Plaza 328 - Emerald Princess

[cdngrl]

as a solo cruiser, i like this setup and how open it feels.

i wouldn't like it as a couple, it would irritate me climbing over the bed.

thrak, can you get a different cabin in the same category? the price shouldn't change then. i've done that a few times.

[rdsqrl]

Thrak, what about an Emerald deck obstructed view cabin?  As you know, lots of them have perfectly good views and, more to the point, the beds are against the side walls in those cabins, just like they are in balcony cabins, so even with the queen configuration, you still have a nightstand/walking space on each side of the bed. 

 

I think a set-up like that pictured would really negatively impact my cruise.  There are minor inconveniences and then there are giant, honking pains in the patootie, and crawling across a bed to get in or out and being smushed up against the wall would definitely count as the latter for me!

 

[suzyed]

On 3/1/2019 at 12:03 PM, Thrak said:

 

Thanks. Hopefully my cabin will be normal width. Like I said, I was concerned because it seems that P328 on Crown is the narrow cabin. I did make sure to change the number of passengers to 4 when looking at the deck plan so I could eliminate those cabins. My cabin is one of the ones that turns white when doing that so it isn't a cabin that can accommodate 4 people. I really don't want those nasty side wall bunks!  I just checked again and P328 on Crown is in the same spot as my cabin. If I end up with a weird cabin I am not going to be happy. This TA on Emerald in November will be our first as Elite and it shouldn't be one with a cabin that peeves us.

Michael, try calling Princess and ask.   
BTW, this sailing will be our first Elite too!

[Steelers36]

We are finding now that we like the space created when we configure beds as two singles on an inside cabin, as opposed to the queen config.  We are used to a king at home, so even though the Princess queen is a bit larger than a normal queen, the extra floor space in the middle with each bed along one wall works well for us.  Our friends and others like it too. 

 

If I were Thrak and could not get a suitable cabin change, I'd would go with the single config and pick something else next time.  I have always been leary of picking a Plaza deck cabin even though many folks like them.  

 

We recently completed a cruise where we had a "sideways" inside cabin and we still did singles and it worked fine for us.

 

[BarbinMich]

4 hours ago, steelers36 said:

I have always been leary of picking a Plaza deck cabin even though many folks like them.  

Just curious as to why you are leary of a Plaza cabin.  As stated earlier, we're rather fond of them <g>.

[Millnut]

Hello this is Millnut. Yes this was cabin P328 on Crown Princess. Our sailing was February 15th to February 25th 2019. My wife and I have cruised solely with Princess, this was our 9th cruise. Of all the cabins we have been in this was the oddest. If we had requested twins it would have been fine but as a queen it was rather inconvenient for one sleeper.😀 The bed configuration although rather inconvenient was nothing compared to how wore out the matress was. It was like sleeping in a sinking hole. Not that I'm complaining.☺️ We asked the cabin steward for a foam topper but he was not interested in helping us!!!😡 

 

Not pictured is the 12 inch offset in the wall making the bed area 12 inches narrower than a standard interior cabin. We were "upgraded" to this cabin from a Caribe Deck interior room. We looked at the cabin location at the time of the upgrade but failed to look at the actual floor plan layout. We are booked for August 7th 2019 on the Coral Princess for Alaska and will carefully review any offered "upgrades" over the booked standard inside cabin.

 

The cabin location was extremely convenient as we were behind the Art Gallery and a very short walk to the Piazza, dining room, elevators etc. My wife has to contend with motion sickness and on the days the sea was rougher the motion was not that bad in the cabin. However, as I pointed out in the review, when we ported in the morning you can hear the winch for rolling out the mooring lines. It is on for a short time but it will wake you up if you are a light sleeper. Also, during rough seas when the stabilizer is out you hear the groaning and rumbling as if it is right in the cabin. For some folks that may not be an issue but it keep me up for 2 nights.😡😀 I hope our experience can give any future cruisers make and informed decision regarding this cabin.😎

 

Paul

[Colo Cruiser]

Wow!  Glad you came back and clarified!   😳

[Thrak]

It may be an "interesting" 14 days!

[Colo Cruiser]

10 minutes ago, Thrak said:

It may be an "interesting" 14 days!

The mattress would be a no go for us.

[Thrak]

4 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

The mattress would be a no go for us.

 

That pic was from Crown. We'll be on Emerald. We had a great bed on Emerald in October of 2017. The one in the pic from Crown looks totally worn out and pathetic. It will be "odd" but I've pretty much decided we'll have to have the separate beds.

Edited March 3, 2019 by Thrak

[Millnut]

If I may offer a suggestion to Princess Guest Services Crown P328 is certainly a candidate for one of those new super duper cushy beds they have on those fancy new Royal Class ships. I’m just putting it out there....the current bed certainly isn’t very comforting and is in fact a bit rude.[emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Steelers36]

5 hours ago, BarbinMich said:

Just curious as to why you are leary of a Plaza cabin.  As stated earlier, we're rather fond of them <g>.

We normally book Inside so an "upgrade" to a  cabin such as has been described would not be appreciated (see recent post where another person was "upgraded").  I had read about smaller cabins in this area.  Also, the potential for docking and undocking noise, stabilizer or other noises from below.  Appreciate that it is close to Piazza and all.

 

But, hey, each cabin type and location attracts different people and that is fine and is allows the ship to be sold out and filled.

 

[Thrak]

We recently had a 19 day partial canal transit booked and my wife "just happened to notice" a 7 day coastal that would fit right on the front end of that one. We booked the farthest forward inside cabin on Caribe deck of Ruby for that last minute 7 day addition. We woke up one morning when someone seemingly drove a train right through the middle of the cabin. We finally figured out it was when they were dropping the anchor. OMG it was loud! We had a good laugh about it and then went back to sleep for a while. It was definitely something different to experience but it in no way ruined our cruise. We finished the 7 days on Ruby, spent one night in the hotel we had previously booked as a pre-cruise night in LA, and the boarded Coral for the 19 days. All in all it was a great trip and the horrific noise that one morning was just something "special" that we got for free!

[Millnut]

Thrak, glad you enjoyed your cruise and had fun experiencing the Anchor excursion!

On our Caribbean Princess sailing a couple years ago Princess upgraded us to an OV cabin on Caribe which happened to be in the 200-300 section. We never had the pleasure of being so forward in a ship before. On our way into Grand Turk during rough seas early in the morning we felt something rather odd being weightless in bed. Yes we unknowingly signed up for the “Levitate a foot off your bed momentarily” Excursion Bonus. Needless to say we are not fans of Bow Riding.[emoji2]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[johnsuttoncoldfield]

15 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

That pic was from Crown. We'll be on Emerald. We had a great bed on Emerald in October of 2017. The one in the pic from Crown looks totally worn out and pathetic. It will be "odd" but I've pretty much decided we'll have to have the separate beds.

There are so many positives about P328 on Emerald, I really would not be overly concerned. I notice that some appear to be stating that this cabin is not as wide as the standard Plaza Deck cabins and this is not the case. It may appear from my photos that it is but that is because the bedside table is larger than the usual size, so I really would not worry about that. I really hope that you decide upon a single bed set-up as it is by far the best for P328. If you notice from the photos the headboard has two padded sections, with the centre having the light switches - if you have the double set-up, your head is against these switches, whereas in single set-up you actually have a padded headboard. The location is excellent, especially for a TA as it is central and low, so any potential bad weather limits movement.

As long as you are comfortable with the single set-up I am absolutely sure you will love this cabin, so please do not concern yourself.

I myself book Plaza deck Oceanviews on TA's and balconies on warmer itineraries but always miss the location of Plaza Deck when taking a balcony cabin.

Just one final thought - I too am Elite but have never thought to ask, but why don't you have a word with passenger services when on-board and ask them to change the large bedside table to two small ones. It actually seems such a simple request, surely at least worth a try?  

Have a good trip, I am sure you will. 

[Thrak]

On 3/3/2019 at 6:02 AM, steelers36 said:

We recently completed a cruise where we had a "sideways" inside cabin and we still did singles and it worked fine for us.

 

 

We're trying out a sideways inside cabin in May. Always wondered about those and have heard that some really like them. It's only 7 days so we figured we'd try the sideways cabin. It's already costing over $8k so we figured to save a little on the cabin.

Edited March 5, 2019 by Thrak

[dtagirl]

We had P328 on the Caribbean Princess last May.  It was exactly like this, and it was not good for us.  We ended up separating the beds, even though that was not ideal being up against the wall.  But our mattresses were not bad at all.   I loved the location, close to the Piazza, elevators etc.   It was a 10 day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to the southern caribbean.  We had several rough nights and the thrusters were out.  It was terrible, so noisy and the vibration was awful.  Made for several sleepless nights.  Never again!



 

[suzyed]

2 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

We're trying out a sideways inside cabin in May. Always wondered about those and have heard that some really like them. It's only 7 days so we figured we'd try the sideways cabin. It's already costing over $8k so we figured to save a little on the cabin.

WOW!  $8 THOUSAND for a 7 day cruise?  Inside cabin?

[Thrak]

13 minutes ago, suzyed said:

WOW!  $8 THOUSAND for a 7 day cruise?  Inside cabin?

 

The 7 day cruise comes after the 8 day land portion of the Alaska Connoisseur Cruise Tour.

 

 

Includes $284.50 airfare home with EZ Air.

 

It's listed as slightly cheaper now with the Sail Into Savings promo but it can't match the perks we got. In addition to our FCD OBC and Shareholder's OBC we got:

 

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by Thrak

[suzyed]

6 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

The 7 day cruise comes after the 8 day land portion of the Alaska Connoisseur Cruise Tour.

 

 

Includes $284.50 airfare home with EZ Air.

OOOOH!!!  I was getting worried about you for a minute!!  LOL!!  Sounds great!!  Have fun!

Edited March 6, 2019 by suzyed

[Thrak]

1 minute ago, suzyed said:

OOOOH!!!  I was getting worried about you for a minute!!  LOL!!  Sounds great!!  Have fun!

 

Check out the perks in the edited post. 😎

[suzyed]

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

Check out the perks in the edited post. 😎

Sounds great!  Something I have always wanted to do!  We have cruised Alaska twice but never have done the "land" part and this sounds very deluxe!  😊

[Thrak]

3 hours ago, suzyed said:

Sounds great!  Something I have always wanted to do!  We have cruised Alaska twice but never have done the "land" part and this sounds very deluxe!  😊

 

We did a 13 day in 2016. It was a huge splurge for us. We did 2 days at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and 2 days at McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. (We actually saw the mountain! There were people in our group who were there for their 5th time and this was the first time they had ever seen the mountain!) We visited the Copper River Wilderness Lodge in 2017 when we did a 7 week camping trip all the way up to Fairbanks. It had been raining for days and I realized the lodge was nearby so we took a day trip there. We had Irish Coffee (ohhhhhhhhh yeah!) and then decided to have lunch. After that we had more Irish Coffee (ohhhhhhhhh yeah!) and then sat in a big chair (my wife) and on a wonderful sofa (me) next to a big fire in the fireplace and read for about an hour and a half. It was a freaking wonderful break from camping in the rain!!!

 

This trip we will have 2 days at Denali Wilderness Lodge, 2 days at Kenai Wilderness Lodge, and 2 days at Copper River Wilderness Lodge. We will have two grueling days of bus travel over "ungood" roads but we want to visit (and stay at) these lodges. Again, it will be a huge splurge for us as our retirement income is pathetic but we're doing it anyway. (Same reason we're doing the 12 day Northern Lights Cruise in October - stupidly costly for only 12 days but...)

 

To many folks our expenses are trivial as they have a lot more money than we hav. To us they are crazy but we want to do these things while we still can. My wife "died" in January during emergency surgery. She totally flat lined. Last August I had a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot that hit my lung. I could have easily died. My advice to folks is to do what you can when you can and damn the cost or whatever. Live your life and grab what you can. We plan to live a very long time but plans don't always work out. Go for the gusto!

[suzyed]

5 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

We did a 13 day in 2016. It was a huge splurge for us. We did 2 days at Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and 2 days at McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. (We actually saw the mountain! There were people in our group who were there for their 5th time and this was the first time they had ever seen the mountain!) We visited the Copper River Wilderness Lodge in 2017 when we did a 7 week camping trip all the way up to Fairbanks. It had been raining for days and I realized the lodge was nearby so we took a day trip there. We had Irish Coffee (ohhhhhhhhh yeah!) and then decided to have lunch. After that we had more Irish Coffee (ohhhhhhhhh yeah!) and then sat in a big chair (my wife) and on a wonderful sofa (me) next to a big fire in the fireplace and read for about an hour and a half. It was a freaking wonderful break from camping in the rain!!!

 

This trip we will have 2 days at Denali Wilderness Lodge, 2 days at Kenai Wilderness Lodge, and 2 days at Copper River Wilderness Lodge. We will have two grueling days of bus travel over "ungood" roads but we want to visit (and stay at) these lodges. Again, it will be a huge splurge for us as our retirement income is pathetic but we're doing it anyway. (Same reason we're doing the 12 day Northern Lights Cruise in October - stupidly costly for only 12 days but...)

 

To many folks our expenses are trivial as they have a lot more money than we hav. To us they are crazy but we want to do these things while we still can. My wife "died" in January during emergency surgery. She totally flat lined. Last August I had a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot that hit my lung. I could have easily died. My advice to folks is to do what you can when you can and damn the cost or whatever. Live your life and grab what you can. We plan to live a very long time but plans don't always work out. Go for the gusto!

I sooo agree with you!  I retired on disability after achilles tendon surgery and DH retired after both his parents passed away 4 months apart after being married for 68 years.  His mom suffered with Alzheimers for 10 before she passed.  We decided, like you, that we needed to travel and do all the things we wanted while we could!  Last August I had a heart stent inserted and realized that we only have today and tomorrow is not promised....puts things in perspective. 
We have money saved but no pensions to rely on and so SS is what we rely on.  
Northern Lights in on my bucket list and that is why we're doing it. Next year, South America for 32 days is in our plans...bucket list item for Chuck!
We're grabbing the gusto for sure!!  
Looking forward to meeting you both!!

[Vic The Parrot]

I think I'll go for the gusto as well.

 

Been thinking of an extra trip in May, but wondering if it'll be worth raiding the bank account. LOL

 

 

But after reading your posts, I have to say that I admire the 2 of you for your attitude regarding how precious our time on Earth really is.

 

I just might go for it now!