JamieLogical's Live from the Enchanted Princess 5/4

[Scottdalfonso]

Thanks for doing this...we'll be popping our Princess cherry on Enchanted at the end of August, so will be following along for all the pics,menus and thoughts on the cruise. Really excited to try a new line and this ship does look beautiful.

[suzyed]

On 5/2/2024 at 2:24 PM, Nattyg1723 said:

This made me laugh so hard 🤣 

 

I totally get it, I am the same way, I never want someone to become incapacitated should they lay eyes on my ghastly clodhoppers 🤣🤣

LOL!  I let the professionals do it...I make a mess of my toes when I try to do it myself!

[BDevilCruiser]

39 minutes ago, suzyed said:

LOL!  I let the professionals do it...I make a mess of my toes when I try to do it myself!

Remember this conversation next time you see an old guy (like me) wearing sandals…with socks! 🙄

[kywildcatfanone]

The comedians were great in the theater and awful in the Vista lounge.  I wanted to walk out

[JG&Lcruisingnewbies]

Thank you for doing this live. Eek we have booked the Hotel you had problems with and can’t cancel 😧 

 

but when we get to it at 7pm it’s going to feel like early hours of the morning coming from England so I’m just hoping the beds are comfy enough. If needed I’m getting on the ship smelly (sorry to anyone on the 10th August repositioning 😂) and use the shower in the cabin in the afternoon / before dinner.

 

Heard rumours on the pineapple stickers. Interesting and not personally interested is all I’m saying 😂

 

just hoping my 11year old doesn’t see one and ask why. “They must just really love pineapples” lol

 

[Nattyg1723]

9 hours ago, BDevilCruiser said:

Remember this conversation next time you see an old guy (like me) wearing sandals…with socks! 🙄

Oh that's my husband's go-to casual look, no judgment here🤣

[555]

46 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

The comedians were great in the theater and awful in the Vista lounge.  I wanted to walk out

Do you recall a name?

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, JG&Lcruisingnewbies said:

Thank you for doing this live. Eek we have booked the Hotel you had problems with and can’t cancel 😧 

 

but when we get to it at 7pm it’s going to feel like early hours of the morning coming from England so I’m just hoping the beds are comfy enough. If needed I’m getting on the ship smelly (sorry to anyone on the 10th August repositioning 😂) and use the shower in the cabin in the afternoon / before dinner.

 

Heard rumours on the pineapple stickers. Interesting and not personally interested is all I’m saying 😂

 

just hoping my 11year old doesn’t see one and ask why. “They must just really love pineapples” lol

 

 

The bed was really comfy and we had no problems sleeping at all. So, that was a positive at least.

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our first of two sea days (second one will be Friday). We had already decided that, since it was a sea day, we would take it really easy and not rush to get up and out of the room early. We had filled out our room service breakfast card for 7:00-7:30 and at 7:01 there was a knock at the door with our order. We had the exact opposite problem from the few times we ordered room service coffee on the Emerald Princess before eventually giving up. We received only sugar and no artificial sweetener. I made due with a tiny amount of real sugar in my coffee rather than sending my husband down to fetch sweetener packets for me, since any place that had those would be a long trek from our very far forward room.

 

I had also ordered an pizza muffin? I had no idea what to expect, but I thought I would give it a try. It was delicious, though not very breakfast-y. I am sure that if they sold those frozen at the grocery store, they would be a big hit with moms for their teenage sons.

 

It took me a really long time to type up my blog and get that posted along with all the pictures from Saturday. Then it took me a long time to figure out how to get the temperature of the shower to something I could tolerate. My husband had to come help me with it, as he had taken his shower first and apparently figured it out. Would it kill them to put little red and blue symbols so you know which way to turn the knob? I had started out by turning it left, as that usually makes water hotter, but in this case the water got colder. So then I turned it to the right as far as it would go and it just stayed the same temperature… not cold… but not warm enough by any stretch of the imagination either. My husband came in and turned it left again and it did eventually get warmer VERY slowly. Finally, we got it to a temperature I could live with.

 

The shower itself was fine. I liked that I didn’t have to mate for life with the shower curtain. I did spend some time shifting the shower curtain over hook by hook so the right-hand side of it wasn’t attached to the fixed hook at the far end that kept us from being able to open it from the end where all the controls were. Hopefully, our room steward won’t shift it back.

 

I was finally showered and dressed just before 10:00! We had come up with a plan. We were going to try O’Malley’s for lunch because as we understood it, they are only open for lunch on sea days and we only get two of those on this cruise. The bar was set to open at 11:00 and food would be available beginning at 11:30. We headed down to Good Spirits, which is just across the piazza, and got ourselves mimosas. I was very explicit with the bartender that we wanted one charged to EACH of our accounts. Then we headed across to O’Malley’s and found ourselves a nice booth by the window and set up our board game, Splendor Duel.

 

At one point we needed a refill on our mimosas, so I went back over to Good Spirits with both medallions and once again asked to be sure that we were each charged for one drink. By this time, they were working on getting the bar set up at O’Malley’s so we could just get our next round from there.

 

As we were playing our game, a server came around asking if we were planning to have lunch. We told him we were and he gave us some silverware and napkins. Then a bit later the bar was open and he came around to ask if we wanted more drinks and I got a third mimosa, but my husband abstained.

 

We started really rushing to try to finish our game, as they had already come around with menus and asking if we were ready to order around 11:15, even though they weren’t supposed to start food service until 11:30. We did eventually finish the game (I won!) and get that cleaned up and settled in for lunch.

 

We both ordered the Clover Breeze as our drink. I thought it was really good, but we foolishly did not ask to have one each charged to our accounts. I kind of assumed that with us both sitting right there and each ordering our drinks individually, they would figure out we were two separate people and charge the two separate accounts.

 

For food, we got the onion tower and crab dip to start and I got the burger and my husband got the stew for mains. The crab dip was kind of “meh,” but everything else was very good. My husband loved his stew! We went ahead and got some dessert as well. I got the chocolate cake and my husband got the brownie. He didn’t like the brownie at all and ended up just eating some of my cake. I thought the cake was okay, but a little dry.

 

After lunch it was time for a nap! We headed back to the room and crashed for a while. I didn’t wake up until 3:00 and by that time my husband had left the room. I texted him about getting coffee and he let me know that he was down in the Crown Grill Bar area and had good seats he didn’t want to give up. He also asked me to bring a board game down.

 

I stopped by the Princess Live bar that does serve coffee and got myself an Americano with Bailey’s. We played Splendor Duel again. Many people stopped at our table to ask us about the game since we were kind of in a high-traffic area.

 

It was a formal night so after we finished the game, we headed back to our room to get changed for the evening. Once we were both looking swanky, we ran back down to the Crown Grill Bar to get some drinks to take with us to Super Hero Trivia in Princess Live.

 

We did okay-ish at trivia but I was really distracted because at some point, we decided to check our drink totals in the app and I was already at 12/15 drinks and my husband was only at 4. We went through my drink log and refreshed our memories about which drinks my husband had had and at that point in the day, I had had 7 and he had had 5. The two extra drinks I had were the third mimosa at O’Malley’s and the Bailey’s in my coffee from Princess Live. So first of all, we had only had 12 drinks total between the two of us but had been charged for 16 so far. And second off, they were all on my account, so I was already almost out of drinks for the day at 5:00pm!

 

I tried chatting with guest services through the app and that was just a huge exercise in futility. What it ultimately boiled down to is they definitely had charged me for other people’s drinks and extra drinks. They had three Elderflower Palomas on my account, even though I had only had one and they had a Spicy Margharita on my account when neither my husband or I would order one of those in a million years. I was told they could/would not remove any drinks from my account and that if I did go over for the day, I would need to contact them again or go to the guest services desk to have any monetary charges removed. This conversation got so complicated that at one point they asked me to find the closest house phone, tell them the number, and they could call me so we could discuss it instead of chatting about it through the app. At that point I was up by the buffet so I found a house phone near the elevators.

 

After trivia, while I was still fighting with guest services, we had decided to skip the MDR (really nothing looked appealing for mains on the menu) and scope out Cinco de Mayo night in the buffet with the plan to ultimately go get sushi. The selections in the buffet did look good, so we vowed to come back there if there was a wait for a table at the sushi place.

 

However, we didn’t have any problem getting a table for sushi. It seemed like a popular option, but wasn’t completely packed. The piazza was definitely packed, though. They were doing the champagne fountain so people lined the railings and stairs and it was VERY loud.

 

I didn’t get a drink with dinner for fear of using up my drinks for the day. My husband got some saki and we were very explicit with the server that it needed to be charged to HIS account. I just got the spicy tuna roll and my husband got the edamame and the spicy salmon roll. Rolls are only $5, so even if we didn’t have Princess Premier, that would be a nice, cheap option for lunch or dinner. The rolls were good. My husband was complaining about how spicy his was and I thought that was weird because my spice tolerance is lower than his and I was having no trouble with mine. Turns out, the spicy salmon roll has jalapeno in it! He had thought it was just cucumber and/or avocado like my spicy tuna roll.

 

After dinner, we went up to deck 7 for a quick peek at the sunset. Then we headed down to the International Cafe thinking that we could get premium desserts there, but saw no sign of them, so we headed over to the gelato place. They had both the cakes and sundaes. My husband got the German chocolate cake and I got the Lake Cuomo sundae. We took them over to a table outside of O’Malley’s and listened to Celtic Wave for a while and debated whether Johnny Cash was “Irish music.”

 

Then we headed back over to Crown Grill Bar because the Gold String Duo was scheduled to start playing there. This was probably my favorite part of the evening. We ordered drinks and VERY explicitly asked for all of them to be charged to my husband’s account. I had to Floradora’s which was my new favorite drink onboard at that point. We got to do SO MUCH people-watching as people came and went to the comedy shows in the Vista Lounge and came and went to Crown Grill for dinner. Since it was a formal night, the variety of dress was highly fascinating and I just loved the contrast of a man in a full suit or tuxedo followed by a man in a sleeveless tie-dye shirt and gym shorts. It was a really really nice time. The music was great too! They won me over right away by starting with two Beatles songs. We had two rounds of drinks and stayed for the full set.

 

After that, we came back to the room for some reason, though neither one of us can remember why. We were both feeling snacky, so I headed up to Slice for some pizza and my husband headed to the buffet for some cookies. We agreed to meet back up at 9:15 in Princess Live for Karaoke, which started at 9:30.

 

It had rained at some point because when I went up to Slice, the decks were all wet. My pizza was pretty good, though not MSC good. I then ran down to the casino to cash out my bank from the previous day, since I had forgotten to do so the night before. I have a daily casino budget and I don’t carry over funds from one day to the next, so I wanted to make sure to cash that out before doing any of my casino-ing for the current day. I had thought to stay and do a little gambling then, but it was cutting it close to our meet-up time, so I headed straight over to Princess Live. I am glad I did because it was already packed. There was a long line for the bar and another long line to sign up to sing.

 

I grabbed a couple of chairs and decided to risk ordering a drink through the app so as not to have to contend with the long bar line. For once, my order actually came and quickly! It actually showed up before my husband did!

 

Karaoke was good. All of the singers did well, but a few were real starts. The last was the tiny, blonde, teenage girl that was sitting at the same table as us who KILLED “House of the Rising Son.” She had a HUGE, soulful, gritty voice and was just absolutely amazing. She got a standing ovation and when she came back over to our table, people were actually walking up to her and telling her how amazing she was. I jokingly asked if I could have her autograph.

 

After Karaoke, my husband headed off to bed and I headed back to the casino. I decided to try to grab a drink from Take 5 and there was a jazz band playing in there. I hate jazz, but this band was actually pretty okay and I discovered that Take 5 has a really interesting drink menu. I ordered the first thing off the list that sounded good to me, but there were a whole bunch more drinks on there that I want to try, so I vowed to make my husband go back there with me.

 

I lost a suitable amount of money in the casino and then headed up to bed. I have an invitation to the slot tournament at 8:00 tonight, so I will let you all know how that goes.

 

Day's Drinks:

 

2x Mimosa from Good Spirits 

1x Mimosa from O’Malley’s

1x Clover Breeze from O’Malley's 

1x Americano w/ Bailey’s from Princess Live

1x Vodka and Ginger Ale from Crown Grill Bar

1x Elderflower Paloma from Crown Grill Bar

2x Floradora from Crown Grill Bar

1x Vodka and Ginger Ale from Medallion App

1x Night at the Apollo from Take 5

 

Edited May 6 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 6 by JamieLogical

[kywildcatfanone]

1 hour ago, 555 said:

Do you recall a name?

Alfred and Seymour.  They were very funny in the princess theater on embarkation night, but not at all in Vista lounge.  Weird.

[Honolulu Blue]

@JamieLogical: Thank you for your detailed summary of yesterday. I found it especially interesting. I'm sorry Princess screwed up your allocation of drinks. We're discussing the drink limit on Princess in another thread and failed to note this disadvantage of it.

[JGmf]

3 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

The comedians were great in the theater and awful in the Vista lounge.  I wanted to walk out

 

That was the exact reaction of me and my wife when we were on the Enchanted in March.

[dreams_of_travel]

@JamieLogical is your balcony very windy while you are at sea? 

[karatemom2]

2 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Alfred and Seymour.  They were very funny in the princess theater on embarkation night, but not at all in Vista lounge.  Weird.

Oh my gosh. We haven’t seen Alfred and Seymour for years. They were regulars on many of our West Coast cruises for many years prior to COVID. They are very funny guys and super personable when you run into them around the ship. 

Edited May 6 by karatemom2

[kywildcatfanone]

3 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

Oh my gosh. We haven’t seen Alfred and Seymour for years. They were regulars on many of our West Coast cruises for many years prior to COVID. They are very funny guys and super personable when you run into them around the ship. 

 

Seem like good guys. No idea how their set can be so good one night,  and so bad the next.

[candy4040]

What is a Floridora?  Sound tropical.

 

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, dreams_of_travel said:

@JamieLogical is your balcony very windy while you are at sea? 

 

So we were at sea all day yesterday and, at least in rh morning it was not even a tiny bit windy. I am sure it depends on a lot of factors like how fast the shop is moving, which direction the wind is coming from, etc., but there was almost no wind yesterday. It was actually more more windy this morning docking in Cozumel even though the shop was barely moving. I think it was just a little windy in Cozumel.

[555]

3 hours ago, JGmf said:

 

That was the exact reaction of me and my wife when we were on the Enchanted in March.

Especially when seeing their act previously on another ship. 😁

Once was enough.

[KKB]

On 5/5/2024 at 8:04 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

We walked onboard at 10:33. 

Very similar to our experience on the Regal last month for our TA out of FLL.

On 5/5/2024 at 8:04 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

For lunch my husband had the ravioli, which was veal and parmesan ravioli in a veal sage sauce. He said it tasted like Thanksgiving. He clearly didn’t know what to make of it at first, being such a non-traditional Italian/pasta dish, but he decided he really liked it. I got a pepperoni pizza, which was huge. I literally only ate ¼ of it. Now we know to share! We did share the antipasti appetizer and the dessert. We had the Tiramisu and it was funny because both of us were so stuffed already, we said we would each only take two bites, but it was so good that we ended up eating the entire thing!

 

Odd...I ate this 3x at Alfredos on Regal last month...it looked nothing like your pic & had more of an alfredo flavor. Sounds like WAY too much sage in your husband's. Mine was very good.

 

Finally, it was my turn and my three printed gift cards took 7 minutes to process from start to finish. People, have some consideration! Don’t waste everyone’s time by coming unprepared and if you expect guest services to spend 40+ minutes helping you, maybe don’t go there during the busiest time on embarkation day! Princes, let more than one of your guest services people have access to the system(s) required to process gift cards!

 

Go figure...I did this 2x last month. 1st time had print outs & took about 30 min.

2nd time I just had screenshots (since I bought them while onboard). Took maybe 15 min. 

Seems if you get the reps that "have access" it goes faster...uh, why don't they all??!!

 

I think I am done with ordering through the app now. I have survived 22 other cruises by fetching drinks for myself, so I will just return to that. I like the *idea* of the app, but it just doesn’t work the way it should. If my drink order is going to be in “preparing” for over an hour, I should be able to cancel it if I want to move on. How it takes hours to “prepare” a bottle of water is a mystery as well.

 

All the Princess cruises in the last couple years & we really only used this on the Regal & it was brilliant! It does seem to be hit or miss throughout the line unfortunately. 

Like you, no deal breaker for me. Overall our servers were BRILLIANT most times on the Regal...we rarely lacked for a drink.

Looks like a great trip so far!

(I made some specific notes to your Day 1 report w/in the Quote)

 

Edited May 6 by KKB

[KKB]

8 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

The comedians were great in the theater and awful in the Vista lounge.  I wanted to walk out

Sorry to hear this! Alfred & Seymour were on the TA leg of the Regal last month & we thought they were hilarious--some of the best comedians we have seen at see. They are a unique show to be sure.

[JamieLogical]

Anyone know how the slot tournament actually works? I got my invite hat says my tournament time is 8:00pm, but in the patter, it says the slot tournament runs from 7:00-9:00.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, candy4040 said:

What is a Floridora?  Sound tropical.

 

 

Edited May 6 by JamieLogical

[azbirdmom]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Anyone know how the slot tournament actually works? I got my invite hat says my tournament time is 8:00pm, but in the patter, it says the slot tournament runs from 7:00-9:00.

I was invited last week but the time they assigned me was during our dinner at the Catch.  In the invitation they mentioned showing up by 8:50 if we couldn't make the assigned time but I would have had to leave dinner with friends to make that.  I went to talk to the hosts just before 7 and they had some machines just to the left of the entrance set up for the tournament.  Unfortunately they already had the earliest times booked so I couldn't play.  But the way it typically works is that the ones with the highest scores from the preliminary rounds play in the finals which would be sometime after 9.  Winner takes all.

[JamieLogical]

Just saw a barefoot man walk up to the Bellini's bar and sit down on one of the stools. This is a bar on deck 7 between Sabatini's and Gigi's, not the pool deck! He was otherwise wearing shorts, a polo shirt, and a baseball cap.