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Sun Princess Revisited After 19 Years

kiwi sailor

By kiwi sailor,
in Princess Cruises

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kiwi sailor

kiwi sailor

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My wife and I just a had a short two night cruise from Brisbane to Sydney last weekend. We were last on the Sun Princess back in September 1998 and I've got to say she is great shape. Maybe even better than me, 19 years later. Without getting out a magnify glass I couldn't find any fault with her. Just don't remember her being so small, but been on few giants since 1998. Crew seemed happy and very helpful. Neil the CD was everywhere and always acknowledged everyone he passed while walking around. Princess certainly do look after her older girls compared to P&O Australia. Certainly would have no hesitation on sailing on Sun Princess again.

 

John

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OzKiwiJJ Great Review Rare

OzKiwiJJ

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We've done two cruises on Sun. She's a lovely ship. I think she's the perfect size for our region - big enough to provide good facilities yet small enough that the number of passengers don't swamp the smaller ports, and not too expensive to cruise on.

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DougH

DougH

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Thanks for the update, I love the Sun class ships. I thought they were a perfect size and had many a great meal in the pizzeria :) Sure hated when they sent them all 'down under"

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seacruise9

seacruise9

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Hi,

 

In 1997, I cruised aboard the Sun Princess for seven days to the Western Caribbean. In 2015, I cruised aboard the Sun Princess for 10 days out of Sydney. I agree that this is still a nice ship and is maintained very well.

 

The 77,000 ton Sun Princess was the largest cruise ship in the world when she entered service in 1995. She surpassed the 76,000 ton SS Norway. In 1996, the Sun Princess was surpassed by the Carnival Destiny (the first 100,000 ton cruise ship).

 

Chuck

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Kinkacruiser Holiday Sharing Rare

Kinkacruiser

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Thanks for the update, I love the Sun class ships. I thought they were a perfect size and had many a great meal in the pizzeria :) Sure hated when they sent them all 'down under"

 

Unfortunately the Pizzeria is now home to Share. The new look buffet (Horizon Court) is very user friendly and the full size, wall-mounted TV with a great movie selection is wonderful for cabin times.

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kiwi sailor

kiwi sailor

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Unfortunately the Pizzeria is now home to Share. The new look buffet (Horizon Court) is very user friendly and the full size, wall-mounted TV with a great movie selection is wonderful for cabin times.

Yes, have to agree the Movie selection was great, the TV series were just OK. The picture quality was very good and the screen size was great, they were Samsung TVs.

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Aus Traveller

Aus Traveller

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Lovely to hear good reviews of the Sun princess, can you tell me which cabins you were in that had the wall mounted full size TV's ?? THanks :-)

I don't know what you would call 'full size' and I don't really care if the TV is wall-mounted but we love the new interactive TV system.

 

It has a fantastic selection of movies and shows. A great feature is that all of the presentations (Port Talks and guest lecturers) appear on the TV a few hours after they are presented, then stay on for the duration of the cruise. You can also pause or stop any movie or talk and go back to it later. It will re-start at the point you left it.

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  • 4 months later...
katisdale

katisdale

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Gratuities WILL be charged if you reserved your cruise in the USA. We were really surprised by this. I do not know if this is true for Canadians but we were charged on our 50 day Sun Princess cruise. The new princess beds are also on the Sun and were very comfortable. We agree that the TV's were excellent.

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joybook

joybook

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Katisdale - I may be wrong but I think the gratuities issue works this way. For Australians who book in Australia for a cruise beginning and ending in Australia the gratuities are built into the price of the fare. For OS cruisers (booking in your own country) I think you will find that, having to pay gratuities, the actual price of your cruise is less than we Aussies pay. All in all it probably evens out for everyone.

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Aus Traveller

Aus Traveller

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Katisdale - I may be wrong but I think the gratuities issue works this way. For Australians who book in Australia for a cruise beginning and ending in Australia the gratuities are built into the price of the fare. For OS cruisers (booking in your own country) I think you will find that, having to pay gratuities, the actual price of your cruise is less than we Aussies pay. All in all it probably evens out for everyone.

From what I have seen, fares for OS bookings are no cheaper than Australian fares (on Australian-based cruises) and may even be more expensive. I think it is odd that US, Canadian and UK passengers are still charged the auto tips and I cannot see how these are passed on directly to the crew. Their remuneration is at a much higher rate than on ships based elsewhere and takes into account the dollars they would have got as part of the tips pool. US, Canadian and UK passengers can remove the tips without feeling guilty, and then personally tip those staff who serve them. The staff will be able to keep that money.:)

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Funkat

Funkat

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My wife and I just a had a short two night cruise from Brisbane to Sydney last weekend. We were last on the Sun Princess back in September 1998 and I've got to say she is great shape. Maybe even better than me, 19 years later. Without getting out a magnify glass I couldn't find any fault with her. Just don't remember her being so small, but been on few giants since 1998. Crew seemed happy and very helpful. Neil the CD was everywhere and always acknowledged everyone he passed while walking around. Princess certainly do look after her older girls compared to P&O Australia. Certainly would have no hesitation on sailing on Sun Princess again.

 

John

 

Thanks so much for the post on the Sun Princess. We are booked on her 3/30/18 sailing. After some research on the ship, I was starting to rethink our decision due to her age. Your assessment of the current condition and crew have given me some confidence that we will enjoy our cruise.

 

In May, we sailed on the Radiance of the Seas. She is not as small as the Sun, but still one of the smallest ships that we have sailed on. Our problem with her was not her size but that she was definitely showing signs of her age and it was not hard to see evidence of lacking maintenance.

 

After recently dealing with a small & old ship, it was like dejavu. So nice to hear that obviously Princess has done a great job of maintaining the Sun. There is a certain charm to a small ship.

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work2travelmore

work2travelmore

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Am anxious to hear how your cruise was as we are doing 10 night Queensland coast in Feb 2019 and are from SK. I heard account is in AUS dollars which is a better conversion for us Canadians.

 

Glad to hear other Canadians will be down under when we are! We are doing three back to back cruises on Sun for our big retirement trip, and will be doing the 10 night Queensland on Feb. 23, 2019, then doing 14 nights to Fiji, and finally 13 nights to New Zealand. Each segment out of Sydney. We are very excited, and don't know how we will make it through to 2019!! I have read some negative posts on the Sun, so I am glad to read more positives here! The account is AUS $$, and I checked the exchange, and this is one of the better conversions for us Canadians for sure!!

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X1HYCB

X1HYCB

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Unfortunately the Pizzeria is now home to Share. The new look buffet (Horizon Court) is very user friendly and the full size, wall-mounted TV with a great movie selection is wonderful for cabin times.

Just wondering if there's an International Cafe? We'll be sailing her in Jan 2018.

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