Sky Princess, January 18-25 Western Caribbean

[LMADAMS91]

We just disembarked from Sky Princess Saturday and have returned to cold, gray central Indiana but thought I’d share some observations about our cruise.  My opinion….obviously only one of many.  If you agree, great; if not, great. This is only opinion!!

 

Embarkation on the 18^th was very fast!  We had our medallions (mine was the wrong color, but I had it) and were cruise ready or whatever it is called.  Everything on our apps showed we were good to go. We got to the port around 10:45 and were in our stateroom by 11:30.  The only hitches we encountered were my picture I had uploaded had disappeared and my husbands passport info had disappeared but both were corrected quickly.  We were happy our room was ready without having to wait.

 

We had lunch at Alfredos. It was packed and service was slow but we eventually got our food. I had pizza and DH had some sort of pasta dish. Both were okay.  We stopped at guest services and I got the correct medallion so all was good.

 

After lunch, we went back to the stateroom and luggage was already there. We unpacked and headed for our muster station at the appointed time.  (Our room steward had stopped by and reminded us of the station we were assigned to prior to the warning buzzer.) When we reached our station, I scanned my medallion and was told I was in the wrong station. We went to the station that the attendant told us to go to-my medallion said I was in the right place but my husband’s medallion had him listed in a different muster station (the one indicated on our door and by our room steward. See the other question I had posted last week for more details.) Not sure if the problem occurred when I got the new medallion or whether there was a computer glitch.

After muster, we watched sail away from deck and went to dinner in Cielo. The wind was pretty strong in Ft. Lauderdale Friday and Saturday so the water was fairly choppy. We didn’t notice the ship rocking much in our stateroom but Cielo was really rocking…..so much that I quickly realized I’d forgotten to put my patch on.  By the time apps arrived, dinner didn’t look appealing. We left fairly quickly, I got my patch and some drugs for nausea; watched the comedienne (Robbie Printz) and I went to bed.

 

Sunday was our day at sea and first formal night. We were in full vacation mode at that point and didn’t really plan much of anything for the day. I watched the veggie carving and DH watched the football game on the MUTS screen. The winds had died down so the ship wasn’t rocking nearly as much as before. I took advantage of the beverage package that was part of booking promotion and sampled different cocktails…….Captain’s Bounty,  ?Dirty Banana? And frozen margaritas were my favorites for the week (not all on the same day….)  Seaview bar was very slow with service. I left after several minutes of waiting and went to another bar where I was waited on almost immediately.  I saw several other passengers do the same thing, so it wasn’t just me. It was pretty slow throughout the whole cruise.

 

We enjoyed our excursions in the different ports.  We played with dolphins and stingrays  in Grand Cayman which was a lot of fun. We booked a car/driver through Rony’s Tours in Roatan. Rain was coming down in sheets and we got thoroughly drenched in trying to see Carambola Gardens and the Eco Suspension bridges but we survived. We were happy to get back aboard the ship at the end of the day. 

 

We visited the Xunantunich Ruins in Belize.  We spent a lot of time traveling and not much time visiting the ruins.  The “tour” we had of the ruins only covered a couple of the structures with most of the time spent waiting for those who wanted to climb the big pyramid. My husband climbed. I wandered around and took photos safely on the ground.

 

Cozumel is my least favorite port in the Caribbean.  The ferry to the mainland was enough to make me wonder if I should have put a second patch on just for that trip. We survived the ferry and did the Cenote hopping with lunch excursion. To my surprise, this was one of my favorite excursions that we have done. The description of the excursion just said we’d be swimming in four different cenotes and have lunch but there was much more included. We were able to swim, jump into two different cenotes from ledges/cliffs above (15 feet down into 30 ft of water,) zipline across a cenote on three different lines, canoe across the same cenote,  and even snorkel in one. My husband did all of the above and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was too cold for me to swim but I could put my feet in and take lots of pictures. After all the activities, we had lunch on site.  The village where the cenotes were located is an interesting place to visit.

 

Friday was another day at sea and we really didn’t do much of anything but wander around the ship, read, watch a movie and relax.

 

General impressions of Sky-it’s a beautiful ship with the “new paint smell.” Like the new Princess Live layout much better than the one on Regal.  My husband didn’t like that he couldn’t get to the front of the ship, but otherwise liked the general layout as well.

 

Princess Theater was full for most of the performances we attended.  We saw both production shows.  I liked Rock Opera better than Five Skies; DH liked Five Skies better.  We had early dining and made the early shows in the theater, with seats for everything but the magician/comedienne and Five Skies. We stood in the back for the comedienne and came back early for the later performance of Five Skies. I really didn’t care much for Five Skies but didn’t think it was awful.  Just not my cup of tea. We saw several people leave early so apparently not their cup of tea either. Robbie Printz had two shows which we attended and enjoyed. I can’t remember the magician/comedienne but we enjoyed his as well. We didn’t go see the female vocalist or the muppet thing.

 

Food in the MDR was mostly good.  Some of the meat was a little tough at times.  If we didn’t like what we ordered, we knew there were options elsewhere.  Service was fantastic. Our waiter Aaren and Assistant Waiter Domingo were top notch.  

 

We had dinner in Crown Grill one evening.  The food was great but the service was not.  Our waiter was running the entire time, so we got the impression they were understaffed. It was the only night we ate there, so it may have been a one time bad night but we were not impressed with the service.

 

World Fresh Marketplace was okay.  Better than whatever was on Caribbean Princess a couple of years ago but about the same as Emerald last summer.  There was quite a selection available for breakfast and lunch but the selections didn’t change during the week.  We weren’t there for dinner, so I don’t know if that is different every night or not.

 

I only visited the International Café for coffee which was fine. Salty Dog had great hot dogs, decent fries and an okay burger.

 

Captain Tuvo was great. We watched the Q & A session with Alex (cruise director) and Captain Tuvo was more entertaining than some of the comediennes we’ve seen on other ships. We also were appreciative of the announcement he made as we were docking at Roatan…..he made sure to let everyone know we would be VERY close to the Carnival ship already docked and not to worry.

 

 Alex the cruise director was also great-entertaining, personable, fun and readily available.  On our first Princess cruise a couple of years ago, we saw the cruise director and captain one time during the week. Activities on board were hosted by the assistant cruise directors and the captain I assume, was on the bridge. We saw Alex and Captain Tuvo out several times. We did several different trivia competitions and DH even won a prize at one.
 

Medallionet was spotty.  Some days it was very fast and we had no problems. A couple of days it was almost worthless.  When we were in Roatan, it was almost unusable but it was also a very wet, rainy day so I’m not sure if that had something to do with the speed or not. The day we were in Cozumel, it was also very slow and it was sunny then, so I have no idea what the problem was. Maybe too many people using it?

 

The medallion……I wasn’t impressed. My medallion had to be right on the door pad to open the door and I usually had to try at least twice to get the door to open; by the end of the cruise it was three times.  My husband’s medallion opened the door from 10 feet away the entire cruise. I attempted to order a drink while on deck using the app but had been signed out. I couldn’t get logged back in.  My screen kept telling me I was “off ship.”  Since this was one of the days at sea, that wasn’t really an option. It seemed to fix itself when I went to the bar and ordered a drink there (horrors! I had to walk to the bar! 😊)  I didn’t attempt to use the app again to order.  I almost lost my medallion on one of the excursions when it popped out of the wrist band that I had purchased through Princess. Someone on our cenote excursion had her medallion fall out in one of the cenotes. Luckily, it wasn’t in an area where the water was extremely deep and another passenger was able to rescue it.

 

Disembarkation on Saturday was very easy. This is the first time we haven’t done self carry but we were still off the ship and at the airport by 8:30.

 

All in all, a great cruise.  Would definitely sail on Sky again and are looking forward to our cruise on Enchanted.

 

 

[#1Nanna]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with us. We will be on the Sky in 4 weeks, Feb 29th. We are getting so excited! This will be a Western Caribbean cruise as well. Can you please tell me what was the day of your 2nd formal night? Thanks!

[Dawniepoo]

Thank you sharing your thoughts on your cruise. We board in less than 3 weeks and are really looking forward to it. Did you have to go to the other muster station or did they let you stay with your husband? Clearly, there was something wrong with your medallion from the beginning of the trip. So bizarre. 

[4hunters]

Thanks for the review!

[Tak8]

I'll be on the Sky later this year.  Thanks for the review.

[kywildcatfanone]

Thanks for the review. Very similar experience to ours overall.  The medallionnet was terrible slow most of the time, and almost unusable for anything other than email.  They are making a fortune with that service, and it should work better than it does.  And with them including it in the promos now, everyone will have it, and they have to fix it.

[san diego sue]

On the Sky transatlantic my Medallian worked at a distance then it stopped and had to be held up to the device on the wall.

Passenger services said the magnet was failing and replaced the Medallian. Also 3 times someone came and replaced a battery in our door. We had no problem but they said their computer showed it failing so it was replaced.

[nini]

Apparently, you have the same "magic" touch with electronics that I do.  😉

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[LMADAMS91]

18 hours ago, #1Nanna said:

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience with us. We will be on the Sky in 4 weeks, Feb 29th. We are getting so excited! This will be a Western Caribbean cruise as well. Can you please tell me what was the day of your 2nd formal night? Thanks!

Our second formal night was Wednesday, our day in Belize. 

[LMADAMS91]

13 hours ago, Dawniepoo said:

Thank you sharing your thoughts on your cruise. We board in less than 3 weeks and are really looking forward to it. Did you have to go to the other muster station or did they let you stay with your husband? Clearly, there was something wrong with your medallion from the beginning of the trip. So bizarre. 

I stayed with my husband.  We talked to the Assistant Cruise Director after the drill.  He told us, with a perfectly straight face, that "it had been done for our benefit. We could go to guest services to have it changed but we might want to wait until later in the cruise.  You never know...."

Husband and I were rolling at that point. He told us we could go to guest services but we were busy that day and forgot it until about mid-cruise. At that point, we opted to take the chance that we'd not have to abandon ship before getting back to Ft. Lauderdale.  
My medallion definitely had a problem.  When my husband was with me and we approached the door, it recognized him and greeted him by name when he  was about 10 ft. away.  When I was alone and put my medallion on the pad, it just said "door opened." No personalization. 

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by LMADAMS91

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the follow up.

 

Curious, I thought the patch was put on ahead of time to get the full affect?

[#1Nanna]

25 minutes ago, LMADAMS91 said:

Our second formal night was Wednesday, our day in Belize. 

Ok, Thank you for your response!

[LMADAMS91]

12 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Thanks for the follow up.

 

Curious, I thought the patch was put on ahead of time to get the full affect?

Yep....it's supposed to be.  I put it on and took other meds I had for nausea. 

[2BCruising]

We were also on the ship the same time as you as part of our 2nd week during our B2B.  The week prior to your sailing (Eastern) was a rough week of sailing.  Even Captain Tuvo mentioned the seas were a bit rough.  

 

The Sky Princess is a beautiful ship and we enjoyed our two weeks on the ship.  Embarkation and disembarkation was fast and easy with the Medallions.  

 

For those of you who are interested, I have been blogging about our cruise and will continue updating as soon as I get through all my pictures.  

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by 2BCruising