cruisingrob21

Never mind - captain turned back to the east

Interesting, it appears the Sapphire is turning west to head out to open seas outside of the Dixon Entrance.  The captain might be trying to in the lee behind Haida Gwaii islands and then aim for the center of low pressure.  If the timing works, the storm will significantly weaken by the time the Sapphire makes it into the lower pressure center, if not, it'll be 2 very bumpy 4-6 hour rides separated by a somewhat calm respite.

The NA is still staying in protected waters for another few hours.  The westerdam is all out trying to beat the storm. 4 very different strategies between Volendam, Sapphire, Nieuw Amsterdam and Westerdam.

54 minutes ago, lupaglupa said:

Yes! Our first ship was the Maasdam. 

Good point, the R and S class ships had those forward and aft stairways.

24 minutes ago, lupaglupa said:

My husband and son loved finding the hidden staircases in the front of the older ships. They could go from top to bottom! But they got stopped once and pointedly told these stairways were crew only <sigh> 

These ones on the R ships?

...It looks like the Nieuw Amsterdam is taking a protected course NB to avoid the worst of the storm.

Volendam is smaller and narrower and may be able to find a more sheltered route that the sapphire cannot - or has a wider margin of safety going through the inside passage.  Regardless, it's the captain's choice as they are ultimately responsible for the safety of the ship.  

As others have mentioned, be thankful you're avoiding the storm - it would likely be pretty lousy on shore anyways.

this voyage was also briefly advertised as a RT Seattle voyage - were there people that were staying on for the return trip?

9 hours ago, Seaworthy71 said:

Thank You, for the photo example, what made me curious was only certain cove balconies on new Sun princess rooms said: obstruction support beam on left.

There are several "cousin" ships to the Sun already sailing for P&O, Aida, and even some of the new Carnival ships.  While there are a lot of differences, some of the cabin layouts are similar to what you can probably expect on the Sun/Star.

Here is a video of a balcony cabin in the same place as the "cove balcony" on the Sun/Star on the P&O Arvia.  Obviously the decor and layout may be a bit different, but the cove format will be likely be similar with a window and separate door to a sheltered balcony.

HAL and CCL are in a tough spot.  It costs lots of capital to do wholescale upgrades.  I think the R class ship cabins were partially updated when COVID hit, but I'm not sure those upgrades were ever completed below the highest category oceanview rooms.  Now, HAL and CCL much choose to pay down debt, or make improvements to their existing products.  I think we will see one cycle of drydocks where maintenance its key (I dont think much heavy maintenance was done during covid) before any significant refurbishments and new venues - and that will likely be brought on by competitors upgrading their older ships, and accordingly, raising the (lowest) bar.

late 2024 to early 2025 were released in March of 2023, so expect March of 2024 for late 2025

I'm trying to update the schedule for each ship.  Next gap in schedule for Coral, which would imply a drydock, is 9/27/24 to 10/16/24.

https://cruisingrobsblog.blogspot.com/p/princess-cruises-ship-schedule.html

1 hour ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Welcome to the new world of cruising. 

No kidding, remember in 2021 and 2022 when the cruise lines were doing kids sail free, or 2nd passenger is free, or HAL even had "reserve a verandah or higher cabin, and get a interior for taxes and fees only"

Yeah those days are gone.  Our minisuite to alaska on discovery this year was about $5k for the 4 of us, next year its pushing 8-9k for the same voyage.  As are the days of ships only 50% to 70% full.  Oh well.  My hope is that the cruise lines can use this extra income to pay down their debt and start doing some drydocks that repair issues and do create new innovations on board.

I'm filling them out in an order that is biased toward west coast based ships.  If anyone has a ship schedule they'd like to see sooner than later let me know.

It's a work in progress and I only have voyages on the Crown updated to late 2024 at this time but here is the link for those following this thread.  I'll continue to verify what the old schedule had (fixed a few differences) as well as add based on new itinerary releases over the last year or so.  You'll notice that embarkation ports are bold and hyperlinked to the corresponding Princess page.

https://cruisingrobsblog.blogspot.com/p/princess-cruises-ship-schedule.html

Both ships are very similar and better suited to alaska cruising than most other Princess ships (owing to a covered pool and at least 1 high level, climate controlled, indoor observation area).  The grand was, at one time, the largest ship in the world, and has several "younger sisters" that all made improvements.  The sapphire is one of those younger sister ships.  Both ships are popular among Princess cruises, with the Sapphire likely being more preferred.

Why to choose the grand:

-OneFive nightclub (I think that's what its called) has a unique indoor and outdoor area with heaters (although its been several years since I've sailed on the grand)

-Vista Lounge (aft lounge) on the grand is a better layout

-The grand has a dedicated, and nicely decorated Crown Grill (steakhouse) whereas the Sapphire turns part of the buffet area into a steakhouse (Sterling Steakhouse), if that matters to you.

-The grand has a library of sorts which is in a space where gourmet tea was once sold (maybe still is?).  It's not big but is better than what the sapphire has which is effectively nothing if I recall.

-The grand has window suites if that interests you

Why to choose the sapphire:

-Although they are very similar design, the Sapphire has a wider exterior promenade deck, so much so that loungers are placed out there (similar to HAL ships) rather than benches on the Grand.

-Sapphire has 5 dining rooms vs 3.  They all have basically the same menu but are differently themed, but if you like to vary your surroundings and have a meal in a smaller setting, its a nice touch.

-Sapphire has the Skywalkers lounge which is great when the weather is poor since its a climate controlled, high level observation lounge/night club.

-The layout of inside, oceanview, and balcony rooms on the sapphire is subjectively superior since it they include a small "walk in closet" area to access the bathroom.  

-Sapphire has a larger Wheelhouse Bar which can be a nice, quiet location during the day.  Its large also.

-Sapphire has an extra pool I think and a better "aft pool terrace"

-Sapphire is 6 years younger, but we are talking about the ship being 20 years old, vs the grand being 26 by the time next summer rolls around.

21 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Great idea. People can add to it as they see fit even if it doesn't display them all. 

Do you have particular ships you "keep tabs on"?  I've pulled down the last version of the schedule from Princess only I could find, but I need to check on some of the changes.  Trying to add some new filtering capabilities to it as well.

6 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

Great idea. People can add to it as they see fit even if it doesn't display them all. 

Ok give me a day or two and I'll start it up and then share in this thread.

On 8/23/2023 at 3:30 AM, MissP22 said:

I'm thinking that with all the problems associated with trying to list all the Princess ships I'll just make up a spreadsheet for the specific ships we're interested in for the fall & spring season. It's still time consuming either way. 

It's a good idea - quite honestly, a few of us doing that should create a useful spreadsheet that covers the whole fleet and minimize the effort.  Anyone interested?  I can set up and host a spreadsheet online similar to the one on PrincessOnly.

10 hours ago, OlsSalt said:

Here is the cruise port calendar for Santa Barbara in October.

 

Celebrity is a new addition with three stops; Royal Caribbean too. The growth of the larger ships coming into Santa Barbara may have raised the local alarms. 

 

I see Konigsdam is still on for November, but alas the Noordam for early October has gone missing for good.

 

10/02/23    Celebrity Eclipse - 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity - 2,850
10/03/23    MS Regatta - 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, capacity - 824
10/04/23    Seabourn Venture - 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM, capacity - 300
10/06/23    Radiance of the Seas - 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity - 2,501
10/10/23    Celebrity Eclipse - 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity - 2,850
10/17/23    Celebrity Eclipse - 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity - 2,850
10/20/23    Seabourn Odyssey - 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, capacity - 450
10/24/23    Crown Princess - 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity - 3,080
10/31/23    Crown Princess - 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM, capacity – 3,080
 

Princess and now Celebrity are continuing to try to cultivate the 7 day coastal voyages that are RT west coast ports.  It's a good hedge against potential future issues with Mexican ports but certainly has its own issues.  I think they will need to focus more in the north where there are some decent, untapped Canadian ports and excellent scenic cruising available.

As a former resident of the Central Coast, I think it would be highly unlikely that Avila beach (aka Port San Luis) would ever welcome a large ship.  Pismo beach might be a place that would welcome the ships as an alternate however.  I doubt anything around San Simeon (Hearst Castle) would welcome a ship, but who knows. The problem is everything else is an hour away and there isn't much to see for 2-3k passengers without going on a tour.  But I could be wrong.  Coastal voyages still rank around the "exotic" itineraries as far as popularity and their port charges can be pretty high making voyages there pretty expensive.  

Monterey City council has been pretty hostile toward cruises since the pandemic, I think they passed a resolution restricting ships but not sure if it carries any teeth.  Santa Barbara has been similar.  

Unfortunately there aren't many small city, west coast ports.  Seems like Astoria is one of the last ones as well as Avalon, but even Avalon is pushing back lately.  A fall cruise on the Kdam was switch from Avalon to Astoria a few months back.  Personally, I think Astoria is a great port but HAL and Princess, who are the big players on the Pacific coastal voyages, will need to find some new ports soon.  Ports that will both accommodate ships and welcome them.  Years ago, HAL had port calls in Port Angeles, WA and Eureka, CA but beyond that, there are only a handful of mostly Oregon ports on the West Coast that have the infrastructure to even handle tender operations.

51 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

For the purposes of just seeing where the individual ships are scheduled to go, it doesn't make much difference. I'm still looking for a web site where I can import the info into an Excel spreadsheet without having to do it manually for each ship. 

The most important thing is the departure & arrival dates and which ports they intend to visit.  

I'm right there with you.  Now that Princessonly appears to be defunct, I was going to try to expand upon my coastal cruise tracker sheet (which looks a lot like the one that was posted on Princess only).  I had a script for a while that did some of that work, but it gets tricky with some of the voyages that are doubled up, ie 7 day, one-way voyages in alaska doubled with 14 day roundtrip voyages.  I need a better coding algorithm to check for duplicates and haven't had time to make one.

These sites mentioned do post the info, but its rarely updated - and Princess does make a fair number of adjustments to schedules from time to time.

I think on the newer Royal class ships, you need to have universal remote to switch inputs.

14 minutes ago, sherryillk said:

I'm slightly concerned about the border crossing too, especially since it'll be on a Saturday and we'll be mixed in with all those people from Seattle popping up for the weekend. The last time we went on a Saturday was pre-pandemic and we spent about an hour at the border. We went last year but on a weekday and they were still requiring ArriveCAN so it was practically no wait at all at the border. I figure we'll just leave super early and if we end up with extra time, we can do breakfast in Richmond. 

It's a good idea.

Make sure you check the WSDOT travel apps to see if one crossing is shorter than another, there are 3 that are convenient for your route.  

https://wsdot.com/travel/real-time/border-crossings