Sun Princess - Original

[SCX22]

JP is to busy trying to get his pet project, the Medallion Class Experience, to work.  He really doesn't care about Princess as a brand.  He wants to prove to his ex-employer, Disney, that they were wrong to let him go.

[startedwithamouse]

7 minutes ago, lstone19 said:

I find the timing of the announcement very curious. About 6pm in Santa Clarita but 3am in Italy. They discovered in the middle of the night they had a problem with the ship? Not during business hours in either place.

 

We’re supposed to board Apr 27 and at this point, have still not made any non-refundable commitments and won’t until it actually enters service (air and pre/post cruise hotels are all cancellable at no cost). Even holding off on insurance beyond what the credit card I used will provide until sailing is more or less assured.

Sounds like they needed the email out by close of business day. That's normal to drop a bad email at the end of the day. Surprised they didn't wait until Friday at close of business of a holiday weekend. 

[New2cruise2022]

1 hour ago, Host CJSKIDS said:

2 very different notices which is very strange. One gives 50% towards another cruise and one gives $1000 OBC, 

This is a strange discrepancy between the two releases. 

[lstone19]

18 minutes ago, startedwithamouse said:

Sounds like they needed the email out by close of business day. That's normal to drop a bad email at the end of the day. Surprised they didn't wait until Friday at close of business of a holiday weekend. 

 

True except in this case, every minute they delayed meant more people were boarding flights for Rome that they’ll then reimburse. If I had been boarding a flight to Rome, I’d rather know just before boarding rather than while the plane is taxiing out (and with onboard Internet, it’s entirely possible someone heading to the ship learned of it while the plane was taxiing).

[Cruising Forever!]

I would tend to blame the shipyard, here, and not Princess.  They still own the ship (apparently till today, as I type this, it just became 2/14), and they still are responsible for any delays.  I think this was billed as the largest cruise ship build ever done at this yard?  If so, they were clearly not giving Princess the correct information on their delivery estimates.  At least Princess released that they are taking delivery today.  That's some news.

 

I said to my wife, earlier today, that there's no way that a ship is delivered and then boards passengers in a few days.  It would be like going to settlement on a new house build, and expecting you can just move in that day... you still have a LOT to finish up.  It's possible that Princess was hoping the handover would've occurred a few days ago, and that they were going to finish the process of having Sun ready in record time for the 18th, but that these further delays made that impossible.

 

Calls for firing all of Princess upper management is a knee-jerk reaction.  I'm sure the frustration is REAL, and I'd be pissed as well if I was in a plane to Rome right now for the cruise, but it looks like Princess is definitely helping to alleviate this.  For those who've used vacation time at work, that does suck.  (Although, I'm pretty sure that if I got a flight back home to arrive before the 18th, my employer would allow me to get the actual cruise PTO returned, and I'd just go back to work.)  Anyway, firing people at Princess is not a solution here.  Maybe the planners at the shipyard might be a better place for heads to roll.

 

Frankly, I'd love to have my rebooked cruise be 50% off!  Who cares about being on the first cruise?  It seems like all we ever hear is complaints (except for those on Icon of the Seas... RCL seems to have gotten it right on their Icon inaugural sailing) from those on the first cruises.  I'd be on the phone to Princess looking for a sailing similar to the 2/18 itinerary to see if there is availability on upcoming cruises (is she sold out?) and rebook one a bit further down the road.  If there isn't any (really?), so be it.  There are much worse things in life, right?  

 

Again, I'm truly sorry to all of those who were so looking forward to a cruise happening in 4 days.  I believe Princess tried their best, but the home builder gave them bad estimates on the availability.  

 

Btw- I watch all of the vloggers on YouTube re cruising... tomorrow's posts will be full of breathless shock, but I'm sure they all knew (as I did earlier today, before the announcement) that a sailing on the 18th was probably impossible, this late in the game.

 

Once more, I call on Princess to allow their crew to start shooting some interior looks from the Sun Princess, and posting them.  It would be excellent PR, and it would show just how raw a ship still is upon taking delivery.

Edited February 14 by Cruising Forever!

[rexdillinger]

We were booked b2b (2/18 & 2/28) on the Sun. As soon as I got the email, I called customer service to see if I could keep my outbound flight (booked thru ez-air) and then board the 2/28 cruise. The agent had to discuss this with her supervisor to see if that was possible. When she finally returned, she told me they were cancelling the 2/28 cruise as well and that I should watch my e-mail for written confirmation. 

 

I asked when the next sailing would be and she said September. I asked her to verify that all sailings of the Sun would be cancelled until September and she said yes. I asked her to verify that with her supervisor, which she did. “No sailings until sometime in September,” was her response.

 

Did this agent know what she was talking about or was she giving me bad information? I can only go by what this agent confirmed no less than 8-10 times. I will be trying to find out for sure about my 2/28 cruise so that I can make other plans. It would be inexcusable for Princess to wait to the last minute again before they cancelled my cruise.

 

There is NO excuse for the lack of transparency and communication with this issue. I e-mailed several days in a row asking if this cruise would be cancelled and never received a reply. That is not good business and certainly not how I would expect a company to treat a long time loyal customer.

[New2cruise2022]

There isn’t enough information to form an opinion about upper management with regard to Sun Princess delays. The handover was delayed. If I’m the shipyard and facing steep financial penalties for the delay we caused, my last bit of leverage in negotiating the remedy is to hold onto the keys. 
 

It is likely that lawyers involved are to blame for the lack of communication and the late decision making. 

[Pyrite_Gold]

7 minutes ago, rexdillinger said:

We were booked b2b (2/18 & 2/28) on the Sun. As soon as I got the email, I called customer service to see if I could keep my outbound flight (booked thru ez-air) and then board the 2/28 cruise. The agent had to discuss this with her supervisor to see if that was possible. When she finally returned, she told me they were cancelling the 2/28 cruise as well and that I should watch my e-mail for written confirmation. 

 

I asked when the next sailing would be and she said September. I asked her to verify that all sailings of the Sun would be cancelled until September and she said yes. I asked her to verify that with her supervisor, which she did. “No sailings until sometime in September,” was her response.

 

Did this agent know what she was talking about or was she giving me bad information? I can only go by what this agent confirmed no less than 8-10 times. I will be trying to find out for sure about my 2/28 cruise so that I can make other plans. It would be inexcusable for Princess to wait to the last minute again before they cancelled my cruise.

 

There is NO excuse for the lack of transparency and communication with this issue. I e-mailed several days in a row asking if this cruise would be cancelled and never received a reply. That is not good business and certainly not how I would expect a company to treat a long time loyal customer.

Oh my...I'm going to pretend I didn't see this post 😅 interesting times!

[New2cruise2022]

6 minutes ago, rexdillinger said:

We were booked b2b (2/18 & 2/28) on the Sun. As soon as I got the email, I called customer service to see if I could keep my outbound flight (booked thru ez-air) and then board the 2/28 cruise. The agent had to discuss this with her supervisor to see if that was possible. When she finally returned, she told me they were cancelling the 2/28 cruise as well and that I should watch my e-mail for written confirmation. 

 

I asked when the next sailing would be and she said September. I asked her to verify that all sailings of the Sun would be cancelled until September and she said yes. I asked her to verify that with her supervisor, which she did. “No sailings until sometime in September,” was her response.

 

Did this agent know what she was talking about or was she giving me bad information? I can only go by what this agent confirmed no less than 8-10 times. I will be trying to find out for sure about my 2/28 cruise so that I can make other plans. It would be inexcusable for Princess to wait to the last minute again before they cancelled my cruise.

 

There is NO excuse for the lack of transparency and communication with this issue. I e-mailed several days in a row asking if this cruise would be cancelled and never received a reply. That is not good business and certainly not how I would expect a company to treat a long time loyal customer.

It is possible the agent was only relying on her reservation system — what the computer was showing her — and bookings have been locked through September. It doesn’t necessarily mean the ship is delayed until September and all of the other cruises are cancelled. 

[New2cruise2022]

8 minutes ago, rexdillinger said:

There is NO excuse for the lack of transparency and communication with this issue. I e-mailed several days in a row asking if this cruise would be cancelled and never received a reply.

Lawyers, lawyers, lawyers. 
 

This is almost always the reason information stops flowing to the public. 

[strobellayjam]

8 minutes ago, rexdillinger said:

We were booked b2b (2/18 & 2/28) on the Sun. As soon as I got the email, I called customer service to see if I could keep my outbound flight (booked thru ez-air) and then board the 2/28 cruise. The agent had to discuss this with her supervisor to see if that was possible. When she finally returned, she told me they were cancelling the 2/28 cruise as well and that I should watch my e-mail for written confirmation. 

 

I asked when the next sailing would be and she said September. I asked her to verify that all sailings of the Sun would be cancelled until September and she said yes. I asked her to verify that with her supervisor, which she did. “No sailings until sometime in September,” was her response.

 

Did this agent know what she was talking about or was she giving me bad information? I can only go by what this agent confirmed no less than 8-10 times. I will be trying to find out for sure about my 2/28 cruise so that I can make other plans. It would be inexcusable for Princess to wait to the last minute again before they cancelled my cruise.

 

There is NO excuse for the lack of transparency and communication with this issue. I e-mailed several days in a row asking if this cruise would be cancelled and never received a reply. That is not good business and certainly not how I would expect a company to treat a long time loyal customer.

I’m sorry to hear you are impacted by this last minute cancellation. I hope that the information the agent gave you regarding cancellations through to September are not correct but who truly knows the state of affairs on the Sun right now. Princess definitely needs to step it up and be more transparent with the communications and updates. 

[Spike2015]

Were you  able to keep your air (I think this was why you called?)

[eroller]

10 minutes ago, Cruising Forever! said:

I would tend to blame the shipyard, here, and not Princess.  They still own the ship (apparently till today, as I type this, it just became 2/14), and they still are responsible for any delays.  I think this was billed as the largest cruise ship build ever done at this yard?  If so, they were clearly not giving Princess the correct information on their delivery estimates.  At least Princess released that they are taking delivery today.  That's some news.

 

I said to my wife, earlier today, that there's no way that a ship is delivered and then boards passengers in a few days.  It would be like going to settlement on a new house build, and expecting you can just move in that day... you still have a LOT to finish up.  It's possible that Princess was hoping the handover would've occurred a few days ago, and that they were going to finish the process of having Sun ready in record time for the 18th, but that these further delays made that impossible.

 

Calls for firing all of Princess upper management is a knee-jerk reaction.  I'm sure the frustration is REAL, and I'd be pissed as well if I was in a plane to Rome right now for the cruise, but it looks like Princess is definitely helping to alleviate this.  For those who've used vacation time at work, that does suck.  (Although, I'm pretty sure that if I got a flight back home to arrive before the 18th, my employer would allow me to get the actual cruise PTO returned, and I'd just go back to work.)  Anyway, firing people at Princess is not a solution here.  Maybe the planners at the shipyard might be a better place for heads to roll.

 

 

 

Yes the shipyard is responsible for the delay, but Princess is responsible in how they handle it.  They have an entire team at the shipyard that works close in hand with shipyard management.  They should be well aware of shipyard delays well before 4-days prior to a sailing.  
 

As this is a new prototype ship and the first for Princess running on LNG, it was foolish of Princess to schedule revenue cruises right after delivery.  Perhaps greedy.  Royal Caribbean took delivery of ICON a good month or more prior to the first revenue cruise.  Plenty of time to work out the kinks and offer several shake down cruises prior to the real deal.  Even now with the revenue cruises having started, they are not filling the ship to 100% capacity so the crew can ramp up.  
 

That is how you bring out a new ship … especially a prototype.  I don’t know what Princess was thinking???? 

[Vinnyv20032003]

For those of you that follow social media, very interested to see what the crew posts today/tomorrow!

 

Based on the few crew posts we recently came across, it’s safe to assume they thought they were as close to sailing, as we thought.

[New2cruise2022]

5 minutes ago, eroller said:

As this is a new prototype ship and the first for Princess running on LNG, it was foolish of Princess to schedule revenue cruises right after delivery.  Perhaps greedy.  Royal Caribbean took delivery of ICON a good month or more prior to the first revenue cruise.  Plenty of time to work out the kinks and offer several shake down cruises prior to the real deal.

This is the failing. They should have set a standard: X amount of weeks of testing and training before the first sailing with passengers. If it’s delivered a week late, first sailing is cancelled. If it’s delivered 2 weeks late, the next sailing is cancelled and so on. 

[karatemom2]

4 minutes ago, eroller said:

 

Yes the shipyard is responsible for the delay, but Princess is responsible in how they handle it.  They have an entire team at the shipyard that works close in hand with shipyard management.  They should be well aware of shipyard delays well before 4-days prior to a sailing.  
 

As this is a new prototype ship and the first for Princess running on LNG, it was foolish of Princess to schedule revenue cruises right after delivery.  Perhaps greedy.  Royal Caribbean took delivery of ICON a good month or more prior to the first revenue cruise.  Plenty of time to work out the kinks and offer several shake down cruises prior to the real deal.  Even now with the revenue cruises having started, they are not filling the ship to 100% capacity so the crew can ramp up.  
 

That is how you bring out a new ship … especially a prototype.  I don’t know what Princess was thinking???? 

Absolutely agree with this assessment. There is no excuse. I have been involved with a number of large building projects in my role and I can say without hesitation that senior management is intimately aware of problems, delays, issues. There is no way that Princess just magically figured out today that a cruise scheduled to launch in 4 days was a no go! They knew when they canceled the first cruise that subsequent cancellations were likely.  Many businesses heading into a disastrous scenario will try to hold onto revenue and employ delay tactics as long as possible. This last minute notification shows a serious lack of concern for their customers. 

[AtlantaCruiser72]

Just looked in the travel agents system and inventory has been zeroed out on all sailings up to and including March 29th. The first sailing showing availability is now the April 8th 9nt departure. I am unsure if any of these sailings previously had any open inventory as I have not been tracking it. 

[SouKnoMe]

3 hours ago, reedprincess said:

OMG! I went to sleep five hours ago and woke for water to see this. My heart hurts for all with intentions of sailing. This is sickening and exhausting. No wonder if has been so quiet, they were working on this communication. 
 

Again, I am so sorry for all averted plans. 

[eroller]

5 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

Absolutely agree with this assessment. There is no excuse. I have been involved with a number of large building projects in my role and I can say without hesitation that senior management is intimately aware of problems, delays, issues. There is no way that Princess just magically figured out today that a cruise scheduled to launch in 4 days was a no go! They knew when they canceled the first cruise that subsequent cancellations were likely.  Many businesses heading into a disastrous scenario will try to hold onto revenue and employ delay tactics as long as possible. This last minute notification shows a serious lack of concern for their customers. 

 

This is way too big a capital investment for Princess not to have its own management team at the shipyard, being heavily involved with all aspects of the construction and fitting-out process.   It’s common practice as well, for every major cruise line to do this.  They have too much invested not to.  Princess/Carnival also have a long lasting and close relationship with Fincantieri in Italy.  They have built many ships together and will continue to do so.  All the more reason these last minute cancellations are very puzzling.  
 

[SCX22]

34 minutes ago, eroller said:

As this is a new prototype ship and the first for Princess running on LNG, it was foolish of Princess to schedule revenue cruises right after delivery.

 

The question is the Sun Princess really running on LNG?  It can run on LNG, but is it?  Per CCL's 10-K filed in January 2023, all CCL ships can run on both conventional fuels and LNG, but only run on LNG when the price is right.

[eroller]

3 minutes ago, SCX22 said:

 

The question is the Sun Princess really running on LNG?  It can run on LNG, but is it?  Per CCL's 10-K filed in January 2023, all CCL ships can run on both conventional fuels and LNG, but only run on LNG when the price is right.

 

All the Carnival Corp LNG ships (Excel Class) can run on conventional fuel, but not the other way around.  
 

SUN PRINCESS is LNG equipped, which adds additional technical requirements.  I believe SP is also the first LNG passenger ship built by Fincanterj.   All the more reason to build in a substantial buffer after delivery and before the first revenue cruise.  

[Cruise Raider]

Wow!  
So very sorry for all those that have had their vacations ruined on such short notice.  
And the discrepancy between the compensation is rather baffling!  
 

[Vinnyv20032003]

You figure at this point, that announcement was sent out to the guests on the February 18th sailing a couple hours ago.

 

Meanwhile, on the Princess travel agent portal, they still showing the sailing as 'active'. It just shows each cabin category as having waitlist availability only, as it has for weeks now.

 

If you produce an announcement cancelling a sailing, maybe pull it off the booking portal as well? Again, points toward all of this being a knee-jerk reaction.

 

I'm booked on the March 19th sailing, I was confident in it going, up until this February 18th cancellation announcement was made.  

 

[rexdillinger]

1 hour ago, Spike2015 said:

Were you  able to keep your air (I think this was why you called?)

No.

[Cruise Wonderland]

1 hour ago, AtlantaCruiser72 said:

Just looked in the travel agents system and inventory has been zeroed out on all sailings up to and including March 29th. The first sailing showing availability is now the April 8th 9nt departure. I am unsure if any of these sailings previously had any open inventory as I have not been tracking it. 

 

When the Feb 8th sailing was cancelled two weeks ago, all sailings up to March 19th have been zeroed out. Although I tend to believe that more sailings will also be cancelled, but the current inventory on Polar probably does not imply anything.