Cruise notes: Sun Princess, December 2025

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We return from Sun Princess, where a back-to-back pair of 7-day cruises over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays offered a new yet familiar experience. Sailing on Sphere class again was highly anticipated by all family members after two longer cruises on Enchanted Princess. We eagerly looked forward to the different offerings at the International Cafe, alternate kids club configuration, more accommodating Wake View pool, and potential to make it to Princess Cays this time.

On the first leg of this cruise, we stayed in a mini-suite on deck 10 just a few cabins down from our holiday 2024 sailing; due to a steep price increase, we moved to a deck 5 Oceanview room for the second week. I was apprehensive about how the slightly smaller room would suit our family, but the size wasn’t a problem at all. With the help of some magnets and a duvet cover, we could separate the cabin and get a similar effect to the curtains in a mini-suite.

The downside of this cabin was a very audible, intermittent, industrial-sounding noise at night. Sleep was still successful every evening, but we’ll need to re-evaluate future bookings in this section of the ship. Cabin 5511 is an easy number to remember, but at night it sounded like an off-balance washing machine.

Apart from the cabin noise and a Medallion/door issue on turnaround day, Sun Princess was an ultimately relaxing way to spend the holiday period. We enjoyed the added programming from cruise director Cole and team, and the New Year’s Eve festivities were well-organized and fun for the whole family. The B2B process between the weeks ended up being quite straightforward and only would have been improved if we’d stayed in the same cabin.

I think I’ve found a happy place with the Princess product. With only a few minor downsides and opportunities for operational improvements, Sun Princess was once again a solid choice that I think we’ll be happy to repeat in future.

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Cruise notes: Enchanted Princess, August 2025

August 2025 brought a few more firsts for my family and I on Enchanted Princess, which is now a very familiar ship and one we’ve sailed on the most often. We extended our record of 10 days onboard to a 14-day repositioning and had a unique experience, with two bonus days at sea due to Hurricane Erin. We also had success with self-arranged shore excursions and tried to get the best value out of almost $1200US in non-refundable onboard credit.

Unfortunately, the rumoured swap of the smoking casino to non-smoking on Enchanted did not happen for our sailing; the smaller Take Five/Double Down area continued to be smoke-free with the addition of more slot machines while the main casino still allowed smoking. The Wake View pool had a new restriction prohibiting kids before 4pm, which was an unexpected inconvenience. Positives over last time included consistent, excellent main dining room service from Enrique, Celia and their manager Zorica. We also enjoyed the extended menus on the lengthier sailing, and our kids certainly got full value out of the youth program.

After this cruise I still think Princess offers a high-quality product suitable for our family, but I believe that we are in the audience who appreciate the changes on newer Sphere-class vessels. I also think the originally scheduled 14 days would have been the right amount of time for us; by day 16 we were ready to get back home to see friends, family, and pets. That said, our enthusiasm for future sailings hasn’t diminished and we are eagerly counting down the days until our next voyage on Sun Princess.

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Cruise notes: Enchanted Princess, March 2025

Continuing our theory of “if the kids are out of school, we might as well all be on vacation,” as well as a newfound affinity for Princess, we took a 10-day “Eastern Voyager” sailing on Enchanted Princess over the Ontario March (“mid-winter”) break.

We loved the increased time onboard compared to our previous 7-day sailings and the extra days gave us a good opportunity to relax. Our kids were occasionally able to stay up later and take advantage of the evening kids club sessions, so Kayla and I saw a couple shows and even went for dinner by ourselves once. Service, food and beverages on this trip ranged from great to outstanding.

I was very pleased with the layout of our mini-suite for four people, but there were some downsides to its starboard-aft location on deck 8. Some other negatives (with this cruise still being a 9/10) include a technical glitch with our cabin door, casino smoke, pool maintenance issues, fruit fly presence, and a few limitations compared to to Sun Princess.

As is usual for these reviews, I won’t be writing about the ports; unfortunately, we missed Princess Cays where we had splurged on a bungalow as our main “beach day”, and replacement options weren’t appealing. If you’re here for the ship or just general travel ramblings – as well as a newly updated focus on Sphere versus Royal-class ships – let’s get into it.

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Synology NAS: disable physical reset button

TL;DR: SSH into the device, edit /etc/synoinfo.conf as root, and add the line: reset_button_disable="yes"

This change is useful if the reset button on your Synology device is malfunctioning, causing it to go into a “Configuration lost” state.

The first time I saw this behaviour was on my DS418, where the SMB/CIFS mount from a Linux server would not re-attach. Accessing the web UI returned a message prompting to reinstall DSM. All the configuration (users, enabled services, ) was lost but the storage pools, volumes and data were intact.

I was worried that the device may have been compromised and reset somehow, but couldn’t find evidence to support that theory – it was up to date, not exposed directly on the Internet or using Synology online services, and used strong credentials both for the non-standard admin account as well as the limited permissions account used to access SMB.

Several days later, the same issue occurred again, and I found both some online discussion as well as an official Synology support article detailing this condition. Unfortunately, the article was somewhat unhelpful – after initially asking users to clean and dust their hardware, it directs you to check your warranty status and reach out to your reseller, which is never promising.

Comments in a Reddit post were more helpful, confirming that the reset button can malfunction, and while some people had success with an in-warranty RMA, devices out of warranty are SOL. You can, however, disable the hardware reset button with the reset_button_disable="yes" directive in /etc/synoinfo.conf. I also rebooted the DiskStation after making this change since I wasn’t sure which daemon was responsible for reading or re-reading this file.

Since making this change I have had no unexpected configuration resets, so I’m documenting it here for my own reference (in the case Reddit turns on a paywall in 2025.)

Cruise notes: Sun Princess, December 2024

Booked on much shorter notice than our typical sailings, we cruised Sun Princess over the 2024 Christmas/Hanukkah double-whammy holiday (the whammy was also reflected in the pricing.) I am pleased to report that we had a positive experience, with crew seeming to have hit their stride in the weeks since the ship started sailing from Florida. Sun certainly has a different style from the preceding Royal-class ships such as Enchanted and Discovery Princess, but overall the core Princess product seemed intact.

Sun Princess was not perfect, nor would I say it was the best cruise we’ve been on, but the doom and gloom attitude in videos and forum posts seems overblown compared to our positive vacation experience. We had an early technology “fail” with the Medallions, casual dining options were too popular, and an incorrect OceanNow delivery consumed my daily drink allocation and added an incorrect charge to the final bill. Highlights, though, were the included dining, friendly crew, children’s programming, and onboard events that the whole family enjoyed.

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Cruise notes: Enchanted Princess, August 2024

Our August 2024 started off with a week on the immediate predecessor ship to Discovery Princess: Enchanted Princess. Notable for its launch delay of over a year due to pandemic restrictions, I expected the penultimate ship in the Royal class would have a very familiar feel to the vessel we were on earlier in the year. I hoped for a great kids’ program, decent dining and drinks, and be a nice way to disconnect from work.

I’m pleased to report that Enchanted Princess fulfilled these expectations, with a few noteworthy high points and only a couple shortcomings compared to other lines as well as our Discovery Princess trip earlier in the year. We had excellent dining experiences, and while OceanNow delivery was still a good way to stock the fridge with drinks, our beverages for hot tub delivery didn’t show up until we were off the lido deck and back at the cabin. As expected, the layout and smoke-filled casino were less than optimal, but the kids’ club still delivered for our family.

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Cruise notes: MSC Seascape, June 2024

Since my short solo experience in 2022 on Meraviglia, I’d wanted to come back to MSC on a longer sailing. The Ocean Cay marine reserve, a port exclusive to the cruise line, was an excellent and relaxing time at no additional charge. The polarizing and negative reviews about the ships, food, service, and entertainment just seemed wildly different compared to the decent experience I’d had. And the value-for-money was certainly appealing.

In late June 2024, we had the opportunity to take the immediate family on MSC Seascape (easily confused with – but distinct from: MSC Seaside, Seashore, and Seaview.) On this booking, I made a minimum upgrade bid to a Yacht Club balcony cabin that was accepted, so we spent most of our week in the premium areas of the vessel.

There were certainly many perks and features that came with the Yacht Club experience, but we’ve had similar high-quality service on other cruises when staying in a “regular” cabin. Outside of Yacht Club, the early evening shows at Cabaret Rouge and the Chora Theatre entertained our children, but the kids club did not work as well for us as Camp Discovery on Princess.

We came out of the experience with a desire to try the MSC product again but wouldn’t necessarily spend the extra money to stay in the luxury area. While we did enjoy many premium amenities such as the restricted-access pool deck, flexible dining, and Top Sail Lounge – the butler service, “upscale” food selections and the YC-exclusive beach area weren’t as worthwhile for us.

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Cruise notes: Discovery Princess, May 2024

Discovery Princess was our second sailing of a very cruise-heavy 2024, our first ever trip on Princess, and just over 10 months since our last cruise with children. With kids in tow, the round-trip to Alaska from Seattle was a much different experience than our sailing on Infinity in 2018, but a positive one, earning Princess a spot in our “definitely would cruise again” category.

Highlights included the RFID Medallion concept and the Princess Plus package, but the OceanNow delivery service was inconsistent in terms of timing and the Princess phone app wasn’t always reliable. The casino location and wafting smoke was also a negative, but apart from a few dinner snags we had very friendly, responsive service from the onboard team. And in a deal-clincher for Princess, the Camp Discovery program was a complete hit for our kids – who came home with a great attitude, a suitcase full of arts and crafts, and a desire to cruise again.

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Cruise notes: Celebrity Ascent, March 2024

We made an attempt to sail with friends in early 2024, which did not come to fruition due to a childcare scheduling conflict. While they ended up sailing Norwegian Epic in February, Kayla and I opted to stick with our originally planned booking on Celebrity Ascent the month afterward. Along with the previous ship, Beyond, Ascent had some layout improvements over Edge and Apex that I was excited to investigate – such as an extended Sunset Bar, more navigable Martini Bar and infinity pool.

Since we were sailing without kids, there were a few opportunities to treat ourselves to a shore excursion, a Chef’s Table experience, premium drinks, and specialty dining at Eden. I also splurged on a behind-the-scenes ship tour where I was able to indulge my curiosity and catch a glimpse of the “future” bridge.

Like all cruise lines, Celebrity has its quirks and rough spots, but this sailing was a good counterpoint to our less-than-ideal early 2023 experience on Bliss for what an adults trip could be. The service, food, onboard experience, and drinks were solid with only a few exceptions. We were happy with our choice to sail Ascent and would certainly pick it again in future under similar conditions.

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Cruise notes: Carnival Celebration, July 2023

Beware: I didn’t get this cruise documented in a reasonable amount of time after sailing, so have lost some context, but still want to keep track of all sailings for key reminders and later reference.

A childcare annual shutdown week loomed in early July, and it was clear that we needed some solid plans to avoid early summer boredom, irritation, and sloth. The same week in 2022, Kayla and I were able to sail by ourselves on Norwegian Joy while the kids stayed with their grandparents. In March 2023, though, we’d already gone on Bliss child-free for a week and didn’t want to make the same request of my parents for only a few months later, so thoughts once again turned to a full-family sailing.

With time, we’d also suppressed the challenges of our January 2020 trip with infants in tow on Escape. Things would surely have improved in the intervening 3-and-a-half years! Issues such as mobility, solid food, formula, diapers, and special sleeping arrangements would no longer be in play. And the fully supervised kids’ club, with potty-trained children who were old enough to attend on their own, might give us adults a few occasional hours to relax.

It turns out that cruising with children at this age comes with a new set of things to account for, which made this sailing challenging in several ways. Our kids had a good time on the ship, but not in the Camp Ocean program, and it’s important to catalog this in contrast to many positive reports of the kids club experience.

From my cruise enthusiast perspective, and as someone who had not sailed on Carnival before, I enjoyed seeing what the largest mass-market cruise line had to offer on their newest ship, and was especially impressed with the pool facilities and food options like Big Chicken and Deco Deli. This was also my first sailing without some type of beverage package. I wasn’t a fan of paying by the drink, even if financially Cheers! wouldn’t have made sense for the week.

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