Princess Chatter

Emerald Princess – Day 4

Fresh Market/Horizon Court (FM)

•   There are two parts to FM on the Emerald Princess.  The middle part (on each side) and the back part.
•   At breakfast the port side opens first and well after the port side passenger grid lock has already occurred the starboard side finally opens. The back side has black out curtains covering the port side serving area and the rest of the backside has limited breakfast offerings.  Both the FM sides and back do not have a visible bread toasting machine.  It was hard to find toasted bread in the FM side serving areas but easy to find in the FM back side.  The butter for bread on both sides and back side is located far from the bread.
•   Orange juice is no longer on the servers trays.  In the middle part of FM orange juice is pre-pored in the small plastic glasses and placed in the food serving area for you to pickup.
I assume there the small shot glass size. I usually get three at a time.

•   FM syrup coffee is just as strong and bad tasting as you would expect.
How could they sell the coffee at the IC if the buffet coffee was to good?

•   It appears that FM is quite understaffed and the serving and kitchen staff seem to be unaware where passengers can find different food items.
•   This morning we sat near the aft end of FM and as a test I asked the Ocean Now app to tell my our location.  Ocean Now reported that we were seated in ‘Steamers Seafood.”  Say what?  We’ve near heard of an Emerald Princess “Steamers Seafood” area in the FM seating area.
•   Not to my surprise it appears that most passengers don’t know about the back side of FM.
OK. Makes for easy seating.

•   Yesterday morning there were no bananas available anywhere in the FM serving areas or in the FM  kitchen nor was Cream-of-Wheat (which apparently may be gone on all Princess Ships).
•   Yesterday they ran out of rolled silverware
•   The hand washing stations are no longer maned.
Same on the Enchanted.

•   I talked with four ship officers who were standing around about the bad music coming from the speakers in FM.  None of them seemed to care.
They've heard the music for so long they're oblivious to the music.

International Café (IC)

•   Princess has been bragging about their new coffee supplier.  My dear wife (DW) and agreed that the IC brewed coffee was weak and tasted bad.  They won’t hand you your brewed coffee order until you swipe your medallion on their medallion scanner.  There is now only one size brewed coffee.  No more large or small sizes.  All brewed coffee now costs $2.36.

Another price increase I see.

•   The green chairs by the IC are so low to the floor that it’s a real struggle for passengers to get out of them.  One short person seated at our IC table like them because finally her feet could touch the floor.

•   The snacks in the IC,  when we were there, were all greatly downsized, apparently to cut costs.
They have different recopies for some of the the pastries served for to the Suite people. At least the donuts are different and much better. The ones in the IC case were like sinkers on the Enchanted.

Other

•   Hazmat was observed working in a suite two doors down from us, day before yesterday.
•   Room Service, after prompting by us and after their broken promise, finally delivered our mini-bar trade out and the missing part of our pre-cruise order of water.
•   At the Captain’s Champagne Waterfall event it appeared that drinks were not watered down.  When the Captain presented the senior officers, one by one, to the crowd the junior officers dutifully clapped, but not all.
•   At the Motown (Tamla) trivia contest if you don’t know who sang Don’t Leave Me This Way (Thelma Houston) you probably will not win.
Never heard of her.
•   Passenger Services can show your account with your spouse account merged onto one page in the Princess app on request.
•   Tonight’s show is a repeat of comedian Mike Gafffney due to the entertainer no-show previously mentioned.  Gaffney has the show that caused me to almost fall asleep.
Hopefully a different show?
•   The music in the only Princess Theater show I’ve seen wasn’t too loud.  I did enjoy the booth guys playing Macarena as we exited the Theater.  We are fully prepared for blasting audio on shows to come.
•   The seats in the front of Princess Theater seem narrower than the back seats, or maybe it’s my imagination.
•   The Princess Theater Interdenominational Sunday Worship Service was high church Anglican, read the script, without a sermon or communion.  It was led by the Captain and helpers from the Entertainment staff. 
•   Sabatini’s food report in tomorrow’s update.