Sun Princess and missed port Montenegro

[PensFan1028]

We were anchored in the channel in Kotor back in 2018 on the Crown. Ship dragged anchor around 9 am due to the wind gusts coming off of the mountains. Was a little bit hectic at the time but once we learned what the emergency was about it wasn't a big deal. They moved the ship further out and changed anchorage direction.

 

We are scheduled for Kotor on May 27th. I would accept Dubrovnik as a substitute.

[petez]

So where did you call on 11th April - Bar or Kotor ?

[cruisinsince75]

We actually docked in Kotor a few years ago when on the Azamara Quest and remember one of the Princess ships anchored.  This is a beautiful port and one of our most memorable cruises.  It would be a shame to miss it.

[cruisinsince75]

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

On the current Sun Princess sailing. We went to Bar on the 11th.  We stayed on the ship.

Edited April 13 by Sox Fan Cruiser

[mikemonster]

Any update on why the port was changed from Kotor to Bar? We’re sailing on May 4 and Kotor is our first scheduled stop. We haven’t heard from Princess about any changes, but given their track record so far on communication that’s not a surprise.

Edited April 14 by mikemonster

[cruisinsince75]

According to the Kotor port schedule, the Sun was to be in Kotor on the 11th, again on May 6th, June 17, July 29, August 19, September 9th.  The Sun Princess at 175,000 tons is by far the largest ship on the port schedule.  http://www.portofkotor.co.me/

 

I suspect, as previous posters have pointed out, is the ship is too large to navigate the channel.  Celebrity Edge is slightly shorter and slightly narrower than the Sun, and is 140,000 tons and only calls on Bar, not Kotor for every Montenegro stop this season.

[cr2000]

2 hours ago, cruisinsince75 said:

According to the Kotor port schedule, the Sun was to be in Kotor on the 11th, again on May 6th, June 17, July 29, August 19, September 9th.  The Sun Princess at 175,000 tons is by far the largest ship on the port schedule.  http://www.portofkotor.co.me/

 

I suspect, as previous posters have pointed out, is the ship is too large to navigate the channel.  Celebrity Edge is slightly shorter and slightly narrower than the Sun, and is 140,000 tons and only calls on Bar, not Kotor for every Montenegro stop this season.

 

Shame on Princess for selling these cruises with a port they knew they'd never be able to call upon. We're traveling later this year, if they miss the May 6th stop in Kotor I'm cancelling our booking, Bar is an absolute waste of a port stop.

[Amy G]

4 hours ago, cruisinsince75 said:

According to the Kotor port schedule, the Sun was to be in Kotor on the 11th, again on May 6th, June 17, July 29, August 19, September 9th.  The Sun Princess at 175,000 tons is by far the largest ship on the port schedule.  http://www.portofkotor.co.me/

 

 

The Sun is also supposed to be there on July 8th.  It is still showing up on our itinerary, I hope it does not change.

[phuac]

6 hours ago, cruisinsince75 said:

According to the Kotor port schedule, the Sun was to be in Kotor on the 11th, again on May 6th, June 17, July 29, August 19, September 9th.  The Sun Princess at 175,000 tons is by far the largest ship on the port schedule.  http://www.portofkotor.co.me/

 

I suspect, as previous posters have pointed out, is the ship is too large to navigate the channel.  Celebrity Edge is slightly shorter and slightly narrower than the Sun, and is 140,000 tons and only calls on Bar, not Kotor for every Montenegro stop this season.

 

NCL Viva and RCL Voyager of the Seas/Explorer of the Seas go to Kotor and they are 140,000 tons.  
According to the schedule, they've spaced out the Sun so that there isn't another medium/large ship that is tendering the same day.  So at least there's prep there.

  
At least it's not like one of the August days where NCL Pearl, Queen Victoria and Celebrity Constellation are all tendering.  That's about 7000 people (probably higher for summer to include children) tendering to a town with a population of 17000 people.

 

Hoping Kotor is still on the schedule.  May, June, July folks are pretty much stuck since the May sailing will occur after payment is due.  Aug and Sept folks will need to rely on what happens to the May sailing.    I guess stay tuned!

[JimmyVWine]

7 hours ago, cruisinsince75 said:

I suspect, as previous posters have pointed out, is the ship is too large to navigate the channel

 

4 hours ago, cr2000 said:

Shame on Princess for selling these cruises with a port they knew they'd never be able to call upon.

Dial it back folks. The ship skipped the port one time. Do you really think that Princess laid out an entire schedule for the Spring and Summer KNOWING that it was NEVER going to be able to sail into Kotor?  That is an absurd conclusion to jump to. Why on earth would they do that. Try to posit one logical argument why they would put themselves in that situation. Occam’s Razor applies here. Sailing conditions simply didn’t favor making the trip in. Princess ships miss Roatan all the time and no one is ready to leap to conspiracy theories. Ships just as big as Sun Princess make it in. And relatively speaking, the Sphere Class ships are bigger than the Royal Class ships, but not so much bigger as to make going to Kotor impossible. 

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

But the problem with your argument is that they cancelled the port before we even got on the ship.  A full five days before we were supposed to dock there. Are you telling me that they knew the weather conditions five days a head of time and made the call to not go there?

 

It’s the same with some Santoríni cancellations. There are too many ships in port and the cable car will be an absolute mess. We were the only ship in port yesterday and we walked down instead of standing there for 90 minutes. 

[cr2000]

6 hours ago, Sox Fan Cruiser said:

But the problem with your argument is that they cancelled the port before we even got on the ship.  A full five days before we were supposed to dock there. Are you telling me that they knew the weather conditions five days a head of time and made the call to not go there?

 

It’s the same with some Santoríni cancellations. There are too many ships in port and the cable car will be an absolute mess. We were the only ship in port yesterday and we walked down instead of standing there for 90 minutes. 

Exactly, he's just wrong. It was not related to weather, it was clearly some type of compliance and/or technical issue that prevented the ship from entering Kotor. I tend to think it's simply the ships physical size (would be the largest to ever enter the Bay of Kotor) though there has been speculation that it's tender related - possibly due to a ballast issue with the ship effecting water height and tendering operations.

 

And while I don't think Princess has deliberately misled passengers, I do think they didn't do ANY homework when adding that port to the itinerary - much like they have screwed up many other areas of the ships launch. And worse, I suspect they now know they won't call on Kotor but aren't pulling it from posted itineraries just yet because that could effect summer bookings.

[JimmyVWine]

7 hours ago, Sox Fan Cruiser said:

It’s the same with some Santoríni cancellations. There are too many ships in port and the cable car will be an absolute mess.

But that's the point.  Santorini was cancelled because there was an issue with the island, not with the ship.  If there was/is an operational issue at Kotor, that is the port's doing--not Princess'.  There is no way...NONE...that Princess built out a 5 month schedule with 6 stops in Kotor, knowing in advance that the ship could not make the trip in.  And even if such a colossal, fireable error was made, as soon as they figured it out, they would have cancelled and rearranged all of the other 5 scheduled trips.  I know that it is fun and fashionable here to attribute absolute "monkeys banging on a keyboard" ignorance and incompetence to Princess Cruise Lines, but let's get serious.  Picture the Zoom call where the chief engineer, (or whomever) tells the CEO that despite best efforts, it will be impossible to ever call on Kotor.  @cr2000 wants us to believe that the reaction on that call was: "OK.  But let's not tell anyone about this and continue to cancel Kotor at the last minute to protect bookings in hopes that no one figures this out."  When in reality, we all KNOW that the reaction would have been: "OK.  Let's figure out another solution.  Work the phones and find another suitable Adriatic port stop and have our public relations team work up an appropriate press release heralding the benefits of the new port(s) that we will be using instead."  Sometimes I really question whether people here really understand how a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company operates.  

Edited April 15 by JimmyVWine

[cr2000]

9 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

"OK.  But let's not tell anyone about this and continue to cancel Kotor at the last minute to protect bookings in hopes that no one figures this out."  When in reality, we all KNOW that the reaction would have been: "OK.  Let's figure out another solution.  Work the phones and find another suitable Adriatic port stop and have our public relations team work up an appropriate press release heralding the benefits of the new port(s) that we will be using instead."  Sometimes I really question whether people here really understand how a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company operates.  

 

Have you ever sat in on a c-suite meeting? Yes, that does happen, though not in such an obvious way/phrasing. It's quite common to protect sales at a publicly traded company until such a time when you have an alternate plan in place. We're not talking about a safety issue. If someone fouled up Kotor planning, Princess is not going to publicly admit it, and they won't make any abrupt changes until they have a "get well" plan together. My money says they miss the next stop in May, and it then gets pulled from all future itineraries.

[JimmyVWine]

13 minutes ago, cr2000 said:

Have you ever sat in on a c-suite meeting?

Yes.  And I'm currently working on a quarterly earnings "talking notes" cheat sheet for the CEO right now for his investor call later this week. "Let's deceive the public, our investors and our potential investors" never seems to make it into the notes. 

[TRLD]

2 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

But that's the point.  Santorini was cancelled because there was an issue with the island, not with the ship.  If there was/is an operational issue at Kotor, that is the port's doing--not Princess'.  There is no way...NONE...that Princess built out a 5 month schedule with 6 stops in Kotor, knowing in advance that the ship could not make the trip in.  And even if such a colossal, fireable error was made, as soon as they figured it out, they would have cancelled and rearranged all of the other 5 scheduled trips.  I know that it is fun and fashionable here to attribute absolute "monkeys banging on a keyboard" ignorance and incompetence to Princess Cruise Lines, but let's get serious.  Picture the Zoom call where the chief engineer, (or whomever) tells the CEO that despite best efforts, it will be impossible to ever call on Kotor.  @cr2000 wants us to believe that the reaction on that call was: "OK.  But let's not tell anyone about this and continue to cancel Kotor at the last minute to protect bookings in hopes that no one figures this out."  When in reality, we all KNOW that the reaction would have been: "OK.  Let's figure out another solution.  Work the phones and find another suitable Adriatic port stop and have our public relations team work up an appropriate press release heralding the benefits of the new port(s) that we will be using instead."  Sometimes I really question whether people here really understand how a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company operates.  

All of the cruise lines, not just Princess, but Celebrity, NCL, RCCL  HAL, etc all act pretty much the same once a itinerary has been set and published. They often will not announce a change until they have been formerly notified that that stop will not occur. After all until they get official notification there is a chance something might change. Look for example at when Venice and Bora Bora changed their laws/rules concerning cruise ship stops.  For months after those itineraries went unchanged. Then as each cruise approached, they each changed right before the cruise when they would have received official notification about that particular port stop. That is also when they would address and get the OK for alternative stops.

 

All we have at this point is speculation as to why.  It could have been for any number of reasons. Some of which might impact one stop or all of them there. From the port canceling the stop to Princess making the decision. No way to tell at this time. 

 

There were two other ships in port that day, one around 1000 and one 2000 plus. Always possible that the port may have had concerns about size and anchorage with 2 other ships there.

Edited April 15 by TRLD

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

I don’t necessarily disagree with you @JimmyVWine just correcting the comment about it being weather related. I don’t think all executives are evil money hungry devils. There are reasons for the change in port, they just aren’t sharing them. 

[cruisinsince75]

23 hours ago, Amy G said:

The Sun is also supposed to be there on July 8th.  It is still showing up on our itinerary, I hope it does not change.

Sorry, I missed that one.  I hope everyone that is booked on the Sun makes it to Kotor.  It is a gorgeous port.

[cruisinsince75]

11 hours ago, cr2000 said:

Exactly, he's just wrong. It was not related to weather, it was clearly some type of compliance and/or technical issue that prevented the ship from entering Kotor. I tend to think it's simply the ships physical size (would be the largest to ever enter the Bay of Kotor) though there has been speculation that it's tender related - possibly due to a ballast issue with the ship effecting water height and tendering operations.

 

And while I don't think Princess has deliberately misled passengers, I do think they didn't do ANY homework when adding that port to the itinerary - much like they have screwed up many other areas of the ships launch. And worse, I suspect they now know they won't call on Kotor but aren't pulling it from posted itineraries just yet because that could effect summer bookings.

There was only one small 1200 ton ship scheduled to call on Kotor on the 11th, so overcrowding doesn't appear to be the issue.  

 

Mistakes can happen.  Shoot, we even had one cruise with Silversea that had an itinerary change that we weren't notified about until we boarded the ship.  Apparently, someone had miscalculated the distance between ports and some had to be dropped and others added to keep the ship on schedule.  That was interesting.  I would have hated to be working at the excursion desk onboard.

 

Maybe the port made the decision and just informed Princess or there was some technical reason that Princess had to call it off.  

Edited April 15 by cruisinsince75
additional statement

[TRLD]

1 hour ago, cruisinsince75 said:

There was only one small 1200 ton ship scheduled to call on Kotor on the 11th, so overcrowding doesn't appear to be the issue.  

 

Mistakes can happen.  Shoot, we even had one cruise with Silversea that had an itinerary change that we weren't notified about until we boarded the ship.  Apparently, someone had miscalculated the distance between ports and some had to be dropped and others added to keep the ship on schedule.  That was interesting.  I would have hated to be working at the excursion desk onboard.

 

Maybe the port made the decision and just informed Princess or there was some technical reason that Princess had to call it off.  

The schedule I saw showed 2 on the 11th. Viking Saturn 930 and MSC Opera at 2570.

[ISABELLA]

18 hours ago, cruisinsince75 said:

Sorry, I missed that one.  I hope everyone that is booked on the Sun makes it to Kotor.  It is a gorgeous port.

Kotor is still on our cruise - port day May 27 ( watershuttle is required). Santorini is substituted by Crete - disappointing.

[mikemonster]

15 days until we sail and no word from Princess on anything (including port changes)

 

In checking cruisemapper "no ships" show as scheduled docking in Kotor on April11 besides Sun Princess or on May 6 (which is my cruises port date for Kotor).

 

At this point we have considered options should there be a change (even checked Dubrovnik which shows no ships scheduled for our port date of May 6).

 

The speculation of "why" the Kotor port changed on the April 11 cruise at this point is interesting but in the end it happened. Hopefully, Princess will do a better job of communication moving forward but if this was a last minute one time change out of their control, chalk it up to Sh#t happens.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens in the next 2 weeks.

 

mike   

[cruisewiththekids]

That's disappointing to hear.    I'm booked on the Sun next May with Kotor and Santorini on the itinerary.   I have some time, but I will cancel and look for another ship if it appears that the Sun will be missing those ports.

[mikemonster]

I’m not sure what’s “ disappointing to hear since we haven’t heard anything yet which will affect our May cruise.

 

From what I’ve read , Santorini port has decided to limit the number of passengers in port at any given time by restricting ships in port. Future  schedules such as “cruisemapper” may help determine if your cruise is included in the days schedule.

 

As for Kotor as a port for Sun Princess we’ll just have to see if future cruises are affected, it too early to tell at this time.