If You Could Change Just One Thing?

[nimiq]

When money will be back for refurbishing your ships make a better job to put them back to date. Celebrity does a great job at that. 

[caribill]

14 hours ago, rbtan said:

 

2) Yes, theaters are surprisingly small, even on Royal class ships. 3 shows might be tough on the performers, though.

 

 

Some history:

1. Production shows used to be 45 minutes long with two performances in one evening. Thus performers on stage for 90 minutes.

2. Because of lack of sufficient seating, Princess had two performances one evening and a third performance the next evening.

3. Princess then changed to three 30-minute performances in one evening. Again, performers on state for 90 minutes.

4. Princess cut back to two 30-minute performances in one evening.

 

(Note: Times of 45 minutes and 30 minutes are what was advertised. Some performances ended up running longer than those times.)

 

 

[Lucky TGO]

On 3/11/2021 at 2:51 AM, caribill said:

 

Some history:

1. Production shows used to be 45 minutes long with two performances in one evening. Thus performers on stage for 90 minutes.

2. Because of lack of sufficient seating, Princess had two performances one evening and a third performance the next evening.

3. Princess then changed to three 30-minute performances in one evening. Again, performers on state for 90 minutes.

4. Princess cut back to two 30-minute performances in one evening.

 

(Note: Times of 45 minutes and 30 minutes are what was advertised. Some performances ended up running longer than those times.)

 

 

Hi Caribill,

You forgot to mention if you want to sit next to your wife and two friends. You have to get to the Princess Theater almost one hour before the show stats. 😳

Tony

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, Lucky TGO said:

Hi Caribill,

You forgot to mention if you want to sit next to your wife and two friends. You have to get to the Princess Theater almost one hour before the show stats. 😳

Tony

 

My wife and I usually show up a good 45 minutes early to get decent seats. We usually get a drink to take with us and we read while waiting for the show to start. We like seats with the railing in front of them. It makes a great place to set a drink and there's nobody really close in front of you. We have "favorite seats" but rarely ever show up early enough to get them. Apparently others like those seats as well.

[Thrak]

I wish they would change what they call "hash browns". I will obviously never get what I consider to be "real" hash browns - what I get in the local diner. Heck, I never found those when traveling through Canada either but I did get served good potatoes. Princess has that odd little puck with an odd flavor. Even the things that fast food places serve as hash browns (again, not "real" hash brown potatoes) are  superior to what Princess offers.

[mtnesterz]

2 hours ago, Lucky TGO said:

Hi Caribill,

You forgot to mention if you want to sit next to your wife and two friends. You have to get to the Princess Theater almost one hour before the show stats. 😳

 

Yes! People say they love the Royal class but IMO they're just Grand Class with passenger decks added. Insufficient theater seating and no additional elevators. 

 

To the OP question, "If I could change one thing?" Princess should regain their brand identity. They're not RCI, a crowded bus at sea. They're not a kid's party ship with puke on the decks, like Carnival, or a stately ocean conveyance, like Cunard. They're the Love Boats. I'm not sure how that plays out in practice, but the way they're going with ever bigger ships isn't it.

[Lady Arwen]

7 minutes ago, mtnesterz said:

Yes! People say they love the Royal class but IMO they're just Grand Class with passenger decks added. Insufficient theater seating and no additional elevators. 

 

To the OP question, "If I could change one thing?" Princess should regain their brand identity. They're not RCI, a crowded bus at sea. They're not a kid's party ship with puke on the decks, like Carnival, or a stately ocean conveyance, like Cunard. They're the Love Boats. I'm not sure how that plays out in practice, but the way they're going with ever bigger ships isn't it.

OP here.  I love the bigger Royal class ships.  Of course, I would hate all the toys on RCI and NCL to be added.  I like the Grand class too, but, so far Royal class is my fav.  Just big enough, but still elegant and sophisticated.  Just my opinion, of course.

[caribill]

6 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

OP here.  I love the bigger Royal class ships.  Of course, I would hate all the toys on RCI and NCL to be added.  I like the Grand class too, but, so far Royal class is my fav.  Just big enough, but still elegant and sophisticated.  Just my opinion, of course.

 

Great ships, but really not suitable for itineraries such as 10 days in French Polynesia or up the Amazon River to Manaus or visiting the Falkland Islands.

[Potstech]

31 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

My wife and I usually show up a good 45 minutes early to get decent seats. We usually get a drink to take with us and we read while waiting for the show to start. We like seats with the railing in front of them. It makes a great place to set a drink and there's nobody really close in front of you. We have "favorite seats" but rarely ever show up early enough to get them. Apparently others like those seats as well.

Would be great to bring back the theater seats that have a small tray in them to set drinks and other items on.  Made it a much better experience.  Thanks for the reminder about them.

[Thrak]

3 minutes ago, Potstech said:

Would be great to bring back the theater seats that have a small tray in them to set drinks and other items on.  Made it a much better experience.  Thanks for the reminder about them.

 

I'm not at all a fan of those little tables that pull up out of the arm of the chair. They might be nice for the more slender folks but I don't fit that description. They work far better for my wife than for me. My fat belly gets in the way. D'Oh!

[MamaFej]

14 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

I'm not at all a fan of those little tables that pull up out of the arm of the chair. They might be nice for the more slender folks but I don't fit that description. They work far better for my wife than for me. My fat belly gets in the way. D'Oh!

The seats with those remind me of the lecture halls in college.

 

I noticed that it's more fun to place a drink on them than a notebook with lecture notes about Australopithicus fossils in Lower Pleistocene deposits. But maybe that's just me. 

[beg3yrs]

1 hour ago, Thrak said:

 

I'm not at all a fan of those little tables that pull up out of the arm of the chair. They might be nice for the more slender folks but I don't fit that description. They work far better for my wife than for me. My fat belly gets in the way. D'Oh!

Not having cruised for a year now, my belly has shrunk 3 inches. I'm sure it will be back in shape after cruising resumes!

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, caribill said:

 

Great ships, but really not suitable for itineraries such as 10 days in French Polynesia or up the Amazon River to Manaus or visiting the Falkland Islands.

It's hard to be all things to all people.  For those more intimate experiences, perhaps HAL can deliver.  I wonder a bit if Carnival won't find some harmonies there between the two lines and Jan Swarz is in charge of both now, right?  As well as Seabourne (small super-lux).  IDK, you gotta figure there is more rationalization to occur with ships and perhaps this is a way.  Pure speculation.

 

[caribill]

5 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

It's hard to be all things to all people.  For those more intimate experiences, perhaps HAL can deliver.  I wonder a bit if Carnival won't find some harmonies there between the two lines and Jan Swarz is in charge of both now, right?  As well as Seabourne (small super-lux).  IDK, you gotta figure there is more rationalization to occur with ships and perhaps this is a way.  Pure speculation.

 

 

HAL got rid of the ship it was using for the really exotic itineraries, the Maasdam.

 

Jan Swarz is over PCL and HAL, but not CCL.

[Thrak]

6 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

Not having cruised for a year now, my belly has shrunk 3 inches. I'm sure it will be back in shape after cruising resumes!

 

I think it's probably more common for folks to have actually gained weight during this time. Congratulations on your weight loss.

[Thrak]

On 3/10/2021 at 9:15 AM, rbtan said:

Yeah! Just love those wet curtains sticking to your keister!

 

I'll never understand why people have problems with the shower curtain. I simply wet the bottom edge of the thing and then stick it to the outer rim of the shower enclosure and doesn't cause me any trouble at all.

[ontheweb]

14 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

My wife and I usually show up a good 45 minutes early to get decent seats. We usually get a drink to take with us and we read while waiting for the show to start. We like seats with the railing in front of them. It makes a great place to set a drink and there's nobody really close in front of you. We have "favorite seats" but rarely ever show up early enough to get them. Apparently others like those seats as well.

On our very first show on our first time on Princess, we obviously did not know you had to show up so early, and ended up standing in the back. DW had a migraine the next day which she thought was caused by that.

 

So to add to something I would change, more seating capacity at the theaters especially as the ships take on more passengers.

[mtnesterz]

16 hours ago, Thrak said:

I wish they would change what they call "hash browns". I will obviously never get what I consider to be "real" hash browns - what I get in the local diner. Heck, I never found those when traveling through Canada either but I did get served good potatoes. Princess has that odd little puck with an odd flavor. Even the things that fast food places serve as hash browns (again, not "real" hash brown potatoes) are  superior to what Princess offers.

Weighty issues. For me, the breakfast offender is the biscuits. How they can serve such bad biscuits... with tepid gravy? Then I considered that the cooks have no idea what western food generally tastes like. They're following a recipe, or maybe just opening a premixed bag. Last night I made Sinigang, a Filipino pork soup. Good, but I have no idea how it's supposed to taste. That's the problem.

Hey Princess, here's how to make biscuits:

https://www.latimes.com/recipe/eula-maes-buttermilk-biscuits

...And the gravy needs to be hot.

Edited March 13, 2021 by mtnesterz

[Lady Arwen]

9 minutes ago, mtnesterz said:

Weighty issues. For me, the breakfast offender is the biscuits. How they can serve such bad biscuits... with tepid gravy? Then I considered that the cooks have no idea what American food generally tastes like. They're following a recipe, or maybe just opening a premixed bag. Last night I made Sinigang, a Filipino pork soup. Good, but have no idea how it's supposed to taste. That's the problem.

Hey Princess, here's how to make biscuits:

https://www.latimes.com/recipe/eula-maes-buttermilk-biscuits

...And the gravy needs to be hot.

 

As a Canadian, the “biscuits and gravy” thing is not something I’ve even thought of eating lol. Gravy for breakfast just seems so strange.  It’s probably delicious, so maybe I’ll try it on our next cruise.  I’ll be sure to ask if they used your recipe!

[mtnesterz]

2 minutes ago, Lady Arwen said:

As a Canadian, the “biscuits and gravy” thing is not something I’ve even thought of eating lol. Gravy for breakfast just seems so strange.  It’s probably delicious, so maybe I’ll try it on our next cruise.  I’ll be sure to ask if they used your recipe!

I make the analogy to Poutine, a Canadian invention. A rich gravy over carbs. You know what I mean that it needs to be hot.

[Lady Arwen]

28 minutes ago, mtnesterz said:

I make the analogy to Poutine, a Canadian invention. A rich gravy over carbs. You know what I mean that it needs to be hot.

Ahh, I get it now!  Excellent analogy.  And, yes it must be piping hot or the gravy is like gelatinous glue!

[dog]

Back again- my pet peeve- over crowded elevators. There has to be some control on this issue. No where else on the ship do you have to be so close to others. 

[mtnesterz]

2 hours ago, dog said:

Back again- my pet peeve- over crowded elevators. There has to be some control on this issue. No where else on the ship do you have to be so close to others. 

See post #181. This is all on Princess.

[dog]

22 hours ago, mtnesterz said:

Yes! People say they love the Royal class but IMO they're just Grand Class with passenger decks added. Insufficient theater seating and no additional elevators. 

 

To the OP question, "If I could change one thing?" Princess should regain their brand identity. They're not RCI, a crowded bus at sea. They're not a kid's party ship with puke on the decks, like Carnival, or a stately ocean conveyance, like Cunard. They're the Love Boats. I'm not sure how that plays out in practice, but the way they're going with ever bigger ships isn't it.

 

1 hour ago, mtnesterz said:

See post #181. This is all on Princess.

sorry, I don’t see what you mean re: elevators overcrowding 

[mtnesterz]

26 minutes ago, dog said:

sorry, I don’t see what you mean re: elevators overcrowding 

"...no additional elevators." The Grand class carries 2600 passengers, Royal class, 3600 passengers.

Sorry if I wasn't clearer. As I see it, a design issue. But I agree with you. I plan to take the stairs next cruise. I should use them anyway to work off the calories!