Caribbean Princess delayed!

[chrysalis]

Lot's of things here to diagnose and tear down. This might give you an idea of why the delay in timing decisions.

 

TYPE OF SYSTEM:

Engines: 4 x Sulzer 16ZAV40S diesel, 2 x Sulzer 12ZAV40S diesel, these 6 engines work with 2 azipods simens

 

 

DESCRIPTION OF SIEMANS AZIPODS:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth_thruster

 

Don't think that that is what the CB has...

[Cruisin' & Breezin']

I share your disappointment. It was to be our big retirement cruise. We were to fly out Saturday for a B2B. We had excursions booked on all the islands and a hotel room for Saturday night. We packed last weekend.

I also feel bad for all the passengers not on cruise critic who are still happily counting down the days until their cruise. I have heard nothing in the news. How crushing it will be to hear from Princess on Friday.

Barb

 

You have a very valid point. All the people here at least are venting and at the same time trying to come up with alternatives. Those that are not, which sadly is probably the vast majority, will potentially have a very bad surprise on Friday! Hope it can be fixed before and all this discussion will have been a bad dream. At least for those on future sailings… those on the current one have my deepest sympathy :(

[bermuda triangle]

Don't think that that is what the CB has...

http://industrysolutions.siemens.com.cn/marine/attach/outstanding/SISHIP%E4%B8%AD%E5%8E%8B%E7%94%B5%E5%8A%9B%E6%8E%A8%E8%BF%9B%E4%B8%9A%E7%BB%A9%E8%A1%A8.pdf

[nschamp]

Don't think that that is what the CB has...

 

 

Believe you're wrong ;)

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

The Caribbean Princess Cruise Ship

The Caribbean Princess was built by Fincantieri Shipyards in Monfalcone, Italy and is hull #6067. Launched in 2004, she is registered in Hamilton, Bermuda and weighs 112,894 gross tons. She is 950.01 ft. long and has a total breadth including wings (2 folding fin stabilizers) of 165.7 ft. ; however, her moulded beam is 118 ft. with a maximum draft of 27.7 ft. Her passenger capacity is 3,740 with a crew of 1,060 (technical staff is 87 --- 23 officers and 64 crew). She has four 16 cylinder diesel engines in vee form, plus two 12 cylinder diesel engines all attached to a synchronous generator. Propulsion is provided by two electric motors activating two propellers, two rudders and six transverse thrusters, capable not only of forward and backward motion, but also of sideways movement. The only thing that surpasses her fuel capacity of 2,649 tons is her fresh water capacity of 2,731 tons.

 

 

yours Shogun

[JHKEL]

Lot's of things here to diagnose and tear down. This might give you an idea of why the delay in timing decisions.

 

TYPE OF SYSTEM:

Engines: 4 x Sulzer 16ZAV40S diesel, 2 x Sulzer 12ZAV40S diesel, these 6 engines work with 2 azipods simens

 

 

DESCRIPTION OF SIEMANS AZIPODS:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuth_thruster

 

 

The Caribbean Princess does not have Azipods. It is a prop/rudder system. Just got off her last week and during the ships tour the propulsion system was talked about both on the bridge and engine control room. Also on the bridge they have pictures of the ship during drydock clearly showing the props and the 6 thrusters (3 fore and 3 aft)

 

edit: shogun beat me to it

[fishin' musician]

Propulsion: Two fixed pitch propellers each driven by a Siemens electric propulsion motor of 19 Megawatts maximum output. Propulsion and ship’s service power from six Siemens generators, four of 11,520 Kilowatts and two of 8,640 Kilowatts, driven by Wartsila ZA40S diesel engines, four V-16 and two V-12, respectively.

[PescadoAmarillo]

Judging from comments posted in several venues, Princess still has a lot of work to do on communications during 'adverse events', which has been a consistent problem for them (similar comments about Noro cruises, Tsunami cruise, etc).

Let's see...bird flu, Chilean earthquake, Japanese tsunami, hurricane hitting NYC, and now this. As I've said before, Princess does a wonderful job with its cruises. But when things go wrong (and it's the nature of the environment they operate in), they always seem to drop the ball a bit when it comes to corporate communications. It's clear that, despite year after year of learning opportunities, they're not improving on that measure.

 

I feel badly for all those affected. We Americans don't get the vacation time of other countries...a week spent like this counts as a week's vacation just the same to employers. I certainly appreciate that. If moaning here makes you feel better, have at it. If we don't want to hear it, we can click away. But it's entirely inappropriate for us to discount your right to feel that way. We are not all coming from the same place.

 

And, as for the "at least I'm not in the office" mentality...I equate it with the "if I don't have to cook it, it's good food" mentality. I guess my expectations for a Princess cruise are a little higher than that, and I'm not going to apologize for them.

[blue-eyed-chica]

my disappointment with Princess is that today is Wednesday, no update on the Princess web site, i called this morning, person on the phone has no answer and we are told to wait until friday or saturday

how are we suppose to make plan b

un beleivable

 

I am cruising on the 25th and am going to SJ as planned. I have 2 pre-cruise nights reserved in OSJ and one post-cruise night. I think it would be fun to explore the Island for a couple of days and then take the ferry to St. Thomas.

 

Any suggestions for places to stay and things to do in St. Thomas? I am too lazy to go to the proper board. And chatting about St. Thomas and other options (Plan B) would probably make a lot of us feel better.

[chrysalis]

Believe you're wrong ;)

 

I believe that you are:)

[TahoeSierra]

We appear to be in a catch 22 situation. We are scheduled to sail for two weeks on the 18th of March, but flying into San Juan on Saturday. If Princess does not cancel the upcoming cruise before Saturday and we fly to Puerto Rico and then they cancel, we will have used our airfare and may not be reimbursed for it.

If we cancel the cruise, we will get 100% of our cruise cost in credit towards another cruise. I don't yet know what will happen to the air fare.

I would prefer to get the cruise and air cost back in cash, so I don't want to cancel the cruise myself. It would seem that Princess is holding back on news about their intensions for the next cruise so they can keep our money in case we decide to cancel. I don't think it should take this long to make a decision about how they will fix the problem. By now they should know what will be happening during the next few weeks.

I am not sure how to approach this situation since Princess is not forthcoming with any useful information about our cruise.

KT

[Loonbeam]

They have already announced they will not be able to make the call until they have a chance to have technical teams evaluate the ship in SJ. Since the ship just got in today I am sure they are onboard and discussing options. Until they could get experts on board they could not make an informed choice. They have already indicated they will make an announcement by tomorrow.

 

It's not because they want to keep your money. The more people that are en route, the more it could cost them to resolve the issue.

 

We appear to be in a catch 22 situation. We are scheduled to sail for two weeks on the 18th of March, but flying into San Juan on Saturday. If Princess does not cancel the upcoming cruise before Saturday and we fly to Puerto Rico and then they cancel, we will have used our airfare and may not be reimbursed for it.

If we cancel the cruise, we will get 100% of our cruise cost in credit towards another cruise. I don't yet know what will happen to the air fare.

I would prefer to get the cruise and air cost back in cash, so I don't want to cancel the cruise myself. It would seem that Princess is holding back on news about their intensions for the next cruise so they can keep our money in case we decide to cancel. I don't think it should take this long to make a decision about how they will fix the problem. By now they should know what will be happening during the next few weeks.

I am not sure how to approach this situation since Princess is not forthcoming with any useful information about our cruise.

KT

[Cruisin' & Breezin']

Nice beach in Vieques, a 1 hour ferry ride from Fajardo, PR

Beach name is Orchid Beach or "Playa La Plata"

Translation is not the same but those are the names by which the beach is known

[VirginiaVacationer]

I think we all need tone a bit more objective about why princess is not yet canceling any more dates. The engine system is complex...think about it, if you take your car in with a check engine light on, does the guy in the front tell you immediately what is wrong and how long it will be? Nope, he tells you to sit down while a mechanic takes a look at it. Then they figure out what is wrong, and then they come out and tell you that your car will be done in an hour...or, in a week. They JUST got the ship in. It is way more likely that they still haven't figured out if they have e parts needed, or are trying to get in parts, as it is there is a grand conspiracy by CCL to rip off the passengers on the Sunday departure. I'd guess people would be even more upset if princess were to cancel and then word got out the ship couldve been fixed in time.

 

I completely understand how e people on the Sunday departure feel, and if it were me id be frantically trying to work on a plan b, c, and d toom but I think you need to also look at this from both sides.

[philamike]

Hi -- to those on board who are following this thread, I'm sorry to hear of your interrupted sailing, and I'm glad to hear that most are making the best out of the situation.

 

I'm sailing on the Celebrity Summit this Saturday from San Juan, which docks at the same pier that the Caribbean Princess is currently berthed at. The Pan American Pier can hold two ships, but Serenade of the Seas also turns around on Saturday. So I'm curious if anyone has said anything on board about what will happen on Saturday. Since both Summit and Serenade will need the terminal services at the Pan American Pier, might they be moving Caribbean Princess to the Old San Juan docks for the day?

 

If someone on board could reply with that answer, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

- Mike :-)

[Cruisin' & Breezin']

I completely understand how e people on the Sunday departure feel, and if it were me id be frantically trying to work on a plan b, c, and d toom but I think you need to also look at this from both sides.

 

This is definitely a very stressful situation for a lot of people. Decisions on their part have to be made quickly and they feel that Princess is not being forthcoming with the information. But like you said, the information for Princess is not that easily obtained either. They need to be careful balancing the fact that they are a business and are also responsible for a few thousand people on board if they sail again with a less than sea worthy ship. They have to carefully examine the engines and propellers and what not's to make sure that the decisions they make are the correct ones for the problem at hand. Of course, all that time that it takes them to make these checks, is time that the next passengers may not have to make their own decisions. That is why I am trying to come up with suggestions in case some have the situation of being "forced" to spend a week in PR because of these restrictions in timing. I can see that everyone would prefer to go on their scheduled cruise, I would too.

[Massman]

I appreciate all of the great ideas and valuable input from everyone that this is not effecting.

 

So, can someone help us out here? We are scheduled to sail Sunday. This is our only week off this year, so we're looking for alternatives to have an enjoyable vacation. If the cruise is cancelled after we've flown to San Juan, does anyone have suggestions as to where we can get a hotel room for the week, with a balcony overlooking the ocean, and all of our food and entertainment for $800 a person?

 

Sarcastic? Yes. Bitter? Yes.

 

We live within resonable driving distance to 4 cruise line ports, yet if we don't find out until after we're in San Juan ...... my vacation will be a flight to San Juan, one night hotel, a $150 change fee to get home the next day and six days of planning next year's vacation on anything but a CCL line. Let th countdown clock begin ...... 365 days, 364 days .....

 

Priceless. :mad:

[ghstudio]

Perhaps it would be helpful to review what Celebrity did when the Century had mechanical problems in Ville Franche in late 2010 and cancelled the cruise one day into the cruise (sounds similar...right!!).

 

Celebrity refunded the cost of the cruise and the cost of any change fees or air tickets needed to get home...and they refunded the cost of air tickets to the cruise that started in Barcelona. Finally, they gave us a credit towards another cruise for (I think) 25% of what we paid for the cancelled cruise.

 

For those that used air miles (we used AA miles to get to Barcelona), they purchased the miles back from AA (since AA sells air miles)...so our air mile account was made whole.

 

Celebrity also covered up to (I think) two days in Barcelona on the way home, if you needed to stay in order to get a flight.

 

This was not their first offer, but ultimately with the help of cruise critic providing a widely viewed platform for unhappy customers to express their feelings, Celebrity changed their compensation to the above. It was, in the view of passengers, fair compensation.

 

A word on travel insurance. Mechanical breakdown of a cruise ship is NOT trip interruption except in a very few policies. travel insurance covered the incident as trip delay which has much lower limits. Just because you and I think that a breakdown is interruption, you have to read the fine print in the policy.

 

I do feel for the folks on the ship...it's very similar to the Century incident except on the Century, we were put off the ship in Ville Franch (with buses to Barcelona if we wanted to take them) to fend for ourselves. Princess is allowing passengers to stay on the ship until their planned flights home...much nicer approach.

[skibum58]

Je suis entièrement d'accord....I'm in full agreement with your comment 'gaspegal'. I would not mind enjoying the warm weather of San Juan for a week even if we don't move from the dock. I'm booked for the March 18th cruise and hope that Princess will invite us to come on down for a good time in San Juan.

[MDSue]

Just called Princess and the agent I spoke to was unaware of the problem so I filled her in- thank goodness I can count on CC'ers to post the information first.

Once she did look up the problem she said there was no word on future sailings yet. I'm supposed to be sailing in two weeks and am totally bummed. I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst- will make the best out of it whatever.

Will keep checking here for updates first- thanks to those who are keeping us posted

 

Now, for a back up plan- need ideas for what to do in San Juan- will be my forth visit and already done OSJ numerous times. Maybe, I will try to see some other parts of the island this time

[Loonbeam]

If they don't need to drydock the ship, I could see them using it as a hotel and refunding some or all of the money. Not the perfect solution, but definitely viable, especially if they could arrange some excursions.

 

I appreciate all of the great ideas and valuable input from everyone that this is not effecting.

 

So, can someone help us out here? We are scheduled to sail Sunday. This is our only week off this year, so we're looking for alternatives to have an enjoyable vacation. If the cruise is cancelled after we've flown to San Juan, does anyone have suggestions as to where we can get a hotel room for the week, with a balcony overlooking the ocean, and all of our food and entertainment for $800 a person?

 

Sarcastic? Yes. Bitter? Yes.

 

We live within resonable driving distance to 4 cruise line ports, yet if we don't find out until after we're in San Juan ...... my vacation will be a flight to San Juan, one night hotel, a $150 change fee to get home the next day and six days of planning next year's vacation on anything but a CCL line. Let th countdown clock begin ...... 365 days, 364 days .....

 

Priceless. :mad:

[wilfros]

Je suis entièrement d'accord

 

Say What !!?????!!

[PrincessE]

Just called Princess and the agent I spoke to was unaware of the problem so I filled her in- thank goodness I can count on CC'ers to post the information first.

Once she did look up the problem she said there was no word on future sailings yet. I'm supposed to be sailing in two weeks and am totally bummed. I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst- will make the best out of it whatever.

Will keep checking here for updates first- thanks to those who are keeping us posted

 

Now, for a back up plan- need ideas for what to do in San Juan- will be my forth visit and already done OSJ numerous times. Maybe, I will try to see some other parts of the island this time

 

DH and I are scheduled to sail on April 15th for a B2B. We're hoping against hope that the CB will be sailing by then.

 

If she is not sailing we are still planning on flying to SJU. We already have two nights pre at a hotel in OSJ. After that we might spend about a week in Puerto Rico - I'm looking into renting a condo or reserving a hotel room. As for the second week, we're talking about taking the ferry to St. Thomas and spending some time there. We might even explore St. John and St. Croix.

[PrincessE]

Say What !!?????!!

 

"I could not agree with you more" or "This is something I can whole heartedly support".

[Loucat]

If anyone read the sticky at the top of the page, I would not count on a well managed repair or communication to those sailing this weekend. I was on CB in February and know what it would be like if on Wednesday, I did not know if I should fly to San Juan. According to one poster who was on this sailing, they cut internet access after the announcement that passengers could stay onboard.

HELLO? DOES ANYONE AT PRINCESS HAVE A BRAIN??

I feel for you all and hope each of you are able to work things out the best that you can.

I am not an expert, but why did they not fix this problem before it became a crisis?