Pacific - not dead yet..Tahiti 2020

[kennicott]

1 minute ago, Cruise Junky said:

 I was only comparing the cost to what you could get on Regent. Definitely not comparing the large owners suite to Concierge Cabin. Just that you're paying a lot for extra real estate.

Yes, I understand that but the rates quoted were for the Owners Suite (OS) and you did say: "That price would compare to a Conceirge suite on Regent at 353 sq ft ".   If you want to compare "extra real estate" to "extra real estate" rates then look at the Navigator's Master Suite versus the OS.  

[Cruise Junky]

2 minutes ago, kennicott said:

Yes, I understand that but the rates quoted were for the Owners Suite (OS) and you did say: "That price would compare to a Conceirge suite on Regent at 353 sq ft ".   If you want to compare "extra real estate" to "extra real estate" rates then look at the Navigator's Master Suite versus the OS.  

And the price does compare to a Concierge suite which was  my point.  I have no intention of turning this thread into a debate between Princess and Regent, that's just silly.  It was a comparison of what can you get on Regent for the price of an Owner's Suite on Princess.  And I think we've covered that.

[jagoffee]

Just wanted to let all you Elite status cruisers know that you have booked all of the Aft Owner suites for the Honolulu to Papeete portion, so I missed out today.

After my next Princess Cruise in June, I too will be able to book a day early next time.  There are so few of the OS’s available.  

 

Congratulations.  I will watching to see if anyone cancels.

 

 

I also suspect that since the OS are selling fast that we are not likely to have an opportunity to take advance of the Sip and Sail in a few months.

Edited April 17, 2019 by jagoffee

[chamima]

3 hours ago, miagirl said:

Perhaps they might be higher in some categories,  but I checked the invoice for our 2015 10 cruise (same itinerary) and the 2020 price is $400 less than what we paid in 2015 for the same mini-suite. 

 

I'm so excited that Pacific Princess is coming back to Tahiti!  I always tell my friends that these trips are the most "vacationey" vacations ever!  No fuss, no crowds, beauty everywhere one looks. 

 

 

I don't know what you paid for your 2015 mini but I just checked our 2015 balcony price against the current price.

2015 it was $1983 pp (including all taxes and port charges) and for a cabin this coming year it's $2719 pp PLUS taxes and port charges ($105 so total of $2824). Both cabins are on deck 7.

(Actually the $1983 was for an aft balcony on deck 7 but that was before Princess started charging more for the afts)

 

I don't think we've ever paid as much for a cruise as we are for this one but we're old enough that we want to do what we want while we can.

Edited April 17, 2019 by chamima

[chamima]

17 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

Just wanted to let all you Elite status cruisers know that you have booked all of the Aft Owner suites for the Honolulu to Papeete portion, so I missed out today.

After my next Princess Cruise in June, I too will be able to book a day early next time.  There are so few of the OS’s available.  

 

Congratulations.  I will watching to see if anyone cancels.

 

Since there is only Traditional dining on the Pacific Princess, I was wondering if the traditional Club Class dining is still in a separate area?

 

I also suspect that since the OS are selling fast that we are not likely to have an opportunity to take advance of the Sip and Sail in a few months.

 

Club Class is the area of the dining room immediately to your left as you enter.

They have different colored tablecloths and napkins and I think the upholstery on the chairs is slightly different.

Club Class is the only place that is anytime dining.

[jagoffee]

2 hours ago, chamima said:

 

Club Class is the area of the dining room immediately to your left as you enter.

They have different colored tablecloths and napkins and I think the upholstery on the chairs is slightly different.

Club Class is the only place that is anytime dining.

Thank you.  Good to hear.  

When I put a suite on hold, the system forced me to pick Traditional dining with a time.  It must be a website error.

[kennicott]

They do that all the time when you book a full suite on the Pacific Princess, they ask what you want early or late. They advertise anytime when you are Club Class. When you get on though your cruise card shows "Club Class" and not the seating time, like other cards do. Also, the wait staff tells you it makes no difference, come when you want. I believe they continue to do that in order to get some sort of handle on how to program the kitchen staff. In other words they want to know how many in Club Class they can expect on average for early and late. My guess only.  

[cflutist]

Actually,  I think your cruise card will say Suite on it if you are in a full suite.

 

Although it was quasi Club Class the 2nd cruise after drydock, someone said that it is truly Anytime Dining now?

 

What we liked about breakfast in Sabatini's was that they set 10 tables for the 10 suites. You could linger as long as you wanted after. Another thing I would do is to ask for a Mocha to go. That got placed in our fridge and became my Frappuccino after we returned from a shorex. Sabatini's was so much nicer than the Crown Grill suite breakfasts that we had on the Grand and the Majestic. 

 

Should also mention that the WiFi signal was pretty weak in OS 8067, I had to open the door, or sit in the hallway to get a decent signal back in 2017. Hopefully it is better now.

[compozer]

48 minutes ago, cflutist said:

 

Should also mention that the WiFi signal was pretty weak in OS 8067, I had to open the door, or sit in the hallway to get a decent signal back in 2017. Hopefully it is better now.

I just booked that cabin.    I hope it has improved.  I remember our first cruise on the Royal which was shortly after it came into serve and we had a OS.  We also had to leave the cabin door open whenever we used WIFI.  Maybe someone can give us an update.

 

[kennicott]

59 minutes ago, cflutist said:

Actually,  I think your cruise card will say Suite on it if you are in a full suite.

 

 

Looking at my cruise card right now, received in November and December. Upper right hand corner it says "Muster Station  B"

directly below that it says "Suite". At the bottom of the card in the middle it says:  "Table:  CLUB CLASS---- Note, the club class  is in caps on the card, not me exaggerating. 

[kennicott]

30 minutes ago, compozer said:

I just booked that cabin.    I hope it has improved.  I remember our first cruise on the Royal which was shortly after it came into serve and we had a OS.  We also had to leave the cabin door open whenever we used WIFI.  Maybe someone can give us an update.

 

Yes, I noticed that the WI FI signals around the ship do vary a lot as well. Even when we were in 8000, in December 2016, right below the card room and Internet cafe, when I had to do a lot of posting I took my laptop up to the card room, where it worked a lot faster.

 

last fall when we were in 7114 it worked okay at times inside the cabin but not as fast as I would like, so I would walk down the corridor when I wasn't getting linked onto something very well and the further I got toward the bow the faster things began to happen. The internet attendant at the time was pretty good and knowledgeable and he showed me what the sensors looked like. There were quite a few spread around the vessel, which surprised me. One was only about 50 down the corridor on the ceiling from Suite 7114. So I would take my laptop down there directly under it  and it would operate the same as when I was in the cabin, then I would head on up to the internet room on Deck 9 and everything would speed up dramatically.

 

Which leads me to believe that either the sensor close to our cabin wasn't functioning or there is more to the story about how the system works. As I previously mentioned, I am really satisfied with the internet speed on the ship over what used to be, as long as I'm getting a decent signal. We were on a TA then. For what its worth, the cruise just before that we were on the Seven Seas Mariner on a trans Pacific, the internet there worked about the same as the internet on the Pacific Princess does on both the Atlantic and Pacific .   

[cflutist]

1 hour ago, kennicott said:

Looking at my cruise card right now, received in November and December. Upper right hand corner it says "Muster Station  B"

directly below that it says "Suite". At the bottom of the card in the middle it says:  "Table:  CLUB CLASS---- Note, the club class  is in caps on the card, not me exaggerating. 

 

Now that's interesting. I just pulled out our cards, and on the Pacific, the Dining Room, Time, and Table are blank.

On our two Majestic cruises and two Grand Princess cruises, it says Anytime Dining, Time:Anytime, and Table: Any even though those four suite cruises were all Club Class. 

Edited April 18, 2019 by cflutist

[PescadoAmarillo]

One does not book the Pacific Princess for its high speed WiFi, nor its fabulous TV choices and giant screen TVs. 😉 The former is even worse in the South Pacific. As excited as I am at the potential of returning to the area on that ship, I haven’t quite reconciled myself to tolerating those things again for an extended period of time. I suggest bringing video alternatives and HDMI cables, especially for those long cruises with lots of sea days. 

[cflutist]

18 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

One does not book the Pacific Princess for its high speed WiFi, nor its fabulous TV choices and giant screen TVs. 😉 The former is even worse in the South Pacific. As excited as I am at the potential of returning to the area on that ship, I haven’t quite reconciled myself to tolerating those things again for an extended period of time. I suggest bringing video alternatives and HDMI cables, especially for those long cruises with lots of sea days. 

 

Hubby loves to read books from the library,  the Pacific has one of the better libraries in the fleet.

 

You are correct, just beautiful scenery in French Polynesia.  We have sailed there three times in the past, which also included the Cook Islands and the Marquesas that included Niku Hiva and Hiva Oe. On one of those islands they sent the island school buses to take us to a park where inhabitants put on a cultural show.

 

The other thing I remember from our 2004, 2008, and 2013 cruises is that they allowed us to stay on the ship until after dinner when the Princess Transfer buses drove us to the airport. Out of our cabins at the usual time, we stored our hand luggage in Sabatini's, and the checked luggage was stored below before they were loaded on the buses.

 

I wonder if this is still the case as most flights leave PPT late at night.

 

Also the airport is open air, so there are mosquitoes. 

Edited April 18, 2019 by cflutist

[land lover]

booked a 10 day......

[JF - retired RRT]

8 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Just wanted to let all you Elite status cruisers know that you have booked all of the Aft Owner suites for the Honolulu to Papeete portion, so I missed out today.

Congratulations.  I will watching to see if anyone cancels.

Don't just watch...get on the wait list or you might miss out.😉

[Cruise Junky]

17 hours ago, jagoffee said:

Just wanted to let all you Elite status cruisers know that you have booked all of the Aft Owner suites for the Honolulu to Papeete portion, so I missed out today.

After my next Princess Cruise in June, I too will be able to book a day early next time.  There are so few of the OS’s available.  

 

Congratulations.  I will watching to see if anyone cancels.

 

 

I also suspect that since the OS are selling fast that we are not likely to have an opportunity to take advance of the Sip and Sail in a few months.

As mentioned, don’t just watch...I’d also make it clear on your roll call that you’re very interested. I’ve always told my roll call ahead of time if I was cancelling a prime cabin. 

[Duffysmom]

Anyone familiar with Balcony Obstructed 6086.  Saw a picture and it appears to have a metal arch overhead, would that be the obstruction.

Thanks

[LarryL]

12 hours ago, compozer said:

I just booked that cabin.    I hope it has improved.  I remember our first cruise on the Royal which was shortly after it came into serve and we had a OS.  We also had to leave the cabin door open whenever we used WIFI.  Maybe someone can give us an update.

 

FWIW we were on the transatlantic TA last December and were next door in 8069. We had no problems with the WIFI connections. For this cruise we were only using Apple IPhones and IPads. I don't know if that makes a difference, but we had no problems where we used it on the ship.

Edited April 18, 2019 by LarryL
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[J-D]

18 hours ago, chamima said:

 

 

I don't know what you paid for your 2015 mini but I just checked our 2015 balcony price against the current price.

2015 it was $1983 pp (including all taxes and port charges) and for a cabin this coming year it's $2719 pp PLUS taxes and port charges ($105 so total of $2824). Both cabins are on deck 7.

(Actually the $1983 was for an aft balcony on deck 7 but that was before Princess started charging more for the afts)

 

I don't think we've ever paid as much for a cruise as we are for this one but we're old enough that we want to do what we want while we can.

 

Here is another comparison of prices, over a longer time interval.  For the 10-day Papeete-to-Papeete itineraries, the Cdn$ price for the Cat BB balcony that we booked this week is 1.55x the price we paid for a Cat BB balcony for the same 10-d itinerary in February 2011.  The 2011 sailing was on a sister ship, the former (small) Royal Princess.  Both prices considered in the comparison are in Cdn$ and include the taxes, fees & port charges.   A major part, but by no means all, of the price increase is attributable to exchange-rate fluctuations:  the Cdn$ and USD were close to par  in late 2010, vs. about 1.35 Cdn$ per USD currently.  However, the cat. BB price has gone up by 1.55x vs. the approx. 1.35x that currency fluctuations would explain.

 

Perhaps there will be a chance to re-fare at some lower price and/or with some useful promotion between now and final payment day...

 

John

 

[azbirdmom]

52 minutes ago, J-D said:

Perhaps there will be a chance to re-fare at some lower price and/or with some useful promotion between now and final payment day...

 

John

 

 

I hope the fares go down as well even though we are going regardless.  I'm guessing that Princess expected these itineraries to sell very well and that they could charge higher prices due to demand.  A read of this thread would also suggest very high demand.  Yet these cruises (at least the 10 day ones) are far from sold out.  If this remains the case over the next year, I would expect the fares to come down.

[chamima]

9 minutes ago, azbirdmom said:

 

I hope the fares go down as well even though we are going regardless.  I'm guessing that Princess expected these itineraries to sell very well and that they could charge higher prices due to demand.  A read of this thread would also suggest very high demand.  Yet these cruises (at least the 10 day ones) are far from sold out.  If this remains the case over the next year, I would expect the fares to come down.

 

 

I also hope the fares will go down - although I don't expect our 35 day one to do so.

The chance to go to Tahiti AND South America and then end up in Fort Lauderdale is unique.

 

(And as far as how the cruises were received - ask our favorite TA just how exhausted she is after the last two days! 😉  )

 

[Cruise Junky]

5 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

 

(And as far as how the cruises were received - ask our favorite TA just how exhausted she is after the last two days! 😉  )

 

I needed her to cancel a cruise for me and purposely waited until today to send her the e:mail. No way was I bugging her the last two days :)

[azbirdmom]

11 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

 

I also hope the fares will go down - although I don't expect our 35 day one to do so.

The chance to go to Tahiti AND South America and then end up in Fort Lauderdale is unique.

 

(And as far as how the cruises were received - ask our favorite TA just how exhausted she is after the last two days! 😉  )

 

 

Yes, "Tahiti Madness" says it all!   

[PescadoAmarillo]

13 hours ago, cflutist said:

The other thing I remember from our 2004, 2008, and 2013 cruises is that they allowed us to stay on the ship until after dinner when the Princess Transfer buses drove us to the airport. Out of our cabins at the usual time, we stored our hand luggage in Sabatini's, and the checked luggage was stored below before they were loaded on the buses.

 

I wonder if this is still the case as most flights leave PPT late at night.

This was the case when we were on the last several sailings of the Pacific Princess from Papeete. Those extra several hours on the ship make the cost of the ship's transfer quite worthwhile when taking an overnight flight out of Papeete.

 

Having been in the area from September - January, I am happy to report that the weather in September to November is MUCH better than in December and January.  We were so happy that it was cooler and significantly less humid, though cloudy days can happen at any time.  By late December and January, the heat and humidity was fairly oppressive, and, yes, there were more mosquitoes during those months.