Anyone back from July sailings on Crown Princess - Alaska?

[bofh]

13 hours ago, donaldsc said:

Is anyone on this thread ever cruise on Princess anywhere ever again?  If so why.

This is our first cruise, ever.  I'm not saying "never" to Princess -- certainly not before the trip -- but the lack of transparency certainly isn't building any loyalty.  We don't know if cruising is something that we'll like or want to do again, but I'll have no reason NOT to try out a different line if we ever take a second cruise.

[JeffT237]

14 hours ago, donaldsc said:

Is anyone on this thread ever cruise on Princess anywhere ever again?  If so why.  I just don't understand why people get royally sc**** by a cruise line and then come back and cruise on the line again.  Princess isn't the only line out there and the loyalty benefits whatever they are just can't be worth having another lousy time.

 

So our take as we were on the May 7th Crown sailing as first time Princess cruisers was that we'd enjoy the week and worry about contacting customer service to discuss our unsatisfactory experience when the cruise was over.  We both agreed onboard that this can't be the real Princess experience and we'd be willing to give them another try if they raised the FCC from 20% to 50%.  Although the experience post cruise dealing with customer service was poor we did end up getting what we felt was fair, the 50% FCC. So we are cruising again with Princess, in October on the Discovery for the California Coastal cruise. With our FCCs and refunded excursion money it just about paid for the cruise.  Also since we won't have to fly and it is a new ship we both felt less travel risk.  We look forward to our upcoming Discovery cruise and are confident that it will be much better than our previous Crown cruise.

[Kelownabccan]

So....looks like all the problems have not been solved....we are booked later in the fall.....may think about doing another princess instead......but not the crown.....too bad......am I right to think that the ship is not really what it is supposed to be running like???

[Kelownabccan]

14

August 1, 2014

#25  

Posted 5 hours ago

Just got off the Crown yesterday. We averaged about 18 knots. Lots of vibration especially in dining room.

 

This is what I was referring to.....problem not fixed???......we also have friends booked on the Crown to do the Hawaii one from Van......should I tell them to be wary???

[bronzey214]

5 minutes ago, Kelownabccan said:

14

August 1, 2014

#25  

Posted 5 hours ago

Just got off the Crown yesterday. We averaged about 18 knots. Lots of vibration especially in dining room.

 

This is what I was referring to.....problem not fixed???......we also have friends booked on the Crown to do the Hawaii one from Van......should I tell them to be wary???

The Crown goes through a drydock in... October? I believe? I'd wait for dry dock to be completed.

[Kelownabccan]

Good to know......I would imagine Princess would want the ship to be in good order to travel to Hawaii and back.....could be rough sometimes......yikes if motor not working well....lol.....

[llarsen]

6 hours ago, Kikkib said:

Just got off the Crown yesterday. We averaged about 18 knots. Lots of vibration especially in dining room. We had a medivac situation which caused the ship to be diverted northeast to meet the helicopter. We didn’t arrive in Victoria until around 10pm. Lots of people upset about missed excursions.Went  on the bear excursion in Icy strait point which was fun but they were late getting us back to the ship. Thank god it was a princess excursion. I never dreamed we would be dock runners! The tram met the bus and whisked us off to the ship. I wont be sailing Princess again. $200 onboard credit was a joke for all the itinerary changes and missed ports. Going back to Royal and celebrity.

I'm so sorry you also had changes which impacted your cruise.

I wish we could just get our money refunded and not go at all. They knew they would be changing our itineraries...they never fixed the ship! Why do this to people? For us, our balcony cabin was a lot of money to spend on a 7 day cruise. We've gone to Europe for 10 nights for less!

Aug 6th would be our first time to Alaska and 4th time on Princess, but I'm so over it I don't even want to go and will never count on Princess again.

Celebrity, Oceania and Royal are wonderful! 

 

[llarsen]

3 hours ago, JeffT237 said:

 

So our take as we were on the May 7th Crown sailing as first time Princess cruisers was that we'd enjoy the week and worry about contacting customer service to discuss our unsatisfactory experience when the cruise was over.  We both agreed onboard that this can't be the real Princess experience and we'd be willing to give them another try if they raised the FCC from 20% to 50%.  Although the experience post cruise dealing with customer service was poor we did end up getting what we felt was fair, the 50% FCC. So we are cruising again with Princess, in October on the Discovery for the California Coastal cruise. With our FCCs and refunded excursion money it just about paid for the cruise.  Also since we won't have to fly and it is a new ship we both felt less travel risk.  We look forward to our upcoming Discovery cruise and are confident that it will be much better than our previous Crown cruise.

We contacted Princess yesterday and my brother in law (who will also be on our cruise) spoke back and forth with a Supervisor for 1.5hrs. They said they notified everyone in May of the problems with the ship and possible itinerary changes... which is a lie. When asked to provide the information they supposedly sent, they could not provide it.

They would not even reprice our cruise which has gone down in price by $1,332 for our exact cabin with the same perk package.

I would be very satisfied with 50% FCC. It's the right thing to do for everyone who has sailed on the Crown, which has been experiencing problems since May. Princess has continued to take everyone's money knowing the problem would not be fixed for this Alaska season.

Can I ask who you contacted and their contact info for the FCC? 

Thank you!

[JeffT237]

2 hours ago, llarsen said:

they said they notified everyone in May of the problems with the ship and possible itinerary changes... which is a lie.

I think it's pretty well documented how short of a notification each sailing got, we were notified about 9 days before and then subsequently each sailing after was notified with a short notice of the itinerary changes.  If I remember correctly Princess stated this "scheduled" or "temporary" change would be solved by the late July & August sailings and the Crown would return to its original itinerary by then.  I think most of us were skeptical at the time. My biggest complaint is with Princess's decision making on the Crown issue.  The communication was poor as well as the transparency.  I also feel Princess has been dishonest with all of these Crown sailings, if they do claim everyone was notified in May that's not completely true, the early sailings were but the later sailings were not.  

Edited July 25, 2022 by JeffT237

[llarsen]

11 hours ago, JeffT237 said:

 I also feel Princess has been dishonest with all of these Crown sailings, if they do claim everyone was notified in May that's not completely true, the early sailings were but the later sailings were not.  

Yes, that is my feeling too...that Princess has been dishonest. 

They were still selling August sailings with the original itinerary up until a few days ago, when we finally received our notice of itinerary changes. 

It's not the right way to do business.

[bronzey214]

Anyone that's been on the adjusted sailings - did the Crown sail the inside passage on the way back to Victoria/Seattle?

[Cpamomma]

We just got off the Crown on Saturday.  We were really disappointed.  We had been to Alaska before so we know what a good experience it can be.  This cruise was not a good experience.  We missed one port completely and got into others too late to do anything.  We completely skipped Glacier Bay.  The weather was not great, but because of the engine problems, we could not stick around until the weather cleared, or we would be too late at the next port.  We felt really bad for the people who had saved up for an Alaska cruise and were looking forward to it.  We feel that Princess should have canceled all cruises on the Crown and rebooked passengers on a different ship.  Besides missing ports, there was horrible shaking at the back of the ship which made dining uncomfortable if you are seated in the back area.  There was also a sewage smell around midship on the ninth level.  These are all problems that are well known to Princess, but they have continued to book cruises on this ship.  We have no plans to cruise with Princess again.  We are very disappointed in their lack of integrity.

[cruisingrob21]

On 7/31/2022 at 4:46 AM, bronzey214 said:

Anyone that's been on the adjusted sailings - did the Crown sail the inside passage on the way back to Victoria/Seattle?

Any of the Seattle based RT ships sail on the west side of Vancouver island.  The term "inside passage" is kind of a confusing term for alaskan voyages as the voyages from Seattle don't use the "inside passage" until the afternoon/evening of the second day, depending on if Ketchikan or Juneau is the first port.  In that instance, the "inside passage" refers to the protected waters in SE alaska.  The "inside passage" that many people think of is the narrow channel between Vancouver Island and the BC/Canadian mainland.  Only the Whittier/Vancouver "Voyage of the Glaciers" ships use that, and only non Royal class ships.

Edited August 2, 2022 by cruisingrob21

[wolvey]

5 hours ago, Cpamomma said:

We just got off the Crown on Saturday.  We were really disappointed.  We had been to Alaska before so we know what a good experience it can be.  This cruise was not a good experience.  We missed one port completely and got into others too late to do anything.  We completely skipped Glacier Bay.  The weather was not great, but because of the engine problems, we could not stick around until the weather cleared, or we would be too late at the next port.  We felt really bad for the people who had saved up for an Alaska cruise and were looking forward to it.  We feel that Princess should have canceled all cruises on the Crown and rebooked passengers on a different ship.  Besides missing ports, there was horrible shaking at the back of the ship which made dining uncomfortable if you are seated in the back area.  There was also a sewage smell around midship on the ninth level.  These are all problems that are well known to Princess, but they have continued to book cruises on this ship.  We have no plans to cruise with Princess again.  We are very disappointed in their lack of integrity.

Just curious on which port did you miss and what times did you get into the other ports? 
how on earth can a ship miss glacier bay ? It’s a whole day’s worth of sailing. What did you do instead?

 

im sorry to hear about your experience. 

[redtop101]

4 minutes ago, wolvey said:

how on earth can a ship miss glacier bay ?

Sometimes due to adverse weather conditions, like fog. 

[scott4020]

One time we missed it because there was too much ice.

[bronzey214]

13 hours ago, cruisingrob21 said:

Any of the Seattle based RT ships sail on the west side of Vancouver island.  The term "inside passage" is kind of a confusing term for alaskan voyages as the voyages from Seattle don't use the "inside passage" until the afternoon/evening of the second day, depending on if Ketchikan or Juneau is the first port.  In that instance, the "inside passage" refers to the protected waters in SE alaska.  The "inside passage" that many people think of is the narrow channel between Vancouver Island and the BC/Canadian mainland.  Only the Whittier/Vancouver "Voyage of the Glaciers" ships use that, and only non Royal class ships.

Thank you for the explanation! Our only other Alaska cruise was out of San Francisco on the Grand (with Ketchikan as the first port) so that explains the difference in pathing.

[Cpamomma]

17 hours ago, wolvey said:

Just curious on which port did you miss and what times did you get into the other ports? 
how on earth can a ship miss glacier bay ? It’s a whole day’s worth of sailing. What did you do instead?

 

im sorry to hear about your experience. 

We missed Ketchikan.  It was replaced with Icy Straits.  We got to Icy Straits at 4pm.  We also arrived at Juneau at 4pm.  Victoria arrival was 7pm.  After missing Glacier Bay, we chugged our way to Icy Straits.

[llarsen]

On 8/2/2022 at 11:58 AM, Cpamomma said:

We just got off the Crown on Saturday.  We were really disappointed.  We had been to Alaska before so we know what a good experience it can be.  This cruise was not a good experience.  We missed one port completely and got into others too late to do anything.  We completely skipped Glacier Bay.  The weather was not great, but because of the engine problems, we could not stick around until the weather cleared, or we would be too late at the next port.  We felt really bad for the people who had saved up for an Alaska cruise and were looking forward to it.  We feel that Princess should have canceled all cruises on the Crown and rebooked passengers on a different ship.  Besides missing ports, there was horrible shaking at the back of the ship which made dining uncomfortable if you are seated in the back area.  There was also a sewage smell around midship on the ninth level.  These are all problems that are well known to Princess, but they have continued to book cruises on this ship.  We have no plans to cruise with Princess again.  We are very disappointed in their lack of integrity.

We leave Saturday on the Crown to Alaska with the revised itinerary (which they waited until July 22nd to inform us that it had changed.) They were continuing to sell this cruise with the original itinerary up until then, which in my opinion is very dishonest.

I am very disappointed with Princess not notifying ALL sailings on the Crown of the problems it has had since returning to service in May. We should have been given ample time to make changes if we chose to do so, but more importantly....Princess should have taken this ship out of service!

Our stateroom is on deck 10 at the back of ship...hope we don't feel the shaking in our room.

[tetleytea]

FWIW, I saw the Crown and the Majestic Princess both on my recent sailing, and I didn't particularly notice any difference between the two.   Also, our itinerary changed, too (and not for the better), though not by much, and we weren't Princess.

 

You guys are lucky, getting a couple more hours in Victoria than we did.  You actually get to visit Butchart.