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Princess Cruises has launched its newest upsell program called Princess Upgrades. Similar to what airlines offer their customers, the program allows booked passengers to bid on staterooms in higher categories. The bidding window opens 5 days after final payment is due and the cruise must be fully paid in order for a guest to place a bid. If a cruise is eligible, a guest will receive an email invitation to participate in the program or can manually check for availability on the princess upgrades website. People can bid on multiple stateroom types, and bids may be accepted anytime up until 1 day before departure. Upgrade programs are becoming more common place across the cruise industry, with Royal Caribbean’s Royal Up program first announced at the end of 2018. It gives people a chance to score a good value upgrade and helps the cruise line shift more of their slower selling higher category rooms. Many loyal cruisers however, would much prefer to enjoy those upgrades as a perk for continued loyalty, but for the most part, those days seem to be over.
Ovation and Quantum of the Seas are both just days away from returning to Australia, with the arrival of the mega ship sisters marking the end of Royal Caribbean’s absence from Aussie shores. In an exclusive interview with Royal Caribbean VP Gavin Smith, the Cruise Passenger publication reported that the cruise line intends on home porting a ship in Brisbane year round. Brisbane’s brand new cruise terminal and Sydney’s lack of cruising infrastructure have both played a role in the future plans. Detailing a potential year round cruising schedule, Gavin Smith noted from Brisbane, cruisers could enjoy a relatively short 7 night winter itinerary that would see them whisked away to the warmth of the South Pacific islands. In particular, once Royal Caribbean’s private island, Lelepa comes online, there would be potential to utilise it throughout the year. Though there is no timeline on a year round Royal Caribbean ship for Australia, I can see it being a possibility from 2024. I do hope however that if that happens, Royal Caribbean switch their onboard currency to Australian Dollars - it’s bad enough that Aussie cruisers have to contend with that during the summer season.
P&O’s Pacific Adventure sailed on its maiden commercial voyage last weekend - you can click the card above to watch my vlog and review of that trip. Everyone shared in the excitement as the ship sailed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, sparing only 2.2m of airspace under the giant structure. The Grand Class ship is the third and for the moment, final ship to join the P&O Australia fleet.
Pacific Explorer is once again the ship responsible for marking the end of the cruise ban within another jurisdiction. P&O Australia’s flagship sailed into Hobart on Tuesday October 25th, with Tasmania now looking forward to an economic boost of up to $40m as a result of the cruise industry’s return. Despite the Tasmanian government’s recent discussions around banning large cruise ships, specifically those carrying 5000 passengers or more from docking in the state, the majority of the state’s residents and in particular, businesses, are happy to see cruising return.
Virgin Voyages has joined a large number of cruise lines including Carnival and Princess, in removing all pre-cruise COVID testing requirements. Vaccinated passengers were already able to bypass the testing process, but as of the end of this month, all passengers regardless of vaccinations status will no longer be required to provide a negative test in order to board the adults-only cruise line’s ships.
In Australia however, there have been no further changes to vaccination or pre-cruise testing requirements and I don’t think we’ll see the removal of the 5% unvaccinated passenger limit until sometime next year.
Finally this week, Princess have announced the launch of their debut Sun Princess deployment, with a range of European cruises and a transatlantic sailing available to book from November 9th for Elite Captains Circle members and from November 10th for everyone else.
