Sky Princess: Great ship but service and maintenance need work

The Sky Princess is one of the newer ships in the Princess fleet but it already needs a major tune-up. I recently returned from a Caribbean cruise on Sky and although it has a lot of nice spaces to relax and great entertainment, service was slow at most of the bars and specialty restaurants, the food wasn't as good as other Princess ships and there were signs on every deck that maintenance is overdue. Is the Sky Princess worth considering for your next cruise? Join me for a complete review.
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#princesscruises #skyprincess
📘 CHAPTERS
00:00 Start
00:51 Inconsistent experiences on Princess
01:25 Sky Princess at a glance
03:00 Access
03:38 Vibe
05:29 Mini-suite cabin
06:16 Food
08:10 Drinks
09:25 Entertainment
10:26 Activities
11:11 Amenities
11:46 Sanctuary cabana experience
12:48 Half-broken Enclave
13:55 Technology
14:30 Handpays galore at the casino
15:28 Service
15:50 Recap

[@jackredmond6023]

We are on the same ship - same itinerary - in February. We’ve been on Sky Princess once before and we had a wonderful experience. We were on one of the inaugural season cruises in February 2020. I will miss that they don’t have a Crooners on this ship. I have my fingers crossed that they will get their act back together before February 10th. I will let you know. Thanks for the review.

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for watching! Looking forward to hearing about your experience. Only a few days to go!

[@MW-sn7if]

Just back today from a short Norway and Denmark cruise. I have to agree about the queues. The worst we’ve encountered on any cruise with Princess even ordering with a waiter ( when you could get one’s attention) was still very very slow.

[@bstanz5266]

We were on the ship with you. We had 2 previous cruises on Enchanted. We agree the service was off especially in the MDR and sanctuary {we were there for 14 days.} It's not like it was bad service it just was off compared to enchanted. I describe it like when one of your fuel injectors is clogged in your car. It still runs but you know something is wrong. BTW, the delay getting off at princess cays was because someone died overnight and the Bahamian government wanted to confirm it was natural.

[@mgaka47]

Just heading home after yet another brilliant time aboard the Sky Princess and she's every bit as smart as she can be and we have had no issues at all .

[@CrazyStreak-pz8vg]

Thanks for the informative review. I'm looking at our next cruise and have never cruised with Princess before, only PandO. You say there are queues for bar service. I just wondered why people are queuing up for drinks when apparently the medallion class app allows you to order drinks to be served directly to you wherever you are on the ship. P and O service is excellent as you never have to approach a bar or join a queue as it is 100% waiter service. Thanks.

[@TheChillCruiser]

I think people queue either out of habit or if they don’t have one of the packages. Otherwise there’s an activation feee to use the OceanNow delivery service.

[@jonathanlawrence1401]

My family was on your sailing. We actually went back to back. I totally agree with your ratings!

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for watching and sharing your experience!

[@appcity4761]

I still appreciate social distancing, so you'll catch me at the Vista Lounge

[@wfodavid]

We have been on 8 Princess cruise ships and never had an issue. Our next is Enchanted this month. Hoping we have continued luck. Enjoying the channel, nice work!

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for watching and for sharing your feedback! I hope you enjoy the Enchanted - I loved it!

[@uwebeyer3459]

Enjoyed the review. We are on the Sky in two days, our second time aboard the Sky. We'll see what our experience brings us this time. Hopefully, it's better than what you experienced. Thanks again.

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for watching. Hope you enjoy your cruise!

[@glent7853]

All the Princess ships pre Royal Class need at least 150M refits each. I am not sure why Princess is letting these old ship be run into the ground. There is such potential for these ships with a full upgrade.

[@user-wt6ev6ly7e]

Thank you for such an informative review. A bit worrying as we’re on a Sky Princess European cruise in April! I hope the issues raised will have been resolved, but we’re English and are used to waiting for a beer.

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for watching and for the feedback. It’s a beautiful ship so if you’re patient, you’ll have a great time! It might have a new management team by April so hopefully leadership and service will have improved as a bonus. Cheers.

[@kaygeemusic5077]

We were on the ship for the trans-Atlantic passage just before your cruise. I concur with most of what you said, especially the service. We found the service staff, especially in the bars to be unhappy and slow. This to me reflects badly on the onboard management. The layout was quite confusing and disjointed, especially with the sky suites taking up deck space forcing you indoors to get from one end of the ship to the other. Our next cruise is on Crown Princess and having been on Ruby we like the Grand class layout much better.

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for the feedback and for sharing your experience! Hope you enjoy the Crown!

[@kenm8162]

Just ended a 7 day on Discovery and completely agree on the service aspect. We had long drinks waits and inconsistent mixing of same dinks in public gathering areas. Only two servers working Salty Dog during dinner time that resulted in almost 20 min to be seated. I feel it all falls on management and not the workers, poor training and under staffed. They need to step away from the metrics that say we need X number of servers at these times and physically look at the service provided during peak times.

[@lynnz109]

Well, this is disappointing to hear! The Sky fare is much more than Caribbean. My expectations had been higher for my February cruise.

[@cruisingforone]

Excellent review. I board Caribbean Princess on Sunday. I agree with you, it's a fantastic ship. I sailed on Sky as my first Princess Cruise. It was nice, but I really did not like how much space the Sky Suites take up on the top decks. Also the gym is nice but the location is terrible.

[@TheChillCruiser]

I hope you enjoyed your cruise on Caribbean as much as I did!

[@luvtravel6207]

The jazz club was always closed 😒kind of a wasted space, looked elegant though.

[@ryanmazur1812]

I went on the Royal Princess and it was an amazing experience as the first ship in the Royal level. The Sky Princess looks like Princess has gone downhill really fast

[@tbigelow64]

I just got off the Sky 3 days ago and already booked the next. Sky was a great experience.

[@TheChillCruiser]

I’m glad you had a better experience! Have they fixed the issues I mentioned on my cruise (bar lineups, amenities needing maintenance etc)?

[@tbigelow64]

@@TheChillCruiser I had zero issues.

[@loisstanford8736]

I’m on a 28 day cruise on this ship from London to Scandinavia etc hope it’s a different experience🤔

[@nancym.9334]

I hope so too! In June we will be on the Sky for the second time. We really enjoyed the first time, even though it really did seem crowded in quite a few venues.

[@glockman9c]

Casino smoking % is probably due to European itineraries.

[@princesssweetpea9205]

Sorry, but the tenderloin plate looks MUCH better on the SKY. Very small portion on the Caribbean.. Looks burned... strange 'broken' gravy compared to what looks more like au jus.... minuscule carrot 'sticks' instead of plenty of sliced carrots... And, that. broccoli... that is a cruciferous veggie that imparts that distinct smell to the whole plate. Have to agree with the bar situation... on these larger ships, the bar staff is just insufficient!!!

[@pizzabirdog]

Boooooooooooo... Thanks for putting everyone off the cruise they have booked...#how to make your listeners un follow you. Don't listen.. Sky Princess is beautiful.

[@richardg8651]

So you don't like honesty?

[@TheChillCruiser]

Thank you for chiming in here. You read my mind!