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No Caribbean in the spring?

blueseas4me2

By blueseas4me2,
in Princess Cruises

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jennybenny

jennybenny

Posted
Posted

I think the hurricanes scare them. Hurricane season starts in June.

The weather is unpredictable, could those cruises be more work than they are worth for the cruise line? I'm just guessing. I would risk booking a cruise and hoping it all turned out OK, but I think it's not worth it to the cruise line to bother with.

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Pam in CA

Pam in CA

Posted
Posted (edited)
I understand that they are sending all their ships elsewhere. I just find this very strange. I've been on several spring cruises with Princess. I can't believe they are simply skipping the Caribbean during one of my favorite times to cruise.
It may be your favorite time to cruise the Caribbean but it's not most people's. Always follow the money. Princess repositions ships where there's demand and they can command higher prices. Princess has had problems in the past filling ships for Caribbean cruises after April and put them on sale. Good for passengers but bad for the corporate bottom line. Princess, and thus Carnival Corporation, is a for-profit corporation. Edited by Pam in CA
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easyboy

easyboy

Posted
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It may be your favorite time to cruise the Caribbean but it's not most people's. Always follow the money. Princess repositions ships where there's demand and they can command higher prices. Princess has had problems in the past filling ships for Caribbean cruises after April and put them on sale. Good for passengers but bad for the corporate bottom line. Princess, and thus Carnival Corporation, is a for-profit corporation.

Very well said!

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JimmyVWine Great Review Rare

JimmyVWine

Posted
Posted
I can't believe they are simply skipping the Caribbean during one of my favorite times to cruise.

 

Does your love for cruising the Caribbean in May have anything to do with favorable pricing? If so, then your question answers itself. If one thinks: "Gee. I used to love Caribbean cruises in June. I used to get such great deals", then the disappearance of those cruises became inevitable.

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Coral "Live from...." Rare

Coral

Posted
Posted (edited)

Heck - May is considered summer here :)

 

We want to go to the Caribbean in the winter when the weather here is cold! Knowing what the cruise lines are doing, I am guessing we are not alone.

 

I have done the Caribbean 2x in April. It was beautiful back home (some of our nicest weather) and dang hot in the Caribbean. Almost too hot.

Edited by Coral
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WISH84

WISH84

Posted
Posted

There are plenty of options for a May Caribbean Cruise, I just did an extensive search for May 2017 as we want to fit a summer cruise in between our two December trips. Carnival, Royal Caribbean and NCL all cruise during the Summer and I believe Celebrity does as well.

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spyro1952

spyro1952

Posted
Posted

The original plan for the Caribbean Princess when it debuted was it would be kept in the Caribbean all year round. That was quickly decreased to every other year. During the recession it did sail all summer at some amazing fares but not full and also sailed from Brooklyn, but again not full. The economy is improved enough that ships are sailing full and passengers are willing to fly to Europe or the west coast so they don't need to offer low cost off season trips.

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JimmyVWine Great Review Rare

JimmyVWine

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Posted (edited)
No desire to go to the Caribbean in the Summer ... but wish Princess would offer some out of FLL until the end of April.

 

I agree. Now that my daughter is out of high school, we aren't tethered to the school calendar any more. But when we were, this was an issue. Our school system (as well as much of New England) didn't schedule its Spring Break around Easter. Instead it was always in late April irrespective of when Easter fell. In some years, there were still cruises to be had during the break, but in other years there weren't. Usually, one extra week of cruises would have made the difference. Seems as if someone in California needs to spend a little more time studying the school calendars of cold weather school systems. A lot of people in New England would like to escape the end of winter and plunge into warm weather with a cruise. Seems foolish to take all of your ships out of FLL before Boston, Hartford, Portland,Burlington, etc. have had their Spring Breaks. As it is, when you go to Disney World at that time, all you see from end to end is Red Sox caps.

Edited by JimmyVWine
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georgiacat Great Review Rare

georgiacat

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Posted

You could try a Carnival cruise. We did our first Carnival on the Magic this past late April and were pleasantly surprised. There should not be many children in May, if that is a concern. We were pleased with the price and my husband (big kid at 65) discovered the water slides on the last day. We may have to do Carnival again so he can slide.

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piper28

piper28

Posted
Posted

It does seem to me that they're leaving earlier these days for the Med, and I don't know if that's really working or not. My wife's a teacher, so we're stuck with the school year calendar, and it used to be we could generally find a cruise from Princess during the easter break (which isn't necessarily a great time in the caribbean, since everything tends to be closed for sunday and monday). This year? Nothing. Not sure there was anything this last easter either. And from what I've seen, I'm not overly convinced a lot of those real early europe cruises don't end up getting pretty discounted too.

 

Course, part of it might be that the fleet is getting pretty thin. If you take away the ships that are now dedicated to the asian and australian markets, there's just fewer ships available to serve the more traditional us market destinations of alaska, caribbean, and europe. Personally I think they've lost a little sight on their core market as they're trying to push to these newer markets. Heck, even the Med routes these days are looking pretty depleted, with a whopping 2 ships in the Med next year, with itinerary choices that are approaching mediocre at best. There's 5 ships in europe, 6 in Alaska, the other 7 are asia/australia.

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