flannbarr

That's ridiculous what you had to go through. They told us they would only refund the internet charges if we had a package. It wasn't much of a flight at all.

Yes, that was what I was told while onboard last week.

OK well time will tell.

OK well maybe they will make it bigger. No clue. Just what I was told.

Entertainment and Activities: The Enchanted Princess hit a home run and then some in the entertainment area. It was the best that we have ever experienced at sea. I like the 45 minute length of most shows including the production shows. First, Cruise Director Gary from South Africa is the real deal. Amazing. He is so good. He even got me into Merengue dancing which is normally an impossible task. His assistants were Terry, Niki, Jonah, Wilmur and Danny. As a team, they are the best that I have experienced. Shows--Rock Opera was amazing. We watched it twice. The singers were just great as were the dancers. I could watch that over and over again. 5-Skies was also very well done. We did not go to the Spotlight Bar show. It just didn't fit into our schedule. Music--Virginia's Trio was very good to listen to in the Piazza. Her voice was amazing. Brian Johnson was usually in Crooners at night on the piano and was also good. The ship's orchestra was excellent. However, the Static Band was amazing. They are a 5 person band from the Caribbean. We just loved everything about them. They could sing from any decade and any type of music and do it well. They played almost every night and we danced with them almost every night. When they get with the party music, there is no stopping them. They even had the horn section from the ship's orchestra join them on the final night. So fun. They left the ship today for a 3 month break and then will be on the Caribbean Princess for several months. Other Activities--Gary and his crew had so many activities scheduled day and night. There were obviously more activities on sea days. They did a crew tug-of-war one day which pitted crew from different departments. So much fun. They had organized activities around golf, Olympics, quizzes about anything and everything. The games shows were fun and included Marriage Match, Liar's Club, Rock the Room, Majority Riles and Hollywood Hiccups. Gary and his staff made this cruise amazing for us. They were all so creative and entertaining and kept us as busy as we wanted to be. We loved the activities and energy in the Piazza. Music and activities during the day and music at night. We were in the Piazza every night. Consider it the Town Hall on the ship.

Spa: My wife and I both had facials on embarkation day. We had massages a few days later. They were both very good. The spa was not very busy. They comped us a day pass in the Enclave. We liked our time in there but likely would not spend much money on it. Upon returning to the ship from Gibraltar, we both walked directly to the spa for another massage. They gave us 30% off plus another 10% off for being platinum. The second massage I received was one of the best ones I have ever received. The spa is definitely not cheap but neither is a cruise.

Sorry for being quiet on this post but little to no Wi-Fi on the ship! Currently flying home from Barcelona. Spoke with a couple at the Barcelona airport this morning. They did a TA cruise on the Symphony of the Seas that left Miami the same day that the Enchanted Princess left (3/9/23). We had perfect seas. They had rough seas the entire sailing across the pond (>16' swells). Apparently several passengers were injured with broken legs and other injuries yet we had smooth seas. They had perfect internet including the ability to stream videos where we had zero internet crossing the pond. Conclusion--I will take smooth sailing and no internet anytime compared to that the Symphony went through. Thanks to the Commodore (forgot his name) of the Enchanted Princess.

Yesterday while on the Enchanted Princess, I was able to get more information from some crew. I was told that Sabatini's is moving to the current location of Bistro Sur La Mer. There may also be some sort of seafood restaurant going in that area. The 360 Experience is going into the current Sabatini's.

Internet: This was the only disappointing part of the cruise. Within around 12 hours of leaving Fort Lauderdale, we did not have Wi-Fi again until possibly Madeira, Portugal 7 1/2 days later. Zero, nada, none. Not a bit, byte, trickle. Nothing. It really didn’t work virtually at all during the first 14 days, even when we got close to or at ports. We would get a small trickle at times. I was sitting next to a guy on the ship who was texting back and forth one day when somewhere in the area of Spain but I got nothing. Sometimes it worked for me but not my wife and vice versa. i complained after 2 days and they offered $60 per person OBC if you had a package and you asked. It wasn’t automatic. You had to ask. That’s bush league. They thought the Wi-Fi would improve on Tuesday which was day 5 but it didn’t at all. It didn’t improve for at least the first 8 days. I communicated our dissatisfaction for several days through the Crew Chat on the Princess app. I eventually got a call from a front desk supervisor who apologized and said he didn’t know when it would improve and that it worked fine in the Caribbean. The front desk offered the use of their telephone if we needed to call home or somewhere else. They gave us an additional $100 OBC for a total of $160 OBC per person calculated as 16 days at $10 per day. Their thinking was the Wi-Fi will work 4 of the 20 days. Well it really hasn’t worked well at all but just enough so I can do this post. In the end. I would have preferred to have had Wi-Fi and paid the money. It did make us do different things and it wasn’t horrible to unplug. I guess people could not Google answers to trivia questions so there’s that! I was hoping to do a little remote work from the ship in the morning. I was also hoping to check the scores of the NCAA basketball tourney games or watch the gamecast live (w/o video). No chance at all. BTW, the games were not shown on any TV’s on the ship. At the Captain’s Circle event, the Commodore welcomed us to the No Internet cruise! Even he made light of it. i heard from others that have sailed across the pond on Princess or other cruise lines that they have had great Wi-Fi so it is what it is. Who knows what happened or if it will get fixed or is fixable. We purchased the international monthly pass with Verizon before we left home. We could not wait to connect once we reached Madeira. Cell service worked great at all ports and for a while at sea after leaving ports.

The Crossing: I am a little out of order here. The 7 1/2 sailing across the Atlantic could not have been smoother. The seas were so calm. We had a few hours a couple nights and days where the ship swayed a bit but nothing major at all. My wife stopped taking Dramamine after about 10 days because the seas were so smooth.

We did not keep the Pattwrs now known as the Princess Event Listings. On the stateroom tv, they are called the Princess Patters. Trust be that there are more enough activities to pick from especially on sea days. Typically multiple trivia games everyday in Princess Live along with one game show every day or every other day. Music is a plenty on the ship.

They are always nice to come back to at night. Oh well….c’est la vie.

Bars: We spent a majority of our drinking time at the Good Spirits at Sea on Deck 5 Midship at the Piazza. They have a cocktail experience usually everyday at 5:30pm and 8:30pm where they make unique drinks based on various cities. Jhomel runs this experience and he does a great job, The drinks are then given to passengers sitting at the bar. We got hooked on this and attended almost every day. We often told Jhomel to just make us a drink and surprise us and he never disappointed. The final he made us on around day 8 was a major hit and we have it almost every day. He promised he would give me the recipe on our last day. All the bartenders at Good Spirits are very personable and great. You can ask for a special drink from a specific bar to be delivered anywhere that you are on the ship. We also spent a lot of time playing cards and backgammon in Crooners (Deck 6 Midship) during the day and sometimes at night listening to Brian Johnson on the piano who was very good.

My wife and I sailed on our first Transatlantic cruise on 3/9/23 on the Enchanted Princess from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona. Overall, it has been a wonderful cruise which I would give a 9 out of 10. The cruise was 20 nights which was effectively a 14 day TA cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Barcelona combined with a 6 day Mediterranean cruise from Barcelona. We are now on day 18 of 20 so I thought I would start my cruise review while I possibly have a little internet. More to come on that topic later. Around 2,700 people embarked in Fort Lauderdale (double capacity is 3,660). In Barcelona on 3/23/23, 1,900 people disembarked after 14 days and around 2,200 embarked for the 6 day cruise. Around 800 people (including us) were on the sailing for the entire 20 days. First, a little about us. I am 59 and wife is 64. We live in Lakewood Ranch, Florida which is basically the Sarasota/Bradenton area. We are both very active. My wife is retired and I am a consultant where I can control my schedule so taking off a month was not an issue. We purchased the Princess Plus plan when the cost was $50 per day per person. Prior to this cruise, we have sailed 16 times together: Royal Caribbean (9 cruises), Princess (3 cruises), Carnival (2 cruises) and Amawaterways (1 cruise). We have not been on an ocean cruise without our children since 2000. Itinerary: Fort Lauderdale (embark). 7 days at sea, Madeira (Funchal), Seville (Cadiz), Malaga, Cartegena, Mallorca (Palma), Barcelona, Marseille, Corsica (Ajaccio), At Sea, Gibraltar, At Sea, Barcelona (disembark). We really enjoyed the ports. More to follow later. The Night Before: We flew from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale the night of 3/8/23. Easy flight on Southwest Airlines. We flew to Fort Lauderdale because we wanted to fly home after the cruise to Tampa instead of Fort Lauderdale. We stayed at the Hyatt Centric Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. It was fine for the 11 hours we were there. Embarkation: We caught a Lyft to Port Everglades the morning of 3/9/23 arriving at the port at 10:15am. We checked our bags with the porter. We saw some people wheeling their large suitcases into the terminal. I don’t totally get that, but everyone has their reasons. We were placed into our waiting area in the terminal. The first thing we noticed was there were a lot of people who were much older than us. Passengers in their 70’s and 80’s and not many around our age. I came to realize that was normal for TA cruises. This was not the family crowd we are used to on Royal Caribbean. There were probably less than 10 kids under age 18 which was fine with us. This number went to 185 for the 6 day sailing from Barcelona. We were released from the waiting area by around 10:50am and onboard the ship by 11am. We expected to wait until 1pm as usual to get into our cabin but it was ready when we embarked at 11am. That is very impressive considering the previous cruise had 3,800+ passengers. Sailaway was scheduled for 3:30pm but didn’t occur until close to 5pm. Once we left Port Everglades, we weren’t going to see land for 8 more days until we reached Funchal, Portugal. Let’s hope for smooth sailing across the Atlantic. Cabin: We had a mini-suite on the Aloha deck, mid forward. We loved the location. The cabin is 329 SF including the balcony. The bed was comfortable. We especially liked the large separate sitting area with a TV and curtain separating this area from the bedroom area. This was important to us because I am usually awake 1-2 hours before my wife in the morning. The sofa was comfortable. We never used the sofa bed. There was a lot of storage space in the cabin. A lot. We didn’t even use all of the drawers or shelves. The lamp by both sides of the bed had a USB charging port built in. There were lots of plugs at the desk in the sitting area with multiple varieties including 2 plugs with 3 prongs like used in the U.S. I was able to use a small USB hub with one of the plugs which is where we charged our portable phone batteries and Apple watches. The balcony was a decent size with 2 chairs and a small table. We have a few suggestions for the cabin. First, add a motion-sensored night light in the bathroom so the bathroom light doesn’t have to be turned on when using the bathroom in the middle of the night. Second, add a small light in the clothes cabinet which would turn on when opened. Third, the light above the bed and outside the closet area are on the same switch. It would be nice to have the closet light on a separate switch especially when someone is sleeping in bed and the other person needs clothes from the closet. None of these are huge deals but I wanted to mention them. The room steward did a good job. I guess the days of towel animals are over. Oh well. Overall, the mini-suite was great and it didn’t cost much more money than a balcony cabin. The First Day: After dropping off our carry-on bags in our cabin, we sat by the pool on deck 16. There was a band called The Static Band playing music on the pool deck. At first, I thought they were just another reggae band like we are used to on other cruises. More on this later. I had lunch at Gigi’s which was good. My wife had lunch from The Salty Dog Grill on deck 16. Both of these places are good. We walked around the ship to get acclimated and noticed the following. The ship is a good size for us. There were hand sanitizer stations everywhere. The walking track was on deck 18 aft. It was 7 laps around for 1 mile. We walked every morning on sea days and it gets windy up there on sea days so hold onto your hat. The 2 pickleball courts were used often. There were bars everywhere. I have never seen so many bars on one ship but maybe we noticed them more now that we are sailing without our kids. Breakfast: Generally, we had breakfast in the World Fresh Marketplace (buffet) on sea days and had room service or ate in the International Café on port days since we were off the boat early in the morning. All of these options were good. The breads, pastries, croissants, etc. stood out as amazing in all of these places. Lunch: On sea days, we usually ate lunch at the buffet or The Salty Dog Grill. The buffet was well maintained, always clean and filled with many food options. Dinner: We usually ate dinner in the Santorini dining room. We never ate in the specialty restaurants. We didn’t need to spend $35-$39 per person when the main dining food was good. We talked to some people who dined in the Crown Grill and said the steak in the main dining room was better than the one they paid the up charge for in the Crown Grill, We had a couple dinners at the buffet when we didn’t want a fancy sit down dinner. The buffets had many selections for dinner and was good. More to follow….

There is not an American 3 prong electrical outlet near the bed. For my Cpap machine, they provided an extension code which went across the room from the nightstand to the outlet at the desk.