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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