Live Island Princess FLL to LA

[crimlarks]

The shows: the 3 show that the Island Princess singers and dancers did were excellent: "Do You Wanna Dance", "Encore" and "On the Bayou".  We went to each twice (once on each segment) and thoroughly enjoyed them.  The other entertainment was about what you'd expect on a cruise ship - some quite good, some not so much, but overall we liked the shows we went to.

[crimlarks]

We're signed up for the 2024 World Cruise on the Island Princess.  I'm not sure if I'd want to be on the Island Princess for 111 days.  We'll see.  At least we have plenty of time to decide if we want to cancel.  Might opt for multiple shorter segments to different locations and on different ships instead.  The Island Princess is definitely showing its age - not sure how good it will be in 2 years.  But that's just our take.  The crew was fantastic, and the food was better than we've had on other Princess cruises.  Sometimes the Princess food is just meh - but that was rarely the case here.  Sure, there were some items that we wouldn't order again, but overall we were happy with the food and the crew in the dining room and buffet.

[chamima]

On 4/29/2022 at 8:29 AM, PatriciaF said:

Coffee bar at the Horizon Court buffet.  Or use your medallion.  I ended up deleting the app and reinstalling and no problems so far.  Haven’t done it yet for my husband and his still has issues…like journey view never opening.

 

On 4/30/2022 at 10:57 AM, crimlarks said:

My wife and I are on this cruise.  No issues with the Medallion app.  We have the same table reserved in the Provence dining room at 5:40 every evening. All our dinners were about an hour in length. The wait staff we have has been excellent. The comedian they had on the first night and last night in the Princess showroom was really funny, and the show “Do You Want to Dance?” On the second night was really well done.  Our cruise director Olivia is a lot of fun, and Ian is an interesting character.  Once I found out that Good Spirits was the place to get good coffee I’ve been getting a Red Eye and some pastries there every day.  It’s right in the Plaza on deck 5. Hasn’t been an issue with service.  So far it’s been an enjoyable experience. We’re on this B2B with the return from LA to Ft Lauderdale. So far the internet has been good as well. I watched a YouTube video this morning with no issues. I tested the speed out in the Caribbean and it was about 6 MBPS download and even faster up. Not bad. 

 

Does anyone remember the hours that the Patisserie (or at least the coffee part) was open?

We always loved the smaller ships (Pacific, Tahitian, Ocean) but I'm a late nice person and couldn't find anything open past 11 (if even that).

We're also signed up for the 2024 World Cruise and I'd really love somewhere to be open even a little later!

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by chamima

[crimlarks]

22 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

 

Does anyone remember the hours that the Patisserie (or at least the coffee part) was open?

We always loved the smaller ships (Pacific, Tahitian, Ocean) but I'm a late nice person and couldn't find anything open past 11 (if even that).

We're also signed up for the 2024 World Cruise and I'd really love somewhere to be open even a little later!

 

No Patisserie any longer - I'm guessing Good Spirits or the bar by the casino would be open late, and they both have coffee service

[chamima]

36 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

 

Does anyone remember the hours that the Patisserie (or at least the coffee part) was open?

We always loved the smaller ships (Pacific, Tahitian, Ocean) but I'm a late nice person and couldn't find anything open past 11 (if even that).

We're also signed up for the 2024 World Cruise and I'd really love somewhere to be open even a little later!

 

 

I hope I'm nice but I meant late night.

[Loveh2ofl]

4 hours ago, crimlarks said:

We're signed up for the 2024 World Cruise on the Island Princess.  I'm not sure if I'd want to be on the Island Princess for 111 days.  We'll see.  At least we have plenty of time to decide if we want to cancel.  Might opt for multiple shorter segments to different locations and on different ships instead.  The Island Princess is definitely showing its age - not sure how good it will be in 2 years.  But that's just our take.  The crew was fantastic, and the food was better than we've had on other Princess cruises.  Sometimes the Princess food is just meh - but that was rarely the case here.  Sure, there were some items that we wouldn't order again, but overall we were happy with the food and the crew in the dining room and buffet.

We signed up for the JAN 2023 world cruise after/while just doing the LA to FLL segment.  Doing the 97 day since don't want to mostly repeat the ports we just did the last two weeks.   The crew was great, a ship not used for 2 years is going to have some issues - and I sure wish the promenade deck went all around - but in a lot of ways the smaller ship and older ship is less sterile looking and had more interesting furnishings than the brand new Enchanted when we sailed on her last Dec.

[crimlarks]

1 hour ago, Loveh2ofl said:

We signed up for the JAN 2023 world cruise after/while just doing the LA to FLL segment.  Doing the 97 day since don't want to mostly repeat the ports we just did the last two weeks.   The crew was great, a ship not used for 2 years is going to have some issues - and I sure wish the promenade deck went all around - but in a lot of ways the smaller ship and older ship is less sterile looking and had more interesting furnishings than the brand new Enchanted when we sailed on her last Dec.

We wished the Promenade deck went all around too - and having the exercise room where it is, with no windows, is less than optimal, I think.  I skipped using it on this cruise, so we got our exercise by doing stairs rather than the elevator almost all the time, and walking on the Promenade deck.  But if we don't cancel the 2024 World Cruise I'll probably want to use the exercise room some to help burn off all the calories consumed and to keep my muscles in at least halfway decent shape.  The newest Princess ship we've sailed on was the Regal Princess in 2019, on a transatlantic/Baltic cruise.  We liked that ship, especially Vines, the International Cafe and Alfredo's.

[Loveh2ofl]

17 minutes ago, crimlarks said:

We wished the Promenade deck went all around too - and having the exercise room where it is, with no windows, is less than optimal, I think.  I skipped using it on this cruise, so we got our exercise by doing stairs rather than the elevator almost all the time, and walking on the Promenade deck.  But if we don't cancel the 2024 World Cruise I'll probably want to use the exercise room some to help burn off all the calories consumed and to keep my muscles in at least halfway decent shape.  The newest Princess ship we've sailed on was the Regal Princess in 2019, on a transatlantic/Baltic cruise.  We liked that ship, especially Vines, the International Cafe and Alfredo's.

Agree - would need to use the treadmill or something.  that said - I was able to get my 3 mi in using promenade, and walking from our aft stateroom to Horizon buffet and the dining rooms and the theater a few times per day plus the stairs  Would need to have an eating routine more like we do at home - altho' we didn't gain anything on this cruise...Yes - we did like Vines on Crown Princess and Caribbean Princess  and liked having a good view of the aft - on IP it's only the tiny section of deck 8.  

[Grego]

We are following this thread and looking forward to our July 13th Iceland voyage on this ship.  The object of this voyage, our 51st. with Princess, is to visit and explore the wonders of Norway, Iceland and the UK ports and we won't spend time worrying about the small things like where we would have to go for special coffee.

The posts on this thread are mostly containing good information and relaying what is working and what is not.  We have always supported the pointing out what some issues might be as long as there are possible solutions or recommendations, otherwise we do tend to ignore them.  For the most part, we have seen some of the same minor issues during our last 5 voyages since last November.  All is a process which is moving forward and ramping up as crew and services are returning.  All the cruise lines are going through the same process and we'll all be back to a better than normal soon.

[uspearls]

1 hour ago, Grego said:

All is a process which is moving forward and ramping up as crew and services are returning.  All the cruise lines are going through the same process and we'll all be back to a better than normal soon.

 

Well said and look forward to meeting you on board the July 13th cruise!

 

I am also very appreciative of cruisers offering their insights.  I've sailed on the Grand and the Enchanted since the restart and enjoyed both thoroughly - and differently.  It's hard not to be impressed by the new Royal class ships with the new dining, entertainment and drinking venues (shout out to the specialty gin bar!) and more modern look.  The consistency for me is in the service. Yes, the systems may not be perfect sometimes (Medallion, DMY) , but the crews (especially servers, bartenders and stewards) have been fantastic.  Genuinely customer focused people who have gone through goodness knows what in their home countries for two years without jobs and government subsidized COVID relief programs and are happy and proud to be working again.  Those of us who can afford to travel and cruise in these troubled times should be grateful.

[Grego]

19 hours ago, uspearls said:

 

Well said and look forward to meeting you on board the July 13th cruise!

 

I am also very appreciative of cruisers offering their insights.  I've sailed on the Grand and the Enchanted since the restart and enjoyed both thoroughly - and differently.  It's hard not to be impressed by the new Royal class ships with the new dining, entertainment and drinking venues (shout out to the specialty gin bar!) and more modern look.  The consistency for me is in the service. Yes, the systems may not be perfect sometimes (Medallion, DMY) , but the crews (especially servers, bartenders and stewards) have been fantastic.  Genuinely customer focused people who have gone through goodness knows what in their home countries for two years without jobs and government subsidized COVID relief programs and are happy and proud to be working again.  Those of us who can afford to travel and cruise in these troubled times should be grateful.

Thanks and you have just put the "cherry on top of the cake".  The biggest asset of any cruise ship or cruise line is the attitude of the crew.  Since after the "pause", we have been on the Caribbean, Enchanted and three bookings on the Emerald and all have had great crews with outstanding attitudes and a very heartfelt and honest thanks for us returning to them.

Yes, we have a way to go to get back to before Covid, but with the continuing effort to get the balance of the crew numbers we will see improvement along the way.