Live from Enchanted Princess - East/West Carib 27 July-10 August

[Canuker]

Thanks wj

[555]

2 hours ago, mdgary said:

Surprisingly it wasn’t too bad and was able to find a table without to much trouble. Will say that so far the buffet has been very disappointing for breakfast and lunch. The food is barely warm and choices are not great.

It sounds like things have gone downhill since the last time we were aboard. I would have pointed the temp issue to the sous chef. 

[555]

58 minutes ago, wallyj said:

Take5  still has lounge/seating area available by the bar. The whole area is non smoking, but smoke can enter when someone enters thru the door that connects to the casino. The slot machines take up about 50% of the space.

It sounds like they need a few dozen complaints to keep those doors locked. It's the least they could do. 

[mdgary]

7 hours ago, Canuker said:

mdgary (OP): thank you for posting this. Very helpful: we board the day your cruise ends.

2 questions, please:

1. Your cruise sailed as "sold out". How busy wold you say the ship is? Any bottleneck areas?

2. What is the current status of the "Take 5 Lounge", please? Is it still usable as a lounge or has it become part of the casino? How's the casino smoke in there? Is it still called "Take 5"?

 

Thanks,

Canuker

 

While the cruise is sold out we haven’t noticed any bottleneck areas really. We have noticed some very long lines for later diners in the Amalfi dining room.

 

Will check on Take 5 and let you know.

[mdgary]

Day 4 update. Port day in Roatan Honduras. We did the Tropical Brewery tour and while not spectacular we did enjoy the tour. The tour starts with about a 20 minute air conditioned bus ride to the brewery. Once there the owner gives a welcome and explains the tour. For the standard tour you can choose 4 to sample (for $5 extra you can choose  from a list of 10 alcoholic and 3 non-alcoholic. You are also provided a nice light snack with German sausages and pretzels. After the sampling the owner gives a nice 20 minute explanation of how the various beers are made. After the brewery it was back on the bus forma 30 minute trip back to the ship though the “downtown” area. The tour guide gives a good idea of how life is on Roatan which seems like it could be a challenge for the locals.

 

Dining continues to be on the poorer side. Service has been excellent in the Amalfi dining room but the selections leave alot to be desired. Choices were so bad last night that I ordered the upgrade to the Filet Mignon which was big mistake. This was one of the worst steaks I have had in some time and wound up only eating about a quarter of it. Should have sent it back but didn’t. 

 

Breakfast in the buffet today wasn’t much better than the previous nights steak. Again everything is barely warm with some items have little or no taste. Plan on trying the main dining room tomorrow to see if thats any better.

 

Will provide menu for tonight a little later but here is todays patter.

[mdgary]

Day 4 Dinner menu

[JamieLogical]

Wow! This menu is my favorite Princess menu with the vol au vent and goat cheese souffle. Definitely goes to show how food is subjective!

[geehp]

Thanks, mdgary, for taking the time to share your cruise with the rest of us.  We are on the August 10th 14 day repositioning (along, apparently, with several others monitoring this thread), so we are paying close attention. The patters and menus are especially appreciated  Sounds like the dining has not wowed you so far.  Please let us know if that improves over the rest of the cruise.  Also, please let us know if you decide to try out any of the specialty restaurants—Rudy’s, Crown Grille, Sabatini’s, etc.

[galensgrl]

On 7/29/2024 at 11:54 AM, chubbypiggy said:

Which ports will you be visiting? 

 

We will embark on Aug. 10 for a b2b (14 days Caribbean and 7 days NE and Canada).  So, will be following your thread very closely for the most recent information.  Mainly interested to see the daily Patter and menus of the dining room.  TIA.

 

 

That's an interesting itinerary to me. We did a Bermuda/New England/Canada cruise in 2012 and that was a fun trip. Wishing you the best and Bon Voyage on your upcoming trip. 

[Scottdalfonso]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Wow! This menu is my favorite Princess menu with the vol au vent and goat cheese souffle. Definitely goes to show how food is subjective!

It definitely is subjective...I'm a little more adventurous, but I'm looking at this night 4 menu (and at least one of the others so far) and thinking- my poor wife is gonna be ordering Caesar salad and chicken breast every other night..lol 

[JamieLogical]

5 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

It definitely is subjective...I'm a little more adventurous, but I'm looking at this night 4 menu (and at least one of the others so far) and thinking- my poor wife is gonna be ordering Caesar salad and chicken breast every other night..lol 

 

Are vol au vent and goat cheese souffle adventurous? Who doesn't love seafood bisque in a little puff pastry cup? Who doesn't love cheese?!?!?!?!

[mdgary]

Day 5 - Belize City, Belize. Waiting for our tour meetup time to take the tender ashore. Doing the scenic river cruise today and really looking forward to it. For breakfast we just ordered english muffins sandwiches and coffee using Ocean Now, We have ordered a few times so far and average time for delivery has been around 45 minutes for food was is fine. Attaching todays patters as well

[Scottdalfonso]

3 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Are vol au vent and goat cheese souffle adventurous? Who doesn't love seafood bisque in a little puff pastry cup? Who doesn't love cheese?!?!?!?!

I love goat cheese- seafood is where you lose us, which is a big part of any cruise menu. 

[JamieLogical]

31 minutes ago, Scottdalfonso said:

I love goat cheese- seafood is where you lose us, which is a big part of any cruise menu. 

 

Oh no! I can see where it would be hard to find good options in MDRs if you don't love seafood! I don't eat fish, though I will eat ALL the shellfish, and even that proves challenging. 

[galensgrl]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Are vol au vent and goat cheese souffle adventurous? Who doesn't love seafood bisque in a little puff pastry cup? Who doesn't love cheese?!?!?!?!

This rotation of menus is in a slightly different order than what I've seen recently. It will either be Italian night for MDR night four, or the Chef's dinner for our cruise on the Enchanted next week.  I'm hoping for the Chefs Dinner for night 4 so I can try the Vol Au Vent. We have a few specialty dinners lined up so no MDR for a few nights. 

[galensgrl]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Oh no! I can see where it would be hard to find good options in MDRs if you don't love seafood! I don't eat fish, though I will eat ALL the shellfish, and even that proves challenging. 

I agree. I'm looking forward to the shellfish as well. I love salmon too so hopefully lots of shrimp, salmon and scallops. I actually prefer all that to a lobster tail, but I'll enjoy a lobster tail if that's on offer. I live in New England so I can find fresh fish and shellfish but it has become expensive everywhere, even here on the coast.

[mdgary]

Dining update…. Skipped main dining room last night as nothing looked good on the menu for my wife or myself. Opted for the buffet and in addition to the regular menu choices it was German night. My wife isn’t a big German food fan but she did find some things she liked. I did a couple different Schnitzels along with German fare. We both enjoyed our meal in the buffet this time,

 

Back to the main dining room tonight for Italian night which looks pretty good. Menus attached….

[mdgary]

18 hours ago, geehp said:

Thanks, mdgary, for taking the time to share your cruise with the rest of us.  We are on the August 10th 14 day repositioning (along, apparently, with several others monitoring this thread), so we are paying close attention. The patters and menus are especially appreciated  Sounds like the dining has not wowed you so far.  Please let us know if that improves over the rest of the cruise.  Also, please let us know if you decide to try out any of the specialty restaurants—Rudy’s, Crown Grille, Sabatini’s, etc.

Both Crown and Sabitinis were booked solid so those are not a option this week. Not sure if Rudys has openings but looked at the menu and not the best choices for me.

[chubbypiggy]

On 7/29/2024 at 12:49 PM, JamieLogical said:

 

My husband and I are on this sailing as well, so definitely looking forward to information on the sailings just prior to ours. @chubbypiggy are you on our Roll Call?

Yes, I am on the Roll Call. 

[chubbypiggy]

On 7/29/2024 at 2:23 PM, richstowe said:

Looking forward to meeting you on the Aug 10 sailing.

Did you sign up for any of the "experiental dining"? On previous cruises we loved the winemakers dinners. At $140 pp, Caymus dinner is out but we were interested in the Silverado winemaker’s dinner. Is it offered? 

No, we didn't sign up for anything.  We don't drink. 

[mdgary]

On 7/30/2024 at 10:41 PM, geehp said:

Thanks, mdgary, for taking the time to share your cruise with the rest of us.  We are on the August 10th 14 day repositioning (along, apparently, with several others monitoring this thread), so we are paying close attention. The patters and menus are especially appreciated  Sounds like the dining has not wowed you so far.  Please let us know if that improves over the rest of the cruise.  Also, please let us know if you decide to try out any of the specialty restaurants—Rudy’s, Crown Grille, Sabatini’s, etc.

Both Crown and Sabitinis were booked solid so those are not a option this week. Not sure if Rudys has openings but looked at the menu and not the best choices for me.

[mdgary]

Day 5 recap…. Today was Belize City, Belize. Belize is a tender port where the ship anchors maybe a mile fro the port. They use a very large port shuttle boat to/from the ship which holds around 400 people. The trip in takes about 15-20 minutes. 

Our tour today was the scenic river cruise. The tour was scheduled to start at 9:30 but was delayed for over a hour for some reason. The tour guides were very nice and informative. We did catch some glimpses of manatees (pretty much seeing their noses pop up), a couple of crocodile snouts, a few monkeys and a lot of iguanas. The scenery was nice and we did enjoy the tour. Hit a few shops at the port and tried to get lunch at The Wet Lizard but after waiting a hour and still no food we canceled the order and paid for our drinks and changed plans to grab a bit to eat once back onboard. While the trip on the shuttle over was fine the trip back to the boat was kind of painful. The shuttle leaves every 30 minutes they say but waits until they are completely full. The shuttle has 2 passenger decks with boarding to the ship from the top deck. The trip back took about 20 minutes but with just the one way to get back onboard it took about 30 minutes to get off the shuttle as we were one of the last to board and were seated on the bottom deck.Overall we did enjoy our first time in Belize.

Dinner was Italian night and we did enjoy our meal. I had the mamas lasagna and my wife had shrimp and scallops. Both entrees were delicious, For desert my wife had the creme brule and I went with the lemon meringue cheesecake. Since it was Italian night our server also brought us some tiramisu which was also very good. After the ling day in the sun we just pretty much vegged for the rest of the evening.

Day 6 patters and dinner menu atached

[voljeep]

48 minutes ago, mdgary said:

Both Crown and Sabitinis were booked solid so those are not a option this week. Not sure if Rudys has openings but looked at the menu and not the best choices for me.

but, but, but ... we never ... longer cruises ... after 7:30 ...

 

and yes, we have been shut out before waiting until on board to book specialty dining with OBC.

Not this time on SUN P - we booked and prepaid for 2 each - even with the premier package ... we will deal with that once onboard getting those credits applied - even if refundable OBC.

[Scottdalfonso]

Weird question- if I don't do seafood, could I order that Land and Sea with just the beef (or double the beef in place of the lobster?) 

[555]

3 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

Weird question- if I don't do seafood, could I order that Land and Sea with just the beef (or double the beef in place of the lobster?) 

Yep. That's what I did last cruise, and if I wanted a third piece of beef, there wouldn't have charged me for that either.

It's just the lobster that's extra.