Crown Princess Alaska past, present and future sailings

[JeffT237]

In an effort to give back the 5/21st sailing thread to @Crow9, sorry again for your post getting hijacked, I thought I'd start a new thread for those that would like to continue the discussion.  I'm sure there will be week specific threads for future sailings with the announcement of the next 4 sailings having itinerary changes so this should be a good thread to continue the discussion.  My hope is this thread can be a resource to inform future cruisers about the status of their cruise to assist them in making their travel decisions.  I also would like this to be for past passengers to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly especially if they're looking for some type of resolution as I am.  @Namvvet68 I emailed the CEO and a few VPs and was told I would receive a response in 7-10 business days (today is day 7) @ImperialLadyWe tried to change too, we were 9 days out no such luck and I understand your frustration.  Also I have pretty thick skin and don't really take myself too seriously so if you feel the need to flame me or my intentions, feel free!  If my worst problem in life is a cruise disruption I'm pretty fortunate but I believe 20% FCC isn't enough so I'd like to discuss that with Princess.

 

For anyone new to the discussion to recap our May 7th sailing it was enjoyable, disappointing for sure to get only about 15 hours in Alaska, all excursions cancelled due to 3 itinerary changes and currently waiting for $750 in refunds.  Crew was outstanding, food was good and Glacier Bay was amazing.  Feel we didn't get the true Princess experience as 1st timers. Waiting for a response from Princess's management.

 

Happy Cruising!

Edited May 27, 2022 by JeffT237

[ImperialLady]

JeffT237 you stated - We tried to change too, we were 9 days out no such luck and I understand your frustration.  Also I have pretty thick skin and don't really take myself too seriously so if you feel the need to flame me or my intentions, feel free.

 

  FYI I do not have a need or desire to flame anyone. We all have a right to our feelings and I respected everyone's...even those I many not agree with. And for the record I do/did not disagree with you..

Edited May 27, 2022 by ImperialLady

[JeffT237]

@ImperialLady Maybe I am misunderstanding your response, I tagged you because I was agreeing with you 100% from the 5/21 thread.  I'm saying I understand your frustration with trying to logistically make all the changes that have to take place when switching ships.  Also the frustration with the feeling of not being heard by Princess.  We experienced all those same things. I hope this clears up any confusion.

[ImperialLady]

Just now, JeffT237 said:

@ImperialLady Maybe I am misunderstanding your response, I tagged you because I was agreeing with you 100% from the 5/21 thread.  I'm saying I understand your frustration with trying to logistically make all the changes that have to take place when switching ships.  Also the frustration with the feeling of not being heard by Princess.  We experienced all those same things. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Thank you. I think I must have misunderstood you. I apologize. This is frustating for many of us...for many different reasons. 

[AlaskaSeattle28]

Hello, I am booked on the 7 Day Glacier Bay cruise leaving Seattle tomorrow. Very disappointing to hear about the changes.. was really looking forward to bear watching at Icy Point and Whale Watching at Juneau (maybe we can still book another once we’re on board, as our current one was due to depart at 5:15pm).

 

Anyways I was just looking at the princess website and noticed no glacier bay cruises from Seattle are available for booking up until the 6th of August. Other cruises (such as the non glacier bay cruise from Seattle) are available for booking as early as tomorrow. 
 

So It looks like they’re no longer taking bookings on that route for the next couple of months.  Maybe just offline while they’re updating the schedules shown? Or is it possible they’ve cancelled the cruises and have yet to tell us?

 

edit* oh never mind it looks like it’s back on there now! Still not got the right schedule though. Thankfully the weather is due to be nice so it will be nice to look at Alaska even if we don’t get to get off the ship to enjoy it very much

Edited May 27, 2022 by AlaskaSeattle28
Update

[JeffT237]

17 minutes ago, AlaskaSeattle28 said:

Hello, I am booked on the 7 Day Glacier Bay cruise leaving Seattle tomorrow. Very disappointing to hear about the changes.. was really looking forward to bear watching at Icy Point and Whale Watching at Juneau (maybe we can still book another once we’re on board, as our current one was due to depart at 5:15pm).

I hope you have good weather for Glacier Bay like we did, it was an absolutely amazing experience for us.  Everything we'd hoped for.  One tip I'd have for you try and board as early as possible.  We were on the ship about 11:30, we were probably one of the first 100 or so on board and we went straight to the shore excursion desk, no line.  We knew it would be busy and it was crazy busy for the early part of the week. The staff there is really nice and helpful.

[OKCruiseMan]

I have never been on Princess but will be on the Crown Princess tomorrow headed to ????

The mechanical issues and their impact are unfortunate. The handling of the situation by Princess was very poor. I knew there were problems but was continually told my excursions were not canceled until the day after I could make changes. I feel I was lied to.

Unless the next week is extraordinary I can't imagine ever booking or recommending Princess. 

To be clear, this is not because of their problems but their handling of them.

[jk04]

@JeffT237 Thank you for starting this thread.  Our group is on the June 11th cruise and when we received the initial email decided as a group to make the best of it.  At that time, Juneau was still a 1430 arrival and Ketchikan was swapped with Icy Strait Point.  We did receive an email from Princess explaining the situation plus a Goodwill $100 OBC.  We were trying to be flexible and thought some of the issues would probably be corrected by June as the ship continued to sail and worked out the kinks.

 

However, the engine problems continued to deteriorate, port times reduced further or eliminated and excursions canceled.  They were providing various OBC and 20% FCC to those affected.  Apparently the arrival time to Juneau had changed twice more and finally Icy Strait Point completely removed.  This has been made a permanent change for the next four sailings leaving 05/28 thru 06/18 (as your sheet indicates).  At that point absolutely no communication from Princess about the changes although we were contacted by Tour Operators to cancel excursions.

 

Once we did receive an email from Princess, it's just a 'due to engine issues there is an itinerary change'.  No mention of a Goodwill gesture or even 'We're sorry'.  I'm assuming we are to expect no compensation of any kind because they did thoughtfully reiterate the Passage Contract after the revised itinerary.

[rrusso81]

I'm aso on the June 11th cruise, this has been so frustrating.  I have a private whale watching tour booked for 5pm in Juneau and now I don't know if they will wait for us until 6pm.  That was going to be the highlight of our trip, everyone was so excited about it.  Does anyone know if Princess will work with tour operators to get whale watching tours to start later? Maybe people on the trips coming up could report back about if they got to go on one.  So disappointing.  

[AlaskaSeattle28]

2 hours ago, JeffT237 said:

I hope you have good weather for Glacier Bay like we did, it was an absolutely amazing experience for us.  Everything we'd hoped for.  One tip I'd have for you try and board as early as possible.  We were on the ship about 11:30, we were probably one of the first 100 or so on board and we went straight to the shore excursion desk, no line.  We knew it would be busy and it was crazy busy for the early part of the week. The staff there is really nice and helpful.

Thank you!

 

Unfortunately we're travelling up from Portland in the morning so we won't be boarding til around 1pm. The shore excursion desk will be our first stop though. 

[jk04]

15 hours ago, rrusso81 said:

I'm aso on the June 11th cruise, this has been so frustrating.  I have a private whale watching tour booked for 5pm in Juneau and now I don't know if they will wait for us until 6pm.  That was going to be the highlight of our trip, everyone was so excited about it.  Does anyone know if Princess will work with tour operators to get whale watching tours to start later? Maybe people on the trips coming up could report back about if they got to go on one.  So disappointing.  

@rrusso81 Are you on Harv and Marv by chance?  Our tour was rescheduled to 1700 and we may be on the same boat.  We originally had a private tour with our group.  But, our daughter from another mother became pregnant and had to move their sail date a month back.  Since it was so close to the season by that point, Harv and Marv asked if we could make it a non-private sailing, and we were alright with that.  They have been wonderful through all this with the rescheduling and are going to try and work with us in Juneau.  Like other tour operators, they are at the mercy of Crown.

 

My husband is in contact with the lady at Harv and Marv and will be until we dock.  Currently, the plan is to try and get everyone to the meet point by 1800.  They may have to shorten the tour some to get us back in time to the ship, but they are going to try and get us on the water.  If they don't think they are going to be able to give us a worthwhile tour, they will refund our money.

 

Let me know if you are on Harv and Marv, if you are, we can move over to the Roll Call for this sailing and try to keep in touch about the details.  

[rrusso81]

1 hour ago, jk04 said:

@rrusso81 Are you on Harv and Marv by chance?  Our tour was rescheduled to 1700 and we may be on the same boat.  We originally had a private tour with our group.  But, our daughter from another mother became pregnant and had to move their sail date a month back.  Since it was so close to the season by that point, Harv and Marv asked if we could make it a non-private sailing, and we were alright with that.  They have been wonderful through all this with the rescheduling and are going to try and work with us in Juneau.  Like other tour operators, they are at the mercy of Crown.

 

My husband is in contact with the lady at Harv and Marv and will be until we dock.  Currently, the plan is to try and get everyone to the meet point by 1800.  They may have to shorten the tour some to get us back in time to the ship, but they are going to try and get us on the water.  If they don't think they are going to be able to give us a worthwhile tour, they will refund our money.

 

Let me know if you are on Harv and Marv, if you are, we can move over to the Roll Call for this sailing and try to keep in touch about the details.  

No we are on one from Alaska Shore Tours. We have a party of 8 and that number didn't work for Harv and Marv from what I remember so I found a different one. I've yet to hear back if they can accommodate the late start. I really hope we can find some sort of whale tour for our party that is not a large boat but at this point I might take anything. 

[bmc alabama]

We are on the cruise today as well.  Not a good start.  Our Seattle Express driver never showed up for our transfer.  Trying to get that situated…

[jk04]

7 minutes ago, bmc alabama said:

We are on the cruise today as well.  Not a good start.  Our Seattle Express driver never showed up for our transfer.  Trying to get that situated…

Oh no!! 

[bmc alabama]

5 minutes ago, jk04 said:

Oh no!! 

Update!  They found us another driver and we are on our way!

[Snate]

So what are everyone's thoughts on the cruises starting after the June 20th departure?   The next 4 weeks have the itinerary that is basically 6 days at sea out of 7 (Arriving at Juneau at 5:30 and Victoria at 7pm is a sea day basically).  Same goes for 3 hours in Icy Strait Point starting at 5pm or whatever.  I have 13 of my family on the July 9th Crown cruise.  10 of the 13 have never been to Alaska and this is probably their only time going in their lives.  We called Princess to see about switching but they said our cruise should have the itinerary with Juneau arrival at 2:30 and still includes Icy Strait Point.  Does this mean they think they can fix the issue or do they know it's not going to be fixed but are refusing to tell later sailings on purpose?  To move to the Discovery the next day will cost us a ton of money in flight changes, etc.. and we lose Glacier Bay which I feel is pretty important.  The other choice is to flip to the Whittier to Vancouver route but I am pretty sure the change in air from RT to Seattle versus flying into Anchorage and out of Vancouver for 13 people may run us $10-$15K extra.  What should be a exciting vacation for everyone is turning into total frustration.  

[JeffT237]

42 minutes ago, Snate said:

So what are everyone's thoughts on the cruises starting after the June 20th departure?

I seriously empathize with you, I can only share our experience.  We had no time to prepare as we found out a little over a week until our sailing.  We tried to switch and even considered just cancelling and losing the money and trying to fight to get it back.  I had concerns the ship would break down with us on it.  I would have less concerns about that now.  The truth is you probably won't get any of your concerns answered by Princess pre-cruise as we did not either.  As far as the ship being repaired before your cruise who knows.  I have my doubts as this seems like such a fluid situation, and again I don't think you'll get an answer on that.  I truly hope this works out for you and your group, this is not how you want to spend your time before you cruise.  Plus with the amount spent or having to spend to change is disheartening as well.  If you do cruise as long as nothing changes you should get a full day in Skagway, I'd suggest taking advantage of that and book multiple excursions to have those experiences.  Most of us on the May 7th didn't have the time in any of our mostly late port arrivals to experience any excursions. Enjoy Glacier Bay which is why we chose the itinerary, it was awesome.  The crew is great as well.  If I would have had more time I personally would have switched to the Majestic southbound but keep in mind the logistics and travel expenses that go into that cruise are much more than a Seattle roundtrip.  I agree, this itinerary did feel like it was mostly sea days and on an older ship that had less amenities than we prefer.  I hope that helps and that others add in as well with their thoughts and experiences.

Edited May 28, 2022 by JeffT237

[rj59]

Glad I saw this thread, since I was tempted by a low inside solo offer for late June and and was so frustrated by seeing only a distant peek of Sawyer glacier yesterday that I wanted to get to Glacier Bay. Juneau always has kiosks from tour operators willing to take you to Mendenhall or whale watching. Instead of sitting on a train in Skagway, you can rent an electric bike and explore forests and shoreline outside town. By sitting outside by the water, I saw many whales, otters, and Dahl’s porpoises, as well as salmon and seals in Puget Sound. I’ve never met anyone who has actually seen a bear on an excursion or scanning shores. Then realize that most shore excursions are going to be crowded and difficult to get, with record passengers and a labor shortage (there are up to 12k passengers today in Juneau and 12k in Ketchikan tomorrow). Having done many Alaskan cruises, I try to focus on natural beauty, explore towns, and be flexible with weather and schedules and dealing with busy ports.

[Riley_Mon]

I doubt it truly applies but I did read up on a passenger bill of rights that the cruise lines adhere to. Princess belongs to this.

 

In part it reads

 

The Members of the Cruise Lines International Association are dedicated to the comfort and care of all passengers on oceangoing cruises throughout the world. To fulfill this commitment, our Members have agreed to adopt the following set of passenger rights:

• 
   
• The right to a full refund for a trip that is canceled due to mechanical failures, or a partial refund for voyages that are terminated early due to those failures.

 

So mechanical failures are a different category than whale migrations and hurricanes. Now I'm sure Princess will say that our cruise was not terminated early due to mechanical failures, however in order to meet the start and end dates of the cruise they have had to radically alter the itinerary more than once by their own admission of mechanical problems. I think one could argue that multiple cruises have been severely altered due to mechanical issues.

 

Worse for them they have admitted the cruise was severely altered on May 7 by offering a 20% FCC while essentially locking in the same  schedule  for the remainder of May and June cruises.

 

I would say that the alterations to our itineraries are made in an effort to avoid this article of the passenger bill of rights by the letter of the law, while gingerly dancing around the spirit of it. These cruises should have been canceled. 

 

Regardless its a bad look for Princess. I fear  the outreach of bad press they will receive on social media by highly disgruntled and also motivated passengers warning future cruisers to look elsewhere for cruises more dedicated to fulfilling the customer experience will further damage their reputation and more directly, their revenue.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Riley_Mon

[BUtaxMan]

On 5/28/2022 at 2:51 PM, Snate said:

So what are everyone's thoughts on the cruises starting after the June 20th departure?   The next 4 weeks have the itinerary that is basically 6 days at sea out of 7 (Arriving at Juneau at 5:30 and Victoria at 7pm is a sea day basically).  Same goes for 3 hours in Icy Strait Point starting at 5pm or whatever.  I have 13 of my family on the July 9th Crown cruise.  10 of the 13 have never been to Alaska and this is probably their only time going in their lives.  We called Princess to see about switching but they said our cruise should have the itinerary with Juneau arrival at 2:30 and still includes Icy Strait Point.  Does this mean they think they can fix the issue or do they know it's not going to be fixed but are refusing to tell later sailings on purpose?  To move to the Discovery the next day will cost us a ton of money in flight changes, etc.. and we lose Glacier Bay which I feel is pretty important.  The other choice is to flip to the Whittier to Vancouver route but I am pretty sure the change in air from RT to Seattle versus flying into Anchorage and out of Vancouver for 13 people may run us $10-$15K extra.  What should be a exciting vacation for everyone is turning into total frustration.  

We are also booked on the July 9th Crown Cruise.  We have 6 of us that have never been to Alaska before.  I am really concerned about the above items and even more the toilet issues.  Does anyone know where they are having issues with the toilets not working or smelling in the ship?  I just do not want to be dealing with that in addition to missing our excursions.

 

I have reached out to our travel agent and hope to hear back from her Tuesday or Wednesday.  I will let you know if she has anything to add to this discussion, but I am guessing she will not.

[Snate]

I think we are at the point where all 13 of us will be trying to move ships.  The question now becomes moving a day later on the Discovery (Seattle to Seattle) or changing to the Majestic which is the same exact days but the airfare becomes much larger (Whittier to Vancouver).  My wife and I have done the Whittier cruise already but all the others are new to Alaska and this will be their only trip as they won’t be going back.  I feel like Discovery, without Glacier Bay should be a non starter but the others don’t know any better and just feel it is easier to stay in Seattle.  Not seeing the glaciers is kind of a big deal as far as an Alaskan cruise goes.  

[Crow9]

2 hours ago, 5:00_Somewhere said:

 

Discovery Princess made all ports as scheduled during our cruise last week.

 

The issue with the Crown is that there is a mechanical issue with their propulsion system. According to someone I know at Princess, they have not yet been able to repair her because there are supply chain issues causing problems in getting the necessary parts Then, once they have the parts available, they have to find a dry dock that can take the ship and arrange repair personnel to actually make the repairs. So, because the ship is functional and safe to operate, if slower than it would normally be, they decided to alter the itineraries and continue sailing until repairs can be made.

I asked about the Crown on one of the Discovery's posts.

[jk04]

Just got an Upsell Offer from Princess from our Mini-Suite to a Full-Suite for $699 per person!!  Let's do this Alaska drive-by in style 

[carbon]

On 6/2/2022 at 7:10 PM, jk04 said:

Just got an Upsell Offer from Princess from our Mini-Suite to a Full-Suite for $699 per person!!  Let's do this Alaska drive-by in style 

We got an offer to upgrade from balcony to junior suite for $199pp.  I dont want to spend any more more money for this cruise.  We got sticker shock with the airfare to Seattle. 

[jk04]

59 minutes ago, carbon said:

We got an offer to upgrade from balcony to junior suite for $199pp.  I dont want to spend any more more money for this cruise.  We got sticker shock with the airfare to Seattle. 

If we had the full itinerary, I might have considered it.  Not with this reduced schedule, we are paying too much already.