AtlantaCruiser72

Cruise lines in general are selling as full as they can (aside for rooms held aside for quarantine). Artificial occupancy caps have been eliminated. Cruise lines want, and need, to sell as many rooms as they can in order to recoup the losses and pay down debts accrued during the shutdown. Expect ships to be full going forward

I basically want to see if it's still the old school dusty rose carpet, the mid-school tan w/ off white circle carpet or the new school stripy wave carpet ..... not that any of that will change my cabin choice LOL

@KKBI have an "ask" for you - at some point if you could lurk around cabin P326 (Deck 5 Plaza - port side interior room) and potentially get a quick snapshot through the open door - Perhaps on turnaround day? I just want to see what the room currently looks like from doorway, don't need any more than that. No biggie if you can't do it or don't want to 🙂

Bear in mind that these are Princess Plus fares which is $50/pp/day more than the Princess Standard (no frills) fare.

No such itinerary currently exists on Crown for 2023. She will do a Vancouver to Seattle Alaska sailing on 9/26/23, then ??? Most of the fall 2023 to Spring 2024 sailings have yet to be announced and no one knows for certain when they will be.

This has been a problem for several years with Princess. They update an existing deployment flyer with new information and fail to fully clean up/remove old/outdated information at the same time.

The new Crown Princess sailings from Vancouver from April to September 2023 are now bookable on Princess.com

For families travelling in separate rooms the Princess res agents can "tag" the bookings, which is different that the old school TWID (Travelling with ID) that was used for dining and now is largely irrelevant

Sadly I have seen (and had to fix for clients on several occasions) where linked bookings have had one room upgraded and not the other and both reservations were clearly marked dot upgrade. It’s not supposed to happen, but it does

Two cabins - two reservations Upgrades are done by a computer system - NOT by humans. If people who’s reservations are marked “do not upgrade” are getting upgraded it’s an issue with the computer algorithm. Evidently no one at Princess wishes to fix this as “accidental” upgrades have been happening for years and years. The boards are littered with tales full of sturm und drang on this topic.

Too my knowledge Planks & Steamers have not operated since the Caribbean Princess re-entered service and Princess has given no indication of when, or if, either will be brought back. I’m traveling on her in December and frankly do not expect them to be available.

The plan (when the Australian 2023-24 season was announced) was for EDGE to spend summer 2024 on Alaskan sailings and then return back to Australia. My bet would be on basing her in Seattle.

They are still shuffling ships/itineraries for 2023, and not sure recent announcements regarding Crown, Emerald, Regal and Royal are the end of the dancing ships. There may yet be more for this fall/winter. I don't expect them to announce any new fall 2023-Summer 2024 itineraries until they sort out Fall 2022 to Summer 2023 redeploys - so maybe August/September at the very earliest. Fall 2024 to Summer 2025 sailing announcements are probably a year or more off

Cruise lines typically split deployment into two groupings - Winter and Summer. Winter typically runs Oct/Nov to April/May and Summer typically runs April/May to Oct/Nov (with some minor fluctuations depending on ship and sailing region). The only Fall 2023 to Spring 2024 (ie ‘winter’) itineraries Princess has released thus far are for Australia/NZ and South America, along with the Island Princess 2024 World cruise. Yes there are a few fall 2023 European cruises bookable but they are technically part of the ‘summer’, deployment cycle. The Coral Princess summer 2024 Australia based sailings along with her World cruise are also bookable. I personally think Princess has been waiting to see how things continue to evolve in Asia, as well as how some of the newly announced US based sailings from San Diego and Galveston book up. This may affect things significantly. Additionally the first Sphere Class vessel was slated to arrive in late 2023. As she will be LNG powered, and not all ports can support her for fueling, that may also change some deployment strategies. Princess may also be waiting to see if they can firm up a delivery date with the shipyard so that they don’t have to cancel/shuffle guests around who booked specifically for the launch season of a new ship.

The only ships with covered/indoor pools in the Princess fleet are: Coral, Island, Grand, Diamond, Sapphire and Majestic. All other pool areas on all other ships are open air.

2023 European cruises were published long before the current Russia/Ukraine war and related sanctions. Some cruise lines like Norwegian (and sister brands Oceania/Regent) have taken preemptive steps to remove Russian ports for 2023 and craft new itineraries and/or redeploy ships. Other companies like Carnival Corp (which Princess a part of) and Royal Caribbean Group are taking a more “wait and see” approach to make a decision for 2023.

I just checked my 9nt Celebrity Beyond 11/13/23 sailing - with same perks/room type (Standard Oceanview) a NRD fare would be $686pp higher and a RD fare would be $823pp higher. We have a RD fare in an agency contract group with elevate package. Even the agency contract group rate we booked under is no longer available! We just booked early May. The NRD fare is an almost 50% increase from our current rate!!!!!!!!! This "sale" is no deal for us!

They do nothing to help in my experience. They also will not reimburse you in any way for any expenses incurred nor will they refund any portion of the cruise fare should you miss your cruise entirely. While travel insurance may cover certain delays read the policy carefully many things are excluded (depending on the policy). Best bet - arrange to fly in at least 1 if not 2 days early. Especially since we are still seeing many flight cancellations due to crewing issues and it can sometimes take up to 2-3 days to be reaccomodated on another flight.

My guess is that Orincess will release fall 2023 to spring 2024 Caribbean & Panama Canal itineraries concurrent with the Sphere Class update as the first ship is set to launch in late 2023

@latebuyer Celebrity cruises of 9 nights of longer require a $450pp USD deposit, sailings of 6-8 nights require a $250pp USD deposit and sailings of 5 nights or less require a $100pp USD deposit. I believe it's the same tiers/sailing length cutoff for both Royal and Celebrity. Suites on Celebrity technically require double the double occupancy deposit even if booking solo, but I rarely see that enforced. Non-Suites only require the deposit for one person (unless in an agency group rate then full deposit based on double occupancy is required). So $480 CAD sounds about right for a solo on a 9+ night sailing in a non-suite category, as it would have been $450 USD for that booking. Edit - Royals deposits tiers are slightly different 1-5 nights $100pp, 6-9 nights $250pp, and 10+ nights $450pp. Interesting Celebrity charging more at 9+ nights where Royal is at 10+ nights. Must have to do with the # of 9+ night sailings Celebrity offer vs Royal

@CrownCruise11 thanks for that very helpful information!

Thought this thread might be a good place to post my LeVoyage related question. Will the standard (à la carte) menu be covered as part of a specialty dining package, require an additional supplement if using a dining package, or is LeVoyage completely excluded from the dining packages? I know the standard cover charge is $75 which is about $20pp more than Eden or Fine Cut. The dining package descriptions do not address which venues are included/excluded or incur a supplement.

For those that like Drink Packages, Internet and pay their gratuities, Royal is NOT a good value - Princess, Celebrity, Holland or NCL often come out at a better value all-in. This was true even before the recent price hikes for all the ancillary items with Royal, and is why I have stopped sailing with them. Sad as I'd love to try a Quantum Class ship and really love the radiance and Vision Class vessels.

Updated information: Effective 6/1/22 ANY reservation booked with a NRD will lose the ENTIRE deposit if cancelled, no exceptions, no FCC. Suites (categories GS and higher) will ONLY be bookable with NRD, no more refundable deposit option. All categories JS and below will continue to be bookable with a refundable deposit (at increased cost) Changes to NRD bookings will be permitted for a $100pp change fee and even if moved to a refundable deposit fare booking still remains as a NRD booking Reservations created on or before 5/31/22 will continue under the old NRD terms. This only affects NEW bookings made 6/1/22 and beyond. Should I learn anything else I will come back and update

Specific to flights booked through the NCL air promo - they CANNOT be upgraded to a higher class of service using miles. They are extremely restricted consolidator fares.