Anything Good About Sun Princess?

[Ronath]

We're leaving next week on the Sun. Have noticed on another thread some negative comments about the last cruise (Oct. 13th). Three different people have negative opinions of the food and service in particular. I know that usually some will have different opinions than others, but so far it hasn't looked good as we haven't heard a good opinion of this cruise yet. It has us wondering if we picked the wrong ship. We do like the itinerary though.

[Coral]

Wow - you have cruised a bunch!

 

I haven't been on the Sun recently (Dec 2002), but I have to tell you it is a very classy ship.

 

Food and service - I have always found food (and service) much better in the dining room than the buffet. And the pizzeria on the Sun Princess is excellent.

 

Enjoy your cruise :)

[RADICALBURN]

No you picked the right ship. They are there to please you if you don"t like it send it back and get something else. People always find something to complain about. Your not at home and its not always cooked the way you want it, so get over it. There is just so much to pick from you won"t go hungry. You may not like it so sent it back. The biggest complaint of mine is that there is no french dressing or pepsi, and its not pizza hut but you can't have everything. So if the food is that bad tell me why everybody seems to gain 10 to 15 pounds on their cruise.

[westwind6371]

We were on the Sun last Jan. 10 Day Southern Caribbean. We have booked another 10 day Jan.2005. Great food, Great crew, Great service. Any Questions?

 

Fair Winds

Dave

[Ronath]

We were noticing the recent posts on a roll call thread for the Oct. 13th cruise. Three have posted that the food and service seemed to be sub-par. One post was from a honeymoon couple on their first cruise I believe and another was from someone on their second, comparing it to Royal Caribbean. But I think the other poster had also been on the Sun previously and they seemed to think it was due to change in some of the staff, including executive chef. Realizing the first two didn't have much to base their comparisons on other than expectations, this third one makes me wonder. We go with no high expectations other than to have a great time and to get away from the stress of the everyday world, but when we were cruising Princess a few years ago their service was pretty good. We're going to enjoy ourselves regardless.

[eguiney]

We were on the Sun in October 2003 and enjoyed it so much we went back in April 2004 for the same cruise. We loved the ship. had a balcony cabin on the Aloha deck toward the rear. She is a beautiful ship and we found the crew to be very attentive.

 

Of course these were last season cruises. I am sure the crew has turned over after the stay in Alaska so is the current crew the same? I bet not, but you would hope the standards are the same. Just remeber a cruise is what you make of it. Go into it with a positive attitude and you will have a good time. Go into it looking for something wrong and you will surely find it.

[Marie-Claude]

Much is good about the SUN!! We were on her in May 2003 to Alaska and we really enjoyed the lay-out of the ship. The cabin was large with an OK size balcony. The public rooms were pleasant. Ship is easy to navigate about.

My only concern WAS about the food, mostly in the Horizon Court. The chef was German, and well, everything tasted like cinnamon... some fish weren't fresh, which is extremely disappointing in Alaska. The dining room was fine. Having been on 2 other Princess ships, and several other cruises, we were able to do a fair comparison. Nevertheless, we did not starve ;) and we still had a wonderful cruise!

Enjoy - you will like this class of ship, I'm sure.

[AllmanJoy]

Ronath:

 

We were on the cruise 10-13-04 thru 10-23-04. I am still working on my review but I will attempt to answer your concerns.

 

The food was good, I've had better and worse. The dinning room service was mixed. I was traveling with my mother-in-law. We chose Anytime dining--loved it. However, we also wanted a table for two. Sometimes there was a wait--no big deal. I attempted to make reservations and was RUDELY told they would NOT accept reservations for tables for two. As for the service, it left a lot to be desired. I noticed that the bigger tables recieved much more attentive service than we did. I also noticed that other tables for two (male & female couples) received better service than we did.

 

I must also WARN you-------------the NORWALK Virus is ALIVE and well on the Sun Princess :mad: . My MIL came down with it on evening of the 7th day and was quarantined to the room until disembarkation. I however was NOT quarantined because I was not sick. Reason: "It is highly unlikely that a roommate will contract the virus." Made no sense to me either.

 

Anyway, more to come in my review on this and the problems we had with Princess and their handling of our disembarkation.

[DEERINH2O]

Neighbors went on during Spring Break this year. Loved her. they also went on the Star when she was brand new. They loved the Sun and would sail her again.

[CruisinChris]

Eguiney: some portion of the crew and staff on the ships turn over every week. Some were likely on board during Alaska, others would have arrived more recently.

[StephenJohnson]

Can't speak to the itinerary, since we were on in Alaska, but what's not to like about the ship?

 

Sun class ships are very nice, based on our experience of the Sun & Dawn - did you have a specific query?

 

Norwalk, like legionnaire's and gerneral upper respiratory conditions are a possibility on any cruise ship - or other functrions, like conventions, with a lot of people in close contact with each other. There's no logical reason to single out the Sun, however.

[MichTraveler]

We loved the Sun Princess. We met her during an Alaska cruise in 2002. We booked her sister ship Dawn Priness the very next year. Our 2004 cruise was on the Grand in Caribbean. We liked that ship too, but have choosen to book the next with the Sun Princess again in May/2005. We loved the layout of the ship, there were plenty of dining and menu choices, and the service was excellent. For every cruise, there are those that set their expectations so high that no cruise line could achieve them. Have fun on your cruise.

[kruisey]

I came down with choric diarrhoe'a when I cruised on the Sun April/May this year confined to cabin 3 days..Several passengers on the Sun this September had the same problem.Two guys travelling from SF to FLL sharing a cabin were sick for nearly a weeks .....they stated it seemed to attack alot of elderly persons on board .

Know that persons are now going to reply it can happen anywhere land and sea at anytime.....but in my mind its happening too often on this ship.

I have never been sick like that before on any Princess ship .

The employees where very good to me.Did enjoy my cruise apart from this problem.

[cruiserforlife]

We are sailing the Sun on 1/27 and I hope Princess gets their act together if there is a problem with the food/staff.Have cruised Princess many times and we expect a certain level of service from them.

 

I know Norwalk has been present on this ship more often then it has on some others.I hope this doesn't become a problem for Princess as I'm sure they are taking every every step to control it.

 

I somewhat expect things to go downhill but like I mentioned,I hope a level of quality will remain.

[Blackrobe]

I am the third person Ronath was referring to. The October 13th cruise on the Sun Princess was our fifth on a Sun class ship (2 on the Sea Princess, 1 on the Dawn Princess, 2 on the Sea Princess). We were on almost the same itinerary aboard the Sun Princess in January. I think this puts us in a fairly unique position to compare the two cruises on the Sun Princess.

 

There are lots of problems. In my opinion none of the problems would ruin a cruise. They certainly lessened the quality of the cruise. Rather than this being a great cruise it turned out to be a middling cruise. I too am working on a review but the interest and concern expressed on these boards need to be addressed.

 

The ship looks fine and runs fine. I had hoped for a refurbishment while it was layed up for 5 days in San Francisco but it didn't happen. Apparently, the only thing that occurred was new electronics for the lounges plus more $1.00 and $5.00 slot machines and new felt for the gaming tables.

 

The most major problem concerning equipment was the Internet Cafe. They have converted the card room to an Internet Cafe and the machines just do not work. More on that in a moment. The old internet cafe has been torn out and there is construction going on in that area. I have no idea what will be located in the old internet/business center. There are lots of terminals in the new Internet Cafe but the greatest majority of them did not work. Most frustrating was the fact that there was no one attempting to get them to work. This frustration was further exacerbated by the fact that no one on the ship cared. The other problem was that a majority of the room cards did not work on the scanners to activate the machine. When you attempted to get assistance you were treated like an ignoramus. It took me six trips to the purser over two days before I had the dogged determination to keep seeing the same person at the Purser's Desk so that they called someone to assist me. The person assisting me initially treated like I knew nothing but when he had problems he exhibited an entirely different attitude. He finally replaced my card and it worked fine. However, throughout the cruise there was an endless stream of complaints about not being to access the computers and, other than the person who helped me, I saw no one from the crew ever offering any assistance.

 

The crew now is virtually entirely different from the crew in January. I believe that there was a massive changeover after the Alaska season which coincided with the San Francisco lay over. It always takes some time for a new crew to "break in". By that I mean learning how to work together. We noticed a vast improvement in our dining room service over the course of the ten days. (By the way we had traditional second seating.) If that improvement continues throughout the ship, the problems be reduced with each subsequent cruise.

 

My experience is that the Executive Chef makes a huge difference in the quality of the food. I use my experience on the Sea Princess. On our first cruise we found the food to be good. On our second cruise we found the food to be extraordinarily good. What was the difference? The Executive Chef. Our food on the January Sun Princess was very, very good. Our food this time was very average. The difference was the Executive Chef. The Executive Chef has the same impact on the dining room as the Captain does on the ship.

 

Now that I have come to the Captain. There was a change in Captain between January and October. I do not know how long the present Captain has been in command but he does not have the ship running at top performance yet. As stated in many of the posts, there is simply a lack of communication between departments and between the levels within the departments.

 

From what I heard, the repositioning cruise did not go well. The passengers were senior citizens who did not tip, went to bed early, and complained a lot. As a example, for the five days immediately preceeding our cruise, the entire casino received $67.00 in tips. On one table one evening more than three times that amount was put away on our cruise! If, in fact, it was a new crew, this would definitely set a negative tone for their first cruise out. I continually heard how different the October 13 cruise was from both the previous cruise and the Alaska season. Perhaps a few fun-loving, care free, less intense Caribbean cruises will vastly improve the attitude on the ship.

 

I won't even get started on the Horizon Court. The Horizon Court has never been very good on Princess. However, whether it is cruising economics or take-over by Carnival, it has gone from not very good to pretty bad. The variety of cold food for sandwiches is pretty much limited to one meat, the hot dishes are pretty unappetizing if they have not been freshly brought out, they used to have a nice dessert buffet in the afternoon - GONE.

 

If you are looking for that vacation of a lifetime or that very special cruise, the Sun Princess is not it right now. Maybe it will be there in a month or two months but it does not rise to that level right now. On the other hand, every cruise is what you make it to a certain extent. Cruising the Caribbean and not letting the small things bother you is the key to having the best possible time. As I stated at the beginning, this was not the best cruise we have ever been on but it was far from the worst.

[Nova Scotia]

We were on the Sun for the last caribbean in April, before the repositioning cruise. It was wonderful. Clean, great food, great service. Norwalk was not on our cruise that I know of. The Sun was in dry dock in San Fransisco before it came back to Florida. Maybe if there was a problem they could have addressed it during that time.

 

Always take bad reviews with a grain of salt, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Have a great cruise and don't worry, you will enjoy every minute!!

[kruisey]

There is a health problem on the SUN.....too many outbreaks of the' TROTS'

Suprised they didnot do anything about the holes in the corridor under the carpet forward on Baja deck....uneven walking along there this May....My cabin steward said they were going to handle that in dry dock........also in the elevator to the far left uneven under carpet.

Carnival had such a big profit according to the TV and newspapers this year,but they are not spending it on the Sun Princess.......a beautiful ship that just needs a face lift and a very good cleaning WHY?

[cruiserforlife]

Blackrobe,

 

I read your postings on your Roll Call.You sound very perceptive as to the possible causes for the Sun not to be performing up to it's expectations.

 

I agree,the waitstaff can always be up or down depending on the time left on their contract to the time of the month to the amount of tips,to the energy of the passengers.It really sounds like a crapshoot and so far,we've been real lucky in regards to our past cruises.

 

I also agree about the Horizon Court and it's absolute nightmare layout with people bumping into each other in a virtual feeding frenzy.We have never had a problem with the food however and am certainly concerned with the apparent lack of quality and selection.Looks like we'll be spending more time in the dining room for lunch if this is fact on our 1/27 cruise.

 

Thank you again for taking the time to post your feedback,it is appreciated by all.

 

Nova Scotia,

 

You have a great attitude!Thanks for your sage advice.

[kruisey]

Look I am an honest person let me say yet another time this health problem should not be brushed under the carpet.

There have been too many occurences of sickness on THe Sun this year that should be addressed as quickly as possible.

Please don't brush this away until it has been resolved.

[AllmanJoy]

As I previously posted, my MIL came down with the Norwalk Virus on day 8 of our cruise (last Wednesday). They quarantined her to the room for a minimum of 48 hours after the last episode of diareahea/vomitting (sp?). The medicine they gave on Wed did not work, therefore a new medication was prescribed on Thursday evening resulting in an extension of the 48 hours---thru Saturday evening. Now mind you, we were scheduled to disembark on Saturday morning.

 

 

After several conversations with the doctor/nursing staff as well as the purser’s office, we were told that we would have to disembark after ALL other passengers had disembarked. We were told they would come to the room and escort us off the ship. This never happened, nor did anyone from Princess contact us to advise the change of plans. I had to contact the purser’s office after they announced on the PA that the ship should now be empty. That's when I was rudely told to vacate the ship immediately.

 

 

We went directly to the purser’s desk to find out what was to happen with our transportation home. We were originally scheduled to ride the Cruise Connections bus home, but due to the quarantine, they would have to check with the bus company to see if they would allow us to board the bus. Upon arriving at the Pursers desk, (10am) I inquired as to what the status was with our transportation home. I was rudely told they could not help me that I must leave the ship immediately. I attempted to explain the situation (quarantine;etc) and was told to make contact with “Mary” with the Ashore team. We left the ship in search of Mary. We collected our luggage (the only luggage left in the terminal) and asked where we could find Mary. Nobody seemed to know where she was and no one was interested in assisting us to find her. A security officer approached us and insisted we leave the terminal immediately. I attempted to explain the situation to him and he couldn’t care less. I then informed him that we were not leaving the terminal until I spoke to Mary. At that time a Princess Cruise employee approached to see what was going on. After explaining the situation, they went to find Mary. A few minutes later, Mary showed up. I explained the situation to her and she said according to her list, we would have a private van transport us to the airport. I asked why we were going to the airport and she responded, “to catch your plane home.” When I explained to her that we were supposed to ride the cruise connections bus home not an airplane, she looked confused. Apparently her manifest showed our method of transportation was via an airplane. She then blamed the computer for having incorrect information. I corrected her by pointing out that the computer could not have incorrect information as we were given “Pink 2” luggage tags indicating we were Cruise Connection Bus passengers. She looked at me as if I had 10 heads. We were escorted through customs and ushered outside to wait with guess what………..all the other passengers standing outside. Remember, we are SUPPOSED to be under quarantine. After standing outside for 20 minutes I went in search of Mary, to find out what she was doing about our transportation. She explained that we would not be riding the Cruise Connections Bus home. Princess would be providing alternative transportation and they were currently working on the arrangements and she would get back with me as soon as she had an answer. Then she disappeared. A few minutes later I noticed that all of the doors to the inside of the terminal had been closed and I now had NO WAY of getting in contact with Mary. After another 20 minutes, I searched for a Princess employee to help me locate Mary. At this time the outside of the terminal is now beginning to fill up with NEW passengers awaiting to embark on the Sun Princess for the new cruise. And you guessed it, we are now standing amongst them. Finally, after an hour and a half of standing around outside the terminal, a van showed up and we were finally on our way home.

 

 

Princess paid the company $500.00 to drive us home 4 hours one way. They had no choice, by the time they got it together the Cruise Connections Bus that we should have been on, had already left the terminal.

 

 

I have to say, Princess has a MAJOR communication problem. The right hand has NO clue what the left hand is doing. Overall, we enjoyed the itinerary of our cruise. However, the next time I am ready to cruise, I doubt it will be with Princess. Their total disregard for us and the situation was totally unacceptable and they haven’t heard the last from me on this.

 

 

A final note about the Norwalk virus, In talking to the Doctor and nursing staff, they were very professional and very caring. I could not ask for better service from them. I inquired as to how many had been affected by the Norwalk on our sailing. There were a total of 25 cabins under quarantine, 3 of which were located on our deck—Aloha.

[bdjam]

I have never had anything but excellent service and quality on Sun Princess – one of the reasons that I’ve sailed her so many times. I have never done Anytime Dining on Sun Princess, preferring Traditional where I feel the levels of service are higher. As for a particular ship being “sick” I suggest that has more to do with the passengers and their habits than it does with the particular ship.

Normally there are not massive changes of crew at once…for the very reason that posters are supposing. Changing out the majority of a crew causes issues with consistency. Normally crew remains on board during dry dock…they have work available to them at that time.

I wouldn’t hesitate to get back on Sun Princess .

[kruisey]

You say more to do with the passengers and their habits ?

Can you give me some ideas how I can avoid my bad habits on another cruise??

[tomcarson]

Unfortunately, people bring Norwalk onto the ship.

[spongerob]

Thought you might find this interesting.

 

http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2477110&nav=168YSNGj

 

It is so common that CDC does not attempt to track it. It gets to be a problem on ships because it is an environment where people come into contact with each other and their bad habits very easily. Plus, it's easy to track the illness when you've got an entire group of passengers in one place for several days at a time.

[RDR]

We're leaving next week on the Sun. Have noticed on another thread some negative comments about the last cruise (Oct. 13th). Three different people have negative opinions of the food and service in particular. I know that usually some will have different opinions than others, but so far it hasn't looked good as we haven't heard a good opinion of this cruise yet. It has us wondering if we picked the wrong ship. We do like the itinerary though.

The Sun is a nice ship but it is showing its age. It was in dry dock in September and all new carpets were installed. Plumbing seems to be a problem as I heard people at the pursers desk complaining about having no hot water. Numerous toilets did not flush or were plugged. Concealed lighting was hanging down in areas of Horizon Court. Some washers are dryers were not working and there are not that many to serve the number of passengers for a lengthy 15 day repositioning cruise. The food was good but generally in Horizon Court they have things like cottage cheese, sugar donuts, un-iced chocolet cake, etc. but these items were not available on this cruise. Princess is great, the Captain was great and any cruise is great, but we would probably not sail the Sun again.