Princess Air

[Shogun]

Hi Folks,

 

every time I have flown with Princess it has been a charter flight always full,

 

This has been the case to Europe, Caribbean could not get seat on the flight to US. As such prices have always been good.

 

Question is when folks in US fly to ports is it by schedule flights most times,

 

Does Princess use charter flights when you fly to Europe, or do so many folk want extra days before or after cruise that they do not bother.

 

yours Shogun

[jhannah]

I have used cruise line air only once. Their price was better than any other open-jaw rate I could find at the time. I much prefer to make my own arrangements and remain in control of my travel. We always go early. At least one day domestically and two days internationally. That gets rid of any pucker factor if a flight is delayed or cancelled enroute.

[Druke I]

I think the UK experience is much different than the US experience.

 

Only twice have I seen a charter for a Princess ship booking:

 

Acapulco Mex to Los Angeles, end of Panama Canal cruise, late great Royal Princess, 3-90, and

 

Miami FL to Manaus Brazil for an Amazon River cruise, on the (old) Pacific Princess, way back in 12-91.

 

All our other flights to/from Princess cruises have been on scheduled flights.

[Princess Chatterer]

If you go early to your cruise or return a day or two after your cruise there's a very good chance that Princess Air will use a commercial carrier. Otherwise you may fly on a charter. Princess Air may or may not be cheaper and may or may not give you the best schedule. You can pay extra for Princess Air deviation and may or may not be able to pick your own exact schedule and carrier. I do know that Princess likes Northworst and Delta over AA. That may be possibly because Princess shops for the carrier with the cheapest rates rather than the best schedules BTW: I'm told by my T.A. that Princess pays zero commission to her when she sells Princess Air.

[Jay_NH]

I have used cruise line air only once. Their price was better than any other open-jaw rate I could find at the time. I much prefer to make my own arrangements and remain in control of my travel. We always go early. At least one day domestically and two days internationally. That gets rid of any pucker factor if a flight is delayed or cancelled enroute.

 

Well said Jim!!;) LMAO

 

Jay:D

[TCF]

Living on the northwest Pacific coast we have found that all the cruise lines want to jam us on 'red eye' flights to Florida and have us arrive just in time to get to the ship!:eek:

Have never done it!:D

We book our own flights to get us to Florida the day before the cruise. This gives us the "pucker room" someone else just mentioned (LMAO), lets us get past the jet lag, and sometimes even lets us go places in Florida we want to see!

Do we pay more? Probably, but not a huge difference, and we also get to choose airlines that have sales on. Our flights for two have always run between $1600 and $1800 return. (Of course it is the air fares that means we can only afford to cruise once a year, which is unfortunate because we would cruise more often if it weren't for the high air fares.)

Tom&Deb:)

[mr green]

We have never had a chartered flight while going air/sea. We prefer going A/C as it is one less worry when flying in, plus we often get a 'sleep over', on Princess before boarding. john

[chasetf]

Question is when folks in US fly to ports is it by schedule flights most times, Does Princess use charter flights when you fly to Europe, or do so many folk want extra days before or after cruise that they do not bother. yours Shogun

It is by scheduled flights in our experience. I would be surprised if a cruise line could fill a charter coming out of one US city. Maybe in England for instance, London would be the normal expected gateway city, so I would think they could fill a flight of Brits going to a single ship in the US or Caribbean for instance. But we colonists fly out of some many different gateway cities it is probably impossible unless you have a very large group.

[Shogun]

Hi There,

 

Flights will leave from London for most cruises, to date I have never found a Princess cruise that did not have a UK charter flight going to it, however a few will be from Manchester and they often put one from Edinburgh and Glasgow, a season.

 

Now with Edinburgh Glasgow only being about 30 miles apart thats no distance at all.

 

Like wise London is only 1 hours flying so its easy for folk in UK to get to it.

 

Does this mean that the Brits per head take more cruises than US folks,

 

yours Shogun

[mr green]

Hi There,

 

 

 

Does this mean that the Brits per head take more cruises than US folks,

 

yours Shogun[/quote

 

 

It would not surprise me one bit if what you say is true. However as an 'Ex Brit' I still wonder where the money comes from. We were there last fall, prices sky high, to say nothing of the price of gas. We had two burgers' and two ciders, and, as I told the young lady there that it cost me more than I made in a whole month, back in the '50s. Back to your subject, we Canadians probably cruise more than our US counter parts. We have far more passports per capita. john

[CrusinAgain]

Living on the northwest Pacific coast we have found that all the cruise lines want to jam us on 'red eye' flights to Florida and have us arrive just in time to get to the ship!:eek:

 

Have never done it!:D

 

We book our own flights to get us to Florida the day before the cruise. This gives us the "pucker room" someone else just mentioned (LMAO), lets us get past the jet lag, and sometimes even lets us go places in Florida we want to see!

 

Do we pay more? Probably, but not a huge difference, and we also get to choose airlines that have sales on. Our flights for two have always run between $1600 and $1800 return. (Of course it is the air fares that means we can only afford to cruise once a year, which is unfortunate because we would cruise more often if it weren't for the high air fares.)

 

Tom&Deb:)

 

That would be awful! Last year we took the Carnival Miracle out of Tampa from the Pacific Northwest and Carnival put us up for the night at the Hilton in the Tampa Airport and provided the transfers. Wished Princess did the same but we are having to buy the transfers.

[Marie-Claude]

Shogun:

 

We've used Princess air twice now (from Montreal), the first time to Copenhagen, they flew us Air France through Paris, a great flight, with really good connections. Last August, we flew to London. We wanted to spend a few days on our own, so we did the deviation through Princess. We got a direct flight with BA for the same price of booking it ourselves.

 

We've just received our flight with them for South America in February, and again we got good flights with AA on the way there to Buenos Aires, and with Air Canada on the return portion. Again, better pricing than doing it ourselves for this open jaw.

 

So far can't complain about any of the flights given to us!

MC