My Review Sun Princess 1/10/10

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Kate, I notice you've got a blue Princess bag. Does that come with the room or do you have to buy it?Thanks

Kerri:)

 

I believe its something new they are giving out to all Princess cruisers.

Any one else got one yet?

[karmac]

Really enjoying your review Kate. Shame we didn't cruise together.....we may have done ok in the music trivia:). We just did back to back cruises and I missed the country music trivia on both cruises because, although music trivia was at 9:30 every other night, for some resaon the country music one was on at 8:30 (yes, both times:mad:) and we were booked in for dinner at 8. I was not a happy chappy. I love country music.

As for the 50's & 60's music trivia- I don't know if you read my reviews or not but on the first cruise, I (yes, little old lonely me...well, not so little) got 19/22 (hubby was with me but he just came along for the beer) and the winning team of 6 got 20/22 AND they got 3 bonus points for getting up &making a fool of themselves. On the second cruise, we had friends with us so there were 6 of us (although they kept threatening to leave because they weren't "needed") and we won:D. Music is my thing when it comes to trivia.

How did you enjoy the linedancing? I go linedancing every week and love it.

[kezza]

Princess bag will be great. Won 't need to bring a bag for the islands:):D

 

I've got the cases out but have started packing yet:eek: I'll start tomorrow:D

 

Kerri

[pamesacruisin]

We got a blue bag on our Sun Aussie Cruise in September. It was in our room the first day. Used it alot, every time we went in to Port. You always knew who your fellow cruise passengers were with them all carrying blue bags:cool:

Pam

[tompaddyelle]

Really enjoying your review Kate. Shame we didn't cruise together.....we may have done ok in the music trivia:). We just did back to back cruises and I missed the country music trivia on both cruises because, although music trivia was at 9:30 every other night, for some resaon the country music one was on at 8:30 (yes, both times:mad:) and we were booked in for dinner at 8. I was not a happy chappy. I love country music.

As for the 50's & 60's music trivia- I don't know if you read my reviews or not but on the first cruise, I (yes, little old lonely me...well, not so little) got 19/22 (hubby was with me but he just came along for the beer) and the winning team of 6 got 20/22 AND they got 3 bonus points for getting up &making a fool of themselves. On the second cruise, we had friends with us so there were 6 of us (although they kept threatening to leave because they weren't "needed") and we won:D. Music is my thing when it comes to trivia.

How did you enjoy the linedancing? I go linedancing every week and love it.

 

Gee we needed you!

 

We had no idea on the 50s and 60s stuff. I even ran around and grabbed the cruise director to get extra points and we still lost!!

 

I absolutely loved line dancing and was nominated as the "champion dancer" of the cruise! :D I had never done it before but have done ballet, jazz and tap for many years so I give any type of dancing a go.

Must look for line dancing classes here because you have so much fun you don't realise you are exercising! Gee I sound like a promotions woman for line dancing!! :eek:

[tompaddyelle]

Kate, I notice you've got a blue Princess bag. Does that come with the room or do you have to buy it?

 

Thanks

 

Kerri:)

 

Hi Kerri,

 

we are trying to remember but I think they put the bags on our beds on the 2nd night (too much alcohol had killed the brain cells) :o

 

The bag was great for going to port to carry our water, sunscreen and reef shoes. Just the right size.

[Kinkacruiser]

I have to agree the photos make a huge differnce....a wonderful read Kate, you are a great ad for Princess Cruises. I hope they contact you for their next promo.;)

Cheers

Anna

[karmac]

Gee we needed you!

 

We had no idea on the 50s and 60s stuff. I even ran around and grabbed the cruise director to get extra points and we still lost!!

 

I absolutely loved line dancing and was nominated as the "champion dancer" of the cruise! :D I had never done it before but have done ballet, jazz and tap for many years so I give any type of dancing a go.

Must look for line dancing classes here because you have so much fun you don't realise you are exercising! Gee I sound like a promotions woman for line dancing!! :eek:

 

What area of Sydney are you in? I'm in Liverpool. I go to clases every Tuesday at Austral and a social once a month at Austral & once a month at Penrith.

[Grey Nomad]

This is one of the best reviews I have read. Just came on tonight after a few days of not looking and was disappointed when I came to the end.

[tompaddyelle]

Noumea today!

 

Woke up at 8.30 and lay in bed watching a movie, slothlike I know!

 

After dragging myself to breakfast we went ashore.

We had to catch a bus to the town centre because we were docked at the container terminal.

Noumea isn't a pretty town at all. It's very industrial and the buildings are quite plain.

 

So once we were dropped at the cruise centre DH went and booked a city tour for $15 each. It was for 1 1/2 hours.

 

 

Our tour guide was an Australian girl whose family was from Noumea so she was very knowledgeable.

 

The other people on our tour were great so we had a wonderful time touring around Noumea.

 

 

 

 

After the tour we shopped then returned to the ship for lunch in the dining room.

 

The movie today was "The Losers" and it was held in the Vista lounge. well I lasted about half way through it and had to leave. I just can't sit through bad movies!

 

I was a rainy day so we decided to have a spa at the aft of the ship. The water was sooooooooo hot so we had to sit on the edge of the spa in the rain to cool down!

 

We got ready for dinner, dined then went to the casino.

Dh won on roulette! Finally!

 

After drinking too much with our fellow tour compadres we went to bed. A great night!

[tompaddyelle]

Woke up sad today because we knew we were heading home!:(

 

Whilst at breakfast in the Horizon Court the captain came on announcing that we would be getting rough seas.

We were really rocking and rolling which is not a great thing when you are sitting high up in the front of the ship (where the Horizon court is).

 

Well I started to feel a bit iffy so I went back to the cabin took a tablet then went and sat outside in the fresh air.

 

You feel so much better when you can get a breeze on your face.

 

Line dancing was at 10.30 today out on the Riviera deck (good thing we weren't in the Vista Lounge as it would have been very bumpy back there!)

 

 

Romeo asked me to be his assistant today so I danced at the back of the group so that when we all turned around they could copy me :o

 

I volunteered to stay on the next cruise to assist him again but *sigh* he didn't take me up on my offer :confused::confused: LOL

 

The sun was shining by this time so I changed in to my swimmers and lay in the sun. The tablet must have kicked in by this time because I started nodding off. Sleeping in the sun = a very sunburnt kate so I dragged myself back to the cabin and slept for 3 hours!!

 

To wake me up my DH dragged me to the spa. The boiling hot water did the trick!!

 

The smaller round thing is one of the spas at the aft of the ship.

 

Once we were "cooked" we jumped out and got dressed for formal night.

[tompaddyelle]

Well for some reason I didn't take any photos of us on formal night! :confused:

 

I think I must have still been groggy from the tablet I took, who knows.

Lucky one of my friends took photos of the food.

 

So if I remember I had lobster

 

 

Then we had to all stand up and swing our serviettes in the air as firstly the chefs paraded and then the waiters came out with the Baked Alaska (or whatever it is called.)

 

Which looked like this when cut and served:

 

 

Way too sweet for me but then I don't have a sweet tooth.

 

We didn't do much that night at all. We tried to watch a magician/comedian but he was as interesting as watching paint dry so we left in the middle of it.

 

I think we finally gave up and watched a movie in our cabin ......... such party animals again! :o

[tompaddyelle]

What area of Sydney are you in? I'm in Liverpool. I go to clases every Tuesday at Austral and a social once a month at Austral & once a month at Penrith.

 

Karen I used to live in the Liverpool area several years ago but now live on the Central coast. I am sure I will find classes up here if I ring the local council :D

Until then I will keep boogeying around the house :):)

[tompaddyelle]

Well I slept in as per usual with DH off to the gym as per usual!

 

Apparently gym was a real social hotspot but I was happy to let DH do all the socialising whilst I slept.

 

We had our usual buffet breakfast then went back to our room to pack our bags *sigh* :(

We just wanted to get most of the bag packing out of the way so we would have more time for fun later.

 

We went and looked at the 75% sale in the Marquis dining room (useless) but at least I didn't spend any more money.

 

At 11am we went to the "Behind the scenes of production" talk and tour in the Princess Theatre. With four dancers in the family and a son that is into dance,drama and musical theatre this was of great interest to DH and I. Two performers, the head musicman (lol @ technical term) and the lighting and sounds man were on stage to answer question. After this we were able to come up on stage then take a look backstage.

 

Some of the costumes

 

The view from the stage:

 

 

It was lunchtime by then so we went and ate at Verdi's. we had to savour our final pizza

 

We headed to the Vista Lounge then for the passenger talent show. The man from our table was singing in it so we went to be his cheer squad.

It was so entertaining! There was a Japanese passenger who did a magic show. He was Hilarious and I found him the most entertaining thing I saw for the entire cruise! Princess should hire him!

 

A last sunbake on the aft deck was our we filled in the afternoon.

 

I find the wake mesmerising

[kezza]

Well Kate, have very much enjoyed your humerous review. We're off this afternoon to Sydney for our cruise on the Dawn tomorrow and your review and just added to all the excitement.

 

Thanks again for the photos and great review.

 

Kerri

[karmac]

Well Kate, have very much enjoyed your humerous review. We're off this afternoon to Sydney for our cruise on the Dawn tomorrow and your review and just added to all the excitement.

 

Thanks again for the photos and great review.

 

Kerri

 

Bon Voyage, Kerri. Hope you have a wonderful time:).

[tompaddyelle]

Well Kate, have very much enjoyed your humerous review. We're off this afternoon to Sydney for our cruise on the Dawn tomorrow and your review and just added to all the excitement.

 

Thanks again for the photos and great review.

 

Kerri

Have a great time Kerri! Wish I was sailing away too.

 

Make sure you take a lot of photos then come back and do a review like mine! Oh and have a few pina coladas for me after 8pm (they are only $3.99 then!)

[tompaddyelle]

Line dancing was at 5pm so I had to get ready for dinner so I could dance then dine plus we had to put our bags out in the hall. Oh I hated doing that!

 

Because it was the last class Romeo gave us all instructions for all the dances we had learnt

 

Before going to dinner we took some photos on the promenade deck

 

After farewelling our lovely waiters we headed for the show in the Princess Theatre. Tonight it was "save the Last dance." The show was quite good but as usual I felt sick sitting in that theatre. Next time I am going to take a ginger tablet before I go to a show.

 

We headed to the casino for a drink with some of our new friends. DH won again on Roulette!!

 

So we went to bed sadly knowing our wonderful holiday was coming to an end. :(

It's funny but there was such a sense of frantic energy all day on the ship as people tried to fit in all the "lasts" of their holidays!! :eek: A bit like the first say where people bustled around discovering things.

[tompaddyelle]

Well we set the alarm for 5.30am so we wouldn't miss our sail into Sydney.

 

By the time we got to the front of the ship it was packed.

 

The view was beautiful

 

After we docked we had breakfast and said goodbye to the people we had met. I really hate goodbyes!

 

Then I went around taking some last photos of the ship

 

Our disembarkation colour and number were Aqua 1 and we had to meet in the Vista Lounge at 9.40am. By the time we got there we had to walk back and exit the ship. They were running ahead of time.

Then "ding" we were off the ship!

I stood there blinking for a second because the whole process was so fast!

 

After going through customs we started our reverse trek back home. Once in the carpark I turned and took my final photo.

[Sandielle]

Thank you Kate! I am feeling that feeling with you all over again. Now, you need to get out there and book another one and get your countdown ticker posted.

 

(We try to have one booked ahead of our next cruise!) :)

[bongaree]

Kate - What a wonderful review. I really felt sad when I read your final day. I too hate putting the bags in the hall and looking down and seeing them all. What type of sea sickness tablets do you take. Even after 17 odd cruises I still get a bit iffy sometimes. I eat ginger - you know, the type you put in cakes. When we go next September I am goint to do the line dancing. I have always wanted to do it but was a bit shy going by myself but you have given me the confidence to try.

 

Thanks again. Hope to see you on a cruise sometime.

 

Janet:)

[tompaddyelle]

Now for the facts :)

 

THE CAST

 

Captain: Andrew Froude (still trying to figure out how the man stays so skinny with all that food surrounding him!)

Cruise Director: Mark Turner (quite liked him but several people told me that he reminded them of Norman Gunston!!)

Executive Chef: Michael Borns (thanks for feeding me :) )

Maitre D'Hotel: Luigi Pascale (Only saw him once )

 

 

THE STAFF

 

Were wonderful! Our room steward (who I realise I haven't mentioned) was Dennis. He did a great job and was a bit like The Phantom; you didn't see him much but you knew he had been there. The man even folded our clothes and lined up our shoes at the end of the bed!! He made sure my champagne was always icy cold (gotta love a man that does that!).

The drinks waiters at the pool, especially Haneef, were superb and remembered our drinks and card number very time! Hmmmmm ok so we drank a lot so that might be why they remembered us but they always called us by name and were always smiling! The cruise director's staff were great too and kept us all very entertained (I would so love that job!)

 

THE CRITIQUE

 

Well as you can tell from my review I loved it! Dh and I just loved the fact that you could do a lot or nothing at all.

I never felt crowded (well I did once when a lady trod on my shoe at line dancing and broke my shoe!!) and very rarely waited anywhere (oh except going back up the stairs after being in a tender. For some reason the "elderly" like to rush to the stairs then climb soooooooooo slowly! I just can't figure why they rush off the boat if they know they are going to be slow on the stairs :confused: )

The activities we did we enjoyed immensely but there was so much we didn't do. Apparently there was always a crowd at Bingo but we never went as that's just not our scene.

Oh and we enjoyed the "Power Hour" drinks; they were $3.99 and were available from 8pm until late. You had a choice of three cocktails and I think four types of beer. Let me tell you we made the most of it!

The photos were endless but we only bought 2 as some of them were icky! Plus they cost $19.95 each so they were a bit steep. We bought the 2 cruise DVDs because we seemed to always pop up in them. They play them on the Tv throughout the cruise so you can watch them before you buy them.

 

THE FOOD

 

I liked the dining room food especially the ice cream. It was divine!!

The Horizon court was good for breakfast but the rest of the time was yuck!

But as I mentioned in my review I hate buffets.

Verdi's was yummo and the Terrace grill was okay, nothing very exciting there.

 

 

THE FINALE

 

Will we be cruising again? You betcha!! DH is an addict now and is already planning our next trip. I think he had more fun than me!! He didn't suffer from any sea sickness and had a wonderful time meeting people (he met way more people than me.)

Next time we will be taking our children so I will be able to get a child's perspective of cruising.

 

Thanks for sailing along with me. Catch you all next time :)

[This_Beats_Working]

Wonderful review Kate. Why didn't you take the children this time. I assume they are still school age? Why did you pick this ship?

[tompaddyelle]

Wonderful review Kate. Why didn't you take the children this time. I assume they are still school age? Why did you pick this ship?

 

Hi!,

 

We didn't take the kids (aged 19,17,13 and 8) this time because we wanted to test the whole cruise thing by ourselves first (yep slack parents I know).

We didn't want to pay for 6 of us only to find out we hated the cruise experience. Well since we loved it we will be taking them next time :)

 

We picked the Sun Princess because one day we were in Sydney looking around Darling Harbour and there she was!

Well I fell in love there and then and swore that I would be on her the following year! (hmmmmm that sounds a bit rude if you didn't realise I was talking about a ship :o )

 

And since my DH spoils me rotten that's how we ended up the Sun Princess

 

Cheers

[The Fox]

Now for the facts :)

 

THE CAST

 

Captain: Andrew Froude (still trying to figure out how the man stays so skinny with all that food surrounding him!)

Cruise Director: Mark Turner (quite liked him but several people told me that he reminded them of Norman Gunston!!)

Executive Chef: Michael Borns (thanks for feeding me :) )

Maitre D'Hotel: Luigi Pascale (Only saw him once )

 

 

THE STAFF

 

Were wonderful! Our room steward (who I realise I haven't mentioned) was Dennis. He did a great job and was a bit like The Phantom; you didn't see him much but you knew he had been there. The man even folded our clothes and lined up our shoes at the end of the bed!! He made sure my champagne was always icy cold (gotta love a man that does that!).

The drinks waiters at the pool, especially Haneef, were superb and remembered our drinks and card number very time! Hmmmmm ok so we drank a lot so that might be why they remembered us but they always called us by name and were always smiling! The cruise director's staff were great too and kept us all very entertained (I would so love that job!)

 

THE CRITIQUE

 

Well as you can tell from my review I loved it! Dh and I just loved the fact that you could do a lot or nothing at all.

I never felt crowded (well I did once when a lady trod on my shoe at line dancing and broke my shoe!!) and very rarely waited anywhere (oh except going back up the stairs after being in a tender. For some reason the "elderly" like to rush to the stairs then climb soooooooooo slowly! I just can't figure why they rush off the boat if they know they are going to be slow on the stairs :confused: )

The activities we did we enjoyed immensely but there was so much we didn't do. Apparently there was always a crowd at Bingo but we never went as that's just not our scene.

Oh and we enjoyed the "Power Hour" drinks; they were $3.99 and were available from 8pm until late. You had a choice of three cocktails and I think four types of beer. Let me tell you we made the most of it!

The photos were endless but we only bought 2 as some of them were icky! Plus they cost $19.95 each so they were a bit steep. We bought the 2 cruise DVDs because we seemed to always pop up in them. They play them on the Tv throughout the cruise so you can watch them before you buy them.

 

THE FOOD

 

I liked the dining room food especially the ice cream. It was divine!!

The Horizon court was good for breakfast but the rest of the time was yuck!

But as I mentioned in my review I hate buffets.

Verdi's was yummo and the Terrace grill was okay, nothing very exciting there.

 

 

THE FINALE

 

Will we be cruising again? You betcha!! DH is an addict now and is already planning our next trip. I think he had more fun than me!! He didn't suffer from any sea sickness and had a wonderful time meeting people (he met way more people than me.)

Next time we will be taking our children so I will be able to get a child's perspective of cruising.

 

Thanks for sailing along with me. Catch you all next time :)

 

 

Hi Kate,

 

Great review...welcome to the wonderful world of cruising

 

 

Col:)