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Princess Cruise Line

MS Sun Princess

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Andrew Hague
Date of Trip: November 3, 1998
# previous cruises: 10+
Itinerary: Panama Canal

We found the ship to be clean and attractive although it was not without some minor glitches. Overall the cruise was great! I only highlight the negatives so that people board knowing what to expect and therefore are not disappointed. If anyone has any questions about this cruise, or any other experience, please do not hesitate to contact me. The Captain was very charming and personable. We were fortunate enough to be invited to the Bridge as we were transiting the Canal and he was very informative.

Very comfortable. We liked all of the public rooms. We had no favorites. There was a walk-around promenade.

The dining room (we were in the Marquis) is nothing spectacular. The first night, my wife and another person at the table ordered fish and it came out like sushi. The fish was sent back and it came back equally as uncooked. When this was brought to the waiter's attention, his response was that "the kitchen was very busy". We switched tables the next night and ended up with a great table. We were in the corner of the dining room farthest from the kitchen and so the food was a bit slow but it was still warm. It appears that there is a problem with "junior waiters" and their ability to get their orders quickly. The food was good, but I do not think that it was as good as it has been in the past aboard Princess. The food in the Horizon court and at the grill was very good and well above average. The pizzeria was fantastic as Princess is back to the individual pizzas as opposed to mass produced, large pan pizzas. One down side to the food is that Princess has apparently sold it's soul to Hagen Dazs which operates the ice cream concession and they charge for ice cream. This seems petty and I remember when NCL tried this years ago it was quickly shot down. Let us hope that Princess gets the same message. The staff tried to sell the ice cream around the deck as we were going through the canal and people were really complaining because what they got was completely melted soup that you could only eat with a straw.

The room stewards were excellent. They were good about leaving you alone when you wanted to sleep in and you never felt pressured to accommodate their schedules.

The entertainment was nothing out of the ordinary and it became very confusing because sometimes the shows were before dinner and other times they were after dinner. If your dining room was assigned to the Princess Theater for the show, it was awkward because you were not allowed to bring drinks into or order drinks while inside because it is not designed as a "lounge". Therefore, if you had a drink as you headed in, you were stopped and told that the drink had to remain outside.

The ship newspaper, "The Princess Patter", was confusing at best. It was poorly organized and sometimes difficult to follow. It seemed to be more for advertising than for shipboard events. You were much better off tuning in to the on board TV to learn about the days activities. One caveat, the cruise staff gave some very bad misinformation about things to do in various ports. They would grossly understate the taxi fares to certain places or tell you to go to certain hotels that, once you got there, did not want you unless you joined their beach club for $36 per person.

Some of the shore excursions were quite limited and unless you acted fast you were out of luck. This was particularly true in La Guaira which was the port for Caracas. If you did not get onto the Caracas City Tour, you were stuck at the port city which is filthy, unattractive and, according to crew members, quite dangerous.

The rest of the ports were great and I did not hear many complaints. Once we arrived in Acapulco, we spent the night on the ship which really made disembarkation a breeze! We stayed at Las Brisas for a few nights which was wonderful. Others from our ship stayed at the Acapulco Princess (no connection to the cruise line) and at Villa Vera and all were most satisfied.

At 77,000 tons, the Sun Princess is clearly a mega-ship but it seems to be laid out in such a way that you don't have the feeling that you are surrounded by 2,000 other passengers. At night, there was dancing and music all over the ship. The Wheelhouse Lounge packed them in every night as did the musician in the atrium. The DJ in the Disco was fantastic and although it was not very crowded due to the age of most of the passengers, there were enough of us in the 45 and under crown to have a lot of fun. The music was continuous and diverse and Greg was very good about playing requests. Overall, there were many little niches where you could go and relax and feel some solitude.