Sun Princess - Original

[c-boy]

27 minutes ago, CalTexCruiser said:

the living room of the Penthouse Suite seems a bit narrow.

[VaTech8912]

On 11/18/2023 at 7:24 PM, nasa1974 said:

Great pictures. I can just barely make out my cabin, deck 15 second cabin in the sphere.

we are deck 14 sphere.  I always count down on the sphere to find the room. 🙂

[Pixelskaya]

1 hour ago, CalTexCruiser said:

the living room of the Penthouse Suite seems a bit narrow.

 

[snoozecrooze]

Thank you @dides for the wonderful screengrabs and photos that you've compiled from the journos and bloggers. I'm adding photos from Cruise Critic's own Chris Gray Faust from her review of the day's visit here (I've omitted copying-and-pasting some to avoid redundancy):

 

Pool deck

I think the jury's definitely still out on whether this pool deck is going to sufficiently meet the demands of a large ship (in my opinion).

 

Another view of the Sphere

 

More views of the Dome

 

 

What appears to be a generic "deluxe balcony" (AKA regular balcony on the Sun)

Not really a fan of the uninspiring in-room artwork. Would love to see more destination pictures like in the Royal-class that would still work with their preferred neutral tones.

 

A cabana!

 

More Cabana deck views (deck 9)

I believe the renderings always showed that the glass right along the cabana deck on deck 9 was going to be high. It's why I personally think having a cabana room on a higher deck is just better in general if you want a midship location. I don't think the glass is high along all deck 9 cabana cabins, especially if they're not along the "cabana deck" at midship.

 

Views of the Horizons Dining Room

 

A staircase in the Horizons Dining Room

 

New feature - Server stations are now enclosed in the Horizons Dining Room

 

O'Malley's Irish Pub

 

Umai Teppanyaki (apparently can/will also serve hot pot, according to Faust? a bit of a gamechanger if they can get it right, IMO)

 

Casino

 

Princess Arena

 

She's definitely coming together! Just 63 days (9 weeks)!

Edited December 6, 2023 by snoozecrooze

[nasa1974]

On 11/26/2023 at 8:28 AM, capriccio said:

While I know we are all looking forward to the "live" threads and reviews from inaugural cruisers, I hope @Host CJSKIDS starts another thread for specific questions and comments on the ship and the cruising experience since this thread will be well over 1,000 posts by that time.

I know there are a couple of folks on here that can correct me if I'm wrong but when the thread for the new Royal Princess started, I believe we hit close to 10,000 posts.

[snoozecrooze]

6 minutes ago, nasa1974 said:

I know there are a couple of folks on here that can correct me if I'm wrong but when the thread for the new Royal Princess started, I believe we hit close to 10,000 posts.

...maybe I'm the only one? but I wouldn't mind seeing this thread keep going on and hit a gargantuan mark like 10,000+ posts instead, as long as the thread is also retitled to be more easy to distinguish for the purposes of general discussion (such as calling it the "Official Sun Princess 2023-2024 Megathread" or something) from the specific trip reports, live blogs, etc.

[CruizinSusan70]

14 hours ago, dides said:

 

 

Is it me or does that toilet look awfully wide?

[Geoffa30]

9 hours ago, CalTexCruiser said:

the living room of the Penthouse Suite seems a bit narrow.

I thought the same.

[Geoffa30]

3 hours ago, CruizinSusan70 said:

Is it me or does that toilet look awfully wide?

I think it’s just the wide angle lens giving that impression.

 

Must say I’m getting more and more excited to sail on the new ship and see Princess’s next generation. Will be spending 30 days on her starting in September 2024 - 16 nights in a Penthouse suite on the TA before spending 14 nights in a mini suite around the Caribbean with a ten night Orlando stay in between. Should give plenty of time to enjoy everything that’s on offer. Cannot wait.

[dides]

13 hours ago, snoozecrooze said:

Thank you @didesI'm adding photos from Cruise Critic's own Chris Gray Faust from her review of the day's visit here (I've omitted copying-and-pasting some to avoid redunda

She's definitely coming together! Just 63 days (9 weeks)!

Thanks @snoozecrooze for picking up the build news baton!  I am on a short festive P&O cruise myself at the moment and had to buy WiFi for reporting the shipyard tour on our sea day 😁 I am sure there will be more reports published over the coming days but still no confirmation of that final specialty dining venue!

 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by dides

[chamima]

13 hours ago, snoozecrooze said:

A cabana!

 

More Cabana deck views (deck 9)

 

 

I'm (still) confused about the cabana cabins. I thought that the balconies on the cabana decks were all open to each other so no real privacy. This photo appears to have the metal dividers on the balcony go all the way to the railing as on all other Princess balconies.

[Nemanoxer]

1 hour ago, chamima said:

 

I'm (still) confused about the cabana cabins. I thought that the balconies on the cabana decks were all open to each other so no real privacy. This photo appears to have the metal dividers on the balcony go all the way to the railing as on all other Princess balconies.

 

The Cabana cabins (at least the one I booked on deck 12) in my understanding are nothing different from the balcony cabins except the Cabana exisiting between the balcony and the cabin space. So, I was surely expecting dividers.

[dides]

2 hours ago, chamima said:

 

I'm (still) confused about the cabana cabins. I thought that the balconies on the cabana decks were all open to each other so no real privacy. This photo appears to have the metal dividers on the balcony go all the way to the railing as on all other Princess balconies.

On deck 9 there are two classes of Cabana staterooms with access to the Cabana deck.. In the deck plan snippet below, C1 Orange are the ones with little privacy but C2 Purple have balconies looking directly over the sea. 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by dides

[CalTexCruiser]

7 hours ago, Geoffa30 said:

I thought the same.

 

The apparent narrow width of the mock-up Penthouse suite living room in the photo may just be due to an optical illusion created by the camera angle.

 

The total size of the Regal PH suite is 440 sqft, which we thought was plenty spacious when we stayed in it.

 

The total size of the Sun PH suite is 446 sqft.

 

Please do report back on what you think of the Sun PH suite when you sail it.  We are booked in one for Med 2025.

[vividharp]

The explanation of the cabana balconies makes more sense to me now. Thanks for showing that. I do not have one booked however I was thinking of it when we did book. We ended up booking just a regular balcony cabin with the larger balcony. Now seeing the differences, I may see if any of the purple ones are available. 

[mlmbar]

After seeing the cabana, we just moved to a reserve mini suite. We thought the cabana would be a bit more open and not a room we would make a lot of use.   Additionally we were on deck 9 forward, practically at the bridge. Seeing the size of the ship and the locations of the reserve cabana  mini suites ( deck 9, somewhat forward) we changed to deck 15 midship. The location was important and we doubt that we would make much use of the sun deck since it doesn’t seem to have shade 

[johnk24]

I'm a bit concerned after looking at this photo of the Cabana mini suites located in the top half of the sphere.  It appears that the balcony glass goes up much higher than in a standard balcony cabin.  This is a deal breaker for us if we cant get fresh air in our faces, and we are booked in one of these cabins for the Sun on Aug 3rd.   Does anyone know if this is the case?  Thanks much

Edited December 8, 2023 by johnk24

[Geoffa30]

2 hours ago, johnk24 said:

I'm a bit concerned after looking at this photo of the Cabana mini suites located in the top half of the sphere.  It appears that the balcony glass goes up much higher than in a standard balcony cabin.  This is a deal breaker for us if we cant get fresh air in our faces, and we are booked in one of these cabins for the Sun on Aug 3rd.   Does anyone know if this is the case?  Thanks much

To me it looks as though the balcony is the same height as the normal ones but the bottom of the glass extends further down into the deck below meaning the gap between the two floors is smaller but you shouldn’t need to be on tip toes to see over the glass. No doubt it’s this way to make the sphere more apparent. Obviously only an assumption until the ship is launched.

 

Edit - looking again it seems the sphere balconies are the same as the normal balconies but there’s glass instead of the metal superstructure at the floor of the normal balconies. Hope this makes sense.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Geoffa30

[JHKEL]

3 hours ago, johnk24 said:

I'm a bit concerned after looking at this photo of the Cabana mini suites located in the top half of the sphere.  It appears that the balcony glass goes up much higher than in a standard balcony cabin.  This is a deal breaker for us if we cant get fresh air in our faces, and we are booked in one of these cabins for the Sun on Aug 3rd.   Does anyone know if this is the case?  Thanks much

 

1 hour ago, Geoffa30 said:

To me it looks as though the balcony is the same height as the normal ones but the bottom of the glass extends further down into the deck below meaning the gap between the two floors is smaller but you shouldn’t need to be on tip toes to see over the glass. No doubt it’s this way to make the sphere more apparent. Obviously only an assumption until the ship is launched.

 

Edit - looking again it seems the sphere balconies are the same as the normal balconies but there’s glass instead of the metal superstructure at the floor of the normal balconies. Hope this makes sense.

I agree with @Geoffa30. If you zoom in on this pic it looks like the top of the balcony's line up but the glass extends down past the white steel structure to keep the look of the "sphere"

Edited December 8, 2023 by JHKEL

[Abercrombie2019]

1 hour ago, Geoffa30 said:

To me it looks as though the balcony is the same height as the normal ones but the bottom of the glass extends further down into the deck below meaning the gap between the two floors is smaller but you shouldn’t need to be on tip toes to see over the glass. No doubt it’s this way to make the sphere more apparent. Obviously only an assumption until the ship is launched.

 

Edit - looking again it seems the sphere balconies are the same as the normal balconies but there’s glass instead of the metal superstructure at the floor of the normal balconies. Hope this makes sense.

I think you are correct about the glass extending lower.  It's also a bit of an optical illusion, because the photo is taken from below and the floors above the balconies in the sphere are receding.  This adds to the illusion that the open part of the balcony is smaller (when it is probably the same).

Edited December 8, 2023 by Abercrombie2019

[Geoffa30]

New high end dining experience just announced. Originally the venue was on deck plans as Altitude but is now called Love by Britto with the menu designed by Rudi Sodamin - $149 per person so appears to be the new ship’s 360.

 

New Specialty Dining on Sun Princess

[snoozecrooze]

30 minutes ago, Geoffa30 said:

New high end dining experience just announced. Originally the venue was on deck plans as Altitude but is now called Love by Britto with the menu designed by Rudi Sodamin - $149 per person so appears to be the new ship’s 360.

 

New Specialty Dining on Sun Princess

I agree, definitely reads like an evolution of 360 designed for the Sun.

 

As for Britto, you've probably seen his work before on the ships (or at least I feel like I believe so...?)

[Mary Kelly]

Has anyone been able to confirm if it’s true that the Sun Princess is having a 2 day sailing (2/6-2/8) for VIP’s before our inaugural cruise? 

[dides]

2 hours ago, snoozecrooze said:

I agree, definitely reads like an evolution of 360 designed for the Sun.

 

As for Britto, you've probably seen his work before on the ships (or at least I feel like I believe so...?)

Here are some social media pictures tied to the Love by Britto partnership announcement 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by dides

[johnk24]

3 hours ago, JHKEL said:

 

I agree with @Geoffa30. If you zoom in on this pic it looks like the top of the balcony's line up but the glass extends down past the white steel structure to keep the look of the "sphere"

Thanks for your input all!  It does all make sense any you had some very good points.  Hopefully in a few months we will start getting pics back from cruisers.