cruisingrob21

There has been another slide at the skagway dock

several of the august voyages were similarly "blocked" a week ago, now they appear open and the two voyages on either side of the drydock are blocked. A RT vancouver coastal and the hawaii voyage. Hrm...

Any of the Seattle based RT ships sail on the west side of Vancouver island. The term "inside passage" is kind of a confusing term for alaskan voyages as the voyages from Seattle don't use the "inside passage" until the afternoon/evening of the second day, depending on if Ketchikan or Juneau is the first port. In that instance, the "inside passage" refers to the protected waters in SE alaska. The "inside passage" that many people think of is the narrow channel between Vancouver Island and the BC/Canadian mainland. Only the Whittier/Vancouver "Voyage of the Glaciers" ships use that, and only non Royal class ships.

"Never let a <engine problems, high gas prices, pier landslide, global pandemic, geopolitical war> crisis go to waste"

That may be, but I think the Port of Vancouver will get a new pier build outside of the Burrard Inlet before the big Alaska market players homeport out of Victoria. I did a 1 night voyage out of Victoria on HAL back in 2014 that probably only allowed embarkation to allow a large amount of HAL HQ staff to join and the fact that the ship ended in Seattle the next day. It was a nice voyage and since I lived in Seattle at that time it was convenient to take the Victoria Clipper jetboat. Flying to Victoria is a bit more challenging . While Victoria is a great port, I'm not sure it has the provisioning supply chains set up for the weekly calls of several large ships. It also has very minimal airport connectivity to non Canadian airports and I can't imagine how YYJ would fit a few thousand passengers in the terminal on a turnaround day waiting for a flight. Seattle was planning to build an additional berth near the stadiums, where their was actually ships berthing before Pier 91 was constructed. Although that project is on hold, I imagine cruise lines will continue to tweak itinerary lengths to best utilize Seattle berths. Vancouver is fortunate to have the Lionsgate bridge which may force cruise lines to bring their more reasonably sized vessels to Vancouver, and shooing the "condo barges" to Seattle.

Ship seems to be sailing at 19-20+ knots regularly which would indicate that most engine issues are likely resolved (there still could be 1 generator out which would be needed to get those last 1-2 knots of maximum speed). Even still, the Caribbean had engine issues for years (still might) even after drydocks. Might still have them to this day. Many of PCL's itineraries don't require full speed, so there's not that much incentive for them to get the ship fixed to operate at full speed if they can eek by and still sell well. There is certainly a cost benefit analysis.

I don't know if there is a magic number, maybe on a ship by ship basis as they can also sail lower in the water to provide more clearance, but only as deep as the channel will safely allow.

I see that too, that's strange - well unusual, since Princess normally sells these subpar voyages! 🙂 It could be related to the issues in Skagway and them needing to make individual tweaks to the itinerary of each individual voyage. Princess definitely wouldn't try to sell a voyage going somewhere and then change it in bad faith 😃 In all seriousness, both those voyages (7 day and 5 day sampler) don't go to Glacier Bay, however the 7 day does still show going to skagway.

I don't think there is a question about legality here - you implicitly sign away many of your "rights" when you book a cruise, or any vacation for that matter. However, these are unethical business practices and will ultimately draw on the PCL "bank account" of public opinion. It also drags down TAs that may recommend PCL voyages over another cruise line based on past experiences.

It could be tide related, I had heard it can sometimes be a tight squeeze under the lionsgate bridge for the royal class ships.

It's been mentioned before - they will likely reveal info (if any) when they release new itineraries which sounds like not until the fall at the earliest.

Like so many things, I think its a mix. Certainly they could pay people much more and they would get better staff willing to do the job. But I'd also guess that since most of their call center staff was laid off during the pandemic and probably chose to get jobs elsewhere rather than wait around for the cruise lines to start up again. And finally, before covid I'm guessing that about half the calls, or more, coming in were quick fixes. Now many of the calls are dealing with complicated issues related to FCCs, canceled voyages, covid guarantees, etc. So having fewer staff that are relatively inexperienced dealing with more complicated issues from a customer base that is understandably frustrated and potentially confused by new policies, you have a recipe for disaster. Should Princess charge more for cruises to hire more call center staff and train them better - which might drive passengers numbers down even further? The demand and supply equation is tenuously balanced right now and for a business, they are doing anything they can to get bookings up. I worry that getting bookings is prioritized over keeping bookings currently.

Comparing my last Princess cruise (May of 2022) vs my recent HAL voyage (last week on the Eurodam) - its evident that the entire industry is struggling. However, Princess seems to have lost it's way. While there were some disappointments on HAL (smaller MDR menus than I remember, still seemingly random closures of Lido buffet, a lot of repeats in the lido at lunch, loss off cooking demonstrations, ship needing a bit more TLC in isolated areas, no IC equivalent) there were some nice surprises like HAL doing some "Game shows", some pretty good shows in the main theater, and 2 comedians doing 2 sets and were both pretty good. The staff was excellent. For the first time since I can remember there was ALWAYS something to do at night - my last HAL voyage gave you one or two options at night and after that, things pretty much shut down - this was not the case on the Eurodam. Since this was an Alaskan cruise and apparently SE Alaska's summer is over starting last week - I was thankful to have a covered pool area to sit around and appreciated that it helped alleviate some crowding in other venues on the ship. Princess only has a handful of ships with covered pools now and I've been disappointed that on all the Royal class ships, the only place to have a climate controlled view from higher up is the buffet area and gym. My travel companions all thought that everything about HAL was better than Princess this time around except the food quality. They haven't been on Princess since covid and I think food across all lines has declined slightly. That being said, I think we may put HAL over PCL going forward, when itineraries are equal. Princess has relatively new leadership and I'm not sure that those in charge are in "sync" on what they see Princess becoming. It's no longer a semi-quirky, but lovable upmarket line, with large, but manageable ships and a top notch onboard soft product. As mentioned elsewhere, its gone fully toward the medallion tech and the new ships seem to put more distance between passengers and the ocean. RCCL's big ships have been accused of doing this, but I'd argue its not as intentional as some would suggest whereas Princess has all but abandoned promenade decks and views from deck 7 and now appear to merely transport passengers from port to port. Of course, this is coming from an older HAL ship with a wide, inviting promenade and several lounges where an oceanview complemented the venue.

The walls are the same but the tables and couches are gone and the machines look fairly permanent. The bartender nearby said the games had been moved up to the lido are but I found them in the lecture area of the crows nest. Too bad it wasn't better used. It was kind of a hidden place that was unique for casual non gambling gaming and watching sports. Princess has sports betting through their app which is better execution in my opinion than dedicating a specific room to it. However, only a handful of their ships actually have a sports bar and only one ship has it separate of the smomig area.

That gives me hope. I think we've all noticed that the cruise lines are struggling to increase their on board revenue due to sailing at lower capacities. I hope they revert the gallery bar back. I'll take some photos and post.

On board the Eurodam currently and am very sad to see the Gallery Bar has been converted into an extension of the casino with a bunch of slot machines. Is this recent? When I was on a few years back the gallery bar was one of the best spots on board for non gambling table games.

HAL was doing some nice updates on the Amsterdam and Rotterdam with cabin freshening - it would be nice to see them do the same for the Vista class as I agree, they are aging, especially the cabin finishes.

Initially I thought it was very good, until I had to get a new phone this week and re-initialize my account, then had to re-enter everything when our tests were accepted but the app would not accept my health questionnaire due to API issue connectivity. Now it cant find the voyage. I used to think that Princess Cruises Medallion Class app was a slow burning dumpster fire, but at least it was functioning. Verifly is bad news. I'm debating if its worth it to sign up with a different email address to see if that works.

i have the same issues - I even deleted my account and now I can't even bring up the voyage. Tech support said the issue is escalated but the app probably wont work for my voyage tomorrow.

having issues as well - the verifly tech support teams suggestion was to uninstall and start over. So for a family of 4 thats entering 8 vaccine entries (again), 4 more photos, 2 booster shots, and 4 tests. Quite a pain. and after re-installing, I can't even get it to show my booking anymore.

The variety of dress in the dining room deserves to be made into a bingo game...

Well, you wont need to tender in astoria (most likely) and its a unique port. If you haven't been you might be surprised. It's my favorite port, but then again, I'm biased because I live 2 hrs away. But there is a lot to see there and HAL captains (in the past) have done a great job narrating the navigation of what was once known as the "Graveyard of the Pacific" due to the tides, hidden sand bars, and the 6-8 knot outflow of the Columbia River.

Id be curious about any updates to the noordam as well. Will she ever get the gallery bar? What is the Oak room used for now that smoking doesnt seem to be permitted in it? Poor ship, was always kind of the odd child out of the vista class.

I recall the HC being open 24 hrs in the early 2010s, but mainly on the ships awaiting the IC upgrade (if they didn't have it already). When the IC came along the HC would close around midnight it seemed, and now its 11. The last voyage the IC seemed to have only minor variations from day to day which I recall there used to be a pretty significant variety based on time of day and day to day. I believe HAL ships still do a "late night snack" around 10 to 11 or so with some new things (well, different from dinner) added at that time. And they have a chocolate parade during the evening hours once per cruise usually.

Yeah, I didn't hear of anything today - my guess is there is a lot of shuffling of ships around, and with carnival share prices pretty low, the new ship is low priority. There is likely supply chain issues as well which may be slowing down construction.