JamieLogical's Live from the Enchanted Princess 5/4

[JamieLogical]

 

Cruise prep is underway and we have only 12 days to go until our Enchanted Princess sailing to the western Caribbean!

 

My husband and I will soon be making our (triumphant?) return to Princess. My first and only sailing with Princess was on the Emerald Princess through the Panama Canal over Christmas and New Year's of 2022/2023. It was and still is the worst cruise I have ever been on for a multitude of reasons including woeful understaffing, horrible service, inedible food, bad entertainment, and poor ship design/maintenance. You know it's bad when both the F&B Manager and the Entertainment Director tell you they wouldn't blame you for never sailing Princess again. Fortunately, the cruise was saved by the wonderful itinerary and traveling with two of our good friends.

 

At the time, I swore off Princess despite many people telling me that my experience was not the norm and that I shouldn't judge the entire line from that one terrible experience. Time has passed and I've calmed down. The stars have aligned and so here we are.

 

My husband and I had planned to do a road trip this Spring, but after pricing it all out, it just didn't make sense to spend all the money and go through all the hassle of coordinating the logistics of that when we could just go on another cruise! Initially, we were looking at a return to NCL (another cruise line I had previously sworn off) on the Joy to Bermuda, but the pricing was more than we could stomach. We had ruled out MSC because their sailing out of NYC for the week in question was an almost identical itinerary to the one we had just done in September. MSC's sailings out of Miami and Port Canaveral were totaling up to more than we wanted to spend with flights and hotels. Then, while keeping an eye on Joy prices to see if they would come down at all, I received a postcard from Princess Player's Advantage offering 35% off and $100 of OBC.

 

I was initially tempted but then decided to go back and re-read my entire Live Blog from my previous Princess Sailing to refresh my memory about why I had sworn off Princess. It definitely reminded me of a lot of things I had forgotten, but I ultimately re-read the posts from people swearing that Princess is usually a great experience. I thought that going on a newer ship might resolve some of the issues I had with the Emerald. I also figured that booking a mini-suite would help since I hated the lack of a couch and teeny tiny shower in our balcony cabin. So, I priced out sailing on the Enchanted Princess in a mini-suite with my casino offer and the math worked out. My husband was willing to give Princess another shot as well.

 

We initially booked with the Plus package but decided to upgrade to the Premier. Since one of our biggest issues with the Emerald Princess sailing was MDR food/service, we figured we would hedge our bets with two specialty meals and unlimited casual dining.

 

We booked a GTY mini-suite and still have not received our stateroom assignment, which is pretty disappointing considering we have seen many people getting upgraded from balconies to mini-suites in our roll call. One would assume that they would assign rooms to the people who actually paid full price for them first and then assign the upgrades to the "leftover" cabins, but it looks like it's us that are going to end up with the leftovers. The sailing has been sold out for weeks, so I am not really sure what they are waiting for in assigning our room.

 

I am really hoping that this cruise will wow us and get us to consider more future cruises on Princess' newer ships. We have been very happy sailing MSC lately, but it's nice to have options. We are actually already booked on the Enchanted's August 10 repositioning cruise, but final payment isn't due until the day after we come back from this sailing, so we will use this experience to decide whether or not to make that final payment.

 

Here's the link to the Live Blog from my Emerald Princess sailing for anyone who wants to know more about everything that went wrong on that sailing:

 

Edited April 22 by JamieLogical

[rideev]

The title of this post caught my eye, and then I saw who was writing the post.  The first thing I thought of was that you said you would never sail Princess again.  So I had to read this post, lol.  Glad you explained.  I was on the Emerald with you on that sailing of the Panama Canal.  I remembered the name.    I hope you enjoy this upcoming cruise.

[Nattyg1723]

Following! Hope you have a great experience this time!

[suzyed]

32 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Cruise prep is underway and we have only 12 days to go until our Enchanted Princess sailing to the western Caribbean!

 

My husband and I will soon be making our (triumphant?) return to Princess. My first and only sailing with Princess was on the Emerald Princess through the Panama Canal over Christmas and New Year's of 2022/2023. It was and still is the worst cruise I have ever been on for a multitude of reasons including woeful understaffing, horrible service, inedible food, bad entertainment, and poor ship design/maintenance. You know it's bad when both the F&B Manager and the Entertainment Director tell you they wouldn't blame you for never sailing Princess again. Fortunately, the cruise was saved by the wonderful itinerary and traveling with two of our good friends.

 

At the time, I swore off Princess despite many people telling me that my experience was not the norm and that I shouldn't judge the entire line from that one terrible experience. Time has passed and I've calmed down. The stars have aligned and so here we are.

 

My husband and I had planned to do a road trip this Spring, but after pricing it all out, it just didn't make sense to spend all the money and go through all the hassle of coordinating the logistics of that when we could just go on another cruise! Initially, we were looking at a return to NCL (another cruise line I had previously sworn off) on the Joy to Bermuda, but the pricing was more than we could stomach. We had ruled out MSC because their sailing out of NYC for the week in question was an almost identical itinerary to the one we had just done in September. MSC's sailings out of Miami and Port Canaveral were totaling up to more than we wanted to spend with flights and hotels. Then, while keeping an eye on Joy prices to see if they would come down at all, I received a postcard from Princess Player's Advantage offering 35% off and $100 of OBC.

 

I was initially tempted but then decided to go back and re-read my entire Live Blog from my previous Princess Sailing to refresh my memory about why I had sworn off Princess. It definitely reminded me of a lot of things I had forgotten, but I ultimately re-read the posts from people swearing that Princess is usually a great experience. I thought that going on a newer ship might resolve some of the issues I had with the Emerald. I also figured that booking a mini-suite would help since I hated the lack of a couch and teeny tiny shower in our balcony cabin. So, I priced out sailing on the Enchanted Princess in a mini-suite with my casino offer and the math worked out. My husband was willing to give Princess another shot as well.

 

We initially booked with the Plus package but decided to upgrade to the Premier. Since one of our biggest issues with the Emerald Princess sailing was MDR food/service, we figured we would hedge our bets with two specialty meals and unlimited casual dining.

 

We booked a GTY mini-suite and still have not received our stateroom assignment, which is pretty disappointing considering we have seen many people getting upgraded from balconies to mini-suites in our roll call. One would assume that they would assign rooms to the people who actually paid full price for them first and then assign the upgrades to the "leftover" cabins, but it looks like it's us that are going to end up with the leftovers. The sailing has been sold out for weeks, so I am not really sure what they are waiting for in assigning our room.

 

I am really hoping that this cruise will wow us and get us to consider more future cruises on Princess' newer ships. We have been very happy sailing MSC lately, but it's nice to have options. We are actually already booked on the Enchanted's August 10 repositioning cruise, but final payment isn't due until the day after we come back from this sailing, so we will use this experience to decide whether or not to make that final payment.

 

Here's the link to the Live Blog from my Emerald Princess sailing for anyone who wants to know more about everything that went wrong on that sailing:

 

Thanks! We can't wait to hear your experiences!  We are on the Enchanted in a mini on June 8th for our anniversary!

[Honolulu Blue]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

My husband and I will soon be making our (triumphant?) return to Princess. My first and only sailing with Princess was on the Emerald Princess through the Panama Canal over Christmas and New Year's of 2022/2023. It was and still is the worst cruise I have ever been on for a multitude of reasons including woeful understaffing, horrible service, inedible food, bad entertainment, and poor ship design/maintenance. You know it's bad when both the F&B Manager and the Entertainment Director tell you they wouldn't blame you for never sailing Princess again. Fortunately, the cruise was saved by the wonderful itinerary and traveling with two of our good friends.

 

Hey, I remember you! I've followed some of your adventures on Celebrity, NCL, and MSC. Alas, I seem to have missed the posts on your Emerald Princess cruise. I'll go through it later. I'm sorry for what you went through.

 

I've done three cruises on Princess since 2021. They were relatively short (5, 7, and 5 days). They were quite fun, especially the 80s themed ones. I didn't notice too many problems. And I received a pre cruise cabin upgrade each time.

 

I'll be on the Emerald in August. I hope I'll have a.better experience than you did. 🙏

 

Anyway, I'm following along, so I'll give the microphone back to you. 🎤

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

[cruisebeachgirl703]

Looking forward to following. Hoping all goes well for you two.

[startedwithamouse]

Did you book using a casino offer?  Those aren't full price cabins. 

 

In fact, on our current sailing, many casino guests had room numbers assigned at the port. 

[kywildcatfanone]

We will be on this sailing as well.

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, startedwithamouse said:

Did you book using a casino offer?  Those aren't full price cabins. 

 

In fact, on our current sailing, many casino guests had room numbers assigned at the port. 

 

Yikes! I hope I don't have to wait that long to find out my room assignment... how do you print luggage tags in that case?

[tompeter]

54 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Yikes! I hope I don't have to wait that long to find out my room assignment... how do you print luggage tags in that case?

You don't. When you arrive at the port some of the Baggage Handlers will have a Manifest with all the names/cabin numbers on them. They will look up your assignment and make luggage tgs for you.

[startedwithamouse]

4 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Yikes! I hope I don't have to wait that long to find out my room assignment... how do you print luggage tags in that case?

You don't. Room numbers are written on luggage tags at the port. 

[loupana]

Looking forward to following. We are on 14 day Enchanted Princess Aug. 10-24th.

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, loupana said:

Looking forward to following. We are on 14 day Enchanted Princess Aug. 10-24th.

 

We are booked on that one as well and plan to make our decision on final payment while onboard this sailing, since final payment is due 5/12 and this cruise ends 5/11. There are a whole bunch of factors that will go into that, but at least we will be better equipped to make an informed decision.

[JamieLogical]

Exciting news to report this morning. Late last night we got our room assignment! We did not receive an email notification from Princess, but my husband logged in to check before bed (we both check like 5 times a day) and there it was! I had a moment of confusion because the room we were assigned was a Forward-Facing Minisuite and I thought that meant we had won our upgrade bid for a Reserve Class Forward-Facing Minisuite. So I checked my email again and didn't see anything about winning the bid. So then I logged into the PlusGrade site to see if my bid had been accepted and it still showed as pending.

 

Upon closer examination, I realized that the room we were assigned was not a Reserve Class room, so we just got a normal forward-facing minisuite, which I guess I didn't realize existed (they are only on a couple of decks). Anyway, we were really happy with the room assignment, because we do like staying in unique cabins with large balconies and this certainly fits the bill. The layout is completely different from a "regular" minisuite on Princess ships. We immediately went to CruiseDeckPlans to look at photos and videos of the room. We found a video of our exact room by a couple with a YouTube channel called "Suite Natured" and they are our new favorite YouTubers because they are ridiculously cute! We watched their video of our room twice and then watched their full ship tour of the Enchanted Princess.

 

Here's the video of our room if anyone is interested:

 

I will be sure to take plenty of pictures of my own as well. There are a couple of things I really like about this room. First off, it doesn't have that stupid walk-in closet area that the normal Princess rooms have. If you read my Live Blog of the Emerald Princess, you know how much I hate that space. I hate that it leaves all my stuff exposed and it's the first thing you see when you walk in the room. I like things neat and tucked away, so it drove me crazy just to see a mess of hanging clothes and a laundry basket on the floor first thing every time I walked into the room. I also hated that the tendency was for whoever was getting ready to stand in that space, blocking access into/out of the bathroom for the other person and posing a real danger to whoever was standing there if someone was in the bathroom and swung the door open quickly. I hated the motion sensor light that always seemed to want to turn on or off at the wrong times and blinded anyone who needed to use the bathroom at night. And, finally, I just hated how much space it wasted that could have been MUCH better utilized in the bathroom.

 

So, right off the bat, I am happy our assigned room just has regular closets. It seems to have plenty of closet and shelf space, so that is great! I also, obviously, love the huge balcony and I think we will get some incredible views from it. I don't love the steel railing, since that does limit the view some, but that is the price you pay for being on the front of the ship.

 

The fact the room has two TVs seems quite silly with the configuration. I also think that if you were a family who booked a minisuite and wanted the separation between the couch and bed that a regular minisuite affords, you would be sorely disappointed. Fortunately, that doesn't matter to us. The only other thing I am a little sad about is not having much of a view from the bed, but I think I can live with that.

 

Ironically, we booked all of our MDR reservations for the Amalfi dining room, which is the one all the way aft on deck 6. It's only accessible from the aft elevators, so we will have quite a walk to dinner each night! We will definitely be getting our steps in on this sailing!

 

I am so happy to be able to print our luggage tags and not go through that whole rigamarole at the port. Our Medallions are scheduled to arrive in the mail today!

[dides]

Glad you are happy with the upgrade.  We were on this same cruise as Suite Natured and do know them to chat to. They are really fun, kind and down to earth. 

[JamieLogical]

5 minutes ago, dides said:

Glad you are happy with the upgrade.  We were on this same cruise as Suite Natured and do know them to chat to. They are really fun, kind and down to earth. 

 

I loved their attitudes, humor, and playful nature in the couple of videos we have watched so far. Will definitely be watching more of their content and both my husband and I subscribed to their channel last night.

[Fa-Li]

The nice thing about being forward on Enchanted is that it will be easy to whip up to the Retreat pool area.  This was our favorite spot!  Lovely sunning area on the deck above/surrounding the pool, and a great little bar that was never crowded so we really got to know the bartender (I can't imagine Rally is still there, but if he is, you are in for a treat!) We had an aft cabin and still made the trek every day to spend time in this area.

[TAW1963]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Exciting news to report this morning. Late last night we got our room assignment! We did not receive an email notification from Princess, but my husband logged in to check before bed (we both check like 5 times a day) and there it was! I had a moment of confusion because the room we were assigned was a Forward-Facing Minisuite and I thought that meant we had won our upgrade bid for a Reserve Class Forward-Facing Minisuite. So I checked my email again and didn't see anything about winning the bid. So then I logged into the PlusGrade site to see if my bid had been accepted and it still showed as pending.

 

Upon closer examination, I realized that the room we were assigned was not a Reserve Class room, so we just got a normal forward-facing minisuite, which I guess I didn't realize existed (they are only on a couple of decks). Anyway, we were really happy with the room assignment, because we do like staying in unique cabins with large balconies and this certainly fits the bill. The layout is completely different from a "regular" minisuite on Princess ships. We immediately went to CruiseDeckPlans to look at photos and videos of the room. We found a video of our exact room by a couple with a YouTube channel called "Suite Natured" and they are our new favorite YouTubers because they are ridiculously cute! We watched their video of our room twice and then watched their full ship tour of the Enchanted Princess.

 

Here's the video of our room if anyone is interested:

 

I will be sure to take plenty of pictures of my own as well. There are a couple of things I really like about this room. First off, it doesn't have that stupid walk-in closet area that the normal Princess rooms have. If you read my Live Blog of the Emerald Princess, you know how much I hate that space. I hate that it leaves all my stuff exposed and it's the first thing you see when you walk in the room. I like things neat and tucked away, so it drove me crazy just to see a mess of hanging clothes and a laundry basket on the floor first thing every time I walked into the room. I also hated that the tendency was for whoever was getting ready to stand in that space, blocking access into/out of the bathroom for the other person and posing a real danger to whoever was standing there if someone was in the bathroom and swung the door open quickly. I hated the motion sensor light that always seemed to want to turn on or off at the wrong times and blinded anyone who needed to use the bathroom at night. And, finally, I just hated how much space it wasted that could have been MUCH better utilized in the bathroom.

 

So, right off the bat, I am happy our assigned room just has regular closets. It seems to have plenty of closet and shelf space, so that is great! I also, obviously, love the huge balcony and I think we will get some incredible views from it. I don't love the steel railing, since that does limit the view some, but that is the price you pay for being on the front of the ship.

 

The fact the room has two TVs seems quite silly with the configuration. I also think that if you were a family who booked a minisuite and wanted the separation between the couch and bed that a regular minisuite affords, you would be sorely disappointed. Fortunately, that doesn't matter to us. The only other thing I am a little sad about is not having much of a view from the bed, but I think I can live with that.

 

Ironically, we booked all of our MDR reservations for the Amalfi dining room, which is the one all the way aft on deck 6. It's only accessible from the aft elevators, so we will have quite a walk to dinner each night! We will definitely be getting our steps in on this sailing!

 

I am so happy to be able to print our luggage tags and not go through that whole rigamarole at the port. Our Medallions are scheduled to arrive in the mail today!

As you know there are only four of those cabins (M105, M106, L105 and L106) on a Royal class ship.  We were in cabin L105 for a 15-day roundtrip to Hawaii cruise just last month on the Discovery Princess, which is a very close sister to the Enchanted Princess.  We absolutely loved the cabin.  The dual TVs is awkward, but I am sure they do it because mini-suites on Princess all have dual TVs, but it is no big deal.  The balconies are very large and the views were fantastic, especially coming in to, and going out of, ports.  We too liked the enclosed closets and the location of the bathroom.   As far as wind is concerned, we found many days that we could use the balconies while at sea, especially when the ship had a tail wind.  At times there was virtually no wind.  Of course there were times with an uncomfortable amount of wind.

 

We are booked in to one of the four forward-facing Reserve Collections mini-suites for many of our upcoming cruises and are looking forward to that.

[t&atravel]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

So I checked my email again and didn't see anything about winning the bid. So then I logged into the PlusGrade site to see if my bid had been accepted and it still showed as pending.

@JamieLogical  If you are happy with your room assignment you may want to cancel your bid as you will be moved automatically (unless you will be happier in the room you bid for).  You don’t get to refuse an accepted bid.

[JamieLogical]

18 minutes ago, t&atravel said:

@JamieLogical  If you are happy with your room assignment you may want to cancel your bid as you will be moved automatically (unless you will be happier in the room you bid for).  You don’t get to refuse an accepted bid.

 

Already done!

 

Though I am thinking about rebidding. There are only four Reserve Class Forward Facing Minisuites on the ship, so the chances of me getting an upgrade are slim to none, but they are all right next door to the four normal forward-facing minisuites, one of which I am now in. So they are pretty similar, just the Reserve Class have the larger, wrap-around balconies and get the Reserve Class benefits.

 

Edited April 24 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

Got my medallion in the mail today! Now to start working on that packing list!

[Crown Cruiser]

The reserve class cabins that you are speaking of (L107, 108) and (M107, 108) also have a Iiving room and bedroom.  Best cabin IMHO after a full aft suite.

[Mike A]

1 hour ago, Crown Cruiser said:

The reserve class cabins that you are speaking of (L107, 108) and (M107, 108) also have a Iiving room and bedroom.  Best cabin IMHO after a full aft suite.

@JamieLogical I am looking forward to following along on another one of your great Live From Thread’s 🙂

@Crown Cruiser  I totally agree with everything you said above. We stayed in M108 on the Royal Princess in 2016. It was fabulous with a HUGE Wraparound Balcony. I would take over a full suite, now that it is Reserve Class in a heartbeat. 
Mike A

[Torfamm]

So glad you are happy with your cabin assignment and hope you’ll be pleased with the cruise itself!

[gizfish]

That room looks awesome.  I hope you are not upset that the tub will prevent the intimate relationship you could have had with the shower curtain.  I'm a bit scared for you with regards to the bed.  The woman in the video said it's a princess bed and one thing I do remember about my last princess cruise many years ago was how hard the bed was.  I hope you can report that has changed because that has been a big reason we stopped considering princess.  I bet if you ask your room steward for a lounge, they will accommodate you lol.