Very low occupancy cruise: your experience?

[Vexorg]

I'm already seeing them offer some fairly low prices on some of these short sailings (the other day I got sent an e-mail offering special rates to Seattle residents on a number of repos and other short sailings, one or two of which I might look into..) Then again, even if the ship sails full or pretty close to full it's pretty common to get upgrades on these short sailings. On the one I did last year I think we booked an obstructed OV and ended up in a Caribe balcony.

[caribill]

I was one of the passengers from the previous cruise who could not disembark at Valparaiso and fly home from Santiago, so we sailed back around the Horn again to Buenos Aires.

 

I remember at one point Princess wanted to charge the stranded (on the ship) passengers such as yourself a daily fee for staying on board. Did they end up doing this?

[Cruisin' Chick]

We were on a cruise that most likely was sold out, but about 200 passengers didn't get to the ship in time (and the captain did wait over four hours) due to a snow storm at their departing airport and a major rainstorm here in LA.

[DougH]

Since then a visa requirement was added for Argentina. I wonder what would happen if this occurred again.

 

In this case they would have been fine as they had just completed a cruise from Buenos Aires to Santiago. The problem was they could not get off in Valpariso as the airport in Santiago was closed so many sailed back, but this time the cruise ended in Rio. (which required the visa)

[stunnedinva]

I remember at one point Princess wanted to charge the stranded (on the ship) passengers such as yourself a daily fee for staying on board. Did they end up doing this?

 

Yes, $75 pp/day for a balcony cabin, as I recall. For us, it was the best alternative.

[seacruise9]

Princess gave the 3- and 4-day cruises for free last January and February. Literally. I was able to apply the 100% credit of my 4-day Sapphire cruise in January towards final payment of my upcoming Royal cruise.

 

Princess still has time to give these away or close to it.

 

Hi,

 

This was a great promotion. Like you, I did a four-day cruise on the Sapphire Princess in January. I then applied 100% of my fare to my Mediterranean cruise on the Regal Princess last month.

 

Chuck

[seacruise9]

Hi,

 

In my experience, Princess usually fills (or nearly fills) their ships for every cruise. However, I had an interesting cruise on the Crystal Harmony back in November 2002. This was an 11-day Panama Canal cruise that was only half full (450 passengers and the usual capacity was 900 passengers). During this cruise, they featured single seating dining (rather than the usual two seatings) and only performed the evening show once each night. On one of the sea days, they had a stateroom "open house" and allowed passengers to tour a stateroom from each of the different categories (including the largest suites). This cruise was great because the ship was incredibly spacious and uncrowded. Of course, this was a rarity, but I really enjoyed the cruise.

 

Chuck

[SoCal Cruiser78]

...On one of the sea days, they had a stateroom "open house" and allowed passengers to tour a stateroom from each of the different categories (including the largest suites)...

 

Just curious--were they trying to upsell for the remainder of the cruise, or was it simply to give a "look see" for current pax to keep in mind for future cruises?