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Just back Form The Sky Princess B2B East & West Caribbean

Woobstr112G

By Woobstr112G,
in Princess Cruises

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Woobstr112G "Live from...." Rare

Woobstr112G

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Hello everyone.  Below is the review I submitted to CC.  Next up for Holli & I hopefully is a 14 day R/T to Alaska on the Golden in May.

 

Hope all are well.....

 

DW and I just returned from our Western Caribbean cruise on the Sky Princess.  We also did the preceding Eastern Caribbean itinerary to make this our first B2B cruising experience.    This was our 21st overall cruise and 14th in a row on Princess.  Prior to this cruise we had active and informative roll call threads.  It is my belief that roll calls are a great way to plan and prepare for your cruise and to get to know everyone else sailing with you.

 

For our pre-cruise activities, we stayed at the Hotel Lago Mar in Ft.  Lauderdale for two nights.  The hotel was quite nice and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.  For our two day stay, we mainly hung out and just relaxed.  I did have a mishap during the stay wherein I tripped over a large boulder and banged up my right leg.  

 

On embarkation day, I hired a private car to take us on our short drive to the cruise terminal.  We arrived at the terminal and made our way onboard very quickly.  The Medallion is now used for check in (this was a Medallion class voyage).  It was extremely efficient as we were actually onboard the Sky less than 30 minutes after arriving at the terminal.  Getting off and on the ship on turnaround day was also a breeze.

 

For both voyages we had Penthouse (PH) suites on the Riviera deck.  For the first leg we had R615 and for the second we had R607.  The cabins were only three apart from each other so moving on turnaround day was a breeze.  For both voyages our cabin steward was Allen from the Philippines.  Allen was great and always kept our cabins clean.  He always had a smile on his face and did everything he could to ensure we did not go wanting for anything.  The location of the cabins were ideal for us as they were close to the aft elevators as well as having a self service laundry and Concierge Lounge right outside our cabin.  There was never any noise issues associated with passengers entering/exiting either venue.  

 

Now for the Sky Princess.  Overall it is a very beautiful ship.  A plus is that it is brand new.  One thing I noticed and appreciated was the updated decor in the cabins and some public areas. I really like the way Princess Live and the Vista lounge were redesigned.  The Piazza was once again an impressive place to spend some time.  I spent a decent amount of time walking around taking a lot of pictures of this big beautiful ship.

 

As far as service goes, it was excellent.  Every crew member I had an intersection with, except an aloof head waiter in the World Fresh Market Place,  always had a smile on their face and did everything they could to get my questions answered and any situation resolved.

 

For nightly dining, I found the quality of the food to be overall good to very good (with an exception listed below); nothing was really great.  We dined mostly with other CC friends in anytime dining.  We got a beeper each night, but never waited more that thirty minutes to be called.  We did try Club Class one time.  Service was great.  For a couple of meals in the MDR (ATD), I tried a couple of Crown Grill Select items.  The first was a ribeye that was pretty bad.  The second offering was surf and turf combination (Filet & Lobster).  The filet was barely good and the lobster was laughable.  It was basically the size of a large shrimp.  Lastly we did eat at Sabatini's one night.  The service was great but the food was not as good as I remembered it on the Star (2018 with the new menu). We did enjoy Sabatini's for breakfast a number of the times and found both the service and food to be very good.  We also ate several times at Alfredo's.  This venue continues to be a great free dining experience.

 

As far as the World Fresh Market Place goes, I was very disappointed with pretty much everything.  The layout was sometimes confusing.  The overall quality of the food was bad.  I have a big thing about hot food being hot and hot dishes in the WFMP were slightly warm at best.  The selections were very repetitive as I saw the same items pretty much everyday.  I know food is a very subjective issue but these were my personal observations.  

 

I cannot comment on the production shows as we did not attend them.  I did hear comments on both sides of the fences from other passengers.  I did watch several entertainers in the Piazza.  I found one who was a "Steel Pan" musician to be very good.

 

We did not do many excursions on the two cruises due to my banged up leg.  For Princess Cays, I just got off the ship and walked around taking pictures.  We did do a ship sponsored sunset sail excursion in St. Thomas.  For St. Maarten, I just got off the ship and walked around a bit taking more pictures.   I did the same in Grand Cayman, and Roatan.  In Belize we both got off the ship and walked around a bit.  Did the same also in Cozumel.

 

In closing, I'd have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this cruise. Next up, hopefully is a 14 day R/T to Alaska from Los Angeles (San Pedro) in May on the Golden.  Princess, at least for us, continues to provide a great experience for a competitive price. Sure there are some hiccups every now and then but overall it remains our line of choice for the foreseeable future.

 

Bob
  

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1emerald1

1emerald1

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42 minutes ago, Woobstr112G said:

I used Blacklane.  Obviously more expensive, but I like them.....

 

Bob

Thanks for the quick response, I will check them out.  When the port is busy it can be a nightmare just even trying to get a cab, let alone bell service from the hotel.

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Woobstr112G "Live from...." Rare

Woobstr112G

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1 hour ago, need2cruisesoon said:

Bob, welcome back from the Sky.

 

I see you have done 14 Princess cruises consecutively, I'm curious if any one itinerary or one Princess ship stands out amongst your travels.

We have the Grand upcoming 3/29 to the PNW.

 

Thanks,

Need2cruise

Iceland/Norway T/A on the CB 2015 and again in 2016.  Absolutely loved Iceland.....😊😊😊


Bob

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BIG TIME CRUISER

BIG TIME CRUISER

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23 hours ago, Woobstr112G said:

As far as the World Fresh Market Place goes, I was very disappointed with pretty much everything.  The layout was sometimes confusing.  The overall quality of the food was bad.  I have a big thing about hot food being hot and hot dishes in the WFMP were slightly warm at best.  The selections were very repetitive as I saw the same items pretty much everyday.  I know food is a very subjective issue but these were my personal observations.  

That's the same way we felt about the food on the CB. 

I'm now wondering if it's a common occurrence to all the World Fresh Market Place ships? It's one of the main reasons we'll never return to the CB no matter what the price until I hear of them changing things around. 

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Steelers36

Steelers36

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I suppose you wished to eat with other couple friends, but you had access to CC dining area.  I wonder if folks with access inform the MD or HW's they won't be using the area, if they realize they don't need as many tables for that and re-allocate space for ATD.  Otherwise, there is an extra load on AT space and CC is under-utilized.

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Woobstr112G "Live from...." Rare

Woobstr112G

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6 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I suppose you wished to eat with other couple friends, but you had access to CC dining area.  I wonder if folks with access inform the MD or HW's they won't be using the area, if they realize they don't need as many tables for that and re-allocate space for ATD.  Otherwise, there is an extra load on AT space and CC is under-utilized.

That’s a very good point.....

 

Bob

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2cruizinfools

2cruizinfools

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Hi Bob

So glad you finally got to experience the Sky Princess, we did miss you on the TA in November.   I enjoyed following along with your journey with your "live" posts, I was sorry to hear about Misha's passing, we had to put down our retired K9 two weeks before the TA due to cancer, losing a fur-family member is never easy.

 

Were you able to find a substitute for Crooners?  We spent most of our evenings in Take 5, we enjoyed the jazz bands, Whinn and Raza took good care of us, making us several Crooner's favorites as well as drinks from the new menu.  We found the only drawback was Take Five didn't open until 5 and we missed the people watching of Crooners/MidShip.  We found that Good Spirits had the location right but we did not care for their drink menu and if we ordered something off menu they had to go to Take Five to get it.

 

I see you took the ships sunset cruise in St Thomas, did you both enjoy it?  We are taking a 7day cruise in April for a quick get away and were considering this excursion.  We have never had such a late departure in St Thomas.

 

Tammy

 

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MCC retired

MCC retired

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6 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I suppose you wished to eat with other couple friends, but you had access to CC dining area.  I wonder if folks with access inform the MD or HW's they won't be using the area, if they realize they don't need as many tables for that and re-allocate space for ATD.  Otherwise, there is an extra load on AT space and CC is under-utilized.

We were aboard this cruise also.

We were in MA mini suite and half  way thru the cruise we were upgraded to CC .😲

We noticed that the CC area was sparkly populated every night despite arriving prime time ?

We surmise that it was to sell us on CC for the future 🤔

They stepped up the attention to us every each night.

Although we had no trouble getting a table for 2 on the non CC nights 

I can see a comfort of walking in anytime and the extra entree choice but 

certainly not worth hundreds of $ more 😉

 

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sunsetbeachgal

sunsetbeachgal

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Sorry we didn’t get a chance to meet you on your first leg.  Seems as if 7 days goes by much too quickly!  
 

We loved Sky and the improvements to Princess Live and some of the other venues.  The new Crown Grill layout with the larger bar in front was a nice change too.  Not as crazy about the Vista Lounge, the sight lines from the seats beyond the first row or so were bad.  Liked the light colors but there was already a stain on the carpet in the hall going to our cabin.  I am not sure the light colors will wear as well long term. 
 

While I thought the buffet was good, it was not as good as that on the Royal when we sailed on her last February.  On the Royal they had a sushi buffet one day, sashimi on the buffet at lunch, Cold shrimp and other seafoods daily and a much better selection on the salad bar area.  Hopefully these changes aren’t fleet wide cutbacks.  
 

 

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Woobstr112G "Live from...." Rare

Woobstr112G

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On 2/10/2020 at 5:32 PM, Colo Cruiser said:

Thanks for the followup Bob.

Did you find the rooms etc at Lago Mar to be dated at all?

Yes, a little dated.  The radio for instance, where you could plug an IPhone into still had the old style (non lightning) mount.  The furnishings also seemed a little dated but were clean and in good repair.  I would not hesitate however to book another pre-cruise stay at the Lago Mar.....😊😊😊

 

Bob

 

 

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