Icon of the Seas has taken up all the focus when it comes to promoting Royal’s new ship builds so you may be unaware that the Utopia of the Seas, an Oasis-class ship, is in the works and will be launched in July of 2024. The Utopia will offer those looking for shorter cruises the opportunity to experience everything an Oasis class ship has to offer. I’m not sure that a 3 or 4 night cruise would give you the chance to explore the whole ship and do it justice even if you stayed on the ship while at port! The Utopia will have new experiences like a Caribbean tiki bar, a first-of-its-kind immersive dining experience, the longest dry slide at sea; newly designed resort-style pools; and more. Bookings opened earlier this week. Will you be booking one of those long weekend getaways? It will be interesting to see if such a large ship as an Oasis class will revert to a party ship sailing the short itineraries like most other ships tend to do. I think of these large Royal Caribbean ships as family ships, but 3 and 4 day cruises often tend to be booze cruises. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Celebrity announced it is cancelling four cruises onboard the Apex in 2024 as it goes into dry dock. The affected voyages were scheduled to depart between October 23, and November 23. The cancelled sailings included an 11-night cruise to the Canaries departing from the UK, in addition to the ship’s 13-night repositioning voyage to North America and two week-long Caribbean departures. Guests will not be given a refund, instead they can choose to rebook on any other Celebrity Cruise at real-time prices and receive an onboard credit, $200 for regular staterooms and $400 for suites, which isn’t a bad deal.
We are booked for a cruise on the Apex in January of 2025, so while I am sad for those who lost their cruise, we are going to benefit from any upgrades done during the dry dock. The Apex isn’t an old ship, but I am sure the dry dock will mean some freshening up and maybe an upgrade or two. I can’t wait to see what comes out of this month-long dry dock.
Princess Cruises sent out letters to shareholders announcing some changes to their shareholder and military benefits program. Most cruisers are aware that those with Carnival stock can get $100 onboard credit when cruising a Carnival Corporation ship, which includes Princess Cruises. Military personal, former and current, have also been able to get onboard credit while sailing Princess. If you had both, you could really benefit from quite a bit of onboard credit. Well that is about to change. Beginning in July, those who are both military members and shareholders will need to choose between the two types of credits rather than being able to benefit from both as they could previously. If this affects you, be sure to do the math to see which will gain you the most OBC before deciding because that can change based on cruise length. Princess also announced it will no longer allow unused military onboard credit to be reimbursed. It is now “use it or lose it,” which I honestly don’t see an issue with. It’s not like you paid for something that you didn’t use and want your money back.
We talked last week about the new family area on Princess’ next Sphere-class ship, the Sun Princess. At that time I questioned how well the changes would go over with the older crowd that makes up the majority of Princess’ clientele. A quick look at feedback on social media shows that while there are some who are excited for the ship, and even some exited for the new family area itself, many are very upset about this new direction.
I do wonder if these additions may draw more young families to Princess? If so, then will they continue down this path adding more and more kid-friendly extras? If so, it will really change the demographics of their cruisers! I understand why so many loyal Princess cruisers are upset. They choose Princess because of everything they have come to know and love about the line. Now things are changing, and they aren’t happy. There were also quite a few people making the claim that this move makes sense because the current, older clientele will eventually die off. However, they don’t take into consideration the fact that all people age. The 20 and 30 year olds with young families will eventually be grandparents and empty-nesters who don’t want, or have, to cruise with small children. There will always be an older crowd of cruisers who prefer what Princess has always offered in the past.
I also do not believe that the additions of this new family area are enough to compete with lines like Carnival, Royal Caribbean or even Norwegian when it comes to families. Will Princess find that they alienated their core demographic with this changes but didn’t go far enough to gain the family market? Time will tell.
We have yet to sail on Princess, but I look forward to doing so, but would want to do so on one of their traditionally “Princess” ships. I too will be avoiding the Sun Princess.
Cruising From The Ozarks 