Barry H

All of the cabins on the Sun have a couch. That is why they are deemed deluxe. On royal class ships you only get a loveseat in deluxe balcony and above categories.

Enchanted has deluxe balcony cabins that come with a love seat. More room than a balcony and less expensive than a mini suite. On the Caribbean Princess you need to upgrade to a minisuite to get a couch in the cabin.

Elites are able to book dining anytime after booking. If not elite you may have to wait until final payment date (90 days out) before booking.

We don't drink the liquor so we swap out the mini bar set up for 8 Dos Equis, 6 sprite and 6 water. Works well for us as we don't have the drink package. I bring a foam can/bottle cover and take a beer to lunch in the buffet. Never an issue.

My biggest complaint is that you can't select your bar set up mix from home. I add this to every review but no response. It would save the staff a lot of work as they have to put your changeout together anyways. Last cruise on the Sky the changeout did not arrive until the evening of the second day meaning I could not enjoy it for two days.

We are also fans of ice wine. It is available in 375 or 200 ml bottles. We bring our own bottle of ice wine with us and enjoy it in our cabin. We pack a couple of small wine glasses that are available at the dollar store. Cost will be a fraction of what Princess would charge.

The "free" area at Amber Cove is the pool area. Food and drinks around the pool are extra.

After final payment date open the Princess app and select dining options. You have the opportunity to book dining for each day or for the whole cruise. We will be on the Sky shortly and booked a private table for 2 in a dining room at 5:30 for the whole cruise. Once onboard, if you like the table and waiters you can ask the host to reserve that table for you for the rest of the cruise. This will possibly work because you are the first in the dining room. Don't expect the same if you book dining after 6:00 pm.

Good to know as we will be on the Sky in two weeks

Taking the Sky Princess Nov 10, 2023. At final payment date the ship had a lot of cabins in all categories. Then the price reductions to fill the ship and now it appears to be sold out. Single supplements were reduced to ~20-25% so there are a lot of singles booked. That should reduce the number of passengers. With fewer families than other itineraries, few cabins will have extra guests. That should be a full ship but less than 100% capacity. On popular cruises the capacity can exceed 110% with 3rd and 4th guests in a cabin.

There is no more free wifi for platinum or elite. What you get is a 50% discount on purchased wifi.

Like auto gratuities, I suspect that the service charge goes into a pool of money for the beverage service staff.

Agree with Steelers36 about a limited number of seats per flight available to Princess at a specific price. Booked a premium economy flight on American Airlines to London for ~$1100 Cdn. Princess discounted seats no longer available. However I can book the same seats on the same flight with EZAir for over $4000. Other flight options are still available to us at a lower price.

With two separate booking numbers you will get $100 OBC for each cruise segment. When you send in your request to Princess for the shareholder benefit, you can include both cruises. You don't need a form anymore. Just your name, booking number, ship name and sailing date along with proof of share ownership. If you are Elite, you will get a bar set up for each cruise.

We were on the Crown in May for 21 days. Yes, laundry and dryers were free. We bought $12 in tokens and had used three before we learned we didn't need them. Kept our extra token for our next cruise. Once my wife knew the laundry was free it was another load every 3-4 days. We didn't request a refund as we had done a lot of loads. It also meant bringing home a lot of clean clothes. We now pack the eco-laundry sheets and dryer sheets. They take up almost no space or weight. Much easier than the laundry pods.

We cruised the Crown in May. We had a Lyft take us to the port. Car went down to level P2 where we dropped our luggage off with the porters. From there we took an elevator to the upper level where we checked in with Princess and got our medallions. If the taxi goes to the lower level parking it might be worth the fare to avoid the long lines in the terminal to drop off luggage.

On our recent Alaska cruise on the Crown Princess the Captain decided that he wanted a cocktail party for the most travelled passengers rather than a luncheon. His reasoning is that he wanted to be present. Cocktail party was held at 7:00 pm (right after we had finished dinner). Location was in the Adagio Bar which is not conducive for speaking to others or eating food. There was hors d'oeurves (beef sliders after you have finished dinner and dessert in the dining room) brought around which angered my wife as we just finished dinner and very little was eaten. I think that the junior officers ate more than the guests. There was a lot of wasted food. Captain Renzo Lembo chatted for a couple of minutes but spent most of his time at a different table. We were not impressed as we had experienced a luncheon only once before and were looking forward to a similar experience. As we were on a B2B we were invited to another cocktail party. We declined and told the Captain Circle host and the Princess Brand Ambassador our opinion, in great detail. The cocktail party was all about the captain and not about the loyal passengers.

We have stayed at Premier Inn West Quay and Premier Inn Cumberland Place in Southampton. West Quay is closest to port, IKEA (for inexpensive meals) and giant mall across the street with shopping and plenty of restaurants. Premier Inns are not high end hotels nor are they the bottom. They offer clean comfortable rooms at a reasonable price. We have booked Cumberland Place for our next cruise. It is close to ASDA store (UK version of Walmart), museum and Mayflower Theater. FYI: Most UK hotels do not provide wash cloths. If you are used to using one, add it to your packing list. We always order a taxi the day before.

On our last cruise we met some people who ordered one of these desserts. It is scooped ice cream. The chocolate on the outside of the sundae container was harder than concrete and could not be chipped off. No one ever mentioned that they would have a second through the cruise. There are a couple of tall multilayer cakes (chocolate and carrot cake) for sale at the International Cafe for $4 each. I don't know if these are included as a premium dessert. These I could eat two a day.

We were on the Crown May 12-June 2. There was no token dispenser on Deck 8 and most of the others were out of order. Turns out that the washers and dryers would operate without tokens. Just push the coin slot and everything would start. The token dispenser was only there to purchase tokens for the soap and fleece. Had heard that the Discovery Princess had free washers and dryers. In conclusion, try the washer and dryer without a token before buying tokens.

We don't drink enough to buy PLUS Past cruise we brought Tim Hortons French Vanilla Cappuccino pouches. Barry made them up with decaf coffee and we enjoyed them for a fraction of the cost. Princess is losing out on us.

Sometimes the credit card fails if you have a January expiry date. A work around is to enter a different month and year and then go back and change the month to January. It worked for me.

Princess transfer from Port Everglades to MIA is $29. FLL is a short taxi ride costing ~$20. Less expensive and much faster than the Princess transfer. There is a ride sharing van for 8-10 people costing $11 each.

If you book a specialty dining restaurant from home, your credit card will immediately be charged the cover charge. If you get free specialty dining with a booking package you will have to wait until you are onboard to book the specialty dining without incurring the credit card charge.

Once you make final payment, you can use the Medallion Class app to book a time slot through Dine My Way. There may be options for dining room, private or shared table and dining time. Depending on what has already been booked there may be an option to select the same time and dining room for the whole cruise. If not, you can select each day of the cruise in advance. Booking early dining should be possible. We always dine early and have had no problem booking early dining. We are elite and can book dining as soon as we book the cruise. The information on not getting a reservation before 8:40 applies to people already onboard who have not made any dining reservation times. The dining rooms also have a line for those with no reservations (wait time depends on table availability and arrival time).