Saturday, December 29, 2012

A change in programming providers

This post will probably only be of interest to future Emerald Princess cruisers, but I've been wanting to post about the change in television programming since we returned to the Emerald Princess on December 17th. Today being an uneventful sea day seemed a good time to do it.

As I mentioned previously, we've lost CNN International (anyone need to know the temperature in Kuala Lompur?) and HLN (good riddance) but there have been other changes too.

Here's what was added: Faux News, MSNBC, BBC, CNBC

Here's what was removed: TCM, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, CNN International, HLN, CNN Espanol and the Relections video channel (really!)

We really miss TCM and TNT, only because we cruise for several months and they provided variety as they didn't repeat shows cruise after cruise. The crew tells us that they miss the Cartoon Network (esp Tom and Jerry). ;-)

Here is what's stayed the same:

Princess Channel- the Wake Show in the late evening until the next day at noon and assorted documentaries in the afternoon (these are quite good)

TV Channel- sitcoms. This month's offerings: Mike and Molly, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Whitney, The Office, Two Broke Girls, Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Two and a Half Men, and, of course, The Love Boat. None of these are the current seasons, and the Love Boat is 35 years old.

Movie Channel- this month's offerings: My Week with Marilyn, The Avengers, The Descendants, The Lucky One, Mirror Mirror, Prometheus, John Carter, Rock of Ages, Haywire, Man on a Ledge, Safe, The Artist, Men in Black 3, Arbitrage, The Three Stooges, Mission Impossible, Friends with Kids, The Amazing Spider (shouldn't this be Spider-Man?)

Romance Channel- this month's offerings: Midnight in Paris, Plots with a View, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Leap Year, It Could Happen To You, Just Go With It, Footloose, The Proposal, Like Crazy, Return to Me, Killers, This Means War, I Don't Know How She Does It, Letters to Juliet, Morning Glory, New Years Eve, One Fine Day, The Vow

Art Channel- primarily biographies of various artists (I like these!)

Family Movie Channel- this month's offerings: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Ice Age, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Dr. Suess's The Lorax, Frankenweenie, The Adventure of Tintin, Brave, Madagascar 3, The Muppets, ParaNorman, Tangled, Big Miracle, Puss in Boots, Car 2, Larry the Cable Guy, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Dolphin Tale, Hugo, Rio

Discovery Channel - Assorted TV shows from the Discovery Cable Channel, NOT the same programming as on the Discovery Channel at home.

Tour Info

Princess Shopping Channel

ESPN International

ESPN 2

Scan Display Channel

WebCam Channel