Sky Princess comments

[kywildcatfanone]

Hi all,

 

Thought I would just share some comments, many of you write elegant thorough reviews, and I'm not that accomplished, but did want to share some thoughts from our recent 2 weeks on the Sky Princess.

 

First of all the ship is absolutely beautiful.  Princess really did a good job with the color schemes, and the lighter wood trims were soft and inviting.  I do think the lighter colored carpets in the stateroom hallways will show the dirt/wear sooner and need to be replaced more frequently, but overall the colors/lighting were wonderful upgrades from the previous Royal class ships.

 

I'm saddened that they just keep getting bigger, but I know that is going to continue to be the case as Carnival builds it's first RC "monstrosity of the seas" ship, but even with the increased size and capacity it still doesn't feel too overly crowded except on sea days on the pool deck, but I think that is to be expected.

 

This was our 21s and 22nd cruises all with Princess, all in the Caribbean, so my focus is a bit narrow, and I have never cared who the Captain or CD was on any cruise, but I will say that Captain Tuvo was wonderful.  He walked around each day and greeted people, we saw him multiple times out and about, and got a couple of pictures with him.  My wife even took a cool picture of him with his son, and he gave her his cell number and she sent it to him.  He was so funny with his announcements as well, and his signature "Bye Bye".  He made an impact on us, and made the cruise more enjoyable.

 

Our cabin stewards for the two weeks (we had to switch cabins), Michael and Alejandro were great, smiling and working hard.  Our favorite crew member was Pavol, the coffee bar steward in the pastry shop.  He learned our names the first day and knew what we would drink, and we chatted with him a couple of times every day.  He was so much fun to be around.

 

We ate at the Crown grill twice, with the BOGO embarkation day coupon both weeks.  It was still good, but I do feel the quality is not what it was 10 years ago.  I probably wouldn't pay full price for it, unless we were with people who wanted to go there.  We did finally try Alfredo's for the first time, and that was pretty meh.  I was expecting it to be much better than the pizza by the pool deck, but I couldn't notice any significant difference, and the crust was well burned, something I have read other people complaining about on here.

 

My biggest complaint would be the change in the Retreat pool area to add more suites/balcony cabins or whatever they have done, and now the pool is down in a hole.  My wife likes to be by the pool during the day, and it was a huge challenge trying to stay in the sun with this new configuration.  Really like the way they have it on the Royal/Regal, and for that reason will try to remain on those ships when possible.  I'm sure many will like it, but it was a downgrade to us from the previous ships. 

 

The new restaurant in the Piazza seemed to have not been thought out all that well, being in a traffic area, would seem an odd place to sit and try to enjoy a specialty restaurant to me, but we didn't try it so no idea about the food or the ambiance.

 

She ship looked great overall, obviously being new and all, and I do like the change to the non wooden railings, will make care easier for the crew I think.  There seemed to be more leisure public spaces than I had noticed on the other ships, not sure if that is true, but it seemed that way.  The jogging track was great.  I wish the wake pool was adults only, would have gone back there more, but it was nice to have.

 

Never went to the DR so I can't comment on that, but we did eat most of our meals in the buffet and always found plenty of options.  Food quality is subjective, I don't find it to be great, but good, and many options so always satisfied.  I do with the salty dog would sear off their burgers to give them a crunch, but it was all good, no complaints.

 

This was the first time we did not purchase the soda and more package.  The last price increase bugged me for the last couple of cruises, and I decided this time to bring onboard the soda and water I would want, and not get the package.  Didn't miss it at all, and that is going to be my new norm.  Spend that money on something else.

 

Internet was fine the first week, never did a speed test, but did some streaming of Prime video and no issues.  The start of week two saw the internet go bad, download speeds of less than 1mb, and the internet manager said they had no issues, just everyone boarding and signing up and should be better the next day.  It wasn't and I went back down and he told me others had complained and that they shore side team was working on it.  It did get mildly better by the 3rd day, but I don't think it was ever back to the speeds of the first week, but I'm not sure.  We ended up watching the holiday movies on the TV mostly that week, so didn't try to stream much.

 

Great 2 weeks on the ship with a few hiccups, will book that ship again when it's the best option, but will probably try to avoid it if I can book the Royal/Regal/Majestic simply for the retreat pool area.

 

Sorry for being so long winded.

 

 

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for your comments.

I agree about the hallway carpets. They were already starting to show dirt when I was onboard.

Did you receive actual coupon books or was the BOGO deal on the Medallion?

[kywildcatfanone]

9 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Did you receive actual coupon books or was the BOGO deal on the Medallion?

 

We had one coupon book from our summer cruise that still had the BOGO, and we had new coupon books for the 2nd week, so we had one for each, bu they were the coupon books. 

The new ones we got on the 21st still have an expiration of 12/31, wonder if they do truly expire or not.  Will find out in April I guess.

[Colo Cruiser]

Just now, kywildcatfanone said:

We had one coupon book from our summer cruise that still had the BOGO, and we had new coupon books for the 2nd week, so we had one for each, bu they were the coupon books. 

The new ones we got on the 21st still have an expiration of 12/31, wonder if they do truly expire or not.  Will find out in April I guess.

Yeah I am glad I brought my ones from my prior Crown cruise in Oct.

They were listed on my Sky booking but were no where to be found.

They kept telling me that they will eventually be accessed through the Medallion rather than the paper coupon book.

So you still got the book on the 21st?

[kywildcatfanone]

8 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

So you still got the book on the 21st?

Yes.  Same book as previous cruises.

[kywildcatfanone]

I also meant to add that the ship was beautifully decorated for Christmas as you might expect, and the overall staff seemed to be in a festive mood.  Many people did door decorations of some kind, including my wife for the first time. 

 

 

[Thrak]

7 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

The new ones we got on the 21st still have an expiration of 12/31, wonder if they do truly expire or not.  Will find out in April I guess.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they enforce the expiration date. Otherwise they will just end up on eBay like the coffee cards did and we all know how that eventually worked out. Princess may well try to nip this in the bud. On the other hand they may just accept the coupons regardless of the printed expiration date. It's very hard to know with Princess.

[kywildcatfanone]

Well, since we just got them, and it's not like you can use them any day of the week or time, you have to be onboard, and an expiration date a week after we received them kind of stinks.   With that said, the only one we found of value was the BOGO specialty dining, the others really don't hold much value.

[Lucky TGO]

I just like to know the deep of the adult pool. I can see there’s No stairs going into the pool. Very difficult for elderly people to enter or exit the pool.

Tony

[kywildcatfanone]

Just now, Lucky TGO said:

I just like to know the deep of the adult pool. I can see there’s No stairs going into the pool. Very difficult for elderly people to enter or exit the pool.

Tony

The wave pool was I think 3'3" deep,  the Retreat pool the same.  I think the MUTS pool areas might have gone to 5 foot depth, one of them anyway. 

[kywildcatfanone]

We discussed this ourselves, not having stairs might have been because of the depth (or lack thereof), but I'm not sure.  That certainly didn't seem to be an upgrade from the Regal/Royal for elderly folks.

[tk2fast]

We are new to this Princess Sky port so what would be the best time to arrive for embarkation. Some have said you have to wait outside for the doors to open and that did not happen till 12pm. Some say don't arrive until after 1pm because the traffic going into the post is terrible.

 

So would getting to the port at 10:30 - 11 be okay?

 

Your input is greatly appreciated 🙂 

Edited January 2, 2020 by tk2fast

[Colo Cruiser]

13 minutes ago, tk2fast said:

We are new to this Princess Sky port so what would be the best time to arrive for disembarkation. Some have said you have to wait outside for the doors to open and that did not happen till 12pm. Some say don't arrive until after 1pm because the traffic going into the post is terrible.

 

So would getting to the port at 10:30 - 11 be okay?

 

Your input is greatly appreciated 🙂 

Disembarkation (getting off)? or Embarkation (starting the cruise)?

We always arrive around 10:00am to 10:30am, they have been starting boarding by 11:00 recently.

The faster we are on the faster the cruise starts and I can have my Embarkation Day Salmon for lunch in the DR.  😁

[kywildcatfanone]

The least traffic time will be after 1pm I would think, should be able to just stroll thru without hardly stopping except for check in.

They will start letting folks on the ship around 11am, but you will be waiting till then.

[voljeep]

like Colo above, we try to get to the port between 10 and 10:30 … if we have to wait somewhere, we'd rather be waiting with our carryon(s) in the terminal, than waiting for the traffic to clear … 

 

we've even 'tailgated' in the parking garage when we got there at 9 am one time … but didn't fire up the grill 😎

[hllwdcruiser]

Thank you for your review. We are on the sky in March but I'm thinking the retreat pool may be a deal breaker for us as well since that is the pool on the Regal that we normally use. How crowded was the deck above where the hot tubs are located? Are there deck chairs up there or are there just the cabanas?

 

In photos of the pool on another post it looked like the chair hogs were out in force around the pool. Lots of towels but very few people on the lounges or even in the pool.🙄

[5:00_Somewhere]

On 12/29/2019 at 6:49 PM, kywildcatfanone said:

The wave pool was I think 3'3" deep,  the Retreat pool the same.  I think the MUTS pool areas might have gone to 5 foot depth, one of them anyway. 

 

Yes, this was really our one big disappointment about the Sky: the Retreat Pool is extremely shallow. I was thinking it read 3'8", but it could have been 3'3".  You can still get in to cool off ... a bit, but the water was very warm, I presume because the pool is so shallow. The main pools are much deeper. We loved virtually everything else about the ship, other than the changes to the Retreat pool area.

 

4 minutes ago, hllwdcruiser said:

Thank you for your review. We are on the sky in March but I'm thinking the retreat pool may be a deal breaker for us as well since that is the pool on the Regal that we normally use. How crowded was the deck above where the hot tubs are located? Are there deck chairs up there or are there just the cabanas?

 

In photos of the pool on another post it looked like the chair hogs were out in force around the pool. Lots of towels but very few people on the lounges or even in the pool.🙄

 

The deck above the Retreat pool does have loungers in addition to the cabanas, but not a ton of them. It was actually rather nice not to have loungers jammed in up there like sardines in a can, but that did mean it tended to be pretty busy most of the time, especially on sea days.

 

And, yes, sadly the chair hogs were out in force everywhere, but we especially noticed it in the area directly surrounding the Retreat pool. 

 

I really wish Princess (and the other cruise lines) would enforce their own rules and remove items left unattended for extended periods. I know it's difficult for the deck attendants to know whether someone is just in the hot tub or pool or something, but when I walk by at 8:00 a.m. and there are already towels and bags on every single and no one around in the hot tubs or pool, and they remain unoccupy for extended periods of time, I really find it frustrating.  I personally have no issue if people have a lounger and decide to take a swim or hang out in the pool or hot tub for awhile, or even to grab a quick bite of lunch or something, but when the loungers are empty but "reserved" literally for hours on end ....  😡  We were fortunate to get 2 loungers in the shade on the upper deck one day and we observed multiple chairs reserved but empty for extended periods first hand.  Happens on every ship we've been on, unfortunately.

 

Maybe they should do like parking police used to do and "chalk the tires" on unoccupied loungers and remove the items if they get 2 chalk marks. 😉  I think I just showed my age. 😄 

[Colo Cruiser]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

like Colo above, we try to get to the port between 10 and 10:30 … if we have to wait somewhere, we'd rather be waiting with our carryon(s) in the terminal, than waiting for the traffic to clear … 

 

we've even 'tailgated' in the parking garage when we got there at 9 am one time … but didn't fire up the grill 😎

Yes starting off the cruise smelling like Brisket.   😂

[kywildcatfanone]

32 minutes ago, hllwdcruiser said:

How crowded was the deck above where the hot tubs are located? Are there deck chairs up there or are there just the cabanas?

Well, it 's definately crowded when it's a sea day and the sun is shining.  Gets busy around 9am and chair hogging is in ful force.  There are lots of chairs on the upper area, not just the cabanas.

[h-sar]

Just nearing the end of our two weeks on the Sky and agree with most of your observations. The carpet in the halls is already showing signs of stain and spillage. It’s a beautiful Selection of muted colours that they have selected, very elegant, but the hallway carpets should’ve been done with a darker brown.

 

When I went for a walk today, over half the chairs on pool deck had items on them by 6:00, as well as a large number on 17. By 6:30, almost all were taken on 16. 
 

Completely agree with what you said about Cpt Tuvo. I, too, usually don’t think too much about who the captain is. It’s not until you get somebody like him that you realize the impact the captain can have on the overall atmosphere of a ship. His visibility around the ship, his willingness to pitch in where he’s needed, his genuine desire to meet as many passengers as possible, have to impact the morale of the crew. I said on another post that he is a true living example of all the great leadership qualities talked about in the books that some of us are encouraged to read in our professions.

 

I’ve also found the CD, Adam, to be very personable with a great entertainment crew who work with him. 

[kywildcatfanone]

h-sar,

 

Have really enjoyed your thread and all the pictures you have posted and your desire to answer questions, many, many questions.  We had a great 2 weeks, but I was glad to get home, just to be home, but I do miss not having to cook/wash dishes or clothes, and the other items that make a cruise vacation unique. 

[muffydawg]

Thank you for posting your observations, opinions about the Sky. We booked her for an April voyage. This is our first time parking at the cruise terminal and figure we should arrive at Port Everglades in the 10:30 time frame.

[gagenie]

Thank you for your review! We are going on the Sky Princess Feb 22, first time to the Caribbean for us, only been to cold places 🙂

 

I can't agree with you more about Captain Tuvo. He was on our 2017 Coral to Alaska and he was hands down the best! Like you I never paid any attention to who the Captain was and I still couldn't tell you any of their names now without looking at the patter. He is one of the reasons we book the Sky instead of the Regal.