Sun Princess

[dog]

28 minutes ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

I don't even think that's a rumor, I'm pretty sure that was announced at some point because I saw that months ago and it wasn't from whatever TA you guys are talking about as I've never seen them before. 

Please post the link official announcement from Princess. 
 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

2 minutes ago, dog said:

Please post the link official announcement from Princess. 

Like I said, whatever I I'm not saying I'm right about it, but I can say with confidence that I saw this news several months ago and not via whatever TA people are referencing. 

 

I don't know if it was on here, in a FB group, via Princess, or somewhere else. All I can say for sure is that this was something I read about around the same time as the new Sanctuary program.

[dides]

1 hour ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

I don't even think that's a rumor, I'm pretty sure that was announced at some point because I saw that months ago and it wasn't from whatever TA you guys are talking about as I've never seen them before. 

Nothing official has been announced on the Sanctuary Collection dining changes.  Just word of mouth.  Picked up by that TA,  Note added to the cruisedeckplans site.

 

Edited August 20 by dides

[dog]

2 minutes ago, dides said:

Nothing official has been announced on the Sanctuary Collection dining changes.  Just word of mouth.  Picked up by that TA,  Note added to the cruisedeckplans site.

 

Thanks for clarification!

[chamima]

2 hours ago, dides said:

Nothing official has been announced on the Sanctuary Collection dining changes.  Just word of mouth.  Picked up by that TA,  Note added to the cruisedeckplans site.

 

 

But still not on the Princess deck plans.

Wouldn't it be simple to just issue a press release and/or change the deck plans (when I check our December cruise I have to designate whether I'm sailing before or after October 14 , so that would be easy) to get rid of all the rumors.

 

I think one problem was that the Signature (suite) restaurant has been reportedly half empty and the Reserve (former Club class, future Sanctuary) restaurant was always crowded. So maybe combining both in a larger space will even things out.

That said, I'm NOT happy about the change!!!

[Wishing on a star]

Wow,  a lot of confusion... and folks who are not up on the latest.  (which can still change at alny time!). I do believe that it is pretty clear and credible that we will be seeing these kinds of changes.

 

1.  To the one poster, above, on the Sun Princess...  RESERVE will no longer exists, as of Oct. 14. when all of the changes are put in effect.

With the new Sanctuary Club Class, cabins that have these 'benefits', will have better upgraded dining.   But, the RESERVE restaurant will be no more.

 

2.  There have been several sources that are telling us that there will be changes to the dining venues.   I do not know if the number of non-suite cabins that are now 'Sanctuary Class' are more than the number of current Reserve dining????   Or, if they have just determined that the Reserve dining room is simply not big enough?  Which means that they do need a larger dining room for the non-suite Reserve cabins.    But, I can see how they might want to combine these into a larger dining area.

 

3.  Nobody likes the open, buffet locations for nice Specialty Restaurants like The Catch, and Butcher's Block.  So, it also makes sense to move them to the current Specialty and Reserve dining rooms.   Why they decided to move Crown Grill at the same time, I would have NO idea.

Isn't it true that it is a bottleneck of people there going to the MDR.  Which would not be really nice for the Crown Grill experience.

I do like that Crown Grill would be next to a nice bar.

I have to say that the decor of the Reserve dining room would do a huge disservice to the expectations of Princess Crown Grill.  

[Wishing on a star]

51 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

But still not on the Princess deck plans.

 

 

We ARE talking about Princess, remember.

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

2 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

1.  To the one poster, above, on the Sun Princess...  RESERVE will no longer exists, as of Oct. 14. when all of the changes are put in effect.

With the new Sanctuary Club Class, cabins that have these 'benefits', will have better upgraded dining.   But, the RESERVE restaurant will be no more.

 

Thank you for clarifying - I'm interested to see if this means all the suites being in a single restaurant will make things busier.

Though honestly - even if Princess ends up being a one and done for us (seems unlikely it will be better than Celebrity with everything we're reading), we're still going to have an amazing cruise and I'm excited to experience Princess for the first time.

 

I'm always very deliberate about going into a cruise with no expectations so although it's interesting to read about the changes here on CC, it will have minimal impact on us.

[dog]

26 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

Wow,  a lot of confusion... and folks who are not up on the latest.  (which can still change at alny time!). I do believe that it is pretty clear and credible that we will be seeing these kinds of changes.

 

1.  To the one poster, above, on the Sun Princess...  RESERVE will no longer exists, as of Oct. 14. when all of the changes are put in effect.

With the new Sanctuary Club Class, cabins that have these 'benefits', will have better upgraded dining.   But, the RESERVE restaurant will be no more.

 

2.  There have been several sources that are telling us that there will be changes to the dining venues.   I do not know if the number of non-suite cabins that are now 'Sanctuary Class' are more than the number of current Reserve dining????   Or, if they have just determined that the Reserve dining room is simply not big enough?  Which means that they do need a larger dining room for the non-suite Reserve cabins.    But, I can see how they might want to combine these into a larger dining area.

 

3.  Nobody likes the open, buffet locations for nice Specialty Restaurants like The Catch, and Butcher's Block.  So, it also makes sense to move them to the current Specialty and Reserve dining rooms.   Why they decided to move Crown Grill at the same time, I would have NO idea.

Isn't it true that it is a bottleneck of people there going to the MDR.  Which would not be really nice for the Crown Grill experience.

I do like that Crown Grill would be next to a nice bar.

I have to say that the decor of the Reserve dining room would do a huge disservice to the expectations of Princess Crown Grill.  

The voice of reason. Always appreciate how you research.

 

At this point the deck plans, as mentioned above, have 2 dates. My date, after Oct.14/24 shows restaurants in the same locations as they are now. My reservations are showing the restaurant locations the same as they are now.

 

so, when this changes, I’m sure I’ll find my way to the new locations which are still Speculation as dides mentioned -“word of mouth.”

[TRLD]

6 hours ago, vjmatty said:

Yet Royal Caribbean was able to do so post pandemic with Icon class, and even notified its passengers of a delay in release with plenty of notice. I’m guessing Princess learned from this example as they’ve made a timely announcement regarding Star. 

Royal Caribbean was also not changing to an entirely new class system which is where most of the ongoing changes have been taking place.  The level of operational changes is far greater with the Sun  than with ICON

 

So far you have

 

Once you get past the inital launch delays most of the issues come down to the 2 areas.

 

1. The venue supplied by the rollerglide vendor, which failed acceptance by Princess. Until that happened everyone in the cruise line would it have expected to open as soon as the vendor got it working. The concept was good, just the vendor could not get its first sea going installation to work.

 

2. The class system. The Sun is Princess's first attempt at a class system. As a result of what they learned in taking it from the planning stage to actually making it work has resulted in most of the changes. That includes the changes in class names, cabin assigned, changes to Sanctuary, and the dining rooms. Celebrity also went through a learning curve when it first went to a class system, though they started a bit simplier.

 

While the Icon is a new class there appears to not be any major operational changes and the ship seems to be mostly a larger version.

 

Significantly more change on ship design and operations on the sun.

 

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

6 minutes ago, TRLD said:

Royal Caribbean was also not changing to an entirely new class system which is where most of the ongoing changes have been taking place.  The level of operational changes is far greater with the Sun  than with ICON

 

So far you have

 

Once you get past the inital launch delays most of the issues come down to the 2 areas.

 

1. The venue supplied by the rollerglide vendor, which failed acceptance by Princess. Until that happened everyone in the cruise line would it have expected to open as soon as the vendor got it working. The concept was good, just the vendor could not get its first sea going installation to work.

 

2. The class system. The Sun is Princess's first attempt at a class system. As a result of what they learned in taking it from the planning stage to actually making it work has resulted in most of the changes. That includes the changes in class names, cabin assigned, changes to Sanctuary, and the dining rooms. Celebrity also went through a learning curve when it first went to a class system, though they started a bit simplier.

 

While the Icon is a new class there appears to not be any major operational changes and the ship seems to be mostly a larger version.

 

Significantly more change on ship design and operations on the sun.

 

 

Good leadership would have identified this and either brought in consultants or hired people from companies that have experience with this type of rollout.

 

I also don't believe the Park19 issues were exclusively due to the vendor. I'm sure there was enough there that they can blame the vendor, but again...they should have leaned into the expertise of people who have dealt with this type of deployment before to prevent this from happening.

 

This is also ignoring the delayed launch of the ship and the debacle that went with that (cancelled sailings at the last second, launching with numerous things still not completed, etc).

 

And the worst part of all of it has been the complete lack of transparency and communication to paying guests from Princess...that's something that anybody should be able to provide, regardless of whether venturing into new territory or not.

Edited August 20 by FamilyAtSea.travel

[FLAlaska]

14 hours ago, TRLD said:

What you are getting is the problems that come with a new ship class that was finished during the post covid restart, coupled with the problems when a cruise line tries something totally new to its operations, the class system.

 

I recall Celebrity, 13-14 years ago had a few issues themselves when they first started going to a class system, with a lot of changes over the first couple of years.

 

In Princesscasethey have apparently ran into issues with the two special classes, and decided to simplify to 1 special class. In doing so they needed a larger space/kitchen. So the changes make sense.

 

It is also easier to retrofit the existing ships to a class system if it is successful after they get operations ironed out.

 

Kind of brings up the difference between leading edge vs bleeding edge. 

I get delays, mess ups, etc.  But Princess seems to be flying by the seat of their pants. They sell one thing, then change it. Then change it again. Then go back. Ex. Changed to reserve. Then to Signature, then shorty after, Sanctuary.  Then they change something else. Them move dining rooms. and on and on.  And that's notwithstanding the IT glitches, cruises sold incorrectly, wrong prices, etc.   But the worst part is the lack of communication and training of their customer reps. .We shouldnt be learning about things through Youtube and facebook and know more than they do. Princess needs to get it together

I love Princess and have 3 upcoming cruises. I just hope they can fix all of this.

[TRLD]

8 minutes ago, FLAlaska said:

I get delays, mess ups, etc.  But Princess seems to be flying by the seat of their pants. They sell one thing, then change it. Then change it again. Then go back. Ex. Changed to reserve. Then to Signature, then shorty after, Sanctuary.  Then they change something else. Them move dining rooms. and on and on.  And that's notwithstanding the IT glitches, cruises sold incorrectly, wrong prices, etc.   But the worst part is the lack of communication and training of their customer reps. .We shouldnt be learning about things through Youtube and facebook and know more than they do. Princess needs to get it together

I love Princess and have 3 upcoming cruises. I just hope they can fix all of this.

I would prefer if they would drop it all and go back to a single class system. However as their competitors have found there is money in it once they work out the kinks.

 

I suspect at this point there is a little through mud at the wall and see what sticks in their approach.

 They are dealing with passenger feedback, crew feedback, management input, etc.

 

All while on a ship design that is dramatically different. Might have been smarter to initially launch Sun as a single class like Celebrity did with Solstice, then make the class system changes with the Star, just as Celebrity did with a follow on ship.

 

 

[TRLD]

1 hour ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said:

 

Good leadership would have identified this and either brought in consultants or hired people from companies that have experience with this type of rollout.

 

I also don't believe the Park19 issues were exclusively due to the vendor. I'm sure there was enough there that they can blame the vendor, but again...they should have leaned into the expertise of people who have dealt with this type of deployment before to prevent this from happening.

 

This is also ignoring the delayed launch of the ship and the debacle that went with that (cancelled sailings at the last second, launching with numerous things still not completed, etc).

 

And the worst part of all of it has been the complete lack of transparency and communication to paying guests from Princess...that's something that anybody should be able to provide, regardless of whether venturing into new territory or not.

Pretty clearfrom what i have been able to find out the vendor was never able to get it to work. The system works fine on land installations. But at sea, on a moving ship, with changing g forces in multiple directions. During the early cruises  during testing they found that they had problems. During one of the cruises someone posted on CC that they had observed them testing but that often the units would not make it aroind the track. The vendor went back to try and develop a solution, but was never able to get it to work reliably to pass acceptance testing.

 

Providing a working system is pretty much on the vendor. Now expecting the vendor to deliver a system for its first sea going instsllation might be a Princess. Note Princess has note said anything negative about the vendor, they have never mentioned the vendor, the only comment is that the installation was not accepted.

 

Having been  involved in these kinds of contractual  situations in the past i will say it puts a company in a difficult situation. Until a vendor fails to meet the contracted terms they cannot really say that it is not going to open, they cannot say when it will,  they cannot say that the vendor is having problems in delivering. Pretty much cannot say anything until, as they did, when the installation was not accepted according to whatever those requirements were in the contract.

 

Now the lack of communications concerning the class system is pretty much on Princess. At this point I suspect they might not have it fully worked out themselves yet.

Edited August 20 by TRLD

[reedprincess]

42 minutes ago, TRLD said:

I would prefer if they would drop it all and go back to a single class system. However as their competitors have found there is money in it once they work out the kinks.

 

I suspect at this point there is a little through mud at the wall and see what sticks in their approach.

 They are dealing with passenger feedback, crew feedback, management input, etc.

 

All while on a ship design that is dramatically different. Might have been smarter to initially launch Sun as a single class like Celebrity did with Solstice, then make the class system changes with the Star, just as Celebrity did with a follow on ship.

 

 

Solstice had the three (4?) tiered system from its first sailing.  They introduced Aqua Class, and Suite Class with Luminae on Solstice.. nothing changes in Equinox or Eclipse. The changes on Silhouette and Reflection were more cabin and venue related, ie removing the club, shrinking the Sky lounge for more cabins, etc.  

Michael's Club was briefly turned into the Elite and up "lounge" then made the suite lounge around 2009/2010, on all ships

The Retreat and private sun decks and all came later, around 2014 or so.

 

Princess has been doing the "class" system thing for a while now - Suites with their separate breakfast area, then adding Reserve with minis and suites, the addition of the Suite only Lounge with Royal class ships - it's not exactly new.  The logical extension is private deck space also, in addition to the lounge and dining.  

 

Did they flub this rollout - absolutely! The entire rollout of Sun has been a debacle and embarrassment.  Am I looking forward to sailing on Sun? Absolutely! 

[chisoxfan]

29 minutes ago, TRLD said:

Pretty clearfrom what i have been able to find out the vendor was never able to get it to work. The system works fine on land installations. But at sea, on a moving ship, with changing g forces in multiple directions. During the early cruises  during testing they found that they had problems. During one of the cruises someone posted on CC that they had observed them testing but that often the units would not make it aroind the track. The vendor went back to try and develop a solution, but was never able to get it to work reliably to pass acceptance testing.

 

Providing a working system is pretty much on the vendor. Now expecting the vendor to deliver a system for its first sea going instsllation might be a Princess. Note Princess has note said anything negative about the vendor, they have never mentioned the vendor, the only comment is that the installation was not accepted.

 

Having been  involved in these kinds of contractual  situations in the past i will say it puts a company in a difficult situation. Until a vendor fails to meet the contracted terms they cannot really say that it is not going to open, they cannot say when it will,  they cannot say that the vendor is having problems in delivering. Pretty much cannot say anything until, as they did, when the installation was not accepted according to whatever those requirements were in the contract.

 

Now the lack of communications concerning the class system is pretty much on Princess. At this point I suspect they might not have it fully worked out themselves yet.

 

30 minutes ago, TRLD said:

Pretty clearfrom what i have been able to find out the vendor was never able to get it to work. The system works fine on land installations. But at sea, on a moving ship, with changing g forces in multiple directions. During the early cruises  during testing they found that they had problems. During one of the cruises someone posted on CC that they had observed them testing but that often the units would not make it aroind the track. The vendor went back to try and develop a solution, but was never able to get it to work reliably to pass acceptance testing.

 

Providing a working system is pretty much on the vendor. Now expecting the vendor to deliver a system for its first sea going instsllation might be a Princess. Note Princess has note said anything negative about the vendor, they have never mentioned the vendor, the only comment is that the installation was not accepted.

 

Having been  involved in these kinds of contractual  situations in the past i will say it puts a company in a difficult situation. Until a vendor fails to meet the contracted terms they cannot really say that it is not going to open, they cannot say when it will,  they cannot say that the vendor is having problems in delivering. Pretty much cannot say anything until, as they did, when the installation was not accepted according to whatever those requirements were in the contract.

 

Now the lack of communications concerning the class system is pretty much on Princess. At this point I suspect they might not have it fully worked out themselves yet.

Cunard has had a 'class system' forever. Additionally Carnival has all kinds of 'rides' on their ships (even a roller coaster). Seems like general incompetence that division Princess cannot 

even execute what was has been done before. However, I am sure heads will roll at Princess over this (not). It ultimately becomes the passenger's problem when they book a cruise to enjoy promised features that never materialize.

[TRLD]

45 minutes ago, chisoxfan said:

 

Cunard has had a 'class system' forever. Additionally Carnival has all kinds of 'rides' on their ships (even a roller coaster). Seems like general incompetence that division Princess cannot 

even execute what was has been done before. However, I am sure heads will roll at Princess over this (not). It ultimately becomes the passenger's problem when they book a cruise to enjoy promised features that never materialize.

Too bad they are different brands that each do their own thing. The amount of sharing is  pretty limited. Intentionally so. 

 

Cunard ships are very different. The customer base is very different. 

 

Too bad Carnivsl did not try rollglider first. 

[Wishing on a star]

About the RollerGlider...  Thanks for your input TRLD!

I did not know that this company had not installed these on ships.  SO many ships have similar 'rides'.    If that is true, then a huge oversight by the company AND by Princess.

 

FamilyatSea...  Heard...  I too see these undying, or over-riding issues.

Along with some other decisions and changes that Princess has made on all newer ships (since REGAL)....   It gives me pause when it comes to considering Princess in the future.  

[FamilyAtSea.travel]

19 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

About the RollerGlider...  Thanks for your input TRLD!

I did not know that this company had not installed these on ships.  SO many ships have similar 'rides'.    If that is true, then a huge oversight by the company AND by Princess.

I will second this, I appreciate the perspective @TRLD. I knew it was the vendor's first installation at sea, but did not know the issue was that things did not work while at sea due to the rocking throwing things off. That's interesting to know and I'm guessing an engineer or two learned a lesson they'll never forget as a result.

 

I feel like Carnival should be their test bed for new concepts so when things rollout to Princess they're better deployed. 

 

This would require the two brands to communicate and collaborate though. If what you're saying is true and they don't, that to me is a philosophical issue that should really be reconsidered (as I'm sure some MBAs will be doing in case studies).

 

I think Carnival has gotten comfortable as a market leader and lacks innovation. That can work for awhile but eventually you need to swap out bean counters for innovators or you'll lose your place at the top. 

 

To Princess's credit, CEO John Padgett is an innovator, but the innovation should be taking place at Carnival and not Princess. 

 

I hope JP can turn things around but from an outsider perspective, while I appreciate his willingness to try and modernize a monolithic brand, his skills would be better suited for Carnival in my opinion.

 

With that said, Princess may be looking at this as if they don't do these things (class-based fares, attracting the Millennial generation, the Medallion app, etc), they're going to be in even worse shape in the future (and they're probably right).

 

In my opinion, the innovation Princess should be focused on is providing new premium/luxury experiences beyond simply trying to catch up with with Celebrity, MSC, and Norwegian have been doing for 15 years. 

 

Exclusive lounges, restaurants, and sundecks are great, but what can they do to create an even better experience that their competition isn't doing yet that people would be more forgiving and understanding of when they experience growing pains (because they're being truly innovative vs just trying to catch up with the competition)?

[TRLD]

46 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

About the RollerGlider...  Thanks for your input TRLD!

I did not know that this company had not installed these on ships.  SO many ships have similar 'rides'.    If that is true, then a huge oversight by the company AND by Princess.

 

FamilyatSea...  Heard...  I too see these undying, or over-riding issues.

Along with some other decisions and changes that Princess has made on all newer ships (since REGAL)....   It gives me pause when it comes to considering Princess in the future.  

The company has several land installations, but no sea going ones. 

 

Unlike the sky ride on Carnival, which is human powered, the rollglider has electronic motors. Have not been able to find out the exact nature of the problem. If it is insufficent power in the motors, or  drive controller not being able to deal with the change in resistence as the ship moves. I would guess the later.

1 hour ago, reedprincess said:

Solstice had the three (4?) tiered system from its first sailing.  They introduced Aqua Class, and Suite Class with Luminae on Solstice.. nothing changes in Equinox or Eclipse. The changes on Silhouette and Reflection were more cabin and venue related, ie removing the club, shrinking the Sky lounge for more cabins, etc.  

Michael's Club was briefly turned into the Elite and up "lounge" then made the suite lounge around 2009/2010, on all ships

The Retreat and private sun decks and all came later, around 2014 or so.

 

Princess has been doing the "class" system thing for a while now - Suites with their separate breakfast area, then adding Reserve with minis and suites, the addition of the Suite only Lounge with Royal class ships - it's not exactly new.  The logical extension is private deck space also, in addition to the lounge and dining.  

 

Did they flub this rollout - absolutely! The entire rollout of Sun has been a debacle and embarrassment.  Am I looking forward to sailing on Sun? Absolutely! 

Big difference between what they were doing with reserve (a section of an existing dining room with only 1 additional selection from the MDR) where basically the primary difference is the anytime seating without the wait. To operating different venues for the classes with different menues. While trying to have the same anytime with no wait. From what i heard they had one too busy and one not so busy. Also impacting kitchen capacity.  Because of the nature of the two classes routing over flow from one to the other was problematic.  End result decision to combine into one class.

 

Similarly with the Sanctuary. They tried keeping the old (the ability to buy sanctuary access) and the new. Soon found that was not going to work.

 

I was on one of the early solstice cruises and Luminae was not operating yet.

Edited August 20 by TRLD

[FLAlaska]

2 hours ago, reedprincess said:

 

Did they flub this rollout - absolutely! The entire rollout of Sun has been a debacle and embarrassment.  Am I looking forward to sailing on Sun? Absolutely! 

100% Same....

[Wishing on a star]

I am looking forward to sailing on the Sun!!!   Booked a long time ago.

But, judging by the things that we have loved and appreciated about Princess, and how they are now very obviously lacking on the Sun....   Along with all of the other things that are just not okay with Princess lately....   I don't see sailing on the SUN in the future.

[TRLD]

We will certainly sail on the Sun again in the the same as any other Princess ship, HAL ship, Celebrity ship, Windstar ship, Royal Caribbean ship, P&O UK ship, etc...

 

We find that sailing on different lines, on different ships, with different pros and cons on each keeps the experiences fresh.

[Hobby3333]

47 minutes ago, Wishing on a star said:

I am looking forward to sailing on the Sun!!!   Booked a long time ago.

But, judging by the things that we have loved and appreciated about Princess, and how they are now very obviously lacking on the Sun....   Along with all of the other things that are just not okay with Princess lately....   I don't see sailing on the SUN in the future.

I thought the same thing after our cruise on the Sun.  Even with the price almost being double now and all the changes that have been discussed, I booked another cruise on the Sun for Oct 2026.  Sandwiched in, Rotterdam in July 25 and MSC YC out of Galveston December 25.   

[dog]

2 hours ago, Wishing on a star said:

I am looking forward to sailing on the Sun!!!   Booked a long time ago.

But, judging by the things that we have loved and appreciated about Princess, and how they are now very obviously lacking on the Sun....   Along with all of the other things that are just not okay with Princess lately....   I don't see sailing on the SUN in the future.

I get it.

 

I pretty well have stopped reading the negatives and focus on the beautiful photos.  Never say never.