JimmyVWine

I would agree to this on an "opt in" basis. For those of us who almost always sail as a group of 3 or 4 in a cabin, the evening service to convert the cabin into the sleeping arrangements we paid for is not a luxury. It is a necessity. I don't think that the "cabin-to-bedroom" conversion should be self-service.

Connecticut is home to two of the largest casino resorts in the world, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. Both converted to be completely non-smoking on the casino floors with designated outdoor and fully enclosed smoking areas available for guests who wish to smoke. Neither resort is suffering because of it.

Please note that there are a few different piers that are used in Las Palmas. If you are arriving on Sun Princess or probably any one of the Royal Class ships, you will arrive in a rather industrial area that isn't particularly walkable to anything. You can take a shuttle bus to a main hub of the town and from there, pretty much everything is walkable. But "walkable from the ship" should not be your focus.

I've yet to see a single shrimp cocktail photo, (or in person) served on a Princess ship that didn't look awful. Soggy, overcooked, wilted, waterlogged messes.

I'd rather that the roster of potential attendees be winnowed down self-selectively through a dress code (and price) than by Princess based on the class of cabin that one books as is the case with 360. Everyone on the ship has the opportunity to enjoy Spellbound. They just have to decide if it is something they want to do. I'm not a fan of the growing number of places that are built with the intention of them being off limits to most passengers. Besides. On a ship with 4,200 people on board, how many would try to book Spellbound if the cost was $29 with a "come as you are" dress code? 3,000? 3,500? Everyone? It can only accommodate 90 people per day. Over 7 days, that is 630 people, or only 15% of all guests. Without any self-selective filters in place, getting a reservation at Spellbound would become a frustrating game of chance, or worse, a perk for the privileged. At least this way, even a Blue Medallion cruiser in an inside cabin can get in, if they really want to. All they need is $149 and a lack of distain for blazers, shirts and ties.

Here is what one can see from the Sea Walk on Regal Princess which has the same layout if they strain to lean over as far as they dare. I first checked for people on the balcony so that I would intentionally not capture anyone without their permission, and then leaned my camera out as far as I could. So a person's actual view would be less than this. It simply isn't an issue. Here is the view as one first enters the walkway, (no leaning-just a natural view):

Same here. (But September instead of August). We will be trying out a new cabin category (Cabana) and many new dining venues. If we love it, great. If not, we have lots of other options (for now.)

Which highlights a management technique that is sometimes employed and which I find useful as part of my management routine. If the new situation proves stressful and the best people quit, you have lost your best people. As an alternative, you can put your "second best" people on the job--the ones who are aiming for upward movement and who want to prove themselves. If the stress gets to them and they quit, you still have your best people. And, if as they say, "pressure makes diamonds", and the second best people rise to the task, you now have a whole new crop of "best people." Not being on Sun myself, I don't know whether Princess is using the "best people" or "second best people" approach, or a mixture of both. I suspect the latter.

Might be too far out in advance to book dining. And the “no shows” problem at launch surely won’t be an issue in July. The Sun is still in the shakedown stage. Since the days of the Titanic we have come to understand that you don’t judge a ship by its maiden voyage.

Here's my math. Assume the purchase of Premier at $80 per day. Even though the package comes with lots more stuff, all we really care about is the value of the wine/cocktails, coffee drinks, crew appreciation, wi-fi and Specialty dining Credits. Adding all those up, about $35 per day per person of the $80 fee is allocated to the 15 alcohol drinks per day. So for a 7 day cruise, two people would be paying $490 for 15 drinks per day, and the wine that you get for that money is pretty average stuff. Nothing to get excited about. Compare that to bringing your own wine on that 7 day cruise. Assume that you bring on 10 bottles of wine that you purchase for an average of $30 per bottle. This is going to get you into the realm of the quality that you would get from the ship. Belle Glos Pinot Noir, Whispering Angel Rose, Silverado Cabernet. So your sunk cost of purchase is $300. Two bottles get on for free and the others get assessed the corkage fee. I have seen both $15 and $20 as the fee. Let's use $15. 8 corkage fees is $120. So for $420 you've got your wine covered. But those 10 bottles might not be nearly enough to drink over a full week, especially on Sea Days. And we haven't accounted for coffee drinks. So let's say that each person adds two more drinks and some coffee each day, on average, to their drinking total and those cocktails average $12 per drink and you spend $5 per day on coffee drinks. After the 18% gratuity, those drinks over 7 days will cost about $480. So the new total for the couple is $900 as compared to $560 for the Package. And you haven't elevated your game, as the bottles that you brought on board are on par with what the ship is pouring for the Premium Package. So your assumption is spot on. If you want to drink about as well as you would with the ship's wine, you do much better with a Package. If you want to raise your game, you can bring on your own wine, but you are going to spend far more. If the average price per bottle is $50 instead of $30, you are now up to $1,100 compared to $490. But again, this assumes that you are supplementing your wine consumption with an average of 2 additional cocktails per day plus some coffee. If you forego all other alcohol and coffee, the even-up comparison for better wine would be $620 for better wine versus $490 for the package.

With all the reviews now coming in for Sun Princess, most of which comment about how undeniably beautiful the ship is, I can't help but deny the undeniable. Sorry, not sorry. THIS is what a beautiful ship looks like. The Royal Class and Sphere Class ships have features that necessitated exterior design modifications. I get it. But let's stop kidding ourselves. The Grand Class/Gem Class ships are much easier on the eyes. Thanks for the short review and the awesome photos!

His disappearing act is second to none!

But the two are not mutually exclusive. You are overlooking the fact that if the original party is moved back in to the cabin, the party that replaced them in that cabin then gets moved. It’s a game of musical chairs. The second party that got the cabin never even knew that they had it. So if the original party gets it back, the second party gets moved to another cabin and is none the wiser.

In a scenario such as this, it is almost always the case that the original cabin is reassigned instantly to the larger party that needs it. There is really no reason why Princess would move someone out of a cabin unless there was already someone else in the on deck circle ready to move into it the instant it is freed up.

Bar Menus and Wine Lists Sun-Princess-Crooners.pdf Sun-Princess-Signature-Collection-Wine-List.pdf Sun-Princess-Wheelhouse-Bar.pdf Sun-Princess-Wake-View-Bar.pdf Sun-Princess-SeaView-Bar.pdf Sun-Princess-Rare-Gems.pdf Sun-Princess-Pool-Bar.pdf Sun-Princess-Good-Spirits.pdf Sun-Princess-OMalleys.pdf

And now the Specialty and Cover Charge Casual Dining Venues. (They didn't have one for Alfredo's) Sun-Princess-OMalleys.pdf Sun-Princess-Butchers-Block.pdf Sun-Princess-The-Catch-by-Rudi.pdf Sun-Princess-Umai-Teppanyaki.pdf Sun-Princess-Crown-Grill-Beverage.pdf Sun-Princess-Crown-Grill.pdf Sun-Princess-Sabatinis.pdf

Here are menus that I found on another site. (Not sure if I can post the link to that site.) I will try to post the remaining menus as well. The link below for the MDR menus are from Horizons and the document contains the menus for each of the 10 days of the cruise. Sun-Princess-Americana.pdf Sun-Princess-Horizons-Breakfast.pdf Sun-Princess-Horizons-Lunch.pdf Sun-Princess-Horizons-Vegan.pdf Sun-Princess-Main-Dining-Room-Wine-List.pdf Sun-Princess-menus-MDR-10-Day-Med-Dinner.pdf

While I cannot vouch for their accuracy, this site has download links to every menu on the ship. https://cruisetipstv.com/new-sun-princess-menus-food-photos/

I'm right there with you. Especially with Princess' stated goal of shifting its pricing strategy toward having the lowest prices at the announcement date of the itinerary and going up from there. (Which seems to be holding true based on my most recent bookings.) By the time people release their unwanted cabins back into the mix, sometimes very late in the process, the prices are higher than they have ever been so the people picking up these cabins are paying really high fares. And this causes a "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality with more and more people booking early with $1 deposits knowing full well that there is a 10% chance that they will actually ever take that cruise. Maybe the solution is to put people on some sort of "probationary period" if they have canceled a certain number of cruises. Princess knows who is doing this because people have to book using their Loyalty Membership Number. So maybe after too many book/hold/cancel scenarios, that person is no longer eligible for a $1 deposit and has to secure their future cruises with $500 or so until a period of time passes and they complete a couple of cruises that they booked without cancelling. Like you said. Probably not a popular idea here.

Discretionary travel expenses are more tied to wage and investment income growth. The DJIA may very well cross the 40,000 mark this week. That is driving cruise bookings as much as anything else given the average age of cruisers. Investment income is a key component to the spending of many cruisers.

Discretionary leisure travel spending is a leading indicator of a healthy economy. It correlates to both consumer confidence as well as actual financial health of the spender. What we are seeing is the predicted recovery of the worldwide economy and a return to normal. The media sells itself on doom and gloom news and endlessly trumpets how "bad" the economy is. But some things just can't be faked, and leisure travel spending is one of those things. Airlines are flying with full planes. Hotels are at pre-Covid occupancy levels while charging higher rates, and cruise ships are sailing full. Those numbers don't lie and they tell an economic story far better than the negative Nancys in the media.

And let's not forget the the layout and décor shown in the mock-ups and sample walk-through Cabana Cabin compared to what the Cabanas actually got in terms of "furniture."

I don’t think anyone is doubting your story. And I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that the amount offered to you is a bit light. But what is clear is that you are never going to get a cash refund and that you did get some benefit out of the cruise so a refund seems extreme. Simply put, if you ate all of your appetizer, all of your main course, and drank the bottle of wine that you ordered, you don’t get a full refund if you find a hair in your dessert. You paid for the transportation that the ship provides getting you from place to place. You received that. You paid for copious amounts of food. You received that. You paid for entertainment. You received that. You paid for a resort-like experience around the pools and MUTS. You got that. If you paid for a Package that provided for drinks, you got those. What you didn’t get was a good night’s sleep. No one is questioning that. Not sure what the capacity was on board and how logistics played in to moving you. Maybe Princess had few options. I think that most would agree that a bump up from $250 in FCC would be appropriate. But there isn’t any basis for a refund. As noted before, Princess could up its offer to $1,000 in FCC and it appears that you still would be dissatisfied. So I’m not sure what can or should be done. Princess simply does not pay cash back to people who completed their cruise.

You've made up your mind as is your right. So I'm not sure what sort of suggestion you are looking for. Princess has made its decision as to what sort of compensation you are owed, and that is pushing you to the point of not wanting to sail with them again. And that's fine. But this kind of reminds me of the old joke about the guy who said that the food at a restaurant he dined at was terrible, and then went on to complain about that the portions were too small. Would it make a difference if the future cruise credit were doubled to $500? Or tripled to $750? If not, what sort of suggestion are you seeking? Why would you want to bother their service team or your travel agent any further if any additional credit is just going to go unused? Seems rather pointless to jump through hoops to get more credit on a cruise line that you aren't going to sail on.

Canon T3i. For that trip I rented an "L" series telephoto lens, but I can't remember what the zoom power was. 28-300 is my best guess.