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New Sky Princess: No Wheelhouse Bar? No Crooners Bar?


Boiler Cruiser
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I hope that my eyes deceived me when I looked at the deck plan for the new Sky Princess!  I saw no Wheelhouse Bar or Crooners Bar!  My DW and I love to hang out in both, and if we are on the Sky Princess in the future, we will really miss them!

 

What have they been replaced with?  I, again, may have poor eyesight, but I can't find anything other than the "Crown Grill Bar" that could be anything like them.

 

Am I missing something?

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They have said that one of new bars will be "Take Five" as a jazz bar. Looks nice in the photo's although not a fan of jazz. The newly announced Enchanted has more information on their deck plan than SKY. As it now stands no Crooner or Wheelhouse. Hope it will change.

 

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2 hours ago, Boiler Cruiser said:

I hope that my eyes deceived me when I looked at the deck plan for the new Sky Princess!  I saw no Wheelhouse Bar or Crooners Bar!  My DW and I love to hang out in both, and if we are on the Sky Princess in the future, we will really miss them!

 

What have they been replaced with?  I, again, may have poor eyesight, but I can't find anything other than the "Crown Grill Bar" that could be anything like them.

 

Am I missing something?

Wheelhouse Bar has been replaced with Princess Live since the first ship of this class on the Royal in 2013 & continues through at least the Enchanted after the Sky.  They’re designed much differently with Princess Live being a TV studio.

 

Crooners was replaced with a paid French Bistro restaurant (La Mer) on the Majestic & now on the Sky.  On the Enchanted the deck plans show both Crooners & La Mer in the Piazza.

 

The Take Five jazz themed bar is a renaming & possibly redesigning of the current Club 6 bar which in my experience has been underutilized.  The CG image shows a piano so it might be used like Crooners but no one will know for sure until next October.

 

Crown Grill Bar is just an area outside the CG where I’ve seen a piano player but not like Crooners.

Edited by Astro Flyer
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26 minutes ago, 1Gizmo said:

They have said that one of new bars will be "Take Five" as a jazz bar. Looks nice in the photo's although not a fan of jazz. The newly announced Enchanted has more information on their deck plan than SKY. As it now stands no Crooner or Wheelhouse. Hope it will change.

 

Enchanted does show Crooners.  It is on deck 6 not 7

 

On Sky the space taken up by Crooners shows a shops.

 

On both ships a lot more space is being taken up by shops. The new Princess ships, shopping mall of the seas.

Edited by RDC1
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13 minutes ago, cruisingrob21 said:

One gets the feeling from the pictures that they are trying to merge Crooners, Wheelhouse and Vista Lounge functions into the Vista Lounge.

 

First to go was Explorers, then Wheelhouse, then Crooners.  How many entertainment venues are they going to end up with on the next generation of ships.  The number of activities are going to have to be cut back, because they are running out of places to hold them (except for store related sales where space is increasing).

 

Not encouraging.

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1 hour ago, RDC1 said:

One gets the feeling from the pictures that they are trying to merge Crooners, Wheelhouse and Vista Lounge functions into the Vista Lounge.

 

First to go was Explorers, then Wheelhouse, then Crooners.  How many entertainment venues are they going to end up with on the next generation of ships.  The number of activities are going to have to be cut back, because they are running out of places to hold them (except for store related sales where space is increasing).

 

Not encouraging.

I am Elite but I have, for the last 2 years been sampling other cruise lines and found the entertainment venues are now so much better than Princess, although I have missed the Princess feel, especially Crooners - bit more refined. I find the loss of Explorers Bar is a big miss and I am not keen on Princess Live. Next month I am returning to the Royal Princess, reluctantly this ship as thats all that was available in Southern Florida at that time,   but doing this with a cruise on Harmony of the Seas. I much prefer the Emerald/Ruby Class 

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1 hour ago, RDC1 said:

One gets the feeling from the pictures that they are trying to merge Crooners, Wheelhouse and Vista Lounge functions into the Vista Lounge.

 

First to go was Explorers, then Wheelhouse, then Crooners.  How many entertainment venues are they going to end up with on the next generation of ships.  The number of activities are going to have to be cut back, because they are running out of places to hold them (except for store related sales where space is increasing).

 

Not encouraging.

The loss of favored venues is disappointing, however I have optimism that the newer vista lounge design will exceed expectations.  The original vista lounge on the grand class ships served its purpose well, the club fusion rendition on subsequent ships missed the mark in my opinion, so hopefully lessons have been learned and the new vista lounge will be a net improvement.

 

I haven't been on a royal class ship yet (Sky in Feb of 2019) but I'll be interested to see if the Cruise staff adapt to the new ships, or just do the same ole same ole in different rooms.

 

I sailed on the Eurodam in October and found the decor and assortment of various rooms to be very enjoyable.  There is something to be said for a plethora of smaller venues rather than just 3 large ones like on most princess ships.  HAL really hit a home run with the Gallery Bar in my opinion - a unique take on art, a sports bar, and casual gaming.  Photos in my blog post here.

http://cruisingrobsblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/eurodam-coastal-trip-review-ship-decor.html.

 

Anyways, I have high hopes for the sky, but after Wheelhouse got supersized on the Diamond and Sapphire, I feared that it was the last time a princess ship would have an intimate lounge area on any subsequent ship.  This appears to have come true.

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Based on the Enchanted’s current deck plans, Vines will be replaced by Salty Dog Gastropub however in the list of locations it shows Vines but not the Gastropub.  

 

It’s been my experience that it’s not unusual for initial deck plans & descriptions to have errors in them.

Edited by Astro Flyer
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5 hours ago, Boiler Cruiser said:

I hope that my eyes deceived me when I looked at the deck plan for the new Sky Princess!  I saw no Wheelhouse Bar or Crooners Bar!  My DW and I love to hang out in both, and if we are on the Sky Princess in the future, we will really miss them!

 

What have they been replaced with?  I, again, may have poor eyesight, but I can't find anything other than the "Crown Grill Bar" that could be anything like them.

 

Am I missing something?

Have you been on any of the Royal-class ships yet? On Royal and Regal, Crooners has very limited hours because of all the other noisy activities surrounding it--much more emphasis on The Piazza as a primary entertainment venue than on the various Grand-class ships. And Wheelhouse essentially being an appendage of Crown Grill on those ships makes it all but useless as a place to just sit back with a drink and listen to the music (there is no dance floor). Might as well just call it Crown Grill Bar from now on.

 

But as mentioned above it is likely whatever venue will be used as the piano bar is simply omitted from the preliminary deck plans at this point. Whether it will be "rat pack" a la Crooner's or "jazz club" as implied by the new Take Five name remains to be seen.

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Here’s the recently released description for Take Five on the Sky in the former Club 6 location;  Enchanted shows a Take Five in the same location and also a Crooners & La Mer restaurant in the Piazza.

 

All that jazz and more 

Unwind to the smooth sounds of a grand piano backed by a live jazz band in this intimate new lounge setting. Debuting first onboard Sky Princess, you'll enjoy old favorites and delicious new riffs from the Take Five bar while an eclectic line up of performers take the stage to showcase the best of jazz music through the years.

 

 

Edited by Astro Flyer
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6 hours ago, fishywood said:

Have you been on any of the Royal-class ships yet? On Royal and Regal, Crooners has very limited hours because of all the other noisy activities surrounding it--much more emphasis on The Piazza as a primary entertainment venue than on the various Grand-class ships. And Wheelhouse essentially being an appendage of Crown Grill on those ships makes it all but useless as a place to just sit back with a drink and listen to the music (there is no dance floor). Might as well just call it Crown Grill Bar from now on.

 

But as mentioned above it is likely whatever venue will be used as the piano bar is simply omitted from the preliminary deck plans at this point. Whether it will be "rat pack" a la Crooner's or "jazz club" as implied by the new Take Five name remains to be seen.

Yes,  my DW and I just got off the Royal after a 7 day cruise on Saturday.  We liked it.  That is why the new Sky deck plan seems so potentially disappointing.  I would not mind if they kept the Royal deckplan and Piazza layout.

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9 hours ago, antsp said:

Apart from the buffet, and more modern decor, I can not see one advantage to the Royal class ships. 

We thought that the expanded piazza area on Royal was a huge improvement over the Crown class, & the IC seemed much more open. While it appears we are in the minority, we do like Princess Live, but not for trivia. I would look forward to trying a Jazz club in its place though. 

It’s nice to have different choices within a brand, rather than cookie cutter ships. Everyone has their own preferences, & having differences within Princess ships is a good way to enjoy different aspects of a ship, while maintaining the core atmosphere of Princess.

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  • 3 years later...
On 12/17/2018 at 12:04 PM, 1Gizmo said:

They have said that one of new bars will be "Take Five" as a jazz bar. Looks nice in the photo's although not a fan of jazz. The newly announced Enchanted has more information on their deck plan than SKY. As it now stands no Crooner or Wheelhouse. Hope it will change.

 

not our favorite kind of jazz, more Dave Brubeck style. We were on Sky for 21 days at Xmas. VERY LITTLE ENTERTAINMENT! On the other hand HAL in July in Alaska was HOPPING!!!

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