Crown Princess Alaska May 21st

[jk04]

15 minutes ago, byucruiser said:

100% one and done. I will never deal with princess again. I understand that cruising and ports are never guaranteed but the amount of investigative work we need to do here collectively and the utter lack of care for their customers has done it for me. Ridiculous. 

This is the third Alaska cruise I have done with Princess on this itinerary.  We usually do this every 3-5 years as a Family and Friends cruise.  Since we normally go as a group and have first time cruisers, RT out of a Seattle is one of the more economical ports for an Alaskan cruise.  Plus, we love Glacier Bay and feel that is just a must-see for first timers.  Of course, prior cruises were pre-Covid and never experienced any kind of these issues on any of our Princess cruises.  We wanted to stick with Crown because of Glacier Bay, but still expect a bit more of an Alaska cruise experience for our dollar.  I have no idea if we even can switch to Discovery at this late date.

[JeffT237]

21 minutes ago, byucruiser said:

I understand that cruising and ports are never guaranteed but the amount of investigative work we need to do here collectively and the utter lack of care for their customers has done it for me. Ridiculous. 

 

The few that are defending Princess site the contract and that ports are never guaranteed, my hope is Princess does not hide behind this.  We are all aware of the risks of itinerary changes, but that is the exception not the rule. Typically an itinerary change is due to a mechanical issue in transit or is weather related.  This is due to a known mechanical issue.  That is on Princess to make it right IMO.  I also agree the perceived lack of care for their customers is surprising to me from a cruise line with the reputation that I believed Princess to have.

[MinnyCruisers]

Agree that this is very, very poor business on the part of Princess. I have family flying in from 4 different cities for this cruise, and all the kids have booked their airfare, hotel rooms, excursions, and most importantly time off work to take this cruise. Changing to another ship at this late date is not practical.

 

My wife and I have been to all these ports before, and will still enjoy all the breathtaking scenery. But we really feel sorry for all the kids, none of whom have been to Alaska before and were looking forward to what they felt might be a once-in-a-lifetime cruise. Even if they get to return in the future, it won't be with all 12 family members on this cruise.

 

Shame on you, Princess!  At the very least, let us cancel our cruise and get our money back so we can try to reschedule everyone again next year. 

[jk04]

@Crow9 Sorry your thread has been hi-jacked for other discussions. I did appreciate all your time and effort with the review, updates, and pictures. Thank you! 😊

[Crow9]

All good, I am pissed for all of you too.

 

The sad part is that the staff on board have been lovely and treating everyone like princesses and with the best care and they are just getting yelled at.

[jk04]

Just now, Crow9 said:

All good, I am pissed for all of you too.

 

The sad part is that the staff on board have been lovely and treating everyone like princesses and with the best care and they are just getting yelled at.

That is what I would feel bad about as well.  It’s not their fault, they aren’t making the decisions. But I’m sure it’s difficult not to get frustrated. 

[Crow9]

I will let you all know how Victoria goes tomorrow too

[Crow9]

Current weather needs seasick pills.

 

You can continue the discussion here if you want, I don't mind.  I will continue to post cruise updates on here too.

[byucruiser]

You're great crow. Thanks for keeping us updated.

 

I think for Juneau we've decided to try and rent a car and go hike over by mendenhall glacier and make our own adventure. 

[wolvey]

1 hour ago, MinnyCruisers said:

Agree that this is very, very poor business on the part of Princess. I have family flying in from 4 different cities for this cruise, and all the kids have booked their airfare, hotel rooms, excursions, and most importantly time off work to take this cruise. Changing to another ship at this late date is not practical.

 

My wife and I have been to all these ports before, and will still enjoy all the breathtaking scenery. But we really feel sorry for all the kids, none of whom have been to Alaska before and were looking forward to what they felt might be a once-in-a-lifetime cruise. Even if they get to return in the future, it won't be with all 12 family members on this cruise.

 

Shame on you, Princess!  At the very least, let us cancel our cruise and get our money back so we can try to reschedule everyone again next year. 

Just got the email about the itinerary change that can be seen in your travel summary.

[byucruiser]

As an FYI, I grabbed a car off Turo for our group of 4 for $92. This at least allows us some freedom to navigate Juneau and figure out something to do. Looked like there were plenty of car options if anyone else was interested in the same.

[Riley_Mon]

about 5 minutes ago I received the itinerary change email noting a 5:30PM arrival to Juneau (will that really happen? who knows) and Icy Straight Point is now removed.

 

Noted at the bottom on the letter is the "you signed a contract that said we can screw you over on changing what we promised and you can't do anything about it" verbage.

 

I do feel sorry for the crew because at this point about 90% of the people getting on that boat now are going to be pretty salty.

 

I won't take my frustration out on the crew but $100 obc is an insult. We have a total of 19 hours on land in Alaska, and that is counting a 6am arrival to Skagway. I want 50% FCC or 40% refund at this point considering I'm 20 days out and have limited options.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Riley_Mon

[Crow9]

Are they giving you guys the 20% FCC too?  At this point it really should be 50, they are screwing us all over with this itinerary.

[Crow9]

20 days out, can you switch to discovery princess? Since I think that was one day off from crown princess's cruise.

[wolvey]

2 minutes ago, Crow9 said:

Are they giving you guys the 20% FCC too?  At this point it really should be 50, they are screwing us all over with this itinerary.

The email stated nothing about obc or fcc due to the itinerary change. 

[Crow9]

Wow, every time I ask the people who've done cruises before, they say that this is not normal.

[bmc alabama]

Between this, Carnival Freedom and Harmony of the Seas….  Not a banner day for cruising…

[caribill]

4 hours ago, MarcsSharon said:

First thing tomorrow I am contacting a Maritime Attorney here in Florida…this is total BS.

 

 

 

Be sure to show them the contract you agreed to that basically says Princess can change any itinerary at any time for any reason.

[Crow9]

2 hours ago, bmc alabama said:

Between this, Carnival Freedom and Harmony of the Seas….  Not a banner day for cruising…

What happened with the other two?

[Riley_Mon]

a carnival ship caught on fire docked in the Grand Turks.

[jk04]

3 hours ago, Crow9 said:

What happened with the other two?

Freedom had the funnel catch fire, pretty extensive damage.  Passengers will have to wait for another ship to get them on Saturday.  Harmony was docking in Jamaica and took out a pier smaller boats used for docking.  Minor damage to Harmony, not sure about the dock.

[jk04]

5 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Be sure to show them the contract you agreed to that basically says Princess can change any itinerary at any time for any reason.

I get that we signed the Passage Contract.  And, we stayed with the Crown because of Glacier Bay, also thinking the engine issues would start to work itself out, and to try to make the best of things.  You know, a day on a cruise is better than a day at work.  At some point the terms of the contract has to be unfair to the passenger.

 

We finally got the email from Princess last night about 2330.  It outlines the changes to the itinerary with the 3rd time change to Juneau and finally dropping Icy Strait Point, which was an earlier sub for Ketchikan.  In the first email when Icy Strait was swapped for Ketchikan, we did get a sorry and a $100 OBC for our trouble.  In this email there is no sorry, not one mention of an OBC, FCC, nothing.  They did, however, throw the Passage Contract in our face at the end of the itinerary, and I think that is disgraceful.

 

This cruise originally included a little over 30 hours in Alaskan ports (not including Victoria).  With all the changes, the next four cruises are going to get about 18.  I'm not including the extra early hour in Skagway because there is not a thing we can do with that.  Our early excursion there has already been canceled due to operational issues.  So, we are basically losing 40% of our time to actually visit Alaska to watching Alaska.  Most of the cruises have also been late to Victoria and canceling all excursions there.

 

We have quite a bit of money invested in this trip, along with friends and family in our group.  It takes time to coordinate the flights, finding dog-sitters, a caretaker for my Mom, the usual things everyone has to go through to plan a vacation.  We are trying to put a good face on this but it's becoming increasingly difficult.  At this point, I wish they would just cancel the cruises and repair the ship.  I don't want FCC, I would prefer a refund.

[jk04]

Re-read the paragraphs of the Passage Contract Princess specifically referenced in the email about the itinerary change.  Honestly, they way it's worded, they could put us on the ship, chug us up to Victoria to satisfy PVSA and bring us back to Seattle and there is nothing we can do about it.  Princess is basically refusing to take the ship out of service due to mechanical issues and refund the fares.  But instead, offer an itinerary that is much less than what we paid for and hide behind the Passage Contract.

 

Yes, I know we can probably call and maybe get a FCC, moved to a different ship, or later itinerary.  At this point, we are not sure we will sail Princess again.

[JeffT237]

8 hours ago, bmc alabama said:

Between this, Carnival Freedom and Harmony of the Seas….  Not a banner day for cruising…

Also the Carnival Magic with some fumes that some passengers stated made them sick.  The Magic, Crown and Freedom as most know are all owned by the Carnival Corp perhaps they need to look at their maintenance program fleet wide as it's been a rough start up.  Glad to hear the Harmony's damage was minor and was able to continue sailing her itinerary uninterrupted.  

[Riley_Mon]

I don't fully understand the PVSA but I would think as long as they physically stopped at Victoria or some other Canadian port, paid the fees and whatever else they met the letter of the law if not the spirit.

I  guess it isn't practical but I'd rather stop for an hour at Victoria which I don't consider part of an Alaskan cruise nor would any cruise line if they weren't required to stop there by law and get those 2-3 hours back at Juneau