Sky Princess for next year

[Hlitner]

16 minutes ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Me thinks you are exaggerating for effect.  Never saw any backwards baseball hats or the other garb you mentioned.  People dressed classy in button down shirts but definitely not many tuxes, suits or jackets for sure

LOL not exaggerating.  It does vary from cruise to cruise but this is what we saw on our last Enchanted cruise in the Caribbean.  It does seem to vary from cruise to cruise, but there is little to no effort by staff to enforce any rules so folks do as they please.  I am old school and remember the days when most guys wore tuxes or suits.  Now, my tux is gathering dust in the closet where it stays when we go on Princess or most other lines.  The one remaining exception would be some QM2 cruises.

 

Hank

[Expat Cruise]

13 hours ago, SCX22 said:

 

Princess is trying to reinvent itself.  The company is attempting stray away from the geriatric connotation that is attached to their brand.

 

Not really worth the crew's time and energy getting into a confrontation with passengers over their dress.  It doesn't cause a concern for safety or is it a threat to passengers.  It's not military basic training; passengers are there to have a good time.  Would hate to be the crew member drill sergeant that had to give guests a once over and decide if what they were wearing is formal.  If a guest wasn't conforming to the formal theme, would they not be allowed to leave their cabin for the evening?  On Hawaii cruises many men wear aloha shirts on formal nights in lieu of traditional formal wear, and it's totally accepted because aloha shirts are considered formal in Hawaii. 

 

No need to fix the wheel if it is not broken. Princess Cruises built a good business model, which they now seem to want to destroy.

[Expat Cruise]

13 hours ago, MissP22 said:

It obvious that Princess is just allowing what many people have been arguing about for years now. They're catering to both sides of the fence as I see it. 

I seriously doubt if as you say "many are leaving". Where would they go other than Cunard if formal dining meant that much to them. 

All the other mass market cruise lines have relaxed their dress standards, so why not Princess if the want to stay in business. 

 

If Princess Cruises make rules, they must follow the rules or just don't have these rules if you cannot follow them. As I have stated many times, I follow the contract of passage and demand Princess Cruises does the same. That is what we pay for, a cruise based upon the terms and conditions set forward in the contract for passage. If others don't want to follow the contract of passage, they can find another cruise line.

[SCX22]

29 minutes ago, Expat Cruise said:

No need to fix the wheel if it is not broken. Princess Cruises built a good business model, which they now seem to want to destroy.

Companies that fail to keep up with the demographic end up failing themselves.  Kodak and Blackberry phones are great examples.  They were once household names and have now ceased to exist on the personal consumer market.  

[MissP22]

4 hours ago, Expat Cruise said:

If Princess Cruises make rules, they must follow the rules or just don't have these rules if you cannot follow them. As I have stated many times, I follow the contract of passage and demand Princess Cruises does the same. That is what we pay for, a cruise based upon the terms and conditions set forward in the contract for passage. If others don't want to follow the contract of passage, they can find another cruise line.

You can certainly expect for them to do so but as we all know, that's not the case in many circumstances. Perhaps you can voice your concerns in their post cruise survey & they might address the problem.

In the mean time you'll just have to turn a blind eye towards all the offenders who see it otherwise.

[MissP22]

7 hours ago, Hlitner said:

LOL not exaggerating.  It does vary from cruise to cruise but this is what we saw on our last Enchanted cruise in the Caribbean.  It does seem to vary from cruise to cruise, but there is little to no effort by staff to enforce any rules so folks do as they please.  I am old school and remember the days when most guys wore tuxes or suits.  Now, my tux is gathering dust in the closet where it stays when we go on Princess or most other lines.  The one remaining exception would be some QM2 cruises.

 

Hank

I will admit that there are many people that choose not to follow their suggestions in the DR but your examples are a little over the top. We've been on many Enchanted trips and haven't seen the extremes that you present. Sure, they wear shorts on casual nights, some even wear baseball caps & occasionally you'll see someone in a bathrobe at the buffet, but most offenders are usually people not wearing a suit & tie or dressy gown on formal evenings.

Princess has reached a happy medium to appease most of their dedicated cruisers. 

[Cruise till you drop]

3 hours ago, MissP22 said:

Perhaps you can voice your concerns in their post cruise survey & they might address the problem.

Does anyone really think these make an impact?  I think it’s for the cruise line to give people a chance to vent and forget

[MissP22]

47 minutes ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Does anyone really think these make an impact?  I think it’s for the cruise line to give people a chance to vent and forget

It's the only recourse that people have if they believe it might do any good. 

I've never seen much results come of it. i.e.- smoking in casino's and even dress codes. 

Princess will do only what they feel is best to maintain business.

Can you blame them?

[Cruise till you drop]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

It's the only recourse that people have if they believe it might do any good. 

I've never seen much results come of it. i.e.- smoking in casino's and even dress codes. 

Princess will do only what they feel is best to maintain business.

Can you blame them?

I can blame them if they don’t listen and it starts hurting their business.  For example, if people complain about smoking in the casino and they start cruising Celebrity because they don’t allow smoking in the casino, that’s on Princess if they want to appeal to smokers as opposed to the non smokers.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Cruise till you drop

[trvlwrld]

The dress code is “suggested”, and not a rule.  Rules that are broken have consequences (usually)…suggestions are just that…suggestions - and therefore have no consequences if broken.

[Gracie115]

Princess is one of the very few that even have evenings called "Formal Night"  at this point. Princess, in our opinion, is much the same type(class) of ship as HAL or Celebrity, slightly better than Royal, less than Oceania..etc..  Those lines have all either totally abandoned or scaled down those evenings And seem to be thriving just fine. 

 

We just finished a 14 night TA on Celebrity, which is supposedly a bit more up scale than Princess and most people dressed well every night, a few dressed formally on "Elegant Chic" nights but only a few.  It did not impact us one way or the other.  We don't care about what others are wearing and suspect that most people are the same.  If you want to go formal then by all means go for it.  Our next 2 cruises are on Princess, we will dress nicely but we won't be packing formal wear.  

[Cruise till you drop]

Regarding why Princess continues to be one of the only lines that still call it formal night, my guess is that because their clientele is the oldest (as we experienced in January on the Sky), that they probably feel like they still need to call it formal night to maintain those older customers who liked that aspect and don’t want to see it go away.

 

However to appease to the younger clientele, they don’t actually enforce the rules.

 

Again this is my suspicion 

[MissP22]

40 minutes ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Regarding why Princess continues to be one of the only lines that still call it formal night, my guess is that because their clientele is the oldest (as we experienced in January on the Sky), that they probably feel like they still need to call it formal night to maintain those older customers who liked that aspect and don’t want to see it go away.

 

However to appease to the younger clientele, they don’t actually enforce the rules.

 

Again this is my suspicion 

At the risk of alienating some of their most dedicated customers they have begun their change in attitude about what is acceptable on formal evenings. I suppose it a risk they have to take as the older crowd is slowly disappearing and remaining rigid could only drive some people to other cruise lines.

Strange thing is, the other cruise line made the change without experiencing any repercussions, or maybe I just wasn't aware of it. 

[Gracie115]

3 hours ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Regarding why Princess continues to be one of the only lines that still call it formal night, my guess is that because their clientele is the oldest (as we experienced in January on the Sky), that they probably feel like they still need to call it formal night to maintain those older customers who liked that aspect and don’t want to see it go away.

 

However to appease to the younger clientele, they don’t actually enforce the rules.

 

Again this is my suspicion 

 

I suspect HAL ships have a MUCH older normal clientele than Princess.  At least that is our experience with both lines.  

[MissP22]

45 minutes ago, Gracie115 said:

 

I suspect HAL ships have a MUCH older normal clientele than Princess.  At least that is our experience with both lines.  

Over the years Princess has consistently had slightly older clientele than HAL. (this is what I've been told)

[Gracie115]

8 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

Over the years Princess has consistently had slightly older clientele than HAL. (this is what I've been told)

 

Interesting.  All the Princess sailings I've been on seemed to have younger crowds than both HAL and Celebrity.  But I have no specific statistics, just personal experience.  

[MissP22]

2 hours ago, Gracie115 said:

 

Interesting.  All the Princess sailings I've been on seemed to have younger crowds than both HAL and Celebrity.  But I have no specific statistics, just personal experience.  

It is difficult to see the differences from one cruise line to another unless you has the data to actually compare.

I'm only quoting what Bruce Muzz as mentioned over the years and he has the experience from many different cruise lines at his disposal.

I believe he still posts but not recently on the Princess board.

 

[Kay S]

From my observations on 30 Princess cruises, the divide on formal night is not so much between old and young but male and female.  The ladies seem more dressed up to me.  It isn't unusual to see a woman dressed to the nines walking in with her husband wearing a collared shirt and trousers.  I can't recall seeing a guy in a tux accompanied by a woman in jeans and a T shirt.  I have seen senior citizens dressed up and also in overalls and flannel shirts.  I have also seen young people dressed for the prom as well as dressed for bowling.  The fact is that about anything will work these days.  If the MDR staff lets you in, you are dressed appropriately.