A Critical But Honest Review
Sun Princess Cruise Review
Contributor Level:
Deck Hand
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 5
16 Night Iberian Passage (Southampton To Ft. Lauderdale)
Sail date: September 23, 2024
Ship: Sun Princess
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: 15515
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 1 month ago
Review summary
My wife and I were passengers on the Sun Princess inaugural transatlantic cruise sailing from Southampton on September 23, 2024. We are veterans of at least two dozen cruises, many of them transatlantic crossings, but this was our first time on a Princess ship. And likely our last. For a cruise line hoping to compete in the premium cruise market, Princess is remarkably short on basic amenities, at least in what they call their Deluxe Balcony Staterooms on the Sun. Want Q-Tips (cotton swabs) or shower caps? Bring your own or do without them, because Princess doesn’t provide them. The stateroom itself had more than ample storage space, but the bar in the closet to hang clothes was too high for shorter passengers like my wife; one of too many thoughtless design flaws on this brand new, supposedly state-of-the-art ship. The corridors on the passenger decks are so narrow that the service carts barely had room to pass each other, and I mean barely. But the most egregious design flaws were the inadequate fitness center and the shockingly small theater for a ship that size. When my wife complained to Cruise Director Corrine Steel that despite arriving 15 minutes before showtime there were no available seats, Steel’s reply was as astonishing as it was tone deaf: ”What do you want me to do? Build a bigger one?” With such a dismissive attitude to a passenger’s legitimate concern, Steel has no business working on any ship for any company in any capacity. Yet here she is, employed by Princess as a Cruise Director. The food in the MDR was mostly good but was never great. Unlike on other cruise lines, the waiters on Sun Princess have no assistants, so they are running around in a frenzy taking orders, serving meals and clearing tables, doing it all themselves. The bread on the tables is limited to one plain roll per person, with a pat of butter as the only spread. Frankly, the selection of table breads at even The Cheesecake Factory puts Princess to shame. Though the wizards at Princess had the entire English language at their disposal, The Eatery is what they chose to call their buffet restaurant. Apparently there was a contest for the most unimaginative and unappealing name for the buffet and The Eatery won hands down. In appearance, The Eatery is a mix between a cafeteria and an automat. For the most part passengers cannot serve themselves. The food is already portioned and prepared in advance, so you eat your sandwich Princess’s way or no way. There are some exceptions to that rule but the room does have an unmistakable industrial feel as the crew hands out food behind metal counters that surround the center of the room. The grill on The Promenade outside The Eatery had cooks who did not speak English, did not know the menu, and needed lessons in time management. So help me, it took them 20 minutes to cook me a hot dog and hamburger. By the way, if you want sauerkraut on your hot dog — who doesn’t? — you’re on the wrong ship. By and large the crew were well meaning and hard working but many were woefully deficient in English … and basic geometry. When I tried explaining to the lady at the waffle station that I only wanted one-quarter of a waffle, she blankly stared back at me as if I was Pythagoras himself presenting a novel theorem. And who spends a reported $1 billion to design and build a new ship holding over 4,000 passengers with only one waffle maker? Or a theater incredibly too small for the number of passengers they invite to see their shows? Or an undersized poorly-equipped fitness center with way too few treadmills? The answer is Princess, that’s who. But the ship was not all bad. The innovative elevators were impressive, as were the ship’s two signature attractions called The Sphere and The Dome. The Sphere is located on decks 7, 8 and 9 midship and is basically a glass ball that lets light into the ship’s interior. It’s the noisy hub of activity for the ship, especially in the evenings, so if you’re looking for a quiet place to enjoy a drink, look elsewhere. Sitting one afternoon on Deck 7 sipping a cappuccino on the starboard side of The Sphere, I heard an unmistakable creaking like an old wooden ship. Time will tell if that was a nostalgic reminder from Princess what crossing the Atlantic sounded like to Christopher Columbus … or was yet another design flaw in their newest ship. My money’s on the latter. The Dome is located on the upper decks at the front of the ship and is a cross between a solarium and a theater — too small a space to be effective as either despite its amazing architecture. It took us a few days to actually see the space as it was frequently closed for undisclosed reasons. Another interesting innovation are the medallions which are like conventional key cards, but more. They are the size of a coin worn around the neck on a complimentary lanyard. In conjunction with the Princess app, the medallions can helpfully locate your cruise companion anywhere on the ship. They are also theoretically designed to reveal your location so that after placing an order your drink will be brought directly to you. That’s the theory anyway. In practice it only worked once for us in the crowded Eatery when we ordered cappuccinos for breakfast. The other times the crew seemed flummoxed by the new technology and simply saw where we were sitting and delivered them to our table the old fashioned way. You would think that during the cruise, Princess would be anxious to hear what their passengers thought about their ship, but you’d be wrong. The guest relations desk on the Sun Princess is hidden — yes, hidden — on Deck 6, a passenger deck. Walk down a long corridor filled with cabin stewards cleaning staterooms, make two quick turns and there’s a room, again way too small for the size of the ship, to voice your concerns, complaints, observations or impressions. Voice them in person because the guest relations desk never answers their phones. In summary, the Sun Princess does have some impressive innovations, some not so much, but its design flaws are stunning and I would not be surprised if the partially completed Star Princess scheduled for launch in 2025 will be the end of the Sphere-class ships if Princess doesn’t correct them. In the highly competitive cruise market there are simply too many other new ships out there which do have sufficiently sized gyms, theaters, crews who speak English as their second instead of their third language, and an adequate number of waffle makers, among many other features to earn our vacation dollars that this ship sorely lacks. One final note. Under the heading of What Were They Thinking, the ship scheduled a crew fire drill during disembarkation, and were so distracted by the drill that the hundreds of impatient and frustrated passengers like me still waiting to disembark slowed to a trickle, even though our luggage was already in the terminal. In their defense, Princess might say that the timing of the drill was ordered by the Coast Guard, but with better organization they could have accomplished both the drill and disembarkation simultaneously. The unhappy faces around me were not the look of people anxious to cruise with Princess again. Disembarkation they called it? I’ve seen better organized riots.Embarkation
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