Cruising Forever!

We booked a long balcony. For those complaining about privacy on their balconies, do you really believe that you have privacy on your balcony??? LOL! Anyway, unless you give me a reason to look at your balcony, my eyes will be focused on the ocean. (And please, don't give me a reason to look at you on your balcony... I'm probably trying to eat breakfast!!!)

When we were Plus last year on Enchanted, none of the Premium desserts appealed to us. I mentioned that I just wanted gelato, and the woman at the counter said I can have two free gelatos in place of the premium desserts/day, if I wanted.

Where is The Catch by Rudi? What deck? (Edit- nevermind. I found it on Deck 9 on deck plans.)

This is the cabin type we have! Super excited to see this! We will face aft, so wind shouldn't be a problem! Love this!

Bon Voyage to those sailing today! So exciting! Please post vids and images!

I hope some seasoned Youtube cruise vloggers are aboard on Feb 28th, and they do daily vlogs during their cruise, with lots of views aboard! (Please, show us what you're looking at, rather than your face in every shot) TIA!

I wonder if they will schedule a short media cruise a few days before Feb 28th, just to get some positive press out there? I'm really chomping at the bit to see NEW pictures aboard. I just checked Marine Traffic, and she's still docked at the shipyard (as of 2/16/24). If any Sun crew are reading this, please smuggle out some pictures (and please, not with your face blocking the views)! I'm surprised at the lack of vloggers aboard. (Ok, there was that one guy, but he mostly reports from his cabin)

Again, as I said earlier, Princess cannot be held responsible for any delays on the Sun prior to taking possession on 2/14/23. I thoroughly reject the idea that Princess was involved in cover-ups, or already knew that Sun wouldn't be ready to sail on 2/8 or 2/18. Further, speaking as a Customer Service Rep (CSR) myself (no, I don't work for Princess), if information you are given sounds wildly incorrect, it's not responsible to report it in any social media forum without first following up with multiple other CSRs and their superiors. I'm not surprised at all that a Princess rep asked for that post to be removed. Note: this does not mean that Princess monitors posts on social media, btw. What it probably means is that they got hit with a torrent of calls from people that read that post and were terrified by the false info of cruises cancelled thru September. Princess was already busy trying to help customers with actual problems created by the 2/18 cruise cancellation. They didn't need the added headache of false information about additional cancellations. (Frankly, when I read that first post, I laughed out loud. I knew that this couldn't possibly be true. Any avid cruiser would know that Sun was probably going to be scuttled, if that were the case! lol) In CSR work, you can get some misinformation, and yes, even from a Supervisor. Supervisors aren't demi-Gods of information (people really need to get over this idea that managers are fonts of wisdom.). Some are excellent, and some are idiots. Who knows, the Supervisor might have said something he/she thought the CSR would interpret as a joke, but that CSR robotically repeated the information. I know some CSRs like that. I'm 100% sure that the call will be traced (we are a small firm where I work, and we record ALL calls), and that Supervisor and maybe even the CSR will be fired. As a CSR myself, I would've ignored that Supervisor and I would've gone to another to report/confirm that statement right then and there. This would've stopped this whole fiasco right in it's tracks. Further, when the Princess Rep contacted the poster about this post, he asked if the 2/28 sailing was still on, and when she told him that it was... and then he went on, "pressing" for some sort of guarantee that it was on no matter what? Come on! How can anyone "guarantee" anything? If the Princess Rep replies Sun will sail as scheduled on 2/28 "no matter what", but then there's some port strike... or the ship is damaged in violent weather in the Med, or there's an outbreak of Noro/Covid/Leprosy, or there's a fire somewhere on the ship, whatever, and that cruise has to be cancelled... what will be the passenger's reply then? "But they promised!!! Princess lied to me!!!" It's a no-win situation. That Princess Rep was giving the only responsible reply she could, and bravo to her for not saying what he wanted to hear. That would have been a lie. Nothing is guaranteed in life. (other than death and taxes) This has been an unintended setback for Princess. An absolute embarrassment for them. The whole "it's a conspiracy" notion is without any sort of merit. Financially, it's probably very expensive for Princess. The "fire everyone at Princess" camp's position is idiotic. Princess is making a good-faith, and in my opinion, going above and beyond, attempt to make their passengers happy. Threatening to "never" sail with Princess is something they don't want to hear, but it's also something they can't control. If that's your position, do so. That just means more of a chance for us to score a place in The Sanctuary on my next Royal class cruise. LOL Finally, for those who will call me a "Princess apologist" because, God-forbid, I should disagree with their opinions on what's really "going down", you're wrong. I still haven't posted my review on our Enchanted Princess Med sailing from last October (I've been very sick since mid-November)! In a nutshell, the cruise food, entertainment, service and public venues were all five stars out of five. On the other hand, dirty carpets in the hall ways, in our Mini suite (as in filthy old stains), and black stains on the couch in the room were horrible! And this on a ship only a couple of years old! I almost stepped on an ice cream cone that someone dropped right outside of the elevator on my floor that had melted into the rug. No one called! (I called as soon as I got to a phone) We saw a hot tub with green (deep green!) water in it on embarkation day and no explanation or indications that it was closed! The Medallion app was mostly unusable all week. The excursions we took were hit or miss. I am not a Princess apologist. I just believe in placing blame where blame is due. Again, to all those who had their cruises cancelled, I'm truly sorry. It absolutely sucks. I would take this lesson (and it's hard to know this if you're a first time cruiser) and NEVER book any inaugural cruise ever again. As a seasoned cruiser, I always want the ship to be at least six months old. Here's another tip, booking Caribbean cruises in late August to late October carries tremendous risk! Always buy travel insurance for ANY cruise at ANY time of the year. NEVER fly to a port on the day of embarkation... always fly down at least one day before. Read that last sentence again. [PS- despite my earlier joke post about the diesel in the water systems, I read an article on a reliable website that this was fixed previous to the cancellations. I'm keeping my Sun Princess booking... for now. I am still holding out on final payment choice based on videos and images and reviews.]

"Don't mind the diesel coming out of your bathroom faucets! Just order several gallons of bottled water for daily drinking, brushing your teeth... bathing in, etc. Please do not smoke anywhere aboard. That funny truck exhaust smell near the pools should be ignored. Trust us, this ship is LNG all the way, baby!!! You don't smell diesel!" - Thank you, Princess Cruises (Seriously, if the reporting is true on diesel in the water pipes is true, I'd be canceling my Feb 28th cruise today- but we aren't booked on that one! I'm sitting here wondering if I want to keep my Fall 2024 booking or cancel it... I think my downpayment was refundable. Diesel in the water is unsafe, period. If true, this ship builder has some MAJOR issues.)

Um... ew!

I would tend to blame the shipyard, here, and not Princess. They still own the ship (apparently till today, as I type this, it just became 2/14), and they still are responsible for any delays. I think this was billed as the largest cruise ship build ever done at this yard? If so, they were clearly not giving Princess the correct information on their delivery estimates. At least Princess released that they are taking delivery today. That's some news. I said to my wife, earlier today, that there's no way that a ship is delivered and then boards passengers in a few days. It would be like going to settlement on a new house build, and expecting you can just move in that day... you still have a LOT to finish up. It's possible that Princess was hoping the handover would've occurred a few days ago, and that they were going to finish the process of having Sun ready in record time for the 18th, but that these further delays made that impossible. Calls for firing all of Princess upper management is a knee-jerk reaction. I'm sure the frustration is REAL, and I'd be pissed as well if I was in a plane to Rome right now for the cruise, but it looks like Princess is definitely helping to alleviate this. For those who've used vacation time at work, that does suck. (Although, I'm pretty sure that if I got a flight back home to arrive before the 18th, my employer would allow me to get the actual cruise PTO returned, and I'd just go back to work.) Anyway, firing people at Princess is not a solution here. Maybe the planners at the shipyard might be a better place for heads to roll. Frankly, I'd love to have my rebooked cruise be 50% off! Who cares about being on the first cruise? It seems like all we ever hear is complaints (except for those on Icon of the Seas... RCL seems to have gotten it right on their Icon inaugural sailing) from those on the first cruises. I'd be on the phone to Princess looking for a sailing similar to the 2/18 itinerary to see if there is availability on upcoming cruises (is she sold out?) and rebook one a bit further down the road. If there isn't any (really?), so be it. There are much worse things in life, right? Again, I'm truly sorry to all of those who were so looking forward to a cruise happening in 4 days. I believe Princess tried their best, but the home builder gave them bad estimates on the availability. Btw- I watch all of the vloggers on YouTube re cruising... tomorrow's posts will be full of breathless shock, but I'm sure they all knew (as I did earlier today, before the announcement) that a sailing on the 18th was probably impossible, this late in the game. Once more, I call on Princess to allow their crew to start shooting some interior looks from the Sun Princess, and posting them. It would be excellent PR, and it would show just how raw a ship still is upon taking delivery.

I'm still astonished that only that one crew member has posted vids to YouTube from inside the Sun. Like I said before, Icon had multiple leaked videos on YouTube from various crew (some paid attention to Royal Caribbean's rules against this, while others didn't). It could be that was after taking delivery (which, as others pointed out, does NOT mean the ship is ready to take on passengers) but before her arrival in Miami. I'm sure once Sun leaves the shipyard, a flurry of work aboard will continue between that date and Feb 18th. Probably mostly cosmetic stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if the paint is still wet in some parts of the ship. LOL! Hoping Sun gets delivered on the 9th!

Thank you for the suggestion. I found out how to dump the cache on the Princess app in my iPhone. Alas, it didn't solve the problem. I finally decided to clear the cache and delete the app altogether. Next time I'm aboard, I'll let their tech peeps take a look at it. There is probably a Medallion phone number I could call as well, but the CSR really sounded like she knew how to correct the problem. My cruise is far off. Maybe they will have some better app updates in the meantime. I will reload it every few months to see.

I called Princess yesterday, and told them that their app was misidentifying me as GOLD when my membership is RUBY for the next cruise we have booked. When I did my request for Medallions to be sent, the app recognized my wife's new RUBY status, but still had me as GOLD. I placed the order anyway, but after thinking about it, I called. The CSR at Princess took a look at my online page (where I am identified as RUBY) and then at my phone app settings and saw that it was showing me as GOLD. She went ahead and canceled my Medallion orders, and placed a new order with me as RUBY, and confirmed it all. She also noted that I have Princess Plus on that cruise, and I therefore shouldn't be charged the $10 delivery fees. That's something else that the app missed, too, I guess. So she got all that corrected. She said she also changed my status in the app. But the app still is saying I'm GOLD. Sigh. I tried uninstalling the app and reinstalling, but no joy. I guess there's no way for me to confirm the other work she did to correct my Medallion. Oh well...

I wish we could get some actual photos of the interiors. I'm so sick of vloggers posting and reposting the same tired "preview" CGI renderings from a year ago. Sun Princess must really keep a tight leash on their crew; Icon of the Seas crew were posting vids willy-nilly during the brief time before she arrived in Miami- even saw New Year's Eve vids from Icon. I wish some crew aboard would upload some stuff. (Might be good PR damage control on Princess' part, too, if they let them)