Princess booking the airfare or you?

[scarley3623]

A question to those who had Princess book your airfare and to those who may have booked their own, or used the Princess FlightChoice Plus.

 

For my cruise, we are flying in on the Saturday before and staying in a hotel until the cruise, we booked the hotel through Princess also. I see that Air Tahiti now has a flight out of LAX on Friday night, arriving 6:35 AM on Saturday morning. I don't think this was always on the schedule and it seemed like the last time I checked their schedule, most flights arrived on Saturday at 7 or 11 PM.

 

What have your experiences been when Princess books your airfare, any pro's or con's that we should know about. What are the chances they would book us on that Friday night flight? Is it worth paying the extra $75.00 a head to get the flights of my choice thru the cruise line? Seems like there should be more to that option than I can find in any "fine print" in the Princess catalog.

 

Thanks

[BigGuy25]

We're flying next Thursday and will be boarding the TP that day. The ship sails for Moorea at 4am the next morning. Princess has us on the 1pm LAX flight that gets us into Tahiti at 6:30pm.

[twin123185]

I just booked air with Princess - 1st time ever for us it was cheaper than direct even with paying about $95 extra pp for the flights that I wanted.

There's not too much choice from NYC but I wanted to make sure I took the same plane thw whole trip. I did the hotel pre and post on my own though - this was cheaper.

 

Larry

[laurieb]

first time we booked air through Princess, never again. what part of the country do you live in? if the timing is right, check out Hawaiian Airlines prices. we booked our own air through ATN last time and arrived at 5am, we loved that as we were taking the ferry to Moorea for a pre cruise stay. for us, right now Hawaiian is about 600.00 pp cheaper, that would buy some mighty nice pearls :).

[scarley3623]

laurieb, what was your bad experience with Princess booking for you? I guess they send over your flight itinerary about 75 days prior to the cruise. Can changes be made at that point, or are you locked in and that's it? We live in Colorado, it looks like we have to go out of LAX, no direct flights from here. I would hate to miss out on the opportunity to have the whole day on Saturday, rather than getting in at night. Our cruise is not until Feb 08, it seems like such a far time off......

[cruisenut2001]

When we went last Aug, Princess had the lowest fares so we used them. They gave us what we thought weren't that bad of flight times, BUT boy were we wrong. Problem with Princess air and even with paying the extra is you must tell them the times you want right then. Or hope your TA knows you well enough not to give you 25 min to clear customs or hours of airport wait times. The long wait times at LAX and SLC wouldn't have been that bad if the ATN plane didn't lose the AC for the area we were in. It made for a very long and most painful day. I would like to say that we will never use Princess for air or fly on ATN again, but it's just too hard to see into the future. Good Luck

[lovesyorkies]

Hello.

 

I went to Tahiti in May and booked my own flights - cheaper than the cruise line. I am going back in November and booked my own flights again - cheaper than the cruise line.

 

I booked my air the first time through travelocity and this time through cheapoair.

 

Good luck!

[Dr. Jeff]

A question to those who had Princess book your airfare and to those who may have booked their own, or used the Princess FlightChoice Plus.

 

What have your experiences been when Princess books your airfare, any pro's or con's that we should know about.

 

We just returned from PPT to Houston via LAX and DFW on ATN & American. We let Princess book the flights - cost appeared to about the same as do-it-yourself. Pros - Princess insurance provided peace of mind for possible cancellations -

Princess transfers made connections at PPT to hotel and ship + return a breeze (and they provided carts at PPT with porters. DIY folks were on their own ;)

 

Cons - extra leg from IAH to DFW rather than a single leg from Houston to LAX.

 

Bottom line - I like to have a little more peace of mind. For me, it's priceless :)