peder

We've sailed on MSC and Disney, and MSC is very laid back and doesn't have a ton of onboard activities, and still our kids have had a great time. They just like to use the slides and water park once or twice a trip. That's why I've said they just need something, anything to scratch that adventure itch.

Nonsense, they'll absolutely announce something, especially for the Star Princess, which still has lead time to make changes. Sun Princess will be harder because they'll presumably be unable to replace / remove Park 19 while the ship is sailing, but I fully expect the Star to have a comparable feature.

My kids just need *something* to break up the day. They love pool time, but they're going to get bored if their only activities are the kids club and the pools.

We are set to sail on the Star with 3 younger kids, so yes, Park 19 was a big selling point for us. I expect an announcement of something family / multi-generationally friendly for the space or we might cancel. We have many other cruise options and are only considering Princess because of their stated commitment to multi-generational cruising. So if they don't announce something interesting for this space, we'll probably go to another cruise line.

If you're not named on a cabin (i.e. if you aren't staying in that cabin), you won't get Voyagers Club points or and the passengers in those cabins won't get your perks.

We did end up going back in February BTW. I was quite surprised that, at least from the US and European websites, there were very few cabins available to book even though once we onboard, it was clear that the ship was only about half full. The staff were very bored. I'm looking at a 7-day sailing out of Tokyo for next year, and only Aurea cabins are available from the US. I think the Yacht Club cabins are only sold to Asian customers. So it's good to keep in mind that even if a sailing looks sold out on the US and European websites, they might still have a ton of inventory that we just can't see. You'd need to find the MSC website or Line app etc. for Taiwanese or Japanese customers (and maybe a WeChat app for Chinese customers?) to see more cabin inventory. I don't have much to add to your post. It's great and covers a lot of ground. Agreed with everything. I'd maybe point out that they had a Taiwanese and Japanese corners of the buffet, but really, it's not much different than any other MSC ship. Maybe slightly more variety of Asian classics. The biggest difference from my perspective was that the pools were deserted, and the buffet was unusually busy, especially at the water-filling station. But lines at the bars were non-existent. Aurea spa was also not busy at all (even after you adjust for the ship not sailing full).

If you're booking with a spouse and you're both gold members, you could probably book two cabins, one under each of you as the lead passenger, and add your friends on as the 2nd/3rd/4th passengers.

That's why I'm assuming they prefer to use the old locks because the new locks must be very expensive. All the larger container ships would be using the new locks and I imagine there's endless demand for that set of locks.

I'm just reading what wikipedia says about the Panama Canal, but apparently ships up to 180ft wide can fit through the new locks, and the Sun/Star Princess have a 155ft beam. Why don't more cruise ships use the new locks then? Maybe it's cost prohibitive? Because it's apparently not a technical issue.

Well, I guess I'm wondering if the Star Princess is too large to fit thru the Panama locks, and they're going to bus it around South America without port stops (just technical port stops to refuel, resupply, etc.), because they don't have very many days to get that trip done. And they might be doing crew hiring/turnover at the same time to get ready for the Alaska season.

Is there a chance the repositioning cruise will be skeleton crew-only and not sold to the public?

Rock climbing wall will be a nice addition. Wish they would publish ages/heights for these things ahead of time.

Is the Star repositioning cruise listed yet?

Coral posted 4 files (.pdf, .xlsx) with lots of details

Both the Caribbean and Western Med itineraries are very boring. 1 and done for us. We've done MSC Bellissima out of Taipei, and that was fun, plus we got an overnight in Okinawa. I'm now looking at the Oct 13th 2025 sailing out of Tokyo on the Bellissima because it has an overnight in Osaka. The ship for us is not the destination, we really use it as a floating hotel. But we also like newer ships with lots of amenities because it's what we'd expect from a land-based resort as well. There are only a handful of newer, bigger ships in the entire cruise industry that go to interesting destinations. And MSC isn't going to "waste" its newer ships on niche routes (they have other reasons, too... I think they really like the operations / logistics of hitting the same handful of ports, it drives down costs by standardizing things).

The SF and LA ports don't make a ton of sense to me for summer sailings. Seems like a lot of "wasted" time sailing up the coast.

More likely Princess is trying to take advantage of a shrinking window of opportunity and wants to capitalize on Alaskan cruising dates that may not be available soon?

So approximately 35 days for the Star Princess to get from Fort Lauderdale (last day March 28th, 2026) to Seattle (first day May 3rd, 2026)? Seems a bit quick?

It still doesn't mean much. I've worked with and been friends with folks in small manufacturing, and they often launch lots of different companies for all the things they might produce, but there may not be any interest/projects for years, then suddenly they'll get a bunch of orders. In the meantime while they wait for orders, they'll produce some other thing. It's a game of lots of corporations rolling up into more corporations, even at really small scale manufacturing. That said, I have no idea what this manufacturer's / installer's situation is. I don't even know who they are. Just offering general wisdom about that universe of small-time inventors/manufacturers.

Seattle getting the Star Princess is a pretty big deal. Also means a fun repositioning cruise (or two or several) as the Star Princess makes its way from Fort Lauderdale to the West Coast.

One thing I would caution in suggesting the manufacturing / installing company is on the way out is that sooo many manufacturing companies have terrible websites that are years behind on any updates. It's just not a priority for them. They probably have amazing print brochures that they walk prospective customers through with sales people meeting in person. The entire niche industry that they're in probably works mostly through traditional networking and face-to-face meetings, rather than digitally-driven sales.

Agreed, and it's because Celebrity's Retreat is open to all ages that I think Princess will make the Sanctuary follow similar rules. If Princess wants to attract guests who are familiar with Celebrity Retreat, they'll want to offer something very similar. I agree that Princess won't be launching waterslides, etc., but Park19 can offer a bunch of activities that primarily target yuppies that also have broad appeal across generations.

Yep, and really I don't want to make someone book Sanctuary with the expectation that the rule will eventually change, I'm just speculating based on other cruise lines.

I think they might change this going forward. From my understanding, Celebrity Retreat, MSC Yacht Club, NCL Haven all have family-friendly sundecks. I don't think they'll stray too far from what the rest of the market is doing.

It's a bit high. For comparison, the MSC World Europa has 152 Yacht Club cabins with a larger YC sundeck. But in my experience, the YCs on multiple ships have never been remotely busy, so I don't think there's a huge problem with 215 Sanctuary cabins.