Cruise #41: 7 Day Eastern

    10/19/2024 - 10/26/2024

 

Ship: Sun Princess

Cabin : 9212 Cabana mini-suite

 

Sun Princess Cabana mini-suite 9212 part 1
Sun Princess Cabana mini-suite 9212 part 2

Eagles tribute

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

B52

 

Itinerary:

Oct 19 Fort Lauderdale 3:00PM
Oct 20 Princess Cays 9:00AM 5:00PM
Oct 21 At Sea
Oct 22 San an 9:00AM 10:00PM
Oct 23 St Thomas 8:00AM 6:00PM
t 24 At Sea
Oct 25 At Sea
Oct 26 Fort Lauderdale 6:00AM
 

Click on image to enlarge.

Our first night on the Sun Princess. The newest and largest ship in the Princess fleet. This is Carol in the Eclipse Dining Room. Lou asked me to make sure you notice that there is no bread on the table. :-) We had to ask for bread 2 to 3 times at every meal before we got it. The staff-to-passenger ratio on the ship was not great. We were told that, rather than transferring plenty of experienced staff to the Sun Princess, most of the wait staff were inexperienced.	2nd Day: Princess Cays We've been to Princess Cays many times, so we decided to stay onboard to enjoy the peace and quiet of a nearly empty ship.	This is one of our favorite areas of the ship, "The Dome" So cool, quiet and serene.
This is the area just outside of The Dome. We lay on this wonderful round sunbed for hours, listening to music and just enjoying the atmosphere. Carol is trying to talk Lou into going halvsies on a round bed for our lanai at home.	2nd night - The Catch by Rudi on the Sun Princess	The Catch by Rudi The decor and presentation were beautiful.
The Piazza on the Sun Princess Great entertainment all the time.	O'Malley's Pub Lou loved the fish and chips....well, the fish anyway. Kevin Brando is the pianist/singer. Very smooth voice, great on the piano. He was very funny and very entertaining. We went to several of his shows and sang along.	San Juan, Puerto Rico Our first visit to San Juan, Puerto Rico and we loved it! Beautiful town, beautiful architecture. We meandered through Old Town and ate lunch at a restaurant called Moreno. Lou had the Puerto Rican style bistec empanizado and Carol had the arroz con pollo. We heard that the Pina Colada originated in Puerto Rico so Lou got the regular version and Carol got a virgin Pina Colada. Best Pina Coladas ever! You could really taste the coconut.
San Juan, Puerto Rico The statue Cristóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus)	Crooners on the Sun Princess	Kevin Brando at Crooners, singing 'Mack the Knife'
The Makoto Ocean Restaurant on the Sun Princess	St Thomas	St Thomas
Sun Princess - The Eclipse Restaurant (still no bread!) :-)

 

Sun Princess review:

 

Hello this is my 33rd cruise with princess this time aboard the 8 month old Sun Princess. I have never had a reason to complain about service or food but this time I cannot let it go. Just about every food venue we have been to the service has been awful and the food quality is nowhere close to the Princess expectation. In the main restaurants, including the Eclipse, bread-and-butter were not on the table and we had to ask for it 3 times before it was finally delivered. We ate at the sushi restaurant last night and the sushi rolls did not hold together so picking up with chopstick was impossible. The butcher's block was very disappointing as the cuts of meat were either fatty or chewy and the side dish was a standard baked potato not an Italian side dish and the appetizer was raw vegetables. Catch by Rudy was decent of the the filet I ordered came with skin and fried and so was not very appetizing as the meat part was very thin.

The food on the promenade deck outside the buffet and the food on the Lido deck including burgers and Mexican and the ice cream were all up to expectation. Room service takes at least 30 minutes and 1 hour this morning. There are no longer egg dishes available for breakfast via room service except for some prepackaged stale, disgusting bacon egg on a stale english muffin in a bag. I think Princess must have changed their coffee brand because everywhere we have gone the coffee has been totally awful week and bitter.

On the positive side the entertainment has been excellent including vocalist Kevin Brando and comedian Frank Townsend. I like the idea of having the princess live venue be a comedy club at night. The cabins are pretty good although I will say we have a mini suite and a bathroom shrunk by at least 50% from that on other ships. The closets are directly across the bathroom so you can not open both at the same time. I have a cabana mini suite which is very nice as there is a cabana space between the bedroom and the balcony.

Finally it goes without saying that we do not like bigger ships. Everywhere we go there are a mob of people and the hallways are very crowded you can't get to the international or any coffee place because of the amount of people. This is a brand new ship yet there are upslopes and downslopes on the floors on every deck which is rather baffling because it makes walking a bit hazardous. We will not be returning to the Sun Princess or go on future sun class ships as they are too big and too crowded. We will return to the smaller class like the Grand Princess.

The mini bar set-up no longer contains mini bottles of alcohol. Instead it consists of canned cocktails that really suck.

I will say that the food in the Americana Restaurant was very good.
 

 

 

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