Is it really worth it? Seriously, having to waste 3-4 hours of cruise time to watch a show is ridiculous. Give out tickets only. I really hate to see fights breaking out on cruise lines.
Ships like the Sun are TOO BIG...too many people for these small venues...lines...lines...lines? Forget it. Far prefer small ships....and less mass market ships ..ie Azamara or others. 4 hours..nothing worth that wait.
Hey Don. Arguing or fights on Princess? Just to show you Carnival is not the only cruise line with occasional discord. It just gets posted more. Can happen anywhere and does. Royal, Norwegian, Celebrity; anywhere. Thanks for the seating tips. No way I’m missing 3 hrs of fun to stand on a line to see a show.
Thats crazy, Princess will have to get some kind of system to organize the shows. 4 hours to wait on a show on a cruise NO Thank you there other things to do that will be more enjoyable.
This same faulty design of crowd management happened on my cruise for the tender boarding. We only have >3500 passengers. It isn’t like these ships haven’t experienced all of this before and couldn’t figure it out.
Yikes! We’re going on the Sun Princess in January 2025 and hope they figure this situation out before then! That is completely ridiculous to wait that long for a show. I wouldn’t do it!!!
First of all, they need to do more than 2 shows. Mainly they need to use a reservation. It can’t be that hard. Just scan people’s medallions as they come to the door. 10 minutes before showtime, open for anyone for remaining seats.
What a mess. I agree with some of the other posters, waiting in line to see a show for 3 to 4 hours is such a waste of your time on a cruise ship when you could be doing something else. They are going to have to solve this problem because it really is a problem.!!!!
He said “almost” fist fights. Princess is more expensive right? Then it’s scientifically statistically true that people with less money will use more physical violence. That is a fact. Carnival is cheaper and therefore will have a more Pysically violent people as customers. We can do the thing society demands of us and lie about this fact or we can cut through the gaslighting bs and tell the truth.
I just came off the Caribbean Princess. I love the old Explorer’s Lounge and Club Fusion….these venues are huge and fantastic and versatile. Why they replaced Explorers and made Princess LIve….I have never liked that. Specialty dining takes up too much room on new ships. I love the pool at the back of the ship. The old theatres are a great size also…always packed but definitely big enough.
As most have said a ticket system would, ease the confusion, silly waiting times etc. or, couldn't they screen the show on the pool area big screen/TVs? Personally that's how I would like to watch it, weather dependent of course, however may solve some of the issues 🤷
Sunday, I went to the Reno Philharmonic. Guess what? We had assigned seating. At the end of January, we are going to see, “The Book of Mormon” in the exact same theater. Guess what? Assigned seating! This is not a difficult concept (they do it with dinner service). We have been doing this for literal centuries. Assigned time and assigned seats. Easy.
Have a system where you pre-book the seats, but no repeat attendances. That way you can at least give as many people a chance as possible. It’s not ideal as you can’t really be spontaneous, but it’s a consequence of these larger ships.
Yes it is crazy how early my wife and I had to wait to see the show in the dome. We were lucky the first time we tried. We were passenger 201 & 202 of 250 limit to get in. I hope you were able to get some antibiotics for your mouth pain. I know where you are coming from. The day before we left for London my mouth began to throb. Luckily my dentist could see me right away and put me on antibiotics before we left.
With all the 3D modeling and simulations it is a bit confusing why they could not have worked out a better system. A venue for 250 people - HA! There are more available bread stations in the buffet than at the entertainment venue.
Totally agree with your assessment in the Dome. We got in OK, went to the top deck behind the seating and stood up. View was good. PS: The Vallora production show is outstanding.
Princess really seems to be falling short lately. Just got off a Princess cruise that has put me off of them permanently. Broken stabilizers, poor service, order now taking 2hrs, just not good enough.
Does the cruise line have a ticket system? I know Royal does on their larger ships and so does Norwegian. Is this something they could consider? I also know Royal has a standby line in case a reservation doesn't show.
Same problem on Celebrity Edge class ships. Have a venue called Eden at the back of the ship. They put on performances that are better than the regular shows. Problem is, if you are not there 2 hours before, you can’t see much. I doubt it even has seating for 250.
Definitely have reservations. When the show is full it’s done. So only the people with reservations show up! Problem solved. We make reservations on Royal for almost every show. No issues.
Princess clearly dropped several balls in their design and execution. This screams for a different approach - reservations, waitlist, lottery, or some combination thereof. At a minimum any queue should be well marked and equitable.
Why do they not rope off cue areas like theme parks do? Make them loop as needed. Same at elevators and dining venues. It’s so easy to fix, why do they not do it?
Absolutely poor crowd management by the cruise line. When you set something up to fail it usually will. Assign seats thru a reservation system and avoid the mess.
It is understandable that folks would get heated when being packed in like sardines. People are paying lots of money to go on cruises, and when they are treated no better than a WalMart customer at self-checkout, they have a tendency to be on edge. Companies from the airlines to resort vacation venues need to stop throwing too many people on board, cramming them in to make the most profit. (imo)
Good afternoon Don. A simple way to fix if they do not want a reservation system. Wrist bands, have enough to cover seating capacity. Anyone asking to see the show gets a wrist band first come first serve. Once out of those wristbands no others are allowed to enter the venue. A different colour for each performance for that cruise. Blue, orange, so on also helps if you didn't get that performance wrist band you don't line up. A sign goes up all seats gone. Avoids the lineups for hours and may stop the arguments from cruisers. May stop people that already seen the show from coming to another one.
We are on the Sun right now and attended the show Don is mentioning. We arrived two hours before showtime and were 70 and 71st in line. No big deal. Had great conversations with people in line which sped up the wait.
Cruise lines need to study the way theme parks handle lines, and monitor the lines for line cutters. Have the shows in bigger venues and have more showings. Norwegian has issues with the Cavern club and the Syd Norman club.
Don, the other thing that I’d mention is that the shows really aren’t advertised well. They are no where to be found if using only the app instead of the Princess Patter, nor have we heard them mentioned during the daily Wake Up program. This was part of the entertainment that we planned on attending and we’ve missed out entirely on the two so far and with 8 days remaining we’ve seen nothing about upcoming shows. With that said we’re glad that we’ve missed out on the angry crowds! Thanks for the update and glad you are feeling better.
The only reason they don't do reservations is the number of complaints they would get for having and advertising a show that they know can only be seen by a quarter of the guests!
That is not a good design of this ship, it looks nice but someone did not think things through on this ship at all. I will stick to the older Princess ships for now.
book a seat, but only on the day, this should stop people booking seats weeks before and not turning up. or only for sale is those who have the princess plus plus plus package. That may not go down well.
reminds me of an online game where normally players can't attack each other. the developers would set up special events where there were limited resources, no queuing and the incentive was basically players to be rude to each other to get what they wanted and everyone would end up hating each other.. genius....
No show is worth more than a 30 minute wait to me - figure out some way to do tickets or a random draw of numbers to people who sign up and then have people line up by number
As much as I liked the older Princess ships, I could never stand waiting for hours to see a show. I wouldn't book a cruise on these new ships if they expect me to wait several hours in line to watch the main entertainment. Assuming there isn't enough room for everyone, they should have a reservation system where everyone is guaranteed to see at least one show or two shows for platinum/elite/suite guests. People who really want to watch the show a second time can try their luck and wait in line to see if there are any no shows.
I guess I have never been on a ship so big that this became a problem. No cruise I have been on needed tickets for a shop. Might have to go early to get a seat, but no biggie.
Maybe they should start charging people… $25 to see the show or what ever amount they like then refund it back to them after the show but people have to go to customer service desk to get the refund like they be someone at the door with a paper with their name on it and it get marked off or a scanner
No way would I wait 4 hours for a show unless they were giving at least $1000. At the end of the show. These ships they are building that hold more people yet have small venues and don’t show the shows enough to let everyone see them needs to be stopped. We pay for our cruise expecting to see all the shows we want & it’s not fair for this to happen. We enjoy RC oasis class. We haven’t had any problems booking shows we want to see and even though they hold quite a few people we have never had really long lines. You may have to wait a few minutes for something but that is just the real world. I would be mad if I was on this Princess ship & couldn’t see the shows unless I wasted 4 hours to get in. No thank you! Wake up cruise lines that are doing this. Ports are not wanting the super big ships and then if on them you can’t see what you paid for like shows or you wait in ridiculous lines. This has to be fixed.
