Sunday, January 5, 2025

Pre-cruise experience and boarding day with a Sky Suite on the Sun Princess

Having sailed in a Sky Suite on Princess Cruises once before, I had a decent understanding of what perks we would have on these two back to back cruises and what the process leading up to and during the cruises would be like. However, with a new ship like the Sun Princess, very little was announced or confirmed when it came to what a Sky Suite passenger would get to enjoy on board for booking the top cabin on the ship. My hardworking travel agent and I went back and forth with Princess' customer service and social media team trying to find out what was included in this new Sanctuary concept. Plus now having four Sky Suites on a ship versus the original two cabins like on Enchanted Princess, it was quite unclear as to whether we'd still have any of the exclusive extras we enjoyed. Between Elite loyalty level perks, any Princess suite perks, Sky Suite perks, Princess Premiere rate perks, and the Conjurer package perks during the Magic Conjurer's themed cruise our first week, you needed a PhD degree in organization to keep it all straight! There is a good bit of overlap but it can be surprising to learn what even a Sky Suite won't get if you don't have the other perks as well.

Many times the specific perks we'd ask about would come back with an answer of "No, that's not going to be included on the Sun Princess." As the old wise quote says, "Nonetheless, she persisted." I think a good bit of the issue was that Princess hadn't finalized the offerings yet with such a new Sanctuary concept and inclusion of all these non suite cabins. There was no official list so the inclination was to always say no. Eventually, through polite and persistent communication, we were pleased to finally get answers that lined up more with the perks that we enjoyed in the past. It made me feel a whole lot better about spending so much extra to upgrade to the Sky Suite. I appreciate that they were willing to listen to passenger feedback from me and the other suite passengers that shared their experiences and concerns allowing me to pass them along to Princess. 

Our first cruise of this back to back booking was from 11/9/24-11/16/24. On October 2, 2024, I received my first email relating to this cruise from the Pre-cruise Shoreside Concierge, Thor. This was the same gentleman who reached out to work with us for the Enchanted Princess cruise and we were glad to work with him again. The first correspondence we received was a general welcome email introducing himself and a list of Sky Suite perks that I recognized from the Princess website if you look at a Sky Suite on a ship like Enchanted Princess. When Princess originally updated the Sky Suite page for the Sun Princess, it read more like a hotel room amenities list. Thor's list included the older ship's perks like a Princess Cays bungalow and the Complimentary Ultimate Balcony Breakfast and Dinner. I had been concerned about still getting the bungalow since the excursions page showed them as all sold out. We were assured by Thor that we would receive one but he couldn't confirm whether it was on the main side or the "Sanctuary" side of the island. He also confirmed that we would get the upcharge lunch service that is different than the standard barbecue lunch offerings for all passengers.

The next day, October 3, 2024, I received an email from Thor asking to schedule a phone conference to go over the suite perks and our preferences. We held that call the following Monday on October 7, 2024. The phone conference went very well. Thor went through all of the suite and Sky Suite perks and answered all of my questions. We'd been having issues with the Ocean Medallion app making dining reservations (showing nothing available to book and adding ones we never made) and Thor not only went through each restaurant option and day of the cruise with us but he gave us carte blanche to choose dates and times for any restaurant even if it was showing as booked up on the app. The app also linked both weeks together but then wouldn't let us book excursions or dining for the second week. We went over allergies and preferences for stocking the cabin fridge. We also were sent a list of full size liquor bottles we could choose to have in the cabin. Sky Suites get two bottles per cruise and we confirmed that we could pick four with two separate bookings. We were fine with waiting for week two to get the other two bottles, especially since we never opened any of them! I believe there was also a wine list but we didn't expect to like any wine choices.


Thor also confirmed that we would get included access to the Enclave, one of the perks we were originally told would not be included. A new surprise to us since this ship had the Sanctuary Club is that we got one day on each cruise to use a poolside cabana without paying the extra $499 cost that any other Sanctuary passenger would have to pay. We also greatly appreciated finding out that our Suite Experience Manager on board, known as Sanctuary Manager on the Sun Princess, would continue to reserve seats for us in the Princess Arena. This was a great perk because with Princess Premiere, the reserve seats are only in a set aside section and only during production shows. With the Sky Suite, we could request anywhere in the theater we wanted like the aisle seats that Dad finds more comfortable. Side note - what is up with the narrower theater seats on Sun Princess? I've had my share of tight theater seats as a fluffy lady but these were noticeably narrower. Several people of all shapes and sizes shared how they had to sit sideways to fit in the seats. On the plus side, I commend Princess for taking advantage of their in the round arena design to include more handicapped seating at the floor level as well as above in the tiered seating. The only thing that trumped Sanctuary Manager Ivan's seating reservations was when our Conjurer package meant we could sit in the folding chairs on the arena floor directly in front of the stage for the shows that were magic presentations. Ivan could only reserve the fold down theater seats in the stands. 

It was nice to see that Princess assigned crew members to check for whether the passenger had the right magic and/or Premiere rate package before allowing any passenger to choose those seats. My heart went out to the crew for having to deal with the multiple people I witnessed lashing out at them for not being allowed to sit in priority seating without having paid for a package. One so called gentleman expected the crew to magically make seats appear or make others already seated move because he had to have his entire party of six sitting together. For the record, Princess did open up the remaining reserved seating for anyone to use when it was within 5-10 minutes of showtime. I also applaud Princess for marking off which theater seats would make for a bad sightline to certain activities and had crew redirecting those passengers to better options.

Thor noticed that our second week had been upgraded to the new Premiere 90 and told us he would go ahead and do the same for week one. We sent our liquor choices on the same evening as the phone call but I was surprised to not have any sort of confirmation from Thor. I emailed Thor on October 18th to get a written list of our dining reservations so I could have it in writing to refer back to since the app never did reflect his reservations and to follow up on the change to Premiere 90 for week one. He replied with the reservation list that matched my notes on October 19th but then claimed that we weren't going to get upgraded to Premiere 90 on week one after all "because of the promotion that you have." That response even baffled my travel agent who had no idea what promotion he meant. In the end we had Premiere 90 for both weeks showing on our accounts by the time we boarded even though Thor maintained that we weren't getting it. 

Here is the dining reservations list that Thor sent that matched what we had asked him to arrange during our phone call:

9 November: Crown Grill 6pm

11 November: Sabatini’s 630pm

13 November: Teppanyaki 7pm

15 November: Crown Grill 530pm for Allan

15 November: Butchers Block  530pm for Danielle

18 November: Teppanyaki 7pm

20 November: Catch 610pm

21November: Hot Pot 6pm


Other than an email sharing a heads up about Conjurer package events and asking if we want to change any dining reservations on October 19th and answers about the Spellbound dinner on October 23rd, we did not hear from Thor again for a couple weeks.

During the phone call with Thor, he offered us the opportunity to visit the Sanctuary Lounge - a space used by Princess Cruises in Fort Lauderdale to invite suite guests to have a nicer place to wait for embarkation. It was described as a place to make any reservations, enjoy refreshments, take fun photos, and ask questions. Then we'd be transferred over to the port in Sprinter vans bypassing the lines. We accepted the invitation while on the phone. On October 30th, I received an email that came from Alexiss, who listed her title as the Sanctuary Lounge Concierge. The email said it was a formal invite to use the Sanctuary Lounge and briefly reiterated Thor's description. I didn't realize she was expecting a response confirming we plan to attend until she called me on November 1st. We confirmed that we would attend and asked her to confirm whether we had to show up right at 8AM or could come anytime within the 8AM to 1PM hours the lounge is open. Alexis says that we can show up at anytime within those hours. Looking back now at her invite email, I see that it also includes a line suggesting an arrival between 9AM and 12PM. 

We had some issues getting WhatsApp to work with my phone number so we ended up asking Thor to give Ivan Dad's phone number for communication on the ship. Thor did confirm this on November 5th.

On the evening of November 7th, we got the Bon Voyage email from Thor. He repeated the information about the Sanctuary Lounge but listed the hours as 8AM to 2PM. He also included information about meeting Ivan for a priority boarding escort outside once at the terminal claiming that Ivan would be sending us the embarkation details via cell phone. That pre-cruise contact from Ivan never came like it did from April prior to boarding Enchanted Princess. According to Ivan, they are no longer allowed to step outside the terminal to retrieve passengers. 

Another issue with this Bon Voyage email is that the final dining reservation list Thor sent us had different times for some dinners, a restaurant reservation for two that was only supposed to be for Dad, and Butcher's Block was completely dropped off the list. That Butcher's Block reservation would end up sticking to us like all that red meat to our arteries throughout the cruise, starting with a reservation for both of us appearing on the app without either of us requesting it.


I replied to Thor that same evening asking him to put Butcher's Block back but now make it for both of us and to add another reservation Dad decided he wanted after the phone call. No response ever came from Thor.

On the morning of embarkation day, November 9th, we decided to partake of the included breakfast at our hotel and called for an Uber driver to drive us over to the Sanctuary Lounge around 9:30. The ride there was quick since we were staying at a hotel down the street. There was a security guard at the entrance and she helped direct us where to leave our luggage in the front entryway. We headed inside expecting to be greeted by someone and check in. After waiting at the desk for a while, I noticed Alexis chatting with a couple of passengers. She noticed us but continued to chat. We finally felt the need to interrupt and ask what we should be doing. She took our passports to check us in and told us to go find a seat while she went back to chatting. 



We walked around checking out the small photo prop area and the plentitude of drinks and snacks. There were several desks set in small cubicle spaces with business cards revealing names of other concierges but no one was working at their desk. 

Prince S wanted to check out all the cool ship models on one of the desks. He felt like a giant towering over the tiny ships! 



Prince S was ready to start enjoying the fact that cruise calories don't count and went straight for the pastry selection.


I appreciated seeing how the perishable food items were offered on ice to keep them fresh. Underneath this counter was coolers for you to help yourself with cold drinks.




I loved the fact that they had a charging station for multiple devices. 


Using digital photo frames to display a picture of the lounge's wi-fi code was a clever touch but it gave me a good chuckle to notice that the frame was displaying an error message saying that the network connection had failed. 



We ended up randomly sitting with and having a lovely chat with a couple also in a Sky Suite that I'd been chatting with on Cruise Critic. After we'd been chatting for a while, Alexis came over to the other couple to ask them about something. They in turn asked her about when the vans would start running us over to the port. She told them that she'd call Ivan right now and make sure he's ready. She came back within minutes to lead them out to the vans. 

Alexis soon brought us back our passports and I asked her to check whether Thor had made the changes we requested. My intent was that if he hadn't had the chance, then we had been told Alexis could take care of it for us as well as making any new reservations in any of the departments on board. Alexis seemed put off by such a request but begrudgingly came back a short while later to let me know that nothing had been done by Thor. I asked her then to make the dining changes and I'm pretty sure the neighbors could have heard her sigh of annoyance. The fastest response we got from her the entire time in the lounge was when she came back within minutes to claim that she couldn't make the reservations because it was "too close to embarkation." Now that was a real head scratcher for us - being told the Embarkation Lounge couldn't make reservations like we'd been told they would because it was too close to embarkation! Alexis claimed she sent an email to the ship asking them to apply the reservations. I feel like we should have been on the Maury Povich show getting lie detector results because Ivan later told us that no email had been sent.

As we sat there killing time, we started noticing more and more of the other passengers being escorted by Alexis to the vans. There certainly wasn't any sort of Sky Suite versus other suite priority given the amount of people being escorted out. We wondered whether it was an issue of us not having told her we were ready to head to the ship. Her response was "Okay but I have to wait until Ivan lets me know he's ready. He likes to talk and get the previous group settled." We understood and went back to our seats. 

With the wi-fi being intermittent and cellular loading slow, we had to resort to entertaining ourselves with nature. We spent way too long watching this iguana make its way up and down the tree outside the window.


Time passes and passes and passes until we are the only passengers left in the lounge. We ask Alexis again and she repeats her claim that she has to wait for Ivan. By this point, Ivan must know the previous group's life history given how long it had been since they left. Finally at just before 1PM, we ran out of patience and felt like we'd been forgotten sitting around the corner while she sat at her desk. Only after we mentioned calling Princess to ask what is going on did Alexis finally stop the latest van from leaving in order to let us on. She rode over with us so she could be the one escorting us (and the rest of the van) past the check in lines to board the ship. While every suite gets priority boarding, only the Sky Suites should have had this personal escort by Ivan so it was hard to believe where the breakdown and delay occurred. 

When we finally got our way through security and got handed over to Ivan, he was shocked to learn that we'd been waiting at the lounge since 9:45AM. He told us that Alexis gave him a much later time of our arrival so he had no idea we'd been waiting so long. Ivan also revealed that their procedure pays no regard to Sky Suite level priority, it is simply a first in to the lounge, first into the van order for the transfers. The couple we had been talking to got off another cruise so they arrived at the lounge just before it opened for the day. They were headed to the ship by 10:30AM. We finally officially boarded around 2PM and were led around by Ivan with a very detailed tour of all the Sanctuary Collection areas. He tried to get our Muster Drill out of the way while we were passing our muster station but the line to check in was several people deep. Since by now we had totally missed the window to have lunch in the Sanctuary restaurant, at 3PM we asked to head to our cabin and drop off our carry on bags. Ivan showed us a bit around the cabin while profusely apologizing for the embarkation delays. He left us to relax and watch the muster drill video while he took care of checking us in at the muster station. 

Due to the issues with boarding the ship, we missed out on the embarkation terminal check in experience everyone else had as part of the Magic Conjurer's theme cruise with special gifts and roaming magicians. It took nearly the whole cruise for Ivan to track down the gifts because they had been mistakenly stored with items from the shops. I also noted that about halfway through the cruise, the other items we did find in our cabin as being part of the Conjurer's Package, was being sold in the shops for any passenger to buy. So thankful to have had the luxury of asking him to do all that legwork.

Prince S (and me) wandered among the new outdoor food stations on Deck 17 and settled on a bowl of chicken taco meat and toppings. I'm not a fan of hard shell tacos so they made up a bowl of nacho toppings without the tortilla chip base. Great alternative if you're trying to eat low carb/keto or have a corn or gluten allergy. After all, taco salad is still technically a salad right?



After we'd had the chance to find something for a late lunch, we returned to the cabin to find dining reservation cards for later in the cruise that were for the Butcher's Block reservation I noticed appeared without our approval on the app. Now that we were onboard, I expected our medallion app to update with the proper dining reservations we had made with Thor but it never did. We reached out to Ivan and he ended up sitting at the dining table in the cabin with us spending nearly an hour straightening out all of the reservations we thought we had arranged with Thor and adding the new changes. Thankfully there was no issue changing back to our original times and dates. It was disappointing to hear that while we loved our pre-cruise experience with Thor before Enchanted Princess, we were not the first people to report having issues with him for their recent cruises.

To cap off a frustrating start to the cruise, we headed over to the Crown Grill just before our 6PM reservation to kick off our cruise with our tradition of a specialty steakhouse dinner. The host at the podium insisted that we didn't have any such reservation for tonight. She looked us up in the system and read our whole schedule of reservations as she knew it. I recognized that it included the mistaken Butcher's Block reservation and suggested that their system might not have updated with Ivan's fixes. The host momentarily stepped away saying she had to check with her manager. While she was gone, I messaged Ivan and he sent me screenshots of our account on his computer proving that he'd made the reservation for tonight. He next offered to come down and speak to the manager for us. By that time, the host started to walk back toward the podium with the manager in tow. She pointed in our direction and he gave us his literal nod of approval before disappearing inside the restaurant again. We were seated quickly after that. The restaurant was about 2/3rds full but there was plenty of available tables. Despite the busyness of the restaurant which is not typical for an embarkation night, we had attentive service and a good meal. Since we tried out so many specialty dining meals between these two weeks, I'll make each restaurant's review and food porn pictures into their own posts. 

While we didn't have any more issues the rest of the cruise with restaurants claiming we didn't have a reservation, we did end up getting several cards delivered to our cabin randomly over several days confirming reservations we didn't make at Butcher's Block. 





Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Sky Suite on the Sun Princess cabin tour Part 2

Now where did we leave off? Ahh yes, one last look back at the main living space of the cabin.


Let's now take a look at the bedrooms. Yes, bedrooms as there are two separate bedrooms and connected bathrooms in this suite! First we'll pop into the smaller bedroom. This bedroom is located in the interior half of the cabin so there is no natural light and no doors to the balcony. Dad took this bedroom because he enjoys sleeping in complete darkness. 

The two bedrooms are steps away from each other with their own doors for privacy. They do not have any locks. There are locks on the bathroom doors however. 

Standing just inside the smaller bedroom looking back across the hall at the bigger bedroom. With the doors closed, there was no issue with noise if one of us wanted to sleep and the other stayed up to watch TV. 


Main part of the bedroom - I'm pretty sure these beds can separate into twins so you could easily have a couple in the big bedroom and friends or kids in the smaller bedroom. There is no lip or step up into the bedroom but there is to get into the bathroom.


Each nightstand had motion activated lighting on the bottom. Each side of the bed had a small reading light that extended out and a lamp that can be controlled by the toggle switch once in bed. There are a variety of plug types in the wall just below the lampshade. While it made it a minor challenge stretching the phone cord while plugged in, I liked that it kept the phone charging cord up off of the surface. Every evening the stewards would leave us each a copy of the next day's Patter on our beds.


There was also a set of light switches next to the plugs so you can turn on/off overhead lights from bed as well.




Along the wall by the door is a full desk/vanity space with lighted mirror. The small drawer storage is good for things like underclothes or small items like a makeup bag. There are also different types of plugs just above the desk so you can charge electronic devices or plug in hair tools.



Top drawer held a Drybar hair dryer. This one was not connected to a plug in the drawer so you could take it to any plug and use.


There was a level entry into the walk in closet with its own light controls. This area can be closed by a curtain if you want some extra privacy getting dressed. There is a safe, shelving, and both long and short hanging storage. There was also two white fluffy robes and sets of slippers for each bedroom. We only had one large suitcase each so it was easy to stow them on the floor of the hanging space. There was also room under the beds if needed. 


Each bedroom had two life jackets in their closet. We also each had a nice sturdy tote bag with the Sanctuary Collection logo versus the blue tote bags with the Princess logo that non suite cabins received.



There was also a full length mirror inside the closet and a small ottoman (seen here under Dad's clothes)


Moving back out into the bedroom, you can see that there was tons of space to move around the bed. The wall mounted TV was easily viewed from either side of the bed. The white fluffy slippers pictured here are the ones we've gotten in suites on other ships. The brown flip flop style shoes next to them are unique to the Sun Princess and the Sanctuary Collection. The design is multiple white colored orientations of the Princess logo.


Here is a closer look at the flip flops:


Let's head into the bathroom next. The switches for the bathroom lights are by the TV outside the bathroom door.

While slightly bigger than the regular cabin's bathroom, you'd have to be really comfortable with each other to use this space at the same time.



The glass shower stall comes with a towel rack attached to the door, an expandable clothesline, and a wooden shower stool. The sink that shares the same wall has some counterspace but the only inside the bathroom storage was for towels. However the plentiful supply of washcloths per bathroom was appreciated. Each bathroom also had plenty of large towels and hand towels in addition to a small towel for laying in front of the shower for safety. There is a lighted mirror above the sink.



There is a step over to get into the shower. There is one grab bar inside the shower. The showerhead is fixed but you can switch it to a handheld wand as needed. A mounted rack held Beekman 1802 bottles of body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. By the sink was bottles of lotion and liquid hand soap. No bar soap provided.



Behind that half wall and facing the sink is the toilet. I get the whole privacy intention but closing the bathroom door while you're in there achieves the same purpose.


Looking back at the bathroom door shows that there is two hooks on the wall for hanging a robe, a nightgown, or an extra wet bathing suit.



To wrap up the interior of this cabin, let's check out what the main bedroom and bathroom look like. The wave pattern on the headboard also had lights controlled by one of the switches. The only drawback to this furniture arrangement is you will hear things if you have noisy enough neighbors. 


I had the same desk with drawers and wall mounted TV setup in this bedroom. However, the main paperwork relating to suite/Sanctuary/Elite perks was left in a folder on my desk. Make sure you check through all the paperwork left for you. We got a list each week of special events scheduled in the Sanctuary Lounge and the Sanctuary Club such as wellness sessions and live music. As Elite loyalty level passengers, we also received a letter each week explaining that the Platinum/Suite/Elite evening cocktail hour was held in Butcher's Block from 3:30-5PM. The letter also let us know when a complimentary Grapevine Wine Tasting would be held and that voyage's Captain's Circle Party. As Elite and Suite passengers we also got priority tender access. 





Eagle, or should I say duck, eyed readers might be able to spot the two new friends I brought home for Prince S. All other rubber ducks were rehidden or gifted to crew. Thank you to the fellow cruiser on our Magic Conjurer's Cruise roll call who made the ducks clad in a magician's outfit and monogrammed them with our cruise dates. The white duck was a surprise left by Princess in each Sanctuary cabin during the week. It features a coral colored Princess logo and a tag with #SanctuaryCollection written on it.





This was also where we found our blue clip medallion holders that we received for booking the Premier Package rate. After trying out the blue clips for a day or two, I was too concerned that I'd end up having it drop off somewhere, especially when we had to ride on a tender. 



We both opted to purchase the recycled plastic wristband from the Medallion shop. It feels very comfortable wearing and made scanning in and out so much easier! The recycled plastic band is made from the plastic cleaned up out of the ocean and they number each band on the inside strap. The kind young lady helping us suggested that I try on a smaller wristband when the first was too loose. I joked that this was pretty unusual for me to have to go down in size for something I'm going to wear and she nearly doubled over laughing. 

Note the different look to the face of our medallions. I see questions from many passengers who are thinking something is wrong because the typical medallion face shows one's loyalty level color - Blue for new cruisers, Gold, a reddish color for Ruby, a silver/grey color for Platinum, and black for Elite. The normal medallion also shows the entire Princess logo within the circle. If you book a Sanctuary cabin, your medallion will feature this zoomed in logo and be salmon/coral in color. I also learned from the crew that they can tell at a glance on their devices whether you should be in a Sanctuary area because your medallion's security photo will show up with an "S" next to it. As someone who has paid a larger amount for the perks, I am glad that they are that diligent about not letting anyone in who didn't pay for it. Celebrity Cruises has an option for a fee and with space available and Maitre'D permission, you could invite someone to dine in their Retreat only restaurant with you. I like that Princess did not even allow buying such a pass because the smaller guest size is part of what enables the crew to provide such attentive service.



The main bedroom had two sliding glass doors to access the balcony as did the main space. They each had their own curtain. I loved being able to keep the curtain by my desk closed to keep the sun out of my face while working yet fill the room with natural light by leaving open the other curtain. The fact that all of the curtains had a sheer curtain and a solid curtain gave us some great options to control having natural light when we wanted it but not the blinding sun.




Tons of space to move around the room. That full length mirror was more magnified than the light up ones at the desk and bathroom sink. Use that mirror on the wall if you want to see your pores from space.


While my walk in closet space also had a curtain for privacy, it required passing through the dressing area to access the bathroom. Both bathrooms and nightstands had motion activated nightlights. I spent the first couple nights keeping the curtain to the dressing area closed because anytime I'd kick my leg out from under the covers during the night, it would trigger a click sound and turn on the bathroom's motion activated light. I soon figured out it was easier to close my bathroom door when I headed to bed so it couldn't sense my motion. A couple nights with rough seas though sent that bathroom door flying open and slamming shut. 

Hey Prince S! There's more room tour to cover. No sleeping on the job!



I loved the special extra touches like the labeled Sanctuary Collection stationery and pencil left in the cabin. We used the pads to write notes to our steward and each other. They also might have found a way into my suitcase to bring home.



My dressing room/walk in closet had shelving on one side and hanging space on the other side along with some drawers. I thought the design of the different width and shaped shelving was very clever. I had more drawer items than hanging clothes so I dedicated certain shelves to certain categories of clothing. As the casual clothes came back from the laundry, I used the provided hangers to add them to the closet side. Easy way to keep track of what I hadn't worn yet before wearing the cleaned clothes again. Tall items like my backpack for shore excursions and carry on for air travel fit perfectly in the middle slots.


We had a good variety of regular hangers, skirt hangers with clips and the soft padded hangers. Clipped to the hangers is where we'd find new laundry bags to use. If you need more hangers, the steward would be happy to supply extra. I believe the Ocean Medallion app even has that request as an option under the amenities you can order to be delivered to your cabin.


The light switches by the bathroom door controlled the main ceiling lights, the nightlight, and a separate light over the shower stall. There is a step up into the bathroom here as well. Sometimes the door would take some extra effort to fully close which probably led to it being swung open during the nights of rough seas and fast speed. 


This being the bigger bathroom, the layout had two distinct features that the other bathroom did not.



Like the other bathroom, while my counter and lighted mirror space were longer, there still was no storage except for washcloths and hand towels. I kept a couple things on the counter that I needed all the time and resorted to taking things in and out of my travel kit to use while I got ready each day.



The vertical panel in the middle rocked back and forth if you touched it but it never seemed to open or slide away for storage. There are two sinks in this bathroom but a good bit of the remaining counter space is taken up by trays to hold glasses, tissues, and the hand soap/lotion. The sinks were a good depth helping keep any splashed out water at bay. It was easy to get up under the running faucet to wash or fill a glass. 


Standard plug for an electric razor right by the mirror.

Same brand of Beekman 1802 liquid hand soap and lotion. Listerine not included.


Looking back through the dressing area/walk in closet to the bedroom space:


A hint at our first extra feature in this bathroom while I point out the single hook on each side of this wall. I used one to hang up my nightgown and the other to hold the twisty hair towel I brought with me. Those twisty hair towels work so much better on corralling my long wet hair after a shower than trying to balance a huge provided towel. Note my travel kit stowed on the small ledge.


Our first unique item in this bathroom is a large tub! The ledge held a spare bottle of body wash. There was one grab bar placed at a nice angle to hold while lowering or lifting yourself out of the tub.



Next item as we work our way around the perimeter of the room is a slightly larger glass shower stall. This stall also had a retractable clothesline, fixed shower head, handheld shower wand, grab bar, and wooden bench. I also had a mounted shelf with my own supply of Beekman 1802 body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. The shower stall was super spacious and easy to move in and out of the water flow to lather. One drawback is that occasionally I'd get a sudden spurt of colder water and then it would go back to a steady warm water. The more frustrating drawback is that my shower seemed to have trouble draining as fast as it should from day 1. I'd have to be careful not to slip in the standing water as I moved around the shower. Thankfully it never got so bad as to fill the shower basin or risk leaking out onto the floor. I also missed having any sort of ledge or shelving in the shower to hold my own products. I would have just let it sit on the floor but my little tube of face wash would have been floating down river by the end of the shower.



The final thing that made my bathroom unique was that the toilet area had its own stall. The front door of the stall had translucent film blurring so you had privacy from all those prying eyes that come to hang out in your private cabin bathroom? The glass wall that doubled as the shower wall had the same translucent film so that peeping tom grabbing a shower won't be able to see you on the toilet. I always wondered why the privacy film on the toilet stall when the same body parts would be freely viewed while taking a shower?

On the plus side, I appreciated having a second trash can inside the toilet stall so I could dispose of cleansing wipes and female hygiene products without having to hold onto them or balance them somewhere until I was ready to leave the stall. I was also pleased as a fluffy person that there was plenty of space while using the facilities.






The more motion in the ocean that was felt, the more it was like a drunken stagger to get in and out of this toilet stall. I had many a moment of squatting so long to steady myself  before sitting down that I expected to find a quarterback behind me waiting for me to hike the ball. There are no grab bars inside the stall.



Okay, it's a beautiful sunny day outside. Let's step outside for some fresh air!


There are no loungers on this balcony but I spent an hour or two sitting on this cushioned bench throughout the cruise. I brought the table over in front of me to set up my tablet. It also made for a great spot to people watch those on the other ships when we were docked in port. 


My view while sitting on the couch spanned the entire length of our balcony. The balcony is mostly shaded and has a light operable by one of the switches in the bedroom. There was a speaker nearby so I was able to hear any announcements while sitting on the balcony.


The doors that led back to the bigger bedroom. You could only go back inside the doors that were already unlocked. The glass was mostly reflective so no one could really look into your cabin unless they got super close to the glass. 


Our next grouping of furniture was this small two top table. It was big enough for two people to have brought out individual plates of breakfast on the balcony or to set up your laptop/tablet to do some work al fresco. 


Second set of doors that led back into the living space by the dining table.


Third set of doors that led back into the main space by the couch. Plus the one piece of furniture on this balcony that had any sort of foot support. Dad used this chair to sit outside and read occasionally and said it was comfortable and easy to read books on his tablet in the shade.


The view looking back to where we came out onto the balcony.



And the view looking out at the sun's reflection on the water isn't too shabby either!



Thanks for following along on my cabin tour of Sky Suite #16619 on the Sun Princess. Stick around as I share more about my experience in the new #SanctuaryCollection in several more posts to come!