Will Princess return to Tahiti in 2011-12?

[Mercruiser]

Last year, Princess announced their 2010-11 Tahiti and Hawaii itineraries on May 8, as part of their "World Wide Cruise Program". If they repeat that announcement schedule, we should be hearing something soon.

 

I'm wondering if they will have a regular Tahiti cruise season. I noticed that they have lowered prices again on the September - December cruises. My January 28 cruise is showing cabin availability for BA aft balconies. They used to all be full. Seeing this and the news articles about Tahiti tourism makes me wonder if they are having a difficult time selling cabins. To add to that, they will have one less ship in the fleet after the Royal is transferred to P&O.

What do you all think?

[Toto2Kansas]

With this airfare special from ATN, it might assist in booking the ship. Many times when we have joined a roll call for the Tahiti sailings, by the time final payment has rolled around, over half have cancelled as they just were not willing to pay $1100-$1200-$1300 and more for the RT air from LAX. Not because of the price of the cruise, but because of these high airfare prices.

 

BUT, it has always been like that. In fact, back almost 20 years ago when we took our first cruise to Tahiti, the airfare was higher than the actual cruise price. :(

 

If Princess can't get these ships filled, I am sure they will cut down the sailing schedule for Tahiti. The fewer the cruises offered, the better chance they will have of at least filling up the staterooms.

A few years ago, I was getting emails from Princess (for the Tahitian princess) for last minute cruises that included airfare, and they were dirt cheap, which meant they were not filling the ships even back then.

I am going to guess, if they have problems booking the ships this year and have to slash the prices, that next years schedule will mean far less dates available to that area, but this is only a guess. ;)

[Guinnessgal31]

My fiance and I were hoping to make this cruise part of our Honeymoon in Dec of 2011...but I'm worried it's not looking good. They cancelled five Tahiti cruises in 2011 so that the Royal Princess can go to their sister line, P&O.

 

http://www.princess.com/news/article.jsp?newsArticleId=na1067

 

If they are planning to move another ship to the Tahiti route, they haven't announced it yet. I'm hoping they'll post something soon -- but in past years they have announced it long before memorial day weekend.