Sapphire Princess May 11, 2024 Cruise Delayed - Propulsion Issues

[BDevilCruiser]

11 minutes ago, meldal said:

For passengers on this current cruise - have the "nonworking" toilet issues been resolved (located in the individual cabins and the public areas)?

I haven’t had any issues in my cabin on Emerald deck, nor in any of the men’s public bathrooms I’ve visited.

[Paula_MacFan]

Is anyone here on a B2B? I hope people on next week's cruise will continue to keep us updated. We fly next week and are seriously thinking about canceling.

[Alaska05]

18 minutes ago, Paula_MacFan said:

Is anyone here on a B2B? I hope people on next week's cruise will continue to keep us updated. We fly next week and are seriously thinking about canceling.

I’m on the B2B. Hope we have at least 1 glacier day next week. That’s what I come for. 

[meldal]

I hope everyone on board has a great day in Skagway today!!!!!

[telecheck]

The highlight of an Alaska cruise is undoubtedly the opportunity to see glaciers. With the cancellation of Glacier Bay and College Fjord, I am surprised they did not attempt to substitute another glacier. Tracy Arm or Endicott Arm would have been excellent alternatives given their proximity to Juneau. If time constraints were an issue, they could have even canceled Juneau and redirected to Tracy Arm or Endicott Arm instead. I believe most passengers would have been willing to make this trade off. As mentioned earlier, glacier viewing is the essence of an Alaska cruise. For many, this might be their sole chance to visit Alaska. Even with the FCC, they might not afford another Alaska cruise considering the expenses involved such as airfare and accommodation.

[memoak]

29 minutes ago, telecheck said:

The highlight of an Alaska cruise is undoubtedly the opportunity to see glaciers. With the cancellation of Glacier Bay and College Fjord, I am surprised they did not attempt to substitute another glacier. Tracy Arm or Endicott Arm would have been excellent alternatives given their proximity to Juneau. If time constraints were an issue, they could have even canceled Juneau and redirected to Tracy Arm or Endicott Arm instead. I believe most passengers would have been willing to make this trade off. As mentioned earlier, glacier viewing is the essence of an Alaska cruise. For many, this might be their sole chance to visit Alaska. Even with the FCC, they might not afford another Alaska cruise considering the expenses involved such as airfare and accommodation.

All of the glacier venues have limits on the amount of ships allowed at one time it is not just a decision made by the captain 

[memoak]

1 hour ago, ernnnn said:

What a disaster... There is not enough compensation for that mess. We will sail on her on mid-August. Let's hope everything will be solved by then. And, if not, let's hope they say something well before for us to cancel the cruise and taking a new one. As we are travelling from Spain for this cruise, it is not just a simple cruise missed for us.

 It enough compensation ?  This is way more than we got when we were stuck in England for 3 days, missed 3 ports and ended up with 8 consecutive sea days. I would be very happy with this compensation 

[telecheck]

5 minutes ago, memoak said:

All of the glacier venues have limits on the amount of ships allowed at one time it is not just a decision made by the captain 

Today, there are four ships visiting Tracy Arm: Celebrity Edge, Majestic Princess, ms Westerdam, and ms Nieuw Amsterdam. Yesterday, only two ships visited: Norwegian Bliss and Ovation Of The Seas. If they can accommodate four ships today without any issue, why couldn't they add one more yesterday, which would have been only three ships in total?

[dmwnc1959]

Today in Skagway...

 

[dmwnc1959]

2 hours ago, telecheck said:

Today, there are four ships visiting Tracy Arm: Celebrity Edge, Majestic Princess, ms Westerdam, and ms Nieuw Amsterdam. Yesterday, only two ships visited: Norwegian Bliss and Ovation Of The Seas. If they can accommodate four ships today without any issue, why couldn't they add one more yesterday, which would have been only three ships in total?

Looking at the schedule (and Marine Traffic) I only see once large cruise ship actually visiting Tracy Arm. The majority of the ships you've mentioned go up Endicott Arm. 
 

https://claalaska.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/TA-Tracy-Arm-2024.pdf

 

Keep in mind too, that the ventures into this area are booked and regulated a year in advance or more, and are timed - either early morning or late afternoon - and it's one cruise ship at a time up in the narrows. 
 

Here you can see where Celebrity Edge this morning went up the Endicott Arm and Nieuw Amsterdam is there now, whereas Westerdam went up Tracy Arm earlier. 
 

 

 

 

Today's schedule for Endicott Arm and Tracy Arm:

 

 

 

And here you can see the tracks for Celebrity Edge and Majestic Princess for this morning, where they were two hours apart up in the narrows. They most likely passed each other in the wide entrance to Endicott Arm as they switched places. 

 

 

 

Edited May 15 by dmwnc1959

[JimmyVWine]

3 hours ago, ernnnn said:

There is not enough compensation for that mess

Meh.  When you put numbers to it, it becomes pretty clear that this isn't true.  At the end of the day, if a person spent $1,000 to be on this cruise to nowhere, they will have spent $250 for 7 days enjoying the ship's food, drinks and entertainment.  Assuming that there isn't one other single redeeming factor of this cruise, that comes to $35 per day for only those things that I mentioned.  Of course, during the course of that week, there was angst, anger and uncertainty, and that surely eats into the overall enjoyment, but those are intangibles.  And as they say on TV...But wait!  There's more!  That same person gets to book a replacement cruise that presumably will hit all the places that this cruise did not and their $1,000 cruise will cost them $250 of new money. Add it all up, and that is 14 days on a ship with full use of the ship's services and entertainment, of which around 7 days are sea days (some on this cruise and some on the next cruise) and around 7 days are spent enjoying the ports on this itinerary.  All this for $500, or $35 per day.  Yes, there is the inconvenience of having to travel all the way back to Alaska, but if that is a hardship, the replacement cruise can be to any location.  I truly feel for the people who are missing out on this cruise, but it's not as if they were spending it on a ship that was dead in the water with no electricity, plumbing or food.  When the 75% refund and 75% FCC is overlaid on top of this, I'd say that this is pretty good compensation.  

Edited May 15 by JimmyVWine

[rjhollan]

1 minute ago, JimmyVWine said:

...there was angst, anger and uncertainty, and that surely eats into the overall enjoyment...

 

We can't control our circumstances, only the way we choose to react to them.  You can have an angry outburst, or you can make lemonade.  I walk on to every cruise with the attitude "even if they cancel my ports and I have 14 sea days... I'm being waited on, entertained, and I don't have to work.  How bad can it really be?"  🙂   First world problems.  heh.

[TRLD]

1 hour ago, telecheck said:

Today, there are four ships visiting Tracy Arm: Celebrity Edge, Majestic Princess, ms Westerdam, and ms Nieuw Amsterdam. Yesterday, only two ships visited: Norwegian Bliss and Ovation Of The Seas. If they can accommodate four ships today without any issue, why couldn't they add one more yesterday, which would have been only three ships in total?

Except Tracy arm would cause them to backtrack when they barely made Juneau and had to cancel Glacier Bay and College Ford to make Whittier on time.

[memoak]

2 minutes ago, rjhollan said:

 

We can't control our circumstances, only the way we choose to react to them.  You can have an angry outburst, or you can make lemonade.  I walk on to every cruise with the attitude "even if they cancel my ports and I have 14 sea days... I'm being waited on, entertained, and I don't have to work.  How bad can it really be?"  🙂   First world problems.  heh.

And people on this cruise also got use of a floating hotel with all meals included for much less than they could ever do on land

[ernnnn]

3 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Meh.  When you put numbers to it, it becomes pretty clear that this isn't true.  At the end of the day, if a person spent $1,000 to be on this cruise to nowhere, they will have spent $250 for 7 days enjoying the ship's food, drinks and entertainment.  Assuming that there isn't one other single redeeming factor of this cruise, that comes to $35 per day for only those things that I mentioned.  Of course, during the course of that week, there was angst, anger and uncertainty, and that surely eats into the overall enjoyment, but those are intangibles.  And as they say on TV...But wait!  There's more!  That same person gets to book a replacement cruise that presumably will hit all the places that this cruise did not and their $1,000 cruise will cost them $250 of new money. Add it all up, and that is 14 days on a ship with full use of the ship's services and entertainment, of which around 7 days are sea days (some on this cruise and some on the next cruise) and around 7 days are spent enjoying the ports on this itinerary.  All this for $500, or $35 per day.  Yes, there is the inconvenience of having to travel all the way back to Alaska, but if that is a hardship, the replacement cruise can be to any location.  I truly feel for the people who are missing out on this cruise, but it's not as if they were spending it on a ship that was dead in the water with no electricity, plumbing or food.  When the 75% refund and 75% FCC is overlaid on top of this, I'd say that this is pretty good compensation.  

What is good for you, may be not good for someone else. For example, in my case, I have to travel from Spain to Vancouver to take the cruise. If the cruise company does that to me, I wouldn't mind about getting all those perks, as getting to Alaska, spending my one and only yearly vacation time, and coming back, would be equally expensive and useless. Maybe your cup of tea is not mine. Remember, there are many factors behind every single passenger, and not all of them are the same.

[JimmyVWine]

1 minute ago, rjhollan said:

I walk on to every cruise with the attitude "even if they cancel my ports and I have 14 sea days... I'm being waited on, entertained, and I don't have to work.  How bad can it really be?"

True, but I believe that that is an attitude that develops over time, and is certainly itinerary-dependent.  If I were in the Caribbean and the ship missed St. Thomas, Nassau and Princess Cay, I'd 100% agree with this.  If I booked a cruise to cultural and historic places where I expected to go to Delos (Mykonos), Pompeii (Naples),  Akrotiri (Santorini) or the Acropolis (Athens) and the ship never made these ports, the "even if they cancel my ports" philosophy would be hard to bring to the surface.  For many, the Alaska itinerary is such an cruise. 

[memoak]

This kind of thing can happen on any cruise on any line and is not limited to Alaska or Princess. I flew to England for a Trans Atlantic to visit art museums in La Havre and Bilbao. Never got to those ports   Maybe someday I will get to go back. In the meantime I continue to travel to other ports in different parts of the world. 

[JimmyVWine]

10 minutes ago, ernnnn said:

What is good for you, may be not good for someone else...Remember, there are many factors behind every single passenger, and not all of them are the same.

All true statements.  But your earlier post that I quoted did not say: "for me."  It was a general statement that read as a proclamation for all guests.  Had you said that this is insufficient compensation for your situation, I would never have been so presumptuous as to tell you that your opinion about your situation is "wrong."

[rjhollan]

19 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

True, but I believe that that is an attitude that develops over time, and is certainly itinerary-dependent.  If I were in the Caribbean and the ship missed St. Thomas, Nassau and Princess Cay, I'd 100% agree with this.  If I booked a cruise to cultural and historic places where I expected to go to Delos (Mykonos), Pompeii (Naples),  Akrotiri (Santorini) or the Acropolis (Athens) and the ship never made these ports, the "even if they cancel my ports" philosophy would be hard to bring to the surface.  For many, the Alaska itinerary is such an cruise. 

I had the same attitude on our 14-day med cruise.  We had some itinerary changes due to weather and we rolled with it.  We missed the 2 days in Israel that triggered the initial purchase for us.... but we still went, we still had a grand time, and I'd have still been happy floating for 2 weeks (esp with that level of compensation)

 

[cr8tiv1]

19 minutes ago, ernnnn said:

What is good for you, may be not good for someone else. For example, in my case, I have to travel from Spain to Vancouver to take the cruise. If the cruise company does that to me, I wouldn't mind about getting all those perks, as getting to Alaska, spending my one and only yearly vacation time, and coming back, would be equally expensive and useless. Maybe your cup of tea is not mine. Remember, there are many factors behind every single passenger, and not all of them are the same.

 

If this will place a mental hardship on you, then I would consider using your travel insurance to cancel for any reason. Much better to eat a few hundred than a few thousand.  

 

Then turn around and use the Future Cruise Credits to book another ship to Alaska in the same time frame.  

 

We all have stresses in our lives (I just had a week of it).  You need to do what is best for your peace of mind.  Good luck.  

[Paula_MacFan]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

Meh.  When you put numbers to it, it becomes pretty clear that this isn't true.  At the end of the day, if a person spent $1,000 to be on this cruise to nowhere, they will have spent $250 for 7 days enjoying the ship's food, drinks and entertainment.  

I'm not going to argue about the merits of cabin choice but I can assure you our upcoming Sapphire cruise is vastly more expensive than $1,000.  Heck that doesn't even cover our airfare.  As stated by many before, for some people this is a bucket list trip that may never be repeated.  Too bad for the people who used up their precious vacation time for the year on this mess.  

[Paula_MacFan]

I just received a call from my Princess CVP.  I anxiously answered the phone when I saw who it was thinking they may have an update for me or even some news of cancellations/changes?  Nope.  They were just calling to see if I had any last minute questions, LOL.  I said 'well yes my question is what is going on with the Sapphire propulsion issue?' and they were completely in the dark.  They asked me what ports had been missed and were totally unaware there had been any changes or problems with the cruise.  

 

My only question then was 'how late can we use CFAR insurance' and they said up until the day we fly, which is next week.  So we have a few days to decide if we're going to proceed or not. 

 

My CVP said they would send me some additional contact information in case we have issues closer to the cruise and can't reach them.  

Edited May 15 by Paula_MacFan

[JimmyVWine]

19 minutes ago, Paula_MacFan said:

I'm not going to argue about the merits of cabin choice but I can assure you our upcoming Sapphire cruise is vastly more expensive than $1,000.

The math works out the same on a proportionate sliding scale.  When you pay more, you get more back.  If you paid $2,800 per person for the 7 day cruise, then in your mind, this experience of being on the ship and seeing the ports was worth $400 per day.  Impossible to know how you allocate that amount as between the ship experience versus the port experience.  But if you allocate it $375 for the ports per day and $25 per day for the ship experience, why take a cruise at all?  Just book a series of legs on the Alaska Marine Highway System instead and see the ports that way since the cruise ship offers so little value.  But having opted not to do that, one can assume that you place some value on the shipboard experience.  After getting your 75% credit, then the week on the ship cost you $100 per day for a stay in (presumably) a suite, with all the food, drinks and entertainment that the ship has to offer, and you get $2,100 to play with for a future cruise.  Play your cards right and that covers 100% of your future cruise.  14 days on a ship, one to nowhere and one to all the ports you want to see, for a grand total of $700.  Not bad for $50 per day.      

[dizgal64]

Sorry, at this point, I don’t even want to chance it. (I’m on the may 25th sailing) But I’m forced to go if Princess doesn’t cancel ahead of time because as a NY resident we cannot purchase CFAR travel insurance. We’ve got insurance, just can’t have that kind. 
If we get on that ship and we don’t get the full tour…while Princess KNEW 2 WEEKS before that Sapphire was in trouble? 😡

[arizonaperson]

I feel for those onboard the ship now, but at least you did get some compensation or are getting some. But for those boarding starting at the end of this current voyage and beyond, Yep, very difficult decision whether to go or not on the ship. No one has a crystal ball to see if they’re definitely going to all the ports that are in your itinerary, but the ship will go somewhere more than likely. They ( Princess) just won’t notify you, more than likely my opinion. So only you and traveling party can decide if you’d like to cancel and rebook on another ship( AK probably sold out? for same time frame?)or another time. No easy decisions.

What a mess & communication probably not going to happen with Princess because as far as they’re concerned, in my opinion the ship will take the next voyage and beyond. I would think -again my own opinion, they would notify everyone if they totally canceled any of the upcoming cruises, but not the ports.

I hope for the next voyages, your itinerary stays intact.

Edited May 15 by arizonaperson