Review: Enchanted Princess - 11/23/23, 15-day TA Civitavecchia to Fort Lauderdale

[Kmkub]

This is a review of the Enchanted Princess, which was host to our first Transatlantic cruise. The first half of this 15-day adventure was basically a regular 7-day with ports. The second half was nothing but sea days… aka pure bliss. 

 

I don’t have names of people I’ll mention and won’t remember many food dish names. I let myself off the hook from taking copious amounts of notes this trip.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

 

***

 

Hands down, this was our favorite cruise to date. For reference, we started in ’08 and now have 15 behind us; 10 of those are Princess. This was our second time on the Enchanted. I gave them a glowing, practically gushing, review in January 2022. This one is more negative, but where we ran into negatives, we just found workarounds. We don’t let this or that thing ruin our cruise.  It was our favorite cruise due to all the sea days. On a seven day, it’s wonderful, but it’s not a ton of relaxation, with all the ports. The second half with nothing but sea days allowed us to truly get out of the chaos and stress from our everyday lives. We were able to process and think and discuss without all the noise. It was a huge positive for us, in that regard. 

 

As to the ship itself, all the amazing food we had on our last enchanted cruise, brought us back again. Now, it seems unlikely that we’ll return to this particular ship, because the food is no longer a draw, and the new piazza layout isn’t conducive for, say, quiet dining at Sabatini’s or enjoying a martini at Crooner’s. There is also a fair amount of venue to venue spillover that may spoil a drink at Crown Grill. 

 

There’s a lot of firsts for us, so I’ve opinions I’ve never had before.

 

First, we’ve never given the cruise director much notice, before. I never saw them as integral to the experience. Jayson convinced me I was wrong. His “Wake Show,” was interesting and informative, and he was out and about more than other CDs (on any cruise line.) I got to speak to him very briefly on three separate occasions, at completely random times. He was just present, as was his staff.

 

Another first for us was attending some of the lectures offered in the theater. We attended lectures called “Behind the Seas,” which gave insight into how the ship runs. Both lectures we attended were very interesting. 

 

We also attended an interactive lesson on seeing the stars. This was on deck 19, at night. The ship turned off all the lights up there, so we could study the sky in complete darkness. It was amazing. We had to leave early, since my neck can’t handle too much looking straight up, but it was fun.

 

The Piazza is too busy, IMO. It’s definitely busier than when we sailed in January, 22. Exercise, line dancing classes, strange games (like getting ping pong balls out of a box attached to your butt,) are ever-present. The calm, peaceful place it used to be is now non-existent. Everything is too much, too loud, too crowded, etc. It was just overkill. Bring back the string duos that create a peaceful atmosphere.

 

In addition to that, Crooners is no longer a piano bar. With all the noise coming from deck 5 that wafts through decks 6 & 7, anything in that area is just about hearing what’s going on on the piazza floor. Sabatinis, which used to be nicely tucked away all the way aft on the Grand Class, is now a recipient of this noise as well.

 

The entertainment was mostly bleh. I don’t know their names, but two ladies who played violin and cello were fantastic, and anytime we were in Crown Grill when they were there, we’d stay until their performance was over; even when there was noise spillover from Princess Live. The same goes for the two gentlemen who performed in O’Malley’s. The rest were just bad. Two were so quiet you could barely hear them sing, and couldn’t hear them talk, at all. One riffed on songs so much that they were mostly unrecognizable. 

 

We wanted to see Rock Opera, but, unfortunately, they showed it on the first full day, so we completely missed it. I had no idea they would only perform it once on a 15-day. We didn’t see any other production shows; though we peered into several to see if we wanted to go sit down. We didn’t.

 

—To be continued

 

[Kmkub]

We purchased a pass for The Enclave . I spent somewhere between 20-25 hours in there; getting therapy from the thalassotherapy pool, hanging in one of the saunas, or reading from the heated stone beds. I love it in there. The pool has powerful jets that pound on sore muscles; some bubble stalls for increasing circulation, a spring shower and metal beds with additional bubblers.

 

This is one of the best places on the ship. That said, it was fairly inconsistent, in terms of temperature. Some days it was really nice and hot and other days it was cooler; sometimes so cool as to be useless. They also had the usual cucumber or lemon water available for about half the voyage disappear mid-cruise. No real good reason as to why was provided; just shoulder shrugs. Kind of a stinky cost cutting measure. You can get thirsty in there. So boo on that. I wouldn’t dissuade someone who enjoys these types of spas, though, just based on that. The temperature variation is the biggest concern. Why the rapid and dramatic temperature changes? No two days were the same.

 

Football/NFL has it’s own in-cabin channel, now, so we got to see a lot of football. Since we started in Rome, some of the Sunday/Monday night games didn’t start until Tuesday morning, so we weren’t up to see the end of a lot of those games. Spread the news, though – Yes, you will see your games on Princess. For the Sunday games, they added a second channel, so two games were available for each time slot.

 

MUTS  showed several games, but didn’t cover all the available time slots. For one game that we wanted to see, we specifically asked guest services if it would be shown, and the answer was yes. What they actually showed, though, was “80 for Brady.”

 

The service desk; Loyalty, Future cruise and excursion hours are awful. Not enough hours in the day and long lines every time they are open. If this is a cost cutting measure, it’s a terrible one. They need more hours and/or more people.  I talked to one lady who had been waiting an hour to ask a question.

 

Retail stores have their own little strip mall, just off the front elevators on deck 7.  I don’t get how these shops make money. With the ability to look up everything online and price compare, you’d think people would opt for the less expensive price at home, even with the duty free. My at-home, walk out the door price for Hennessy XO is $30 less than what the Princess shop was offering. Sheesh.

 

We also didn’t like the yard sale feel of the area, as they bring out temporary tables and offer “sales.” A $435 cloth tote bag is now only $289. Yikes.

 

Funny story – one of these yard sale offerings was buy 4 fanny packs and get the 5^th free. LMAO. Who needs that many fanny packs?

 

There’s high pressure, sometimes, just for having the audacity to want to browse and see what’s for sale.

 

There are deals to be had; I saw a few blouses in the $20 range, which is very reasonable.

 

—To be continued (food is next.)

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kmkub

[Kmkub]

We both (Nerd & I,) have a lot of opinions about food. Some highlights (and lowlights,) are below. I have pictures on various devices and will post them when I get them all in one spot.

 

The old World Fresh Marketplace/buffet no longer exists, really. It’s the same thing, day after day. It’s boring, and tasteless (mostly.) 

 

Previously, we’ve both championed the buffet. It’s a great, quick alternative. Not everything was a winner, but there was always something for everyone to make some kind of perfectly agreeable breakfast or lunch, if there were time constraints or a desire for a completely informal experience.

 

Every day I looked at the same turkey-lamb gyros meat, that resembled bad jerky more than anything else.

 

The breakfast sausages get dry because they let the chafing dishes run out of water, which creates a burned chafing dish.

 

The pre-printed signs have typos, like “Chicken borth,” and “mapple syrup.” I’m not kidding.

 

Eggs; runny. Chips; stale. Bread; dry and cold. Meat; dry and overcooked. That’s the idea.

 

The morning ham and hard boiled eggs are fine, but if you try to get a piece of bacon, you can either have eight pieces, all stuck together, or you can have a few bacon bits. It’s a bit gross.

 

It’s incredibly disappointing. Our last trip on enchanted had us loving so many things about the buffet. It’s all gone.

 

The one truly redeeming quality were the fresh made waffles. Delicious. They go well with the mapple syrup.

 

The Salty Dog is also showing signs of decline. The hot dogs are too dry; the cheese for the burger is that fake “American cheese food,” crap that gets individually wrapped for use in grammar school lunches. There’s no yellow mustard for the hot dogs. The burgers are without flavor. 

 

The International Café was also a bit of a disappointment. Every day, it’s the same offerings as the previous day. Nothing changes. That’s not the IC I remember. The food here is also not very good. The salami sandwich I tried was inedible. The only thing I found worth eating was the breakfast sandwich, and only because IC was literally the only place to get food at the time. It wasn’t, however, quite as good as the famous fast food restaurant’s version of the same sandwich.

 

The pizza from Alfredo’s is about the same as it used to be, though the lack of Parmesan cheese at the station is a puzzler.  There are some weird concoctions, like pizza topped with canned tuna, and the pepperoni is not a dried meat I’ve ever tasted. Nerd still likes it, but I don’t eat it.

 

Gigi’s was another venue that has taken a turn for the worse. It’s upcharge, now, but we were willing to pay for the veal agnolotti that we loved so much in 2022. Our first and only trip there had us extremely disappointed in the dish. It was completely dry and lacked sauce and flavor. The manager asked us how it was, and we were completely honest. She said that she’s receiving multiple reports that are the same. Corporate changed the recipe on them. I never understand why you change something delicious in favor of something dry and without flavor. It’s a head scratcher.

 

Room service was another disappointment. My old favorite, the fish tacos with avocado cream are gone. The choices that are complimentary are severely limited, now. You can order from the specialty restaurants, for a fee. The free options are mostly limited to a burger, a hot dog, a few sandwiches and a couple of desserts. In addition, without the right package, it is a $15 one-time charge to get access to room service. The decision is either to use room service or not. Getting one thing from room service on the cruise is cost prohibitive. The saving point is that you can get alcoholic drinks delivered, even if you have the plus package. 

 

The Geletaria has great gelato. We ate there twice. There doesn’t seem to be any rotation of flavors, even though the MDR does have different flavors every day. 

 

My complaint with this venue is the inefficiency in how they serve customers. The line is long, and there is no signage to help you know what’s available. They need signs! Here’s our flavors, here’s our toppings, here’s the sauces, here’s the cost. You are basically standing behind people who have to hear what’s available when they get to the counter to order. If you are second in line, you may be able to hear the various sauce choices. This is an easy fix!!

 

O’Malley’s is new for us. There was just a basic bar there when we were last on the ship. The food is upcharge, and is fantastic. The blue cheeseburger was delicious. I think I ate three of them (at $10/each.) Nerd loved the onion rings and fish n chips. We both tried the French onion soup with cheddar. It was delicious, and better than what they serve in MDR. It’s not as good as the black and blue soup from Crown Grill, though. ;). 

 

—To be continued

[Kmkub]

We spent more time in the MDR than we usually do, because the buffet area was just so sad. For the most part, the service here was top-notch. Props to the Maitre’D. He was ever present. 

 

I have to say that both breakfast and lunch here were really good. The main complaint is how long it takes to eat those meals, when we are more “grab and go,” types of people. 

 

Most dinners we ate in the MDR were very good to excellent. I’d say the exception is the seafood, which pales in comparison to The Catch. This is to be expected, however. J

 

Crown Grill remains a favorite of ours. We never miss Crown Grill, and we just did our 10^th Princess cruise. The beef tartar and black & blue soup never disappoint.  This time, we opted for lobster instead of steak, and it was delicious. In our opinion, Crown grill is on our permanent “recommended,” list. I hope that never changes.

 

The Catch Wow. This new addition is amazing. We were blown away by the experience.  Our waiter had the brilliant audacity to offer us better options than what we originally thought we wanted.  Every dish was as good as the next. We had some of everything; fish, shrimp, clams, mussels, oysters, crab, lobster – did I leave anything out? LOL. My only disappointing dish was the berry soufflé for dessert. I just didn’t like it at all. It was my first soufflé, ever, so maybe I just don’t like them. I have several pictures from this restaurant.

[Waynetor]

Great review - thanks

[Kmkub]

A crazy good upcharge appetizer at The Catch. It was $19 for one serving, but we shared and it was way more than enough. It had a bit of everything in there; crab, lobster, shrimp, clams, mussels, oysters.

 

Steak tartare from Crown Grill.

 

 

I don’t remember where this is from.

 

Lobster at Crown Grill

 

 

I believe this dessert is from MDR.

 

Beef Wellington, MDR, final formal night

 

 

Way too many mussels from O’Malleys

 

[Kmkub]

 

Behind the Seas lecture in the theatre. 

 

 

Nerd found this out and about; we re-hid it.

 

Night football on MUTS. I believe this was a Sunday afternoon game.

 

[Kmkub]

New Love Boat in MDR. I am not happy about this. 

 

 

Black and blue soup from Crown Grill via room service.  It was good. $7.

 

 

 

The bread course at The Catch. I don’t remember what it was, but I do remember loving it. The bread was warm. It was some sort of spread. Hopefully, someone who has been to this venue remembers. 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Kmkub

[MissP22]

Very disappointing to hear about the buffet. It's almost hard to accept that it's gone that far downhill. 😪

[Kmkub]

4 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Very disappointing to hear about the buffet. It's almost hard to accept that it's gone that far downhill. 😪

I’m hoping it’s just the ship’s situation and not a fleet wide issue. We completely intend on sailing Princess again. It’s time for us to go back to the Grand class ships. We’ve been doing Royal class since the launch of the Royal. 

 

The buffet quality is one of the good things about Princess, so I’m really hoping it’s a one-off.

[PacnGoNow]

11 hours ago, Kmkub said:

We purchased a pass for The Enclave . I spent somewhere between 20-25 hours in there; getting therapy from the thalassotherapy pool, hanging in one of the saunas, or reading from the heated stone beds. I love it in there. The pool has powerful jets that pound on sore muscles; some bubble stalls for increasing circulation, a spring shower and metal beds with additional bubblers.

 

This is one of the best places on the ship. That said, it was fairly inconsistent, in terms of temperature. Some days it was really nice and hot and other days it was cooler; sometimes so cool as to be useless. They also had the usual cucumber or lemon water available for about half the voyage disappear mid-cruise. No real good reason as to why was provided; just shoulder shrugs. Kind of a stinky cost cutting measure. You can get thirsty in there. So boo on that. I wouldn’t dissuade someone who enjoys these types of spas, though, just based on that. The temperature variation is the biggest concern. Why the rapid and dramatic temperature changes? No two days were the same.

 

Football/NFL has it’s own in-cabin channel, now, so we got to see a lot of football. Since we started in Rome, some of the Sunday/Monday night games didn’t start until Tuesday morning, so we weren’t up to see the end of a lot of those games. Spread the news, though – Yes, you will see your games on Princess. For the Sunday games, they added a second channel, so two games were available for each time slot.

 

MUTS  showed several games, but didn’t cover all the available time slots. For one game that we wanted to see, we specifically asked guest services if it would be shown, and the answer was yes. What they actually showed, though, was “80 for Brady.”

 

The service desk; Loyalty, Future cruise and excursion hours are awful. Not enough hours in the day and long lines every time they are open. If this is a cost cutting measure, it’s a terrible one. They need more hours and/or more people.  I talked to one lady who had been waiting an hour to ask a question.

 

Retail stores have their own little strip mall, just off the front elevators on deck 7.  I don’t get how these shops make money. With the ability to look up everything online and price compare, you’d think people would opt for the less expensive price at home, even with the duty free. My at-home, walk out the door price for Hennessy XO is $30 less than what the Princess shop was offering. Sheesh.

 

We also didn’t like the yard sale feel of the area, as they bring out temporary tables and offer “sales.” A $435 cloth tote bag is now only $289. Yikes.

 

Funny story – one of these yard sale offerings was buy 4 fanny packs and get the 5^th free. LMAO. Who needs that many fanny packs?

 

There’s high pressure, sometimes, just for having the audacity to want to browse and see what’s for sale.

 

There are deals to be had; I saw a few blouses in the $20 range, which is very reasonable.

 

—To be continued (food is next.)

I really hope you did the survey and mentioned the LOUD piazza games, dancing, etc.  We hated it and couldn’t even have a conversation.  TIA

[MissP22]

18 minutes ago, Kmkub said:

I’m hoping it’s just the ship’s situation and not a fleet wide issue. We completely intend on sailing Princess again. It’s time for us to go back to the Grand class ships. We’ve been doing Royal class since the launch of the Royal. 

 

The buffet quality is one of the good things about Princess, so I’m really hoping it’s a one-off.

We just got off the Ruby & expressed the same thoughts as you about their buffet.

Lets hope it's just an experienced crew that hasn't been trained properly yet. 

I would hate to think that Princess has let their food/cooks degrade that much especially after being great for so many years.

[Kmkub]

14 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

I really hope you did the survey and mentioned the LOUD piazza games, dancing, etc.  We hated it and couldn’t even have a conversation.  TIA

I haven’t received the survey, yet. I’ve been checking my email regularly; including spam.

[Kmkub]

1 minute ago, MissP22 said:

We just got off the Ruby & expressed the same thoughts as you about their buffet.

Lets hope it's just an experienced crew that hasn't been trained properly yet. 

I would hate to think that Princess has let their food/cooks degrade that much especially after being great for so many years.

Oh. 😞

 

I really hope they send me a post-cruise survey. I didn’t get one last cruise.

[MissP22]

16 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

I really hope you did the survey and mentioned the LOUD piazza games, dancing, etc.  We hated it and couldn’t even have a conversation.  TIA

The extremely loud Piazza seems to be a trademark of Princess lately. More & more people are complaining. 

[MissP22]

1 minute ago, Kmkub said:

Oh. 😞

 

I really hope they send me a post-cruise survey. I didn’t get one last cruise.

My husband & I both received one from the Ruby. I'm sure they were delighted to hear back from us. 😆

[PacnGoNow]

7 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

The extremely loud Piazza seems to be a trademark of Princess lately. More & more people are complaining. 

The worst was the Enchanted!  Felt like Carnival.  Huge piazza and filled starting at 9  am line dancing, games, etc.  So loud, the bar hostess couldn’t even hear our orders, nor GS could hear us.  So bad, all three levels.

Too bad.  Loved the ship, otherwise.

[PacnGoNow]

14 minutes ago, Kmkub said:

I haven’t received the survey, yet. I’ve been checking my email regularly; including spam.

We got ours the same day we disembarked for each b2b.

[Kmkub]

@MissP22 or @PacnGoNow - do either of you have the email? The subject line will help me search my email. I really do want to provide feedback.

[PacnGoNow]

2 minutes ago, Kmkub said:

@MissP22 or @PacnGoNow - do either of you have the email? The subject line will help me search my email. I really do want to provide feedback.

(Your first name)we'd love to hear about your cruise! | Booking#
 

It always starts with your first name and includes your booking #…

[Kmkub]

2 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

(Your first name)we'd love to hear about your cruise! | Booking#
 

It always starts with your first name and includes your booking #…

Thank you. It’s not there. I will call CS. I’m sure that will go just fine. 🤣

[PacnGoNow]

1 minute ago, Kmkub said:

Thank you. It’s not there. I will call CS. I’m sure that will go just fine. 🤣

Good luck.

 

If not, you could send your comments to customer relations.

 

customerrelations@princesscruises.com

 

 

[LACruiser88]

@Kmkub FWIW, We received our surveys before we were off the ship.

[PacnGoNow]

4 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

@Kmkub FWIW, We received our surveys before we were off the ship.

Us too, on disembarkation day. 

[Kmkub]

We found both surveys in my husband’s email. There was an issue with my account that had his email in mine, but we fixed it onboard. It seems it didn’t have time to propagate the change throughout all their various systems.

 

I filled it out. I mentioned piazza noise at least six times!! 

 

Thanks, everyone.