dides

The 'ring for champagne' bell was being installed just before the Sanctuary closed just now - hope to get some pics tomorrow.

Would you believe I am doing our laundry? I know we could send this off to be done but I am not getting my unmentionables done that way. Can't believe the one on our deck only has 1 washer and 1 dryer but at least it's free. There will be over 300 TAs and vloggers onboard tomorrow. We will have a foot in both camps - will hope to invite the ones we know well to have a peek at our suite!

Yep one pylon has been taken down already so hopefully they will push through while they have it in Mayflower Dock until tomorrow night - and they are turning the ship around tonight

Scenic elevator entrance to Sanctuary closed to passengers while new furniture is delivered. These are some new chairs that actually rock like a rocking chair! 1000012624.mp4

A crane has been setup next to Park 19

Heard unofficially that the Star Princess Float Out is scheduled to take place sometime next week

Chris in selfie mode..

Plaques exchanged - Lord Mayor of Southampton - Captain Craig Street - John Padgett - Head of Shoreside Operations. Southampton

Yep JP is onboard. We also chatted to Vicki Johnson from Princess earlier. There's a plaque and key ceremony in 40 minutes in the Piazza

Surely they should be described as ladder only access- no graduated stairs apart from the pay only Thermal pool in the spa

Hi @karatemom2 on the quality and variety of the food, I would say it wasn't worth the money. If you want to hear some stories about life in the Royal palaces and some history of the Afternoon Tea then that adds some value. Chris could not even eat the sandwiches because he doesn't like fish or cream cheese - I found the smoked salmon sandwich quite dry and hard-going and I couldn't taste any cream cheese in the fancy cucumber version. At least the normal afternoon tea has more edible and variety of sandwiches. Mind you, I don't believe that is held as an MDR or Sanctuary event on Sun Princess - it might only be limited to the Eatery or an Elite!Suite stateroom perk. Hopefully others can confirm. If you want to book the Royal version then it's usually held on sea days and you can call the Dine Line To everyone else - sorry if my typing got a bit garbled last night - clearly was more weary than I thought!

Day 7 - Patter Patter: Well it's got a lot cooler and rockier for our penultimate day before arriving for our double overnight in Southampton I hadn't slept well so begged Chris for a lie in after our 8am alarm. As a result. we left the room at 10am which is like a twilight zone if you are searching for breakfast - and Chris didn't want to go to the Eatery. I wish OceanNow had better breakfast options - you know we haven't used.it once this cruise which is unusual! So we went to the Lido deck for some coffees and hot chocolate from Coffee and Cones. It wasn't as busy as yesterday - much cooler and windy! I took the opportunity to try a slice of one of the Premier cakes as they didn't have them in April. Here is the Red Velvet Cake: Chris decided to be contrary and not go for a Lido deck burger saying you shouldn't have one for breakfast and suggested a trip to the International Cafe next. Golly the cool weather meant there were so many more people seated inside. We were lucky to grab.a window seat. I went lookimg for a warm ham and cheese croissant but no luck - Chris was not happy with the breadier substitute: We had some drinks instead and watched the mass of people getting their coffees that morning. We then headed to wait just outside Princess Live! while there was an enrichment lecture on Herculaneum. Chris met up with those UK vlogger friends with the Owners Suite who had very kindly offered to let him film their stateroom. I stayed behind the watch and interesting behind the scenes lecture on navigation on Sun Princess. At 2:30pm we headed to Good Spirits for the Royal Afternoon Tea event. This the one that costs 30 dollars pp.and has pre-filmed commentary on the TV screens from the chef who used to work for the Queen. We had managed to get a last minute booking via our Suite Concierge - couldn't see how to book it on the app. Well it was very popular - one of the busiest they had ever had and the room was full! We were asked to select our choice of tea.Chris always goes for English Breakfast Tea but I actually don't like tea and usually middle through with some lemon and honey tea - none of that milky stuff! They interspersed the tea, sandwich, scones and cake sections with pre-segments from the chef. There were smoked salmon and cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches: Plain and fruit scones with jam and thick cream - they called it clotted but it's not like true UK clotted cream. Then finally to there delicious little chocolate ganache cakes and while the servers called the other cakes a Victoria Sponge they clearly were not - I could taste banana (which I hate) and it was clearly some kind of banana bread concoction. I swiftly gave mine to Chris to finish! Stanley the Bear came in for photos at the end and it seemed to go down well - feeding into the obsession with British Royalty For the rest of the afternoon we popped into O'Malleys for some drinks - during a very loud Musical Spoons Class! We then had an early dinner in the Signature Restaurant. Here is the menu: Chris had the French Onion Soup for starters and I chose.the Prosciutto and Melon. Then he has the Spaghetti Carbonara for Mains and I had the Prime Rib. For dessert, Chris chose the Creme Brulee and I had to the Coconut Cake. Chris liked his soup and melon was just ok. The.he found the spaghetti too al dente and my prime rib was a bit tough. The desserts were nice though! We then went to watch the UK comedian David Arnold who was amusing but not laugh out loud worthy. We sat out the Broadway Music Trivia - not our area - although we got 18/20 correct. There were 3 winners with perfect scores of course. We came back to our cabin to watch a movie and then had an early night. Interestingly there was an offer leaflet Spellbound without the meal for the last night of the cruise. We have other plans or might have considered going again at that price! To be continued.

Yes Fish and Chips is on the Americana menu currently

Hi @MsSoCalCruiser I asked on Crewcall chat if they could tailor the Sabatini's menu to someone with a severe dairy allergy and the response, after a while, was: Hope this helps Sandra

Day 6 - At Sea Patter: We made it to the Signature Restaurant for the suite breakfast finally! We arrived at around 8:35am so had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast before it closes at 9;30. Here is the menu: We were offered a selection.of pastries and opted for some coffee and OJ. The pastries were excellent as usual - so much better than room service. The OJ was meh - not there freshly squeezed version we lived from the suite breakfasts in other ships. I ordered some homemade muesli and we both went for the Full English. Chris asked and got some substitutions. The muesli was tiny in comparison to the old Bircher option you have on other ships. Tasty but there were only a few spoonfuls. The cooked breakfast was wonderful and we are determined to come back again! After breakfast we had to go show our passports to pass through UK immigration in the Princess Arena. A short line to wait but well organised. We then stopped by Coffee Currents for a coffee/hot chocolate but didn't like the plastic tops they used on the portable cups - they had a weird chlorine smell. So we went up to deck 17 to go to Coffee and Cones instead. While Chris grabbed a replacement of coffee, I ordered my first granita. I chose the blue raspberry flavour and it tasted like a slush puppy (I think you call them slushies in the US). I will try some of the other flavours on another day - they had 3 already made up. Here are their various menus: Chris also spotted the board with the list of ship officers: We stayed up on the Lido deck while they did a towel animal demo and played tracks for the Poolside Music Trivia. Here are some of the towel animals they made: Next we went to the back of the ship and relaxed in the Sanctuary and Suite Lounge for a few hours. The Sanctuary was busy again and, while the Park 19 demolition had moved further midships there was still a noticeable noise from the grinding. After an afternoon shower and nap we went to the Suite Lounge for pre-dinner drinks on the second formal night. There was another sabre champagne bottle top slicing but Chris tried to stick to Woodford Reserve most of the night and not mix his drinks. The bartender In the Lounge said Chris has his own bottle now! Oh dear. We had a 6pm booking at Sabatini's and were seated quickly. Oh my that restaurant is so dark! A lot of us had to use the torches on our phones to read the menu! Here it is: We were served with some tasty nibbles, bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Chris ordered the Arancini Balls the Lasagne, the Chicken Parmigiana and the Chocolate Hazelnut Tart He thought everything was really goof but raved about that dessert. I ordered the Burrata, the Lobster Tortellini, the Eggplant Parmigiana and the Ricotta Cheesecake. I enjoyed all my dishes except for the dessert which I found too bland. My biggest surprise though was the size of some of these dishes - the Lobster Tortellini was barely 4 mouthfuls. This menu is so different to the Sabatini's on other ships. We spent the rest of the evening in Princess Live!. There was a music game show called Strike Out where each member of the audience had to raise either their left or right hand to guess the year a song came out. If you got it wrong you.were knocked out of that game. I actually won the first round and was awarded a weird rubber medallion wrist band as a prize! Next there was the Liars Club game show where you had to guess which of the 3 ACDs was giving the true meaning of an unusual word. This was good silly fun with a lot of laughs. We ended the night with the One Hit Wonders music trivia - we came equal first with 38/40 and won some Princess notebooks! To be continued..

Well I spoke too soon. The sun came out around 1pm and so did the workmen and their grinder!

Well the scaffolding has now moved back from the Sanctuary towards the middle of Park 19, leaving just the pylons in place And we have a completed sign. Can hear a mix of Sanctuary music and some background thumping from the main Lido deck.

Day 5 - Seville (Cadiz) Patter: The ship docked right in the centre of Cadiz and a lot of passengers either stayed local or elected to do the nearly 2 hour drive to Seville. We saw long lines of people outside the port entrance around 10:30am - maybe for buses? The Sanctuary had 6 passengers - 2 of them were us,! As mentioned, there was painting happening on the Sun Deck earlier that morning and then later overlooking the Sanctuary in deck 19 where they started to add a big Sanctuary logo. And the dismantling work continued with the grinder to remove part of the roller track. It was nice and hot but then started to get more windy so we escaped again to the Suite Lounge for some hot drinks. I hadn't slept too well (perhaps too overstimulated by the quizzes!?,) so we headed back to the room for a nap. We decided not to go to the Signature Restaurant for dinner - the menu options didn't suit us So we went down to the Promenade on deck 9 just as we left Cadiz - it was great to catch a bit of the Love Boat Horns. First up, we grabbed some of the rustic pizza. They had Margherita, Pepperoni, Vegetable or Four Cheese. We chose a piece of the latter two. We didn't like this pizza as much as we did in April. Then we went over to the other side of the ship for some Signature Burgers. These were cooked to order for us The fries were super and Chris said the burger was juicier than the same one he had on embarkation day in the Signature Restaurant. By this time the wind had whipped up.so much.that I was eating my hair more than the burger! Chris had discovered Newcastle Brown on tao so he was past caring! i I managed to get us inside so we could pick up.some dessert at International Cafe. This was our first visit this cruise and I was impressed with the wider choice - for those with a sweet tooth! I selected a slice of Chocolate Torte and a Pasteis de Nata each. Really yummy. We then legged it to Princess Live! for the 7pm Tri Bond Trivia. We went a different route however just to see how busy the corridors were outside the Cabana deck between the Piazza and the forward elevators. This area is full of staterooms and and the corridor has heavier foot traffic as well as the usual room steward cleaning carts. A lot of stopping to let folks pass. We teamed up with Vinnie and Tena again for the Tri Bond - and were thankful we did because they are total champions at the cryptic thinking needed to link to the three items in each question! We were joint first and yes, were given yet more wine stoppers as prizes! We stayed on for two more game shows where each side of the room was pitted against the other. Lots of music themed questions and running around which was good fun. We escaped back to our room by 10pm for an earlier than usual night. To be continued

We are in Cadiz this morning and it's all new ports for Sun Princess now, ever since she passed through the Straits of Gibraltar at around 6:30 pm last night:

The painters are out in force today Touching up the white paint on the Sun Deck in the Sanctuary and we are getting some new branding above the jogging track area:

They have moved to the other side to remove the rail this morning with the same constant grinding noises. Will be interesting to see how they intend to dismantle the pylon structures that are left.

So this past evening was 80s night which is our decade of choice for any trivia questions. And there are 2 Princess Live! events on the schedule which are of interest. The first evening quiz however is movie soundtracks at 7pm so we decided to head for that as a warm-up We left our room slightly later than usual aand decide to try out Italian night at the Suite Restaurant hoping we can squeeze in a couple of courses so we can grab a seat a Princess Live! for the 7pm start. The midship elevators were totally against us and we had to wait ages for a car that wasn't packed out. We sat down in the restaurant at 5:45pm and told the staff we needed to make a swift exit with one main dish and maybe a dessert! Here is the menu: Chris ordered the Lasagne and I ordered the Chicken Parmigiana. I noted that the trolley was now present for the Prime Rib and was pretty popular: In the meantime, we tucked. Into the very tasty fresh bread from our basket (the French bread slices went first!) Our mains arrived within 20 minutes: We were offered fresh Parmesan and pepper - all very tasty. One of the waitstaff. Sheena, asked what entertainment we were looking to make and offered to take our dessert order instead. She was so quick we didn't have time to photograph the menu! Here are the options from the app: Chris chose the Chocolate and Whiskey Torte and I selected the Lemon Meringue Cheesecake. Our order arrived within 2 minutes at 6:25pm! One advantage of having a galley so close to the restaurant! Chris said his torte was nice but he couldn't taste the whiskey! We managed to get to Princess Live! In good time but it was pretty packed out so we had to sit at the side and move round to a more central spot later in the evening. Vinnie and Tena joined us for the Movie Soundtracks trivia and we got a respectable 15/20 with the winners getting 18/20. Our teammates then headed off for an early night as they had a 7am excursion the next day for Seville. Next up was the All About the 80s quiz - we were doing really well on this even though we guessed a lot of the answers on American topics. We managed to get 19!20 and won! We were given some more wine stoppers to add to our collection On the We Play You Say quiz we had to complete the lyrics of songs from different genres. Chris amazed himself by guessing the answer in Korean for Gangnam Style but we got the answer wrong for Man in the Mirror. A couple of teams got full points however. For the final quiz on 80s music trivia we got one missing artist for the song Maniac and came joint second. We wrapped up the evening with the PG16 set from Tucker, the comedian we saw the previous night. He was pretty funny and riffed off the audience a lot. One risque joke had us almost crying with laughter. To be continued

Day 4 - Sea Day Patter: We decided to sleep in today and wake up when when we wake up! I woke at 9:30am and Chris an hour later. I went to sit our on the balcony and thought I would get to listen to the sound of the sea. Well I did and much more! I also heard the sound of people putting down plates and eating with cutlery. It sounded so close but I eventually worked out it drifting up from the deck 9 tables all the way up to 17! : We had decided to go to Americana for breakfast and it opened at 11:30am so we popped into the Suite Lounge for 20 minutes so that we could let our steward into our stateroom. I must say that our steward Stephen has been very quick and efficient thus far We had a coffee and hit chocolate in the Suite Lounge in some lovely china Then we made our way down the scenic elevators to deck 8. We have a new interest in the layout now we know it will be coming the new Sanctuary Collection restaurant This is one of the doors you will see: If you come in from the left door then the Spellbound area is directly on your left as you walk into the dining room: or You then need to walk up to the Main entrance desk and kind of go out to come in and wait to be seated. There were about 8 people in line ahead of us already. The decor isn't that bad. Although Chris did bash his head on one of those low lampshades! And this view of the Wake View Terrace isn't the best. Here is the walk out to the other door: Here is the menu for Americana for that day: We both chose.a milkshake each since they didn't have them back in April. Chris had.t he Coffee and Donuts and I had the Strawberry Shortcake. So thick and delicious! Then Chris had the All American Breakfast minus the eggs and I had the 3 egg omelette. We wrapped up a dessert each - Apple Pie for Chris and more Strawberry Shortcake fur me. Service was quick and so was the food! Next we went up to The Sanctuary and it was a lot busier today. We sat in some seats in the shade - the staff always lay a new towel on your selected seat or lounger to indicate it's occupied. Although some clearly were not any longer! It was very overcast initially and then the sun burned through. We chilled out and spent a lot of the time commenting on the workmen on scaffolding cutting away at Park 19.,The grinding of the metal was quite loud at times. It's going to take some time at their current work rate! At one point. the staff in The Sanctuary started taking orders for lunch so we checked out the menu and ordered s couple of bento boxes. Food menu: Drinks menu: Chris chose the Waffle Sensation and I went for the lighter Tropical Fruit Melange: Both were pretty sensational actually! it started to get too hot for us so we went back to our cabin for a nap. To be contiuned

Yes we watched from the Sanctuary as they cut away a section around lunchtime today - was a bit noisy. It's going to take a while we think!

Day 3 - Cartagena Patter for today: We elected to stay onboard again - Chris wants to rest his feet after developing a big blister so we are taking it easy. We had the Suite breakfast by door hanger again. Bang on time but my order included a grapefruit half which I did not request and cannot eat I had only asked for one type of melon which I did get - the room service delivery guy came back 5 minutes later with 2 more types of melon as an apology and to make sure I was happy! After breakfast we went up to the Sanctuary again - it was much hotter today and even our shadier seating felt exposed. Chris had spotted a UK vlogger couple around the corner on a big Sun Deck day bed so I popped around for a natter as we followed each other. They had been upgraded to an Owners Suite a week before the sailing and said it was amazing! I went back after 40 minutes and Chris was snoozing away and knocked out by the heat. However he said it had been really noisy with workmen cutting and grinding while dismantling Park 19. He also said he spotted someone settling into a Cabana! Oh I did ask one of the Sanctuary wait staff if they were getting in any umbrellas to provide more shade and they said it wouldn't work as it's too exposed to the wind. He did say the sun changes position as you could move to a different lounger - I think that might lead to some fisticuffs lol Next we went down.the Suite Lounge to cool down a bit. Although I did have a comforting hot chocolate! We noticed the nibbles on the bar hadn't changed ,- the Suite Concierge said the sweet bites stay the same but they do try and swap in some local themed food depending on the port. e.g. hummus. As it is there is only around half a dozen choices and it's not as extensive as the Royal Class offerings. I also needed to change our Sabatinis booking to a slot 2 days later and the Suite Concierge was able to do that in.a few minutes without me having to fiddle with the app. Which showed no availability of course! We went back to our stateroom for a shower and a nap. Love the showers in the suites - so roomy with a great power wand! We decided we didn't like the look of the Signature Restaurant menu so headed to Alfredo's instead for an early dinner. Sun Princess has a very different Alfredo's menu to the rest of the fleet: I love their mozzarella so opted for this as a starter. Then we had the same pizza we usually go for - Pepperoni for Chris and Tara Tina without mussels for me. For dessert, Chris went for Torta Caprese and had the Cannoli. The pizzas were tasty and very filling. The desserts were a bit of a miss though. - prefer the tiramisu and apple thing they do on the other ships. By 6:15om we had decamped to Crooners for some cocktails and to listen to the piano man. Yes he played Piano Man too. It was rammed. I was happy to get my favourite cocktail as an off-menu request - the Flamingo. Although the first one they gave was green and the second one red - the second one was the best! By this time we had moved down to a sofa overlooking the piazza so we could watch the Yes No game show. It was enjoyable as usual although I think Corinne and Niamh could have done a bit better with their line of questioning. We then went to Princess Live! for the rest of the evening where we watched the 10 in 60 game show, a male UK comedian called Tucker (bit old fashioned but provided some laughs) and then joined up with another couple Vinnie and Tena (who is on cc) for a fun Classic Rock Trivia. We got 39 out of 40 but there were 4 teams with 40! Niamh the ACD did an excellent job with the rock songs and stopping spoilers. To be continued.