Extremely belated UBD Review w/photos

[KSprite01]

We went on a belated honeymoon in mid Oct. 2013, for a 10-day partial Panama Canal transit on Island Princess. (It was particularly fun because years ago when he was in the Coast Guard, my dad served as a consultant for the Panama Canal on solar power.) I meant to post a lengthy review afterwards but life intervened. However, as I haven't seen many UBD photos, I thought someone might still find them helpful/interesting if I shared mine.

 

We decided to splurge on this cruise a little, and booked an Ultimate Balcony Dinner around ~7th night if I'm remembering correctly. If I were doing it again, I might choose an earlier night to enjoy the flowers longer. We aimed to start dinner around sunset, and had the luck to enjoy a full moon afterwards. (It was windy so we brought our flowers inside.)

 

Edited March 20, 2015 by KSprite01

[KSprite01]

Dinner was by far the tastiest we had on board (although on this cruise we did not do any specialty dining). We started with appetizer bites, then crab cakes, an endive walnut blue cheese salad before our surf and turf lobster and steak. The crab cakes were very tasty, although I confess I prefer Legal Seafood’s (a New England restaurant) crab cakes. I was too stuffed to eat much of my steak, but my husband stepped up his game and helped me out. The steak was significantly higher quality that served in the MDR and I thought even the lobster was more tender than served on the second formal night.

 

Not pictured: Cocktails and wine. My husband’s work surprised us the Honeymoon Celebration package, so we traded out our champagne bottle for a wine bottle.

 

(Sorry for the photo quality – these were taken with my iphone 4, which had some issues with the darkness. If I wait to pull them off the camera, I’ll never post.)

 

 

Note: I can't seem to get the app bites & entrée to load. Will try to troubleshoot after I post the rest of the review.

[KSprite01]

And then a never-ending parade of decadent dessert: Four types of mousse, followed by petit-fours, and then an anniversary cake because we had mentioned we were celebrating our honeymoon… Our waiter brought us a cover so we could stuff most of the petit-fours and cake into the fridge to enjoy later.

 

We had intended the UBD as a one-time event, but are looking forward to booking it again on our cruise in a little over a week. I'm not sure we'll be able to land the full moon again though!

 

Last photo is of our crew. Our waiter stayed outside our room with her assistant, and checked on us periodically. She didn’t rush us even though we were ridiculously slow moving through our courses.

 

Edited March 20, 2015 by KSprite01

[Colo Cruiser]

What a great dinner/night. They sure work hard! :)

[KSprite01]

Sorry - I can't seem to get those two photos (or others of the same items) to load. :(

[jagsfan]

I hope posting brought it all alive for you again.

[ERTHDOG]

looks great , thank you for sharing:)

 

what is the cost of this event , if you recall?

 

planning a short cruise for my wife's bday in september and this looks very special;)

 

dave

[Astro Flyer]

looks great , thank you for sharing:)

 

what is the cost of this event , if you recall?

 

planning a short cruise for my wife's bday in september and this looks very special;)

 

dave

It's $100 per couple...$50 more than dinner at the Crown Grill & you get nearly $100 of extras: photo, cocktails, flowers, 375 mL bottle of champagne (we exchange it for a 750 mL $32 bottle of wine) and specialty coffee drinks.

[ERTHDOG]

thanks astro , it sounds even better now....do you book it onboard or before cruise ?

 

dave

[Astro Flyer]

thanks astro , it sounds even better now....do you book it onboard or before cruise ?

 

dave

 

My experience is you can prepay & there'll be a card in your cabin telling you to call for a date & time. We did that one time however there really is no benefit unless you want to spread out your expenses so we reserve and pay for it on the ship. Another benefit for us is that we use OBC to pay for it.

 

Room service supervisors have told us it's generally offered twice per evening at about 6:00 & 8:00 but rarely are all time slots reserved. We've enjoyed the UBD four times and schedule it for either an evening in port or during sailway in an effort to have the best weather possible.

[ERTHDOG]

great, thanks again:cool:

 

dave

[KSprite01]

$50 pp ($100 total)

 

We received: 2 roses, 2 cocktails, wine (exchanged from the champagne). I don't think we got specialty coffee (it's not listed on princess' site that they give it) but I don't drink it so they could have offered and I wouldn't have remembered.

[geoherb]

We've done the UBD three times now--twice for our anniversaries and once for DH's birthday. I agree about doing it earlier in the cruise if possible. We waited until the last night of the cruise the last time we did it--DH's birthday. I've decided we can celebrate an occasion early instead of waiting to do it on the actual date. The flowers were great. We have given them to people we knew were staying on for the next cruises. The one time we tried to trade the half bottle of champagne for the bottle of wine they charged us the cost of the wine. Check your statement carefully if you do that.

[Astro Flyer]

The one time we tried to trade the half bottle of champagne for the bottle of wine they charged us the cost of the wine. Check your statement carefully if you do that.

Sorry to read about your experience...did you request the change from the room service supervisor in advance or with dinner? I've always requested the wine when the supervisor came to our cabin to go over the UBD a day or two in advance.

 

On our four UBDs we've been able to swap the 375 mL champagne for a 750 mL bottle of wine because both cost $32.

 

Thanks for alerting us to check our statement & hopefully it was just a mistake & not a change in the procedure. :(

Edited March 20, 2015 by Astro Flyer