Martha1974

Absolutely no insights, but an additional query… as well as the changes to Bistro sur la Mer I’ve also heard suggestions that the Crown Grill Bar will be rebranded as Wheelhouse. Hubby and I have only sailed on Sky Princess so don’t know the plus sides of Crooners and Wheelhouse but will definitely miss Bistro.

For us the time we selected on the app was spot on (but that was probably because we chose the first available slot so there hadn’t been much time for the queues to build up). The discrepancy was that our booking information stated that check-in wouldn’t open until 12:30… we assumed that we’d be kept waiting to check-in but that at least we’d be near the front of the queue when it opened. However when we got to check-in it was definitely already open and nearly empty. We didn’t have to wait at all and walked straight up to one of the available agents. We assume Princess are advertising the later time to discourage everyone from arriving at 11:00 considering (as @Rick&Jeannie has pointed out) it seems to be common knowledge that the boarding group selection in the app means nothing.

We sailed from Southampton in Sept 2022. We selected boarding group A in the app (11:00am) but the itinerary on our travel summary stated that check-in wouldn’t open until 12:30. We arrived at the terminal at 10:50, CPS booked the car in at 11:20 and we were on the Lido deck with a drink by 11:45am. We’re on the same itinerary this September and I plan to do the same again.

I was taught many years ago that the easiest way to differentiate is that ‘high tea’ usually requires silverware/cutlery and ‘afternoon tea’ doesn’t (other that for spreading jam and cream on the scones of course. Let’s not open the ‘which goes on first’ debate!)

I’m an ex-smoker (I was fortunate that I quit before I had to deal with too many health consequences) and my husband has never been a smoker. I think he is more tolerant of it than I am… I found it unpleasant walking through the casino on Sky Princess but it didn’t bother him. I would definitely support smoke-free casinos but maybe with an expansion of Churchills (or the introduction of another smoking venue) that is a closed-door venue so the smoke doesn’t permeate into public areas and affect other people.

We found that there was usually live music in the piazza in the evening (you could hear it if you could find a seat on decks 5, 6 or 7). There was also live music in Take Five (we didn’t go in there but understand from friends that it was mainly jazz), in the Crown Grill bar (we saw a superb classic guitar player there) and we were told that there was also some live music in the Vista Lounge. The only nights we were still around to see a late night DJ we were in the Vista Lounge… we probably stayed till about 12:30 but how much later than that it carried on I couldn’t tell you. It was our first cruise with Princess so I can’t help with information about Elite/platinum etc (although I feel like I saw the vista lounge was reserved so that may have been why!)

Everything @reedprincess said!! The only thing I would add is that Sky Princess doesn’t have the extra-charge Salty Dog Gastropub (my understanding is that this has replaced the Vines wine-bar on some ships, but Sky Princess still has Vines). The extra-charge speciality dining venues are Crown Grill, Sabatini’s and Bistro sur La Mer. We’ve only sailed on Sky Princess once and we did try all 3 speciality restaurants. I have my opinions but I’d advise that you try them if you want to and then you can make up your own mind. The only other thing I’d add is that there are items on the room-service menu that are included but there are others (such as pizza) that are extra-charge. As I said we’ve only sailed on Sky Princess once so that are many more CC contributors that are far more knowledgable, but if you need an indication of our opinion we’re sailing on her again in Sept 2023. I hope you have a great vacation.

We have annual cover with CedarTree and have always found their prices very good. We’re lucky that we don’t have many pre-existing conditions, and also that we’ve never had to make a claim so can’t say how good they are if something goes wrong

I usually pack a few magnetic hooks for extra hanging space (useful for handbags/ cruise card lanyards etc and for hanging wet clothes in the bathroom, especially if cold / wet weather cruising) and also a magnetic motion-sensor nightlight for getting to the bathroom during the light without switching lights on.

Hubby and I went to 'Spoons for our wedding breakfast! We had a very quiet (us + 2 witnesses) registry office wedding on a Monday (the cheapest day to get married!) with a big family party the following Saturday, so we were straight out of the Registry Office and across the road to Wetherspoons for fizz and nibbles (not the one in So'ton though).

We were booked on our first Princess cruise on Sky Princess for 12 days in March 2022 but weren’t able to travel due to a positive covid test so used some of the FCC for a 7-night France & Spain trip in September and rebooked the same itinerary for Sept 2023 with the remainder. Having also done a German Xmas Markets cruise in December on a smaller ship (1400 pax) we think that we may be ‘small ship people’ but we’re happy to give the Sky Princess another chance to change our minds.

We’re still on board and the food in the MDR has been as good as the event on Saturday, if not better (IMHO) but we have only had 2 evening meals so far. Haven’t done b’fast or lunch in there yet, just in the buffet but going gI’ve it a try tomorrow. Resorted to a 7:30 breakfast in the buffet this morning and it was lovely and quiet!

Base layers and thermal socks are all packed 😂! We’re just on our way down the A1 -going to have a quick stop at Lakeside for last-minute bits and to kill some time before we head to Tilbury for 6:20 embarkation.

We didn’t get any luggage tags for the Festive Event. We’re doing the event tomorrow night then staying on board for the 5-night Xmas Markets cruise. We are keeping the same cabin so we will have tags with the right cabin number on and are hoping that our bigger case may get brought on for us, (Saturday night’s clothes are in the carry-on) but I’m guessing that the assumption is that people that are only on board for the night will have minimal luggage and will be able to self-embark.

Oh wow, we got 6:20pm and I thought that seemed late… I assume the late sitting for dinner will be 8:15pm but I don’t think I’ve actually seen that published anywhere.

We cashed it in on the (late) afternoon of the last sea day… I didn’t want to leave it too late into the evening to avoid long queues at Guest Services. This was the wording on the Disembarkation Information that was left in the cabin 2-3 days before

On Sky Princess in September we were able to take our unused pre-paid OBC in cash from Guest Services (we had $200 unused and were told we could take up to $250 in cash, although others have said that this was not an option on other ships). It was in USD but as it was cash I passed it on to a friend who is travelling to New York at the same price we paid Princess for it. We got our money back and my friend got $200 for her trip a lot cheaper than she would have paid elsewhere... win-win.

Oh my goodness - the chocolate croissants 🧡💛💚 I only discovered them in the Pastry Shop the day before we disembarked Sky Princess - I was so disappointed that I hadn’t found them earlier but also a bit relieved that I’d saved myself putting on another 5lb by eating several of them every day! We ate lunch in the buffet most days - I can’t say anything stands out as amazing, but equally there were no disasters (apart from the day we didn’t go for lunch until about 2pm and most of the food stations were finished, but that was our mistake!)

If there are 3 price options in NZD those are the prices that Princess are currently charging for $25, $50 and $100 US. The OBC applied to your onboard account will always be those amounts of USD, it’s the non-US currency charges that change between cruises. For example we sailed on Sky Princess in Sept ‘22 and bought 4x $100 US OBC at a charge of 72GBP per $100 so when we got on board we had $400 even though the exchange rate had changed between the purchase and the cruise and by the date that we sailed the 4x£72 would actually only have bought $350. (The current rate for the same cruise in Sept ‘23 is 82GBP per $100). Once you’ve made the purchase Princess won’t change the rate. Of course this can be a good thing or not depending on whether the exchange rate is going up or down. However having done it once I would definitely do it again.

I always assumed that the American use of entree for the main course came from the French ‘entre’ meaning ‘between’ rather than ‘entrée’ meaning ‘entry’… I can confirm however that I have done absolutely no research to back this up and it is probably absolute nonsense!!

I agree - having eaten at Sabatinis on the last night of our cruise on the Sky Princess I totally overfaced myself by ordering something for every course and although the entree was delicious there was nothing about me that could have eaten it after 4 courses of amuse bouche, appetiser, soup and primo (all of which were delicious by the way). Explaining to our excellent server that the issue was my greed not the quality of the food was difficult - the assumption always seems to be that there’s a problem with the food not that a lot of people can’t eat 5 courses!

It is, although it seems to be hit-and-miss how you get it back. On Sky we could claim anything up to $250 in cash from GS but other posts have suggested that on other ships anything over $25 is refunded by cheque once you disembark (we took the cash - I didn’t fancy the hassle of depositing a cheque in US dollars into a GBP bank account).

We did this on Sky Princess in September - we paid £72 GBP and once on board had $100 US OBC on our account. The exchange rate at the time would have bought approx $85 US so we found it to be a very good deal.

We were anchored off Funchal on NYE 2019 (not with Marella, but we saw their ship) and the fireworks were incredible. Even though the weather was rotten I would definitely recommend being there on New Years Eve!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We are considering Marcella for a cruise with friends (we’ve cruised before but just the two of us, not in company) and had similar concerns - it sounds like they may be unfounded.