Emerald Princess south pacific 21/1/2017

Hi everyone,

My wife & i ( 25 & 31 ) are looking at booking this cruise for a couple of reasons 1. we like the itinerary with 5 port stops 2. Great price for 11 nights.

After doing some light research we haven't been able to find heaps of info on this boat but i haver a few questions people may be able to answer for us.

1. The age group of this cruise.

Now i know on any cruise you will get a wide variety of ages but we went to book through an agent and she was basically trying to talk us out of this cruise saying we would potentially be the youngest on the boat? would this be true we read that being school holidays you would get family and kids ( which we are fine with )

2. The food in the dining rooms.

I have been looking for a picture of an up to date menu just to get a feel for the food, we have heard lots of great feedback on the food but with everything there is negative as well. Again the agent suggested the menu may be aimed at the older crowd? how I'm not sure but just curious to see.

3. Entertainment.

Now were not to fussed about the entertainment we would be happy to relax and sit next to the pool for the cruise days / nights but what is the entertainment on board? We enjoy comedy shows & funny game shows but get a little bored with the stage shows on other cruises we have been on.

Any info you guys can provide us with would be a great help.

Thanks

Hi everyone,

 

My wife & i ( 25 & 31 ) are looking at booking this cruise for a couple of reasons 1. we like the itinerary with 5 port stops 2. Great price for 11 nights.

 

After doing some light research we haven't been able to find heaps of info on this boat but i haver a few questions people may be able to answer for us.

 

1. The age group of this cruise.

Now i know on any cruise you will get a wide variety of ages but we went to book through an agent and she was basically trying to talk us out of this cruise saying we would potentially be the youngest on the boat? would this be true we read that being school holidays you would get family and kids ( which we are fine with )

 

2. The food in the dining rooms.

I have been looking for a picture of an up to date menu just to get a feel for the food, we have heard lots of great feedback on the food but with everything there is negative as well. Again the agent suggested the menu may be aimed at the older crowd? how I'm not sure but just curious to see.

 

3. Entertainment.

Now were not to fussed about the entertainment we would be happy to relax and sit next to the pool for the cruise days / nights but what is the entertainment on board? We enjoy comedy shows & funny game shows but get a little bored with the stage shows on other cruises we have been on.

 

Any info you guys can provide us with would be a great help.

 

Thanks

I have not sailed out of Australia so things might be different there. On the Princess cruises I have taken out of the USA, Canada, and the UK I would say the overwhelming majority of passengers are over 60. Families and young adults are more common on 7 day or shorter cruises.

There have been comedians, other entertainers, and funny game shows on all the 25+ Princess cruises that I have been on.

Welcome to Cruise Critic, cahorb! If you are looking for a mostly laid back cruise, Princess will be perfect for you. And yes, during school breaks, there will be a great deal more families and younger cruisers!

The food on Princess is wonderful. In the formal dining room (MDR) they serve a wonderful variety each night. I love trying new things there, like a Twice Baked Goat Cheese Souffle (just typing that name made my mouth water!) Beef Wellington, Ox tail, different fish dishes...on the ship, try it, if you like it & want more, they'll bring another! If you don't, it is whisked away and replaced with another delightful choice! No problem! It really makes the dining experience unique!

And to satisfy the cravings many of us have...there is a burger grill & pizza kitchen alongside one of the pools, open about 18 hours or so a day! :p A soft serve ice cream counter waiting to make you a cone, a specialty coffee bar, warm chocolate chip cookies & milk by the pools in the afternoon... are you packing yet??? :p

Entertainment is quite varied! Its really subjective, we enjoy everything from MUTS showing 1st run movies (ones still in the theaters!) to the comedians. Try it all, you've nothing to lose! :D Even the Chef's cooking demonstrations are fun to watch & often hilarious!

If its a good time for you to go, a good price, and you enjoy meeting those in other age groups, you'll have a great trip. You may even hear a few ideas for future trips! We're crossing one off our Bucket List in 52 days! Sailing around Cape Horn! :D

Happy Sailing!

I'm on this cruise with my family - husband and x3 teens, so yes a variety of ages.....I'm not sure what is with your TA advising you against the cruise because she predicts you will be the youngest on board????

Sorry can't offer any advice for you as this will be our very first cruise, I've had a look at the princess menus from past cruises extensively and the food looks wonderful and I'm not cooking....so happy there.

If the entertainment is not to our taste then we will find something else to do, see, watch, eat.....I think the options are wide and varied so that doesn't strike me as a problem.

I aim to have a wonderful, relaxing and at the same time busy holiday with my family aboard the lovely Emerald whatever the demographics.

I can only comment in general as Emerald is only now just arriving in our region.

There is plenty of choice in the menus in the dining rooms, more so than other cruise lines IMHO. The Princess dinner menu features four courses, most other cruise lines only have three courses. The buffets are also very good, although we mostly go there for lunch.

Yes, it is in school holidays so there will probably be families on board, but there may also be a fair percentage of us older folk. 11 nights isn't a long cruise in Australian terms so there may well be more younger folk onboard than, say, on a cruise like our last one which was 20 nights.

There is a wide variety of shows onboard, sometimes two per night. The variety shows on Princess are excellent, better than most other cruise lines - very high energy. We're not fond of comedy shows so I can't comment on those but I've heard people say they are very good. There are usually a range of entertainers at various locations thoughout the ship.

Hope this helps.

Hi everyone,

 

My wife & i ( 25 & 31 ) are looking at booking this cruise for a couple of reasons 1. we like the itinerary with 5 port stops 2. Great price for 11 nights.

 

After doing some light research we haven't been able to find heaps of info on this boat but i haver a few questions people may be able to answer for us.

 

1. The age group of this cruise.

Now i know on any cruise you will get a wide variety of ages but we went to book through an agent and she was basically trying to talk us out of this cruise saying we would potentially be the youngest on the boat? would this be true we read that being school holidays you would get family and kids ( which we are fine with )

 

2. The food in the dining rooms.

I have been looking for a picture of an up to date menu just to get a feel for the food, we have heard lots of great feedback on the food but with everything there is negative as well. Again the agent suggested the menu may be aimed at the older crowd? how I'm not sure but just curious to see.

 

3. Entertainment.

Now were not to fussed about the entertainment we would be happy to relax and sit next to the pool for the cruise days / nights but what is the entertainment on board? We enjoy comedy shows & funny game shows but get a little bored with the stage shows on other cruises we have been on.

 

Any info you guys can provide us with would be a great help.

 

Thanks

We are 30. Last year we did an identical cruise with princess at exactly the same time. Your travel agent sounds a tad narrow minded.

Although majority of passengers are older. There is definitely a younger group with lively bars and nightclub. Princess provided good entertainment and food.

In terms of timing its placed half in/half out of school holidays so we found it still atracted uni students but not so much young school kids.

We met several people our age. Had a wonderful table with other 25 to 30ish.

Old people are definitely not boring :)

I only cruise premium or above. Enjoy the slight refinement to cruising. Along with improved itineraries.

If you want to live in shorts and partcipate in belly flop contests. Then no dont book princess.

Ps i enjoyed it so much im also traveling on sun princess to png departing 22nd jan

Thanks for all the helpful information everyone, its been a great help.

We have a bit of thinking to do, any other experiences would be greatly appreciated.

:):)

One thing... it's a ship, not a boat!

Hi everyone,

 

My wife & i ( 25 & 31 ) are looking at booking this cruise for a couple of reasons 1. we like the itinerary with 5 port stops 2. Great price for 11 nights.

 

After doing some light research we haven't been able to find heaps of info on this boat but i haver a few questions people may be able to answer for us.

 

1. The age group of this cruise.

Now i know on any cruise you will get a wide variety of ages but we went to book through an agent and she was basically trying to talk us out of this cruise saying we would potentially be the youngest on the boat? would this be true we read that being school holidays you would get family and kids ( which we are fine with )

 

2. The food in the dining rooms.

I have been looking for a picture of an up to date menu just to get a feel for the food, we have heard lots of great feedback on the food but with everything there is negative as well. Again the agent suggested the menu may be aimed at the older crowd? how I'm not sure but just curious to see.

 

3. Entertainment.

Now were not to fussed about the entertainment we would be happy to relax and sit next to the pool for the cruise days / nights but what is the entertainment on board? We enjoy comedy shows & funny game shows but get a little bored with the stage shows on other cruises we have been on.

 

Any info you guys can provide us with would be a great help.

 

Thanks

Hi Cahrob,

me and my husband are a bit older than you but I've been cruising with Princess since my youngest was 18 months so I think I can give you some good feedback. I'm also going on this cruise.

The food is good, can be hit and miss at some times but overall is good.

The Pizza on the pool deck is amazing! You can get burgers and chips on the pool deck as well.

I've been on the Diamond Princess and The Golden Princess so far and the ships are amazing.

If you are going to get a balcony cabin get one on Deck Ten where the balcony's are huge.

The staff are amazing and friendly.

Watching Movies Under the Stars is a great experience.

There is a real variety of ages on board but since it is a school holiday cruise there may be younger families on board.

I never go an watch the production shows, they don't interest me. There is plenty of other things to do, trivia, Movies Under the Stars, Skywalkers disco.

Enjoy!

It's still school holidays in Australia and you will get a lot of young families with school aged children. I've been on a New Zealand cruise on the Sea Princess during similar time, and I think the average age came down to 40 as told by the Cruise Director during one of the welcome shows. There were around 600 children under the age of 18 on the cruise.

Being a South Pacific cruise, the average age should go down even further.

I did this (almost exact) cruise last January and we are in the process of booking this one. It was the most relaxing cruise we have ever done. If you are a history buff and want highly educational shore excursions, this is not the cruise for you. If you love to snorkel and relax on amazing beaches, it is perfect. The only port I would skip is Noumea. I am going to look for a shore excursion I like or just stay on board. We did take a couple of short excursions with locals at the port. Negotiate, especially mid-day.

We are a newly retired couple in our 60s.

Hi everyone. My wife and I are on this cruise. Can anyone tell me if Ozzie dollars are okay to take ashore or must you change your money into local currency. Thanks in advance

This is discussed on the Australia/NZ forum fairly regularly:

Here are two recent(ish) threads:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2226944&highlight=currency

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2410217&highlight=currency

I plan to get a little bit of south pacific francs from noumea and maybe some small denominations of PNG Kina.

It's still school holidays in Australia and you will get a lot of young families with school aged children. I've been on a New Zealand cruise on the Sea Princess during similar time, and I think the average age came down to 40 as told by the Cruise Director during one of the welcome shows. There were around 600 children under the age of 18 on the cruise.

 

Being a South Pacific cruise, the average age should go down even further.

Crikey...600 under 18 :eek: That must have been 'interesting'.

Cahorb - You could be lucky with a Jan 21 cruise, as schools resume on Jan 23 in Qld and a week later in the southern states. Not to dampen your enthusiasm, but there could be a cyclone about at that time.

I suggest that Australians/NZ'ers interested in the Emerald Princess will get some helpful information if they look at the 'Australian and New Zealand Cruisers' section of this forum. There have been a couple of threads on the Emerald Princess. We just returned from the 48 night cruise from the UK and there were several younger people, particularly on the leg from Singapore (18 nights). There would have been a few hundred young people (under 40) and several children.

As someone else mentioned, an 11 night cruise is not a long cruise in Australian terms. Generally, longer cruises (21 nights plus) attract an older demographic. South Pacific cruises attract a higher percentage of young people compared with (for instance) around Australia or to NZ.

Hi everyone. My wife and I are on this cruise. Can anyone tell me if Ozzie dollars are okay to take ashore or must you change your money into local currency. Thanks in advance

I did this cruise last year and only brought Aussie dollars and had no problems at all.

Evening - my wife and I have now booked on this cruise after a couple of years break - dangerous to get back into the habit though - we booked 2 in 2 days!

We look forward to meeting up with everyone on board.

Warren and Sue