New or Old Ship

[MissP22]

8 minutes ago, Coral said:

Love the Sapphire! Hated the Crown Princess. Crown Princess was way too crowded.

 

I actually like the Sea and the Sun Princess. You have to like traditional ships to like these 2 and it sounds like you do.

Bring either ship back to Ft Lauderdale & I'd book them again.  

[mcrcruiser]

4 hours ago, Coral said:

The mini suites are great on the Sun Princess. I like the ship - it is more of a Traditional Cruise ship than the newest ships. I would sail on her again in a heart beat. She has been in Australia so I haven't been able to sail on her.

 

Though if you are sailing from LA, you have a lot of sea days. If you are interested in seeing Alaska - I would do a B2B out of Vancouver.

We have been to Alaska 5 times in the past including doing Seward to anchorage to Denali to Fairbanks  .Rather than fly we wanted the 14 night cruise ;which eliminates flying for us .We can drive to the port 

 We as well prefer the smaller ships ;however ,condition of the ships internal workings is very important 

 We will both be 82 mat the time of this cruise 

[Cruise Raider]

22 hours ago, az2sea said:

We are really torn between taking a cruise on one of the older ships or one of the newer ships.  We have cruised on Princess over 30 times so are familiar with many of the ships.  We have definitely noticed a decline in the conditions on the older ships lately.  The newer ships are definitely in better shape, nicer and clean, but way to crowded for our likes, though not too bad when in a Suite.  We much prefer the smaller ships over the newer larger ships regarding passenger size but also prefer being on a clean well maintained ship. The problem is we have found some cruises we would like to take but are hesitant to sign up because of being on older ships and none of the newer ships are cruising to these places.  Is anyone else having this problem between the older and new ships?

 

I have this exact same sentiment .... both about the older ships and newer ships!  I do believe Princess could do a much better job at maintaining their older ships in the fleet.  I still do sail on their older ships but, mostly because of the lack of crowds, convenience and the staff/crew.  I've found the level of service on the Royal lacked ... but wow, that ship is simply gorgeous!!  I've been somewhat dismayed at the condition of the Grand Class ships but the service shines!!  

What do I do?  I book half and half and just have lesser expectations of the staff when on a newer ship and lesser expectations of the condition of the ship on the older ships. That way, I have a great time on both!!  

[Coral]

46 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

We have been to Alaska 5 times in the past including doing Seward to anchorage to Denali to Fairbanks  .Rather than fly we wanted the 14 night cruise ;which eliminates flying for us .We can drive to the port 

 We as well prefer the smaller ships ;however ,condition of the ships internal workings is very important 

 We will both be 82 mat the time of this cruise 

Have a great cruise!

[mcrcruiser]

Just now, Coral said:

Have a great cruise!

Thanks 

[Cruise Raider]

1 minute ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

 

Thanks for this perspective.  I agree in my limited experience that Royal is not really all that service oriented.  Hardly any of the bartenders/servers seem to smile much and completely seem to go through the motions.  Noticeably worse service than I normally see on land.  Having said that, unless they're not being outright rude, I personally don't weigh service all that highly in terms of the interaction aspect so if that is one of the main positives of older ships, I don't feel like I'm missing much.

 

On the Royal, we experienced very long lines and a fair amount of incompetence and unwillingness of some of the waiters to fill our requests.  Funny thing is, I didn't find this to be true at any of the bars.  The beverage service and bartenders were the best!!  I'm sure mileage varies depending on the sailing.  In the MDR, we were all but ignored and even told, to get something other than pork for breakfast was a pain.  The waiter's words, not mine.  We have 60 cruises under our belt and never have we been told that doing their job was a pain.  That was just beyond what I thought I would ever hear.  

We also were at the pub lunch and had a wine bottle package that we would have like to use ... but again, nope!  They  would not even think to retrieve a bottle for us.  They said they were too busy ... same thing in the buffet area.  

Well, we do have 3 future cruises booked on this ship, so the service hasn't quite turned me against that ship as of yet.  As mentioned, better bartenders have not been found and we did enjoy the great service in Alfredos, too!!  I think it is just all about expectations and they are set lower for the service on the newer ships so, hopefully, no disappointment on those sailings.  Except for that random less than stellar service on the older ships, we've found we can overlook the condition of the ship.  I am always a bit amazed at people that don't notice that, though.  

[mcrcruiser]

5 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

 

On the Royal, we experienced very long lines and a fair amount of incompetence and unwillingness of some of the waiters to fill our requests.  Funny thing is, I didn't find this to be true at any of the bars.  The beverage service and bartenders were the best!!  I'm sure mileage varies depending on the sailing.  In the MDR, we were all but ignored and even told, to get something other than pork for breakfast was a pain.  The waiter's words, not mine.  We have 60 cruises under our belt and never have we been told that doing their job was a pain.  That was just beyond what I thought I would ever hear.  

We also were at the pub lunch and had a wine bottle package that we would have like to use ... but again, nope!  They  would not even think to retrieve a bottle for us.  They said they were too busy ... same thing in the buffet area.  

Well, we do have 3 future cruises booked on this ship, so the service hasn't quite turned me against that ship as of yet.  As mentioned, better bartenders have not been found and we did enjoy the great service in Alfredos, too!!  I think it is just all about expectations and they are set lower for the service on the newer ships so, hopefully, no disappointment on those sailings.  Except for that random less than stellar service on the older ships, we've found we can overlook the condition of the ship.  I am always a bit amazed at people that don't notice that, though.  

Question did you go to the Maitre 'd to tell him/her of that kind of comments from their staff ?

[Cruise Raider]

16 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

Question did you go to the Maitre 'd to tell him/her of that kind of comments from their staff ?

 

I did mention the one waiter to him and while he seemed completely overwhelmed, he did make sure we got what we requested.  I would say, the staff being overwhelmed was the root of all problems on that ship.  It just seemed like they were staffed for 1000 less passengers than what showed up.  To be fair, we were on the first sailing where they introduced the Medallion, so that may have intensified the situation.  

 

[mcrcruiser]

17 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

 

I did mention the one waiter to him and while he seemed completely overwhelmed, he did make sure we got what we requested.  I would say, the staff being overwhelmed was the root of all problems on that ship.  It just seemed like they were staffed for 1000 less passengers than what showed up.  To be fair, we were on the first sailing where they introduced the Medallion, so that may have intensified the situation.  

 

Rarely we have been on  a cruise ( we have 87 cruises to date )  when the levels of service were certainly were very below par .In that case  we first talk with the Maitre D'  .Should that not  bring the service level back to par  ,the next step is the Hotel Director  . This only happened on one cruise we had in the past & the service problem was corrected quickly 

  Passengers never should be subjected to below par service  . In a case where the  organizational chart  does not take care of those problems the last resort while aboard is to  decrease or remove  the tips entirely from the wait staff  .Bad service or bad attitudes  should never be tolerated regardless of  what problems you might perceive  the ship may have at that time 

  Off the ship might require a e-mail to Jan Schwartz ,Pres. of Princess Cruise Lines

 

 Reason it is necessary  for passengers to take remedial actions is that left unchecked it can & does get worse ;but ,I hate to think it can be left un managed  & be subjected to  that level of non service 

Edited December 29, 2019 by mcrcruiser

[fredflint]

I also look at when the ships have been refurbished

[thinfool]

We took the Royal from Quebec City to Port Everglades in Oct-Nov '18.  The ship didn't sink.  For the first time ever we abandoned the MDR and ate in the Horizon Court for the last 3-4 days.  So sad.

The lack of outdoor viewing areas and the tiny, pathetic little offering for the promenade deck  and the above mentioned food situation has moved the  Royal to the bottom of our list of Princess ships that we would choose.

I was especially sad to hear that Princess is selling Alaska cruises on the Royal to unsuspecting customers as an acceptable way to see one of the most magnificent itineraries in the world.  IMO, the Royal has no business in Alaska.

[leck57]

26 minutes ago, thinfool said:

We took the Royal from Quebec City to Port Everglades in Oct-Nov '18.  The ship didn't sink.  For the first time ever we abandoned the MDR and ate in the Horizon Court for the last 3-4 days.  So sad.

The lack of outdoor viewing areas and the tiny, pathetic little offering for the promenade deck  and the above mentioned food situation has moved the  Royal to the bottom of our list of Princess ships that we would choose.

I was especially sad to hear that Princess is selling Alaska cruises on the Royal to unsuspecting customers as an acceptable way to see one of the most magnificent itineraries in the world.  IMO, the Royal has no business in Alaska.

 

It's is interesting how people view ships differently. We have been on the Royal twice in the past 18 months, including Alaska, and couldn't have a more diverse opinion than you on everything you have listed above. A wonderful ship in our opinion and we can't wait to cruise on her again.

 

[ccruzer123]

On 12/29/2019 at 5:22 PM, fredflint said:

I also look at when the ships have been refurbished

We also look to see when the ship was last in dry dock and what was done to the ship.  We did the first Pacific Princess cruise after dry dock in 2017 and they did a great job. Though not everything was completed when we embarked.  

 

I think I would hesitate to book on a cruise that was getting close to its dry dock date.  Have heard people complain that they stopped maintaining the ship because they knew it was going into dry dock fairly soon.  Also heard complaints that they started doing some prep on the last cruise before dry dock which was pretty irritating.

 

 

 

[flyers1976]

On 12/29/2019 at 8:55 AM, CineGraphic said:

We prefer the Grand Class ships, with access to the terrace pool area on the Lido deck from the Riviera Deck.

The newer ships don't have such access. Once Princess retires all of the older ships, we'll be forced to consider other options.

We are like you. We love the terrace pool. We are heading out on the Crown Princess Monday. We sailed the royal class once and hated the pool set up.  I'm not liking that I don't have many options January 2021.