Oversold Ship for Chistmas Week??

[cookmg40]

I just heard from a travel agent that Princess is offering a free cruise in February for travelers willing to give up their cabin on the Dec. 20 Emerald sailing. Has anyone ever heard of this being done before? I know it is done on airlines but this is the first I've heard of a cruise ship doing this.

[safarigal]

I just heard from a travel agent that Princess is offering a free cruise in February for travelers willing to give up their cabin on the Dec. 20 Emerald sailing. Has anyone ever heard of this being done before? I know it is done on airlines but this is the first I've heard of a cruise ship doing this.

 

Cunard did it with us a few years ago. It was a great deal - we got a free 12 day cruise (our original one was for 7 days) plus a lot of on board credit and a big upgrade. Our plans were very flexible, so it worked out really well. However, they would need to make it a sweet deal in this case, giving up a Holiday Cruise so close to departure would be tough!

[Cruisin' Chick]

the day before our first Princess cruise (which was for Valentine's Week), we got a call saying our cruise was overbooked, no worries as we have our cabin, but if we wanted to postpone our cruise for a few weeks, we can have a full refund along with an upgrade from our lowest category inside to a balcony.

 

We didn't take them up on the offer for many reasons, including that we were already packed and ready to go, we got the cruise for a song anyway (employee discount from someone who was working for my hubby at the time whose gf worked for Princess), we didn't want a balcony (had an active 5-yr-old and we didn't know how safe it was for her.

 

We did have flexibility of switching it as we were driving to the port and hubby could have switched his vacation time easily. And it wasn't like we had booked the cruise months before and every day was a major deal -- we'd booked it two weeks before.

 

I'm sure someone would have jumped on that offer. And in your case, someone will take their offer, else the cruiseline will sweeten the deal.

[Colo Cruiser]

I just heard from a travel agent that Princess is offering a free cruise in February for travelers willing to give up their cabin on the Dec. 20 Emerald sailing. Has anyone ever heard of this being done before? I know it is done on airlines but this is the first I've heard of a cruise ship doing this.

 

 

Yes Princess does it on a weekly or cruise basis, its nothing new.

[paul929207]

Cruise lines, like arilines, often overbook. They know that some people will cancel. Sometimes, they get more cancelations than projected. Then they cut the prices. Other times they get fewer cancelations than projected. Then they make offers to people to give up their cabin.

[Jeter02]

Just got the call I'm suppose to leave this coming sunday on Ruby....sounds liek a great deal but my heard is so set on leaving in 4 days.

[hurwitz5]

We had booked a cruise (3 cabins) on the Caribbean Princess for our 3 grown children and one son's spouse - departing Fort Lauderdale in May 2005. A few weeks before the cruise, we received a call from Princess offering a very sweet deal for us to give up our 3 cabins - free cruises and upgraded cabins. Since it was hard to get our family together with everyone's schedules, we turned down the offer. If it were just my husband and I sailing on that cruise, we would have taken Princess up on their offer.