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Emerald Princess - Live


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Please do not flame me if you don't agree with my first Emerald Princess impression. This is day two in the morning and we sail from Venice at 1 pm, muster drill at 12:30 pm.

 

The transfer procedures at the Venice airport went perfectly. Princess had all the bases covered. The luggage carts require either a 50 cent, 1 e or 2 e coin which you get back when you plug your cart back into the cart line. Embarkation also went perfectly. Smooth and fast. The only slowdown was finding a place to fill out the health questionaire. No pens and no tables.

 

Internet on the ship seems to be working half a@@. My first two computers had a stream error in swiping my card and connecting to Princess .com was not allowed as that was a forbidden site. Go figure. This computer, my third, didn't require me to swipe my card so I'm off to the races. The pursurs desk staff is clueless about Inet packages.

 

Here is my take in no particular order

 

Heard from the future cruise lady that the Emerald Princess sister ship will be named the Ruby Princess. When you book on board you only need to pay $100 at that time for two because they give you a coupon which you can give your travel agent along with $100 cash for your second passenger or even your neighbor. Who ever uses the coupon gets the cabin credit. Since I don't know how to make bullets on this screen you'll just have to read along. The ship is beautiful. Very well laid out for traffic patterns. The photo gallery lane of traffic is very wide. I'll post pictures on princessshutter.com when I return. Cabin steward is top notch and even got us the Suite robes in our balcony cabin. Don't tell. Now here's my hit list. At 2 pm 1st cruise passengers were camped out in the casino waiting to leave, dining room was closed on embarkation day, Club Fusion had western art but the large painting next to the stage was gawd awful ugly and I mean ugly. Somebody in the art department really screwed up. The love boat dream is shaped the same but is nothing like the old love boat dream. The MUTS sound system has "issues" so NO MUTS at this time. The library books are all locked up tight. The only time you can check them in or out is basically 2-4 and 6-8. Big Bummer! Shampoo, conditioner and lotion is in bottles not tubes, TP is on much smaller rolls with less paper. Hallway carpets to cabin are color coded as on other Princess ships. No steps up in the dining rooms. New menu is totally goofy. I hate it. Bed linens are nice. Flat screen TV in cabin. Nice art work all around ship except what was mentioned above. No paintings in Princess Theatre and projection platform from ceiling construction not finished. Enclosed cigar lounge is located in the casino. Excursion desk is just outside the Princess Theatre in great location. You can now approach the Princess Theatre from either side from the Atrium. Cookie bar on five. Coffee quality has greatly improved and is slightly better in Horizon Court than in dining rooms. Princess gets an A for effort on Coffee quality. They charged every passenger $15 for Venice water taxi service but you can go to the Pursurs desk if you don't use it. No rust on patio. I wonder why? In cabin there are no drawers on right side of desk. Refig door is not connected to cabinet door. Sabatini's is way up high in the back of the ship and has a separate bar next door called Adagio. It is beautiful. Skywalkers is nicely laid out as well. Kids clubs are also beautiful. 98 percent of the passengers are American. No kids running wild. Oh yes, clean curtains in cabin but one luggage smudge on wall. Oh well, always room for improvement. <G>

 

This ship is close to perfect and I think Crooners on 7 is perfectly located. Crooners piano man was a exact clone of Elton John and Billy Joel and had fun kidding with the passengers. First night entertainment was a Venice pop orchestra and they were good. Rock band in Club Fusion was blasting the doors off. Why cruise directors won't control sound levels I don't know. The sound level from that band would have given passengers and crew permanent hearing loss in no time. Heard one 1st cruise Suite passenger complaining that his teak patio furniture was too big for his patio. I would have traded my aluminum furniture for his teak furniture any day. He also complained that he had to ask for some of the Suite freebys and was disturbed by the ping pong players above him. You know Suite life is so unfair. We heard from the first cruise people that the shows started off so so but got better as their cruise progressed. We do like the "Street" entertainers in the Atrium

 

More Emerald Princess - Live news at five.

 

W0KIE

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Glad to hear your report Wokie.

How exciting!

 

Club Fusion had western art but the large painting next to the stage was gawd awful ugly and I mean ugly. Somebody in the art department really screwed up.

LOL, The whole concept of the Club Fusion was lame IMHO! Video screens everywhere, but everyone craning their necks to try to watch the "stage" from randomly positioned seating. Western Theme looks very odd in this venue.I miss the Vista Lounge layout very much, so much more focused.

 

We'd love to hear more about the new menus sometime along the way. Sounds like you aren't pleased with them. Not sure if I will be either. I kinda had my preferences and routines established with the old menus and always looked forward to my ship returns. That said, a little more spice would be nice. I'm from California and we use a lot of garlic and eat more Mexican and Asian food. I start to miss it after 2 weeks onboard.

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This Club Fusion is exactly the same design as other Club Fusions. Little dinky stage and lots of alcoves. The art I am refering to looks like a bunch of childrens western cartoons. Totally and completely out of place in a nightclub. Coke stickers are $48 and coffee cards are $24. The dining room menu has everything listed without categorys so you have to study it to figure out if something with a foreign name is a soap or a salad or what in the heck is this suppose to be? The main dish is standard Princess fare so you can figure that part of the menu without wasting a lot of time. The dining room has been redesigned with fewer chairs and more benches. I didn't think our fixed seating waiters were as attentive as our past Princess fixed seating waiters. We had to go for quite a bit of time with no water during dinner. Food quality is the same as on other Princess ships. The desert menu left side is 100% mixed drink advertising.

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The dining room menu has everything listed without categorys so you have to study it to figure out if something with a foreign name is a soap or a salad or what in the heck is this suppose to be? The main dish is standard Princess fare so you can figure that part of the menu without wasting a lot of time. The dining room has been redesigned with fewer chairs and more benches. I didn't think our fixed seating waiters were as attentive as our past Princess fixed seating waiters. We had to go for quite a bit of time with no water during dinner. Food quality is the same as on other Princess ships. The desert menu left side is 100% mixed drink advertising.

 

Since the menu is no longer divided or grouped into courses is there some pattern as to how they serve the different items? Do the "foreign" named items still have a detailed description or does one just have to take a leap of faith here. If the main courses haven't really changed is all Princess's ovation just over a rearranged menu format or do you sense a positive change?

 

"Benches" in the dining room? I haven't seen those since the "old Star" days. Have the addition of them made the dining room more intimate?

 

Hope you continue to enjoy your cruise and for letting come along with you.

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w0kie, if you meet John & Carmen from Canada, please tell them Janet from California said hello. We met them on our Hawaii cruise and they are very nice. I talked to them a week ago and they were excited about going on this cruise as they are celebrating a milestone birthday for her.

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Hello Wokie, Greetings from "Down-Under" Live on the Pacific Princess, one of your older little sisters:D Thank you for your Live, I'll be following it closely, please post when you can;)

My best to you on the Emerald!

Bill(Jot):)

 

PS I won't tell about those Suite robes in only a reg balc cabin:p , if you don't tell that our Steward, got us a Full Bottle of Champagne instead of two glasses in our suite.:D (Is it a deal?)

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Heard one 1st cruise Suite passenger complaining that his teak patio furniture was too big for his patio. I would have traded my aluminum furniture for his teak furniture any day. He also complained that he had to ask for some of the Suite freebys and was disturbed by the ping pong players above him. You know Suite life is so unfair.

More Emerald Princess - Live news at five.

W0KIE

 

Wokie, We don't think the suite life, is unfair at all;)

(How do you like those robes?)

BTW Our teak furniture has plently of room on our balc.

We Love it!:)

Bill

 

PS is that the one & only Maurizo, the singer & piano man?:confused:

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Thank you so much for starting this Live. Like many others, I appreciate that you are taking the time out from your precious vacation to take us vicariously along on your cruise. This is the one ship we are all anxiously waiting to hear all about.

 

 

Please do not flame me if you don't agree with my first Emerald Princess impression.

 

There is no reason for anyone to flame you. After all , it is your impression and thoughts. Also, we should all be appreciative that you are willing to take the time out to post.:D

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Hi

 

What a deal--this is the day--2 "LIVE FROMS" this means good reading ahead

 

Thanks so much for making the effort for us at home

 

Have a great Journey

 

Nancy:D

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Thanks wOKie, knew we could count on you. We're leaving for Venice and Emerald in a few weeks and figured they'd still be ironing out some of the rough spots. Could you clarify the statement:

 

"They charged every passenger $15 for Venice water taxi service but you can go to the Pursurs desk if you don't use it."

 

How do they track who uses it? Are you given a card? Do you use your cruise card?

 

Also, by benches in the dining room do you mean banquettes where they have "bench" type seating along the wall and a chair on the other side with mulitple two-tops together? I believe they have these in the smaller dining rooms on Sapphire Princess.

 

 

Thanks-Steve

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They have benches in the dining rooms on the Sapphire and Diamond Princess ships as well. They work well and in those ships the dining rooms felt very intimate.

 

Wokie thanks for posting your live from thread. It sounds like you're having a great time. I think that the new design Princess is using starting with the Crown are very good overall, except maybe the continued use of the western theme in Club Fusion.

 

Other than the menus being confusing, how is the food? Do you see many changes from the current Princess menus in comparison other than the layout,are there many new dishes?

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w0kie - Let me chime in with the rest: Many thanks for your posts and your time to make them. We'll be on the Emerald in July and we have been anxious to read about this new ship.

 

You are doing a great service for the rest of us landlubbers!

 

B&B

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"They charged every passenger $15 for Venice water taxi service but you can go to the Pursurs desk if you don't use it." How do they track who uses it? Are you given a card? Do you use your cruise card? Also, by benches in the dining room do you mean banquettes where they have "bench" type seating along the wall and a chair on the other side with mulitple two-tops together? I believe they have these in the smaller dining rooms on Sapphire Princess. Thanks-Steve

 

The water taxi tickets were left on our bed along with a water taxi schedule which hugely conflicted with the Patter water taxi schedule. Please listen VERY CAREFULLY if you have a Princess Venice hotel package for embarkation. I was told by the CC group that Princess takes you to your Venice hotel by water taxi BUT they return you to the corner of the cruise terminal dock for embarkation then leave you to haul your bags to the cruise terminal. Maybe I'm leaving something out but the CC group said this was a real hardship for those that couldn't walk well.

 

I was a little disappointed in our Venice sail away. Last time we sailed away from Venice on the Grand the ship played Andrea Bouchelli (sp) "Time to Say Goodbye" and everybody on the ship cried. This time they played only a small portion of that beautiful Italian song but interrupted it constantly with a lot of yacking by the port guy.

 

The CC party in Adagio's went great, except for me losing our group's name tags. Princess provided flavored olives, drink samples and a microphone for introductions. It was very well attended and easy to get to from inside and outside the ship.

 

Princess felt badly about how rotten the Internet connection was on the 1st cruise so on this 2nd cruise (so far) Internet is FREE repeat FREE and unlimited and pretty darn fast. If had known that Internet would be free I would have brought my laptop.

 

Todays Patter was very late arriving last night. So far our mail box has not been bombed with tons of advertising. The Patter announced the MUTS movie schedule for today so I believe the MUTS outage due to sound "issues" has been fixed. I noticed during Muster drill in the Club Fusion that the sound was full of echos. I didn't notice that at other times in Club Fusion. Last night Club Fusion had a 70's party around 9:30 pm. About the only people there were the entertainment crew who were swing dancing to that previously mentioned loud band and hoping a crowd would show up and rock. That's not too likely based on the average age on this cruise which I'd guess are mostly members of AARP.

 

Going back to Club Fusion, on the club sign leading into the nightclub they have horseshoes on the sign. Being from Tulsa I know what good western art work looks like. We have Gilcrease museum in Tulsa full of Remington and Russell and Oklahoma City has the Western Hall of Fame with great art. I don't think the Princess art department has a clue about what good western art looks like based on the Emerald Princess Club Fusion "art" work. Oh well, after consuming some adult beverages back there I won't care.

 

I think Princess has upped their wine prices some. Glad I brought a bottle from the Coop grocery story at the Roma water taxi stop because I paid about $6 for the same wine that Princess sells for about $30.

 

Last night the ship was vibrating in our cabin facing backward but it diminished this morning some. My wife likes the loud roaring of the water being stirred up by the props back there. I'm not so sure I like it.

 

On this itinery we stop every day except one. Again she likes all these stops but I came to see the ship, not the stops. I have yet to find the wedding chapel as it is topside forward somewhere the Sanctuary, which I haven't gone looking for.

 

The food quality is exactly 100% the same as you'll find on the other big Princess ships although the head waiter in our dining room said it was better. The head waiter told me why the service was not very good the first night. It was because the waiters were being seaters and waiters. Service was great last night which confirms the head waiters story. He also confirmed that the Love Boat Dream is now soft and smudgy chocolate rather than a harder chocolate. Only a Princess geek like me would dwell on the consistency of the Love Boat Dream.

 

We port a little distance away from Dubovnik today. No Princess shuttle to town. Only a private shuttle for 10 euros RT PP or the city bus I suppose. I've heard Sabatinis on this ship is great. I'll find out tonight.

 

Princess is pretending that there is a Cafe on the backside of the Horizon Court. It looks exactly like the Horizon Court seating to me. In fact that's where the Horizon Court overflow goes. The Horizon Court waiters bring you silverware and coffee and juice. That is if you catch their eye.

 

I expected the ship to have Magradomes, if that's what they are called, covering the mid ship pools but not on this ship. All pools are open air.

 

It's hard to describe the bench seats in the dining rooms. The bench seats do make for more tables for two but those table are very close to the next tables. On a table for two you have one bench seat and one movable seat.

 

The ship's TV clock is two hours slow. The cruise director James said on TV morning show twice that the muster drill would be at 11:30 am. The Patter said it would be at 12:30 pm. The Patter was right. James seems like a junior assistant cruise director more than a professional cruise director. He was bragging to the audience that he has been to every Princess port.

 

My DW heard that the ship builder has guaranteed the build quality of the ship for one year and will have mechanics on board for the full year. I did notice on the way down the fire stairs to the muster drill that some TV type cables were not connected to anything. I also noticed the lack of cigarettes butts in the fire stairs which are normally seen under the no smoking sign. When we exited the fire stairs onto the Promanade deck there was metal you had to step over which could cause a trip and there was no guide staff on the Promanade deck to direct us to the Fusion Lounge. Our Muster station boss said there is never a guide posted on the Promanade deck. I think that's a mistake. Our Muster station boss and the tape never said what to do if somebody like Ernesto and Clarice fall overboard other that throw something that floats and "call the nearest staff person." Yah right. Where would the nearest staff person be found near your cabin at 1 am. I asked the muster boss if we should call 911. He didn't know.

 

The heavy Princess robes make good heavy nap blankets but I like the lighter waffle weave robes better. If you want a heavy robe you've got to buy a suite or suck up to your steward who most of the time can't deal on robes.

 

P.S. The mattress is fine. A very slight lean and smidge soft in the middle but nothing to worry about.

 

More Emerald Princess news at ten.

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I took the ship's escorted tour which didn't even come close to showing half of what this ship has to offer. I have just returned to the Internet area on deck 5 to tell you about the area directly aft of the Horizon Court. This area is called Caribe Cafe which at first glance looks like an extension of the Horizon Court. WRONG. There is ANOTHER buffet food line back there much like the Horizon Court buffet line. At that back side deck 15 buffet line they were serving this morning everthing hot and cold that you would have expected to find in the regular breakfast Horizon Court buffet line. AND it was totally UNCONGESTED at breakfast prime time ! ! ! I'm impressed to say the least.

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W0kie: Thanks for all your "Live from the Emerald" Posts. I am copying them all for my DD & Family on the 22 June sailing. ;)

 

BTW, just so you know: If you Had taken your Laptop, it is not free for the WiFi. There is always a charge for wifi, even in the sweets. :eek:

 

Sounds as though you are having a terrific time. Please keep posting here because so many of us are virtually with you. :D

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I'll have to ask the laptop users because the entire Emerald Princess Internet rooms (plural) are currently FREE. I found out that to enter the Princess theater from the port (left) side you must first go through the Wheelhouse bar.

 

Something went over the side today from the back of the ship as we entered the Dubrovnik harbor. I observed some liquid from a cleaning bucket being poured overboard into the harbor by the stateroom steward from the Suite balcony next door.

 

Our cabin is on a dead end hallway which probably explains why we are not getting all the advertising or port guides. I believe ship based on a comment by the steward is not full but as per Princess custom they leave up name tags from the previous cruise on empty cabins. There was couple who cancelled this cruise in the CC group leaving a possible empty cabin because their pet got sick. I'll refrain from making any comments about pets causing cancelled cruises.

 

Off to see Dubrovnik. Ta ta for now.

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