping a sack full of mail to be dispatched from the nearest Mexican post office at a much cheaper rate? We did not go anywhere near Mexico on the cruise, by the way.

Has anyone else experienced this?

A couple of years ago I mailed 2 birthday cards with five dollars in each to my twin niece and nephew. I was on the Sapphire and we were docked in Hawaii. I was assured the cards would be mailed from there and there was plenty of time for them to get to the kids for their birthday. We went on to Australia and I forgot about the cards. Six months or more later the kids called to thank me for the cards and money which they had just received. I didn't think to ask if they could tell where the cards were mailed from. My guess is they went all the way to Australia and back with us and then were mailed from California after someone found a bag of mail on the ship months later.

Both of the above posters are lucky that the postcards and envelopes arrived at all. There have been many posts on Cruise Critic about mail left at the purser's desk which never made it to the addresses.

If you are on a cruise ship and want to send mail, best to do it using a mailbox on land, even if you had to purchase overpriced postage from Princess.

Both of the above posters are lucky that the postcards and envelopes arrived at all. There have been many posts on Cruise Critic about mail left at the purser's desk which never made it to the addresses.

 

If you are on a cruise ship and want to send mail, best to do it using a mailbox on land, even if you had to purchase overpriced postage from Princess.

We always find a post box ashore.

Yes Princess is always looking at the bottom line. If things don't look good they hold all the mail until they can get it Mexico to be posted. That is how they keep themselves profitable.

Thanks to Cruise Critic, I stopped mailing post cards from the ships a few years ago. It seems there are too many times when they don't arrive! One year I was going to mail our Christmas cards onboard from Hawaii, decided not to do it, sure glad I did!:eek:

We gave up mailing things for fun from the ship many years ago for that very reason. :rolleyes:

I can assure you that postage costs in Mexico are much higher than in the US. The

Mexican PO is mainly used for mailing packages and bills.

Never leave your mail for the cruise ship to mail. Do it yourself.

Greg

I paid for stamps and mailed postcards on a cruise back in 2008... They never made their way to anyone! I sent a message to Princess and they said that was unfortunate but they weren't responsible. I won't mail anything on the ship again, instead I mail from a post office on land!

Everyone's experiences are different but out of 21 Princess cruises, only 2 postcards (Oslo, Norway) never made it home when mailed from the ship. They typically send them to the shore agent close to last boarding time. I've even seen locals set up on a Princess sponsored table in the atrium selling postcards and stamps in a couple obscure countries which was much appreciated.

Postcards & such from the ship take forever to arrive. OTOH. a card I mailed to work from the Aruba Post Office on March 20 has yet to arrive.

Steve

if i recall, there was a postcard shop right off the dock in Ushuaia which would send postcards via DHL for a a few pesos...we didnt do this but others did (and we regret not doing it)

We regularly posted mail from the PSD in Fort Lauderdale and never had an issue. While I have never had a bad experience posting mail from other cruise lines in international ports, I can't recall that I've done it outside the US on Princess.

When my MIL was still alive, my hubby would try to mail her a postcard from as many ports as possible, but usually from on land. I remember in Victoria, BC, the hunt for a stamp (w/o having to buy a whole booklet). Finally he was able to buy just one stamp at a drug store.

Note to self:

Stop leaving Visa bills with the pursers desk.

On a ship in the Baltic on another cruise line, I wrote and 'mailed' postcards in every port. When they arrived at their destination (eventually) they were all postmarked from the final port. EM

We certainly have had mixed experiences with leaving mail at the CS desk and now try to avoid doing so by mailing letters and cards ashore.