SUN PRINCESS Reviews

We were on the Sun Princess for two weeks and will not be sailing with Princess again.

The service is incredibly slow with long lines to order drinks alcoholic and non alcoholic. Once you do get through the line the bartenders take forever to mix a drink despite the obvious long lines. Even in the specialty restaurants you can expect to wait upwards of 20 minutes to receive your drink order. It seems like this is a tactic to limit drinks for those on the Drinks package.

Sea days had the ship completely overrun. No sunbeds available past 8am and forget trying to get a drink. We eventually learned that the only way to get anything to drink in a reasonable amount of time was to go back to out room and order it via room service.

The ship simply isn't built to handle the amount of people they put on it. Because of that you can expect other guests to be pushy and aggressive in securing their space. It ruined the overall experience daily.

In addition this, is not a Kid Friendly ship. They do have kids clubs but they lack in offerings and after trying them the Kids just didn't have fun and so were out and about with us. Many elderly guests seemed unhappy to see kids around (they are 15 and 17). Pushing in front of them in line and complaining to staff when they didn't have an adult with them. This sentiment was echoed by the staff who often ignored them when they tried to get a drink or something to eat.

For what they charge i just don't see the value in sailing with Princess again.

Just back from a short cruise around the Med, from Barcelona to Rome. My wife and I have been on 8 or 9 Princess cruises in the past (and have cruised with other companies too). We have always enjoyed them but were looking forward to sailing on a ‘flagship’ vessel. What a disappointment. Our fellow travellers were mostly Americans and Australians. Now I’m fond of our Aussie cousins but guys, not everything is a beach party. When the dress code is smart casual or formal, please don’t turn up in swimming trunks and flip-flops! No control exercised by the crew.

Despite its size, the public spaces actually seemed quite small, with fewer venues than the Royal class ships for ordinary folk. Plenty more options if you pay extra e.g. speciality dining or Sanctuary class cabins but we tend not to use those. The ship was difficult to navigate – you spend a lot of time walking up and down featureless cabin corridors to get from A to B, like a big ferry. The theatre seemed small compared with our previous cruises, with nowhere to put a drink. The theatre show that we saw was just plain weird, but shout out to Jessie Smith and his musical tribute to 1971, which he performed brilliantly despite technical issues that plagued him all evening. A trooper.

Our cabin was clean and bright, with a bathroom and walk-in shower that set a new benchmark. Really good. Such a pity the décor was so DULL. Good Lord, grey carpet, grey walls, grey curtains. Even the wood panelling was ..grey. The food was mainly good but the restaurant service was very slow. It should not take an hour and a half to serve three courses. Twice my wife and I left without our dessert. As for breakfast, avoid the “orange juice” which is just heavily diluted orange squash – disgusting.

The pool deck was like Benidorm. Almost impossible to get away from thumping loud music. The worst thing was ‘The Dome’ – a giant glass covered area occupying the entire front of the ship surrounding a teeny-tiny swimming pool. Everywhere are sun loungers – few places to sit at a table with a drink enjoying the view in quiet surroundings. Half the time there was no-one in it. When we visited there were often bar tenders cleaning glasses but the bar itself was nearly always shut. What a colossal waste of space. It is supposed to double as a venue but the problem with that is that is has the acoustics of a municipal swimming baths.

I much preferred our experiences on Princess’s Royal class of ship but I don’t think I’ll be travelling with Princess again. Their offering has moved decidedly down market.

I have done 30 plus Princess Cruises and this ship is the worse

The highlights are the elevators cabin Stewart the guys at the international cafe and staff in Sanctuary. The rest is a waste of money the buffet is so disjointed that once you get you toast, eggs and bacon everything is cold.

Complaining get you nowhere I reported the TV twice nothing happened. They ask you to fill in feedback cards and they don’t call or do anything

We book two tours via Princess both claimed wheelchair friendly but were not. When I complained the shore excursion person who rang accused me of lying then quoted something I never even spoke about. On Deck 17 where the main pools are you can’t get a coffee or cold drink until 10am but they are happy to sell there wears before 10am

I booked a Sanctuary Mini Suite and you get a small table in front of the couch that barely holds a cup of coffee and had to beg to get a second small one. The cost is not worth it

We sailed the 14 night itinerary from Rome to Barcelona, in a Mini Suite (on deck 11). We are a family of 4, two children aged 9 and 5.

This was our 2nd time on Sun Princess, and 13th time on Princess. Overall, we really enjoyed the cruise. Here is a breakdown based on the 4 areas I think are the most important:

Cabin - Mini Suite

I really loved the Mini Suite on Sun Princess. There is a ton of room and not once did it feel cramped. Same goes for storage, we were able to stow away all of our clothes, bags, hats, toiletries etc without ever feeling like the room was getting cluttered. The balcony was a decent size with two chairs, footstools and a table. The bathroom is larger compared to the balcony with a large shower. Our room was cleaned and towels and bedding every day, as well as being turned down each evening. John was very attentive and non intrusive.

Dining

There are more options for dining on Sun Princess vs some of the older ships, with a much wider choice of Speciality restaurants. We made the most of our Premier package by dining the speciality restaurants for all but one of the evenings. Our overall favourite for Princess is Crown Grill however on this trip we found it a bit patchy. The steak was great as always, but objectively the service was patchy and they struggled a bit when they were busy. The staff were working very hard but there were gaps in drinks service etc which seemed to be due to being a head or two short. Highlights for us was Catch by Rudi - service was perfect, the food was presented beautifully and was so fresh. Teppanyaki was a blast and we enjoyed the changes to Butchers Block, which felt very disjointed last year - worth trying again if you felt the same.

As for the included options - The Eatery food quality was great for a buffet, but I think the layout causes it to feel quite chaotic. The service here however is brilliant - always being offered drinks and clearing away old plates etc. The Lido snack bars offer a great choice of options, quickly and super fresh.

I believe the room service food options may have been scaled back a bit - we liked to use room service for a quick meal for the kids and the only choices were chicken fingers, burger and PB&J sandwich which definitely was a smaller choice vs last year.

Entertainment

We enjoyed the entertainment choices onboard. It felt like you could find some sort of live music somewhere onboard at any time. The bands in the pub were great. We liked most of the acts in the Dome and there were some nice options for the children. The kids clubs are fantastic - hard to keep the children out of them!

Service

The service onboard was drawer, from the bars to the restaurants, everyone was working hard and doing there best to serve everyone as quickly as possible. Bars are busier on sea days and with such a wide range of drinks it would take slightly longer to get served, but there were pop up bars / drinks trolleys plus on demand service via the Medallion which mitigated this. Service around the polled was brilliant - I liked the little touches, like water waiters walking round the deck offering water to guests, as well as trays of cold flannels being offered. Towels were always available and the staff managed sunbeds well and removed any that were unattended for 20 or so minutes.

To offer some critique - I know my way around the ship without having to check a map to find where a venue is, however, if your cabin is located in the aft section of the ship it makes it a bit more tedious to get to the upper outside areas of the ship as the rear lifts do not serve any public area of deck 17/18 besides the Sanctuary. It’s probably a personal thing but I disliked having to walk from the aft to midships to find a usable lift to get me up to the upper areas of the ship.

Also - I can’t help but think that International Cafe being located on deck 9, almost as an extension of The Eatery, rather than maybe on Deck 7 (Swapped with Coffee Currents maybe?)

Overall rating: 2/5

Unfortunately, our seven-night experience on Sun Princess was a disappointment, particularly given the cost of the cruise and the expectations we had going into it.

Ship layout

The ship itself is attractive, but I found the layout very difficult to navigate. There didn't seem to be a natural flow around the ship, and we spent a surprising amount of time walking through cabin corridors simply to get from one area to another.

There were numerous dead ends, and after seven days I still felt the ship was poorly laid out. The lifts, however, worked very well throughout the cruise.

Cabin

Our cabin was very nice and we had no complaints whatsoever. It was comfortable, clean and met our expectations.

Our cabin attendant, Buela, did an excellent job of keeping our cabin clean and well serviced throughout the cruise. We were very happy with the service we received from her.

Food

Unfortunately, the food was one of the biggest disappointments.

The food at The Eatery and American Diner was very poor in our experience. Another issue was that these areas were not self-service. Food had to be served by staff, which resulted in queues building up at busy times. We found this particularly frustrating when trying to get a quick meal.

Given the reputation and price point of Princess, I expected considerably more from the overall food experience.

We did, however, enjoy the food in the Eclipse Dining Room. Unfortunately, the service was painfully slow. On one occasion, it took around two hours just to receive two courses. We eventually had to leave without having dessert, even though we had ordered it, because we had another booking for a show and simply couldn't wait any longer.

The speciality restaurants were a different story, but getting reservations at our preferred times was extremely difficult.

Crown Grill was our best dining experience, and a lot of that was down to our server, Anthony, who provided excellent service and really made the evening enjoyable.

We also enjoyed the Teppanyaki restaurant, and the meal itself was enjoyable. However, the only reservation available for our group was at 9:10pm, which was quite late. By the time dinner was finished, it was too late for us to have cocktails afterwards, which was disappointing as we had hoped to make more of an evening of it.

Drinks and bars

We had the Premium Plus Package, but unfortunately found it difficult to justify the cost.

The Irish Bar was particularly disappointing. It lacked atmosphere and table service was extremely slow, making it difficult to get drinks ordered.

The Good Spirits Cocktail Bar was one of the bars we enjoyed, but it was very easy to miss due to its location. We felt it would benefit from being in a more prominent and accessible position. Unfortunately, it also closed at 11:30pm, which seemed far too early for a cruise ship.

The two-drink ordering restriction was also very frustrating when travelling as a group of friends. If my partner and I were in different areas of the ship and drinks were ordered close together, the account could temporarily be blocked for around 10 minutes. This was particularly inconvenient when socialising as a group.

Overall, we felt the Premium Plus Package was difficult to justify because of the restrictions and the slow service. There was also a general feeling that the evening atmosphere was geared towards getting passengers to bed early rather than encouraging people to stay out and enjoy the ship.

Entertainment

For us, this was probably the biggest disappointment of the cruise.

The level of entertainment fell well below what our group expected from a Princess cruise. There simply wasn't enough going on in the evenings to keep us entertained, and we felt this significantly affected the overall experience.

One show we did really enjoy was Spellbound by Magic Castle. It was an excellent show and was definitely a highlight for us. However, it came at an additional cost of $45 per person, which we felt was quite expensive given the overall cost of the cruise.

Lido Deck and pool areas

The Lido Deck was very busy, particularly on sea days. The food in this area was actually good, but the level of service suffered because of the number of passengers.

I feel the Lido area needs considerably more staff on sea days.

The pool area on Deck 8 was enjoyable, although finding a lounger on sea days was difficult because of how busy it became.

Staff

Generally, the staff were fine and we had no major complaints. There were certainly individuals who provided excellent service, with Buela and Anthony at Crown Grill being particular standouts.

Ports

The port stops were fine and we had no complaints about them.

Other issues

One experience particularly frustrated us.

At around 4:00am, we were woken by an announcement being broadcast directly into our cabin while the ship was trying to locate a missing passenger. I completely understand that a missing passenger is a serious situation, but I felt that broadcasting the announcement loudly into every cabin at 4am was extremely disruptive, particularly on a holiday where passengers have paid a significant amount of money for their accommodation.

What made this worse was that, from our perspective, there was no apology afterwards for the disruption.

There was also a medical evacuation on Day 2. Obviously, medical emergencies are unpredictable and I don't want to criticise the crew for something outside their control. However, from what we witnessed, the evacuation appeared to be extremely slow. It took three attempts to get the patient onto the rescue boat, along with their belongings, and the whole process seemed to take a considerable amount of time given the nature of an emergency.

Final thoughts

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend Princess Cruises based on this experience, and I don't currently see myself booking another Princess cruise.

For the amount of money we spent, I expected a much higher standard of food, entertainment and overall experience.

There was also a general feeling throughout the cruise that there were too many restrictions and cost-saving measures in place — particularly around drinks, restaurant availability and evening entertainment. Rather than feeling like we were being encouraged to enjoy the ship, at times it felt as though there were too many barriers to doing so.

There were positives: our cabin was excellent, Buela kept it exceptionally well serviced, the lifts worked well, we enjoyed the food in the Eclipse Dining Room, Crown Grill was very good, Spellbound was an excellent show, and the port stops were enjoyable.

However, these positives weren't enough to outweigh the overall experience.

Overall: 2/5.

For us, Sun Princess was a disappointment and, given the expense of the holiday, a frustrating experience.