Thanks for the review! I was on this ship myself over New Year's (link to review in my sig), and man, what a difference a few months make.
Their app. Similar to DCL, although not quite as intuitive
Sounds like the app improved since I was on board. Was the chat feature any good? Because it was pretty much a mess on the old app, and non-existent on the new app beta they let us use.
The daily schedule on sea days. Many of the activities involved the shops or the spa and most of the cruise staff that hosted events like trivia did not seem to enjoy their jobs.
This is really interesting as my cruise was the last one for the previous cruise director (Allie) and her group was absolutely fantastic. She seemed to give them leeway to create their own activities and trivia and I think it showed with their enthusiasm. I guess the new cruise director isn't as easygoing?
The Princess Live lounge and main theatre. The Live lounge was small, the seats were not comfortable and most of them were unmoveable. Some events that should have been in the larger Vista lounge were held here, which meant if you did not get there very early (like 30 minutes) you were out of luck. The main theatre was poorly designed and a number of seats had poor views.
Agree with this. The Live Lounge is actually very nice but it is too small for some of the game shows they run. Thing is, if they run it in the Vista lounge, you'll lose some of the intimacy and vibrancy that the Live Lounge gives you, as I think the Vista lounge is too large for the things they run in there (like the comedians).
The main theatre has very poor sightlines when you're on the sides at floor level. Sitting closer to the back was a better way to go. Not that the shows were good or anything. Competently produced and presented, but like a starter salad, quickly consumed and forgotten about.
I don't think I ever observed anyone else washing their hands before going into the buffet area. So gross. Did not eat there due to this.
We were definitely longing for the Royal "washy washy" guy at the buffet. So many people don't even do the bare minimum of using the hand sanitizer. Which we used in between getting food and eating. Inconvenient, sure, but better than not doing it.
The Piazza after 5pm. They had music every night and the musicians were good, but this area was all glass and metal, so all the sound echoed and was very loud. As a result, it was uncomfortable in the evening.
I honestly liked this. If you were looking for a lively spot in the evenings, you knew to go to the Piazza. Unless the guitarist was there - you can only get so lively when it's a guy with an acoustic guitar and a percussion block.
The lack of adult spaces outside of the pool area. None of the bars or lounges were adult-only at any time. This meant that all the karaoke was groups of teens signing off key Taylor Swift, and evening activities often included teens climbing over others to be with their friends. I did get the impression that there were large groups of kids from the same high schools. This probably contributed to the behavior issues. There was one event where a group was very rude to the cruise staff host, but there wasn;t much she could do about it.
This has to be a Spring Break thing. More kids = more chaos?
Being on a cruise is better than not being on a cruise, but I would not choose to sail Princess again.
I felt somewhat similar. Princess isn't bad by any means, but it's never going to be my first choice of cruise line to sail.