Is there a real reason you can not reserve the Sanctuary prior to your cruise?

[JimmyVWine]

I think Princess just anticipates fewer headaches with booking on board. With pre-booking, want to hazard a guess at what percentage of people will complain about the location of lounger they are pre-assigned?  The current system is probably the second worst method possible. All others are tied for first. I do wish that they could implement a system that eliminates the B2B advantage. Seems bizarre that a person who is one of the first 10 to board should get shut out. 

[Princessfan20]

If they had a booking system then who gets first crack?  I guess it would have to be those who fully pay for their cruise first.

[gerig]

39 minutes ago, Princessfan20 said:

If they had a booking system then who gets first crack?  I guess it would have to be those who fully pay for their cruise first.

Not really because you can book and pay for specialty restaurants and excursions before your cruise fare is totally paid.  

[bdever]

On 2/14/2023 at 1:52 PM, jeromep said:

I think this is a legitimate thought, why can't they offer pre-bookings.  I suspect they probably can, but choose not to because of the lounger selection you get when you go to the Sanctuary and pay for your time there on the cruise.  But I wouldn't mind providing some perspective from the camping and campground booking world.

 

We started RV camping over 2 years ago.  And the first thing we noticed was limited availability of campsites to book during the camping season.  Everyone has moved to pre-booking campsites.  The idea that you are just going to hop in your motorhome or hitch up your trailer and drive someplace and park for the night or longer is no longer reality.  Every government agency, local, state, Fed, has moved to reservations for campsites.  And they are all trying to figure out if they only allow pre-booking with no first-come arrivals, or if they stage out the pre-booking months in advance, or do they do pre-booking in waves, where some sites are available early in the booking season (typically 6 months out), and more sites are opened up with shorter lead times, so held until booking 3 months out or something similar.  Do they choose to hold some sites as unreservable and are first-come where you have to get to the campground and find the open first-come site, occupy them and pay for them to secure them.

 

The problem with all of this is trying to find a balance between availability and occupancy.  With regard to Fed sites which are all booked through recreation.gov, we are finding that booking in advance is great, and planning 6 months in advance isn't a huge issue, however there are a lot of empty reserved sites in the federal campgrounds we have stayed in.  Were they not booked?  No.  They were booked, but the camper just chose to not show up.  If you are booking Forest Service campsites and your nightly fee is $20-25, and you booked it months in advance, if your camping plans fall through, why bother canceling.  You aren't going to get your full booking cost back, you are penalized for canceling close to your travel dates, sometimes as much as 50-75% of your booking fee.  So it becomes a why bother situation.  On top of that, there is no incentive for the campground to get those sites open and rebooked because they have been paid for and the cash is in the pocket of the campground operator.

 

Princess would have to map out all the loungers in a ship's Sanctuary first and put them on a deck map (a lot like campgrounds provide details about campsites and you can pick the specific one you want off a map).  After they have done that they have to determine how many loungers to reserve for on-board purchases and how many they will offer for pre-booking.  They would then need to identify each longer as a pre-book lounger or an on-board purchase lounger.  Then they would list the pre-book loungers on the cruise personalizer for somebody's cruise and you could then select the lounger(s) you wanted and reserve them online.

 

In this scenario the folks that want to pre-book can, until that inventory is exhausted, and there would still be loungers available for sale on board.  Is it worth the effort for Princess to develop this level of sophistication and functionality?  Probably not as it doesn't offer any extra revenue, unless you charge more for the pre-book loungers over the on-board booking loungers.

Ticketmaster uses this same logic when it comes to selling platinum seats held by promoters as well as offering first dibs to AmEX and Capital One Card holders. They release them in stages and at different price points depending on availability and location. Like you said, there is a very complex booking algorithm that has been developed and fine tuned for the market over a period of time and the price points have adjusted upward to accommodate for it. The backyard boogie method Princess has in place right now is priced accordingly as well. The question is how much would one would be willing to spend to prebook a lounger that is NOT preselected by Princess? And how much would one would be willing to spend to prebook a lounger that IS preselected by Princess? I think I’m good with Sanctuary backyard boogie booking and taking my chances. 

[Sam.Seattle]

I am sure I will be in the minority here, but I have no problem with B2B being rewarded with being able to book Sanctuary on 1st leg of B2B.  

 

Since Princess does not offer a suite pool area, the demand for Sanctuary is understandable.

 

I would not be too surprised if Princess someday makes the Sanctuary a Suite only benefit upgrade option.

 

 

[LACruiser88]

7 minutes ago, Sam.Seattle said:

I would not be too surprised if Princess someday makes the Sanctuary a Suite only benefit upgrade option.

Or maybe only available to Elites.  Now, that will stir things up!

[Sam.Seattle]

8 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Or maybe only available to Elites.  Now, that will stir things up!

Yea, it would ramp up chatter on the boards.  But, if you owned the business, rewarding your most profitable customers makes sense.  Now that I said that, maybe some of the Elite folks who only book inside cabins and never spend extra money shopping, touring, dinning or gambling would not be a real profitable customer.

[LACruiser88]

1 minute ago, Sam.Seattle said:

Now that I said that, maybe some of the Elite folks who only book inside cabins and never spend extra money shopping, touring, dinning or gambling would not be a real profitable customer.

We have definitely met some Elites as you mentioned, but we have many Elite friends that are fairly big spenders while cruising.  So, IMHO you have a little of both.

[deultgen]

18 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

We have definitely met some Elites as you mentioned, but we have many Elite friends that are fairly big spenders while cruising.  So, IMHO you have a little of both.

 

If some kind of reservation system existed: you could offer elites or suite guests the opportunity to book early similar to specialty dining.

 

Sometime after final payment

 

1.  61 days prior to sailing reservations available for suites or elites who book full day every day of the Sanctuary with full payment collected in advance, non refundable

2.  60 days reservations available for those who book full day every day of the Sanctuary with full payment collected in advance, non refundable

 

3.  51 days prior to sailing reservations available for suites or elites who book half day, every day of the Sanctuary with full payment collected in advance, non refundable

4.  50 days prior to sailing, reservations available for those who book half day. every day of the Sanctuary with full payment collected in advance, non refundable

 

Then reservations for everyone else for single day, single half day etc

 

 

[PescadoAmarillo]

A related question is why hasn’t the price for the Sanctuary gone up- a lot- to reflect demand. Princess has raised the price on so many extras lately; it makes no sense that the Sanctuary is going unscathed. Based on people’s eagerness expressed here, they could probably double the price and still sell out. 

[LACruiser88]

37 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

A related question is why hasn’t the price for the Sanctuary gone up- a lot- to reflect demand. Princess has raised the price on so many extras lately; it makes no sense that the Sanctuary is going unscathed. Based on people’s eagerness expressed here, they could probably double the price and still sell out. 

Let's not give them any ideas!   🙂

[PescadoAmarillo]

11 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Let's not give them any ideas!   🙂

I understand what you’re saying, of course, but I don’t think most of the ideas for the prices increases of late came from Cruise Critic. I guess that, as a stockholder, this one just makes no sense to me at all. I can’t think of a less relaxing way to begin a vacation than to rush to get up to the Sanctuary…and still miss out. 

[caribill]

On 2/14/2023 at 3:52 PM, jeromep said:

I think this is a legitimate thought, why can't they offer pre-bookings.  I suspect they probably can, but choose not to because of the lounger selection you get when you go to the Sanctuary and pay for your time there on the cruise.  But I wouldn't mind providing some perspective from the camping and campground booking world.

 

We started RV camping over 2 years ago.  And the first thing we noticed was limited availability of campsites to book during the camping season.  Everyone has moved to pre-booking campsites.  The idea that you are just going to hop in your motorhome or hitch up your trailer and drive someplace and park for the night or longer is no longer reality.  Every government agency, local, state, Fed, has moved to reservations for campsites.  And they are all trying to figure out if they only allow pre-booking with no first-come arrivals, or if they stage out the pre-booking months in advance, or do they do pre-booking in waves, where some sites are available early in the booking season (typically 6 months out), and more sites are opened up with shorter lead times, so held until booking 3 months out or something similar.  Do they choose to hold some sites as unreservable and are first-come where you have to get to the campground and find the open first-come site, occupy them and pay for them to secure them.

 

The problem with all of this is trying to find a balance between availability and occupancy.  With regard to Fed sites which are all booked through recreation.gov, we are finding that booking in advance is great, and planning 6 months in advance isn't a huge issue, however there are a lot of empty reserved sites in the federal campgrounds we have stayed in.  Were they not booked?  No.  They were booked, but the camper just chose to not show up.  If you are booking Forest Service campsites and your nightly fee is $20-25, and you booked it months in advance, if your camping plans fall through, why bother canceling.  You aren't going to get your full booking cost back, you are penalized for canceling close to your travel dates, sometimes as much as 50-75% of your booking fee.  So it becomes a why bother situation.  On top of that, there is no incentive for the campground to get those sites open and rebooked because they have been paid for and the cash is in the pocket of the campground operator.

 

Princess would have to map out all the loungers in a ship's Sanctuary first and put them on a deck map (a lot like campgrounds provide details about campsites and you can pick the specific one you want off a map).  After they have done that they have to determine how many loungers to reserve for on-board purchases and how many they will offer for pre-booking.  They would then need to identify each longer as a pre-book lounger or an on-board purchase lounger.  Then they would list the pre-book loungers on the cruise personalizer for somebody's cruise and you could then select the lounger(s) you wanted and reserve them online.

 

In this scenario the folks that want to pre-book can, until that inventory is exhausted, and there would still be loungers available for sale on board.  Is it worth the effort for Princess to develop this level of sophistication and functionality?  Probably not as it doesn't offer any extra revenue, unless you charge more for the pre-book loungers over the on-board booking loungers.

 

Just how much complexity should Princess spend IT $$$ on for the about 60 lounges available to reserve?

[caribill]

On 2/9/2023 at 11:41 AM, deultgen said:

I know the Sanctuary is a limited space but there is limited space in specialty restaurants, or many excursions which can both be reserved in advance.

 

Most excursions can have hundreds of slots available although Princess only shows 20 slots max. The count stays at 20 until there are actually less than 20 slots left.

 

And few people make a booking for a specialty restaurant for every night as they might do for every day in the Sanctuary.

 

Also, when pre-booking a specialty restaurant you are very limited in arrival times while once on board you have much more flexibility in picking an arrival time.

[reiddg]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:34 AM, skynight said:

Just some thoughts, not solutions.

Tech does not solve everything although some think it does and develop cumbersome programs to solve problems that may not exist

Spots in the sanctuary vs the number vs demand is a far less of a percentage of the total number of passengers than something like specialty dining. 

Sanctuary spaces are very limited.

Demand varies depending on itinerary.

Sanctuary is available to all passengers which exceeds 3,000.

There are maybe enough lounges to serve maybe 2 to 3% of the total passengers.

Lounges would have to be placed in fixed diagrammable locations to allow you to select them. Specific lounges would require descriptions regarding shade, sun, view, etc on specific itineraries. They could not be moved around as they are now.

Moving the reserve time to some date or days prior to sailing would only move the demand to an on line day and hour on that date. It would also basically eliminate any customer that books late.

The Sun Princess may have some solutions. Princess has decided to separate passenger lounging areas by class.

 

 

You are correct in that technology doesn't solve everything.  However, I must respectfully disagree that technology can't solve the Sanctuary reservation issue.  I've been in IT for over 40 years and have seen some excellent technology solutions created.  This one wouldn't be that difficult.  Furthermore, it's ridiculous to force passengers to make the mad dash to the Sanctuary to make an in-person reservation and it's equally ridiculous to put the crew through it as well.  They have better things to do as do the passengers.

I can state unequivocally that a robust reservation system can be implemented without a lot of work.  First, the challenges:
1.  Sanctuary configurations differ from ship to ship - some more than others.

2.  Sun & shade (partial or full) vary by ship, by itinerary, by weather.

 

The solutions:

1.  Just like when you buy a reserved seat for a movie, game, concert, or flight, there's a seat map available and you can choose your seat.  A lounger map for each ship can be created and displayed in the app or the website.  The loungers are always in the same configuration at the start of the day so having fixed positions on a map would be fine.  They could even provide a 3D rendering of the actual Sanctuary on each ship so you can do a virtual tour. The map can display occupied and available seats by day and you can have the option to choose the same seat for the entire cruise, if available.    A suggested full/partial sun/shade can be specified but personally, I would avoid that or disclaimer the heck out of it (see #2).  Just like with dining reservations, they would commence by loyalty/cabin class.  

 

2. First and foremost, a disclaimer is required in a big bold font.  Nothing is guaranteed - for the challenges I stated.     One can never be assured they will get their desired amount of sun.  It's a crap shoot on every cruise.  One needs to face facts on this topic.  That said, there are loungers on many of the ships that can be designated all/partial sun or all/partial shade.  Again, those can be highlighted in the depicted configuration but no guarantees. 

As I previously stated, it would save the labor supporting in-person reservations and the ridiculous mad dash for passengers to the Sanctuary on embarkation day.  On our last cruise, when one couple made it to the Sanctuary podium at the entrance, they were there for almost 20 minutes deciding if they want sun/shade and calling their friends to get their choices.  All while the rest of us were standing in the sun waiting.  All of us in line did applaud when they finally turned to leave...

[stoneharborlady]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:36 PM, Buckeye10640 said:

I would like to see single day, pre-paid, non-refundable reservations with a limit on how many days per cabin. Let more people have a chance at booking. 

This sounds more fair than the current reservation system