Celebrating Special Occasions on Island Princess

[tarheelmjfan]

My DH & I were planning to book a HAL cruise to Panama Canal, but that particular ship seems to have some major issues at the moment. We've now decided to book Island Princess. It will be our 20th anniversary, so we want to make it special. One of the things we liked about HAL was the full room service breakfast. We like having breakfast on our balcony every morning. I read Princess has a special balcony breakfast you can book. Would it make sense to book that every morning? If not, what are our other room service, breakfast options? (We will be booking a balcony stateroom not a suite.) What other special meals are available? Obviously, we put a premium on great food. We'd rather spend on excellent food than spend a lot on tours or book a suite. Also, is there anything else we should consider doing to add to the celebration? Thanks in advance for the help. :)

 

ETA: We aren't interested in having a vow renewal ceremony, because our son won't be with us.

[Loonbeam]

There's an Ultimate Balcony Breakfast and an Ultimate Balcony Dinner available. Both are great. Do a thread search on UBB and UBD and you should get lots of reviews..

 

I did a review of the UBD here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1555288

[2little time]

My DH & I were planning to book a HAL cruise to Panama Canal, but that particular ship seems to have some major issues at the moment. We've now decided to book Island Princess. It will be our 20th anniversary, so we want to make it special. One of the things we liked about HAL was the full room service breakfast. We like having breakfast on our balcony every morning. I read Princess has a special balcony breakfast you can book. Would it make sense to book that every morning? If not, what are our other room service, breakfast options? (We will be booking a balcony stateroom not a suite.) What other special meals are available? Obviously, we put a premium on great food. We'd rather spend on excellent food than spend a lot on tours or book a suite. Also, is there anything else we should consider doing to add to the celebration? Thanks in advance for the help. :)

 

ETA: We aren't interested in having a vow renewal ceremony, because our son won't be with us.

 

You will love the Island. It is a beautiful ship. Try the Ultimate Balcony Dinner. You will not regret it. Also, the Chef Table is not to be missed. Have a wonderful cruise.

[Appygirl]

Your steward will leave a card in your room each day that you can fill out for breakfast to be delivered to your room and you can take it out to your balcony to enjoy. No extra charge like there is with the ultimate balcony breakfast.

 

Now food is subjective. Although I found the food on the Island adequate, HAL and in particular the Zuiderdam especially for breakfast, is far more outstanding. Better selection, better quality. if you love the breakfasts on HAL like I do, the Island pales in comparison. HAL offers better lunches. Dinner, close call either way but HAL has more selection. Not saying that the food on the Island is badly prepared just that it's better on HAL in my opinion. other people may disagree.

 

Here's a tip. Avoid the sushi on the Island. Worst I've ever had.

 

Make sure you put on your personalizer about your honeymoon. The steward will put balloons on your door and you get a special dessert in the MDR. Happy anniversary and enjoy your cruise. Panama Canal is a trip of a lifetime.

[tarheelmjfan]

There's an Ultimate Balcony Breakfast and an Ultimate Balcony Dinner available. Both are great. Do a thread search on UBB and UBD and you should get lots of reviews..

 

I did a review of the UBD here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1555288

 

You will love the Island. It is a beautiful ship. Try the Ultimate Balcony Dinner. You will not regret it. Also, the Chef Table is not to be missed. Have a wonderful cruise.

 

Thank you both for the recommendations.

 

Loonbeam, we were thinking we'd pass on the Chef's Table only because we would be sharing the table with others. For this occasion, we prefer more intimate meals. Your review has convinced me to attempt to book it anyway. :D It sounds like the first people on the ship got most of the spots. (Your observance that many of the same people were at this event & in the Sanctuary leads me to that conclusion.) I hope we won't have staggered boarding like I've been reading about. This will be our first cruise on a Carnival owned ship, so we won't get priority boarding. Combining that with staggered boarding would almost certainly exclude us from getting two of the spots at the CT. We can at least call to put our names in and hope for the best.

 

We're planning to do the UBD at least once, maybe twice. We also plan to do the UBB several times. I'm going to look for a review on that experience now.

 

Our original plan was to try both specialty restaurants, but I'm not sure we'd enjoy Bayou. The abbreviated menu I've seen doesn't sound very appealing to me. Hopefully, it's better than it sounds. :p We'll definitely dine at Sabitini's though, probably more than once.

 

Your steward will leave a card in your room each day that you can fill out for breakfast to be delivered to your room and you can take it out to your balcony to enjoy. No extra charge like there is with the ultimate balcony breakfast.

 

Now food is subjective. Although I found the food on the Island adequate, HAL and in particular the Zuiderdam especially for breakfast, is far more outstanding. Better selection, better quality. if you love the breakfasts on HAL like I do, the Island pales in comparison. HAL offers better lunches. Dinner, close call either way but HAL has more selection. Not saying that the food on the Island is badly prepared just that it's better on HAL in my opinion. other people may disagree.

 

Here's a tip. Avoid the sushi on the Island. Worst I've ever had.

 

Make sure you put on your personalizer about your honeymoon. The steward will put balloons on your door and you get a special dessert in the MDR. Happy anniversary and enjoy your cruise. Panama Canal is a trip of a lifetime.

 

I haven't seen the breakfast, room service menu yet. Does it have enough variety to satisfy us most mornings?

 

We had originally chosen Zuiderdam for the itinerary & the full, room service menu. That would have been our first HAL cruise, but I've heard the food is similar to Celebrity. We usually choose Celebrity cruises, but they didn't have an itinerary we were interested in. Unfortunately, I've seen several recent reports on Zuiderdam's plumbing & A/C issues. Those concerns led us to go with the Princess cruise instead.

 

Thanks for the sushi & anniversary tips. I really appreciate them. :)

 

We originally had a totally different cruise booked, but decided it was more important to us to see the Panama Canal before the expansion is complete. We lost 4 days with the change, but PC pre-expansion is high on our bucket list. This occasion was the perfect time to mark it off the list. We may add 4 days on land to make up for the shorter cruise. Either way, I'm sure we won't regret the decision.