Review 2-14th April Sun Princess – Queensland Coastal Wonders

[Kiwi Kid]

........

 

The other thing I have seen done on some cruises is putting on the second show early.....

ie 2nd sitting have a pre dinner show and 1st sitting still go at the usual time.

The 1st dont like that though, as they have to line up and wait till the theatre is emptied,

before they can stampede into their favourite seats .

It never ceases to amaze me .....

the difference between first and second sitting people.....

its as if there are two different cruises going on at the same time.

 

Yes David this was the norm - early show for 2nd sitting and then 2nd show at either 8.30pm or 9pm - despite being 1/2 an hr early we never saw the stampede but take your word that it exists! Funny you mentioning "two different cruises" - we did comment on dry land that we were seeing many "new" faces! :D Jo

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Funny you mentioning "two different cruises" - we did comment on dry land that we were seeing many "new" faces! :D Jo

 

Thats happened to us many times Jo.

We have been on the plane flying home and got chatting to people who were on the same cruise but we never saw them on board:eek:.

[NSWP]

Was there 'Laundry Rage' ? You know the daily sparring in the ships laundries?

 

I erred in stating one main restaurant, of course there is the Regency and Marquis, one above the other, sorry folks.

 

Only 1 of the above was open for brekkie and lunch, both open for dinner, we were in Regency, 2nd sitting, far left corner.

[Gaznjo]

Hi Joanne,

Just checked my hotmail...havent received yet .Did you send it to:

 

colfox47@hotmail.com

 

cheers

Col

'colfox47@hotmail.com' copied straight from my email ....

 

send an email to me and see what happens

 

packetau@yahoo.com.au

[Gaznjo]

I was just looking at the princess patters my friend sent me from her cruise on the Dawn and the shows start at around 8 and repeated at 10... so being at 2nd sitting diner (8pm) I would presume that the 10pm show caters for us.... is there theatre rage for both shows or just the 8pm

 

joanne

[Sim168]

We were on Dawn Princess for NYE, had late dinner sitting, and never once had a problem getting a seat in the Theatre or Vista lounge for the late shows. This suited us really well, am hoping that the Sun Princess works out the same for this NYE.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

is there theatre rage for both shows or just the 8pm

 

It is only the first sitting people that are rushed through dinner ,

then rushed out again, then rushed off to the show, that experience theatre rage.

Second sitting people are more refined ..

laid back, relaxed, and do not suffer those problems.

We enjoy life.

[Gaznjo]

phew for a minute there i thought I had to pack my mothers collapsable walking stick !!

[Ela 2]

It is only the first sitting people that are rushed through dinner ,

then rushed out again, then rushed off to the show, that experience theatre rage.

Second sitting people are more refined ..

laid back, relaxed, and do not suffer those problems.

We enjoy life.

Hi David,

I'm curious how long you feel dinner should take. We have usually found it takes 75 to 90 minutes and don't feel it is rushed. That is the early dinner sitting. :)

 

Evon.

[cazz0069]

Hey Jo...loved the review. Very informative and concise. We were on the same cruise and had an amazing time but totally agree about the various valid points you bought up relating to tenders and shore tours. The Port Douglas situation was exceptionally annoying for those that had linied up for tickets only to be told there was a tender now and if you were ready you can just jump on. Hey Jo, i am new to the site and would love to post my own review of the cruise but not sure how to do it...i would assume i have to post a new threat but cant find the icon to do it...any ideas? Thanks again for your great review.

[Ela 2]

I hope you don't mnd me answering your question. Go back from this page to the page that lists all the threads. At the top of the page (on the left) there is a 'button' called 'New Thread'. If you click on that you can start a new thread. If you are going to do a long review it might work better to type the review in Word, then cut and paste onto this board as a new thread. :)

 

Evon.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

Hey Jo, i am new to the site and would love to post my own review of the cruise but not sure how to do it...i would assume i have to post a new thread but cant find the icon to do it...any ideas? Thanks again for your great review.

 

Hi Cazz, just post a new thread. If you go to main page of P&O Australia

you will see an icon at the top New Thread.

just click on that.

[Sailaway John]

Enjoyed your review. Will be sailing on Sun Princess June 17 to Asia for 16 days.

Was the Cruise Director a David Bradshawe - if so, what was he like?

[Guest012]

Hi Sailaway John....the new cruise director, he joined the ship in Melbourne only days before our April 2nd cruise is a great young englishman called "Kelvin"....... heaps of fun and has a great personality..........cheers Shiona

[Kiwi Kid]

Hi Sailaway John....the new cruise director, he joined the ship in Melbourne only days before our April 2nd cruise is a great young englishman called "Kelvin"....... heaps of fun and has a great personality..........cheers Shiona

 

Got to agree with Shiona on that one - Kelvin really was a hoot - though I think he'd learnt all his jokes of a guy on P&O called Adam - or maybe they all go through the same training?? He was genuinely "nice" - even managing a smile one night when we saw him bailed up by some "older guests" having a moan how long it had taken them to get into Port that day! Full credit to him!

 

Cazz0069 - notice you managed to post your review - always great to hear how others perceive things. Out of interest, was this your first cruise? Jo

[cazz0069]

No Jo, i went on the Fairstar when i was 20 but dont really remember much about it although in hindsight i am going to say there was absolutely no comparison. So in retrospect i will say this was my first cruise of any importance :)

[merapi]

Thanks for your very comprehensive review Jo. It’s a shame that you didn’t enjoy your cruise as much as you hoped and you certainly made many valid points about your experiences on board Sun Princess. It must have been particularly disappointing that the Kids Club was so unsuitable for Rachel’s age group.

 

Cheryl and I had never been on a Princess cruise before so didn’t come with too many expectations, although Princess has generally had a good rep in the industry. Our 2 previous cruises had been aboard Celebrity Galaxy, now sadly retired from Celebrity’s fleet and we had been really pleased with nearly all aspects of those cruises. We were really interested to compare the ships, which are about the same vintage and size. I have to say that Sun Princess has some lovely inside areas, particularly the atrium area in the centre of the ship, but overall seemed a bit more tired and less well kept.

 

On Galaxy it was really hard to walk far without coming across a crew member cleaning and polishing some part of the ship. The crew would always greet you in a polite and friendly manner and they had this knack of making each passenger feel “special”. The dining room waiters were particularly good at interacting with you and very quickly anticipating and catering to your culinary tastes. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the staff we met on Sun Princess. Our waiter was quite shy and while he did his basic job of taking orders and delivering your meals, he failed to engage with us in any meaningful way. Fortunately we had a wonderful group of fellow passengers on our table and had some great times during dinner, but our wait staff were generally disappointing (except for our lovely maitre de, Pancho, who was wonderful in dealing with Cheryl’s special salmon orders). The assistant waiter/sommelier went missing for long periods during the meal...not sure if there was a staff shortage. Having said this, we saw other wait staff interacting much better with their diners; maybe we were just unlucky but I think the lack of consistency is probably an issue of training. Likewise the stateroom attendants were friendly and did their jobs, but had to be asked to replace ice and fruit, rather than being proactive as was the case on Galaxy. (We missed out on the towel animals too Jo). They were also rather anxious for us to leave our room early on the final day.

 

Another issue for us was the poor design of the buffet area – the narrow passageways and often curious placement of food items made it quite congested at times. As Jo mentioned, there were a lot of older folk on the cruise and it could take a long time to negotiate the buffet area. A more open space would have made this less difficult and frustrating. The food itself – there were many good dishes, but overall it was a bit disappointing compared to our previous experience on Galaxy. As with most cruise food, the style tended to be heavy on the sugars, fats and salts and not enough of the more healthy variety. They could have done with a stir fry station and sushi bar etc.

 

A number of people have commented on the size of the Princess Theatre and the Vista Lounge and problems getting seats. We really had no problems with getting seats – we tended to come 15-20 minutes before the start of a show and generally got front row seats. It was amazing how few people seemed to want the front row, which gave such a great view without having heads in front of you. We were two of the unfortunate victims of the “seat saving rage” incident Jo referred to but otherwise didn’t have any issues. The biggest problem with the Vista lounge was that the rows were not sufficiently different in height so it was difficult to see past the people in front of you. By the way, we never felt we were rushed at dinner (1st sitting).

 

Some people were very critical of the shows but we thought that most of them were fine, although I do agree that the female lead didn’t have the voice to carry many of the songs that she sang. Her lower register just went missing. The shows tended to be a bit similar in style but the dancers were good and worked hard.

 

Other issues – as previously mentioned, the tendering process was a bit of a mess and if you didn’t get your tender tickets early, it could be a long wait to get ashore. I agree with the poster who questioned the ability of the tourist infrastructure in North Queensland to cope with the demands of having 2000 tourists at a time descend on them. I found it amazing that there were no deepwater ports and wharves in places like Cairns and Townsville. Some of the tender rides were “exciting” in the moderate swells but we treated them as a bit of fun, even when we got drenched with spray on the top deck of the smaller Cat going into Townsville. I’m sure it was a more serious issue for some of the older passengers and those with mobility problems though. After seeing the tender wobbling around early, I was not surprised that the stopover in Cooktown was cancelled. We didn’t hear any of the whinging that others have mentioned, although one lady at our dinner table was disappointed because the Cooktown stop was the main reason she had come on the cruise.

 

We didn’t venture to the laundry so avoided the “laundry rage” issues - the clothesline in the shower recess was very useful. We also avoided the tours, generally hating being herded on and off buses, so we tended to have a pretty relaxing time in the ports as well as on board. The activities on board did seem to have a sameness about them but we got into the trivia and never had a problem amusing ourselves.

 

As a last comment on the ship itself, I tend to agree with NSWP that the Aussie based Princess ships may be not quite up to the standard of the overseas ones, but nevertheless it’s pretty hard not to find many things to enjoy. I would like to be clear that the criticisms above certainly didn’t detract from our enjoyment of the cruise and for us, at least, they were relatively minor. Princess did a lot of things right and, like Jo, we were pleased to get a credit at the end of the cruise. For us, probably the best part was the friends we made, not only at dinner, but through the Cruise Critic meetup (and yes – shame on Princess for failing to have any staff member show up and not providing any nibbles) we made some great new friends from NZ - we spent some wonderful hours with Andy and Jackie. The fact that there was such a large proportion of Aussies and Kiwis made it very comfortable; many people would just come by and start up a conversation. This is generally not the case on overseas cruises which have a much larger contingent of Europeans and Americans (no offence meant there, by the way). I can only think of a couple of rude people we met during the cruise and we will fondly remember the friendliness of most people we met.

 

Oops...this turned into a review, didn't it?

 

Glenn

[wildweston]

Yep turned into a review and quite an enjoyable one too, Thanks :D

[Lady Mac]

An interesting and informative review, and you do make some very good points. I concur with most of 'The Good’ but some of my perceptions differ a little.

Firstly it was filled with the wrong demographic

I fear we too may fall into the ‘wrong’ demographic, but it is necessary to look at a broader perspective. It is a simple and inescapable fact that many older people choose to cruise, not necessarily because of advanced age and/or compromised mobility but because the entire cruise experience appeals. We have travelled many times, and in a number of different ways but have come to enjoy sleeping in the same bed for the entire vacation time, and NOT having to go looking for a meal in a different village or town every day.

Were it not for the ‘wrong’ people cruising it is doubtful whether the various cruise companies could afford to operate. Older passengers, no longer bound to the schedule of school holidays, are free to travel any time of the year and can consequently be expected to turn up while the kids of another generation are safely ensconced in school. Maybe one needs to look at the itinerary of your chosen cruise to determine if it may indeed appeal to folks older than oneself!

I struck no problems with little old stick- or frame-wielding ladies, nor in having to wait while these same passengers decided upon their dinners. Granted, the buffet area is poorly designed and does not facilitate swift passage.

The whining when we missed Cooktown – yes we were disappointed, but to hear people going on you’d think we were on the Aurora!

 

Of course we were disappointed, but I can honestly say I heard not a whine nor a whimper from anybody, let alone an oldie. It was patently obvious that the sea was very rough and that it may well constitute a danger in small boats. I believe that the captain made the only wise and safe decision that day, and if one travels long enough or far enough, cancellations and delays are just par for the course.

. No scrapbooking programme

 

For which I felt some relief!! The craft activities were well-chosen, offering an interesting array of options. My sincere thanks to Carrieanne for her work: I had a great time and met some lovely, funny and entertaining people. I guess we can’t please everyone…

 

Shows – very disappointed in the calibre of these – costumes looked a little worse for wear (2 rows from the front meant this was evident) and the female lead was very weak. (One night show was cancelled due to her illness, but don’t think this could explain her performances on both occasions I saw her). Only went to 2 shows, hoping for an improvement on the first, but gave up after the second. A couple of the dancers stood out from the rest – but it just showed the others up.

 

We too had front row seats, but costumes do tend to get a little worn… Granted, the earlier performances weren’t frightfully inspiring but they certainly improved later on. Or maybe I have simply experienced a few too many school productions!

 

. Also to run a shuttle bus into Brisbane City on Easter Sunday when they have told you everything is closed at a cost of $7 each way is just plain stupid. The number of complaints we heard about that was countless. Why not just re-jig things and run one to Southbank where you’ve told people in your talks the markets + food outlets will be open??

I agree that the information provided was inadequate: we took the river cat very cheaply, valid for the entire day and on a range of different public transport options. Fortunately somebody else had found it and told us. We don’t generally take the package excursions anyway, so the first thing we look for is public transport. I would like to see the cruise company provide more appropriate information.

 

Seat saving was a real issue.

I was one of the culprits in the seat-stealing fiasco… explanations are unnecessary, but our unfortunate trans-Pacific fellow passengers certainly left her manners at home. Reminded me of the notorious Jerry Springer Show…

 

 

Now I’d read all the horror stories about tenders

You are right, of course. Tendering is tedious and can lead to frustration! It is unfortunate that these destinations do not yet have a deep-water port, and one hopes the Queensland government will recognize this deficiency and set about making these ports accessible. It is a sad fact that many mobility-compromised passengers simply could not go ashore and missed out on some lovely days ashore.

 

I’d never do a cruise with them out of Hawaii – apparently this attracts their oldest cruisers

OMG here come the Age-Police again!!! As I said previously, without a contingent of older people choosing to cruise there would in all probability not be the profit for cruise companies. No company could afford to run cruises solely within school holiday periods – it is the year-round availability of (older) potential tourists that feeds the industry. And it is more likely that the retired generation has the funds to afford travelling at various times of the year. Believe me: no more school fees and no more mortgage allows much more flexibility for travel!

 

I am sorry you were disappointed with some aspects of your cruise. We had a fabulous time, and really enjoyed our latest cruise experience. I have found over a number of years travelling to many places that delays and cancellations are a fact of life for the tourist, and that these will be disappointments. But equally I have come to believe that one needs to be flexible, and that one has a choice when dealing with the vagaries of travel: there is always something positive every day to celebrate.

[Kinkacruiser]

I'm tipping my hat off to you , Lady Mac. I wholeheartedly agree with your observations and comments.

Kind regards,

Anna

[chessybear]

Interesting comment "Lady Mac", I am alittle confused to how one can steal a seat when it is announced and clearly written in Princess Patter that reserving seats is not permitted, different if the American Lady was seated in those "reserved seats" but she was no where to be found, (only her serviette's and menus) placed on the seats..... Ohh and it was not me that stole those seats rather some Australian friends who were seated beside us.

 

Regarding the New Zealander with bad manner's that was me, I was seated in a disabled seat with the show just about to commence, (apparently they fill a few minutes out from the show), and I had a valid reason for been allocated that seat by the attendants.

 

If I remember rightly the people who were seated behind me made a rather rude and loud fuss about me sitting in front of them, ("but hey we all have people sitting infront of us") that comes with tiered seating.....

 

If I was rude, it was only in response to the rudeness that was afforded me by the Australian seated behind me...

 

What was worse was that the row continued to fill up, so very sorry that the person with no manners view was somewhat obscured, perhaps she should have arrived early and selected a seat in the front row.

 

Apart from the above, I agree with the reviews written and compliments to the people who have made the effort to write or reply, it is after all from these forums, that we glean information about the type and style of holiday one maybe looking for.

 

Happy cruising to all.....:):)

[Guest012]

We don't get upset with chairhogs coz they provide us with a form of comedy entertainment whilst we are waiting for the main attraction...

whether they are hogging with their menus, clothes, walking sticks, sitting FAT or having sent the sentry out to protect, they are a wonderful source of laughter and the time flies watching them.....one poor old soul was sent into the lounge most nights to guard with his life 8 seats.....what horrid travel companions he has....the look on his face spoke volumes.....is it really worth the stress...........i don't think so..........shiona

[thied]

We don't get upset with chairhogs coz they provide us with a form of comedy entertainment whilst we are waiting for the main attraction...

whether they are hogging with their menus, clothes, walking sticks, sitting FAT or having sent the sentry out to protect, they are a wonderful source of laughter and the time flies watching them.....one poor old soul was sent into the lounge most nights to guard with his life 8 seats.....what horrid travel companions he has....the look on his face spoke volumes.....is it really worth the stress...........i don't think so..........shiona

i love these people who save seats as the other poster cheesybear said its not permitted same on P&O, why i love them is that they are saving them for my family and me even if they were not doing so, if we walk into the show room and there is a one person siting there with crap every where making shore no one sites there, because they are saving seats, we just sit there any way if they dont like it bad luck. sorry if it sounds rude.

[Guest012]

not rude thied as long as you say "excuse me" when you sit down:D:p:D .......worst thing you can ask and for most of us it is good manners is "is anyone sitting here" or " are these seats taken" coz the answer will almost always be YES.......even when no bots have actually taken residence yet.....:eek: last cruise i need to go and was a little worried about leaving my seat vacant so I said loudly but not too loudly.....I'M GOING TO THE LOO.....thus putting the engaged sign up on my spot:rolleyes:............. another fabulous cruise memory...shiona

[thied]

not rude thied as long as you say "excuse me" when you sit down:D:p:D .......worst thing you can ask and for most of us it is good manners is "is anyone sitting here" or " are these seats taken" coz the answer will almost always be YES.......even when no bots have actually taken residence yet.....:eek: last cruise i need to go and was a little worried about leaving my seat vacant so I said loudly but not too loudly.....I'M GOING TO THE LOO.....thus putting the engaged sign up on my spot:rolleyes:............. another fabulous cruise memory...shiona

lo yes i think that what you have to do some times the werst day for this the last day of bingo lol