20251225 Thursday, December 25, 2025 Christmas in Roatan, Honduras

20251225 Thursday, December 25, 2025 Christmas in Roatan, Honduras

The ship approached Roatan through periodic downbursts of rain.  The Regal Princess was tied up at the head of the cruise ship docks in Mahogany Bay as the Sun Princess backed into the outside berth.  There are two major cruise ship ports in Roatan. The Mahogany Bay one is used primarily by Carnival cruise lines.  The Regal Princess sailed out of Galveston.  Since the ships were arranged bow to stern, it was not possible to do a side by side comparison of the sizes.  The Sun Princess is appreciably larger but doesn’t dwarf the Regal by any means. 

We have learned that the key to making the buffet dining experience tolerable is to get there early before the main crowds show up.  We easily found tables in the American Diner section, behind the Eatery.  The breakfast food items were no different than what is in the Eatery, but it was easy to get served and there was even silverware settings on the tables.  

We headed off the ship in a mass exodus once the gangways were opened.  There is a sizable outdoors shopping mall complex that is part of the cruise terminal with lots of jewelry stores, high end retail stores, restaurants and bars.  John and Iram did find a micro museum that had some displays on the history and cultural heritage of Roatan.  

We had booked an excursion through Viator that combined a mini-zoo featuring local species including sloths, tucans and monkeys, an ATV off road drive through the jungle, and time at a private beach resort.  We had to walk through  the entire cruise terminal complex to the exit from the port complex where private tour operators could pick up passengers.  The port must charge extra for tour operators to come inside the port complex, or there may be some maritime security issues that prevent pick up inside the terminal complex.  It was not hard to figure out where to go because the tour operator emailed maps and we just followed a huge line of cruise ship passengers all headed to the same place.  

The tour operator picked us up in a mini-bus that probably seated 24 with fold up center seats that we didn’t use.  There were the 10 in our group plus a family of 4 from the Regal Princess.  

We were fortunate that the rain had stopped by the time we disembarked the ship, but as we drove from the cruise port through Roatan, the skies opened up periodically, drenching everything in a downpour.  It took about 20 minutes to get to the Mayan Eden zoo attraction.  The main highways in Roatan are nicely paved with concrete, but as you get off the main roads, they become gravel and dirt quickly.  The bus driver demonstrated great skill in handling the bus through the muddy and rut strewn narrow road leading into the parking lot.  

We had a private guide for our group and they handed out umbrellas for everyone. Fortunately, the rain stopped just as we were getting out of the bus. 

The Mayan Eden is a very busy and popular attraction.  It’s pretty small for a zoo, but remarkably intimate.  It was amazing that we each got to take photos of a Macaw on our arm, capuchin monkey and kinkaju feeding out of our palms, and even photos with a three toed sloth.  While it was a bit run down and the pathways were irregular and slippery in places, it was a very enjoyable and interesting place to visit.

Our next stop was the ATV adventure.  As we got out of the bus, the sky opened up again as we ran to the cover of a tin roof over a bunch of tables where we signed waivers and were fitted with helmets and goggles. The so-called ATV’s were not really ATV’s.  They were side by side go karts with big balloon tires.  They did not have 4 wheel drive, so they could easily get stuck in the mud or get high centered on rocks, but they were a blast to drive in the muddy and rutted trails they had running through the jungle.  We were drenched with mud and muddy water as we splashed across streams and mud holes playing follow the leader.  Unfortunately, John and Iram’s buggy ended up with a broken steering mechanism, so they had to get it swapped out, shortening their ride, and although we thought we would get a chance to swap drivers halfway through, that was not the case.  We ended up returning to the loading area after about 45 minutes covered in mud.

  
They fortunately had banks of overhead hose nozzles we could use to shower off most of the mud.  We ended up a whole lot wetter than we might have imagined as we piled back into the bus to go to the private beach resort on the north side of the island.  

This was called Pristine Beach resort, and was within a complex of condominiums with a golf course and private beach.  There was a nice swimming pool with a bar and restaurant overlooking the beach. The beach itself was white sand but heavily fortified as evidenced by geotextile poking up in places from the sand and sand bags randomly scattered in the water.  There was mostly a large bed of sea grass beyond the sand.  They had a floating play structure that cost $5 per person to play on.  Ben and Janet mostly just swam enough to get most of the mud out of our swim suits and rash guards, and then hit the showers and freshwater pool to rinse off.  The kids did swim out to the play structure and had a fun time.

The rain had stopped for about an hour while we were at the beach resort.  Then it started raining heavily again, but fortunately, that was about the time we needed to head back to the ship anyways. 

After getting cleaned up, we all got together for dinner to swap stories and pictures from the day.  Tom’s parents had purchased matching “Merry Cruisemas” T-shirts and hats for everyone to wear for Christmas dinner.  The menu did have complimentary lobster, which everyone except Price had indulged in.  Several of us also had the Prime Rib to make it a surf and turf dinner, while others indulged in the Christmas turkey and salmon entrees.  There was also an English Christmas pudding on the dessert menu.  We had a trivia question about Christmas pudding, so we were eager to give it a try.  They did not flambé the pudding though, so it was kind of like a fruit cake drizzled with vanilla sauce.

We were looking forward to seeing the Production Show called Stage Struck in the Princess Arena, and had even lined up early for good seats, but the second show got canceled because one of the dancer’s had gotten injured during the first show. We are hoping they will be able to restage it during the last sea day as we head back to Fort Lauderdale after Cozumel.

Tomorrow we arrive at Cozumel, where we have signed up for an excursion to see the ruins at Tulum and swim in a cenote.  The weather forecast should be much better for that adventure.

20251224 Wednesday, December 24, 2025. Christmas Eve at Sea

20251224 Wednesday, December 24, 2025. Christmas Eve at Sea

Getting off to an early start has its advantages.  We got up at 7:30am mostly because Ben had left the blackout drape partially open, letting daylight in.  There was no line at the Gelateria, which is directly across from Princess Live and has Gelato and espresso drinks.  The ship’s head chef and a handful of other officers were getting their day started with espresso.  While waiting for Ben’s flat white, Ben spotted a tiny little rubber duckie on top of the hand sanitizer dispenser and pointed it out to Janet, who snatched it up.  There was just one other couple in line for coffee so Ben said good morning to them, and then caught the wife in the act of placing another tiny little rubber duckie on the hand sanitizer dispenser.  She is a teacher and enjoys seeing children react to finding the duckies.  

Getting to the Eatery before 8am meant it was possible to get served pretty much right away, instead of standing in line behind a dozen or more people.  The Eatery is very poorly configured for such large crowds, and this is exacerbated by severe understaffing.  There is usually only one or at most two people dishing food at each station, and there are only about 6 or 8 stations where all the food is behind glass.  It’s impossible to get just one quick item from the middle of the station, so you have to wait for anything, except for a few items in self service cases like bowls of fruit salad or other things that are on single portion plates like donuts.  They also don’t have carrying trays, so even if you wait in the line, you can’t really carry more than one plate at a time.  

This is by far the worst “buffet” dining experience of any cruise ship that we have been on by far.  By the time we finished breakfast at 8:30am, the lines were 6-10 people long at each station.  

The waiters and busing staff are also very short staffed, so there is very slow turn over of dirty tables, and silverware is chronically unavailable.  You almost have to carry around your own set of silverware if you can find any during the busy meal times.  

Janet has also noticed that the fruit has not been of very good quality.  The melons have consistently been bad- either unripe, or on its way to sprouting mold.  

Ben has noticed it is nearly impossible to get soups because they are always at the very end of the serving sections.  Unless you are wiling to wait in the lines and skip over the 12’ of steam table length of foods you don’t want to finally get to where the soup is.  It is ridiculous they don’t have any self service food items this far after the pandemic.  None of the other Princess or Viking cruise ships we have been on since the pandemic do this.  We give the Eatery a failing grade.  

Ben, Janet and Ciara did make it to the 9:30am general trivia, but we missed several questions including what country hosted the 1982 FIFA world championship.  We got outscored by several points on that one.  

After trivia, Ben got in a workout in the fitness center, which was still packed with people at 10:15am.  He lucked out in finding a treadmill that was hidden behind a pillar, but it took a second to figure out it was set to kilometers instead of miles to set a proper pace.  The ventilation in the fitness center was overwhelmed by the crowd so it was not a comfortable run.  Janet, meanwhile, has been on a quest to collect free jewelry handouts and there have been lots of opportunities to do so on this cruise.  

The Plus fare package includes two casual dining meals so we wanted to make sure we took advantage of them.  There are only two casual dining venues on this ship- O’Malley’s Irish Pub and Alfredo’s Pizza restaurant.  The Royal/Regal Class ships also have a sushi venue that was included in their casual dining venues, but on this ship, the sushi venue is considered a real specialty dining restaurant with a $45/pp cover fee.  We had tried to coordinate to have everyone meet for lunch at noon at O’Malley’s, but only Janet, Ben, Ciara and Price turned up in time.  

Sam and Tom did show up just before the venue closed (ridiculous that it is only open from 11am - 1pm).  The food was not particularly Irish, aside from having an Irish stew on the menu.  The rest was burgers, wings and generic pub fare.  The wings and onion rings were straight out of what you’d find at fast food restaurants.  It’s a good thing we had the Plus package because it would certainly not have been worth the $5 appetizer and $15 entree casual dining charge for that food.  But at least, they did bring the food to you and you didn’t have to stand in any lines or carry plates.

The ship had a special afternoon matinee acrobat show in the Princess Arena.  Janet got there early so we got good seats in the center section, but there was so much demand for seating that we ended up giving up seats that we had been saving for others who failed to show up until just before the show.  The venue was pretty much completely filled up 20 minutes before show time.  Ben, Janet, Price and Ciara did manage to sit together in the best seating area.  John and Iram ended up at the top of the arena nearly behind a structural pillar which must have obstructed parts of the stage, and Tom’s family ended up somewhere in the nosebleed seats as well.  

The acrobats, called Duo Delight, are a Ukrainian couple with incredible strength and coordination who did aerials with silks and leather straps, balancing lifts and dances.  The woman also did a lot of hula hoop tricks including spinning more than 20 simultaneously like a giant vertical slinky using her entire body, arms and legs.

The man did a hilarious whip cracking act which required an audience volunteer who was blindfolded.  The audience could see that balloons that he held at the ends of his arms were actually popped by the woman with a needle synchronized with the whip cracks, but not the volunteer.  When she then put the balloon between his legs, his response was quite hysterical.  To his credit, he did not soil himself.  In total, it was an amazing show, and we were very glad to have gotten there early enough to get good seats.  

Janet and Ben did the afternoon general trivia but got out scored by a couple of points.  It’s too bad Price was in the spa because he knew the answers to the questions we had missed including what was the name of the toy store in Toy Story 2, or which is the rarest M&M color.  

Tonight was a “Dress to Impress” night, which is basically an optional formal night, and an excuse for the ladies to put on their cocktail dresses and heels, for those who can pull that off.  We did sit for some photos after dinner, but we don’t know if we’ll bother to purchase any.  The tech on the ship is impressive though.  There are displays scattered around the ship like in the dining room waiting areas where people may end up standing for a bit.  When you get within 3-5’, it can read your medallion and display photos that the ship’s photographers have taken without any direct interaction with the display.  It is certainly more efficient than the photo galleries in other ships where you have to try to visually scan through an entire wall of small photos to find the ones with you in them.  

After dinner, there was a holiday variety show featuring the ship’s production singers and dancers.  It got off to a bit of a rocky start when the lead guitarist’s guitar wasn’t working at all.  It took about 3 numbers before the technical issues were resolved and the guitar’s sound got to the mixer and speakers.  It wasn’t a big production but it was fun.  We did have to show up a half hour before start time to get decent seats though.  

After the show everyone headed off in different directions with Tom and his dad heading for the roulette wheel and Ben and Janet to the International Cafe and Eatery.  Ben and Janet did run into John, Iram and Ciara in the Eatery so we could relax and chat a bit before turning in for bed.

Tomorrow is Christmas day in Roatan, an island off the shore of Honduras.  We are scheduled to do an ATV jungle and beach excursion.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast calls for 95% chance of precipitation, so we’re highly likely to end up soaked with both rain and mud, but it will be an adventure nonetheless.  

20251223 Tuesday, December 23, 2025. Grand Cayman Island

20251223 Tuesday, December 23, 2025. Grand Cayman Island

The ship arrived off Georgetown, Grand Cayman, during the early morning hours.  There was no noise associated with anchoring or launching the tenders because shore based passenger ferries were used to carry us to shore, and the ship appears to be virtually anchoring- maintaining its position with thrusters and propulsion systems instead of a physical anchor and chain.  This may be less damaging to the environment.  Where the ship was “moored” it was over 330’ deep. There was a second cruise ship doing the same thing nearby.  It is apparently a German cruise line with “Mein Schiff” painted on its side in huge cursive lettering.  The Mein Schiff 1 can carry 2800 passengers, so it is significantly smaller than the Sun Princess.

The temperature was about 80˚F with moderate winds and humidity, but the ship is anchored on the lee side of the island, so the water was pretty flat between the ship and the Georgetown Royal Watler cruise ship terminal.  

Ben, Janet, Price, John and Iram met for breakfast at the Soleil dining room for a sit down breakfast.  Unfortunately, service was quite slow, so it took more than an hour to get through breakfast.  Ciara and Tom had breakfast in the buffet with Tom’s family, so they were ready to head off the ship much earlier.  By the time we headed to the gangway, it was after 11am, so no tender tickets were required, and there was no advantage to having Elite status.  

The overhead announcements and handouts said to expect a half hour ride to get between the ship and shore, but in actuality, once the ferry pushed off from the ship’s side, it took less than 10 minutes to tie up ashore and begin unloading.  But if you include the total time it takes for each ferry to load and unload, it probably is a 30 minutes turn around time for each ferry.  

Ben had downloaded a self guided tour of Georgetown which we pretty much followed.  There were lots of tour operators hanging around the cruise ship terminal offering $30pp Georgetown tours.  We were glad not to have paid that because even seeing every attraction on the self guided tour, the city of Georgetown is just not all that impressive or interesting.  The remains of Fort George is pretty much a tree house- a shack on top of a pole, surrounded by some restored remnants of coral stone wall foundations.  

There are a lot of shops, bars, and restaurants all along the waterfront, with municipal buildings and Hero’s Square about a block or two inland from the waterfront.  There's also a historic church and small historical museum on the waterfront. The loop walk was just a little over a mile.  

There were two further points of interest about 1.5 miles further away that Janet didn’t have any interest in seeing so she headed back to the ship early to look into future cruises and other things.  John, Iram, Price and Ben headed off to 7 mile beach, which starts 1.5 miles from the cruise ship terminal.  

Most of the streets of Georgetown are narrow 2 lane roads and they do drive on the left side of the road, like any proper British colonist would have it.  There were some stretches with decent side walks, and others that were distinctly more 3rd worldly. There was a continuous stream of cruise ship tourists.  It was easy to spot the Germans, who were a much more homogenous group than passengers coming off our ship.  

The public access to the Seven Mile Beach were pretty shabby.  One took us through the parking lot of a condominium complex with signs all over the place saying PRIVATE PROPERTY, FOR USE BY OWNERS ONLY, despite an obvious municipal PUBLIC BEACH ACCESS sign with arrows clearly pointing down that parking lot.  It has us wondering if we were doing something illegal by following the signs but we followed a group of Germans who opened a gate that lead out onto the beach from the parking lot despite a sign nearby stating THESE FACILITIES ARE PRIVATE PROPERTY.

Once we got onto the beach, it was quite a disappointment.  There was really not much of a beach at all.  There was coral making up most of the beach with some sand interspersed, but in no place did the sand extend very far from the water to the top of the bank (no more than 20-30’ at the most).  To swim, you had to walk out onto the coral along what looked like concrete walkways to ladders that dropped off the edge of the coral.  

We could see much further down the beach, perhaps several miles away, more real sandy beaches, but we didn’t think it would be worth it to either continue to scramble down the very narrow and difficult to walk on parts of the beach that stood between where we stood and what looked like a Caribbean paradise.  It gave us a better appreciation for Princess Cay, and other private beaches specifically built for cruise lines to visit.  We later found out from Ciara that we should have walked down the street another 2 miles to get to the really nice beach.

It was a real disappointment that weather had canceled the sting ray swim because the town of Georgetown doesn’t have that much to offer in the way of unique or memorable experiences, but those that did walk the extra 2 miles (Tom's family) did later report that was one of the highlights of their trip

Ben and Price headed back to the ship from 7 mile beach, while John and Iram returned to the local craft market and downtown historical museum to support the local economy and become experts in Cayman Island culture and history.   John and Iram later reported the cute little museum as one of their highlights of the trip.

Ben, Janet and Price had lunch poolside.  Then Ben and Price relaxed a bit on the nice loungers in the Dome for a while as Janet had a nap in the room.  Price then hit the spa.

Ciara and Tom’s family spent several hours ashore.  They walked to 7 mile beach too, but got discouraged by the public beach access that did everything it could to discourage public access, so they went even further up the beach, but were rewarded with a much more beach-like sandy stretch of beach where they could actually swim.  

They had walked 2 miles past where Ben, Price, John and Iram had gone to the beach access in front of the Ritz Carlton.   After swimming and sunning, they took a cab to visit Hell, which is a small geological formation of jagged 10 million year old black limestone 11km from the cruise ship terminal, at the northern tip of the island near the end of 7 mile beach.  Now they can truly say they’ve been to Hell and back.  Then took a public bus back to the cruise terminal which got them onto the second to last water shuttle back to the ship.

We nearly missed our dinner seating.  They release reservations after 10 minutes, and we headed down there with 5 of the 10.  By the time we got there, the table we had sat at yesterday was already broken up and had 2 couples sitting there, but there was another 10 top in an adjacent room with the same waiters.  Eventually, everyone arrived by the time the waiters were starting to take our dinner orders.  
The dining service still takes too long.  We were unable to attend any 7pm events because we hadn’t finished until nearly 7:30pm.  

Ben, Janet and Ciara did attend an 80’s music trivia, but there were lots of ‘80’s savants there with at least 2 or 3 teams scoring perfect scores with artist and titles. 

We did not stick around to see how that was resolved because we had to rush to the Princess Arena to get seats for the Showtime presentation, which was a Tribute to Princess by Kwame Michael.  Although none of us were really fans of Prince, Kwame put on a very high energy and entertaining performance backed by the Sun Princess orchestra.  

The show nearly ended with an accident because as the lights dimmed at the end of his second to last number, the center stage descended as he walked back towards the band on the back of the stage.  He then came out for his last number but stepped right into the center stage as the floor was descending.  It fortunately stopped about 3’ down, instead of 18’, so he sort of hopped/skidded down into the sunken pit and was able to finish his number without a hitch.  He did have to get a stage hand to give him a hand climbing out though.  

We did run into Price, Ciara, Sam, and Tom in the Eatery for late night snacks just before all that shut down, and we picked up some cookies at the International Cafe to make sure we didn’t die of famine during the night.  

Tomorrow is a second day at sea as the ship heads to Roatan, Honduras.

20251222 Monday, December 22, 2025- Day at Sea

20251222 Monday, December 22, 2025- Day at Sea

It was good to get a full night’s sleep in a real bed, but despite this, a lot of our party had a hard time getting out of bed in time for breakfast.  Most of the dining venues are listed has closing for breakfast at 8:30 am and opening for lunch at 11 am, but when we wandered through the Eatery, they were still serving breakfast fare.  

We were pleased to see Price and Ciara show up for the morning trivia.  We lost that by one point.  Every one then split up and did different things.  Ciara and Janet did a shopping show, hoping to win something in a drawing, but only managed to walk out with a Sun Princess pendant that was advertised.  John and Iram did some exercise and then a technical lecture on the ship’s systems. 

Janet and Ben had a complementary wine tasting for Elite status guests.  We were disappointed that Price didn't get an invitation because he just moved up to Platinum status.  This used to include the Grape Vine wine tasting when Ben and Janet moved up to Platinum.  Princess has been stripping out loyalty benefits to save money.  When Ben and Janet moved up to Platinum, Princess used to give free internet for one device, but after Princess rolled out their Medallion with satellite internet, they changed it to a 50% discount off internet plans instead of free internet.

The wine tasting was a bit disorganized and ran late because the cheese and fruit plates somehow did not show up like they were supposed to, and it also wasn’t clear if there was going to be a sommelier to guide us through the wine selections until 10 to 15 minutes after the event was supposed to start.  This was a surprise because in all our prior Princess cruises, these events always started right on time. The sommelier ended up being difficult to understand due to a moderately heavy subcontinental Indian accent, but we still ended up pleasantly buzzed by the end.

We did meet up with John and Iram to do a Couch Potato TV trivia, which we did manage to win.  We won a string bag and Princess wine bottle stoppers.  

There was an afternoon general trivia which we did with Ciara, Tom and Sam, which we lost by a point or two.  

Everyone got changed for formal night and we did get seated together in a relatively quiet area of the dining room with a long 10 top made by combining 2 tops.  

The menu for the formal night was nothing special.  No lobster and no Baked Alaska.  Halibut, beef tenderloins and Duck L’orange were the main options.  

There was a bit of excitement though after the mains when we were waiting for desserts to come out.  Price made his way to the bathroom but fainted just a few feet from our table, ending up on the carpet but uninjured.  He was diaphoretic but conscious when the closest staff had picked him up and put him in a chair.  Within a few minutes, he was back to feeling OK.  It was most likely a vaso-vagal episode brought on by a combination of too much food and alcohol.  John and Ben walked Price to the bathroom, and even though we had to go up a flight of stairs, Price was fine, aside from the embarrassment of the episode.  

After dinner, Janet, Lifen and Ciara had massages in the spa. 

Ben, Price, John and Iram did a Queen trivia.  We did pretty well, but there was so much confusion over how the quiz was supposed to be graded that it remained unclear who had actually won, but we were in a hurry to get to the Princess Arena to try to get seats for the last Fiero production show.  

We ended up with pretty bad seats at the very top of the arena way off to stage left so we were seeing mostly the wings and backstage areas, but Princess had tried to modify the show to work in a center thrust format.  The stage lifts were situated in the very center of the round arena, and when the lift dropped down, you could see deep into the pit as the actors and stage hands scrambled with set changes.  The show was pretty good overall.  The dancers were particularly good.  At one point, the girls were all doing ballet toe dancing moves somehow blended with pole dancing.  It was a circus themed show, so anything goes.  Some of the stage effects were not ideally viewed from extreme angles from the center stage, and the audio was also a bit off.  The lead vocals were a bit mismatched  with the vocal ranges of the songs.

Price and Ben made a tour of the late night dining options after 10:30pm, which were very meager.  The poolside pizza and grill close at 9pm. Neither the Eatery nor International Cafe had any soups, and the Eatery had a strange and extremely limited selection of seemingly random items on about 6’ of steam table space.  It seems like the late night dining on this newest ship compare very poorly with older Princess ships. 

Tomorrow we arrive at Grand Cayman, our first port of call.  Unfortunately, the weather forecast is for moderately high winds, and the ship will be operating tender service, not docked shore side.  The kids had all been booked on a stingray swim excursion which ended up being cancelled due to weather.  It looks like we’ll all just be wandering around the port area for a bit.  We’ll try to do a sit down breakfast in the morning because it is not offered on most mornings, except for Sanctuary and Suite Collection guests.