Diamond Princess in Sydney, Australa today - 26th September 2024

[Kiwi_cruiser]

Welcome back to Sydney and Australia Diamond Princess!

 

Here is her arriving in to Sydney at 2am this morning. 😞 (I guess she had a another medical emergency or wanted to get in early before the weather got worse!)

 

 

[MicCanberra]

Welcome home beautiful lady.

[arxcards]

Nice to see her back.

[gbenjo]

4 hours ago, arxcards said:

Nice to see her back.

But that is her front 🤔

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, gbenjo said:

But that is her front 🤔

Saw that from the Brissie pics. 

I must admit, she looks better from behind.

[CDaze71]

On Princess Standard fares, are room service "door hanger" breakfasts still free? Or only of you pay for one-off Ocean Now, or Plus or Premier? 

[arxcards]

30 minutes ago, CDaze71 said:

On Princess Standard fares, are room service "door hanger" breakfasts still free? Or only of you pay for one-off Ocean Now, or Plus or Premier? 

Door hanger breakfast is still "free".

[CDaze71]

Does the Diamond have an equivalent to the International Cafe? 

[dreamin'ofthesea]

Hubby’s been asking me the same thing. Will let you know where we get our fix.He loved the donuts. I loved the coffee and the little savoury snacks. We board today in Melbourne.

[possum52]

1 hour ago, CDaze71 said:

Does the Diamond have an equivalent to the International Cafe? 

No, not really unfortunately. We bought our coffees in Crooners Bar. 

[CDaze71]

45 minutes ago, dreamin'ofthesea said:

Hubby’s been asking me the same thing. Will let you know where we get our fix.He loved the donuts. I loved the coffee and the little savoury snacks. We board today in Melbourne.

Awesome yeah thanks. On the Sea Princess by the pool we could also get sausage rolls. Would you please be able to see if they have them too? Thanks. 

[icat2000]

Yes. 21 days until I board her in Melbourne.

[dreamin'ofthesea]

On 9/28/2024 at 9:16 AM, CDaze71 said:

Awesome yeah thanks. On the Sea Princess by the pool we could also get sausage rolls. Would you please be able to see if they have them too? Thanks. 

Have just come off Diamond princess.  Good Spirits at Sea Deck 5 had the Coffee machine and I think Calypso Cove deck 14.  If you ordered a coffee from the roving waiters in Horizon court, I think they got it from Calypso Cove. Good Spirits had a very small display of very small cakes/slices which you could get with the coffee.  The queue was usually not too bad. You could order coffees at Crooners but I think the machine was out the back not in the bar.  The roving waiters would get coffees, you could also order them from Ocean Now. I think some of the restaurants had their own coffee machines (Vivaldi's said their's was broken when we were there).  

 

There were danishes available At Horizon's Buffet and I saw iced donuts once for the afternoon tea service.  Did not see jam donuts (but I only went once in the afternoon), but jam donut was available as a dessert one night in the Savoy dining room.  Generally we did not think the coffee was as good as we remembered from the International Cafe.  Cappacino, cafe latte and flat white all seemed to be the same (head of froth and lots of milk in the flat white) .  It also tasted like they over heated the milk and the black coffee could be a bit bitter.

 

Really missed the International Cafe as a breakfast, lunch and snack venue.  It was also difficult to get a coffee or hot chocolate after a certain time.  International Cafe was 24 hours.

 

I didn't see sausage rolls by the pool, where they had hot dogs, burgers, fries, chicken burger, and the pizza closeby.

[OzKiwiJJ]

The quality of coffee depends very much on the barista. I've often been on ships where one venue had much better coffee than any of the others - recently on Coral it was Good Spirits, on Grand last year it was Crooners. 

[CDaze71]

Thanks for the replies. I decided to book Royal Princess to NZ instead. So I guess now I have the same question. Maybe I should start my own post. 

[arxcards]

20 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

The quality of coffee depends very much on the barista. I've often been on ships where one venue had much better coffee than any of the others - recently on Coral it was Good Spirits, on Grand last year it was Crooners. 

It needs a good barista, but when busy, they try to do it all as production line and it can get bad. They are handicapped already by using bricks of UHT milk, so it needs the skill of a surgeon to get an exceptional coffee.

 

The casino bar (former Crooners) was the back-up coffee location on Majestic, and it was consistently OK there. As with Grand & Coral, they are all in the past. Diamond, Crown & Royal here this season. 

Edited October 5 by arxcards

[dreamin'ofthesea]

On 9/28/2024 at 9:16 AM, CDaze71 said:

Awesome yeah thanks. On the Sea Princess by the pool we could also get sausage rolls. Would you please be able to see if they have them too? Thanks. 

 

1 hour ago, dreamin'ofthesea said:

Have just come off Diamond princess.  Good Spirits at Sea Deck 5 had the Coffee machine and I think Calypso Cove deck 14.  If you ordered a coffee from the roving waiters in Horizon court, I think they got it from Calypso Cove. Good Spirits had a very small display of very small cakes/slices which you could get with the coffee.  The queue was usually not too bad. You could order coffees at Crooners but I think the machine was out the back not in the bar.  The roving waiters would get coffees, you could also order them from Ocean Now. I think some of the restaurants had their own coffee machines (Vivaldi's said their's was broken when we were there).  

 

There were danishes available At Horizon's Buffet and I saw iced donuts once for the afternoon tea service.  Did not see jam donuts (but I only went once in the afternoon), but jam donut was available as a dessert one night in the Savoy dining room.  Generally we did not think the coffee was as good as we remembered from the International Cafe.  Cappacino, cafe latte and flat white all seemed to be the same (head of froth and lots of milk in the flat white) .  It also tasted like they over heated the milk and the black coffee could be a bit bitter.

 

Really missed the International Cafe as a breakfast, lunch and snack venue.  It was also difficult to get a coffee or hot chocolate after a certain time.  International Cafe was 24 hours.

 

I didn't see sausage rolls by the pool, where they had hot dogs, burgers, fries, chicken burger, and the pizza closeby.

sorry just an amendment.  Hubby said he did see pies and sausage rolls at Trident grill (with the burgers) but they weren't there all the time.

[dreamin'ofthesea]

56 minutes ago, CDaze71 said:

Thanks for the replies. I decided to book Royal Princess to NZ instead. So I guess now I have the same question. Maybe I should start my own post. 

Yes- a good tag line would be What's the coffee like?

[CDaze71]

26 minutes ago, dreamin'ofthesea said:

Yes- a good tag line would be What's the coffee like?

I just drink the free coffee. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

It needs a good barista, but when busy, they try to do it all as production line and it can get bad. They are handicapped already by using bricks of UHT milk, so it needs the skill of a surgeon to get an exceptional coffee.

 

The casino bar (former Crooners) was the back-up coffee location on Majestic, and it was consistently OK there. As with Grand & Coral, they are all in the past. Diamond, Crown & Royal here this season. 

Yes, I know those ships no longer cruise here - I just used them as examples. We didn't have time to suss out the perfect place for coffee on Diamond last year as we only had two sea days. Rolf was muttering under his breath about the coffee in the MDR and buffet and actually had to stand over the barista at Good Spirits to get a proper espresso! But it was a Japan cruise so ...!

 

Typically we avoid the International Cafe on ships that have it (if we can) as it's always too busy. When a cafe is too busy it usually means they skimp on cleaning - even simple things like flushing the group and especially the head before making the next cup so any grounds that have stuck to the head don't become burnt and taint the coffee.

 

I only drink espressos on ships. I can't stand the taste of steamed long-life milk.

[arxcards]

1 hour ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Yes, I know those ships no longer cruise here - I just used them as examples. We didn't have time to suss out the perfect place for coffee on Diamond last year as we only had two sea days. Rolf was muttering under his breath about the coffee in the MDR and buffet and actually had to stand over the barista at Good Spirits to get a proper espresso! But it was a Japan cruise so ...!

 

Typically we avoid the International Cafe on ships that have it (if we can) as it's always too busy. When a cafe is too busy it usually means they skimp on cleaning - even simple things like flushing the group and especially the head before making the next cup so any grounds that have stuck to the head don't become burnt and taint the coffee.

 

I only drink espressos on ships. I can't stand the taste of steamed long-life milk.

Sad bit is now those ships have gone, it will take ages to train them all over again.

[OzKiwiJJ]

3 hours ago, arxcards said:

Sad bit is now those ships have gone, it will take ages to train them all over again.

Grand wasn't here that long but Coral had the advantage of Master Barista Aljay in 2022. I'm certain he must have trained up the team he worked with then and that training was passed on after he left Coral because they still had excellent espressos on our recent world cruise - far better than those at the International Cafe! 

[OzKiwiJJ]

Anyway you'll be on Diamond before us, since we switched to the repositioning cruise. So I'm expecting you to suss out the best coffee venue for us! 😉

[arxcards]

5 hours ago, dreamin'ofthesea said:

 

sorry just an amendment.  Hubby said he did see pies and sausage rolls at Trident grill (with the burgers) but they weren't there all the time.

They microwave them to order - Mrs Macs. There is a knack of nuking them, but they don't know it.

[arxcards]

45 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Grand wasn't here that long but Coral had the advantage of Master Barista Aljay in 2022. I'm certain he must have trained up the team he worked with then and that training was passed on after he left Coral because they still had excellent espressos on our recent world cruise - far better than those at the International Cafe! 

I found a better barista on one of our Majestic ones. Good staff come and go. With Diamond, Emerald, Discovery and Crown on the books over the next 18 months, I might be using up a bit of Bailey's to resurrect some of our coffees. 

 

There will be lots on Diamond before us too, so my eyes are peeled. Also seeking Onsen info.