lstone19

It's amazing how many people and companies just don't get how important communications is. From my airline days, I remember how the company pushed to pilots "Push or Talk" - at departure time, if the plane wasn't pushing back, they should be talking and letting the passengers know why we weren't. I mentioned earlier being on a TA that had to deviate around a hurricane. Yes, that happens but as I said, the communications from the captain were abysmal. First announcement besides mentioning the hurricane said we'd miss the next two ports. No mention of where we were going instead. Several hours later, those of us looking at the map (cabin TV and some of the public displays) could see we had changed course again but not a word from the captain so it had become the magical mystery tour. Second announcement from the captain didn't come until 36 hours after the first and didn't provide much of substance. And the next announcement was another 36 hours after that where we were finally told we'd be arriving in New York a day early. 72 hours of not really knowing what we were doing and it was clearly showing with upset passengers and even ship's staff who were equally in the dark. It was actually hard to enjoy the sea days when you're wondering just what was being planned for us. Could we have done anything different? No. But knowing helps you mentally prepare for the next few days.

Ah. But that the passengers have no control is one of the problems. One of the things that my airline employer emphasized that when it comes to service recovery, passengers want choices. When a flight is delayed, is there another flight they can be rebooked on? Change of connecting city or an alternate destination airport (example: someone who lives halfway between San Francisco and San Jose may be perfectly fine with going to the other)? Or maybe the delay is such that they'd rather cancel and get a refund since there's no longer a reason to go. Princess, as near as we can tell, offered no alternatives (but they did last year with Ruby Princess after it hit the pier in San Francisco). They knew they had a broken ship and they could have told people they had a problem and might need to cancel some ports. Sure some people were already committed but I'm sure there were some local passengers who might have preferred to go home and try another day.

And this is where we fundamentally disagree. While it may have been a random failure, it absolutely was under Princess's control (Princess responsibility - in this context, they're the same thing). To go back to my earlier post about my airline career and that all irregularities (delays, cancellations, and diversions) were either carrier controllable or non-controllable, this is clearly carrier (Princess) controllable. And yes, I have expert knowledge on the subject since one of my job duties was to assist Customer Relations by making deep dives into data (since many times there were cascading delays) and make the call as to whether it was carrier controllable or not (example: late Flight 1 in turn delayed Flight 2 so another aircraft was subbed but still with a delay (just not as much as waiting for the original plane) for Flight 3; dig into the data and find the original delay to Flight 1 was due to a pilot that overslept so the delays to all three were carrier controllable).

I don't disagree and when it's what I expect (doing a TA next March), I love it. But I don't consider an added sea day far from land to be directly substitutable for planned scenic cruising and/or a scheduled port call.

On modern ships, the engines do not directly drive the propellers. The engines are nothing more than electrical generators. The propellers are turned by electric motors that use that generated electricity. From what's been posted, it appears that the problem is in the switching gear that routes the generated electricity to where it's needed. The same is true of diesel railroad locomotives and has been true since day 1 (a few experiments in direct-drive locomotives have been failures).

Really? Have you looked at where the ship is right now? It's about 25 miles from the southern tip of Haida Gwaii. There is nothing to see there except open ocean. They won't be close to land until well after dark tonight.

Completely agree. But it seems a lot of people believe that if it wasn't a deliberate act, then Princess is not responsible.

I'm not in "THAT" category either. Weather happens and that truly meets the "act of God" category. A 2017 TA we were on had to deviate well around a hurricane and we missed two ports (and added one if you consider a port day in New York before disembarking there the next day to be an added port - and we did cruise from Manhattan to Brooklyn before disembarking). I don't hold Princess responsible for that change but I do hold Princess responsible for the abysmal communications from the captain who was apparently keeping no one informed about what was happening - even Guest Services had no idea what the plan was). OTOH, last year (and as I mentioned earlier) we missed Juneau after two medical evacuations as we made our way north from San Francisco. And as I mentioned in that earlier post, the airline I retired from would have considered this to be carrier responsibility yet Princess did nothing for us other than the minimal refund of port charges. I don't want to minimize what those two passengers were dealing with but Princess failed to deliver what we paid for for a reason under their control (the decision to evacuate those passengers was made by Princess and/or their contractor (the ship's doctor)). People love to fall back on the contract and all the rights it has for Princess to make changes. Basically that contract promises the passenger nothing and a basic legal point (although IANAL) is that a contract that promises one party nothing is not a valid contract. Or, as I saw recently, that the contract only promises ocean transportation. But what value does ocean transportation have on a round-trip cruise (not true of this Sapphire Princess cruise)? Our cruise last year was San Francisco to San Francisco. Why would I need ten days of ocean transportation to get me back to where I started? So I think that we can conclude that the value of ocean transportation on a round-trip cruise is zero. Throw in laws about advertising and marketing and Princess has an obligation, despite what the cruise contract says, to deliver something substantially similar to what they promised in their marketing. You can argue about where the line is for "substantially similar" but this Sapphire Princess cruise is, IMHO, getting close to that line if it hasn't already crossed it.

Not to minimize what JJ is saying, today's Inside Passage cruises are nowhere close to what they were years ago. Our first Alaska cruise was in 1993 on the first Sky Princess (originally Sitmar's Fairsky) and after exiting Seymour Narrows (which would have been in the middle of the night northbound most cruises as transit time is tide dependent) stayed inside past Bella Bella and Klemtu east of Princess Royal Island and then through the Grenville Channel which ends near Port Rupert (that first sea day was absolutely fascinating). Today's Inside Passage route has the ships in the Hecate Strait between the mainland and Haida Gwaii when heading to Ketchikan first and completely outside when Juneau is the first port. The main thing of today's normal cruise route the current cruise is losing is the Inside Passage between Ketchikan and Juneau (which is well worth seeing).

I completely agree with this. Regardless of the why, a mechanical failure of the ship is 100% their responsibility. I am retired from the travel industry (airline) and was in the group that managed the reason categories we had for delays, cancellations, and diversions. There were many reasons but they grouped into two broad categories: company controllable and company non-controllable. Weather and Air Traffic Control were non-controllable; everything else was controllable (and therefore things like hotels for overnight delays and meal vouchers). Even things you might think were random acts completely beyond their control such as a medical diversion were company controllable (which I know from experience Princess disagrees). Everything maintenance related was controllable. Even though they can’t anticipate a random failure, the failure is still their responsibility.

Missed that the next line said estimated arrival. Ouch, nine hours late (3:17pm local). While they can stay late since the ship only goes to Skagway the next day, that pretty much blows the Juneau port call as well.

Not sure what you’re trying to say with this but 14:15 UTC (aka GMT) is the 06:15 local I mentioned above.

Cruise ships have a top speed of a little over 20 knots (23 mph). But they normally set a planned speed based on the distance to travel so they arrive at the next port at the desired time. Unfortunately, per your current position and the expected track marinetraffic.com is showing, you're about 625 nautical miles from Juneau so need to make about 18 knots (21 mph) to get there on-time. So it would appear there's still problems and you won't make Juneau on-time (marinetraffic.com is showing that the ship is reporting an ETA for Juneau of 6:15am local Tuesday but that you're only doing 15.3 knots - 35 hours at 15.3 knots will put you 100 nm (six hours) from Juneau at 6:15am Tuesday).

I just took a look at the Reddit post. So much misinformation there. Someone else has now posted that only Ketchikan and College Fjord are cancelled, not Glacier Bay. And then there's the person who posted they were still sitting in Vancouver Harbor eight hours after the ship departed - apparently that poster thinks the Strait of Juan de Fuca is part of Vancouver Harbor as that is where the ship was (I checked the ship's track on marinetraffic.com) when that poster said they were still in Vancouver (the Strait of Juan de Fuca is the strait between Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula (Washington) and is several hours sailing from Vancouver).

I'm thinking TerryBC is misreading the schedule. What I'm seeing on the pilot's website is the next order for Sapphire Princess is Fri 5/24 11:30am at Pine Island (north of Vancouver Island and Seymour Narrows) to arrive at Canada Place Sat 5/25 7:30am as scheduled. That's a 20 hour difference (TerryBC mentioned a 20 hour delay) but I interpret those times as pilot boarding at Pine Island and pilot leaving the ship at Canada Place.