keldaria

I think the point that matters is when conditions are ideal the place will be swamped. When it’s too sunny or windy doesn’t matter since I won’t be as inclined to use the space ether. Yes the suite only area wouldn’t necessarily hold all 80 suite guests but on perfect days I have to imagine the ship crew would’ve accounted for this by making less passes available to control population. Now the sanctuary is guaranteed on ideal days to be over capacity.

What sailing date if you don’t mind me asking. And are you confirming that you can see both options on your dinner reservations in your D0 booking?

Doubtful. It’ll still be the same spaces most likely but no idea if the reserve and signature will function as one, or still operate as 2 separate dining areas with different guest lists.

Hmmm, I’m curious if their system if bugging out or if they are low key offering premier to suite guest that ask. I have the premier upgrade active on my reservation but only because I purchased the upgrade. Guests 3, 4 and 5 however do not and I can still see they don’t. I guess it’s about time I called in myself since my email doesn’t seem to have gotten a response. Would go a long way to soothing my annoyance with this announcement if we all got premier for free or even if guest 3, 4 and 5 did.

Depends on how it happens. When I say merged, I don’t mean physically merged, as you and others have pointed out that is impractical with the kitchen between them. When I say merged I mean the guest list making it a free for all first come first served where either restaurant goes for anyone. That’s not the sort of exclusive experience we paid extra for and ultimately the signature restaurant appears located in a nicer spot right off the plaza making it likely a more attractive target if it’s a free for all and less likely to not be packed if everyone is given the choice. I’m a pretty reasonable guy and don’t complain much but if I can’t walk straight in and sit down every night like was promoted because they merged the lists for the dining areas I’ll be upset to say the least. It’s not about who I’m sitting next to, it’s about paying for an area that’s exclusive and purposely designed to be underbooked so it is always available for suite guest and then potentially not getting it. Yes the reserve would be available then assuming the sanctuary class isn’t oversold from grandfathered cabanas and such but still not the experience advertised. This isn’t going to be a cheap trip for my family, I just want what was promised when I made the deposit or at least some consideration when selling me an “upgrade” that is just a degradation of the original service I was promised. I don’t take nicely to Princess gas lighting me over an expensive trip, especially when they don’t even have it all figured out before they decided to do it. It would be one thing if it was all clearly defined so I could plan accordingly to cancel or stick it out, but now I’m essentially stuck making a go/nogo choice based on speculation.

Same way they know regular people have premier, plus or nothing. It’s attached to your account which your medallion brings up. its a common bit of confusion. The email they sent is incredibly misleading suggesting suites are getting upgrades (they aren’t) and implying premier is now included. But if you click the “learn more” link, it’ll take you to the sanctuary page where you can scroll down to see the FAQ where this is located.

I don’t believe that because it would’ve be clearly stated that signature is exclusive to suites like the lounge was. I think some sort of merging of co-mingling will occur which is why they reference private dining instead of coming right out with it.

Not according to the official FAQ https://www.princess.com/en-us/ships-and-experience/onboard-experience/sanctuary-collection

I’m right there with you and unfortunately there really isn’t a good way to know at this stage. the more I think about the private dining situation the more I wonder if suites will maintain their access to the signature but rather than a full merger, I wonder if they’ll just take a small portion of the non-suite sanctuary class cabins and move them into the signature restaurant so they can have a little better balance between the 2 and not as much congestion at the reserve restaurant. I mean the space doesn’t make it easy to merge them and allowing a free for all between the 2 would mean potentially a lot of mad suite guest. It wouldn’t be hard to take 15-20% of the non-suite guests and say “congratulations your private dining is at the signature restaurant” and leave the rest in the reserve.

Long term? Sure, short term all C1 and C2 cabins are grandfathered in to private dining based on their prior reserve status. Last I checked those were all sold out on my cruise next April (most cruses in general since a cabana mini-suite on the cabana deck plus reserve dining proved to be a popular combination) so in effect it will be more crowded until the grandfathered status works it way out of the bookings.

Suites already had access to the entire area at no additional cost plus a private suite only area that’s been removed. Everyone else could buy into the sanctuary space for $100 a day but not the suite only area. The “Upgrade” for suite passengers is losing their exclusive area and gaining nothing. Passes for the sanctuary were also limited in availability. The number of people was effectively capped in both scenarios but suites still had a private area before that.

I’m fairly certain suites had access to both the sanctuary and the signature sun deck before. So they had access to the entire area but had a private suite only area within that area which has now disappeared.

I have, still waiting on a response. Will try other methods of contact if I’ve not seen a response to my email by tomorrow.

I wouldn't put too much faith in that. Those are left over descriptions from before sanctuary collection was announced. If you look at the mini-suites they still reference that some have reserve collection benefits. "Enjoy Reserve Collection upgrades on select Mini-Suites. In addition to the great amenities found in all Mini-Suites, you will receive Reserve Collection upgrades, including access to the Reserve Collection Restaurant.". These are just left overs from the original setup. I have no doubt they will be cleaned up and updated in the coming days. My expectation is that all sanctuary collection benefits will be offered to every cabin in the collection and that the only suite exclusive area will be the Suite Lounge since they specifically went out of their way to state this. If they intended to keep the dining areas or sanctuary areas separate they would be also indicating this too. They are effectively attempting to side step the issue in an attempt to keep from upsetting the suite class cabins which are loosing exclusive benefits they otherwise paid for.

Ahh, I understand. Didn’t realize this was an old gripe. Just that nothing changed this time around.