JamieLogical's Live from the Emerald Princess 12/18-01/02

[Wedgie Wedgie]

@JamieLogical Go Dolphins! 

I know we have less than 1% chance but you never know!

[cruisequeen4ever]

I’m sorry you didn’t have a great experience, and I hope your husband gets well soon. I always enjoy your blogs and was excited you were cruising my favorite cruise line this time. Though the Emerald is near and dear to our hearts, you might give Princess one more try on a newer, Royal class ship. It’s probably more of what you like. As for the closest layout, I am one who highly prefers the Princess closet because it’s so spacious and tucked away from the main room area. The great thing about variety of cruise lines is that we can each find the one(s) that suits us! Whichever cruise line you go on next, keep blogging please! 😀

[catgirl411]

3 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

I’m sorry you didn’t have a great experience, and I hope your husband gets well soon. I always enjoy your blogs and was excited you were cruising my favorite cruise line this time. Though the Emerald is near and dear to our hearts, you might give Princess one more try on a newer, Royal class ship. It’s probably more of what you like. As for the closest layout, I am one who highly prefers the Princess closet because it’s so spacious and tucked away from the main room area. The great thing about variety of cruise lines is that we can each find the one(s) that suits us! Whichever cruise line you go on next, keep blogging please! 😀

Love the Princess closet…so nice that it functions as a dressing room.

 

[that]

Looks like the princess closet/dressing area gone for new Sphere class Sun Princess

 

[JamieLogical]

11 hours ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

I’m sorry you didn’t have a great experience, and I hope your husband gets well soon. I always enjoy your blogs and was excited you were cruising my favorite cruise line this time. Though the Emerald is near and dear to our hearts, you might give Princess one more try on a newer, Royal class ship. It’s probably more of what you like. As for the closest layout, I am one who highly prefers the Princess closet because it’s so spacious and tucked away from the main room area. The great thing about variety of cruise lines is that we can each find the one(s) that suits us! Whichever cruise line you go on next, keep blogging please! 😀

 

We will be sailing on MSC for the first time in April. I will definitely post a blog. I really hope we like it, just because it's so cheap! But I am a bit apprehensive about how many kids there may be onboard.

[cruisequeen4ever]

14 hours ago, catgirl411 said:

Love the Princess closet…so nice that it functions as a dressing room.

 

Exactly! 

[cruisequeen4ever]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We will be sailing on MSC for the first time in April. I will definitely post a blog. I really hope we like it, just because it's so cheap! But I am a bit apprehensive about how many kids there may be onboard.

Oh interesting; it’ll be cool to get your perspective on MSC. My hubby was recently mentioning it, and I’m on the fence. Food is the most important detail for us on a cruise.

[catgirl411]

4 minutes ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

Oh interesting; it’ll be cool to get your perspective on MSC. My hubby was recently mentioning it, and I’m on the fence. Food is the most important detail for us on a cruise.

 

4 minutes ago, cruisequeen4ever said:

Oh interesting; it’ll be cool to get your perspective on MSC. My hubby was recently mentioning it, and I’m on the fence. Food is the most important detail for us on a cruise.

If food is your preference, our experience is that Oceania is the best on that front.

[Skai]

15 minutes ago, catgirl411 said:

 

If food is your preference, our experience is that Oceania is the best on that front.

 

I concur.

[nini]

8 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We will be sailing on MSC for the first time in April. I will definitely post a blog. I really hope we like it, just because it's so cheap! But I am a bit apprehensive about how many kids there may be onboard.

We will all be looking forward to your comments!

[graphicguy]

@JamieLogical…..sorry to hear about your husband.  Also, not the way you want to return from a trip (flat tire).   

 

I got the impression your Princess cruise was a “one and done” from your reports.  I was Princess curious.  I can drop them from my list (or at least way down from the ones I look at, which I do all the time).

 

Got into a tiff with MSC about my upcoming May cruise with them.  Apparently, they do not understand they advertise a rate, and when someone books it with a deposit, they are obligated on their end to adhere to it.  Different story for another time.

 

Welcome home.

 

[graphicguy]

@JamieLogical….looks like my Bengals will be visiting your Bills this weekend!

[JamieLogical]

23 hours ago, graphicguy said:

@JamieLogical….looks like my Bengals will be visiting your Bills this weekend!

 

Yeah, finally going to get to play that game against each other after all. May the best team win!

[dreams_of_travel]

On 1/13/2023 at 1:36 PM, JamieLogical said:

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. Sorry I haven't been back on CC at all since returning from our cruise. Everything has been insane in my real life. I didn't even unpack from the cruise until Weednesday night! My husband had COVID when we returned, work was completely nuts (I work at a college and our Spring semester starts Monday), I had a flat tire when I came home.... just all sorts of stuff to deal with and I feel like I am just now getting things back under control. Hopefully I will have a minute to actually relax this weekend!

 

I am sorry I didn't post about the last two days of the cruise. Overall, my general impression is that I will probably never sail Princess again unless there is an absolutely AMAZING itinerary for an AMAZING price, but it would have to be genuinely amazing. When I booked this Panama Canal sailing with Princess, Celebrity was supposed to have a Panama Canal sailing on the Millennium at the same time, just offset by one day. The price for the Millennium sailing was double the price of the Princess sailing, so it seemed like a no-brainer choosing between the two. Confronted with those same options now, I might be very very tempted to just pay double and sail on Celebrity. Especially since the Millennium is such a fantastic ship that has been complete renovated inside and out.

Sorry to read your hubby got Covid.  Hope he has recovered by now.

 

I am kinda feeling the same about Celebrity after my recent cruise.  I sailed the Eclipse from Sydney to Auckland starting 2 Jan.  The MDR food was horrible.  They somehow made usually flavorful food inedible multiple times.  The staff were fine, although the feel on the ship was all business, not the usual friendly crew. The pizza was totally tasteless.  Room service was equally bad.    What is weird is there weren't any food issues last May on Solstice. I'm not sure what is going on but it isn't a good change. I took one of my adult kids along, and he was beyond disappointed with the food compared to Princess food.  For a first Celebrity cruise, it was not a good one at all.  He has said never wants to go on this line again.  

[nini]

4 hours ago, dreams_of_travel said:

Sorry to read your hubby got Covid.  Hope he has recovered by now.

 

I am kinda feeling the same about Celebrity after my recent cruise.  I sailed the Eclipse from Sydney to Auckland starting 2 Jan.  The MDR food was horrible.  They somehow made usually flavorful food inedible multiple times.  The staff were fine, although the feel on the ship was all business, not the usual friendly crew. The pizza was totally tasteless.  Room service was equally bad.    What is weird is there weren't any food issues last May on Solstice. I'm not sure what is going on but it isn't a good change. I took one of my adult kids along, and he was beyond disappointed with the food compared to Princess food.  For a first Celebrity cruise, it was not a good one at all.  He has said never wants to go on this line again.  

I get what you are saying. We most likely will not cruise with Celebrity again. A CC member thinks I am nuts, but that is her choice. I get it.

[JamieLogical]

I know some of you who followed this thread were interested on hearing about my first MSC cruise. Well, that is now only 12 days away and I have started a new Live thread about it on the MSC forums:

 

 

[nini]

46 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

I know some of you who followed this thread were interested on hearing about my first MSC cruise. Well, that is now only 12 days away and I have started a new Live thread about it on the MSC forums:

 

 

 

Great! Thank you.

[Honolulu Blue]

On 12/26/2022 at 10:19 AM, JamieLogical said:

Yesterday was Christmas! We decides we want to do a family breakfast in the MDR all together, so weet up with Matt & Meghann at 8:00. We had a lovely breakfast with grits and delicious grilled ham.

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, I thought I would try to get some laundry done. I figured no one would be spending Christmas morning doing laundry, so I wouldn't have much competition for the machines. Boy, was I wrong!

 

We are on Deck 15 (Lido deck) and there is no public laundromat on our floor. So first I lugged my laundry down to 14 then all the way to the aft of the ship (our room is forward of the forward elevators. When I opened the laundry room door, there were already 3-4 people crammed in there using the 2 washing machines and 2 dryers that I guess are supposed to be shared by everyone on decks 14 and 15.

 

I decided to go down to the next deck. Then the next, then the next. On 14, 12, and 11, the laundry room was in between the mid ship and aft elevators. When I got to 10, there was no laundry room in that spot, so I pulled up the deck plan and found that on 10, the laundromat is forward, right near the forward elevators and spans the full width of the ship, so there are twice as many machines.

 

When I got there, one of the dryers was out of order (I had noticed out of order machines in some of the other laundry rooms as well). All of the machines were in use, but I was very hot and tired from carrying all my laundry all over the ship at that point and there was an empty chair, so I decided to wait for a washer to open up.

 

While I waited I went ahead and acquired the necessary tokens to complete my wash. You need big tokens for the washers and dryers and little tokens for detergent and dryer sheets. The machine at the first token I tried to use to buy detergent, so I had to then purchase another token. The whole token buying process seemed to confuse everyone who came through the laundry room.

 

As I waited, several other people came through searching for empty machines. Right as the first washer opened up, the lady was unloading it and these two other women came in and acted like they were going to load their stuff in and I jumped up and said no no no. I had been waiting for a machine for a good 15 minutes at that point. Fortunately the woman who was unloading it had seen me waiting and those other women just walking in and made sure I got access to the machine first.

 

The fact that one of the dryers was out of order was really gumming up the works. The dryers already took longer than the washers and there were 4 loads in washers at any given time, but only 3 dryers to transfer them into. Fortunately I was doing a load of darks and a load of lights and they were small enough that I could combine them into one dryer when it got to be my turn.

 

 

In all, it took me just under 3 hours from the time I finished breakfast to the time I had a hamper of clean laundry. Then I had to get up the elevators, which turned out to be a whole other thing. There are 4 forward elevators. One had been out of service the whole cruise, so really there were 3. Well yesterday morning, another one went out of service, so we were down to 2. I waited and waited and waited and finally an up elevator came, but it was already full. By the time the next one came, there was quite a crowd gathered and waiting for it. I was ready to tackle someone to get on that elevator. I was soooo done.

 

I got my laundry put away just in time for lunch. We had a vague notion of doing the MDR for lunch, but when we got down there, there was a line all the way down the hallway, almost to the casino. We had somewhere to be at 1:00, so it was up to the buffet for us. I think lunch has been the most disappointing meal in the buffet this cruise. I scrounged up something, but I think I will stick to MDR, Slice, or Salty Dog from now on.

 

After lunch, we had to get back to the room and change, because Matt & Meghann had gotten ups reservations at the Sanctuary as a Christmas gift. We met up with the. There and lounged for the full afternoon. It was less shady than I anticipated, but the lounger was comfy, they brought us lunch (if only I had known!), high tea at 3:00, and drinks throughout. It was quite pleasant. Also, despite being hot outside, there was a strong breeze at the top of the ship that kept it comfortable.

 

 

I was a little disappointed that the pool up there was closed, but not shocked. The ship was rocking and rolling and the water was sloshing *everywhere*. They had blowers trying to dry out the carpet inside the spa. But we were able to get into a hot tub for as long as we could bear it.

 

I used the restroom inside the spa before getting in the hot tub and it was the only "modern" bathroom I had been in on this ship. It looked like the bathrooms on the newer or revolutionized Celebrity ships or the Breakaway & Breakaway Plus class ships on NCL. Made me rather homesick for those two lines.

 

After having gotten on a wait-list for specialty dining, since everything was booked up for the full cruise. This resulted in us having a 5:30pm reservation for Crown Grill suddenly show up on our account. We had our reservation at the Sanctuary until 5:00, but ended up leaving a smidge early so I could acquire coffee and get changed.

 

I ordered coffee to be delivered to my room as I was leaving the Sanctuary with the hope that I could drink it while I was getting ready for dinner. Needless to say, that did not happen. I was hesitant to actually change my clothes while waiting, so I did everything I could think of to get ready aside from undressing. Eventually I ran out of those things to do and Clayton got back to the room, so I had him on door duty while I changed. Then I was on door duty while he changed. And then we got to the point where we thought we might not get the coffee before we had to leave for dinner and I was just about to cancel the order when it showed up.

 

I drank it as quickly as I could, since it wasn't in a to go cup, and then we got down to Explorer's Lounge to pick up a pre-dinner drink.

 

Dinner in Crown Grill was great. We were one of only 4 parties there, so I don't know what the deal is with reservations. I guess just a staffing issue so they can't seat more tables? No idea. But it was nice and quiet and all the food was excellent. The service was great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad we still have our reservation on the 27th as well. After dinner we went to the Effy store because there is this long running joke that Clayton needs to buy me jewelry on this cruise. But then my stomach turned against me so it was back to the room.

 

 

We watched the very Christmas-y movie, Maulin Rouge and went to bed.

 

Day's Drinks: Mimosa, Mojito x2, French 75, Lemon Drop x2

 

This post reminds me of why I don't do laundry onboard.

 

On 1/13/2023 at 1:36 PM, JamieLogical said:

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. Sorry I haven't been back on CC at all since returning from our cruise. Everything has been insane in my real life. I didn't even unpack from the cruise until Weednesday night! My husband had COVID when we returned, work was completely nuts (I work at a college and our Spring semester starts Monday), I had a flat tire when I came home.... just all sorts of stuff to deal with and I feel like I am just now getting things back under control. Hopefully I will have a minute to actually relax this weekend!

 

I am sorry I didn't post about the last two days of the cruise. Overall, my general impression is that I will probably never sail Princess again unless there is an absolutely AMAZING itinerary for an AMAZING price, but it would have to be genuinely amazing. When I booked this Panama Canal sailing with Princess, Celebrity was supposed to have a Panama Canal sailing on the Millennium at the same time, just offset by one day. The price for the Millennium sailing was double the price of the Princess sailing, so it seemed like a no-brainer choosing between the two. Confronted with those same options now, I might be very very tempted to just pay double and sail on Celebrity. Especially since the Millennium is such a fantastic ship that has been complete renovated inside and out.

 

On 1/13/2023 at 2:11 PM, JamieLogical said:

A room upgrade wouldn't fix the issues with food, understaffing, and lack of maintenance on the whole rest of the ship though.

 

Thanks for sharing.  I apologize for bumping this, but I wanted to note your concerns about Princess and the Emerald in my records, and this is the best tool I have to do this.