JimmyVWine

Embarkation Day -2 Not much to say about Day -2. We finished our packing and drove up to Boston for a non-stop flight on American to London/Heathrow. Boston’s Logan Airport has terrible off-site parking options, so I opted to book a space in advance at the Central Parking Garage. By booking and paying in advance, you get a significant discount and while the total cost is still around $10 per day more than off-site options, the convenience is worth it. I was so very glad that we had no connections to make, as our flight was over 3 hours late taking off and many of the people who needed to make connections in LHR were sweating it out. K and I noted that had this flight been the day of the cruise, what would have been an easy journey from LHR to the port in plenty of time to board the ship would have turned into a fingernail biting, nerve wracking stress test. Lesson to all who will listen: If your departure port requires you to fly in from where you live, always arrive at your port city the day before your ship leaves. Stressing out over things that are out of your control such as airline performance is no way to start a vacation. In any event, Day -2 ended with us securely on the 777 on our way across the pond.

So begins my Review and Journal of our family’s latest adventure, an 8 Day Cruise on Regal Princess, roundtrip to/from Southampton. As in the past, my posts will be long (I fear), informative (I hope), irreverent (I promise) and accompanied by photos (where helpful). Within the content you will get answers to many of the most oft-asked and burning questions that cause sleepless nights among the members here on Cruise Critic which will be answered so definitively that they will never need to be addressed again! So with that: Who: Me, my wife (K) and our daughter (S), age 25. My wife and I live in New England and S lives in Edinburgh (which would balance out nicely if it were “Old England”, but one must be careful to never confuse Scotland for England.) What: As noted above, a cruise marketed as “8 Day Ireland and Scotland” which only begins to describe the itinerary. And as luck would have it, (well, luck for Charles that is, not so much for Elizabeth), the Coronation was to take place during our cruise in and around the UK. So, between the ship itself and our various port stops, evidence of pride and pageantry abounded. That gave the cruise an extra added touch that we won’t soon forget. This extra added bonus lend itself to the double-meaning of the title of this thread. Where: A roundtrip cruise from Southampton, England with port stops at Portland/Weymouth, Guernsey, Cork, Ireland, Greenock (for Scotland) and Holyhead (for Wales), along with two Sea Days. When: Embarkation date was April 30, 2023, and disembarkation was May 8, 2023. Why: Well, why not. But more to the point, now that S lives thousands of miles away in Edinburgh, we do our best to plan family vacations where we can all be together, burdening S with as little cost as possible now that she is proudly earning her own way through life (mostly) but must remain cost conscious. Having her fly from Edinburgh to Southampton would be a breeze and cost mere pennies, or in her case, pence. And when Princess announced its “Kids Sail Free” promotion last summer, this became a no-brainer (which is right up my alley). I found a great rate on this cruise and since she is still our kid no matter how old she gets, she qualified for the promotion and her share of the fare was zero, whether one is counting in pennies or pence. I booked us in a mid-ship, extended balcony Mini-Suite and added the Plus Package, which at the time was $50 per person per day, hereinafter referred to as “Old Plus”. S was not granted that package upon booking, but a quick call to my Princess Cruise Specialist Vacation Planner or whatever they call themselves these days, and $400 later I had purchased her birthday present, and she had the same Package as us. To the extent that it matters at all in what is to follow, all three of us are Platinum with Princess. How: A series of posts that will chronicle our trip from start to finish, detailing and reviewing the ship and all its features, the itinerary, and our excursions. While it may take the form of a travel journal, (a format I much prefer), it will no doubt serve as a Review as I cannot help but comment and editorialize about all that we saw, did, ate, drank, and experienced. But you may have to stick around a while as things will unfold chronologically. So if you are looking for a review of the disembarkation process, rest assured it will come, but not for a while. I am still in the process of sorting through and uploading my photos, and I need to have each day’s photos completed before I can post about that day, so there may be some time lag. But I promised myself that I would be quick about it and posting this Review/Journal incentivizes me to get that task done as quickly as possible. So with that introduction, away we go.

While this is true to a degree, as I will go into in more detail when I post my review and journal, over the course of 8 days on the Plus Plan, ordering a mix of "included" and "extra cost" wines, three adults ran up a bill of just under $122 in wine costs. That is $40 per person for the length of the cruise, or $5 per person per day. It is pretty easy to drink well at little extra cost. And in achieving this, we ordered one, and only one glass of the "generic" wines that are listed in the Plus section of the lists. My daughter wanted to experiment to see what the generic Sauvignon Blanc tasted like in Alfredo's. It was perfectly fine if you like the New World style of SB, which we do. I'd guess it was Kim Crawford or the equivalent. So my advice for wine drinkers on the Plus Plan is to use your 15 drink per day limit to experiment with one or two generics per day, trying different ones each time to see if any of them are OK for you. If they are, then you have made some new friends for the cruise. If not, pour them in the nearest potted plant and order something else from the extra cost side of the list. You aren't going to go broke unless you order glass after glass of Veuve Clicquot which checked in at a ridiculous $24 per glass.

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Spoiler Alert!! Coming Soon..."Review and Travel Journal of Our Regal Cruise to England/Guernsey/Ireland/Scotland and Wales-A Crowning Achievement" I will be chronicling and reviewing our cruise that ended yesterday in another long and self-indulgent series of posts. But I need to process my photos first. But to cut to the chase, I agree 100% with the theme of this topic and experienced nothing, (and I mean nothing) that would persuade me that the Princess product is something I need to put in my rearview mirror.

Not exactly the same thing. The role in the show was an amalgamation of many job responsibilities bundled into one for ease of execution in the show. In a sense, Gopher was a Unicorn.

When departing New York on the QE2 in 1976 we were provided streamers to toss during sailaway. As for what was deceptive about the show, I would say that the Chief Purser was the most important officer on the ship, met regularly with the Captain and was customer-facing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen, let alone met a Purser roaming about the ship.

In my somewhat limited experience (one daughter who registered for the teen center every year from age 14 until too old), the primary function of the teen center was to use it as a home base to meet up with new friends and from there, make their own fun. And it was really useful for that purpose. When she would return to our cabin at her curfew time, she told us what she and her friends did at night and it was mostly outside of the actual teen center. Pools. Hot tubs. Ping pong. Sometimes some wii games or a movie in the club. But she and her new friends didn’t depend on the Princess staff to occupy their time or force feed them games and events. Those things were there if desired, but the teens have come-and-go privileges and are pretty good at entertaining themselves.

A quick search in the Smoking thread revealed no answer. Same as here, with people noting the conflicting information. I am in general agreement that one would have a strong case if challenged by simply pointing to the wording of the Contract. My guess is that if this were brought to the attention of the officer in charge, they would say something like: "Yes, I see what you are referring to. So no fine and no punishment. But our rules have changed and we kindly ask that you refrain from doing this in your cabin." At some point the two sources (Contract and FAQ) are going to come into alignment and then we will know the real answer.

The contradiction in literature compels the truth of one of the two following statements: Vaping was once banned in cabins (per the FAQ) and Princess decided to relax its rules and allow it; or Vaping was once allowed in cabins (per the 2022 Contract) and Princess decided to further restrict its policy to disallow it. No one on this Board is going to be able to solve this dilemma authoritatively, but if you were to venture a guess, which do you think happened in the past couple of years: a relaxation of smoking/vaping rules or a further restriction of them?

Agree. But I'm not sure how that augers in favor of a large area on Deck 6 allocated to photos. People interested in digital photos are just as likely to want to look at their photos on a personal device or TV. Next time you are on a ship that has a digital photo center, glance at how "busy" it is. And ask yourself if the ship needs more or less space allocated to this venture. Sometimes the eye test is the best test.

This "eye catch" theory, assuming that has validity, is just as easily accomplished with a much, much smaller footprint than what currently exists. A single screen will do given the lack of traffic that I see. Plus, a prominent sign that says: "Review your photos on your cabin TV!!" added to the small kiosk would do the trick. And placing this kiosk in a more trafficked area would serve to boost visibility. Decks 5 and 7 are traversed far more than Deck 6.

Have to disagree based on the youth movement. For people under the age of 50, the realm of photography is exclusively digital. I don't know anyone who still develops hardcopy photos and keeps them in a photo album. As the older cruisers are sunsetted and replaced by younger ones, they will only want digital photos and not the copies printed out on the ship. And they can review and order digital copies on their HDTVs in their cabin. There is a reason why you see about 1/10th the number of Princess photographers on ships these days. No one roaming the dining rooms. No one standing at the disembarkation station next to a pirate. People have simply stopped buying and keeping hardcopy photos.

The number of Port Everglades departures over the past two weeks can be counted on a couple of fingers. Honestly, there probably haven't been more than 100 people in the lounge in the past couple of weeks and the odds of any of them posting here is probably pretty small, especially if they are currently on their cruises.

I see that. And yes, the two do seem to be in conflict. (The Cruise Contract is dated 10/22. The FAQs do not have a date and I didn't find one in the metadata.) As a general rule, when it comes to permissions and prohibitions, when two documents are in conflict, it is always safest to rely on the more restrictive of the two. I think that if you asked the powers that be at Princess which is the right rule, I would bet my life that they would say that the FAQ is right and that the Contract hasn't yet caught up.

I doubt that they have stopped using it. But it has been mentioned that entry has been based on invitations and is not generally available. And the invitations seem to have arrived just before departure. The OP got a call 4 days before departure. "The young man who called had all of our cruise info for our cruise that leaves this Saturday."

I don't know what Icruise is, but I can tell you that the block quote is a word for word republication of what is on the Princess site under FAQ --> Onboard Experience --> Smoking Policy. In my Cruise Personalizer, under Notifications section, the following appears, which in turn directs the reader to the same FAQ that was quoted: ONBOARD SMOKING POLICY Princess Cruises is committed to providing our guests with a relaxed, rejuvenating retreat at sea. In keeping with this goal, we have increased the scope of non-smoking areas onboard all Princess vessels. Smoking is not permitted in most areas of the ship, including all staterooms and balconies. Violations to this non-smoking policy will result in a $250 fine for each occurrence, which will be charged to the guest's stateroom account. For guests who wish to smoke, a cigar/smoking lounge* and a limited number of designated smoking areas will be reserved for this purpose. As a safety precaution, guests are reminded to properly dispose of cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco, which are never to be thrown overboard as these may be sucked back into the ship and cause fires. For additional information, please visit the Cruise Answer Place at: http://www.princess.com/learn/faq_answer/onboard/experience.jsp and click on the "Smoking Policy" link.

This is exactly what they should do. Instead of filling up public space with screens for people to view and order photos, they should link the photo system to the cabin TVs and let people view and order their photos through that pathway. After ordering, the photos can either be delivered to the cabin or picked up at a small kiosk. The current photo space could then be converted into a lounge/bar and generate real revenue. It is likely that many (most?) people who are ordering photos have already pre-paid for them through the Premier Package, so the square footage allocated to the photo screens is not generating any new revenue. It's just servicing people who have already put down their money. I suppose that the same could be said about a bar, but if I had to guess, I would say that more money will be spent by people on board without a Package who order drinks than there will be spent by people who do not have Premier who purchase photos. All of this raises the frightening prospect that the bean counters have figured out that the old cruise ship model of creating as many ways as possible to get people to buy drinks to drive up revenue is over, and if enough people pre-pay for alcohol through the purchase of a package, then it benefits the cruise line to develop ways to get people to order as few drinks as possible. In the past, the interior architects would look at a blueprint and say: "Put a bar there." Now, they will look at a blueprint and say: "Remove that bar."

Thanks. I wasn't sure since the walk would be through heavily trafficked commercial areas. And no, there is no way that I would want to! 😫

If you are certain that you are going to Berths 46/47 (which is the Ocean Cruise Terminal) then yes, it is an easy walk. Princess also uses the Mayflower Terminal (105/106) and there is no way that you would want to walk there, especially with luggage. Not even sure you would be allowed to.

Princess is Beta Testing a new evacuation procedure. Each cabin is being retrofitted to be its own lifeboat, and this is the ejection button causing the cabin to detach and shoot out into the ocean.

There is no discount provided by adding Plus during the initial booking process. If you sense a glitch, just go back and book the basic fare to lock in your price and cabin. Then just call or email your CVP later to add Plus. You will be charged $60 pp/pd. You can add it up to a week before departure, and it has been reported that you can buy it on the first day of the cruise as well. Don’t let a glitch frustrate you. There is an easy workaround.

I hope he was served BOTH pieces!

I've never understood this phrase since the size of vessels has increased over time. A vessel large enough to be a "ship" in 1940 might be small enough to be a "boat" now, given the size of the USS Gerald Ford. Surely there must be some empirical distinction, no?

While this only applies to cruises we have taken out of Port Everglades, our typical routine is to fly in the afternoon before and rent a car for a day. Rental Cars in Florida are cheap. (At least they were.) And you pick up your car right in the parking garage so no need to take a shuttle. The car saves time in getting to our hotel, and allows us to save quite a bit of packing for the plane ride, as we make a shopping trip to various stores. CVS for sunscreen or other liquids and gels that might explode on the plane, wine shop, Home Goods store. We return the car the next day and when it was available, took the free shuttle to the port offered by National. I think that is gone, and if so, a taxi to the port is cheap. The whole adventure takes little time, saves on airplane packing, and saves hundreds of dollars on wine not to mention the ability to bring on really nice bottles. Typical one-day car rental with corporate discount was usually around $44. Probably more now, but still.