eamondzhang

11 hours ago, Ombud said:

As a stockholder hoping for a recovery I'm primarily interested in reduction of entire fleet: Aida, Carnival,  Costa, Cunard,  HAL, PCL, P&O, POAU, Sitmar.

 

other PCL ships with Australia cruises: Coral, Emerald,  Royal, (& Sapphire). So it looks like it's 4 instead of 6.  Yeah, definitely short 1-2 depending on whether you count ships or capacity 

Apologies - when I say this season with six ships I mean 2020-2021 and for us typically down here it's between 01 Jul 20 and 30 Jun 21

Obviously we saw what's going on now.

Michael

11 hours ago, woodscruise said:

I disagree with you here. The only 2  HAL ships that have ever been transferred to P&OAU is the Statendam and Ryndam, which became the Pacific Eden and Pacific Aria. 

If we go back to when P&O merged with Sitmar, the ship based here was the Fairstar. When that was withdrawn from service the Fair Princess came to Australia. The next ship based here was the Pacific Sky which was the former Sky Princess. We then got the Pacific Sun, which was the former Carnival's Jubilee. Then Pacific Star was transferred from Costa Cruises which was the Costa Tropicale (formerly Carnival Tropicale). The first mega cruise ship was the Pacific Dawn (formerly the Regal Princess), then Pacific Jewel from Ocean Cruises (also formerly a Princess ship the Crown Princess) then Pacific Pearl (also from Ocean Cruises and when launched was  Princess Star Princess.

The current Pacific Explorer and future Pacific Adventure and Pacific Encounter are all from the Princess Fleet. 

So from the above you can see the majority of Princess fleet is destination P&OA.

 

Prior to the transfer of HAL ships to the Australian fleet, the previous 2 Holland America ships to be transferred out of the fleet was the Noordam (Marella Celebration 2005) and Nieuw Amsterdam ( MS Patriot 2000 - 2002 and Marella Spirit 2003).

 

 

I was saying HAL Group. On the back office side of the thing POAU, PCL, HAL & Seabourn are considered one group called Holland America Group. That's why I am saying POAU are now the main destination for older HAL Group ships - obviously this was before the pandemic hits.

Not to divert from the topic but there's four groups within Carnival Corporation - Carnival Cruise Line (by itself), Carnival UK (P&O UK and Cunard), HAL Group (as mentioned) and Costa Group (Costa and AIDA). Carnival Australia is essentially part of HAL Group as 99% of their ops are concentrated with HAL Group ships - CUK ops like its own straight from the UK HQ even in Aussie waters (except on the pax inconvenience side when CAU care teams step in), CCL has a lot of things that are controlled by Miami HQ and I will not elaborate too much on Costa since we have minimal dealings with them.

Hope this clarifies my statement earlier.

Michael

7 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Although PCL got rid of the Star, CCL did not. Just transfered it to another line to replace an older less efficient / profitable ship. So no cash in

Yep - but from PCL point of view it's out of the fleet. POAU was always the main destination for HAL Group's older, less efficient ships until this pandemic.

Michael

54 minutes ago, Ombud said:

 

I think we've been expecting it. 

 

The Grand is a medallion ship so could she be off the table despite being the 2nd oldest in the PCL line?

One thing we know is that at least PCL is willing to be rid of ships that has MedallionNet - Star Princess is the one. Not sure if a fully reconfigured MedallionClass ship would be ridden anytime soon.

Michael

Ok we finally received our FCCs after our cruise was cancelled 23 Jul 20. This is for cruise due to sail on 11 Oct 20.

Now I'm happy! Time to book a replacement one!

Michael

3 hours ago, bubbapuck said:

I dont think so. I found the Cruise Critic article linked Below that has a list of 11 Princess ships that should be upgraded to Medallion Class already. Granted many of the ships on the list were supposed to be upgraded during dry docks planned during the pandemic. I am not sure if those happened or if any others not in the list may be upgraded before they start cruising again. I have a feeling, the way she was pushing it in the video, they may have all Princess ships that they plan To keep, upgraded before they start sailing again. 
 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=4134

Well Majestic is the only Royal class ship that was not fully upgraded with MedallionClass now and it doesn't look like it'll be upgraded anytime soon (judging from the indications on the selling cruises)

3 hours ago, Ombud said:

@bubbapuck are Sea & Pacific fitted with the medallion?? (I really like the medallion)

Neither of them is fitted

Michael

That'd be quite ironic given Ruby has one of the worst cruise-ship cluster

Michael

On 9/16/2020 at 5:43 PM, Capalaba said:

For those waiting for Sun Princess cruises for 2021-22 to appear your wait will likely be long OR you could put in a bit to buy it. For Sale for only US$170M and it has been stripped of all its Princess Livery

https://commercial.apolloduck.com/boat/commercial-vessels-cruise-ship/584501

Not the livery as it's an obvious stock pic from before refurbishment and they did a very bad PS to get rid of the PCL logo on the funnel

But still point valid

Michael

@Aulanis You're absolutely right lol - my bad, yes in this case it's FCCs. I got myself mixed up with the terminologies too as I also have FCDs on my account - sometimes I just wonder if I should just apply them onto my cancelled cruise (but that booking is still active!)

Cheers,

Michael

1 minute ago, sogne said:

already identified as Souda Bay Crete

Thanks, must have missed that

Michael

On 9/15/2020 at 8:35 AM, sogne said:

it seems a clue is needed :  island in the eastern Med, also maiden call

Is this around Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey? Apologies I don't see anyone replying

Michael

Just now, Sir PMP said:

Melbourne..

LOL I guess that's too easy hahahaha

Cheers,

Michael

Alright where's Noordam at in this photo? 😉 

13 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

They gave affected folks up until August 31st to choose if they wanted a FCC or a cash refund, so my guess is that it's gonna be a while.

 

That's true, but I thought after half year of doing the same thing at least FCDs can be done quicker - that does not involve any cash outflow and I thought they might have developed some sort of processes to enable batch processings in a few clicks.

At my company (which is also heavily impacted by travel and cruise shutdown) our credit to customers are applied far quicker than PCL! Although granted we're far smaller than PCL is

Cheers,

Michael

54 minutes ago, TwoBadKnees said:

If the Sun is being chartered, who is the ship's owner? Is Princess / Carnival Corp retaining ownership?

I suspect Princess will sell the ship to Japan Grace, who in turn will do the charter to Peace Boat as they have done since the beginning of these two companies.....

Unless PCL decides to do it themselves but then at least this would guarantee some sort of profitable revenue for them

Michael

11 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Right!! Oceana wasn't scrapped, its a Greek ferry now

Yep aware of that - tho not sure if this will also be the way Sea & Explorer is heading

I know they tried to sell Sea for ages.... Oh well

Cheers,

Michael

1 hour ago, Ombud said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Boat

3 sun class ships: Sea, Sun, and Pacific Explorer.  Speculation is that the Sun Princess is going - going - gone but not until September 

Actually four including P&O's Oceana - but you get it right that this type of ship is outbound from CCL Group

Michael

Does anyone know how long does it usually takes for FCDs to be posted?

My Oct cruise was cancelled like almost two months ago now and just waiting for the FCD to book another cruise. C'mon Princess, it's not even costing you any cash outflow!

Michael

22 minutes ago, Ombud said:

My repo from Hong Kong to Sydney was canceled.  Would've been a great trip 

At least you'll get her now for the foreseeable future! 🙂

And before I forget we were supposed to have 6 PCL ships this season - Regal, Majestic, Sapphire, Sea, Sun & Pacific. Heck they even advertised at the time of being the largest PCL cruise season down here ever. Guess where that went now!

Cheers,

Michael

8 minutes ago, Ombud said:

Dawn & Aria are part of the CCL fleet (P&O Australia line). I'm sure they're going as Golden & Star replace them. So yeah, I'm tracking them. Bored I guess.

 

Majestic is shifted up here. But there will be 5 PCL ships downunder.  I'm on one Dec 2021 (Sapphire)

Yep but Majestic is supposed to finish its season down here before moving up and hence why that's a bit strange.

I was still hoping to get onto its repo from Sydney to Hong Kong 😞

Cheers,

Michael

Just to shed some lights, on the memo we got from CAU - 

Pacific Princess's season down under for 2020/2021 is cancelled in full

Majestic Princess's last season down under for 2020/21 is also cancelled in full (fingers crossed it's not!!! 😞 )

Together with Pacific Dawn & Aria but that's for P&O forum I guess?

All these cruises are currently bookable AFAIK - just an internal memo we received.

Michael

It is going to South America - Santiago & BA to be more accurate

Michael

2 minutes ago, roeco9084 said:

Theirs like 5-6 ships at Limassol anchorage right now most part of P&O group think its just maybe a better place to lay up ships ??

One can really argue either way - there's still a whole bunch of ships sitting right next to Singapore/Malaysia including Pacific Explorer. Both PD and PA were there until they moved across to Europe - with another few that was supposed to operate in Europe/East Coast of USA once everything comes back.

I would have thought that it would only be useful to move the ship half way around the Earth of they do not intend to bring the ship back, and especially since it doesn't look like crew swapping related!

Michael

On 8/30/2020 at 10:28 PM, lx200gps said:

It does seem that Princess is getting better at refunding than they were in earlier rounds of cancellation. Our late November trip was cancelled around July 22, and the FCCs were returned into our CC accounts on August 25. The deposit/taxes owing were returned to the credit card two days ago.

 

Hopefully when our February 2021 trip is cancelled in the coming weeks, as it almost certainly will, they will be as quick with the refunds. 

Lucky you my October cruise was cancelled on the same date and I'm still waiting for the FCC to show up!

Michael

12 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

The prices are AUD (US$1 = $AUD1.37) and include Port fees and taxes, and for Aussies/NZers includes gratuities. There are also no added gratuities on drinks, but the base price is higher so they end up costing around the same amount.

Yep aware, but still - they're adding $40 pp pd on the plus package which is the same as USD ones (sans currency difference) - and if you look at their previous fare or even the current ones on sale it's not as dramatic as this brochure in any case

Michael