Cruise imminent, lots of rooms left??

[Muscleshop]

Coral Princess - 10 day Panama Canal (partial) Dec. 18th-28th

 

Am I imagining things, or are there a "ton" of rooms left for this cruise?? This particular cruise seems to be MUCH less heavily booked than the other Princess - Christmas/New Years holiday cruises to the Panama Canal....by virtue of what Princess.com is showing available.

 

By my estimation, there is at least 35%-40% of the rooms left available....especially balconies & mini-suites. Not really concerned that the cruise will get cancelled, but from those intimately familiar with Princess, I am wondering:

 

1. With there currently being < 59 days left until departure, do you think they will offer another discount/obc's/et al, to garner late interest?

 

2. Since so many rooms are available, will this lend itself to more people getting upgrades? (wont matter for us, as we have 3 minis and don't want to move).

 

I don't mind a less than full ship!!, but just wondering about things.....

[Muscleshop]

I counted OVER 520 rooms left available, with a passenger capacity of 1950-ish, currently. So I guess that makes my initial estimate low.....looks like it's approximately 45-50% available.

[Nan_Sea]

We are leaving today on the Island Princess. We booked just a couple of weeks ago when the price dropped to $499/pp for 10 days. I would expect the same sort of price drop for your cruise

[can786]

Since there is still nearly two months before your sailing I would expect that Princess will offer some good flash sale fares to fill the ship. And also, there may be more cabins booked than you think if the guarantee bookings have not been assigned yet. As far as whether upgrades will be assigned if the ship is not near capacity is anyone's guess. I sailed on a transatlantic last year on the Ruby Princess that turned out to only be about 2/3 full. I was one of those lucky ones who was upgraded to a full suite (from a minisuite) on that cruise. There were others on our roll call who were upgraded to a higher cabin class as well. I do think this was the exception to the rule though.

[cruzsnooze]

Your cruise is not imminent it's a long way off. Usually the ships sail full and so will yours. TA's will be releasing blocks of rooms, gty cabins will get assigned and last minute bookings are quite common.

[MCC retired]

Not really imminent .

TA's have aleady turned back unsold inventory since Final is past.

Just how many Guarantee's have yet to be assigned cabins is a ?

Watch for Flash rates soon , again Guarantees, to fill the ship.

There are many cruisers just waiting for close in bookings now that most all

cruise lines have eliminated $ adjustments after final .

[lor74]

if you are a past passenger, I am sure you will receive some nice offers. if you have a princess account, you should make sure that you have the port checked for last minute deals

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

[sunsetbeachgal]

We enjoyed our Panama Canal cruise but the other ports on the itinerary are exactly the same year after year, plus the port taxes of over $300 per person have kept us from booking it again.

[Muscleshop]

I suppose "imminenet" was not the proper word to use...lol

 

I just think that a holiday such a Christmas is a little different than say the second week of November, as far as people's thoughts on traveling during a holiday vs any other time of year. Some people are adamant about not vacationing over Christmas, whereas others love it.

 

I appreciate the responses so far! **Great tip (above) about signing up for last minute deals from the port of departure (since we are already going). Didn't think of that since we are >1000 miles away....lol I understand about the guarantees not showing up yet, and about last minute bookings. I was basically just trying to gain knowledge for the future, as I don't really know if 50% vacancy <2 months out is normal? Does that "normal" change for holiday cruises? Et al...... (especially compared to similar cruises at the same time).

 

We have just recently started vacationing over Christmas (last few years), so every bit of information is helpful.

[kruisey]

Princess will 'Special it'

Especially for those that live in FLL area,if that is were it sails from.

Don't worry it will sail full.:)

[thinfool]

We have been booked for at least 2 months on a different itinerary that sails in early January. No price adjustments....until yesterday...when I checked Princess.com our cruise and our cabin category had dropped about 25%. We grabbed it!

 

And I am not done watching....as the OP observed, it seems that things are moving slowly, so I would not be surprised to see another adjustment before we sail.

[lovevacadays]

I am sure Princess will be doing some heavy discounting on your cruise if it continues to not sell well. I get an email every couple of weeks from Princess with last minute deals. I can't believe some of the fantastic prices I have seen. I've seen some for the Panama Canal that are unbelievable.

[John99]

So far, 90 day tracker web site does not show a sale ---- yet. But it will.

The December 7th Coral Princess is already listed.

 

John

[Cruisin' Chick]

I'm guessing that this ship is more full than you think (as someone's mentioned, the guarantee's may not have been assigned yet). Back in 2010, we booked our Hawaiian cruise (which be the two weeks starting around 12/22, I think) around mid to late October and I think we grabbed one of the last few rooms, an Obstructed OV, available. I also waitlisted us for insides and heard from Princess as a few bookings were cancelled, but these were for far forward insides and for as much money as we paid for the OOV so I finally just said we'll keep the original cabin.

 

There's heavy demand for the late December cruises.

[Skai]

We enjoyed our Panama Canal cruise but the other ports on the itinerary are exactly the same year after year, plus the port taxes of over $300 per person have kept us from booking it again.

 

As an itinerary choice based cruiser.....The Princess Panama Canal(full transit) itineraries are sort of lackluster.....Only 5 port stops(not including the canal) for a 14-17 day itinerary?

 

No thanks.

 

It seems like HAL has much better itineraries IYAM....

[Cras108er]

How can you tell whether a cruise is full (or not)?

[geoherb]

To tell how full a ship is, just look at booking it on the Princess website and see how many cabins show up as available. It shows cabins that are not available with "Sold" on them. You'll have to go deck by deck, front to back. And it won't tell you how many guarantees are out there waiting to be assigned. So even if there are 12 cabins in a category showing up as available, 10 of those may already be sold through guarantees unless someone specifically wants to book them.

[MJC]

What is a Flash sale? Should I check the Princess website for these every day, or will they send an email if I'm on their mailing list? More info please.

[OCruisers]

Sometimes having cabins available and having cabins you would want to book are two different things .... :rolleyes:

 

LuLu

~~~~

[greenie082756]

To tell how full a ship is, just look at booking it on the Princess website and see how many cabins show up as available. It shows cabins that are not available with "Sold" on them. You'll have to go deck by deck, front to back. And it won't tell you how many guarantees are out there waiting to be assigned. So even if there are 12 cabins in a category showing up as available, 10 of those may already be sold through guarantees unless someone specifically wants to book them.

Can you do that if you've already put a reservation in?:confused:

[rdsqrl]

Can you do that if you've already put a reservation in?:confused:

Yep.