Sky Princess April 1st Cruise - random jottings.

[wowzz]

10 hours ago, nunyabidness said:

Apparently everyone, including yourself, had reservations for private tables.  Everyone else wanted private tables as they had reserved, and IME the MDR staff don't ask people with private reservations to share a table unless there are no private tables available at the moment.

 

You volunteered for a shared table and apparently no one immmediately after you wanted or had reserved one.  I fail to see how the sheer nincompoopery falls on Princess.

No, because lots of other diners said they were happy to share, but were all directed to tables for two. So, nincompoopery.  Why ask people if they want to share, and then ignore their wishes ?

[Gettingwarmer]

4 minutes ago, wowzz said:

No, because lots of other diners said they were happy to share, but were all directed to tables for two. So, nincompoopery.  Why ask people if they want to share, and then ignore their wishes ?

Right ok. It wasn’t clear from your original post that you knew other people had said they wanted to share but were not directed to your table. 

[Alcairns]

On 4/1/2023 at 8:06 PM, voljeep said:

FANTASTIC !

Sorry to burst your bubble but it is going to be a seafood restauant possible called The Catch. 

[Alcairns]

On 4/1/2023 at 10:06 PM, wowzz said:

Ships are to be dry docked even if they are not in service, for maritime insurance. Apologies if that is not the correct term. 

The principal reason for the drydock is to fit a bubble system to the hull. This blows tiny bubbles out of the hull and is suppose to reduce friction an make the ship faster and more economical 

 

https://www.marineinsight.com/green-shipping/how-air-lubrication-system-for-ships-work/

Edited April 3, 2023 by Alcairns

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, Alcairns said:

The principal reason for the drydock is to fit a bubble system to the hull. This blows tiny bubbles out of the hull and is suppose to reduce friction an make the ship faster and more economical 

 

https://www.marineinsight.com/green-shipping/how-air-lubrication-system-for-ships-work/

Thanks for the information. Given that Sky is a relatively new ship, I'm surprised that the technology was not incorporated at the time of construction, rather than being retro fitted after only 5 years.

[Mary loves to travel]

1 hour ago, Alcairns said:

Sorry to burst your bubble but it is going to be a seafood restauant possible called The Catch. 

Ah, so now we've heard:   Crooners, a pub-style restaurant, and a seafood restaurant.

🙂

[Lady Arwen]

12 hours ago, roadster08 said:

Happy to hear your cruise has gotten off to such a fine start. In case you missed it preparing for your cruise,  baseball season began last Friday and millions of new caps are awaiting purchase. 😉

Lol the op lives in Britain and I doubt if he even gives one thought to American baseball.  Let’s go Blue Jays!

[voljeep]

36 minutes ago, Mary loves to travel said:

Ah, so now we've heard:   Crooners, a pub-style restaurant, and a seafood restaurant.

🙂

and still Vines, correct?

 

oops - you were just posting what others had posted about possible venues

[Alcairns]

1 hour ago, Mary loves to travel said:

Ah, so now we've heard:   Crooners, a pub-style restaurant, and a seafood restaurant.

🙂

The seafood restaurant refit was direct from food and beverage manager at the suite guests Captains reception last cruise! They are also going to be doing work on the buffet. 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Alcairns

[Alcairns]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

Thanks for the information. Given that Sky is a relatively new ship, I'm surprised that the technology was not incorporated at the time of construction, rather than being retro fitted after only 5 years.

Not sure why but Captain Marco told us that this was the reason why she will be in drydock for three weeks. 

[Eglesbrech]

4 hours ago, Mary loves to travel said:

Ah, so now we've heard:   Crooners, a pub-style restaurant, and a seafood restaurant.

🙂

I’m on right after dry dock. Waiting to see what we actually get. At the moment I can still book the French restaurant.

[Pink-belle]

I preferred the rumour of them adding Crooners that I heard a few months ago.  

[wowzz]

So, back to our cruise.

Asked for a shared table again, and ended up with three other people, so a table of five. Very pleasant evening, good company, food was good,  and the service was excellent.

Watched the dancing in the piazza later. Kudos to the two young sisters dancing together.  Bravo !

 

[pink845]

Wowzz, Good to see that people are getting dressed up. We love to dress up and never go to the dining room in the evening without being a bit fancy.  We were first on the Sky in Dec 2019 and will be on it again in Dec 2023.  Always nice to update it a bit.  Question for you as we will be on the Regal in August out of Southampton.  Did you have to show any proof of vaccination upon boarding.  Any Covid tests required.  Are any of the guests / staff wearing masks.  

[GK95]

On 4/1/2023 at 10:34 AM, wowzz said:

A staff member confirmed today that Bistro de Mar will be removed during the dry dock.

Oh wow! My family was on the last Caribbean trip in mid-April before the Sky Princess went across the Atlantic. We went to Bistro Sur la Mer on my husband and I’s 22nd wedding anniversary. They were wonderful and the entire staff sang happy anniversary to us. 

[Purdey16]

Wowzz glad you’re having a lovely time on sky and things are going good for you in the restaurant, what time are you roughly going to dinner? We normally go around 8 or 8.30 so hopefully not to busy then and then onto the last show.

[wowzz]

8 hours ago, pink845 said:

Wowzz, Good to see that people are getting dressed up. We love to dress up and never go to the dining room in the evening without being a bit fancy.  We were first on the Sky in Dec 2019 and will be on it again in Dec 2023.  Always nice to update it a bit.  Question for you as we will be on the Regal in August out of Southampton.  Did you have to show any proof of vaccination upon boarding.  Any Covid tests required.  Are any of the guests / staff wearing masks.  

No vaccination proof required. The odd crew member is wearing a mask, and the occasional passenger, so I would say 99.9% are maskless.

[wowzz]

1 hour ago, Purdey16 said:

Wowzz glad you’re having a lovely time on sky and things are going good for you in the restaurant, what time are you roughly going to dinner? We normally go around 8 or 8.30 so hopefully not to busy then and then onto the last show.

We have a standing booking at 20:00 on Soleil. On formal night there was a bit of a queue, last night we just had to wait a couple of minutes. Not many people seened to come in much after 20:20 

[grapau27]

On 4/1/2023 at 3:34 PM, wowzz said:

I have no wish to do a live blog, but thought I would just post random thoughts on our 14 night cruise, as they occur to me. Apologies in advance to non-Brit readers for any parochial content.

The cruise is the first European cruise for Sky in 2023, and comes after an early arrival into Southampton  - already well documented ! After this cruise there will be a short 4 day "booze cruise ", and then Sky goes into dry dock. A staff member confirmed today that Bistro de Mar will be removed during the dry dock.

We drove to Southampton yesterday. Stayed in the Premier Inn City Centre ( not West Quay). Booking ahead, the room cost £62. The weather was miserable, so we bought the meal deal for £25 each, as we did not fancy the (admittedly)short walk into town in the rain . The food was actually pretty good. Unfortunately we got one of the dreaded rooms overlooking the railway line, so a bit noisy.  Car parking at the hotel cost  £10, so overall £122 for the stay. In July we will drive down the same day.

We arrived at the Mayflower terminal at 11am. Dropped off our bags, and my wife. A porter took our cases - I don't carry cash, but gave him £1 or so in loose change from the stash I have in the car for car parks. Seemed happy enough.

Then I drove a short distance to the short stay carpark - handed the car over to Parking4cruises. £135 for 14 days. 5% discount for previous customers.

Worth pointing out that there were enormous queues for CPS at this stage. Three lines of cars, with 20 cars in each line. 

Met up with my wife and went straight through to check in. No one asked us what our check in time was, although we did have an 11am slot. The agent checked our passports onto her iPad,  and then collected and gave us our Medallions. I took the opportunity to ask her about the QR codes that everyone worries about.  Her response was that if someone shows her the code,  she will scan it, out of politeness,  but otherwise the QR code is  not needed. Total time - Five minutes.  

Security was efficient and extremely friendly. We were actually on board the ship by 11:30 !

Cabins not ready so found a seat in the Photo Centre. The central piazza was pretty packed. 

No announcements were made as to when the cabins were ready, but around 12:45 people just seemed to disappear,  so we upped sticks and went to our cabin (standard minisuute).

Then to Alfredos where we shared a pizza,  and had a couple of celebratory glasses of wine. 

Final observations for now:

3960 pax on board, so pretty much full, with quite a lot of children 

Staff are all happy and enthusiastic,  as always. 

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to your review wowzz.

Just caught up and pleased you are having a great time.

 

Edited April 4, 2023 by grapau27

[wowzz]

Second formal night. The first night was a bit average,  so we were hoping for a plethora of gastronomic delights tonight.  Beef Wellington, Lobster Tail - who knows?

And what do we get - sausages and mash ! I like sausages a lot, but I don't expect to eat them when wearing a dinner jacket !

So, Roast Beef (British style  - what does that mean ?) for me. Ordered medium rare, but had spent so long under the heat lamp that it was well done by the time I got it. My wife had the New York strip, which was basically a lot of gristle.

Our dining companion had coq au vin, which was severely lacking in the vin department .

I felt sorry for the wait staff. No management around, so we made our feelings known to our waiter, but what could he do ?

Overall, a bad night for Princess, from our point of view.

[lucas34]

24 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Second formal night. The first night was a bit average,  so we were hoping for a plethora of gastronomic delights tonight.  Beef Wellington, Lobster Tail - who knows?

And what do we get - sausages and mash ! I like sausages a lot, but I don't expect to eat them when wearing a dinner jacket !

So, Roast Beef (British style  - what does that mean ?) for me. Ordered medium rare, but had spent so long under the heat lamp that it was well done by the time I got it. My wife had the New York strip, which was basically a lot of gristle.

Our dining companion had coq au vin, which was severely lacking in the vin department .

I felt sorry for the wait staff. No management around, so we made our feelings known to our waiter, but what could he do ?

Overall, a bad night for Princess, from our point of view.

So sorry for your food. I will be on board next June could you please check the price for Sky Princess  ship model (maybe at candy Shop?)? Do you know if they still have free ship postcards from front desk?

[villauk]

10 hours ago, wowzz said:

Second formal night. The first night was a bit average,  so we were hoping for a plethora of gastronomic delights tonight.  Beef Wellington, Lobster Tail - who knows?

And what do we get - sausages and mash ! I like sausages a lot, but I don't expect to eat them when wearing a dinner jacket !

So, Roast Beef (British style  - what does that mean ?) for me. Ordered medium rare, but had spent so long under the heat lamp that it was well done by the time I got it. My wife had the New York strip, which was basically a lot of gristle.

Our dining companion had coq au vin, which was severely lacking in the vin department .

I felt sorry for the wait staff. No management around, so we made our feelings known to our waiter, but what could he do ?

Overall, a bad night for Princess, from our point of view.

Bangers and mash for formal night 😮!
 

May I ask if you can get Malbec anywhere on the ship? If it’s still not available, like last year on Enchanted, then we’ll bring our own.

[Alcairns]

9 minutes ago, villauk said:

Bangers and mash for formal night 😮!
 

May I ask if you can get Malbec anywhere on the ship? If it’s still not available, like last year on Enchanted, then we’ll bring our own.

Definitely available last week on Sky. On the plus package so cannot tell you who the wine was made by. I had it in MDR and Crown Grill.

[gah_cruise]

14 hours ago, wowzz said:

Second formal night. The first night was a bit average,  so we were hoping for a plethora of gastronomic delights tonight.  Beef Wellington, Lobster Tail - who knows?

And what do we get - sausages and mash ! I like sausages a lot, but I don't expect to eat them when wearing a dinner jacket !

So, Roast Beef (British style  - what does that mean ?) for me. Ordered medium rare, but had spent so long under the heat lamp that it was well done by the time I got it. My wife had the New York strip, which was basically a lot of gristle.

Our dining companion had coq au vin, which was severely lacking in the vin department .

I felt sorry for the wait staff. No management around, so we made our feelings known to our waiter, but what could he do ?

Overall, a bad night for Princess, from our point of view.

I am hearing several reports like this about Sky's formal evening food.
Don't think I will bother taking a dinner suit. See no point dressing up if the main part of the evening is poor.

 

[wowzz]

4 hours ago, villauk said:

May I ask if you can get Malbec anywhere on the ship? If it’s still not available, like last year on Enchanted, then we’ll bring our own

Available in most bars, and certainly in the MDRs. We have the plus package, and the waiters in the MDR normally ask if we want a double. Saves them extra work!