This was an excellent video! I loved how you honestly reviewed each section, and while providing some critiques it never felt as if you were just being negative to be negative which I really appreciated. I feel a lot of times folks like to share explosive opinions (either good or bad) just for views, but I really felt as if I could trust what you were saying. My fiance and I are traveling on Sun in March for our honeymoon and we can't wait!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this comment! One of the reasons I started the channel is because I couldn't stand the click-bait and talking heads, just give me information! Have a wonderful time onboard Sun Princess and congratulations! Andrew
I love this ship had a mini suite cabana deck 9 just loved it. I did the 7-Day Mediterranean with Greek Isles & Turkey. Loved the cabana deck and the food , service is excellent.
I booked a Signature Suite, from my understanding we get all the bells and whistles. I’m glad to see Princess are catering to people like myself who want everything without being nicked and dimed to death.
Excellent, I really prefer a suite when it's available to me as well. Yes, you'll have all the bells and whistles of the Signature Collection and more. When are you sailing? There will be a new video on Sunday September 8th all about the changes that are coming along with the Sanctuary Collection. Check it out! Thanks for watching! Andrew
Perhaps one reason the Sanctuary was empty is because at $99 per day, it is more than double the previous price on the other princess ships. Thank you for a great review.
Excellent point! It will be very interesting to see what happens over the next year or so when it comes to Sanctuary Collection. Will it launch on other ships other than Star Princess? They've left the door open for it. Thanks for watching!
Agree with hoping the smaller and older Coral Princess and Island Princess ships stay on the fleet. Just sailed the Island Princess ship earlier this year and had one of our best cruises ever on any cruise line!
It's a favorite of mine, we sailed twice on her last year and my kids who aren't even teenagers loved that ship more than Enchanted! I'd love to try and take a segment of her world cruise. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for your review. We are looking forward to trying the Sun Princess early 2026. We always book a suite so looking forward to the Sanctuary Class change.
I was onboard Barcelona and 😂transatlantic. A lot of older passengers complain that it’s so different from the other ships. Well, my opinion is that the new design of the Sun may be designed more for the next generation to come. The younger generation is more interested in food and technology just to name a few, maybe not the current style of production shows etc. The onboard changes just made inside the ship moving venues around will make much more sense and better flow. It just needed some use to figure it out. It is a very nice and fun cruise ship for extended cruises with plenty of quiet places, active places and a wide variety of food choices.
Maybe older passengers complain because they have a perspective of what worked better in previous classes. These older passengers were the new generation of other Princess ships but there is something about redefining and changing and compromising a product vs. organically suiting your particular style of product to certain changes in the industry. I don't think the younger generation is more interested in food than the older generation and today's tech is yesterday's tech in a short matter of time.
What? No art gallery or art auction? I guess I won't get to see a bunch of drunk people being talked into spending too much money for bad art. This is one feature I won't miss. IMHO, those art galleries are a waste of valuable space and I won't miss the relentless announcements about all the "Fine Art" events. Thanks for this video.
I know what you mean, tragic. Now I have purchased art onboard before because I loved the art but the hard sell is absolutely a turn-off. Right now, it's slated to be included on Star Princess where the Watch Shop is now on Sun but we'll see! Thanks for watching!
Traditionally they haven’t opened for lunch and only used the restaurants for wine tastings and special events. But in a recent webinar I attended one of their F&B directors said that they may be considering opening them because of the changes to Princess Premier to add unlimited specialty dining. Nothing official yet.
I’m kinda bummed about the sanctuary change, I booked a suite so I was looking forward to a non busy space to go. Hopefully this change won’t cause it to be too crowded
I can see that, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. The Sanctuary Club area on the ship is huge though, even if you had 50% of Collection passengers up there, I don't think it would feel busy. For the Signature Club, nothing really changes. We have a new video coming out on Sunday all about the latest on Sanctuary Club, check it out. Andrew
We just got off the Sun Princess and my biggest complaint is that the venues for the shows in the Princess Arena and Dome and activities like Trivia, games and lectures in Princess Live are way too small for the amount of passengers. We were full with just over or under 4300 passengers. Unless you are willing to get to a show at least an hour or more before the show starts, you may have trouble even getting a seat. It was almost impossible to get into the Princess live, because people who were in there for one thing just stayed for the next, so there wasn’t much turnover of seats. I did like the 3 story Piazza, but sometimes you couldn’t see the performance unless you were sitting on the front row at each level. The last performance I saw was just through the reflection in the glass panels opposite me, because the dancers only danced in the forward section of the stage. I liked the Eatery with so many different choices of food. We upgraded for our second two week back2back sailing to premium to get to enjoy more specialty dining from the Plus Pkg on our first two weeks. I was very disappointed in the catch by Rudi. I love Seafood, but my appetizer was burnt, my fish selection was so bland and we had to wait 45 minutes to get our meal, causing us to miss a show in the Dome that was never repeated as far as I know. We were sung to for our Anniversary Dinner. My favorites were Crown Grill, Sabatini’s and we had the best time at Umai Teppanyakij. The ship is gorgeous, and we loved the space in our mini-suite. However, with so many excursions on the first two weeks, we didn’t get to see or do everything we wanted to do. Would I sail on her again. Maybe, but our next two sailings will be on the Royal and the Sapphire.
Great vid. We are booked on sun princess for a Mediterranean cruise next may. I totally agree with you about letting a new ship work out the kinks . Had it booked for the 3rd sailing and I thought better of it. Good thing I did based on the reviews at the time. The ship looks incredible. I do have a question if you can answer it? Actually 2...lol. Do you tip onboard using USD or Euro? And how much euro is typically needed for spending? I know this is a matter of opinion.
Thanks, glad you liked it! Everything onboard is done is USD, no need to worry about Euros on the ship. For gratuities, they are automatically added to your shipboard account depending on what your stateroom type is. Same for drinks if you purchase them, they are added at 18% of the total. UNLESS.... You have Princess Plus or Princess Premier. In that case the gratuities are already built into the package both for drinks and for your stateroom. If you drink even a little and want wifi, it's definitely the way to go. Check out the video we released a week or so ago on this, it has all the latest info. ruclips.net/video/gf6J9atoJrc/видео.html Andrew
@@princesssweetpea9205 I just looked at my folio from July and there are no gratuities charged on specialty dining nor is there anything mentioned on the Princess site that I can see. Mind sharing where you heard / saw that?
Thanks!!! Sounds like I see these things about the same way you to. A couple of questions, please. 1. In your video footage, the pools on the main pool deck did NOT LOOK CLEAR. THEY LOOKED CLOUDY, AND JUST NOT CLEAN. Did you notice this at all? Your thoughts? (The AFT wake-view pool looked very clear. Not sure we ever saw Sanctuary Pool in the video) 2. We booked a NON 'Sanctuary' cabin, before it was announced that we would not have access to the Sanctuary. VERY disappointing. Do you have any ability to get some insight - If those cabanas. (at $499. per day) are not being booked up, might they let a non-Sanctuary guests rent a Cabana in the Sanctuary?
So, I had a closer look at the footage and they are pretty clear. It might be reflection or could be the surround around the pool that makes them look bigger. The wake-view pool was crystal clear when I was there. I filmed the footage that you saw in the video and then hopped in for a while to enjoy the sunset in Mykonos! I didn't really film the Sanctuary Pool, they were nice enough to let me in, I didn't want to invade anyone's privacy when they paid extra to be there. I'm hoping to get an answer back confirming the prices for the cabanas. The last time I asked, they hadn't confirmed. I'm going to doubt that they'll allow guests though, at least initially. There will be a video coming out very soon on the changes. Thanks for watching! Andrew
I have similar questions about the mini-suites. We've booked a Cabana mini-suite, but I don't belive it was Reserve one. Will we at least still have access to the cabana-exclusive outdoor area on Deck 9. If we did want to upgrade to Sanctuary collection, about how much would that cost?
Personally I think it’s a beautiful ship, but as a loyal princess cruiser it seems as if they’re going further into the class/tier system, where you have to pay more to access different facilities and amenities around the ship. Although this is good for those who are willing to spend money, it is a pain for those who like to get a good deal for the buck. Thus, we will be sticking with the Royal class ships.
That's an interesting point, it probably started on the Royal class ships with the Concierge Lounges to a degree. It was interesting in the webinar I attended about the Sanctuary Collection that the powers that be at Princess resisted the Ship-within-a-Ship concept as long as they could before giving in to the requests from passengers. It was definitely driven by passenger requests though. In this case, it doesn't really change much for those that wouldn't pay to access the sanctuary anyway since that's a feature that's been around a while. The interesting thing to me though is for the price they are charging for a decent sized suite with all the amenities, you could just go on a luxury ship that is setup properly! This will be something I'll be releasing as a video very soon once the research is done. Thanks for watching and enjoy the Royal Class, I like them better anyway! Andrew
This was an excellent video! I loved how you honestly reviewed each section, and while providing some critiques it never felt as if you were just being negative to be negative which I really appreciated. I feel a lot of times folks like to share explosive opinions (either good or bad) just for views, but I really felt as if I could trust what you were saying. My fiance and I are traveling on Sun in March for our honeymoon and we can't wait!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this comment! One of the reasons I started the channel is because I couldn't stand the click-bait and talking heads, just give me information! Have a wonderful time onboard Sun Princess and congratulations!
Andrew
@@TidalHorizons thank you so much!! And you're doing a great job, keep it up!
Thanks for all the great information in this post! We'll be on the Sun next spring.
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and enjoy Sun Princess!
I love this ship had a mini suite cabana deck 9 just loved it. I did the 7-Day Mediterranean with Greek Isles & Turkey. Loved the cabana deck and the food , service is excellent.
Glad you enjoyed it! We were on a similar itinerary on that deck as well. Did you have one of the cabins with the gate out to the cabana deck?
I booked a Signature Suite, from my understanding we get all the bells and whistles. I’m glad to see Princess are catering to people like myself who want everything without being nicked and dimed to death.
Excellent, I really prefer a suite when it's available to me as well. Yes, you'll have all the bells and whistles of the Signature Collection and more. When are you sailing?
There will be a new video on Sunday September 8th all about the changes that are coming along with the Sanctuary Collection. Check it out!
Thanks for watching!
Andrew
Perhaps one reason the Sanctuary was empty is because at $99 per day, it is more than double the previous price on the other princess ships. Thank you for a great review.
Excellent point! It will be very interesting to see what happens over the next year or so when it comes to Sanctuary Collection. Will it launch on other ships other than Star Princess? They've left the door open for it. Thanks for watching!
Afternoon Tea on sea days in the Main Dining Room are not available on the Sun Princess ship. Thank you for this detailed video!
You are correct! I went back over my Patters from the summer and nothing there for afternoon tea. Lots of wine tastings though! Thanks for watching!
Agree with hoping the smaller and older Coral Princess and Island Princess ships stay on the fleet. Just sailed the Island Princess ship earlier this year and had one of our best cruises ever on any cruise line!
It's a favorite of mine, we sailed twice on her last year and my kids who aren't even teenagers loved that ship more than Enchanted! I'd love to try and take a segment of her world cruise. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for your review. We are looking forward to trying the Sun Princess early 2026. We always book a suite so looking forward to the Sanctuary Class change.
Enjoy! I'm looking at booking something in November to go back onboard and see the difference for myself, stay tuned for that.
@@TidalHorizons Will do.
I was onboard Barcelona and 😂transatlantic. A lot of older passengers complain that it’s so different from the other ships. Well, my opinion is that the new design of the Sun may be designed more for the next generation to come. The younger generation is more interested in food and technology just to name a few, maybe not the current style of production shows etc. The onboard changes just made inside the ship moving venues around will make much more sense and better flow. It just needed some use to figure it out. It is a very nice and fun cruise ship for extended cruises with plenty of quiet places, active places and a wide variety of food choices.
Maybe older passengers complain because they have a perspective of what worked better in previous classes. These older passengers were the new generation of other Princess ships but there is something about redefining and changing and compromising a product vs. organically suiting your particular style of product to certain changes in the industry. I don't think the younger generation is more interested in food than the older generation and today's tech is yesterday's tech in a short matter of time.
What? No art gallery or art auction? I guess I won't get to see a bunch of drunk people being talked into spending too much money for bad art. This is one feature I won't miss. IMHO, those art galleries are a waste of valuable space and I won't miss the relentless announcements about all the "Fine Art" events. Thanks for this video.
I know what you mean, tragic. Now I have purchased art onboard before because I loved the art but the hard sell is absolutely a turn-off. Right now, it's slated to be included on Star Princess where the Watch Shop is now on Sun but we'll see! Thanks for watching!
Does princess open any of the specialty dining venues for lunch during sea days?
Traditionally they haven’t opened for lunch and only used the restaurants for wine tastings and special events. But in a recent webinar I attended one of their F&B directors said that they may be considering opening them because of the changes to Princess Premier to add unlimited specialty dining. Nothing official yet.
I’m kinda bummed about the sanctuary change, I booked a suite so I was looking forward to a non busy space to go. Hopefully this change won’t cause it to be too crowded
I can see that, it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. The Sanctuary Club area on the ship is huge though, even if you had 50% of Collection passengers up there, I don't think it would feel busy. For the Signature Club, nothing really changes.
We have a new video coming out on Sunday all about the latest on Sanctuary Club, check it out.
Andrew
Do mini suites qualify for sanctuary use?
Not all mini-suites qualify. There are 123 designated mini-suites that get that perk, of course you are paying for it! Hope that helps.
We just got off the Sun Princess and my biggest complaint is that the venues for the shows in the Princess Arena and Dome and activities like Trivia, games and lectures in Princess Live are way too small for the amount of passengers. We were full with just over or under 4300 passengers. Unless you are willing to get to a show at least an hour or more before the show starts, you may have trouble even getting a seat. It was almost impossible to get into the Princess live, because people who were in there for one thing just stayed for the next, so there wasn’t much turnover of seats. I did like the 3 story Piazza, but sometimes you couldn’t see the performance unless you were sitting on the front row at each level. The last performance I saw was just through the reflection in the glass panels opposite me, because the dancers only danced in the forward section of the stage. I liked the Eatery with so many different choices of food. We upgraded for our second two week back2back sailing to premium to get to enjoy more specialty dining from the Plus Pkg on our first two weeks. I was very disappointed in the catch by Rudi. I love Seafood, but my appetizer was burnt, my fish selection was so bland and we had to wait 45 minutes to get our meal, causing us to miss a show in the Dome that was never repeated as far as I know. We were sung to for our Anniversary Dinner. My favorites were Crown Grill, Sabatini’s and we had the best time at Umai Teppanyakij. The ship is gorgeous, and we loved the space in our mini-suite. However, with so many excursions on the first two weeks, we didn’t get to see or do everything we wanted to do. Would I sail on her again. Maybe, but our next two sailings will be on the Royal and the Sapphire.
Just curious but did you go to Spellbound and if so was it worth it?
Great vid. We are booked on sun princess for a Mediterranean cruise next may. I totally agree with you about letting a new ship work out the kinks . Had it booked for the 3rd sailing and I thought better of it. Good thing I did based on the reviews at the time. The ship looks incredible. I do have a question if you can answer it? Actually 2...lol. Do you tip onboard using USD or Euro? And how much euro is typically needed for spending? I know this is a matter of opinion.
Thanks, glad you liked it! Everything onboard is done is USD, no need to worry about Euros on the ship. For gratuities, they are automatically added to your shipboard account depending on what your stateroom type is. Same for drinks if you purchase them, they are added at 18% of the total.
UNLESS.... You have Princess Plus or Princess Premier. In that case the gratuities are already built into the package both for drinks and for your stateroom. If you drink even a little and want wifi, it's definitely the way to go. Check out the video we released a week or so ago on this, it has all the latest info. ruclips.net/video/gf6J9atoJrc/видео.html
Andrew
Thanks. I forgot that I purchased the premiere package...lol
Ha! You are more than covered then. Check out the video and see if it's worth upgrading to the "new" Premier plan, might not be.
It seems that 'gratuitis' are NOT included for the Specialty fining reservations, and are now showing up on your portfolio after you dine there.
@@princesssweetpea9205 I just looked at my folio from July and there are no gratuities charged on specialty dining nor is there anything mentioned on the Princess site that I can see. Mind sharing where you heard / saw that?
Thanks!!! Sounds like I see these things about the same way you to.
A couple of questions, please.
1. In your video footage, the pools on the main pool deck did NOT LOOK CLEAR. THEY LOOKED CLOUDY, AND JUST NOT CLEAN.
Did you notice this at all? Your thoughts? (The AFT wake-view pool looked very clear. Not sure we ever saw Sanctuary Pool in the video)
2. We booked a NON 'Sanctuary' cabin, before it was announced that we would not have access to the Sanctuary. VERY disappointing.
Do you have any ability to get some insight - If those cabanas. (at $499. per day) are not being booked up, might they let a non-Sanctuary guests rent a Cabana in the Sanctuary?
So, I had a closer look at the footage and they are pretty clear. It might be reflection or could be the surround around the pool that makes them look bigger. The wake-view pool was crystal clear when I was there. I filmed the footage that you saw in the video and then hopped in for a while to enjoy the sunset in Mykonos!
I didn't really film the Sanctuary Pool, they were nice enough to let me in, I didn't want to invade anyone's privacy when they paid extra to be there.
I'm hoping to get an answer back confirming the prices for the cabanas. The last time I asked, they hadn't confirmed. I'm going to doubt that they'll allow guests though, at least initially. There will be a video coming out very soon on the changes.
Thanks for watching!
Andrew
I have similar questions about the mini-suites. We've booked a Cabana mini-suite, but I don't belive it was Reserve one. Will we at least still have access to the cabana-exclusive outdoor area on Deck 9. If we did want to upgrade to Sanctuary collection, about how much would that cost?
Personally I think it’s a beautiful ship, but as a loyal princess cruiser it seems as if they’re going further into the class/tier system, where you have to pay more to access different facilities and amenities around the ship. Although this is good for those who are willing to spend money, it is a pain for those who like to get a good deal for the buck. Thus, we will be sticking with the Royal class ships.
That's an interesting point, it probably started on the Royal class ships with the Concierge Lounges to a degree. It was interesting in the webinar I attended about the Sanctuary Collection that the powers that be at Princess resisted the Ship-within-a-Ship concept as long as they could before giving in to the requests from passengers. It was definitely driven by passenger requests though. In this case, it doesn't really change much for those that wouldn't pay to access the sanctuary anyway since that's a feature that's been around a while.
The interesting thing to me though is for the price they are charging for a decent sized suite with all the amenities, you could just go on a luxury ship that is setup properly! This will be something I'll be releasing as a video very soon once the research is done.
Thanks for watching and enjoy the Royal Class, I like them better anyway!
Andrew
I don't see how it is progress one bit. Celebrity is doing this nonsense. And MSC and NCL do it and they're not in the premium category.