Princess Cruisetours

[westcliffo]

Hi to all:

Has anyone taken a Princess Cruisetour? I am especially interested in Europe and Asia.

If so were you pleased with it?

Thank you.

[Micahs Grandad]

Hi to all:

Has anyone taken a Princess Cruisetour? I am especially interested in Europe and Asia.

If so were you pleased with it?

Thank you.

 

We do private but have compared notes with people taking Princess tours and see no reason to do anything different.

[diane.in.ny]

We did the Switzerland/Med Cruise and have nothing bad to say about it. Enjoyed it very much.

[cruzsnooze]

I did the Canada New England Cruisetour last year and would do it again. They used good hotels and a good tour guides. The itinerary was fabulous.

[Loonbeam]

We did Alaska and were quite pleased with it. All depends on how much their itinerary matches with your objectives. It's worth noting that in Europe for example you have a LOT more option than you might in a place like Alaska.

[clmom]

Hi to all:

Has anyone taken a Princess Cruisetour? I am especially interested in Europe and Asia.

If so were you pleased with it?

Thank you.

We did an Asia Cruisetour in 2014.

All in all, I thought Princess did a great job...great guides, fabulous hotels, great itinerary (exhausting but boy, did we see A LOT!). Our guide was with us every minute on the land tour, guided us through several flights, buses and train trips. All of our entry fees, meals and every small detail was taken care of for us. We could not have done all we did on our own. That said, we did have 2 negative experiences.

 

The first, a huge price drop in the cruise only portion and we did not qualify to take advantage because a Cruisetour is priced as a whole and not individually (tour, cruise). In retrospect, I wouldn't do this particular trip differently because Asia was so foreign to us but might consider booking a land tour with a separate company if the price difference was considerable and we were in Europe. It just did not make any sense to me that they couldn't separate out the land vs cruise price but that is the chance you take.

 

The 2nd negative was the ship that was used on the Yangtze River portion of our land tour. It was deplorable...moldy, dirty, old...an embarrassment to the Princess product. In defense of Princess, we happened to be on this tour during "Golden Week" which is one of the busiest travel times in China. The availability of ships for the river portion was probably in short supply and 2014 was just the beginning of the big Princess push into the Asian market. They most likely came a little late to the table and had to accept what was available for the group size (100 in our group). I hope this has been addressed as Princess certainly heard an earful from all of us about that junk of a boat!

 

Do your research, compare prices and once you decide, just go with the flow and enjoy the experience!

[Thrak]

We did an Alaskan Connoisseur Cruise Tour earlier this year. We loved it!

[Pam in CA]

I've done the 4-day cruise tour in Beijing and thought it was very well done. I'd done it previously with Viking River and thought it was comparable. Because I'd already been there before, I didn't do a longer pre-cruise tour. Friends on the same cruise did the 16-day Viking River cruise which coordinated nicely time-wise with our Diamond cruise.

 

If given a choice and depending on the timing, I'd take a Viking River cruise pre-cruise rather than the Princess cruise tour. The reasons would be that Viking River is excellent but even more important, if there's a sale or price drop on your cruise, you'd be able to take advantage of it.

 

If you book the Princess cruisetour, you will not be able to re-fare or get any sale or promotion price. It's sold "as is" and that's the price you'll pay even if the cruise portion fare drops 50%.

 

When I booked the Diamond cruisetour in China, I'd booked the cruise portion from Beijing to Vancouver as a B2B including an Alaskan cruise. After booking, cruise fares for both the trans-Pacific and Alaskan cruises dropped considerably and the Alaskan cruise was on sale for far below what I was paying. I was stuck paying literally $0,000's more than if I'd booked the tour portion independently. I canceled and re-booked just the trans-Pacific portion saving a ton. I lost the cost of insurance but that was minor compared to how much I saved.

[westcliffo]

Thank you everyone for your information.

[Sea Day Cruiser]

I've done Princess cruisetours in both Alaska and Ireland and was very happy with both of them. Pam is correct though about price drops. Princess won't lower the price on a cruisetour but we did get a nice cabin upgrade instead.

 

 

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