brucedodge

Here's another vote for TripAdvisor and the Ports of Call section, plus sometimes just googling for private tours in X location.  I've set up small independent tours for 20+ years for ourselves and a few others (all met on Roll Calls).  We've never had a bad experience with those I've set up, and we've had some truly amazing ones.  I've even set up small private tours in places such as Sumatra, Togo, and the Gambia.  It just takes research and patience to find the right guide.  I respect those who take ship excursions, but we've been DIY people all our lives.  I always go to the farthest place we want to see first, and work our way back to port in plenty of time, and I make sure there is plenty of elbow room in the vehicle.

Agree with Sue.  We were on her last year, and we're leaving Saturday to join her again in Santiago, partly because this is the ship doing the itinerary.  However, if you didn't like the Diamond (which we did), I'd be careful.  Now that the "R" ships have been sold, the Coral is our favorite, and the Sapphire is second.

On 2/21/2024 at 7:59 AM, silkismom said:

Hi Bruce and Gail, haven't seen you in a long time. ANN

Obviously completely of the subject, but yes, that Azamara cruise was one of the best.  We're at lastname at Comcast point net

Bruce

17 hours ago, Carnevale said:

 

 

 I will just add one tidbit to what you have mentioned as I know that we do different things in the evenings.  We love to dance and have been so pleased with the experience on this sailing every evening so far. There are two duos with the Moondance Duo playing nonstop dance music during their sets and the talented Fountain Duo doing about half dance music and half other things.  So if there are any readers who are dancers looking forward to being on Sapphire soon I think you will have a great time.

Carnevale,

Thanks for posting this.  We are also avid dancers. We board the ship March 18th and wonder if either or both of the duos will be on board.

Don't know if you've been on Coral, but it has the best dance venues of any Princess ship, with the Wheelhouse near the theater with a bigger dance floor than the usual Wheelhouse, the Explorers, and the aft lounge.  The Island used to have all three, but Princess got rid of the aft lounge on that ship.

8 minutes ago, pilot said:

You may be correct. 

Waltd is correct.  And if you'd been in a suite (even a window suite) you'd have received 4 setups.

20 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

The Grand fixed all the leaks by the time I cruised her post pandemic.  If Princess decides to remove the Grand, I would love to see them clone her first and then build smaller ships.  
 

 

Amen

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Just found out using CrewCall Chat that they are estimating 2,571 guests on the next leg from BA back to San Antonio with only 47 staying on from this leg. 

Ken,

If you get a chance on your return voyage to engage Paolo Ravera in conversation, you should ask him about taking the Coral Princess into the caldera at Deception Island in 2020.  One of the most interesting things I've seen a cruise ship do.  Supposedly it was the largest ship at that time to have ever entered the caldera.

Bruce

The Sapphire crew seems to be exceptional.  When on board in September, they were awarded Best Princess Crew, or something like that.  And usually that comes from the top down, not vice versa.  The officers while we were on board were quite involved.  And we always (or almost always) fill out the mid cruise surveys.  They do read them, for sure.

To answer the title of this thread in one word:  Yes

Thanks to all for your clarifications.

We abandoned Azamara a number of years ago when they transitioned from duos/trios who played nightly upstairs.  They went to a guitarist and they lost us.  Every couple of years (and it's been a while) I ask the Azamara cruisers if live music has returned.  My question is: when you say "band," are you talking about the ship's band, or an extra group of musicians?  If it's the ship's band, don't they take up a lot of space?

And do any of you remember when Azamara used to have a harpist on board? 😀

We've cruised with Mario a number of times over the years, the last time in September.  He now has over 51 years with Princess.  Even Jan Swartz came to his 50 year ceremony.

We do a lot of cruising from foreign ports.  Over at least the last 15 years I cannot remember NOT using EZ Air to fly international business (domestically we don't care).  Always selected the seats at booking, and even though I suppose there could be a glitch, it's never happened to us.  I'm guessing one way business class fare via EZ Air has probably cost us about $1000-$1500 pp.  However, at our ages it's the only way we'll fly transoceanic, and good luck touching those fares booking yourself.  

Before the chop up, Island and Coral were our favorite ships (other than the R ships, which of course are now gone}. After the butchery we did cruise the Island once as we agreed to go on a short family cruise.  Just as we feared, the Island was a disaster, and we've avoided it ever since.  So glad we can still cruise the Coral.

FWIW, just came off Sapphire (sister to Diamond) a few weeks ago in a mid-ship full suite.  We like the extra space and spend a good deal of time in the room; however, quite frankly, a Reserve mini would have been fine, even without Sabatini's breakfast.  In our case the price difference was not as great as what you're looking at and was tolerable.  We've also been in a Royal Class mid ship suite and the Concierge Lounge is very nice.

There are tradeoffs and only you can decide the ones that are important.  Incidentally we find the Sapphire and Diamond comfortable and a reasonable size; however, the smaller Coral is our preference.  Not a fan of big ships.

11 hours ago, cr8tiv1 said:

 

I can't agree with you more!  And I have yet to step foot on a Royal Class ship.  I don't know what I will do when they send my Precious Grand to the "farm in the country".  Nor when they port only Royal Class ships out of San Pedro.

 

Thank you for a well composed post.

And I thank you ❤️

Interestingly our Norway cruise last year was supposed to be on the Grand (booked quite early), but due to COVID, the ship changed twice and ended up as the Sky Princess.  Lovely ship, great itinerary, and good weather, and we even ended up upgraded to a mid-ship full suite.  But the ship was just too damn big.  I know many people like the Royal Class and I'm happy for them ❤️.  

It seems ships are largely (!) becoming the destination rather than the places they can take you.  Cruising is a for-profit venture, and the accountants know that.  And as ships become larger, we will slowly shift, just as we jettisoned Celebrity, despite our Elite + status, as they went big

Again, as I always say, we have different tastes and different ways to satisfy those tastes.

Bruce

Interesting thread indeed.  I was on the same cruise for the same 14 days as OP but with a different perspective.  As we all intellectually know, we have different tastes, expectations, and perceptions.  

We thought the food was fine, but some meals are going to be better than others.  When on one evening my food was not hot enough, I had it microwaved (didn't take long) and on another occasion I changed my entree as what was served was poor.  No problem.  We ate twice during these two weeks in Sterling and once in Sabatini's.  Sabatini's was just as good as the OP described, but the steak house varied between the two times: the first time was acceptable; the second much better.  I've found over the years I am ahead if I order the filet mignon.  It's taller and easier to grill to expectations (which, for good or ill, for me is bleu! 😇).

We thought the crew was quite good and that the Captain did a nice job dealing with the weather, which in the circumstances may have had an overall negative effect.

I find comments on about the various ships to be similar to food, i.e. that we're all different.  Like Coral, and my friend Pescado Amarillo, we prefer smaller ships.  Now that the R ships are gone, Coral is our favorite, but Diamond and Sapphire fit the bill, as do the earlier Grand Class ships (before they added the extra passenger deck).  We find the crew on smaller ships much more involved with the guests. Our one experience on a Royal Class ship showed us "never again."

For those contemplating a future cruise,with the right attitude you'll have a great time.

Aren't these Boards lots of fun?  😀

Bruce

On 8/13/2023 at 8:47 AM, Australia08 said:

 One complaint I have regards the ship running out of specific drink items.  One wine we ordered (minor issue since there were reasonable substitutes). Of more concern was the ship running out of sparkling water.  We have this every night at dinner instead of still water.  We also often order it when having a drink at the bar in order to slow down our alcohol consumption. Two nights ago, our dining room waiter apologized that the ship had run out of Pelligrino (or any other sparkling water). Sure enough, later at the bar we asked and they confirmed that the ship had none.  We realized that Bar Harbor was a small port and resupplying there would be a problem.  But we assumed they would be able to stock more in Boston.  No, we were told, they would not restock until NYC (when we leave the ship).  I realize that Boston might not be their regular restocking point, but surely, whoever was responsible for miscalculating the supply needed could have picked up the extra cost for this item.  We would have been fine with any sparkling water brand.  This is just an annoyance, but it is a negative to us.  It’s ironic since we had just received a comment card from Princess, soliciting comments about the cruise so far and it as entitled “Attention to Detail.”  We chuckled and thought that someone who ordered sparkling water had definitely not been trained in attention to detail since a third of the cruise days would be without this beverage we drink daily.

 

I think I mentioned this before, but we had missed having a bar snack when having a cocktail.  Princess used to have these and I’m sure that it disappeared due to Covid, but other cruise lines have developed ways to provide a small bowl of nuts or crunchy snacks for couples to share or use individually.  While we have access to the P/E cocktail snacks from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, sometimes we want to have a drink at one of the regular bars.  When walking in Boston yesterday, I saw a Trader Joe’s and we popped in to buy some cashews so we have our own bar snack. I put some of the nuts in a snack size baggie and when we got to Vines last night, I divided them discretely onto two small cocktail napkins and our problem was solved.  Shouldn’t have to do this, but it worked.

 

Again, a problem we encountered that may impact very few cruisers is the lack of a variety of live dance music. Princess used to excel at this.  Club Fusion, Wheel House Bar, and Explorers all have nice hardwood dance floors.  While there was one evening that the Party Band was in Explorers, that venue had been used most evenings for game shows.  Wheel House has had a nice jazz ensemble, but no dance music.  They have pre-recorded music in Club Fusion some nights, but that is truly uninspiring.  On our last pre-Covid cruise on Princess to the South Pacific, they had a stellar duo in Wheel House Bar every evening (on the Emerald).  They played a variety of music - swing, rumba, salsa, waltz, cha-cha …. The dance floor was packed every evening.  They also had a party band that played almost nightly in Explorers.  We miss that type of entertainment so much.  We are sad that Princess has left that model.  We were excited because the Party Band was going to play for the Piazza Party.  The Piazza is not a good place to dance because it is small and does not have a wood floor, but we were ready.  We danced two or three numbers, them the cruise director took over and it became a game show for the next half hour.  After that the band only had time for one last dance.  We were disappointed.  Now to be fair, we haven’t found another cruise line that provides a lot of dancing opportunities.  Viking only has one dance floor and they tend to just have pop music for dancing, but I guess that is the best we can expect.  The era of cruise dancing seems to have reached an end.  Princess drew us back because they had it, but this is just another reason that this is probably our last Princess cruise since they seem to also have directed their interest to all huge ships (the newest one having all the Royal Caribbean toys that we know we don’t want). We will be looking for cruises of 1000 passengers or less with traditional promenades. I know that Princess has a market that wants what they are selling now.  It just isn’t for us any longer.

this paragraph certainly hits home.  I suspect we're very similar in our cruising tastes.  We've cruised many lines, but Princess has been our "go to" line for 20+ years because of the dancing venues and variety of music/bands.  We were Elite+ on Celebrity but gave them up 15 years ago as they got rid of their Century Class ships and went huge.  We gave up Azamara many years ago when they stopped having duos/trios play live music and went guitarist.  Oceania screwed up the nice wooden dance floors on their "R" ships.  We find the small, dark interior dance floor on Viking Ocean very inadequate. We loved the Princess's R ships with the wooden dance floors (despite the 2 poles), but alas, they're gone.    We love the large dance floors on Crystal, but they've been out of service for a few years now, though they're coming back.  If you haven't been on Coral Princess, I'd recommend it for dancing, and its sister Island Princess (though it's been chopped up a bit).  We have a couple of Corals lined up and we're going to test drive the Sapphire next month.  Most Grand Class and Royal Class ships just don't cut it for us.  

Thanks for the post.

Bruce

Enjoyed the review and all the comments.  We cruised the Viking Star early on during their rollout of ocean going ships.  We thoroughly enjoyed the experience but won't be back.

The killer was the tiny dance floor located in the dark inner sanctum amidships.  Princess dance venues and music have it all over Viking, in a big way!

We are also strict DIYers, and hated the included excursions.  We went on one the first port day and never did another.  And of course part of the fare pays for them 😀

Wear the purple dress!  you'll look good and you'll fell good.

I don't know if you're a DIYer, but FWIW a group of us rented a van right at the pier (this was a number of years ago off the Ocean Princess).  There were about eight of us and we were actually at the beaches on DDay.  Quite an experience.

Don't know if it would work for you, but could be an option for those of you on the roll call.

Churchill's

My wife carries two sets of ear plugs in her purse. They are convenient and readily available. We've used them for a couple of decades, especially in the Princess theaters (and other cruise lines as well).  We like them because you can vary them in your ear depending on the loudness.  We've long since discovered that feedback to members of the Princess staff produce no change.  And we sympathize with those we've seen simply get up and leave.

Incidentally, having them always available works wherever one goes,  They're nice in aircraft to deaden the sound, especially if there are continuous loud talkers or babies in the area.

We have mainly cruised Princess (but also a dozen other lines) for 25 years.  Unfortunately Crown Grill is trending in the wrong direction.  We only went back our last cruise for a second night because our travel agency had gifted it to us.

It's not going away.  It's something we're all going to have to live with.