San Juan Dump Cabins, Problems
 

Hello Fodor's Cruise Folks:

Subject - Cruise Line Dumping Cabins in San Juan - Resulting Problems On Cruises

A work colleague just told me about their terrible cruise from SJ because RCL dumped cabins and the SJ "locals" took over the cruise - and paid 75% less than they did.

The normal RCL experience they have had in the past was destroyed and replaced with out of control adults, kids, noise, litter, foul language, butting into lines and total disrespect. My friend is working to have his fare returned to him as RCL failed to deliver their stated product offering.

From my subsquent research, I gather this is a common situation on all ships originating in SJ.

I presume this has alot to do with SOME of the people who live in SJ, are those responding to the cheap fares simply more "riff raff" than the general SJ population? I have never heard of this before in any other originating ports.

NOTE, I am waiting for the predictable "politically correct" responses from those who excuse every type of behavior in the name of multiculturalism etc.
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Personally, I would not put up with that type of cruise passenger.

Comments?

ABoatNerd

Hi Nerd, I'm almost afraid to respond to this because no matter what I say, someone is going to disagree with me. A year ago my husband and I sailed out of San Juan on the Dawn Princess for a southern Caribbean itin. We chose that sailing so that upon our return to PR, we could rent a car and spend a second week touring around PR. We live in Pittsburgh and it was November - and well you get the picture - a warm tropical vacation.

The only observations I want to add were that the passengers were just as well behaved as they are on any other of the 5 Princess cruises I've taken. Yes there were a lot of Puerto Rican residents on the ship, which isn't shocking to me as when I sail from NYC, there are a lot of NYers and NJers, and when I sail from FLL, there are a lot of Floridians on the ship. And no, I didn't find the PR folks to be any less cultured or more annoying than many of tne NY, NJ or FL folks I've cruised with in the past.

As far as "riff raff" on these less expensive cruises, even if they paid $500/pp for an inside cabin, by the time you buy a coke card, photos, excursions, souveniers, shopping, CASINO, drinks, etc. - a cruise is not a cheap family vacation.

What I will say is the residents who sail from PR are, in my experience, considerably younger than those who sail from FLL. Along with that comes more kids on the ship. Yes, a bunch of 30-somethings with 8-12 year old kids might seem to be louder and seem to take over the ship more than a bunch of very senior ladies. But I never noticed disrespectful language, behavior, out of control adults, etc. -- certainly not any more than you find on any other ship.

I wouldn't hesitate to sail from San Juan again - although the flight is much longer than FLL and typically a lot more expensive.

I can't address what happened on your colleagues' ship as I wasn't there. But my experience was completely opposite.

I've sailed out of SJ twice (once on Princess and once on Carnival) each time found a fairly large portion of passengers to be from Puerto Rico.

The only negative I found (especially on the Princess ship) was that more of the entertainment was geared to a Spanish-speaking crowd. Not that they shouldn't cater to this demographic, it just left fewer appealing choices for me.

The other negatives about sailing out of San Juan are the longer (more expensive) flights and longer travel days. The plusses, though, can be cheaper cruise fares (especially on less-popular weeks) and access to more-exotic ports.

Cheers!

I haven't had any problems such as you described on any of my past San Juan sailings. However, I did hear from Princess crew members that the ship had more than the usual share of problems during the weeks that San Juan locals sailed taking advantage of heavily discounted cabins. (My husband used to work for Princess and this information was firsthand from crewmembers who are personal friends.) Problems included those behavior issues mentioned previously and that the ship lost a lot from their inventory. Items that dwindled from supply included silverware, towels, etc.

I think that these cruises were around the end of the year - between the popular cruising weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas when there is sometimes less interest among regular cruisers to take a cruise.

I suggest you look at the threads over at cruise critic that discuss this topic ad nauseum.

But I suspect you already have seen those threads and are just trying to post a provacative opinion.

Re: Dumping Cabins for San Juan Departures - Impact on Cruise Experience.

Thanks to all who responded to this thread.

To CHEPAR, well of course my post is designed to be "provacative" in any number of ways! What do you want, politically correct posts and enquiries only?

On all cruise message boards there are a select few who do NOT want to hear negative views of cruise lines, service, food and patrons. They will defend the cruise line even in the face of declining product offering and the obvious eroding of decorum on many cruise ships (ie RCL now requiring a curfew...)

I am not one of them. My profession is a business consultant whose job it is to "tear companies apart" to determine how well they are performing against their stated business objectives, service standards and product offerings.

Therefore, RCL fails miserably in delivering their advertised service and product offering in many cruises from San Juan.

At your suggestion CHEPAR, I did go to Cruise Critic and many other boards and the significant volume of negative posts about RCL in general and their SJ departures in particular is scary. This situation also showed up on Princess posts.

Therefore, it is some of the residents from San Juan who are causing the problems.

I have sent this situation about SJ departures to many in my office - guaranteeing that RCL will lose business.

Yeh!

Safe Cruising - ABoatNerd

Nerd-

What I really meant (and I think you know, but are just deliberately being obtuse) is your provocative usage of the term "riff raff" in describing certain passengers.

You yourself predicted a negative response from the "politically correct", so don't get so defensive. What do you want, only replies that agree with you?

I've read your only other post and it mirrors the tone of this one - and it again uses the term "riff raff" to describe certain passengers.

Maybe you should call yourself ABoatSnob instead. But enough of feeding the troll.

RE: Impact on cruises - Discount selling of cabins in San Juan

Dear Foders cruise folks - Are there other instances of negative ship board behavior due to last minute dumping of cabins in Miami, Ft Laud, New Orleans?

Checked all cruise boards - have not found any threads or cruise reviews indicating the same situation as occurring in San Juan departures. Well there you go - a site specific context that cruisers (and their agents) should be aware of.

If you read deeper into some of the cruise reviews, you will acquire a deep appreciation of what a negative impact the patrons from San Juan had on these peoples cruises. Money is not easy to come by and to many people their cruise is a big deal. My co-worker and his wife and children were AFRAID of the potential for violence and the total disruption of the ship.

RCL or any other cruise lines, has no right to accept $, advertise a cruise product offering, then let "riff raff" take over the ship - the result is that the specific cruise is NOT the cruise offering normally provided by RCL. This is no different that making a resort, spa, restaurant purchase where the end product was vastly different than advertised.

Dear CHEPAR, I presume from your posts that you support and defend individuals who throw chairs off the ship, cut into line, throw cig buts from the elevated walkway into the pool area, drop litter, have their kids take over the pool area and cause general disruption - all activities described by my co-worker on his Dec San Juan sailing and which was the reason for my original post.

In my world of class and decorum, people like myself (and my co-worker for example) label individuals described above as "riff raff" whereever and whenever we have the misfortune to see them, which is not often since we do try to move in different circles.

CHEPAR, I am not a troll, rather a very savy long term cruise patron. All my posts in the past, current and future, will have a similar analysis based on providing myself and others with courtesy, decorum and privacy while expecting the cruise line to provide what they advertise, every single time (except for unforseen circumstances). The RCL SJ cabin dumping situation is a deliberate business decision by RCL and they hope the word does not get out. Such is the power of the Net.

That is why there are different cruise lines which cater to different target markets, so obviously, my co-worker will be moving up the price point to hopefully reduce the presence of "riff raff" type people and their resulting behavior on their next cruise.

I have sent this tread to my travel agent so she minimizes selling SJ departure cruises to her customers - at least she will be aware of this growing problem and check on the holiday times in SJ.

A good sailing to all
ABoatNerd alias ABoatSnob