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Semi *LIVE* from the Emerald!


socaljo
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Good Morning CC!!

Heading out today on the Emerald for the Cabo San Lucas Getaway! It's my 10th Princess cruise. Usually I'm cruising with DH, this time I'm cruising with a newbie! My pal, is celebrating her birthday, and begged her DH to take her on a cruise (she's had to listen to my cruise tales for 20 years!), finally he exclaimed, "can't you get one of your girls to go with you??" SCORE! Tough duty, but I volunteered for the action... brave of me, huh?? ;p

 

I'm referring to this as Semi-LIVE, because it won't be my priority, relaxing is the first order of business! I'll be glad to answer questions as I can, I'll save the Patters for reference later.

We are from Southern California, close to the port. We'll be staying in Caribe 102. We'll be heading to the port arriving just before 11, just because we can sit still any longer! And DH is really tired of listening to me! Are we there yet??????? IT'S FINALLY CRUISE DAY!!! More from on board!

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Look forward to your "semi-live" review as we'll be on the Emerald next week sailing 11/17. Although I've sailed extensively on other lines, this will be our first Princess cruise.

 

First and foremost, ENJOY! then post as time allows ;)

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If you make it to Wheelhouse tell Darshawn, Chris, Bruno, Mike, and Anne Marie that "Tallisker Michael" says, "HI!" and if you see a tall young man from Jamaica named Noel also tell him that "Mom and Pop" say "HI!".

 

You could also let all of them know they were mentioned by name on the Princess survey. :cool:

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If you make it to Wheelhouse tell Darshawn, Chris, Bruno, Mike, and Anne Marie that "Tallisker Michael" says, "HI!" and if you see a tall young man from Jamaica named Noel also tell him that "Mom and Pop" say "HI!".

 

You could also let all of them know they were mentioned by name on the Princess survey. :cool:

 

You can also tell them the evening Wheelhouse crew were as a group mentioned on the Princess survey for ignoring customers while they hooped and hollered around the bar so loud that the singer on stage could not be heard. When we did get waited on it was only because we stood and waved down a waiter.

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Good Morning all!! Sorry for such a delay in reporting back to you! Embarkation was a breeze....but sailaway was delayed a couple of hours because the internet was down. IT guys came on board and had us underway just before 6pm.

We've had smooth seas, wonderful sea day yesterday. Last night we had our formal night, surprised many that it was so early in the cruise! We are doing late trad dining. I really wanted her to have the old-school cruise experience. We ate some lunch from HC yesterday, took it out back by the Retreat Pool. When we were done, she said, "where do we put our dishes?" Oh no, I said, we don't do anything but walk away, I pointed out a server, and said, look, she's waiting to clean up after us! :)

Today we get to Cabo mid-day. We are going on the ship excursion to ride horses on the beach. Really looking forward to that! My pal has been thoroughly enjoying her Virgin Cruise, as she's calling it!

More sooner or later!! Thanks for following along!!

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You can also tell them the evening Wheelhouse crew were as a group mentioned on the Princess survey for ignoring customers while they hooped and hollered around the bar so loud that the singer on stage could not be heard. When we did get waited on it was only because we stood and waved down a waiter.

 

While I agree the rowdiness at the bar was excessive I'm surprised at your lack of service. My wife and I were served readily both at the seating where we could see Phillipa and in the front section. While we couldn't see her when sitting in the front section it was easier to hear due to the speakers and the fact that it was around the corner from the bar.

 

I don't think the bar staff had much of a say over the loudness at the bar. They are there to serve the customers at the bar and make drinks for the roaming servers. I doubt very much that they are allowed to tell passengers to settle down and be quieter. I did notice that, despite the noise, Phillipa packed the venue every time she played there. I would imagine she is pretty much guaranteed another Princess contract if she wants one. (Just PLEASE don't ask her - or Sarah - to play Sweet Caroline!)

 

A large part of the reason for the noise was the fact that they had Happy Hour in there twice a day. It got really loud and crazy at those times. Also the fact that they have crammed the Salty Dog in the same space caused issues as the entire "table area" was marked as reserved for that venue many times. They really need to move that somewhere else and get back the space.

Edited by Thrak
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Hi Jo,

 

It's me, Tracy, from the Crown SA cruise in January! Have a fabulous cruise (with none of the "issues" we had in January!), will be following your Semi-Live enviously. We don't sail again until Nov '18....on the Royal down to the ABC Islands. That will be our "make up" cruise from SA!

 

Cheers,

Tracy

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SocialJo,

I'm just curious about the nightlife above decks at the outdoor bar areas. On some recent cruises aboard NCL, the pool bar area was shut down by 8:30 or so! That left the only bars open down below deck. Are the outdoor venues open late in the evening aboard the Emerald Princess?

Thom

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While I agree the rowdiness at the bar was excessive I'm surprised at your lack of service. My wife and I were served readily both at the seating where we could see Phillipa and in the front section. While we couldn't see her when sitting in the front section it was easier to hear due to the speakers and the fact that it was around the corner from the bar.

 

I don't think the bar staff had much of a say over the loudness at the bar. They are there to serve the customers at the bar and make drinks for the roaming servers. I doubt very much that they are allowed to tell passengers to settle down and be quieter. I did notice that, despite the noise, Phillipa packed the venue every time she played there. I would imagine she is pretty much guaranteed another Princess contract if she wants one. (Just PLEASE don't ask her - or Sarah - to play Sweet Caroline!)

 

A large part of the reason for the noise was the fact that they had Happy Hour in there twice a day. It got really loud and crazy at those times. Also the fact that they have crammed the Salty Dog in the same space caused issues as the entire "table area" was marked as reserved for that venue many times. They really need to move that somewhere else and get back the space.

 

Thrak,

You are correct about Phillipa packing the place. There were a couple of times when we sat in the front section as that was the only empty seats except for the dozens of empty seats always found in the Salty Dog dinning section. I wonder how much more revenue Princess would have received had they used the Salty Dog area for lounge seating and sold drinks instead of the food offered. It has been my observation that both the Salty Dog and Share dinning venues are failures from a revenue standpoint and a return to the former uses for those spaces would be more profitable for Princess.

 

Phillipa also seemed reluctant to sing Me and Bobby McGee. We heard her sing it when she performed in the Explorers Lounge and she did a fabulous job but may have hurt her throat doing the growling-like voice section of the song. Later at the Wheelhouse we requested that song and she declined to sing it. We saw Susan perform with Phillipa on Halloween evening when she was costumed as the Incredible Hulk. That was hilarious.

 

The last evening we were in the Wheelhouse one of the staff was behind the bar goofing off in some big dinosaur costume. This was well after Halloween. Three waiters and one waitress were standing near the bar watching the clowning around behind the bar. This went on for ten minutes at least while we sat trying to get the attention of one of them so we could order drinks. There were 4 of us and we finally got up and left.

As we walked past the servers who could not be bothered with doing their job, I told one of them that the Wheelhouse would be a good place to drink if only a person could get waited on.

In over 30 cruises on Princess, this is the only time I have encountered servers in a lounge who exhibited such disregard for doing their duty.

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If you make it to Wheelhouse tell Darshawn, Chris, Bruno, Mike, and Anne Marie that "Tallisker Michael" says, "HI!" and if you see a tall young man from Jamaica named Noel also tell him that "Mom and Pop" say "HI!".

 

You could also let all of them know they were mentioned by name on the Princess survey. :cool:

 

You can also tell them the evening Wheelhouse crew were as a group mentioned on the Princess survey for ignoring customers while they hooped and hollered around the bar so loud that the singer on stage could not be heard. When we did get waited on it was only because we stood and waved down a waiter.

 

Sorry to hear you had such bad service at the Wheelhouse.

We were there almost every night before dinner (6:30 - 7:30) and had such wonderful service that we also mentioned them (in a positive way) on the survey.

I never saw them being loud (although on a couple of occasions some of the younger passengers

were very loud) and we thought they were amongst some of the best , most attentive bar staff on the ship.

 

To the OP (socaljo)

Whatever you do make sure you go to ALL of Dave's music trivias in the evening. We have never attended a trivia before this cruise but fortunately caught one (in Explorer) near the beginning of the cruise and thereafter attended every single one. Dave is not only a great singer and great entertainer but an absolute riot.

He's by far the best CD we've ever had in our 40 plus cruises!!!! :D

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The only place we had difficulty getting served was Explorers. We practically had to wave pom poms in order to get service. We saw a lot of folks trying to get the attention of the servers there. Weird.

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We had wonderful service at the Wheelhouse Bar on our month-long cruise last month to Hawaii, Tahiti and Samoa. Happy hour was a zoo, but that's what happy hours are supposed to be--people getting together and having lots of fun. Each time we entered the Wheelhouse bar, the bar staff met us at the door, and immediately sought seating for us. Service did take longer than at other venues, but that was because the Wheelhouse was packed, not because the servers weren't working. All we saw were servers working as fast as they could to serve everyone as quickly as possible. That goes to show how two people can look at the same event and see totally different things.

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