peder

I guess I don’t understand the comments about bathrooms/washrooms. If the line for one is long, just maybe walk a few feet and find the next one? Or go up or down a floor? So many people huddle in a few spots when just a few feet away is an alternative. I never ran into lines for coffee/drinks on the Seashore or Seascape, for instance. But we aren’t glued to one spot. But even without moving around to find an alternative, I’ve just never seen the bathrooms busy on MSC? Usually I’m the only one in the restroom and they’re spotless.

I wouldn't consider the Sanctuary Restaurant to be a main dining room. It's still an exclusive space and will have elevated menus. The same concept works well with the MSC Yacht Club.

Simple enough change, but I suspect they'll do something more on the Star Princess given the longer runway they have before it launches

I'm sure they wouldn't be building these without a plan. Surely there are ports they are contracting with that are making adjustments to accommodate the larger ships.

Maybe each lifeboat is the size of Explora 1 and these Ultimate-class ships are just that massive. You could drop in to the Sakura restaurant during an emergency 😅

All these enormous ships coming online, I think it's just a matter of time before we see major port improvements in most of these locations.

Not to turn this into a whole YC vs Sanctuary thing, but in my experience, I've hardly used/cared for any of the benefits that you @sptrout and @capriccio mentioned. Our butlers have mostly been in our way, the line cutting is pointless if I need to wait for a butler or for a small group to be ready to go, and the port experience is hit or miss whether there's a YC separate queue (and often there's no line anyway, so the value is pretty questionable). We treat our cruise ship more like a floating bus taking us new places rather than a resort, so I can understand why these service differences are more important to others. For me, the YC access to the Aurea Spa, the exclusive restaurant with great views of the sea, and the exclusive sundeck and pool are worth the price of admission. I'm excited to compare those aspects on the Star Princess.

So I'm quite familiar with the YC, but I guess I don't see how it's much different than what Princess is offering. I'd have to leave the Sanctuary area for dinner, but is that even worth mentioning as a problem/distinction? It's still an exclusive restaurant. And the Sanctuary still has an exclusive sundeck and pool. Seems very similar even if not a "true" ship-within-a-ship. The stated similarities are what have drawn me to Princess.

So the Sanctuary won't be a "ship-within-a-ship" completely because the restaurant is located outside the area, but isn't the Sanctuary otherwise very similar to the MSC Yacht Club? What key differences will exist going forward? I do think it's odd that Princess created the Sanctuary Collection but also basically has another level above that with the Suites. Seems redundant and complicated.

On this note, I have no idea why ships have connecting rooms that are different categories.

Maybe they just meant to call her old

Ah, that's really weird. I assumed there were websites or social media apps (like WeChat) where most of the inventory is sold that I just didn't have access to via the US. I guess I don't understand why they don't at least sell the cabins online via the US website at a premium price, just in case someone wants to go through the hassle. Many of the Bellissima sailings have *0* Yacht Club cabins available, even though they're obviously not sold out. Why not charge something obscene and reimburse the TAs for lost revenue on the off chance that I want to do my "Japan Bucketlist Trip"?

Explora 3 is due in 2026. I think we're due for an announcement of Explora 3 soon along with itineraries (at least for Explora 3).

Total speculation, but I wonder if she won't sail alongside the Disney Adventure out of Singapore. They're building a new cruise terminal, no?

Have they announced anything about home ports, itineraries, etc? Seems like announcements should be imminent if they haven't done that yet.

I can report a similar experience from the Bellissima in the Premium Suite Aurea. Ok room. Some small issues like the shower sitting on a platform and I was too tall to comfortably take a shower.

Not always easy to determine on the "ferry-style" routes like they have in most areas of the world. I'd recommend checking on CruisePlum to see if there are any Owners Suites available around the dates of your cruise. It's possible that an Owners Suite will be partially available for several days and not on others. On the ferry-style routes they only make some cabin inventory for specific embarkation ports.

MSC already broke their own model on the Meraviglia-class ships by converting the Duplex suites to Yacht Club. There's no reason that some suites can't live outside of the bubble. DCL Concierge has its 2-bedroom units at the aft of the Triton-class ships, outside of the Concierge bubble, and I don't think anyone minds. And this would be just a handful of suites. Wouldn't materially change things for the average YCer.

agreed, this is most likely purely an engineering type of decision that allows them to add more cabins. They're getting to a point where they need more creative ways like this to add capacity.

I think they should convert some aft cabins to 2-bedroom YC and/or Aurea suites.

The only data point I can add is that we were in 19031, and we asked once on board if we could add the connecting cabin 19033. Took them a few hours to get us an answer, but they eventually got back to us with a price of $3k for the week. That $3k was approx. half the price that it sold for online when we had checked a few days prior.

Yep, the move to the ship-within-a-ship thing is a big draw for us. Brand new ship with a system that we're already familiar with from MSC and DCL. I thought Park 19 was going to be a quick diversion for the kids, not somewhere they'd spend hours. But I watched a walk thru of the Sun Princess with my oldest and he said the ship is "buns" and I'm worried that without at least something akin to Park 19 I'll have a mini mutiny on my hands.

We were booked on the Sun's North America inaugural, but I decided I liked the price and timing of the Star's North America inaugural more, so I'm going to wait and see what is announced for the area on the Star. I'm still optimistic. The Sphere ships look incredible, thermal spa looks fairly solid, and coming from the MSC Yacht Club I'm excited to try the Sanctuary Collection on Princess. I liked the MSC Seashore and Seascape, which are both Fincantieri ships with a similar overall design and size as the Sphere-class ships, so I think I already can anticipate that I'd feel right at home on the Sun/Star Princess. With the current exception of the kids activities, it seems like a really great option for us. And literally not a single other Princess ship in the fleet is appealing to us lol. So it really says a lot about the direction Princess is going IMO.

And when there are so many options in the cruise industry based on itinerary, ship size, amenities, service, age, etc. if you don't like something about it, why spend your money and vacation time on the ship? It's not a big deal. Only brand zealots are offended.

And also seems likely that the Sun and Star will have different features in that space. For the Sun, I expect them to salvage whatever they can, but with Star, they'll have a bit more leeway to come up with a better overall use of the space.