Five Spots Onboard the All-New Sun Princess Your Clients Will Love

Travel Market Report returned early this week from five days onboard the all-new Sun Princess. With only five days onboard and several spaces still not ready, we didn’t get the complete Sun Princess experience. But we had enough time to determine which spaces we believe your clients will love – and which, particularly for past Princess passengers, they might not be 100% thrilled with.

In this piece, we give you the good news first.

Here are the five spots onboard Sun Princess that we believe your clients will love:

– One of Sun Princess’ most prominent features is the geodesic dome located high atop the front of the ship. When it’s sunny, the Dome catches the light giving the ship a sparkling appearance you can see from miles away.

During the day, the Dome is a relaxing spot to lounge in, with terraced loungers, plenty of sunlight, and small pool, with half inside the dome and half outside. There’s room during the day for about 100 or so passengers using full loungers.

At night, the space comes alive with one of three shows produced in partnership with Cirque Eloize. Each show, which is full of cirque-style acts including aerialists, contortionists, and hoop balancers, lasts about 30 minutes each, with two showings each evening. To make room for more people – up to about 250 – the loungers are divided in half in the evening.

We saw one of the final dress rehearsals for the first of the three shows: Artbeat. For this special showing, passengers had to have tickets, which “sold out” in less than 10 minutes. There were plenty of unhappy passengers on our sailing because of this. Starting with the current cruise, passengers will no longer need tickets for Artbeat or any of the other shows. (The two remaining shows need several more weeks to roll out.)

As much as we loved the Dome, it does have one major drawback. Great during the day, the smaller size means that not all passengers will get to see all of the three shows, as there just won’t be enough space and the shows won’t be shown enough for everyone to see them. We also anticipate that guests will need to queue up 40 minutes early or more to get a seat to any given show.

Good Spirits at Sea is not a new concept for Princess Cruises, but on Sun Princess it’s located in a standalone venue tucked away in a corner. There’s a “stage” setup for the shows, which feature a bartender making selected drinks while a video highlights the location from which the drink hails.

Additionally, the menu has been expanded, there’s room inside for 40 people – larger than most other Good Spirit at Sea locations in the fleet, and, best of all, you can get any of the specialty cocktails whenever the bar is open – not only during “show” times.

Cocktail-loving clients will love the drink choices at Good Spirits at Sea, all of which are included with Princess Plus and Princess Premium packages.

One of the most unique venues onboard Sun Princess, if not at sea, is Spellbound by Magic Castle.

For anyone unfamiliar with Magic Castle, it’s a members-only club for magicians based in Los Angeles. The Magic Castle in L.A. is an elaborately refurbished mansion with multiple theaters and nooks for displays of close-up magic that, quite frankly, defy belief. With Spellbound, Princess and the Magic Castle have managed to recreate a little bit the ornate, mystical atmosphere that defines the L.A. location. It’s quite remarkable, even featuring a piano-playing ghost (sister to the one who resides in L.A.). Isabella, the ghost, can play just about any song you request, and a ghost parrot bobs his (or her) head along to the music.

Inside the lounge, a close-up magician performs at the bar or tableside, while waiters deliver intricate specialty cocktails like the Smoke & Mirrors, Open Sesame, Escape from Houdini’s Chest (presented in an actual chest!), and zero-proof The Artemis in the Moonlight, which is served in a metallic, golden owl.

The experience, which costs extra (as of April 8, it’ll cost clients $149 and is WELL WORTH the price), includes dinner, unlimited drinks, one mainstage magic show, and access to the exclusive Spellbound lounge all evening (from the time of their ticket onward). There are three seatings: 5 p.m., 7 p.m., and 9 p.m. Dinner starts at the appointed time, with the main-stage showing following about an hour later. Guests may then come and go from the Spellbound lounge for the rest of that evening.

For the best value, tell your clients to choose the 5 p.m. showing. They’ll be the first into the lounge and have the longest amount of access, so they can go to another show, say in the Arena, then come back for another drink or two.

The second O’Malley’s in the fleet, but the first in a standalone venue (more are coming as the Salty Dog Gastropub gets converted), this is a great spot for anyone who likes a casual pub environment and pub grub.

There’s music throughout the late afternoon and evening, from sets of Irish favorites, to a piano player offering up classic piano hits, to a guitar player doing a variety of modern songs. O’Malley’s is a popular spot and is often crowded, so guests should get there early, especially for the Irish sets.

Pub grub is available from 5:30 p.m. onwards (we didn’t have a seaday so unsure if its open for lunch occasionally) and includes things like a Scotch Egg, an onion rings stack, Irish Breakfast, Fish & Chips, Wings, and desserts. (Another tip for clients: run next door to the gelateria and grab a scoop of gelato to pair with your apple pie, boozy brownie, or Guinness chocolate cake. Food is priced a la carte or guests can pay a set fee for a three-course meal. Pub fries are always free when the kitchen is open.

5. Cascade Bar – This is a small bar (probably only room for about 20 people or so), located outside the Dome on Deck 17. It’s a quiet spot that really only gets crowded right before or after a Dome show. The rest of the time it’s pretty undiscovered, but it’s a quiet, pretty spot named after the gorgeous waterfall with color-changing lights that cycle through various shades of red, blue, green, and purple.

The bar is closed during the day, making it a quiet spot for solitary reading or working. Even when its open, it’s rarely crowded except before and after shows.

Before moving on to the spots we’re not 100% sold on, there are a few more spots your clients might love, starting with Kai Sushi by Makoto Okuwa (a Miami-based chef whose sushi menu is only onboard Sun Princess). Sushi lovers TMR talked to raved about the sushi here, saying it’s a step up from the sushi found on the rest of the ship, and more like the “real” sushi you’d be served in Japan – right down to warmed up rice that falls apart when you try to pick it up with chopsticks.

Another spot we heard people raving about is The Butcher’s Block, a meat-lover’s dream created in partnership with famed Italian butcher Dario Cecchini. Located at the back of the ship on Deck 9 – in space used the rest of the day as overflow for The Eatery buffet – The Butcher’s Block is only open for dinner and, much like a Brazilian churrascaria, has a set menu of meat, lots of meat, about six servings of different cuts of meat, plus a steak tartar.

It’s the kind of meal a person might want to forgo all meals prior to. It’s also a good idea for clients not to schedule a visit to Crown Grill the day after.

There is a vegetarian and vegan menu (I tried the former), but it’s excessively tomato: stewed tomatoes, stewed veggies in a tomato sauce, a bowl of tomato sauce the waiter called tomato stew, two eggs soft-side up with tomato sauce, etc.