Sea Princess vs Sun Princess

[V_icki_e]

Greetings CC brains trust 🙂 Does anyone have any information about the Sea Princess and possible upgrades / dry dock happening before she starts sailing again?  I notice that her sister ship, the Sun, has both a new Koi Seafood Bar as well as SHARE by Curtis Stone restaurant... yet my poor Sea Princess still only has the Sterling Steakhouse (which is just a cordoned off part of the Horizon Court Buffet).   The Sun class ships are my favourite Princess ship by far, but I'm feeling a bit disappointed that my poor old Sea is getting left out.  Any clues? 

 

Thanks all!  Cheers, Vickie. 

[heddyjan]

I would like to see an International Cafe on the Sea Princess.

i imagine there will be changes on both ships to accommodate social distancing.

Perhaps the Horizon Court should become an Anytime Dining Room. 

Menus on line on Princess at Sea and allocated theatre seating.

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, V_icki_e said:

Greetings CC brains trust 🙂 Does anyone have any information about the Sea Princess and possible upgrades / dry dock happening before she starts sailing again?  I notice that her sister ship, the Sun, has both a new Koi Seafood Bar as well as SHARE by Curtis Stone restaurant... yet my poor Sea Princess still only has the Sterling Steakhouse (which is just a cordoned off part of the Horizon Court Buffet).   The Sun class ships are my favourite Princess ship by far, but I'm feeling a bit disappointed that my poor old Sea is getting left out.  Any clues? 

 

Thanks all!  Cheers, Vickie. 

I don't consider the installation of SHARE restaurant as an up-grade. It replaced the pizza restaurant on deck 8. SHARE restaurants were only installed on three ships, and generally, they were not considered a success. I think they have improved them over time, but we were told by a Head Waiter some time ago, that they would not be added to any other ships.

 

The Koi Seafood Bar was originally a sushi restaurant, but it attracted so few people, that they expanded the menu options. Even so, it hasn't been very popular. It is replaced a small bar an seating area on deck 7 near the art gallery and near the Legends Bar. On the Sea Princess this is a great place to sit and read a book or to chat.

 

The first thing I would like to see installed in the Sea Princess is anytime TV. Love it! The next addition I would like (if they are doing anything) would be an International Cafe. I have no idea if any changes are planned for the Sea Princess but I doubt it. The interesting will be how many ships remain active in the Princess fleet when cruising finally re-starts.

[Thrak]

3 minutes ago, Aus Traveller said:

I don't consider the installation of SHARE restaurant as an up-grade. It replaced the pizza restaurant on deck 8.

 

Replacing Cafe Corniche with SHARE is a terrible idea. Our first cruise was on Sea Princess. We had the absolutely tiniest inside cabin. We were in A323 which is only 135 sq. ft. Loved Cafe Corniche and that wide Promenade deck. Plenty of room for full loungers and still lots of room for pedestrians.

 

 

 

[trbarton]

1 hour ago, V_icki_e said:

Greetings CC brains trust 🙂 Does anyone have any information about the Sea Princess and possible upgrades / dry dock happening before she starts sailing again?  I notice that her sister ship, the Sun, has both a new Koi Seafood Bar as well as SHARE by Curtis Stone restaurant... yet my poor Sea Princess still only has the Sterling Steakhouse (which is just a cordoned off part of the Horizon Court Buffet).   The Sun class ships are my favourite Princess ship by far, but I'm feeling a bit disappointed that my poor old Sea is getting left out.  Any clues? 

 

Thanks all!  Cheers, Vickie. 

I’m a big fan of Share, but I realize I may be in the minority.  The last cruise I was on through the Panama Canal, on the Emerald Princess, I invited 2 of my table mates to join me & they throughly enjoyed everything. 
 

Tom😀

[By The Bay]

My wife and I are fans of Share. The food is amazing and the service first rate. The International Cafe and On Demand TV are other pluses. We haven't tried the Koi Seafood Bar, but notice it is mainly supported by the Officer crew.

[LC1950]

I cruised on the Sun Princess September/October 2019.  She has an International Cafe (yay!!!) and on demand TV in the staterooms but during the course of the cruise (15 days) I saw very few people in both Share and Koi Seafood Bar.  Our stateroom was on Deck 8 forward so used to walk through Share frequently during the day/night and the most people I ever saw in Share was 4 on a couple of nights.  Obviously it's not working.  Koi - even less people at lunch or dinner times.  Not a success either IMO.

 

I haven't cruised on the Sea Princess yet but she has that great (inclusive) pizza restaurant on Deck 8 as the Sun and Dawn used to have.  I missed the pizza restaurant on the Sun last year.

 

I fear that the Sun's and the Sea's days with Princess are numbered.  I really love that size ship.

[getting older slowly]

37 minutes ago, LC1950 said:

I fear that the Sun's and the Sea's days with Princess are numbered.  I really love that size ship.

 

I am hoping after the dust has settled.... that the cruises line realize that bigger is not better

and keep the Sea and Sun ....... Well one can dream can't they......

 

Cheers Don

[Roberto256]

6 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I don't consider the installation of SHARE restaurant as an up-grade.

 

I think that's the problem ... no one did.

 

Originally princess announced plans to replace many (maybe all) sabatini's with shares.

After the 'success' of a couple, the plan never happened.

 

 

[Aus Traveller]

1 minute ago, Roberto256 said:

 

I think that's the problem ... no one did.

 

Originally princess announced plans to replace many (maybe all) sabatini's with shares.

After the 'success' of a couple, the plan never happened.

SHARE was installed in only three Princess ships. A couple of years ago when I asked a Head Waiter is the SHARE restaurants were going to be installed in more ships he said they were not going to install any more. He shook his head and indicated that they had not been successful. Since then, the menu has been 'tweeked', so maybe they became a bit better. The initial idea of literally sharing your dishes of food with your companions was quickly removed. BTW, this sharing concept was explained in a Princess video where Curtis Stone referred to sharing food in his mother's kitchen. The concept was then 'tweeked' and they pretended the idea of 'share' was to share travel experiences. Quick thinking there! In today's COVID world, no-one would dare suggest sharing dishes of food.

[Roberto256]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

SHARE was installed in only three Princess ships. A couple of years ago when I asked a Head Waiter is the SHARE restaurants were going to be installed in more ships he said they were not going to install any more. He shook his head and indicated that they had not been successful. Since then, the menu has been 'tweeked', so maybe they became a bit better. The initial idea of literally sharing your dishes of food with your companions was quickly removed.

 

I don't see the idea of 'sharing food' being popular with covid-19.

 

A couple years ago, I was at a most traveled lunch, and sat with a food and beverage director.

 

We discussed share.  

 

He had to be politically correct, he gave a big sigh, but all he would say was that it had 'failed to meet expectations'.

 

I'm sure you know better than I, but I don't think Curtis Stone has a fantastic reputation in Australia.

In the US, I think he's best know for selling pans on the home shopping network.

 

I have always felt that if I bought good pans, that would make me a great cook.

And, if I buy the same golf clubs Tiger Woods uses, I will be a great golfer...

 

[Coral]

I have to say the pizzeria on the Sea Princess is pretty amazing! I would take this over Share any day. I love the Sea Princess.

[Thrak]

One of the reasons people don't know about Adagio on ships like Ruby Princess and Emerald Princess is because it's located right across from SHARE. Nobody goes to SHARE so they don't see Adagio. There's really no other good reason to visit that location. I think more folks discover Adagio on Crown Princess because the venue across from it is still Sabatini's which has more of a following than SHARE.

[Coral]

8 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

 

I'm sure you know better than I, but I don't think Curtis Stone has a fantastic reputation in Australia.

In the US, I think he's best know for selling pans on the home shopping network.

 

Not sure how long you have been in Omaha - but many years ago (approx 2011) he had a stint with Hy-Vee. He had a lot of BBQ/grilling/summer recipes and did a bunch of commercials. He had a theme of "food, family and fun". I actually enjoyed this promo and the recipes they had available with the promo were pretty good. They were simple and fun. I liked this side of Curtis Stone.

[Aus Traveller]

11 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

I don't see the idea of 'sharing food' being popular with covid-19.

A couple years ago, I was at a most traveled lunch, and sat with a food and beverage director. We discussed share.  

He had to be politically correct, he gave a big sigh, but all he would say was that it had 'failed to meet expectations'.

I'm sure you know better than I, but I don't think Curtis Stone has a fantastic reputation in Australia. In the US, I think he's best know for selling pans on the home shopping network. I have always felt that if I bought good pans, that would make me a great cook. And, if I buy the same golf clubs Tiger Woods uses, I will be a great golfer...

 

I had never heard of Curtis Stone before the advent of SHARE on Princess ships. Then someone pointed out that he does commercials for one of our major supermarket chains. My problem is that I don't really watch commercials. I am usually doing something else when I have the TV on so a fair bit of my TV 'watching' is listening and glancing at the screen from time to time. I don't glance at all during the commercials!

 

I love your comment about the cookware and golf clubs. 😁

[V_icki_e]

Thanks everyone ... I'm taking it that there is no news of a scheduled dry dock for the Sea Princess anytime soon. 

[Thrak]

23 minutes ago, V_icki_e said:

Thanks everyone ... I'm taking it that there is no news of a scheduled dry dock for the Sea Princess anytime soon. 

 

It really is a bit of a bummer that Sea Princess doesn't have an IC. Like many folks I absolutely love having the IC available. I've never understood how they could spend so much money on Island Princess to basically make a ton of really bad changes to the ship and then not at least add in an IC to mitigate things a bit.

[Coral]

17 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

It really is a bit of a bummer that Sea Princess doesn't have an IC. Like many folks I absolutely love having the IC available. I've never understood how they could spend so much money on Island Princess to basically make a ton of really bad changes to the ship and then not at least add in an IC to mitigate things a bit.

The intent was not to improve the Island Princess, it was to put more passengers onboard to increase revenue.

[Porky55]

12 hours ago, Coral said:

I have to say the pizzeria on the Sea Princess is pretty amazing! I would take this over Share any day. I love the Sea Princess.

Agree totally, Corniche is amazing - way better than Share. Please don’t remove it from Sea Princess. But the International Cafe could be enlarged / improved 🙄

[Porky55]

5 hours ago, V_icki_e said:

Thanks everyone ... I'm taking it that there is no news of a scheduled dry dock for the Sea Princess anytime soon. 

Sea Princess had a refurb in 2017 and looked pretty good at Christmas. I’m not sure what changes you would like to see?  Princess won’t be doing another one soon.

There is somewhere to grab a cappuccino but no pastries (so no IC) but cafe Corniche is still there with the best pizzas at sea 😉

It’s just a small ship, but seemed to have just enough of everything 🤔 what I don’t understand is why it costs so much more to cruise on both Sea and Sun??

[V_icki_e]

22 minutes ago, Porky55 said:

Sea Princess had a refurb in 2017 and looked pretty good at Christmas. I’m not sure what changes you would like to see?  Princess won’t be doing another one soon.

There is somewhere to grab a cappuccino but no pastries (so no IC) but cafe Corniche is still there with the best pizzas at sea 😉

It’s just a small ship, but seemed to have just enough of everything 🤔 what I don’t understand is why it costs so much more to cruise on both Sea and Sun??

 

I love the Sea and have booked on her again for Feb 2021 and was simply wondering if another refurb was in the plans at all, as it is coming up to 3 years since the last one.   I've never noticed any serious price differences in Australian/NZ sailings between the Sun class and Royal class ships ...  maybe it depends on the itineraries.   I know that our NZ trip on the Sea in 2019 was considerably cheaper than a similar trip on the Majestic, for a comparable stateroom.  Maybe I'm just a good bargain hunter 😉 

[Porky55]

2 hours ago, V_icki_e said:

I know that our NZ trip on the Sea in 2019 was considerably cheaper than a similar trip on the Majestic, for a comparable stateroom.  Maybe I'm just a good bargain hunter

It’s not all the time, but this Xmas we have booked a 14 day on Sun in a Balcony to South Pacific. But a similar cruise at the same time on Regal to NZ in a Balcony is way cheaper. Always book direct with Princess - not much of a bargain hunter, more of a cabin Type and location person. 😆
We just had to cancel a Regal Southampton to Brisbane 56 days because of Covid 😢 so would really like to spend some time on that ship. But just not sure cruises will happen by December   🤔

[AF-1]

I sailed Emerald right after Share was added.  I never tried the food;  nothing on the menu inspired me to pay extra verses paying extra to eat at Crown Grill.  Curtis Stone who was behind the Share experience sells his cookware on Home Shopping Network.  I believe he is from Australia

Edited June 7, 2020 by AF-1

[azbirdmom]

I know the the pizza restaurant is gone from the Sun Princess.  But is there a place to get a slice of pizza?  I see that they have the Terrace for burgers and other grilled items but I don't see pizza listed.  We will be on the Sun next year (Covid permitting) and it would be odd to be on a Princess ship with no pizza offered.  I also noticed that they have the ice cream listed under Specialty Restaurants.  Is there any place to get free ice cream (other than the MDR)?

[satxdiver]

We were on the Emerald a few years ago and decided one night at the last minute to try SHARE to see how it was.  We walked in with no reservation (non-formal night) and were seated immediately.  There was one other couple just finishing their dinner and a large table of 12 in the room.  The large table of 12 turned out to be crew.  The share idea had long passed as we were each given what we ordered.  The food was good but so isn't the food in the MDR and the service was prompt (room was mostly empty).  Final assessment was that the food was not much better than the MDR but interesting and certainly not worth the $$$.  We have never returned on sailings since that time.  I understand why SHARE is mostly empty and wasted space.