Emerald Princess - August 13th - 25th - British Isles and Ireland Review

[dreaminofcruisin]

We are just off the Emerald Princess on Thursday. We had a WONDERFUL cruise and while not everything went perfectly, we really enjoyed ourselves. For reference, we are a couple in our 60s and traveled with another couple in the same age range. There were 2666 passengers on the cruise, with around 1100 or so being Americans (as we are).

 

EZ Air – Traveling by air these days is really challenging. Twice in the last few months, one of my flights was cancelled. The most recent being the weekend before we left. The cancellation was the return flight and I reached EZ Air on a Monday morning fairly quickly by calling as soon as they opened. I was on the phone with the rep for almost an hour as she and someone else tried to find a flight for me. I ended up on Iceland Air and while I don’t think it was ‘up to’ the level of Business Class I had paid for on Virgin Atlantic, it got me home, so that is most important. All of our luggage made it both directions.

 

Embarkation / Disembarkation – We had an 11:00 time, though not sure anyone cared. We got there shortly after 11 and never sat down. We just moved from one area to the next, answering questions, showing documentation and walked onto the ship. Really awesome! For disembarking, we were taking a Princess bus to LHR. We got to our meeting place 5 minutes before the time and they told us they were already ready for us to leave! Wow! Again….never stopped moving….out to the bus and there was a bus just filling up for terminal 2. We were the last ones on it and off we went.

 

The Captain – I cannot say enough about the Captain of the Emerald Princess, Christopher Lye. He is my new favorite captain, even beating out Captain “Bye Bye” Tuvo. He gave long informative messages on the ports we were visiting and the things that might be viewed on the way during his noon and sail away messages. He also kept us informed on the status of an engine that went out resulting in us arriving late into Cobh, but was able to be repaired, so had no other repercussions. He also mentioned that there might be a few ‘blemishes’ on the ship as the Emerald Princess was one of the later ones scheduled for dry dock (this fall), since it was in better condition than some other ships after the shutdown. Although we saw rust spots (this is a ship on salt water, after all), this certainly did NOT detract from our enjoyment.

 

Dine My Way – I was able to make dining reservations for each evening at different times prior to the cruise for the 4 of us. We usually dine based on sail away time as we like to be on our balcony for sail away, so generally reserved a dinner time sometime after that. Most days, this was around 6 pm, though occasionally it was 7 pm. All reservations were in the DaVinci Dining Room as that was what was available pre-cruise. When I got on the ship, all of my reservations had duplicated in the Michelangelo Dining Room, so I had 2 reservations each night. We decided to stick with Michelangelo and deleted the other reservations. There was only one line for dining each evening and I think the longest line we were in had 3 groups in front of us! I don’t know if a lot of the British passengers eat very late or they skip the dining room all together? Since this was such a port intensive cruise, it might be that people wanted to eat more quickly in the buffet. We had great service in the dining room and the 4 of us always were done within an hour and half and often just over an hour. We did have one dinner in the Crown Grill which was included in our booking. I was able to make that reservation pre-boarding in the app and it “knew” to take ours and our companion’s free dinners, so it didn’t charge us. We did both get a notice in our stateroom that a reservation had been made for us in Sabatini’s and included our free coupons, but we talked to Customer Service and they could check and see that our reservations were intact at the Crown Grill, so we just ignored that notice.

 

Plus Beverage Package – This worked out fine for everything except wine. There was very little choice of included wine by the glass anywhere on the ship, if you are a dry white to medium dry white wine drinker. There was one chardonnay, which I wasn’t fond of, so I generally drank the one pinot grigio available. I found this especially disappointing in Vines. There were NO other wines by the glass available in Vines than at any other bar for a dry white wine drinker. This was probably my biggest disappointment on the ship as many of the wines I have tried at Vines in the past have become favorites that I will then buy at home. Princess newest ships do not include Vines and I guess that’s just as well, as it’s not really a wine bar any more than any other bar now. There were also no wines by the glass that I could pay the up charge for, so having the Premier package wouldn’t have done me any good either. Although I finally did get a paper menu, there was no QR code like other bars and the menu pretty much listed mostly only bottles of wine. I was talking to a server there and he admitted that he was also frustrated as he couldn’t make his customers happy. Instead of wine, I drank more mixed drinks than usual due to the lack of wine selection. There were a lot of beers on the menu, but DH was disappointed that there were only 2 draft selections—Heineken and Newcastle. It seems like in the recent past, the Wheelhouse bar used to have more draft selections, but I guess that went away? We had no problem getting drinks with the package and it’s nice that they now allow you to pick up 2 bottles of water per person at a time. They also had no problem with us ordering 2 Bloody Marys and a beer to split between us at the same time (called a chaser or a snit here in the Midwest). DH also could get a double shot of whiskey. We never came anywhere close to the 15 drinks a day limit, but I think we could still justify the cost of Plus, but not Premier. We were once charged for a bottle of water in the Dining Room, but I went to Customer Service and they immediately corrected it. Also, just FYI, there were straws on the ship readily available. They were paper and I was fine with them as I do like a straw with my Bloody Mary….

 

Medallion App/Internet – We really struggled with this when we first got on the ship. It did a lot of locking up and spinning. I had seen other posters that said to log off and log on using your room number and birthdate. DO THIS AS SOON AS YOU GET ON THE SHIP!!!!! It made a world of difference! The internet wasn’t fast, but I was able to go online, check email, read my hometown paper etc. I didn’t try streaming anything or uploading as I found Princess T.V. had a lot of choices of Movies, etc. We did do a couple of WiFi calls home to deal with a minor issue. One of them we successfully used WiFi calling. The other one, we tried WiFi Calling, but had a bad connection, so switched to using Whats App. That seemed a bit better. I think most of our issues with that was that we were not in port at the time and likely there were a lot of others using the WiFi as well---just a guess. I think there is room for a lot of improvement with the internet, but we were able to do what we wanted on it.

 

I did try and use the Medallion app to order drinks a couple of times. The first time was a total failure as I ordered a Diet Coke and it went to the Preparing stage, but never got to the Delivery stage. After about an hour it self-cancelled the order. I don’t know if they figured out that I gave up and went and got it or what? This didn’t give me a lot of confidence, so I didn’t try it again until the last night of the cruise. We were sitting on the back of the ship near the Outrigger Bar. It was later in the evening, so that bar was closed. I decided this was a good opportunity to try ordering a drink on the app again. I ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio and it showed up in about 10 minutes. Yay! Maybe I’ll try more on the next cruise….

 

The Crew – Wow! Just wow! Best crew ever! I can only guess that we must have had some extra staff on board that were training or something? I’ve never seen so many of the crew who were just standing in the buffet ready to pick up your plate as soon as you finished. They were right there any time you sat down asking if you needed a beverage. The International Café was similar. I have never seen such outstanding service! Our room steward, Joao, was also great! He serviced my room always when I was gone. I used the little lights to request service or ask for privacy outside our door and I think this really helped him know when we were gone for a while.

 

Covid – The cruise started out as ‘recommending’ mask wearing. About ½ through the cruise, we received notice that there were covid cases among passengers and staff, so they were changing it to ‘required’ mask wearing. Surprisingly, to start with, about 90% of people complied with this. It waned more as each day went by and I didn’t see them enforcing it much except I did see they had masks in the buffet they were handing out at least the first day or so. The entire cruise they were strongly encouraging people to use the sinks and wash hands. We even saw short lines at the sinks on occasion. We didn’t start out wearing masks much except in crowded areas, but after it was required, we complied. Their ship, their rules. Of the 4 of us, so far, 1 just tested positive after getting home.

 

Entertainment – This was a port intensive cruise, so the entertainment was not as important to us as on some itineraries. However, for the most part, it seemed like Princess is perhaps struggling to find good entertainment? In the piazza, on a couple of occasions, there was a plate spinner. I haven’t seen a plate spinner since I was a kid watching Ed Sullivan. Unique, I guess. We watched a comedian one night and weren’t impressed. One of the people with us knew all his punch lines, so the jokes were pretty old. The piano player in Crooners was playing ‘show tunes’ the night we were there. All the songs were written before I was born…..and I am in my 60s. We left when we could find an appropriate time and went to Skywalkers for a bit more current music. Gracie’s Secret was the party band and they were pretty good. The one exceptional act was a group called MOBO. We had missed them in the theater, but just happened to be in Explorer’s Lounge when the room started to really fill up. Apparently, others had seen them and really enjoyed them. They were very good. We did watch one production show in the Princess theater which was “Sweet Soul Music”. It was ok.

 

Ports – I’m not going to post too much about ports as many others have documented what they have done. We learned a lot especially with a private tour in Cobh and a private tour in Belfast. The difference of opinion between someone living in Ireland and someone in Northern Ireland was quite interesting. We really enjoyed seeing all the many ports in the British Isles and Ireland.

 

Overall, the cruise was great! We really enjoyed ourselves and were so happy to be back on Princess after about 2 1/2 years. We bought 2 FCDs each and are looking forward to our next cruise!

 

If anyone has any questions, I am happy to try and answer them.

[JimmyVWine]

Thanks so much for this.  We have booked a similar cruise on Regal for April.  With respect to the wine service, it seems as if the crew is now in tune with the fact that Princess is failing here.  Did you get the sense from anyone with whom you spoke that they are working on improving the situation?  While I am resigned to the fact that I will not drink any of the wines that are included within the Plus package price on my next cruise in a month, I was pretty much banking (literally) on the fact that my OBC would be used to upgrade to better quality wines.  But it sounds like even this can be a dead end?  Are the frustrated crew members offering any insight as to what is going to be done to change the currently dreadful situation?

Edited August 28, 2022 by JimmyVWine

[dreaminofcruisin]

19 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

Thanks so much for this.  We have booked a similar cruise on Regal for April.  With respect to the wine service, it seems as if the crew is now in tune with the fact that Princess is failing here.  Did you get the sense from anyone with whom you spoke that they are working on improving the situation?  While I am resigned to the fact that I will not drink any of the wines that are included within the Plus package price on my next cruise in a month, I was pretty much banking (literally) on the fact that my OBC would be used to upgrade to better quality wines.  But it sounds like even this can be a dead end?  Are the frustrated crew members offering any insight as to what is going to be done to change the currently dreadful situation?

 

That was pretty much what I was thinking....I would pay the few dollars more upcharge. However, in Vines especially, the menu I saw, the only by the glass wines were the generic listing:  Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, etc. The rest of the wines were all by the bottle. I don't know if this is true on all the ships or it varies? The menu was a booklet though, so it led me to believe it was intentional. I just don't know what Princess is thinking. The server in Vines said he had all kinds of bottles that weren't on the menu that he couldn't sell and yet there were bottles on the menu that he didn't have. It really sounds like a mess. I don't know if Princess plans on doing anything about it, but just hope that everyone who is frustrated will be commenting on it in the survey....as I certainly will be.

 

If you drink more of a variety of wine than I do---both Reds and Whites, you might find a few that you can upcharge to, but I still think it is pretty limited. ☹️

 

[wowzz]

2 hours ago, dreaminofcruisin said:

I don’t know if a lot of the British passengers eat very late or they skip the dining room all together?

No, you were eating very early !

Most Brits would eat from 19:30 onwards. 19:00 is not "very" late,  it is actually early ! 

On cruises with mainly British passengers, peak time is 19:30 to 20:30.