Time for Prince S to get his "Crown" on

Even back when suite perks were the only way to get a specialty restaurant dinner included, we fell in love with the Crown Grill, the steakhouse onboard Princess Cruises. Now it's become an embarkation night tradition for us. The current price, unless you have the Premier package or are using your suite perk on embarkation day, is $55 per adult and $27.50 per child aged 3-12. If you are sailing on the Sun or Star ships, the rate is $60 per adult and $30 per child aged 3-12. Check out Princess' official website here to view a sample of the menu.

What follows is a collection of dishes ordered over multiple visits. We routinely skipped desserts due to appetite, time it took to complete the meal, and a lack of interest in the menu choices.

Prince S insisted on getting to look at the menu first.

Melted cheese on bread to start every Crown Grill dining experience? Umm, yes please!

Blue Iceberg Salad Appetizer (also noted as gluten free) - applewood smoked bacon, heirloom cherry tomatoes, blue cheese dressing. I've come to enjoy a blue cheese dressing but in the past there was never any problem having it changed to ranch if you're not a fan of blue cheese. I used to joke that an iceberg wedge salad at a steakhouse is the only way you'll see Dad willingly eating a salad but he's now expanded that palate to enjoy a Caesar salad as well. :)

Same salad another night:

Colossal Lump Crab Cake Appetizer - cognac mustard cream sauce, shaved asparagus fennel salad. You know this born and raised Maryland girl had to get a crab cake. Solid amount of crab meat versus filler and well prepared.

Chilled Jumbo Shrimp Appetizer - XO Brandy, fresh horseradish cocktail sauce

Shellfish Bisque Appetizer - lobster chunks and shrimp, aged cognac, and whipped cream. This was one of those soups where they bring you a bowl of the ingredients and then pour the broth in front of you at the table. This broth seemed unusually thin for a bisque and reminded me more of a brown gravy.

Porterhouse Steak - described on the menu as 20oz, 560 grams, the best of filet and sirloin, grilled on the bone. 

Dad's steak - Dad ordered the Loaded Idaho Baked Potato on the side. 

Rib-Eye Steak -described on the menu as 14oz, 400 grams, rich with heavy marbling.

The formerly known as truffle fries are now called Parmesan Fries on the menu. Sorry to say that the fries at Catch by Rudi have now taken the title of my favorite thing to order away from these fries at Crown Grill.

Another night's order of fries:

We laughed in surprise when the waiter served our Red Skin Mashed Potatoes that we both ordered as a serving platter of four white domes that looked like halved ice cream scoops. Yet gave us a larger bowl of fries that we also planned to share. I guess if they could have found a way to arrange the fries in half mounds, it would have looked like the mashed potatoes. I applaud the presentation but seems a bit silly when each of those mounds disappears after two to three forkfuls.

Grilled Asparagus side - they brought enough to share but you know I was the only one eating a non potato based vegetable.

We found a good bit of service issues throughout all the venues perhaps by default given how often the Premier package had us dining in specialty restaurants. We'd have issues getting drink refills, courses would take a long time to arrive, and often our server would either disappear into the server protection program or we'd spot them spending extra time chatting up a table nearby while we sat needing something. During those moments, we were often ignored when we'd politely try to get their attention. We'd have to ask for sides and toppings that were forgotten. One of the Crown Grill evenings, our waiter stopped by the table to ask if we liked how our steaks were cooked but then after spending our entire interaction looking back at a nearby table, raced back to chatting with the other table before we could even give him an answer. 

The inclusion of all the digital pictures taken by ship's photographers with the Premier package gives you tons of opportunities as the photographers routinely wander through the specialty restaurants asking to take your picture. Thank you to the few regular photographers we saw who would take the time to chat and then ask if you'd like your picture taken. Then there was one who swooped in during one of our Crown Grill dinners obviously tired of being told no thanks. He arrived at our table, stuck the camera with large flash bulb in my face while I was mid-bite, and yelled "Smile!" Being ambushed apparently didn't bode well for my ability to refrain from blinking at the strong light thrust in front of my eyes. The photographer complained about my blinking, shoved the camera and flash bulb back in my face, yelled again to smile, and snapped the picture all in the space of about 30 seconds before he left to visit another table.

I think I might save this one for the blooper reel and be thankful that I didn't have my mouth open. If you can't laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at?

By the last few days of the cruise, we were reconsidering keeping any more of our specialty dining reservations. We had also shared our disappointment with Josue about the balcony dinner experience. A meeting with two officers from the food and restaurant departments was scheduled. I appreciate how the meeting was handled. I felt like our concerns were listened to and taken seriously. At the conclusion of the meeting, the officers encouraged us to give the specialty restaurants another try. We had initially decided to cancel plans to fit in one more visit to Crown Grill as the Reserve dining team had been amazing but we decided to go ahead with another visit the second to last night of the cruise. There was not only a marked improvement in service, especially since they pulled one of the servers we had praised from the Sabatini's experience to wait on us for this dinner in Crown Grill, but it was like we were unnecessarily fawned over. 

Several visits were made to the table by our server and fellow restaurant management making sure we were enjoying ourselves and wanted for nothing. The pastry chef stopped at our table to ask how she could improve the snacks being sent to our cabin. We were finding it tough to enjoy her treats when they'd dried out by the time we returned to our cabin in the evenings. She told us about how she takes in guest feedback for things like harder crunchier cookies versus soft. She offered to make a softer batch for us and together we came up with a solution of having the treats delivered later in the evening so they weren't sitting as long. 

The sommelier came over and tried setting up an impromptu personal wine tasting. When I didn't like any of the offerings, she produced a bottle of non-alcoholic wine from the Kylie Minogue collection. It tasted like a dry peach seltzer. If I only liked peach flavored items, this would have definitely been one non alcoholic wine I'd enjoy having with my meal. 

I don't recall what cut of steak we had during this dinner. I believe we both decided to try one from the Goodstock by Nolan Ryan upcharge section of the menu. I ordered mine medium while Dad ordered his medium well. Our server kept assuring us that the steaks were coming but that they took longer to cook being such premium thick cuts of meat. What did stick with me though was the way our server became more frantic at how long the steaks were taking to cook. She'd try to keep checking with the open kitchen but the manager would come up behind her gesturing and yelling at her to hurry up. She would get more and more flustered as she could only wait until the chef was finished preparing the dishes. We perfectly understood the need for extra time and appreciated her checking in at our table to explain. It left a proverbial poor taste in my mouth to see such treatment when it was a delay not in her control. 

When the steaks arrived, Dad's plate looked great and cooked exactly to his liking. 

Mine arrived swimming in the bloody beef juice that resembled more medium rare. The piece of meat slid around the plate like it was on an ice rink in all that red beef juice runoff. I've had medium cooked beef before and understand that it means I'll still see pink. This was more like it ought to still be mooing. I tried a piece or two and was just going to focus on eating the sides. Our server saw that I wasn't eating the steak and offered to cook it some more or get me something else. I turned down the offer insisting that we'd had plenty to eat already. When she persisted, I apologetically insisted it was my fault because I should have ordered more medium well. This unfortunately prompted the manager to visit the table and in turn the chef came over. I showed the chef the pool of bloody juice the steak was sitting in. He exclaimed "Yes, that's medium, it's perfect!" turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen. None of my other medium ordered steaks we'd had earlier in the cruise had come out looking like this. I don't make a living cooking for others but I doubt cooking a thicker cut of beef to the same doneness level as the thinner cuts should translate to a timed cook versus an individual doneness level.

We finally bothered to order dessert on this final visit. I went with the standard ice cream and Dad chose the Triple Chocolate Treasure from the dessert menu.

Triple Chocolate Treasure - dark chocolate mousse, orange cremeux, hazelnut filling, blonde brownie crust, and golden chocolate macaroons.

Peek behind the curtain on the Sky Princess

It can be hit or miss when you stay in a suite on any cruise line as to whether they will offer any behind the scenes tours of places on the ship.  These are normally areas only accessed by the crew. We often will ask whomever is working with suite guests such as the concierge to keep us in mind if any such tour is offered. These are all at the discretion of the head crew member for the area, especially as far as what day and/or time a tour gets scheduled if at all. 

We've been lucky to experience many of these tours on various ships. It has been very interesting to see the differences even on the same cruise line when the ships can differ so much in size. While talking to our shoreside concierge pre-cruise to organize all of our reservations and preferences, he said before I could even ask, "And you will have a bridge tour." I asked if that was an included perk now for the Sky Suites and he said yes. We mentioned it onboard to Josue when we hadn't seen any notice for several days and had already noticed some things that should have been delivered to the cabin that weren't. He confirmed that a tour would be happening and was disappointed that his planned surprise of one had been revealed. So yes, if you book the Sky Suite, start practicing your surprised reaction. :)

While on the Sun Princess, a ship that has multiple Sky Suites, they scheduled two separate visits assigning each cabin to one of the times in order to keep the group small. On this Sky Princess sailing, where only two Sky Suites with a total of 6 occupants were on board, we showed up at the meeting place to discover that the group gathered basically included every other suite guest. Imagine 15-20 people crowding around to try and watch the same phone screen. 

Our tour was led by two female cadets who did their best to split the group so we could crowd around the instrument panel on one of the two identical bridge wings. They took the time to explain each piece of technology, what training they've done to get to this position, and what the routine schedule is like for bridge officers. Our half of the group had many questions and our cadet was super patient in answering them all. Even split in half however, there was no way everyone could see what the cadet was pointing out on the panel. Given that the waves on this sea day were making being anywhere on the ship feel a little off balance, Dad and I were happy to hang back and hold up the wall until the presentation was over. 

One of the more pleasant surprises that made this bridge tour unique was that Captain Tony Draper stuck around to greet everyone when we first arrived. He gave a brief rundown of his own work history and talked about what it was like working on the Sky Princess. He only answered a few questions and then passed us off to the cadets. Usually, these tours are given by one of the junior officers not currently on the watch and you never get to meet the Captain. Thank you Captain Draper for taking the time out of your busy day to say hello!

Dad spotted this display on the bridge proving that even the crew likes to collect Cruising Ducks. I'd say that tall one looks like they have the drink package and the one next to it is trying to stay upright on this rocky sea day.

The bridge's front view looks out over the crew pool and hot tub. Just like on your balcony, someone's always watching.

Another surprise tour that we were invited to was to tour the galley. Once again, this was a single time where anyone staying in a suite got to attend. Dad saw the crowd gathered and decided to go play trivia instead. Executive Chef Naveen Quadros, who led the tour, apologized for having to rush us through as he only had a short window of time in between having to prepare for several events. A great tip for those cruisers who would love to see the galley but aren't invited to a "private" walkthrough - Princess offers a comedic cooking presentation in the theater on one of the last days of the cruise. After the show, anyone is welcome to meet at a designated door where someone from the galley will guide you on a walkthrough through the space. If you've never seen it, it really is quite a fascinating setup when you think about how many passengers and crew need to be fed multiple times a day in multiple restaurants on board. 

The photo cards displayed on the wall behind Chef Quadros serve as reminders to the galley crew how each dish needs to look.

Butter anyone?

On one of the last days, we got another invitation in our cabin. This time it was inviting us and 18 of our closest friends (aka the other suite guests) to tour the Engine Control Room. This was an area of the ship that Dad had been interested in seeing. While the other invitations at least gave us half a day or more's notice, this one actually arrived within about an hour of the meeting time. After seeing how crowded the other tours were, we decided it wasn't worth skipping our planned onboard activity to attend. If we hadn't already seen many of the ship's crew areas through invited and paid for tours over the years, we would have given a lot more thought to attending. 

Thank you Princess Cruises and the crew of the Sky Princess for giving us this small glance into all the people and all the hard work that goes on behind the curtain!

Experience Perks for being in a Sky Suite

In addition to the perks that all suite passengers get, there are a couple experiences that are specific to Sky Suites. Or at least they were as told to us by our Shoreside Concierge pre-cruise. Those peek behind the curtain moments will be in my next post.

The first experience is the inclusion of one Deluxe Balcony Breakfast and one Ultimate Balcony Dinner during the voyage. Both of these experiences can be purchased by any passenger but only the Sky Suite passengers get it included. The breakfast costs $27.50 per person. I have seen people not in the Sky Suite who have ordered it and they simply get delivered the multiple dishes like a regular room service order. We've only done the breakfast once and that was on the Enchanted Princess' Sky Suite so it was a full table display and course by course waiter service in our cabin. Check out that post here.

The Ultimate Balcony Dinner costs $57.50 per person. From all the reviews I have seen, this will be a full table setup and waiter service for everyone regardless of cabin category. Some have reported that a table was set up inside their cabin when they didn't have a balcony or above room. Others have mentioned going to an area set up elsewhere on the ship. We did not do either the breakfast or dinner on the Sun Princess (always held inside due to the balcony not having a dining table) because we didn't want to devote several hours to it during such a busy themed sailing. Check out our Ultimate Balcony Dinner experience on Enchanted Princess here.

To see a sample of the menu for both meals, visit Princess' official page here. You can reserve this pre-cruise and then decide which day you want to schedule it once onboard. Prior to that scheduled day, you will be contacted to go over the menu. This is your opportunity to discuss any allergies or dietary restrictions so Princess can offer substitutions to make sure everyone can participate and enjoy. 

On the Sky Princess, we scheduled the Ultimate Balcony Dinner to happen a day or two before the breakfast. When we chose the date, Josue did caution us that it was a date that the chef would be busy preparing food for a special event but we didn't have any other day that fit our plans. We met with Josue to go over the menu and make our changes. All changes were within reason such as having a Caesar salad instead of one with walnuts. Dad ordered the entree option that was solely beef while I ordered the surf and turf. Josue made all the arrangements and we agreed to stay out of the cabin until the scheduled dinnertime so they could set up everything. Around 30 minutes before we were to return to the cabin, Josue messages me with his concerns that the weather is too cold and windy and suggests we switch to dining inside the cabin. We had the same issue on Enchanted Princess and told Josue to use his best judgement. 

We arrived back at the cabin right on time to find that the setup had been moved inside. Our inside meal on Enchanted Princess was still just as lovely so we were not bothered by this change. Part of the experience is getting your picture taken at the dinner by a ship photographer. On the EP, we had time to change into nicer clothes, fix our hair etc before the photographer took our posed photos inside the cabin. On this sailing, we were immediately ushered to sit down at the table only to then have the photographer insist on doing pictures first and doing them outside in the high winds. 

I was told by the photographer to put my hands in my pockets for this next shot. While my hair whips up behind me like it's attached to puppet strings.

Last shots were while seated again at the table.

The first bites that our waiter offered was from a tray of canapes. On EP, the tray was left on the table so we could have more later if we wanted. On SP, we were made to choose (we only chose a couple expecting lots more food to come) and the tray was whisked away. 

The first course is a Pacific Blue Crab Cake Baked in a Puff Pastry Crown with thyme infused tomato chutney and whole grain mustard cream. Dad asked to have the mustard left off his dish. The picture below is of my dish with the included mustard cream.

For Dad's dish, they brought ranch dressing (at his request) to pour overtop.

Next course would have been Marinated Chevre and Mesclun Field Greens - pear, walnuts, and aged balsamic vinaigrette. We swapped that out for Caesar salads. To our amazement, instead of the small salad plates we were expecting, we were served a huge portion that filled a large dinner plate. We only ate about a third of the salad each. Our waiter was concerned that we didn't like it but we assured him that we were pacing ourselves to be able to enjoy a little of everything to come.

For our main dish, Dad ordered Grilled Filet of Beef Tenderloin Diane with chateau potatoes, vegetable bouquet, and mushroom demi-glace. He ordered his beef cooked medium well. I ordered the Surf and Turf option - Broiled Tail of cold water lobster and Grilled Filet of Beef Tenderloin - served with rissole potatoes, vegetable bouquet, and a duo of sauces. I requested my beef cooked to medium.

Here is what arrived for both of us - the Surf and Turf option and both cuts of beef were cooked only medium rare. The lemon slice was bigger than both the surf and turf pieces. 

Dad was a bit disappointed that only getting beef didn't mean he ended up with two pieces of tenderloin since I had both lobster meat and beef. Despite that, he was willing to try the lobster rather than make our waiter have to take it all the way back to the galley. That changed however when we both cut into our meat and saw how undercooked it was compared to what we requested. Our waiter seemed surprised that it wasn't what we ordered but then questioned us about whether we wanted to eat it anyway. Unfortunately, this is not simply a case of getting the wrong sauce or side dish and we did ask to get a replacement cooked to our preferences. 

After about 40 minutes of sitting at the table waiting for our replacement dishes, the waiter came back in to inform us that he did deliver it back to the galley but doesn't know why it is taking so long. Another 10-15 minutes pass and the waiter then claims that he's having his manager look into why it is still taking so long. After the hour mark passes since our entrees were whisked away with still no sign of our corrected entrees, we decide that this is going on way too long and are now at the risk of missing the evening activities we had previously told them we wished to be done with dinner by in order to attend. The waiter now changes his claim insisting that his previous report was not that it still wasn't ready but that the fixed dish was ready and on its way up to the cabin. If that were even the case, it wouldn't have taken another 15 minutes to get to us. We asked him "So then you have it out there on the cart ready to serve?" and he had to admit "Well, no but it's coming!" As my mother used to say, "Yeah it's coming? Well so is Christmas!" but instead I replied with the explanation that we no longer had any time left to wait. We asked that all of the dinner setup be cleared away. 

After the evening activity was over, I tried to find something to eat since we didn't get to enjoy 80% of our meal. By that time, the MDR was closed, the buffet was closing up, the poolside stands were closed and the International Cafe had cleaned out their cases. We had tried nearly everything on the limited room service/OceanNow list on the previous days. Despite the fact that I can get sick if I don't eat enough often enough, I just couldn't bring myself to order another sandwich and salad. 

When we shared our frustrations the next day with Josue, his immediate response was "Well, there's always room service." He did understand when we mentioned being tired of having to choose from the limited options. He did offer his apologies and escalated our feedback which led to a meeting with the restaurant manager and food and beverage director. This Ultimate Balcony Dinner experience, especially knowing how great it should have been, was really the boiling point of issues we'd been having throughout the voyage in various restaurants. We would like to thank the officers for meeting with us and hearing us out as we shared both the good and bad we'd been seeing while dining in all the restaurants. They did offer to have us try another UBD but we declined and chose to cancel the breakfast plans as well.  We told them about our last already scheduled specialty dining plans in the Crown Grill when they asked and they promised to make sure we had the best experience. I will cover that evening's visit along with reports of our other visits to to the Crown Grill on another post.

Giving Thanks for someone else doing the cooking

Over the years of cruising, we've been onboard during some of the smaller holidays like Halloween, Mother's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and Independence Day. This was our first experience cruising over Thanksgiving Day. Normally on a sailing that includes a holiday, the cruise will have a lot more children on board. Given that our cruise was a longer sailing, there were only a small group of children on board. When we left the Sun Princess near the end of November 2024, our SEM told us that the estimated number of children on board for the Christmas sailing was going to number in the multiple 100s. 

Decorations were set up throughout the ship. Some of the daily trivia activities were Thanksgiving themed.

While we enjoyed many nights in a specialty restaurant on this sailing, we made sure to keep Thanksgiving Day open to dine in the Reserve section of the MDR.

Chef made up a special menu for tonight's dinner:

Chilled Carrot Dill Soup with a cranberry coulis swirl - I was thrown off by the cold temperature and the gelatinous slushy consistency. 

Country-Style Pate

Dad and I mixed and matched from the entree list to create a main dish that reminded us more of Thanksgiving at home.

The Traditional Roasted Thanksgiving Turkey is listed on the menu as tender breast slices, apple sage dressing, steamed broccoli, roasted brussel sprouts, caramelized sweet potato, calvados gravy, and orange-ginger cranberry sauce.

Our version, differing between us solely because I let the brussel sprouts stay, featured the turkey slices, apple sage dressing, caramelized sweet potato, calvados gravy, roasted baby carrots (from the Ham entree), and mashed potatoes (from the Vegan Medley entree). I also had the cranberry sauce on the side. Should have done the same as Dad and left off the brussel sprouts but otherwise this was a wonderfully tasty makeshift entree.

Dad loved his main dish so much, the waiter brought him a second round of turkey slices, carrots, and mashed potatoes.

Dad's dessert was the Salted Honey and Macadamia Nut Pie

I chose the Dark Chocolate Souffle with Creme Anglaise