6/15/23: Unveiling Park19: New Top-Deck Family Activity Zone to Debut on Board Sun Princess

[Guest ldtr]

4 hours ago, JG&Lcruisingnewbies said:

 

The new addition to deck 19 will attract new cruisers here in Europe, and I’m sure in the States too.

 

If your children are interested in thrills like water slides & go karts you’ll not move over or try Princess anyway I don’t think. Deck 19 is not enough for those. My child likes that stuff but equally will have fun listening to chats about wildlife, the theatre, a regular pool, egg drops, game shows, meeting new kids in a kids club. I think you’ll get more multi generational families with the new addition, and people with kids like mine who don’t NEED the thrills & parents like us who want a quieter more relaxed time on holiday, but appreciate the extra choice. 

 

We’re not young. Early 40’s and taking our 10yr old. I’ve not really thought of Princess as a Holland America type cruise. Princess seem to have a lot more entertainment, better kids clubs & better enrichment. My choice to Sail Princess for the first time (sailing Norway in August on The Sky Princess) was based on that. I wouldn’t choose Holland america because although I like traditional I like modern too. Princess seems to be the middle ground to me. Maybe our Cruise on Sky will change that opinion But I do a lot of research so I don’t think so. (I’ll let you know!)

 

It sounds like SOME are worried about who the new crowd of people attracted to Princess will be. You won’t get an influx of rowdy kids & adults. You are not getting ice rinks, go karts, & the tallest slides at sea

 

and you are still getting the same type of cruise experience outside of the top decks

 

I don’t understand the worry that this is a massive jump towards being a RCCL experience

 

For the CC crowd any change that might bring more of those people "children" is a full change to RC.

 

To me this is a positioning of the brand in a niche between Royal Carribbean and Celebrity. More adult focused with smaller ships than RC, more family focused with larger ships than Celebrity. While adopting the class system in a way that appears to be simular to Celebrity.

 

This is occurring at the same time HAL is changing their focus to more unique, longer itineraries with an average ship size smaller than Celebrity.

 

Considering that Princess has passed HAL in having the oldest average age demographic on any of the US focused mass market lines, not surprising that they are doing something.

Edited June 16, 2023 by ldtr

[mlmbar]

Totally agree! We are booked October in reserved cabana mini suite on deck 9. Thankfully far from this and will have our own restaurant. 

[Mud_Shark]

Actually, Just booked the Sun Princess for summer of 2025.  Switched from Regal to Sun, as this top deck thingy looks kinda interesting.  We are in our 60's, faithful to Princess (thus far), and may or may not play around on this apparatus, but are not against it.  This is a far cry from where Royal Caribbean is at with youth type activities.  It's just a little nod in that direction.

 

[Cruise Junky]

Guys, it’s a pretty small space. No need for the freak outs 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Cruise Junky

[VaCruzers]

4 hours ago, voljeep said:

will do a Deck 19 pass-thru day 1 or 2 and can't see us going back.  Our cruise in 2024 in when school is still in session, so hopefully the kids will be minimalized and stay in "their" places, not ours 😉

You'll have to report on your pass through because we will not sail this ship. For us, it's about the clientele these amenities attract (families with kids). It's getting harder to count on fewer kids during the traditional shool year as now there are many who find it convenient to homeschool while also working from home, which they now anticipate they can do while on a cruise.  

[EDVM96]

1 hour ago, Cruise Junky said:

Guys, it’s a pretty small space. No need for the freak outs 

The classic basketball / sports court is completely missing because of this "Park 19 Top-Deck Family Activity Zone". That's a no go for me. 😨

 

[Cruise Junky]

48 minutes ago, EDVM96 said:

The classic basketball / sports court is completely missing because of this "Park 19 Top-Deck Family Activity Zone". That's a no go for me. 😨

 

You don’t know that yet. There’s supposed to be more sports areas revealed including a pickle ball court.  
 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Cruise Junky

[EDVM96]

4 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

You don’t know that yet. There’s supposed to be more sports areas revealed including a pickle ball court.  

After seeing your posted aerial image rendering and studying the updated deck plans, for me it looks like there is no more space for it. At least not for a Royal Class size sports court. Well, let's see.

[Guest ldtr]

5 hours ago, Cruise Junky said:

You don’t know that yet. There’s supposed to be more sports areas revealed including a pickle ball court.  
 

 

According to the e-mail I just received it appears that the sports court is under the ropes course.  Not sure how that is going to work, unless the ropes course is only open specific hours.

 

[adjustman]

First, I am a Celebrity fan. Princess has got to change in order to be competitive with the Royal Carribean Group. Finally, Princess has stopped making every ship the same except for the interior design. It has finally learned to redesign every class of ships differently so that they make the ship the destination. Carnival Corporation is very late to this party. NCL, RCL, and MSC Cruise lines have been doing this for a while now. It is my understanding that Carnival Corporation has decided to have three major cruise lines. First, Carnival, then Princess and last Holland America. Carnival Corporation is structuring the company so that Princess will compete with RCL while Holland America will compete against Celebrity. Personally, I think this strategy makes sense. In order for Princess to compete with RCL it must make cruising a multigenerational experience. Whether you like or dislike the RCL Group, it is the most innovative cruise company out there. Carnival is now rushing to catch up. 

[Musky Ike]

As a long time Princess cruiser and in the "older" demographics, I like the older ships but there are a lot of areas on those ships that we do no have any interest in using. We will give the sphere class a try and see. I hope to be pleasantly surprised. Other than park 19, it looks there are a lot of other new and interesting things to try.

[Guest ldtr]

5 hours ago, adjustman said:

First, I am a Celebrity fan. Princess has got to change in order to be competitive with the Royal Carribean Group. Finally, Princess has stopped making every ship the same except for the interior design. It has finally learned to redesign every class of ships differently so that they make the ship the destination. Carnival Corporation is very late to this party. NCL, RCL, and MSC Cruise lines have been doing this for a while now. It is my understanding that Carnival Corporation has decided to have three major cruise lines. First, Carnival, then Princess and last Holland America. Carnival Corporation is structuring the company so that Princess will compete with RCL while Holland America will compete against Celebrity. Personally, I think this strategy makes sense. In order for Princess to compete with RCL it must make cruising a multigenerational experience. Whether you like or dislike the RCL Group, it is the most innovative cruise company out there. Carnival is now rushing to catch up. 

Nope.  HAL is going for long unique itineraries.  Celebrity is pretty much all short itineraries with a few 14 days.  Really little market overlap.  Carnival competes against Royal.  Princess is setting itself up to compete with Celebrity and to some degree Royal.  It will remain primarily adult focused, but with larger ships than Celebrity, but with a few more family features making it a bit more family friendly that Celebrity.  It is also adding the class system that Celebrity went to 10 years ago as part of that competition.  

 

HAL is going into a niche all of its own, with an average ship size smaller than the other mass market adult focused lines (Celebrity, Princess) and with by far the longest itineraries fitting into the gap of longer than most other lines but shorter than the world cruises.  Region focused cruises in the 30-70 day range.  HAL is also, at least to date staying with a non-class system where everything is open to everyone (at added cost if applicable) instead of dining rooms and lounges by cabin class.

[kitkat343]

I'm glad to see this - Princess was my favorite cruise line, and as my kids get bigger I recently sailed RC (which went well) and NCL (which was a disaster since they seem to feel their following their itineraries isn't very important).  I'd love to be able to take my kids on Princess again.

[adjustman]

Sorry LDTR but i guess we agree to disagree. In my mind Carnival is a "party ship" targeted to young singles and some families. My personal opinion is that the corporation is restructuring Princess so that it is targeted to families, more like RCL than Celebrity. The new Sun Princess has a sea breeze roll glider, infinite tilt walls, a coastal climb, and a "lookout" similar to the Northstar on RCL.As such, families appear to be the target market. Celebrity ships including the Edge Class do not have such activities. Celebrity is a traditional cruise experience. I admit that HAL itineraries are much longer than Celebrity. I cannot speak for RCL Managment but i think they are trying to squeeze out more profit with slightly shorter itineraries. I personally think Carnival doesn't come close to RCL in terms of innovation, but I admit I am a Celebrity/RCL fan.  

Edited June 17, 2023 by adjustman

[Roberto256]

On 6/16/2023 at 3:09 PM, Cruise Junky said:

Guys, it’s a pretty small space. No need for the freak outs 

 

We have to freak out.

The only thing on cruise critic that tops complaining about how bad things are ...

 

...are complaining about making changes to them.

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, adjustman said:

Sorry LDTR but i guess we agree to disagree. In my mind Carnival is a "party ship" targeted to young singles and some families. My personal opinion is that the corporation is restructuring Princess so that it is targeted to families, more like RCL than Celebrity. The new Sun Princess has a sea breeze roll glider, infinite tilt walls, a coastal climb, and a "lookout" similar to the Northstar on RCL.As such, families appear to be the target market. Celebrity ships including the Edge Class do not have such activities. Celebrity is a traditional cruise experience. I admit that HAL itineraries are much longer than Celebrity. I cannot speak for RCL Managment but i think they are trying to squeeze out more profit with slightly shorter itineraries. I personally think Carnival doesn't come close to RCL in terms of innovation, but I admit I am a Celebrity/RCL fan.  

Not really having sailed on all of the lines in question Carnival lines up pretty well with Royal.  Both are aimed at families.  Both tend to have pretty short itineraries, both tend to have a lot of the extra feature including game rooms water parks, fast food type dining.  Carnival tends to have a lower price point but both are aimed at that market.  

 

Princess and Celebrity were pretty much the same about 10 years ago with Celebrity have the M class and Princess having the Grand class and smaller. With both being traditional cruise experience. Then Celebrity launched the S class and a little after that started their move to the class system.  Princess stayed pretty much the same, a more egalitarian experience without the class system.  Then Celebrity launched the Edge class and started their push for a younger demographic (which they have been successful with dropping their average age from about 60 to between 50 and 55).  Princess is now making its first move in that direction with the Sun while it is based upon same ship foundation that Carnival and P&O has used for their latest ship both P&O  and Carnival have designed them for 5000+ LB capacity, compared to Princess designing the ship for 4200 LB capacity.  Princess is instead using the extra space for more suites and upped class cabins and are launching their own class system.  That puts them head to head against Celebrity.  They are adding the ropes course and a couple of other family oriented features, but no where even close to what you will find on a Royal Caribbean, Carnival or NCL ship. 

 

Celebrity tried moving away from traditional cruising when the Edge class was first launched by becoming a bit more edgy. Some of the ideas did not work out that well and were dialed back.  Think that they were trying to preempt Virgin a bit with their 20-30 something target.

 

That puts it in a category where it has a few more family features that Celebrity, but far far less than Royal, Carnival or NCL. It will have a similar class system to Celebrity with a few unique design features (I do not think that families are going to be attracted by a buffet on deck 9 and away from the Lido pools, even though  it will result in better operational efficiency for the ship).  It will have ships a bit larger than Celebrity which will give it better operating efficiency, but considerable smaller than RC or Carnival.  

 

Princess also tends to have longer average route lengths that RC, Carnival and Celebrity.  As ship sizes increase the route variety decreases.  For example Celebrity goes to about 350 unique ports, HAL goes to over 550.  Princess is in the middle with over 400.  Carnival and RC do shorter routes because of two reasons ship size and the family focus.  Mush easier to fill a family focused ship with short cruises than long ones due to time away from work and over all family budget.

 

Also do not forget about P&O.  While it is focused on the UK and Australian market, it gives a better idea on how CCL would design the Sun  if it was really aimed at a mixed family market as P&O has done with the Iona.

 

The main goal of Princess is adding the relatively few family features in relative low use space is:

 

1. The space is pretty much unused and the features are already been designed for that ship foundation for Carnival and  P&O so adding it is pretty low cost.

2. Princess now has the highest average age demographic out of the mass market lines.  They are starting their younger movement after Celebrity and HAL.  This might be attractive to some families that do not want the amusement park element of Carnival and RC.  A bit calmer environment with some more things for the kids or 20 somethings.  If it turns off some of the older demographic Princess probably does not mind that much.  Even then it is only one ship in a market that attracts families.

 

We sail about 125 days a year on multiple lines.  This next year we are on 7 different cruise lines on ships going from 50 to 5000 capacity.

Edited June 17, 2023 by ldtr

[mtnesterz]

40 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Even then it is only one ship in a market that attracts families.

Did you not know the new Star Princess is to be built on the same plan? And how any more?

 

Here's the thing nobody has mentioned. If you build a ship that is 4300 passengers with playgrounds for kids, there is a name for that. It is called a Resort Class line.  These cruises sell for between US$60and $80/pp/night inside on MSC, RCCL NCL, and Carnival 

Princess currently advertises $100/pp/night inside; in the Premium Class league of cruising priced plus or minus with HAL, Cunard and Celebrity.  

Do they drop their price to compete in the same market with other Resort Class products, or do they try to sell a bottom feeder product at a Premium Line price in an over-saturated market?

Everyone is entitled to like or dislike the the idea of a playground at sea. But Princess has to answer this: Is an entry level cruise worth a Premium Class price?

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by mtnesterz

[Guest ldtr]

51 minutes ago, mtnesterz said:

Did you not know the new Star Princess is to be built on the same plan? And how any more?

 

Here's the thing nobody has mentioned. If you build a ship that is 4300 passengers with playgrounds for kids, there is a name for that. It is called a Resort Class line.  These cruises sell for between US$60and $80/pp/night inside on MSC, RCCL NCL, and Carnival 

Princess currently advertises $100/pp/night inside; in the Premium Class league of cruising priced plus or minus with HAL, Cunard and Celebrity.  

Do they drop their price to compete in the same market with other Resort Class products, or do they try to sell a bottom feeder product at a Premium Line price in an over-saturated market?

Everyone is entitled to like or dislike the the idea of a playground at sea. But Princess has to answer this: Is an entry level cruise worth a Premium Class price?

 

Sure but the SUN is not even finished yet, the Star just announced.  Lets see the rest of the fleet is 15 ships.  Will be interesting to see if anything gets changed on the Star once they see how the features work. 

 

 It will be more interesting to see if Princess follows what Celebrity did when they went with their class system and retrofitted the M and S class ships when they went in for dry dock the few years after they first made the change.  Would be fairly easy to do so if Princess decided to extend the Sun class system to Royal and Grand class ships since the MDRs are already split up.  The only real question would be what would get converted to the private lounges.

 

A Princess, Celebrity, HAL are all adult focused US targeted mass market lines.  All of them are in the 2.3-2.6   total percent market revenue/total percent market passenger range.  That means that all of this have very similar revenue per passenger.  Princess is a bit lower, HAL was actually a bit higher.

 

Cunard is a UK focused line along with P&O.  Cunard is adult focused as is some of the smaller UK focused lines.  Cunards ration is a bit higher in the 2.9 range.  P&O is in a the family focused on newer ships adult focused on older ships.  Its ratio was down around 2.

 

The premium lines such as Oceania has a ratio. over 4.  Too little information to see where Viking comes in but I expect that it would be similar.  The Luxury lines such as Regent is in the 6 range.

 

This was based upon the last full year pre covid.  There are 2021 numbers out but that data is pretty limited due to the startup.  Will have to see when 2023 numbers come out.  Even with the 2021 data while it shifts a bit the ships come up in the same general areas.  

 

On the other had RCL and Carnival both have ratio right around 1 or slightly lower with RC being a bit higher than Carnival.

Edited June 17, 2023 by ldtr

[RoperDK]

2 hours ago, adjustman said:

Sorry LDTR but i guess we agree to disagree. In my mind Carnival is a "party ship" targeted to young singles and some families. My personal opinion is that the corporation is restructuring Princess so that it is targeted to families, more like RCL than Celebrity. The new Sun Princess has a sea breeze roll glider, infinite tilt walls, a coastal climb, and a "lookout" similar to the Northstar on RCL.As such, families appear to be the target market. Celebrity ships including the Edge Class do not have such activities. Celebrity is a traditional cruise experience. I admit that HAL itineraries are much longer than Celebrity. I cannot speak for RCL Managment but i think they are trying to squeeze out more profit with slightly shorter itineraries. I personally think Carnival doesn't come close to RCL in terms of innovation, but I admit I am a Celebrity/RCL fan.  

I am watching changes to Carnival that seem to be going after the more "upscale" Royal target group. After 26 Carnival cruises we had pretty much moved to Royal. However, after recent cutbacks we are again wondering.  Princess is still more formal and targeted to adults. I don't see a big change there.  We have a Retreat Celebrity cruise booked, but still can't commit to the sedate atmosphere.  I have heard good things about Princess and Carnival recently.  I have heard more complaints about Royal and Celebrity.  Carnival is revamping its MDR menu and it is quite impressive.  Perhaps they are making a move. Time will tell.  

[mtnesterz]

4 hours ago, ldtr said:

Sure but the SUN is not even finished yet, the Star just announced.  Lets see the rest of the fleet is 15 ships.  Will be interesting to see if anything gets changed on the Star once they see how the features work.

I live near the abandoned Princess resort, Casa Sirena. I wonder what that blunder cost them. They strayed from what they are, just a little too much. I hope they don't repeat the mistake by trying to be something they're not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cruise Junky]

22 minutes ago, mtnesterz said:

I live near the abandoned Princess resort, Casa Sirena. I wonder what that blunder cost them. They strayed from what they are, just a little too much. I hope they don't repeat the mistake by trying to be something they're not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’re connecting an abandoned resort from the 70s with the building of the Sun Princess?  You can stretch more than Gumby.  

[DUCHESSRN]

On 6/15/2023 at 10:40 AM, LACruiser88 said:

This seals the deal for us, we will not be cruising on the new ships.  We will stay with the "boring" ships.  🙂

Us too ,love the boring ships.

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

I live near the abandoned Princess resort, Casa Sirena. I wonder what that blunder cost them. They strayed from what they are, just a little too much. I hope they don't repeat the mistake by trying to be something they're not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The biggest question with the Sun is if the Buffet on deck 9 works out.

 

Unfortunately the other major change, the class system, I think is a done deal and will mostly likely roll out across the fleet over the next 3 -4 years as ships go through dry dock.

[cruisequeen4ever]

I am soooooo excited for the rollglider and slides!! I am not, however, excited about the multitude of kids who will now be sailing on Princess. 

[Guest ldtr]

9 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

I am soooooo excited for the rollglider and slides!! I am not, however, excited about the multitude of kids who will now be sailing on Princess. 

Too funny. You actually think a couple of items in pretty much unused space is going to bring on a multitude of kids?

 

At most it will bring on board a few more families. A few more Grandparents will convince family members to join them. 

 

Not anywhere close to impact most of those that like the appeal of Carnival, RC and NCL.  Enough to bring on board a few of those on the edges that like a more traditional cruise environment with a few more things for kinds and young adults. Doubt it will even be that noticeable without access to the cruise demographic information. Maybe enough to start to bring the average age down a bit.

 

Though I expect that some here on CC will see a kid or two on a Sun cruise and rant how it ruined their experience.

 

Also keep in mind that the Sun will be in the Caribbean  and the Med two of the areas that tend to draw more families.

Edited June 18, 2023 by ldtr