Sky Princess Arriving Early in Southampton

[HaroldLeslie]

9 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

In what alternate reality is Princess comparable to Regent, Crystal, or Seabourn?

They are all cruise companies?

[nunyabidness]

11 hours ago, HaroldLeslie said:

You were never unsafe. It was only a gale and other much smaller ships were operating without problems. 

 

Or is Sky Princess an inherently less safe ship than Iona, for example 😉

 

So apparently there's a crystal ball, more accurate than the forecast the Captain had access to and based his decision on, that he should have used rather than making a decision based on the best info available at the time and in the best interest of the safety of the thousands of people onboard?

[nunyabidness]

On 3/30/2023 at 4:55 AM, TK42799 said:

As Carnival is the corporate head office for both companies, I would have expected similar contingency plans be implemented to deal with this storm.

Operational decisions, especially those needing to be made on short notice (vs. for example laying up ships when cruising stopped during COVID), are made by the individual cruise lines, not Carnival Corp.

[HaroldLeslie]

36 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

Operational decisions, especially those needing to be made on short notice (vs. for example laying up ships when cruising stopped during COVID), are made by the individual cruise lines, not Carnival Corp.

The individual companies cannot make such strategic decisions without the backing of the whole group. Carnival had to organise a whopping great loan facility to cover them all.

49 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

So apparently there's a crystal ball, more accurate than the forecast the Captain had access to and based his decision on, that he should have used rather than making a decision based on the best info available at the time and in the best interest of the safety of the thousands of people onboard?

Safety wasn't the only consideration. Having quite rightly diverted because of the medical emergency there were then few options left available. The captain may not have fancied his chances of getting out of A Coruña and the bad weather gives them enough of a justification to change their itinerary. As I have said many times, other much smaller ships were operating throughout and Iona came through without problems.

[Alcairns]

13 hours ago, HaroldLeslie said:

Where do you think I live?

I know where you live which is clear from your post. I just thought you would have known better! Have a pleasant cruise. 

[Alcairns]

2 hours ago, HaroldLeslie said:

The individual companies cannot make such strategic decisions without the backing of the whole group. Carnival had to organise a whopping great loan facility to cover them all.

This is wrong! Carnivals Corp is the parent company.  Each cruise line has its own Board and Officers. Each company is separately located - Princess in Santa Clarita, P&O and Cunard in the U.K., and Carnival Cruise Line in Miami. Each company is responsible for their itineraries, crewing down to menus etc. Of course major decisions like purchase of new ships etc will involve the holding company Carnival Corp. The fact that they are separately  run companies is probably why there was a difference in the decisions taken by the Sky Princess and the Iona. 

[david63]

1 hour ago, Alcairns said:

Each company is responsible for their itineraries, crewing down to menus etc

Whilst that is true the ship's senior crew are employed by Carnival, and many of the other crew are agency staff, and not employed directly by the individual cruise lines therefore it becomes a bit of a grey area as to who they report to.

 

The decision about Sky missing two ports and arriving early in Southampton would have had to get the approval of Carnival Operations.

[nunyabidness]

17 minutes ago, david63 said:

Whilst that is true the ship's senior crew are employed by Carnival, and many of the other crew are agency staff, and not employed directly by the individual cruise lines therefore it becomes a bit of a grey area as to who they report to.

 

The decision about Sky missing two ports and arriving early in Southampton would have had to get the approval of Carnival Operations.

Incorrect on all accounts.

[david63]

20 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

Incorrect on all accounts.

On what basis do you make that statement?

[HaroldLeslie]

2 hours ago, Alcairns said:

I know where you live which is clear from your post. I just thought you would have known better! Have a pleasant cruise. 

Thank you for your best wishes. We are now safely on board after a scare involving my wallet. I was already in the taxi going back home when my wife found in my jacket where I put it when going through security.

 

Yes, we locals get involved a lot in the ships and their movements. Despite being a moderately large city and enteral large towns the business community is very integrated. 

 

The weather yesterday was nothing special and of course it will be worse out on the open water. St. Catherine's Point on the Isle of Wight always experiences the higher gusts being an exposed headland.

 

I know a few of the staff on board from our previous cruises on her. As a nosey old git I'd be interested in finding out more but I shall probably keep it to myself. 

[HaroldLeslie]

40 minutes ago, nunyabidness said:

Incorrect on all accounts.

The people on board always tell me that they cannot blow their own noses without approval from above.

[nini]

We were on the Grand last September for an Alaska 12 night itinerary. We departed the port about 10:00 pm (about 6 hours late), due to an engine issue. The Captain and crew did all they could and were able to fix the issue. 

The Captain had to make a decision to miss one of the ports. However, he graciously gave each passenger $150.00 in OBC (per passenger, not per cabin). 

I did not hear of any grumbling, only kudos for the gift AND that they got the engine part they needed!

Edited April 2, 2023 by nini
Additions

[caribill]

On 3/30/2023 at 11:44 AM, the penguins said:

 We have also received a refund of port fees which again Princess were not obligated to make.

 

Actually, cruise lines are required to refund port fees if the ship cannot make port.

[david63]

53 minutes ago, caribill said:

Actually, cruise lines are required to refund port fees if the ship cannot make port.

Not in the UK they aren't

[the penguins]

6 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Actually, cruise lines are required to refund port fees if the ship cannot make port.

 

6 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Actually, cruise lines are required to refund port fees if the ship cannot make port.

varies by port, the reason for the miss and how the fees are charged.

In the US your port fees are shown as "Govt taxes and fees" with no breakdown between the individual ports.

Book in the UK and it is illegal to have this type of "extra cost"  and the fees are just part of the cruise fare.

On HAL we have always had the fees refunded.

On Celebrity US passengers have had automatic refunds whereas we had to ask for ours.

Lat year on Celebrity we missed 1 port out of 2 in Denmark - no refunds as the X said Denmark charged a single fee for the 2 stops with no refunds if one port was missed.

The variations seem to be endless

[Micahs Grandad]

We were on the cruise and just back.

 

We booked the cruise to see Casablanca and were disappointed not to go there.

 

However due to the storm they made the decision to get to port early and they do have a responsibility to keep us safe.

 

We did have an opportunity to spend the obc at the shops or at the casino and we had no problem doing so.

 

We all had the opportunity to pay a very small amount to go on the cruise and lets face it the cruise lines do not have the resources they used to have. 

 

BTW it was still once of our better cruises. Cruise director and staff were outstanding.

[spyro1952]

On 3/28/2023 at 7:23 PM, texasjones said:

Completely agree, as do many of the passengers we've spoken with. The $100 "goodwill gesture" is insulting, especially since it's (A) non-refundable and (B) the onboard shops and casino will be closed in Southampton. Regardless of the reason, cancelling 2 of 3 ports and shortening a 14-day cruise to 12 days + 1.5 days docked in Southampton is more than a little "disappointing" (as the letter we received from the captain calls it).

 

And yes, I understand the contract of carriage absolves Princess from having to pay compensation for changes to our itinerary. But I'd like to think anyone would be frustrated when a 14-day cruise is upended and effectively shortened. Things happen, sure. But when they do, you should expect the operator to make a good faith effort to fairly compensate passengers for said "disappointments" (especially when the operator in question has a market cap of $11.7 billion and stands to save a small fortune on fuel costs by bypassing two ports and docking early). Makes you wonder where companies like Princess draw the line. And if you think we're being unreasonable or compensation-greedy, ask yourself: What if your 14-day cruise was shortened by 2 days? 5 days? 10 days? Would you be happy with $100 in non-refundable OBC as total compensation? I suspect the answer is "no".

 

We have three suites onboard for the family; the $300 we'll be receiving in non-refundable OBC amounts to a ~1.5% discount to our total fare. Not exactly a fair recompense in our opinion, but others may disagree. Princess certainly does. 

So if you have 3 suites as you said, you don’t need the OBC.  Give it to the staff.  I’m sure they would appreciate it.  Princess is not obligated to give you anything when weather disrupts an itinerary.  What airline do you know that pays for a hotel when weather causes a flight cancellation.  NONE  

Give us a break!!!!!

[Micahs Grandad]

49 minutes ago, Micahs Grandad said:

We were on the cruise and just back.

 

We booked the cruise to see Casablanca and were disappointed not to go there.

 

However due to the storm they made the decision to get to port early and they do have a responsibility to keep us safe.

 

We did have an opportunity to spend the obc at the shops or at the casino and we had no problem doing so.

 

We all had the opportunity to pay a very small amount to go on the cruise and lets face it the cruise lines do not have the resources they used to have. 

 

BTW it was still once of our better cruises. Cruise director and staff were outstanding.

They did refund the port fees but thought $ 29 was rather small but they were not giving out details of how they arrived at that amount.