Seating in public areas

[Tomcruise92]

Hi all,

 

I've only cruised so far on the royal class ships, and found them to be generally spacious. Then I went on Sky Princess over Easter... the Piazza and bars were constantly full and we were unable to get a seat.

 

This was my first 'colder' cruise (it wasn't a cold cruise but the weather was variable). Are all Princess ships as crammed as Sky for colder cruises, or are things like the lack of Crooners/large photo area to blame on this particular ship? Are other ships in the fleet better? Regal didn't seem to have this problem.

 

I would like to book a winter cruise with Princess but am a little reluctant to do so if I am to have a similar experience. I love Princess but I think a good amount of seating is a pretty basic requirement for a ship and they may need to have a rethink. If anyone has any other experiences it would be great to get some other perspectives.

[skynight]

The Royal Class ships hold 3,660 passengers double occupancy. Easter is normally a family vacation time. Passenger loads swell over these holiday periods. Many cabins have 3 and 4 occupants. In general the Royal Class ships have more passengers than there is space for them. They rely on outside seating. I try to book the older Grand Class ships. Lack of a Crooners on the Sky doesn't help. Crooners was put back on the next two builds. 

[memoak]

27 minutes ago, skynight said:

The Royal Class ships hold 3,660 passengers double occupancy. Easter is normally a family vacation time. Passenger loads swell over these holiday periods. Many cabins have 3 and 4 occupants. In general the Royal Class ships have more passengers than there is space for them. They rely on outside seating. I try to book the older Grand Class ships. Lack of a Crooners on the Sky doesn't help. Crooners was put back on the next two builds. 

The design of the Royal class ships also works against you. So much is centered around the wide open piazza that it all gets clogged and noisy. We were on the Discovery for 2weeks full of first timers and tons of kids. I will stick to Grand class from now on

[FuzzyDuckUK]

We've just come off a 7 day cruise on Sky Princess and had the opposite experience, we almost always found seats within a few minutes around the Piazza. 

[memoak]

2 minutes ago, FuzzyDuckUK said:

We've just come off a 7 day cruise on Sky Princess and had the opposite experience, we almost always found seats within a few minutes around the Piazza. 

It probably depends on the type of cruise. In Alaska almost everyone seemed to be a first time cruiser with large family groups. On sea days there was no places to air around the piazza. Kids running everywhere (there were 600). The eve used the piazza for a kids carnival on one sea day. We usually are close to making the most traveled lunch but here we were in the top 5 with under 500 days