The 71st Cruise with Princess was the worst cruise experience ever! Inaugural Sun Princess

[Scottdalfonso]

Although this all sucks, it's a chance you take when you book anything new. I won't book a cruise within a few months of its first sailing, I won't buy the newest gadget until the 2nd or 3rd version of It comes out and I won't buy a car until it's been on the road a few years. New things have hiccups

[Coral]

I hope these posts will educate others the cons of booking a brand new ship during the first few months of service. If you do book it, you just need to go with the flow. Unfortunately one is paying a premium at this time to not have everything working.

[LACruiser88]

13 hours ago, IndyKid said:

Reminder to self - never EVER book a cruise ship until it's been in service at least a year. 

Having been on a couple of inaugural cruises years ago, we now wait at least a year before booking on a new ship.  Our first cruise on the Sun will be in Oct/Nov of 2025.  Hopefully by then, all of the kinks will have been worked out. 

[happy cruzer]

On 3/15/2024 at 8:49 AM, AZjohn said:

Did you have cruise insurance??

Good question.  We typically do the free upgrade to Princess platinum.  Hopefully op has that policy.

 

it is tricky in that sometimes they want you to travel at a certain time and cruisers decide to do a different option.  And it only covers things booked through Princess.  Credit cards often have some travel insurance.

[TRLD]

There are a few other lessons in this besides do not book an inagural cruise. The key is to be flexible and be willing to adjust based upon the circumstances.

 

All one can count on when booking with a cruise line is getting refunded those things booked through the cruise line. When you book other non refundable things in advance one should be aware that one does so at risk.

 

While the cruise or other travel company will refund monies paid to them cost protection is usually not part of and refund 

 

A large part of the OPs issue was the change in airfare cost changes after the cruises were canceled. 

 

One of the key elements to minimizing the impact of such changes would be to be flexible. For example even if they could not cancel the third cruise. They could have used the money from the two cancellations, kept their original flights (would have had to coordinate with Princess if they were purchased through them to avoid them getting automatically canceled) and spent the time in Europe instead. Pretty cheap to get around Europe once you get there with either short flights or train trips.

 

By keeping focused on the cruises only they may have resulted in more out if pocket expense and potentially missed out on other worth while experiences.

 

If you travel enough you will encounter bad situations sooner or later. The amount of loss one suffers can be impacted greatly by one's decisions and how flexible they are.

Edited March 16 by TRLD

[SouKnoMe]

On 3/15/2024 at 12:06 PM, PacnGoNow said:

I understand your intention to get the attention of PCL.  I really hope you have sent this to them directly and ask they compensate you for your losses.

 

You could send it to customer relations and/or top level management.  Then, of course, include those booking numbers.

 

 

 

I saw this exact message posted yesterday on FB, but I was at a traffic light and missed the group that it was posted in. 
 

OP I was saddened for all that were displaced because the first two sailings weren’t ready for passengers. It was definitely beyond your control, and that of Princess. They went ahead with the 28th sailing with workers aboard who continued to complete the areas that needed it. My guess is that due to safety many areas weren’t opened until they were inspected and certified. God forbid someone get hurt with a hurried opening of those areas. 
 

As for the paint being wet, that sucked but you left your mark with your rubber shoe impressions. 
 

I hope you hear from PCL, but I don’t think you’ll be satisfied with any resolution presented. Sorry that your 70th cruise was so bad. 
 

My trip isn’t until the fall, and my first with PCL. I’m reading all reviews but taking the good over the bad. Somethings go wrong that can’t be helped. But it looks like the staff is really trying their best to please so many. It’s tough. 

[SunshineCoast]

2 hours ago, TRLD said:

There are a few other lessons in this besides do not book an inagural cruise. The key is to be flexible and be willing to adjust based upon the circumstances.

 

All one can count on when booking with a cruise line is getting refunded those things booked through the cruise line. When you book other non refundable things in advance one should be aware that one does so at risk.

 

While the cruise or other travel company will refund monies paid to them cost protection is usually not part of and refund 

 

A large part of the OPs issue was the change in airfare cost changes after the cruises were canceled. 

 

One of the key elements to minimizing the impact of such changes would be to be flexible. For example even if they could not cancel the third cruise. They could have used the money from the two cancellations, kept their original flights (would have had to coordinate with Princess if they were purchased through them to avoid them getting automatically canceled) and spent the time in Europe instead. Pretty cheap to get around Europe once you get there with either short flights or train trips.

 

By keeping focused on the cruises only they may have resulted in more out if pocket expense and potentially missed out on other worth while experiences.

 

If you travel enough you will encounter bad situations sooner or later. The amount of loss one suffers can be impacted greatly by one's decisions and how flexible they are.

The OP has already said they have health issues but even apart from this - how at a few days notice could they arrange 20 days in Europe during the tail end of Winter (still cool and wet lots of the time) to travel (carrying over 30 days of 'luggage') by 'plane or train from country to country.  In fact had they tried to do as you suggested, 6 days into their first 10 days they would have learnt their second cruise had been cancelled and would then have another 10 days of accommodation and travel to organise.

I expect many of us, including the OP,  have learnt over the past couple of months from all the publicity there has been about the Sun's last minute cancellations and still not being fully operational on the new Inaugural cruise that some cruise lines suppress critical information but having done over 30 cruises with 6 different cruise lines including 2 inaugural (only going onto CC periodically to get info on future potential cruise holidays) this was the first time I have been made aware not to expect a new Ship to be fully operational.  'Glitches' - yes.  Cruises cancelled 2 weeks/4 days prior to start and further still none of the 'extraordinary cruise experiences' being available on what would have/will be the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. cruises - NO. 

Some customers have now been offered a 'move-over' deal of 100% money refunded, some other costs met and a free 14 day future Mediterranean cruise - why did Princess not make this offer from the on-set.  It doesn't sound like customers on the new Inaugural sailing were even given the opportunity to cancel and have their monies refunded and only found out about the 'extraordinary cruise experiences' being unavailable once they were on the ship.

Can we please stop telling people "they should have known better".  We could all eliminate all our mistakes with the clarity of hindsight.

[mtnesterz]

Deleted

Edited March 16 by mtnesterz

[TRLD]

17 minutes ago, SunshineCoast said:

The OP has already said they have health issues but even apart from this - how at a few days notice could they arrange 20 days in Europe during the tail end of Winter (still cool and wet lots of the time) to travel (carrying over 30 days of 'luggage') by 'plane or train from country to country.  In fact had they tried to do as you suggested, 6 days into their first 10 days they would have learnt their second cruise had been cancelled and would then have another 10 days of accommodation and travel to organise.

I expect many of us, including the OP,  have learnt over the past couple of months from all the publicity there has been about the Sun's last minute cancellations and still not being fully operational on the new Inaugural cruise that some cruise lines suppress critical information but having done over 30 cruises with 6 different cruise lines including 2 inaugural (only going onto CC periodically to get info on future potential cruise holidays) this was the first time I have been made aware not to expect a new Ship to be fully operational.  'Glitches' - yes.  Cruises cancelled 2 weeks/4 days prior to start and further still none of the 'extraordinary cruise experiences' being available on what would have/will be the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. cruises - NO. 

Some customers have now been offered a 'move-over' deal of 100% money refunded, some other costs met and a free 14 day future Mediterranean cruise - why did Princess not make this offer from the on-set.  It doesn't sound like customers on the new Inaugural sailing were even given the opportunity to cancel and have their monies refunded and only found out about the 'extraordinary cruise experiences' being unavailable once they were on the ship.

Can we please stop telling people "they should have known better".  We could all eliminate all our mistakes with the clarity of hindsight.

I did not say known better, only that one can still make the most of a bad situation if one is flexible.

 

As far as booking on short notice. Fairly easily. Since is was not peak season lots of rooms available. Easy to book a hotel in Barcelona, Rome and Athens. Spend a few days in Barcelone, then catch a cheap flight to Rome. Spend a few days there. When notification came about second cancelation then maybe catch a cheap flight to Malta for a few days then on to Athens to catch the ship. Pretty easy if one is flexible. Pretty impossible if one is not.  Might be more difficult during peak season, but pretty easy this time of year.

 

Also they were still at home when the first cancellation hit. Pretty easy to adjust what one packs and the amount of luggage. They do have laundries in Europe. Most hotels offer the service.

 

The health comment I recall were more as to why they booked business instead of coach. 

 

Again one can be flexible and make the most of a bad situation or one can write off thousands and lament 

Edited March 16 by TRLD

[dog]

I’ve come to learn, Princess has changed immensely over the past few years. I expect not much from them anymore such as honesty, full disclosure, owning up to errors ( which are many now a days).

I’ve heard from several others their Princess Platinum insurance would not cover expenses incurred due to these first two cancellations. Is this true?

 

side note: my last cruise on Regal went off without a hitch. Best one in a long time.

 

[memoak]

Really anyone who has cruised even for a few years should have seen that most of the time ships just coming on line have issues and early cruises should be avoided 

[Guest Snaxmuppet]

Yet another reason our cruise in November will be our last with Princess. Having said that, not sure if any of the other lines are any better. Maybe time to stop cruising perhaps... we will see how we feel later in the year after out April Norway trip on Sky.

[TRLD]

40 minutes ago, dog said:

I’ve come to learn, Princess has changed immensely over the past few years. I expect not much from them anymore such as honesty, full disclosure, owning up to errors ( which are many now a days).

I’ve heard from several others their Princess Platinum insurance would not cover expenses incurred due to these first two cancellations. Is this true?

 

side note: my last cruise on Regal went off without a hitch. Best one in a long time.

 

It would have allowed one to cancel for any reason if they had a B2B scheduled and chose not to go with a later uncancelled cruise after the first was cancelled, but it would not have covered expenses outside of those made with the cruise line.  Basically as far as coverage, except for the ability to cancel for any reason, it would not have provided any benefits because Princess had already refunded any monies paid to it for the canceled cruise.

[TRLD]

6 minutes ago, Snaxmuppet said:

Yet another reason our cruise in November will be our last with Princess. Having said that, not sure if any of the other lines are any better. Maybe time to stop cruising perhaps... we will see how we feel later in the year after out April Norway trip on Sky.

Pretty much with any travel business (cruise line, airline, hotel, travel company) plan that if something goes wrong, such as a canceled cruise, what you will get is what is promised in their terms and conditions and in most cases their liability is capped by the monies paid to them. So in pretty much all cases you can expect a refund from the provider, but they will not cover monies paid to others.  In some cases they may allow the current trip to carry over to a future trip at the same price, but even that it pretty rare.

 

One can have flights get canceled, hotels oversold, etc with recourse pretty much limited to the monies paid to that company.

[555]

Perhaps it's been said many times before but why would someone with your experience book an inaugural cruise and not expect hiccups in all aspects? I've heard about it, not only on Princess, but all the other cruise as well. 

[CruiseCrabs]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:56 AM, Easyrider949 said:

Cruise insurance will not cover this situation, for the fact that this was a new Airline ticket and not a canceled ticket, Princess did refund the original EZair ticket amount, but they did not honor our original airline ticket pricing amount. Had they done that, this would not be an issue. This situation just falls outside of any insurance coverage.

Airline pricing is dynamic. There is absolutely no way one can assume that pricing will remain the same on different flights booked some time apart and Princess doesn’t control the pricing. Your belief that they should comp the difference on different business class flights is unreasonable. I get how you feel but this is one of those travel risks that cannot be covered by insurance as they will not cover cost increases. The potential for cancellation and possible venue shake outs are why we don’t book new ships for the first six months they are scheduled to sail.

[sandancer]

14 hours ago, Snaxmuppet said:

Yet another reason our cruise in November will be our last with Princess. Having said that, not sure if any of the other lines are any better. Maybe time to stop cruising perhaps... we will see how we feel later in the year after out April Norway trip on Sky.

Funny enough we just said exactly the same about P&O. 

[Guest Snaxmuppet]

6 minutes ago, sandancer said:

Funny enough we just said exactly the same about P&O. 

Both owned by CCL... says it all really 🙂 

[MacMadame]

On 3/16/2024 at 2:44 PM, SunshineCoast said:

Some customers have now been offered a 'move-over' deal of 100% money refunded, some other costs met and a free 14 day future Mediterranean cruise - why did Princess not make this offer from the on-set. 

Aren't there over 5000 people on those ships? That's a lot of move-over offers. Princess did offer some compensation over and above the cruise fare and EZAir fare but I don't think it is going to cover all of the OP's expenses.

 

I do think that booking an inaugural cruise is risky. OTOH, I also think that Princess had to absolutely know that the chance of the 2nd cruise going on as planned was high, and waiting until 3 days beforehand to cancel is really bad form. They should have offered even more to those people as many of them were probably in the middle of traveling when the news came down.

 

On 3/15/2024 at 9:43 PM, icat2000 said:

Isn't this a matter for lodging a travel insurance claim.

I don't think it works if Princess cancels the cruise. It would depend on the exact travel insurance purchased, of course.

[TRLD]

41 minutes ago, MacMadame said:

Aren't there over 5000 people on those ships? That's a lot of move-over offers. Princess did offer some compensation over and above the cruise fare and EZAir fare but I don't think it is going to cover all of the OP's expenses.

 

I do think that booking an inaugural cruise is risky. OTOH, I also think that Princess had to absolutely know that the chance of the 2nd cruise going on as planned was high, and waiting until 3 days beforehand to cancel is really bad form. They should have offered even more to those people as many of them were probably in the middle of traveling when the news came down.

 

I don't think it works if Princess cancels the cruise. It would depend on the exact travel insurance purchased, of course.

From what I have heard, only a small number got move over offers, not everyone on a given sailing  Probably because either wanted some cabins for special invitees, or because they needed some for contractors due to some work taking longer than expected.

[Coral]

On 3/16/2024 at 6:58 PM, dog said:

I’ve come to learn, Princess has changed immensely over the past few years. I expect not much from them anymore such as honesty, full disclosure, owning up to errors ( which are many now a days).

 

 

IMO - they changed before that.

[walkingsoon]

"I saw this exact message posted yesterday on FB, but I was at a traffic light and missed the group that it was posted in."

 

🙄

 

[TheMichael]

As soon as I saw "back-to-back-to-back" on a ship that had not been delivered by the builder yet, my first thought was, "That's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off."

 

I can't say I'd do something like that unless I had already thought through some alternate plans, and wouldn't expect much other than a refund of the cruise and maybe the already incurred travel costs (I'm constantly amazed to see how people demand "punitive damages"/"mental anguish compensation" for issues, not just with cruise lines, but in general).

 

Otherwise, I'm not seeing much about the "cruise experience" in the OP - the worst it apparently got onboard was an instance of paint footprints, which shouldn't itself ruin anyone's cruise, IMO.

[MacMadame]

5 hours ago, TRLD said:

From what I have heard, only a small number got move over offers,

That was something else. The person I was replying to was suggesting that everyone on the two canceled cruises get a move-over offer. That's a lot of offers and a lot of money for Princess to eat IMO.

[Incognito1]

Has anyone ever had GOOD experiences with EZAir?  After reading some of the horror stories like this one, I can't imagine ever using them.  We generally fly with changeable tickets on our preferred airline.  Might cost a little more, but not worth the potential headaches to save a few $.