8-Day Caribbean Cruise on the SUN PRINCESS

Sun Princess – Excellent Dining and Staff, but Disappointing Entertainment, Casino and Ship Design

We have nearly completed a 15-night cruise on Sun Princess. There were some genuinely excellent aspects of the experience, but also some significant disappointments that Princess really needs to address.

The ship is impressive, but after spending 15 nights onboard, we came away feeling that several important parts of the overall cruise experience fell short of expectations.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

Premier Package and Specialty Dining

We absolutely loved the Premier Package. The unlimited specialty dining was fantastic and represented excellent value for us.

Crown Grill and Love by Britto were particular favourites. In fact, the service throughout all the restaurants was consistently good. The staff were pleasant, attentive and friendly, and this was one of the strongest aspects of our cruise.

The main dining room breakfast was also very good, although service slowed considerably on sea days, sometimes to a crawl.

The Staff

We found the staff throughout the ship to be friendly, pleasant and helpful. They deserve recognition for their efforts.

THE DISAPPOINTMENTS

Entertainment – A Major Letdown

This was probably our biggest disappointment.

On a 15-night cruise, we had only 3 proper production shows. We believe approximately 13 nights featured solo acts in the Arena rather than full-scale production shows.

The solo performers may be perfectly good in their own right, but this type of entertainment is much more suited to a nightclub or smaller lounge venue than the main theatre of a ship of this size.

One of the 3 production shows was approximately 90% in Spanish, making it difficult for English-speaking passengers to enjoy. The other shows were canned music and lip syncing. Sierra I believe name it was just awful—the stage broke down 5 minutes into the show had to stop. Then it was just very low quality attempt at a production show. The costumes were desperate to be flashy but ended up looking cheap. There was lots of lip syncing which was obvious and low quality. We feel like we got ripped off with the quality and mix of the entertainment. For us it’s a big part of a long cruise with many sea day’s look forward to good food and good entertainment. The reality was the food was good and the entertainment was totally inadequate. Even in the cabin—ok the music and show sucks try to watch a movie—the movie selection is totally inadequate and short for a 15 night cruise.

We expected considerably more from Princess, particularly on a ship of this size and standard.

The Piazza – A Huge Missed Opportunity

The Piazza should be the lively heart of Sun Princess, particularly in the evenings. Instead, we frequently found it quiet, dull and lacking atmosphere. I met with the entertainment director and the ship manager after voicing my concerns early on and they explained other passengers want quiet public space and not loud music. For us the entertainment is a deal breaker and will totally play into any future decision about princess cruises.

Much of the programming consisted of game shows and occasional solo performances. At times, a solo guitarist performing in a small upstairs bar was simply broadcast onto the large Piazza screen.

This is not what we expected from such an impressive central venue.

After dinner or leaving a theatre show, we wanted to walk into the Piazza and find a lively atmosphere, upbeat music, singers, a proper live band and perhaps people dancing.

We wanted somewhere buzzing with energy where passengers would naturally gather and enjoy the evening.

Instead, we often found subdued solo instrumental performances and very little happening.

There were plenty of individual musicians around the ship, including guitarists, pianists, violin and cello players, and a very talented female saxophonist. The saxophonist was particularly good, but even this was another laid-back solo performance without singing.

Most of these performances were around 45 minutes and were more appropriate for a small lounge or intimate bar than the main social areas.

There is certainly a place for quieter piano, guitar, saxophone and classical instrumental performances, but these should complement the entertainment programme rather than dominate it.

We found only one genuinely lively band, and encountered them on approximately two occasions throughout the cruise.

What was missing was regular live vocalists, full bands, familiar upbeat music and entertainment that creates atmosphere and gets people involved.

The Arena should offer proper theatrical productions, while the Piazza should provide the lively music and social atmosphere that guests expect from the centre of a modern cruise ship.

The Dome – Overhyped and Underused

The Dome is another major disappointment. It looks impressive in photographs and is promoted as one of the ship’s signature spaces, but the actual experience was underwhelming.

We hardly used it during the cruise because there simply wasn’t enough compelling entertainment to draw us there.

The entertainment we encountered included a relatively modest acrobatics duo on one evening, a juggler on another evening (yes, a juggler as a featured show!), and a DJ on one occasion.

For such an impressive and unusual venue, we expected considerably more ambitious entertainment and a much stronger programme.

The Dome has enormous potential, but it felt underused and lacked the quality and variety we expected from a signature entertainment space on a ship like Sun Princess.

It is a shame to have such a spectacular venue without a regular programme of exciting, high-quality performances that give passengers a reason to return.

Princess has demonstrated on other cruises that it can deliver spectacular productions with wonderful casts, beautiful costumes and outstanding singing. We know what Princess is capable of, which makes this experience particularly disappointing.

For a 15-night cruise, we expected considerably more variety, energy and quality.

Buffet and Ship Design

The buffet was average. The walking space between food stations is simply not wide enough, and it feels crowded almost constantly.

Trying to find food and move around comfortably can be frustrating. The layout and circulation space need improvement.

The overall design of the ship also feels fragmented. There isn’t one continuous deck where you can comfortably walk the length of the ship.

Even the jogging area on the upper decks is relatively small. It takes approximately seven laps to complete a mile.

For a ship of this size, this is disappointing. We would have expected better walking and jogging facilities.

Cabins was ok. Some noise from waves and you hear some small sound from mechanical machinery I believe below but not deal breaker.

The cabins themselves are fine, but the entrance hallway feels cramped when two people are trying to move around at the same time.

And, as seems to be the case in virtually every cruise ship cabin, there are never enough hooks!

We even brought our own magnetic hooks and still struggled to find enough places to hang everything.

These may sound like small details, but practical storage and space make a difference when living in a cabin for 15 nights.

Cleanliness and Smoking in the Casino

One area where cleanliness really concerned us was the casino.

I was genuinely shocked that smoking is permitted in the casino. Ashtrays were repeatedly overflowing with cigarette butts, and ashes were scattered over gaming machines.

This was not an isolated incident. We encountered it on numerous occasions.

It was unpleasant and frankly disgusting. When someone was smoking nearby, I would simply leave the gaming area.

The smoking policy and the standard of cleanliness around the machines need serious attention. Guests should not have to tolerate cigarette smoke and ash-covered machines when trying to enjoy the casino.

There was also a recurring issue with used dishes not being collected promptly from tables.

Casino – Poor Game Selection and Table Minimums

This is an area where I have considerable professional experience. I spent 38 years in the casino business in Las Vegas, dealing high-end games for major players from around the world, as well as working with $5 craps.

I was surprised by the casino’s game selection, table minimums and general offering.

The craps minimum was initially $25, and there were hardly any players. I spoke to the casino manager and suggested reducing it to $15. He made that change the following day, and suddenly many more people were playing.

It raises an obvious question: why price customers out of games when a more reasonable minimum can create a much busier table?

You are paying the staff either way, so why not offer minimums that encourage more people to play?

The mix of games and minimum bets did not seem appropriate for the customers on this cruise.

On several occasions, I found only a couple of carnival games and one blackjack table open. There was no baccarat at all, which was a particularly glaring omission. I fully expected to find baccarat available.

We have experienced much better casino offerings on Celebrity, including $10 craps, baccarat, blackjack and slot tournaments. There was considerably more variety and activity.

The casino on Sun Princess seemed to lack both the variety of games and the appropriate table minimums to attract and retain players.

A casino needs the right balance of games, sensible minimums and enough tables open to create an atmosphere. The Sun Princess casino did not get this right.

With my 38 years of experience in the industry, I found the lack or full suite of games and smoking and high crap table limit surprising.

OVERALL

There are many things we enjoyed about Sun Princess.

The Premier Package, unlimited specialty dining, Crown Grill, Love by Britto, excellent restaurant service and friendly staff were real highlights.

However, for a 15-night cruise, the entertainment offering was disappointing—we liked just 2 shows out of 15. the Piazza was underused, the Dome was underwhelming, the buffet was too crowded, the ship design felt fragmented, and the casino experience fell well short of what we expected.

The ship is impressive, but impressive architecture alone does not make an outstanding cruise experience.

Princess needs to pay more attention to the overall guest experience, particularly evening entertainment, the use of the Piazza and Dome, casino operations, cleanliness and the practical design of public spaces.

We know Princess can do better because we have experienced it on previous cruises.

There is plenty to like about Sun Princess, but there are also some important areas that need improvement.

We hope Princess takes this feedback seriously.

This was the second time that we have been on the Sun Princess. We sailed on a Caribbean cruise last February and could not give it a good review. It was so frustrating and line ups were always an issue. I would have given it a 2 at best. For this cruise, I give it a 5. The rooms are beautiful and our room attendant was very good this time. They have alleviated the long lines at bars by providing a pop up bar at the pool on sea days, and also have a beer/pop cart rolling through the area as well. The crew was very friendly and accommodating as well. The entertainment staff did an excellent job, and the headliners were mostly excellent. The food was excellent, other than the raw meatballs that were consistently offered in the buffet. Dining room service was so much better than what we experienced in February. We had a wonderful experience.

Sun Princess is a large ship with a different feeling from our experience of previous Princess ships sailing from the UK. . On this 14 day Barcelona to Athens cruise the main group of passengers were American followed by Canadian, Australian and ,4th only 300 British. The cruisecsold as 14 days is actually 2 7 day cruises and 3,000 passengers got off in Rome to be replaced by 3,000 new passengers Rome to Athens.

Popular venues were always crowded and careful planning taking in less crowded spaces is required to make the most of this cruise. It is totally informal with both formal nights largely ignored by the male passengers - female passengers made much more effort. Deck 17, pool deck was particularly noisy and robust with sadly the regular towel reservation of sun loungers ignored by Princess. Luckily there was plenty of space on other decks and we had the relative calm of the Cabana Deck to retreat to. We found the MDR menus limited in comparison tomprrvious years, although the food was good. The menu repeated in week two which was disappointing. .We felt that Princess was driving customers to Premier and the many speciality restaurants on board. Recommendation if you can afford it - go for Sanctuary Class.