Enchanted Princess - Questions

[SF]

What evening shows are on Enchanted Princess? What does Elite status get? Does Princess still have coffee cards that you can purchase? How's the food in the main dining room? Haven't been on Princess in a while and any info would be appreciated.

[Alberta54]

Was on the Enchanted in December. Lots of passengers were sick & practically no hand sanitizer anywhere. Buffet & dining room food was not great. Shortage of staff everywhere. Long waits for service & food. Buffet often not replenished regularly & food quality & variety a disappointment. Check Princess web site Captains circle for elite benefit list but realize that some ships don’t provide all you are supposed to get. It seems to be at their discretion anymore. Coffee cards went away at least a year ago. If you don’t buy the all inclusive packages (which of course Princess wants you to do) you pay for each specialty coffee or beverages at the coffee bar. You cannot exchange the mini bar for a coffee card any longer. I found the pay extra for many things disappointing & the quality of the cruising experience a let down. I hope you will have a more positive experience than I did. 

[Alberta54]

I didn’t mention that Rock Opera & Spotlight bar are 2 production show on the Enchanted Princess & they are excellent. There was also a steel pan player that was great.

[Sunwanabe]

5 minutes ago, Alberta54 said:

I didn’t mention that Rock Opera & Spotlight bar are 2 production show on the Enchanted Princess & they are excellent. There was also a steel pan player that was great.

I hope we have different productions shows for our March cruise on Enchantment. Been there done that for both these shows, both on Discovery. They were very good productions.

[reedprincess]

9 minutes ago, Sunwanabe said:

I hope we have different productions shows for our March cruise on Enchantment. Been there done that for both these shows, both on Discovery. They were very good productions.

Same shows onboard for years. Many, many years. They don't change every few months.

Whatever was aboard in 2022, and 2923 is still aboard - and yes, they're the same as Discovery.. 

[Wishing on a star]

The option for all coffee and tea and soda, smoothies,  mocktails, water etc..  is the Zero Alcohol package.

This would include almost everything that is non-alcoholic.  

Right now the price for this is showing $35.39 per day.

 

Remember that food quality can vary GREATLY, depending on the sailing, the location, the Executive Chef and head staff of dining and beverage.

Yes, overall choices and quality of food will probably not be what you remember, if you have not cruised for several years.

Our last cruise on the REGAL, we were pleasantly surprised.  Most everything was good!

The 'first night' menu was not impressive at all.  

Went to Crown Grill, and the one steak was just not good,  The restaurant was overbooked and crowded and the staff were overworked, impacting service.  So, you just never know!!!

Edited January 16 by Wishing on a star

[kywildcatfanone]

2 hours ago, SF said:

What evening shows are on Enchanted Princess? What does Elite status get? Does Princess still have coffee cards that you can purchase? How's the food in the main dining room? Haven't been on Princess in a while and any info would be appreciated.

Elite doesn't get you much anymore. Minibar setup, laundry and disembarkation.   They do not let you trade for coffee anymore if you ever did that.  Removed that benefit a year ago.

[dreaminofcruisin]

We were on Enchanted in October and it was our best cruise ever!

Enjoy your cruise!

[thinfool]

Pre covid we sailed on the Royal from Quebec City to Ft Lauderdale, the dining room fare was so bad that we opted to eat in the Lido for several nights.  

Same old adage, you get what you pay for....and the food ain't it.

Service otherwise was great!

[World Bouncer]

3 hours ago, SF said:

What evening shows are on Enchanted Princess? What does Elite status get? Does Princess still have coffee cards that you can purchase? How's the food in the main dining room? Haven't been on Princess in a while and any info would be appreciated.

We are sailing on Enchanted in April and jumped in here to check out the conversation. 

Have been checking out quite a few reviews of food on enchanted lately and they are all positive for the most part, it is looking good!  Of course, food is very subjective.  We always keep our expectations low so that we don't build it up in our minds and then be let down if it is just so so.  

Hope you enjoy your cruise and find things to be wonderful for you!

[shanecindy21403]

We just got off the Enchanted 1/7/24 and after 25 cruises with Princess we've decided to take a break from them. The whole cruise was a big let down. The shows are the same old shows. They did have 3 different comedians and a magician those were all fine.

The buffet was fine on day 1 but after 10 days of the exact same stuff it gets to be disgusting. We couldn't believe how bad it was. We always rave about how great everything is on the buffet and all the selections.

Ocean now is more like Ocean whenever or never. We'd order stuff it would show up sometimes in 20-30 minutes. Or it would say it's on it's way then just cancel. Or it would say it's been delivered but never show up. Room service takes an hour every single time. 

Dining room minimum 2 hours for dinner. You'd sit 20-30 minutes with a dirty dish in front of you waiting for your next dish. To try and speed it up we made sure we only order 1 starter, entree and dessert usually that would keep us right at the 2 hour mark. If we saw 2 starters we liked we would skip the dessert and just get gelato later.

There was multiple other misses and screwups and halfway through the trip I told my husband I'm just done with them.

I've canceled our Canada/New England in September with them. I just booked next New Years on MSC in the Yacht Club and they also status matched with Princess. 

[mevs904]

We were on an Enchanted Mediterranean cruise for two weeks this past summer and had no complaints at all about the food.  The food at the buffet was consistently fresh and varied and our meals at Sabatini’s and Gigi’s were excellent.  We also enjoyed our dinners in the MDR.  We have never been impressed with the quality of the food at the Crown Grill on our previous cruises so we didn’t go there on this cruise.  Perhaps the fact that the food supplies on our cruise were from European markets made a difference.  

[Itchy&Scratchy]

11 hours ago, shanecindy21403 said:

We just got off the Enchanted 1/7/24 and after 25 cruises with Princess we've decided to take a break from them. The whole cruise was a big let down. The shows are the same old shows.

they are not the same old shows. They have been introduced post-pandemic to my knowledge, which is pretty new in my book, since we only cruise a couple of times a year. If you cruise every month, I can see how you'd find them to be old...

[shanecindy21403]

Spotlight Bar is the newest one out. The other ones Rock Opera and 5 Skies have both been out for a while .If you cruise even just twice a year they get old real fast. How many times can you see the same show? I know 5 Skies has been out over 4 years because we saw it originally on the Sky for Christmas in 2019.

[MissP22]

29 minutes ago, shanecindy21403 said:

Spotlight Bar is the newest one out. The other ones Rock Opera and 5 Skies have both been out for a while .If you cruise even just twice a year they get old real fast. How many times can you see the same show? I know 5 Skies has been out over 4 years because we saw it originally on the Sky for Christmas in 2019.

For us that cruise quite often they do seem to be quite old in a very short time. We've skipped them many times and prefer to see guest entertainers when at all possible.

Hopefully the new ships will provide some fresh shown to pique our interest.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

57 minutes ago, shanecindy21403 said:

Spotlight Bar is the newest one out. The other ones Rock Opera and 5 Skies have both been out for a while .If you cruise even just twice a year they get old real fast. How many times can you see the same show? I know 5 Skies has been out over 4 years because we saw it originally on the Sky for Christmas in 2019.

we saw all three for the first and only time in 2022. My parents will see them for the first time in June 2024.

[doghog]

Some shows we like and have no problem seeing them again. Even when doing B2B cruises. 

[barkingator]

What was the steel drum musician's name on the 12/18/2023 Christmas cruise and is he still on board?

 

[Lady Arwen]

On 1/15/2024 at 10:08 PM, shanecindy21403 said:

We just got off the Enchanted 1/7/24 and after 25 cruises with Princess we've decided to take a break from them. The whole cruise was a big let down. The shows are the same old shows. They did have 3 different comedians and a magician those were all fine.

The buffet was fine on day 1 but after 10 days of the exact same stuff it gets to be disgusting. We couldn't believe how bad it was. We always rave about how great everything is on the buffet and all the selections.

Ocean now is more like Ocean whenever or never. We'd order stuff it would show up sometimes in 20-30 minutes. Or it would say it's on it's way then just cancel. Or it would say it's been delivered but never show up. Room service takes an hour every single time. 

Dining room minimum 2 hours for dinner. You'd sit 20-30 minutes with a dirty dish in front of you waiting for your next dish. To try and speed it up we made sure we only order 1 starter, entree and dessert usually that would keep us right at the 2 hour mark. If we saw 2 starters we liked we would skip the dessert and just get gelato later.

There was multiple other misses and screwups and halfway through the trip I told my husband I'm just done with them.

I've canceled our Canada/New England in September with them. I just booked next New Years on MSC in the Yacht Club and they also status matched with Princess. 

Well this makes me quite sad.  We’re booked on Enchanted in August for a Canada New England sailing.  I’m getting concerned that things are quickly going downhill on Princess ships.  We just did a new years Celebrity sailing and it was simply fabulous.  Doing HAL Rotterdam in the spring.  We’ve been on this ship before and we loved it.

 

Our saving grace is that we have the Premier Package and booked every dinner in the Specialty Restaurants…..The Catch four times,  Crown Grill two times and Sabatini’s once.  We’ll avoid our favourite after dinner pastime in the casino due to the smoking issue and find a nice lounge to enjoy our cocktails.  We’ll certainly make the best of it.  Like you, I’m thinking it will be our last Princess cruise.  We would have cancelled this one but we have to use up a very large amount of FCC.  
 

Thank you for sharing your experience and for your honest opinion.

 

[LACruiser88]

13 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

We’re booked on Enchanted in August for a Canada New England sailing.  I’m getting concerned that things are quickly going downhill on Princess ships.  

We were just on the Enchanted for 26 days in Nov/Dec.  We had a great time and found the dinners in the Reserve Collection dining room to be excellent.  We also dined at The Catch (4x), Sabatini's (2x) , and at O'Malleys.  These dinners were also great, as was the service in all of our dining venues.  We also experienced 360, which was fantastic.

 

We rarely go to the buffet and have not attended any shows in quite sometime.  

 

Enjoy your cruise!

 

 

 

Edited January 17 by LACruiser88

[Itchy&Scratchy]

58 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

 I’m getting concerned that things are quickly going downhill on Princess ships.  We just did a new years Celebrity sailing and it was simply fabulous.

well, people on the Celebrity subforum are saying that things are quickly going downhill on Celebrity ships.

We'll be on Enchanted in June and I can't wait!

 

58 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

Our saving grace is that we have the Premier Package and booked every dinner in the Specialty Restaurants…..The Catch four times,  Crown Grill two times and Sabatini’s once.

don't we only get 2 of them with Premier package? For free, I mean.

 

58 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

We’ll avoid our favourite after dinner pastime

our favorite after dinner pastime on Enchanted became nutella crepes in the buffet.... Ooooh. So good.

Edited January 17 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Lady Arwen]

6 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

well, people on the Celebrity subforum are saying that things are quickly going downhill on Celebrity ships.

We'll be on Enchanted in June and I can't wait!

I sincerely hope you enjoy your cruise.  There is something out there for everyone that meets or exceeds their expectations and desires. Celebrity meets ours.  The deal breaker for us is the smoking issue on Princess and currently there is no hope for that.   Perhaps if that changes, we’ll reconsider and  give Princess another try.

Edited January 17 by Lady Arwen

[Lady Arwen]

10 minutes ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

well, people on the Celebrity subforum are saying that things are quickly going downhill on Celebrity ships.

We'll be on Enchanted in June and I can't wait!

 

don't we only get 2 of them with Premier package? For free, I mean.

 

our favorite after dinner pastime on Enchanted became nutella crepes in the buffet.... Ooooh. So good.

Yes, only two complimentary SD.  We paid for the other five reservations.  We don’t enjoy the buffet, nor do we eat after dinner.  We prefer a few cocktails in the casino or a lounge.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

6 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

I sincerely hope you enjoy your cruise.  There is something out there for everyone that meets or exceeds their expectations and desires. Celebrity meets ours.  The deal breaker for us is the smoking issue on Princess and currently there is no hope for that.   Perhaps if that changes, we’ll reconsider and  give Princess another try.

we didn't notice any bad smoke coming from the casino on Enchanted unless I was walking right by the casino's entrance (Nov 2022). Believe me, the smell of smoke was the main reason we were one and done with NCL Getaway and Jade ships. Bad food was the other reason.

 

But Enchanted in 2022 was wonderful and non-smoky at all. I wonder what happened since then.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Just now, Lady Arwen said:

Yes, only two complimentary SD.  We paid for the other five reservations.  We don’t enjoy the buffet, nor do we eat after dinner.  We prefer a few cocktails in the casino or a lounge.

aaah, liquid sugar. Gotcha. 🙂

We ended up with a premier package on our upcoming Enchanted cruise, but we barely drink ever, and I cannot handle more than 2 drinks a day (tested on our recent MSC cruise)... so, Nutella crepes for the entire family (not for my diabetic dad, though) is our guilty after dinner pleasure. I sure hope they still have them in June.