RedEarth

Enjoying the ship in the evening would be a nice perk, but I was watching the guy stood in his overalls doing the welding in the baking hot sunshine and thinking to myself I wouldn't fancy being in his shoes. Wouldn't be nice in the pouring rain or strong winds either. No shelter whatsoever in the area you're working, for obvious reasons.... 😜

The ships I've been on (Enchanted, Regal, Royal, Sapphire) have all had a dual-voltage outlet in the bathroom, 115V for US flat pins, 230V for Euro round pins, but they're positioned very closely together so you can only use one or the other. Should also point out that the Euro outlet in the bathroom does not accept UK-type 'shaver' plugs because the pins are too fat and close together (not sure if any other countries use this plug format), but you can use an adaptor.

Just got off the Enchanted, we found the automatic light in the closet area quite useful during the daytime, but annoying at night when you need to get up to use the bathroom. We did also notice that the closet light seemed to come on automatically when switching on any other main light in the room (except the bedside lights) even when there was nobody in the area for the sensor to detect. It was quite slow to detect movement but would come on instantly when switching on the bathroom light. I'm not sure if it does this by detecting light or via some electrical trigger from the other lights. It might vary on other classes of ship, but I suspect that covering the sensor with tape may not prevent the light coming on when you don't want it to. Shame there isn't an on-off-auto switch so that you could set it as per your individual needs...

Just returned from a 14-might B2B on Enchanted in the Mediterranean. One formal and one 'dress to impress' might on each leg. I would say around 40-50% in 'formal' wear on each night, maybe slightly less on the dress to Impress nights. We did smart casual on the first one (D2I), expecting there to be a second formal night on the first leg, but when we realised there wasn't, we did formal on the D2I night on the second leg. Formal night participation seems to vary depending on region. There always seems to be more people in formal wear on the UK based cruises, probably because a greater proportion of the passengers will be Brits who haven't had to worry about airline baggage weight limits. But don't let formal nights put you off a cruise of you don't like dressing up, there will be plenty of others that don't dress up so you won't feel out of place.

The mounting plates were being welded on to the railings while I was onboard just week (on a sea day), and a couple days later the antennas were fitted, but they weren't up and running yet (internet was very slow but I didn't try speedtest). I would hope it would be live by the time you cruise though!

We didn't get recipe cards for our cocktails from Good Spirits on the Enchanted last week but the drinks were very nice and it was interesting to see them being made on the screens. Service also very good there.

Annoyingly you can't bookmark events that are already showing as full attendance

Currently on the 3rd night on Enchanted and have now dined in all 3 MDR's. Noise/vibrations were most noticeable in Santorini, which is deck 5 midships, which surprised us because we were expecting it to be worst in Amalfi (deck 6 aft). Hardly any noticeable engine noise/vibrations in the two deck 6 MDR's at all.

Mario Ciruzzi is now captain on Enchanted

I just had a similar email this morning for one of my DMW bookings on Enchanted Princess... "In order to serve you and your party at the highest levels of excellence, after careful review we determined that we need to make an adjustment to your dining location for the date below. A new dining reservation has already been arranged for you with your tablemates and is confirmed for you below at the closest available time. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your understanding." When I checked the app, the booking is now showing a shared table instead of the private table I booked. When I try to make another booking (for a different time/venue, it just says there's nothing available, so I guess I'll just have to go and join the walk-up queue, or go to the buffet instead. Sounds like someone has screwed up somewhere, I really hope this doesn't happen with all the other DMW bookings that I've made for the rest of the cruise!

They also allocate blocks of cabins to specific 2/3 week combinations of the rolling itineraries such as Europe where the ship does continuous Barcelona-Rome-Athens loops (where you book it as a single cruise but actually it's a B2B). We booked a forward mini suite on the Royal a few years ago but then discovered one of the corner minis (with the bigger balcony) was available for other combinations that overlapped our cruise. Called UK customer services to ask to switch but they said they couldn't do it, so tried again later in the evening after UK office hours had finished (so the call got routed through to US CS office), and they were more than happy to switch the cabin allocations so we could have the one we really wanted, no extra charge. YMMV obviously...

You can't bookmark events that are showing as "reached full capacity". While this doesn't actually prevent you from physically attending, it's still quite annoying, especially if it's something you fancy attending and may be likely to forget about one you've already had a few cocktails!

We did this excursion a couple years ago and took the lift up and down, the town was busy but I don't remember there being any queue, or more than a couple minutes wait for the lift. Probably spent longer waiting for the lifts on the ship!

It probably varies depending on the performers. The app is showing some shows for my upcoming cruise, mostly the stuff mentioned in emails which I guess is done by the resident entertainers, plus one of the guest vocalists, but there's still lots of gaps which will probably be filled by other guest entertainers who haven't yet joined the ship

The retractable handle on my suitcase got bent somewhere between my cabin door and the baggage hall after disembarking the Regal in Southampton a couple years ago. Looks like someone had extended the handle then knocked the case over against a wall or something. I didn't think to report it at the time but managed to source a replacement handle online, sent a copy of the invoice to Princess customer services and a week or two later a cheque arrived in the post finding the cost in full. Hats off to Princess, YMMV. Baggage handlers have no reason to use the retractable handle so on my next cruise I'll take some cable ties to secure it.

I can't imagine the wind on the bump out balconies would be significantly different from any other side-facing cabins one the ship. We sailed in the aftmost cabin on the port side of Lido deck on the Sapphire which is angled outwards to meet the bit where the full height windows around the pool area begin, and there was no problem with wind at all, just a slightly bigger balcony and better views than most other cabins on the side of the ship!

We had L107 on the Royal a couple years ago in the Mediterranean, absolutely magnificent, especially sailing in and out of Kotor. It can get a little wild up there when sailing in to a headwind, a couple times we had to tuck the deck furniture underneath the sloping metal frontage on the diseases facing part of the balcony to stop it blowing around, but that was not a problem for us. The internal layout of the forward corner cabins differs slightly between Lido and marina deck. There are a few reviews on YouTube that show the differences.

We tried the Vivaldi, Pacific moon and the Savoy over the first three nights when we cruised on the Sapphire back in 2019, and decided we preferred the Savoy so returned there every night for the rest of the cruise. The waiters in all 3 were great, but they recognised us in Savoy when we started returning the same time each evening so we usually got the same table/waiters. Savoy seemed less crowded and more relaxed than the other two we tried, although the Maitre D' assured me that all rooms had pretty much the same seating capacity. Maybe the darker wood paneling and decor had a calming effect on me!

Does anyone know, or has anyone heard whether Princess will be showing the coronation of King Charles III on the MUTS screens on board any of the ships? Looks like Sky Princess will be sailing from Southampton on 6th May so I guess they might show it on there, but I'll be on Enchanted Princess setting sail from Barcelona that day, and I'd like to see it.

We took our insulated Bodum coffee cups on the 3-nighter to Rotterdam in 2021 but the IC refused to fill them, they told us it was agaisnt H&S rules and we had to use the disposable cups instead. This was just a couple months after the post-covid restart and there were still lots of restrictions in place, so maybe it was because of that. Just wondering whether it's worth packing them for our med cruise on Enchanted this May or not?

Looks like they got taken to Great Yarmouth, hope they're ok.