ISABELLA

On 6/15/2024 at 9:03 AM, 555 said:

I could have sworn that I saw pictures of self serve coffee & tea stations set up quite a while ago.

Maybe they've removed them?

A little table with hot water and coffee dispensing containers are not what I will call a station. Celebrity has a full section with Coffee brewed, hot water, great choices of teas, lemons, honey, sugar, real cream for coffee, napkins ( on Princess we couldn't find paper napkins), spoons, trash drop, variety of juices in the morning and other drinks at lunch and dinner. 

Not the end of the world, but this should have been taking in consideration in the Eatery design.

On 6/11/2024 at 6:12 PM, LittleTinker said:

Pros

Its all new and sparkly.

It doesn't feel crowded

The Eatery food isn't bad

WiFi works great

The medallion tech is great

The cabins are nice

Lifts are good

 

Cons

Entertainment is lacking

Not enough seats in most of the venues

Too many 'pay extra' places that generally aren't worth it

Smoking in the casino stinks

Wake View Bar area can't be walked on in bare feet when it's hot

Swimming pools are not good enough or big enough

It's too big

Slow service

Running out of items

Shops are lacking

Park 19 not open

No Prom deck

 

I'm sure there are more pros and cons but I'm tired and can't think  lol

 

 

 

 

We were on Sun for 14 days 2 weeks ago. We have not sailed on Royal class. Our last Princess was over 15 years ago.

Agree with all above. Just to add:

Decor is not atractive. 

Food is served luke warm in many occasions in MDR and Eatery.

Coffee still bad

No actual beverage stations in Eatery ( tables with hot water and pre-maid coffee dispensers), no trash cans to throw tea bags.

No fancy teas, lemons. Have to go and search for honey.

Theater is very small for the size of the ship.

Pool areas will be crowded in the Caribbean.

Dome was a nice place.

Staff in some areas needs to be more trained.

We used EZ air for our cruise to fly from Miami to Rome, come from Barcelona. Nonstop flights cost started at $2800 / pp for PE  75 days point, price went down  2x to $1800/pp before 45 days cut off. Got credit ( it took about 2 months) with no penalty.

On 6/10/2024 at 2:02 PM, jennybenny said:

I don't know for sure, but I'd like to think they use cold water. I don't watch them. 🙂 We always write down cold water ONLY, but sometimes clothes come back looking aged, like they were in scalding water. I prefer not to have anything laundered that I truly care about. The men's underware and socks are safe to me to send. I always hand wash my delicates in the the sink. 

Used Elite laundry service on board of Sun Princess. Instructed cold water. Not clear what they have used, but I think my DH jeans were washed in hot water. I don't use ship's laundry services fo my clothes. They did OK job for my DH clothes. 

On 6/7/2024 at 12:17 AM, rmsmith said:

In looking at videos of the Sun Princess dining room(s), it looks like they have moved to mostly 2 and 4 person tables, perhaps some 6 tops.  Have they effectively done away with the larger tables?  Despite being a introvert I've historically enjoyed dining at the larger tables and talking with people I don't know. 

 

If that is the case that will be a bit of a bummer on our upcoming 16 night TA.  Don't get me wrong, love my wife and the friends who are traveling with us, but I know their life story and experiences.  Let me learn about someone new!

 

Robert

Just off the Sun. We had seen tables for 8, not too many.

We booked TA on Star Princess for October, 2025 while on board of Sun during Memorial Day sale. It was with Refundable $100 /pp deposit and Princess Premium included. Hpefully she will be ready to go.

We booked SV on Ascent for 10 days, seems expensive for Carib itinerary with no perks( we are not drinkers).  Still a long time away, maybe something else will come up. We will be trying MSC YC this December. If we like it, could be an option. It cost just a little more with all perks/ day.

Thank you all for your input. Love these boards.

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

More of an obscured balcony...  About 70% view through the round circle.

We just had something similar to a porthole veranda on new Sun Princess and it was fine. The door was not sliding, but just like a regular door, that would not stay open unless you put a chair to hold it open.

On 5/28/2024 at 9:55 AM, Esprit said:

Excellent news. Thanks.

I have kept well clear of ships' buffets as the food is ALWAYS too cold for me.

I also always tell my table waiter in the MDR at the start of a cruise that I like my food hot. They therefore leave mine until the last to be served on a table of 8, and it is indeed hot enough to my liking.

 

We just returned from 14 days on the Sun. We found food lukewarm in MDR, even we asked for hot and Eatery, where I asked for my food to be microwaved for a minute. 

On 5/27/2024 at 1:46 AM, mofurd said:

Ok, official response from one of the eatery staff. The buffet (The Eatery, Deck 9) is not fresh squeezed, but you can find fresh-squeezed OJ on Deck 17 (Lido). 😊

juices on deck 17 are coming from despensing machine. Didn't look fresh squeezed.

Just now, Liao said:

Edge Villa, Royal & PH Suites 

Thank you for your information. Those are out my travel budget. I was hoping for some AQ cabins, since we enjoy Blu. 

Can someone confirm if Sunset verandas do have sliding doors and what type of door is in porthole veranda cabin?

Thanks

On 3/10/2024 at 4:11 PM, Incredimom said:

Well shoot, I just discovered my problem and I guess it was me that made it that way. I didn't realize that by choosing seats, that would make the "early ticketing" happen and then make it so I couldn't change without penalty! 

 

I guess Live and Learn. So if any of you purchase flights from Princess EZAir - make sure you don't choose your seats or you won't be able to change/cancel your flight without penalty.  😞

We just came back from Med cruise, had to fly to Rome and return from Barcelona. I picked my flights thru EZ air, still before 45 days cut off, picked my seats. But I was ticketed at 45 days point. I got 2 price reductions on my flights before 45 days, but I never changed them. Any flight change will initiate cancellation of your R/T pick.

As much as we like S class ships, we are considering to try E class, but do not like concept of IV.

What categories of balcony cabins have regular sliding doors? The only one I found are Sunset verandas. 

Please someone advise.

Thank you

9 hours ago, Drdarkknight said:

 

 

I can’t believe I’m finally writing this Live From. This trip has been FIVE years in the making. We originally had booked this cruise back in 2019 to go in summer 2020 (can’t remember what ship) but that obviously was cancelled. Once things reopened my family decided to look at rebooking. They found the same itinerary but this time on a new ship called Sun Princess. That was more than 18 months ago and now, tomorrow, I depart for Rome! 

 

I (32F) am travelling with my husband (39M), my sister (29F) and her boyfriend (35M), my parents (60F and 59M) and my aunt and uncle (both in their 60’s). So we have a big group that has certainly added to some of the planning complexities. This is quite the celebration cruise as we celebrate both my parents’ 60th birthdays, my aunt and uncle’s 40th wedding anniversary, and my sister’s 30th birthday (she actually celebrates her birthday in Barcelona). All of us are experienced cruisers with the exception of my husband (he’s done one Princess cruise to Alaska with me last year) and my sister’s boyfriend (total newb). The rest of us have cruised Disney, Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Norwegian and Celebrity, though not all together. The closest we got to the bulk of us was a Mediterranean cruise with Royal Caribbean back when I first turned 18. I have been on the most cruises out of everyone and also have the most experience with different cruise lines. 

 

We picked Princess as my family did a Scandinavian cruise with them back in 2019 and my parents loved it. This is my third Princess cruise in the last year (Alaska and Caribbean). I’m very interested to see how Sun Princess is going to work since it’s significantly different from the other Princess ships I have been on (Regal, Sapphire and Caribbean). I don’t feel like I’m particularly married to one cruise line or another. Even when planning this cruise we definitely considered a couple lines.  

 

I also must admit I wasn’t too thrilled with the itinerary initially. I have been lucky to do a ton of travelling in my life so far and so despite how port intensive this cruise is there’s actually no new countries for me. And after the cancellation of Santorini and Kotor there was only barely one new city for me (Istanbul, though I’ve been to Turkey). I was pretty choked and I will discuss more about the rollercoaster ride of waiting to sail in other posts. But I love showing people around and nobody else has been anywhere so I can at least enjoy playing tour guide a bit. And where I have been before I’m trying to get out and see something else or go to another town for the day to keep things different for myself(I.e. skipping Pompeii when we’re in Naples). 

 

It’s a good thing I love playing tour guide because my family are nervous travellers in Europe. I am responsible for planning everything and making sure I know how to get from Point A to B, any cultural considerations such as making sure everyone has appropriate clothes to visit churches, etc. Then they just blindly follow me around. We’ve travelled this way for years and it’s what works for us. 

 

So you can understand my worry when they all decided to fly into Rome two days LATER than my husband and I. I’m interested to see how that pans out but I have given them instructions on how to board the train at the airport, where to switch trains, etc. So we will see Friday if I manage to find them or not. Will be interesting. 

 

As my husband has never been to Rome and I have more vacation days than I can ever reasonably take (thank you overtime!) we decided to take a full three weeks of vacation and spend some time in Rome beforehand. Not to mention I wasn’t keen on flying in the day before the cruise and spending only half a day in Rome. At that point I’d probably have just headed straight to Civitavecchia for the night. 

 

So we fly out Wednesday and the cruise leaves Saturday for two weeks. We will stay an additional four full days in Barcelona, mostly because we couldn’t find good airfare back to Canada until the Wednesday. We’ve got Air BnB’s rented in both Rome and Barcelona that can accommodate the full group. For our excursions there is a mix of Princess and doing our own thing:

 

Naples - Sorrento & Amalfi Coastal Cruise/Pompeii and Amalfi Drive (we’re splitting up the group)

Chania - self exploration 

Istanbul - Best of Istanbul with Bosphorus Cruise 

Mykonos - self exploration

Athens - Athens Foodie Walking Tour

Bar - private tour to Kotor and Budva 

Corfu - self exploration 

Sicily - Godfather Tour

Naples - Capri

 

Well I feel like I’ve rambled on enough. I swear it will be more focused moving forward haha. I’ve also noticed there hasn’t been a lot of ‘Live From’ the Sun so hopefully this can shed some light on how the June voyages are going. 

If you booked " Best of Istanbul" with Princess, you will be OK. If you booked private tour, keep in mind that Traffic in Istanbul is terrible. It took us 2 hours to get to the ship from Grand Bazar, normally 20 min ride. 

10 minutes ago, Esprit said:

I'm not surprised food isn't hot in the Eatery. it's the same on all Princess and Celebrity ships. Why can't they have microwave ovens for passengers to use, who like their food piping hot like i do!  

We have discussed this issue with one of the supervisors of eatery and there are microwaves they will use if passenger ask. But good I’m MDR also not very hot. 

Booked on board, 14 days TA on Star D1for $3200 with Princess premium for 2 people.

BTW, we are on Sun second week. There is a repeat of menu from first week

Also, there are complaints that food is not very hot, especially in Eatery.

We are on board of Sun Princess. Just checked our account. All charges are coming out of NRObc and Refundable is still untouched.  Guest services confirm that REf OBC will be mailed after the cruise.

On 5/24/2024 at 5:36 PM, phoenix_dream said:

I will also search the departure port pages, but also looking for some specific info about sailing Celebrity out of Port Canaveral.  If anyone who has done it can report back on their experience?  Particularly if they want to fly in several days earlier and rent a car and stay in the area?  Does Celebrity offer shuttle service from the port back to Orlando?  Has anyone used it and how might it compare to private services or Uber/Lyft?  Are there rental car options available that don't charge around $400 PER DAY for a one way rental should I want to do that (yes, I typed the number correctly!).  Is it worth it to stay outside of the immediate area and Uber to the port?  I can't believe the prices of hotels I am seeing for early March (yes I know spring break is starting but shouldn't be too bad that early).  I thought Lauderdale and Miami were bad - they're nothing compared to these prices.

 

I strongly advise anyone considering sailing out of that port do some research prior on these things.  I already booked my cruise and now almost wish I hadn't.  I don't think that area is really geared up yet to handle the huge increase in sailings caused by the addition of more Celebrity and Royal ships (not to mention other lines).  Any input would be appreciated and fingers crossed I can figure this all out without needing to take a second mortgage out on my house.

Celebrity has not sailed from PC yet. We live 50 min drive and can’t wait to cruise from PC in March. Depends on what you want to do before the cruise, Cocoa Beach is a great place to hangout for a day. I would not recommend to stay in Orlando.

5 hours ago, dides said:

Low by the sink in standard bathrooms, higher up on mini-suite bathrooms

 

From our Deluxe Balcony:

 

 

From CanadianBurger's Reserve Mini-Suite (now Sanctuary Mini-Suite):

 

 

 

Thank you very much. It is much more convenient than by the ceiling.

Can someone confirm the location of electrical outlet in the bathroom - low by the sink or up high? Thank

We are leaving in 4 days for May 18 cruise. From reading these post, it seams still a lot of confusion and changes are taking place. I have not sailed with Princess in more that 15 years and going with an open mind, but not high expectations. I hope there will be no regrets for booking this cruise. So far, I was not able to make any reservations for dinners on deck 6 or 7. 8 is not even showing up on the app.  We are hoping that Princess will become a nice variety from Celebrity. So far, it seems everthing is very disorganized. Not excited.

Great to hear all positive reveiws. Booked in AQ and looking forward to it.

Thank you all.

On 4/25/2024 at 3:47 PM, Tom and Ingrid said:

Where were you last year when I needed this knowledge 🫣

😄

I had to stumble on it somehow instead.

Visit these boards more often - you will learn a lot.😉

2 hours ago, Sox Fan Cruiser said:

We skipped Kotor and went to Bar instead. The change was last minute and they had excursion online for us to book before the cruise. They also had excursions in our cabin when we arrived. No one complained that there was a “mad rush” to get tours. It was fine. We stayed on the ship as our Kotor guide told us that Bar was nothing special. Most people coming back confirmed that. Kotor was too far away to try and visit even though our guide was willing to come pick us up. 
 

We tendered in Santorini. There is nothing wrong with the ships tendering system because they could not sail if there was as it is also part of their emergency system. 
 

The landing is not for suite guests but an open area for all folks leaving the ship. There are seats for people to relax and a bar for selling water and other drinks. It’s used for both port stops and tendering. We never see the need for this space because we are never in the huge crowd waiting to go ashore. We always wait for most people to leave the ship and then we walk right off. 

We are on May 18 - June 1 sailing, NO SANTORINI, NO KOTOR. Got email prom Princess yesterday. This was my third attempt to visit Santorini - I guess, I will never see it. If they will replace Istanbul with something else, I will be very upset.