DOING THE RIGHT THING
Princess makes good after mechanical issue disrupts cruise
If I searched my emails from unhappy cruisers, “compensation” would be among the most dominant words. Cruisers feel they deserve more when their trip is interrupted — and maybe they’re right.
For river cruisers, low or high water can be the trigger that disrupts a trip. At sea, it’s usually mechanical issues or severe weather that causes a ship to miss ports.
Cruise lines have a tight contract that you (we) sign and probably don’t read. However, some lines seem fairer than others in compensating cruisers. Like Princess Cruises. The Grand Princess was on a 15-day return cruise from San Francisco to Hawaii when it was stricken by a major circuit-breaker malfunction while cruising off the Hawaiian coast, 32 kilometres from Hilo. There was smoke from a small fire but, within an hour, the ship was back on line with power restored.
However, the problem couldn’t be completely fixed at sea. That meant reduced speed for the rest of the cruise and that meant missing ports in order to return to San Francisco in time to be ready for the next scheduled cruise.
Princess stepped up. All 2,500 passengers were offered a full refund plus they had two options: stay on board or to fly back to San Francisco. For those cruisers, Princess did the right thing.
The cruise line made more happy news this month. The 50th anniversary of the very first Princess cruise was on Dec. 3, which was a cause for celebration in Los Angeles, near the line’s head office. The original cast of The Love Boat, which played a key part in the success of not just Princess but all of cruising, was on hand for the party.
That first ship was Canadian Pacific’s Princess Patricia. The boat was laid up for the winter and was chartered by Princess to sail from L.A. to Acapulco and back. Princess Pat lasted one year and sailed for the final time in 1978.
Princess is the third-largest cruise line in the world with 18 ships — soon to be 19 with the addition of the Majestic Princess, which will commence sailing in Europe in 2017.
While cruise lines offer attractive (and sometimes expensive) shore excursions, there are other options and my Cruising Done Right colleagues, Bob and Nancy Dunn, found a winner with Viator in Vietnam after disembarking from the AmaWaterways river ship AmaDara.
First-timers in Ho Chi Minh City (and there will be more of them with river and ocean ships calling there more often), they wanted a taste of local life. What started with a 60-kilometre trip up the Saigon River included a visit to the famous Cu Chi Tunnels, a cricket farm and a local restaurant to sample authentic cuisine. Nine hours in all, and the price is just US$106.
Read their complete report on Viator in Vietnam next week at portsandbows.com.
And finally, Cruise Atlantic Canada and the Cruise the Saint Lawrence Group have worked diligently to build cruising in their part of the world.
Some years ago, then-president of Celebrity Cruises, Dan Hanrahan, told them at a conference that to grow they’d have to work at promoting their region. This year, Atlantic Canada and the Quebec region are up from 2014.
That’s a good example of taking advice from someone who knows and then getting the job done.