rebeljohn

Is this the same CD on Celebrity who played guitar and sang and on our cruise dressed up as Elvis for a Rock n Roll trivia night?

 

 

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John was a great song and dance man. He did several impersonations, but his Blues Brothers impersonation was his best........

John Howell was our favorite CD with Celebrity. Several years ago, he switched over to Seabourn Cruises. Sadly, John passed away last year, at the age of 57.......

We used a night light in there with no problems........

 

Comment when boarding - that was uncalled for by that passenger.

 

Glad you had a good cruise! The 10 day cruises do attract a slightly older demographic.

We are still joking about the comment....the lady was really old, and perhaps she was cruising when 3rd class passengers were around.........:D

When we were on the Bumping tour, our driver stopped at a small local restaurant for lunch, the River Rock Cafe near Trafalgar Falls. Fresh food, and quite delicious! We had brought some snack bars with us, but never used them after the lunch stop.

Entertainment

We attended most of the shows on board, and enjoyed each one. The best entertainer on the ship, was the comedian, Troy Thirdgill. We saw him twice, and he was hilarious! The one thing we liked about his show, he was funny without being vulgar or using profanity. We both agreed that this was the best comedian that we have seen at sea. Nice job, Troy! The cruise director and staff were good, especially one of the cruise assistants, named Gary. He was quite a hoot. He was the star of the Liar’s Club show. You shouldn’t miss that one. Most every night, we spent time at the piano bar, with Kory Simon. His style is somewhat different than other piano bar performers, but we got used to it. He liked to get the crowd involved, and that made for a good show each night. The magic show, Hawley Magic was good, but no the best I have seen on a ship. The mentalist, Jay Alexander, put on a great show, and my wife assisted him onstage. You know there’s a trick to what he does, you just can’t figure it out. The Beatles show was good, even though they didn’t really look like the Beatles(more like the Monkees) or sound like them. The videos that played during their performance were really well thought out. The string quartet ladies were very talented, and easy to listen to. Most of the bands we saw were good. We did not see some of the poolside shows at night, but the one we did see was good. This ship seemed to have less entertainment by the pool during the day that we were used to on other lines. Of course, that can be a good thing, if you are just wanting to relax, like us. We played several of the trivia games, and won one of them. We now have matching Princess water bottles. Our Cruise Critic Meet& Greet was help on our first sea day. It looked like about one third of the folks that had signed up, actually came. The Hotel Manager, and several officers, showed up and told us some facts about the ship, and answered questions. It was nice meeting more of our fellow CC members there.

Our Ports

Princess Cay: This was our first time stopping there, and we were glad the ship was able to make it this time. The cruise before us missed it, due to the generator problems. This was a tender port, and we took our time getting off the ship. Once on land, we found a few lounge chairs and settled in for some sun. The water was a little cool, but refreshing after lying in the sun. There was plenty of food to eat, and plenty to drink. We did not explore much of the island, just content to relax and spend time with our friends on the beach. When it was time to leave, everyone tried to leave at the same time, it seemed. The line for departure was VERY long. I thought they could have run a couple of more tenders, but that’s just my thought. There was probably a reason to only run 2 or 3. For a private island, it was OK. Half Moon Cay, Holland America’s private island, is still our favorite.

St. Thomas: We have been there numerous times, so this was our shopping port. We took our time getting off the ship, and made our way through the shopping district, and stopped at a couple of bars. We also bought several bottles of liquor, since it is MUCH cheaper than our state’s(North Carolina) ABC system. I bought my wife a nice tanzanite bracelet for our anniversary. We had lunch at a nice waterfront restaurant, then headed back to the ship.

Dominica: This was our favorite port! Prior to the cruise, we had booked an excursion for the six of us with Bumpiing Tours. The six of us were driven around in a comfortable van with A/C. Our tour guide was Garry, and he was an EXCELLENT guide. Garry answered any questions we had, and told us everything we needed to know about his island. We visited Trafalgar Falls, Emerald Pool, and several stops to take pictures and shop. We also stopped by a nice restaurant for a tasty lunch. Everyone in our group thought this was one of the best tours we have ever had. Garry dropped us back off in plenty of time to make the ship, and shop a little before boarding.

Grenada: We were only here from 7am to 2pm, so we had a limited time to see the island. Once of the ship, at about 9am, we found a local driver, Peter Morain of Pete’s Mystique tours. For $30 each, we had a nice tour, stopping at a local distillery and a spice shop, the most interesting part of the tour. Finding our how and where spices are grown was fascinating, as well as the harvesting and processing techniques. We bought some spice sampler boxes for folks back home. We also stopped for shopping and scenic lookouts for pictures. Peter was a great guide. I just wish we had more time on this island.

Bonaire: Our time here was limited too, only here from noon to 7pm. We were off the ship pretty quickly, and headed straight to the water taxi for Klein Bonaire. This was our snorkeling stop on the cruise, and boy did we pick the right place! We were on the first water taxi over to Klein Bonaire, so we arrived well before the large ship tours. Snorkeling was easy. Just walk down the beach, swim over to the reef, and drift down the beach. This was the best snorkeling we have ever done in the Caribbean. We had purchased a nice underwater camera for this event, and we had a lot of good pictures. There is nothing on Klein Bonaire, so you must bring everything with you, water, food, towels, etc. The water taxi comes over about every hour, so we just picked a time to go back, and headed back to the ship.

Aruba: We planned no excursions for this stop. This was our beach stop. We picked Eagle Beach and took a taxi there. There were plenty of places to rent chairs and umbrellas, and a couple of bars to grab drinks and light snacks. The beach was beautiful, with white sand like powder. We stayed here several hours before heading back to the ship to change clothes. This was my shopping port, so we headed over to the shopping plaza to Cigar Emporium(La Casa Del Habano) where we bought Cuban cigars for the wife and I. Yes, she will smoke one occasionally and prefers certain ones. We were back on the ship by 4:30, and looking forward to 2 relaxing sea days.

Food/Drinks/Restaurants

There is one thing about food on a cruise ship, it is plentiful and everywhere. Food is also the most discussed attraction on board a ship. Opinions will vary wildly. If you feed 5 people the exact same food, you can easily get 5 very different opinions. So, this report contains MY opinion of the food and food areas of the ship.

Symphony Dining Room: We ate most of our dinner meals here. Service was excellent, but not perfect. And I really don’t expect perfection. The waiter takes tons of orders each night, so you know they’ll get one wrong once in a while. When we got an incorrect order, they fixed it immediately. Everyone working here was super friendly and always smiling. No dancing by the staff while you are eating…….that is another cruise line. The food was good. It had to be, I gained 11 pounds in those 10 days. Was it as good as other lines I have cruised, No and yes. Better than Costa and Carnival, but not quite as good as HAL or Celebrity. The best thing we had in the MDR? You guessed it, the Twice Baked Goat Cheese soufflé. We had read about it on the CC Princess forum, so everyone at the table ordered it that night, and agreed it was yummy! One thing that we found different, was that sometimes the chilled soups were served in a glass with a straw, instead of in a bowl. The menus each night were varied, and you had a section that was the same each night, in case you are a creature of habit, and like the same thing every night.

Horizon Buffet: We ate all of our breakfasts here, and a few lunches. I LOVE the set up of this area. No matter when we ate, you never waited in a line. Great job, Princess, on the design of this area. There was every type of breakfast food that you could think of. The food here was just as good as any cruise line we have cruised. The service was good, too. You never had to get up for coffee or juice, just wait for them to come by every few minutes. The couple of times we had lunch here, it was good, average buffet food, with good service too.

Crown Grill: We dined here on the night of our 20th anniversary, with two other couples that cruised with us. The food was better than the MDR, and service was excellent. For the $25 charge per person, I would say it was worth it. Most of us had the surf and turf combo.

Alfredo’s: We had dinner here one night. We were not impressed. I had read how good the pizza was, but it just didn’t pan out for us. The other items we tried were OK. We should have stayed with the MDR food. We didn’t see what the big deal was that night. Sorry, Alfredo lovers.

Drinks: We are not big drinkers, but we did enjoy the drinks on board, especially when the 2 for 1 drinks were offered. The strength of the drinks would vary from bar to bar. Sometimes they were strong, other times not so much. The prices are about what you would pay back home at a bar. Total bar bill was $178.

Disembarkation/Post Cruise

Fast and easy! That’s the best description I can come up with. We were one of the last groups to get off, and we disembarked almost an hour earlier than our group was supposed to. A porter took our luggage with us to the customs officer, who looked like he was really bored. A quick look at our passports, and we were out of the building. We called Embassy Suites, and the shuttle was there in less than 10 minutes. We picked up our car, and headed north, on I-95. The traffic on I-95 was horrible that day. After we reached Daytona Beach, it was bumper to bumper traffic most of the way home. I guess it was spring break traffic going home, but it was the worst traffic I have encountered going home from Florida. I hit the scales when I arrived home…..11 pounds more of me for the wife to love.

Final Thoughts

When you get home, the question every one asks is, “How was you cruise, and would you go with Princess Cruise Lines again?” The answer, very nice and relaxing, and yes, we would cruise with Princess again. I have never had a bad cruise. Some are better than others. I would put this cruise somewhere in the middle of my 20 cruises. Princess offers what I am looking for, as we get older, but so does HAL and Celebrity. I would probably choose one of those lines over Princess next time, but I do see myself on another Princess cruise sometime in the future. Maybe next time I won’t be in the ‘poor people” line…………..

My review in a couple of installments:

Pre-Cruise

My wife and I chose this cruise based on the itinerary, and the cruise date(our anniversary). This was also our first cruise on Princess cruise lines.This cruise also included five new stops for us: Grenada, Bonaire, Aruba, Dominica, and Princess Cay. We booked about 3 months in advance, and invited two other couples to cruise with us, and both decided to join us to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Of course, we found our roll call, and joined in, and checked the port section of CC for ideas on what to do at our new stops. We also booked the Embassy Suites in Ft. Lauderdale for our night before the cruise. We have stayed there before, and we like the shuttle they run to and from the port, as well as the parking at the hotel for the cruise. It was $7 per night to leave our car there. Much cheaper than the port($15day). My wife and I also met with a group from our roll call that were also staying there, and had a meal together that night at Duffy’s Sports Bar. We had a great time with them! For those of you who have never met with others from Cruise Critic, you are missing out on a wonderful experience.

Embarkation

We arrived at the port, via the hotel shuttle, at about 10:45. One of the porters took our luggage, and stacked it nicely on the cart. Having never cruises with Princess, we had to stand in the LONG line, while we watched the veteran Princess cruisers fly by. We didn’t mind, in fact we it gave us one of our cruise tales for later. While we were standing in line, a couple of ladies passed us in the other line, and one remarked to the other: “Look over there(pointing at our line), that’s how the poor people board!”

Everyone in earshot had a good laugh. After standing in line for at least an hour or so, we made it to the front of our line, and got what we needed, and checked our two bottles of wine with the folks at the table. Unlike the folks at Carnival, they were not interested in inspecting our wine bottles. They just looked to see how many bottles we had, and waved us on through. I thought their embarkation was pretty smooth. We were told our room was already prepared for us, so we went and checked it out, then headed to the Horizon Food Court for lunch. Later, when we returned to our room, we discovered that one of the handles had been broken off of one piece of luggage. Not sure when it happened, but the wife wasn’t happy. We had only used the luggage a couple of times.

The Ship

The Royal is a beautiful ship. She does not feel crowded(except by the pool), despite the fact there are 3600 other passengers living on her too. I thought the layout for the ship was OK. My wife remarked that you didn’t feel too far from anything, and the walk from one end of the ship to the other wasn’t bad. The elevators would get crowded from time to time, but that can be expected during peak dining and show times. The ship has no skating rinks, or rock climbing walls, etc. So, you have a more laid back and older crowd than other lines we have been on, but that’s what we like. The pool area, however, could use some improvements. The main pool was not that large, and the raised deck with the fountains seemed to be a waste of space. On our first sea day, several teens were jumping in the pool, despite the four signs that said otherwise. So, we headed over to the adults only pool, only to find a couple of teens there too. BUT, they were well behaved. In my opinion, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, and even HAL have better pool areas, at least from the ones that I have seen. Like I said, this is MY opinion, but we still enjoyed the pools that were offered. We did not spend the extra $20 a day to use the Sanctuary, so I cannot comment on it. The entire crew of this ship was VERY friendly. Everyone always smiled and said hello. We never had a bad experience with any of the crew. We did surprise one young lady, who was serving drinks in the Churchill’s cigar bar. We had rearranged

the chairs so our group would be facing each other, instead of just lined up on the wall. When she came in and saw the chairs, she got this blank look on her face and rushed out. She came back a few minutes later and apologized, saying no one had ever moved the chairs around before, so it took her by surprise. She was OK with it, and brought our drinks, and laughed about the incident the rest of the cruise. This ship has a really classy crew. I should also mention the ship continued to have generator problems during our cruise, but the crew did a good job of minimizing the effect it had. We were late to a couple of ports, but still made each one. We had noticed the ship didn’t feel as cool as what we were used to on other ships, but we were never hot. One of the engineers, that we would meet later in our room, said the generator problems had affected some things, but that we, as passengers, should notice very little difference.

Our Stateroom

We normally opt for an inside cabin, but because this was our anniversary, we did splurge a little. We booked cabin L216, a mini suite on the Lido deck. This was, by far, the largest room we have ever had on a ship. PLENTY of room. The bathroom had plenty of space, too, including a tub. I don’t know what kind of mattress they had on our queen bed, but it was CORMFORTABLE!! We had no problem sleeping/playing on it. The balcony was a tad small, but we really didn’t use it that much. It was nice to have it though, especially when entering and leaving a port. We had two room stewards, who both did a fantastic job. The first was Avelino, who left the ship in Aruba for vacation, and Eduardo took his place. We never saw towel animals like other cruise lines, but we could care less about them. If you’ve seen one, yes, you’ve seen ‘em all. We had only one problem during our cruise with the room. One day before lunch, the breaker in the room tripped. The TV’s and all the receptacles would not work. I called the service desk, and also told the cabin steward. We left to go to lunch and enjoy the pool. By 5 o’clock the receptacles and TV’s still had no power so the wife dried her hair in our friend’s room. I called again, and a man came in and checked the TV connection, and said the TV was OK. I said yeah, it might be, but it has no power. It will not turn on. Then he said, oh yeah, you’re right. I’ll have an electrician check the TV. We went to dinner and a show, and came back to no power. I called the service desk, and asked them if they could charge our electronic devices for us during the night since we have no power. They said sure, so I grabbed up everything I could think of to charge and took it down to the service desk. When they saw the mass of chargers and devices, they said they would have someone check our room immediately. And, they did. Within 5 minutes, they had arrived at the door and told us a breaker had tripped, and they had just reset it. To me, this was just a little bump in the cruise, but when you have a wife that needs her hair dryer and makeup mirror, well, you see things differently. At least it didn’t happen again for the rest of the cruise.

We were on the same cruise. The Royal was the largest ship we have ever been on. We found the ship quite beautiful, and the staff was so friendly. We too, were in the HUGE line exiting Princess Cay. I was thinking the same thing, why not have more tenders......Thanks for posting your thoughts on the cruise. I hope to have a review up later in the week.........

Thanks for taking the time to post your review and pictures. We will be boarding the Royal tomorrow and doing the same itinerary. We are Celebrity and HAL fans, and this will be our first Princess cruise. Your review was well written, and covered everything. Great job!!!!

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Thanks for taking the time to post your review. We will be on the Royal later this month, our first Princess cruise........

We've never had any extra charges on any of our cruises so far. We'll be sailing with Princess for the first time in a few days, and I like the fact that you can check your bill with the Princess@Sea app. Hopefully, we'll still be batting 1000 after this cruise...........

and if you'd like to see my photos from the cruise you can find me on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/highwaydude

Enjoyed the pics........Thanks for posting the link..........

Thanks for your thoughts on the Royal.......We are sailing on her 3/23......first time on a Princess ship.........

Steelers..........Thanks for taking the time to post this well done review. We will be on the Royal March 23. We haven't seen the movie 'The Martian' and are looking forward to seeing it on board. Again.......thanks for sharing your anniversary cruise with us..........John & Phyllis

Nice!! Thanks for sharing with us...........

Enjoyed your review. I appreciate you taking the time to give all the details.

Nice review! Thanks for taking the time to post it........

What a great, detailed review!!! Waiting for the rest. I appreciate you taking the time to do this. We are taking the same cruise in March, and this review is AWESOME so far............

Looking forward to your review.........

Thanks for taking the time to post the review. We will be on the 3/23/16 sailing, and looking forward to our first Princess cruise. We were concerned about the small cabins, so we booked a mini suite, giving us a little more room inside.

We will be one the Royal March 23 for a 10 day cruise. Our first Princess cruise. So far, we've seen more positive than negative about the ship...........

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. Enjoyed reading about the ports. We will be doing the Southern Caribbean next month on the Royal........

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. We will be sailing on the Royal at the end of March, also our first time on Princess...........

Boy, I'm slow. It looks like you can't PM (private message) on this forum, combine that with not being able to say "nood" purposely mis-spelled, and there is no way I can tell you of the cruise line for naturists, so you will just need to use your search engine.

bare necessities travel..................several reviews of their cruises have been done........

Yes!! So we aren't crazy!![/quote

 

Of course not.................:)