LIVE: Royal Princess, Trans-Atlantic, Sept. 10-25, 2018

Our last day. Sad in some ways that it’s over so soon, but I’m ready to go home as well. I’m planning on going to the early trivia, the culinary demo (but not the gallery tour that follows), and the last cruise-long trivia before lunch. Other activities going on this morning include La La Land on MUTS, creative towel folding demo, speed painting, putt putt challenge, Zumba, line dance class, and bingo.

 

There’s a jeopardized trivia for after lunch and our final afternoon trivia. I may take a nap in between. We can go to a show in the theater before dinner. It features two of the guest vocalists who performed previously, Jassen Allen and Darren Dowler. And somewhere along the way, we have to pack our checked bags to leave them out for pickup before dinner.

We just saw Darren Dowler in June on the Celebrity Summit...awesome show. Then we discovered we have seen him many times of the years as he grew up in our neck of the woods.

There was a helicopter evacuation of a passenger this morning while we were at breakfast. The captain made a few announcements. People had to stay off of their balconies and keep their balcony doors closed during it. He said passengers in aft cabins would be evacuated from them. Right before we finished eating, he said it was a successful evacuation.

I've really enjoyed reading your "live from". We will be on the Royal for a month on 3 B2B2B's coming up in October. If you run into the captain, please ask him if he will be on the Royal the end of October and through November.

Thanks. We enjoyed the breakfast at the Holiday Inn. I think it was around $10 more for the two of us when I booked the room.

 

 

 

We saw the ship early this morning from the stairwell across the hall from our room. After breakfast, I walked closer to the pier to get a better view. I saw several coaches leaving and a few passengers walking with their luggage.

 

 

 

We are planning to check out around 11. We could stay until noon. I'm going to miss unlimited Wi-Fi. But I'll be glad to get my laptop plugged in instead of typing on my phone. I think we'll purchase a transformer for our next trip to England if we will be staying several nights.

Usually don’t need transformer for laptops, only an adapter. Most laptops have 110/220 power supply

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Thanks so much for the dining room info and I sure hope the staff member is right about the captain staying on until Ft. Lauderdale. Tony Draper performed our wedding vows renewal for our 20th anniversary 5 years ago. He is a really nice guy and it would be an honor to sail with him once again.:D

Thanks for taking us along on your journey. I had a great time! [emoji6]

I hope Tony Draper stays on through the first two Caribbean sailings. We are going to be on them. We’ve sailed with him before and like him!

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We had a hard time with the morning trivia—but so did most of the other teams. Two tied with one more point (14) than we had. They got water bottles. The culinary demo with the maître d’ and head chef was good. They made a Caesar salad and a smoked salmon cream sauce for pasta while I was there. I had to leave for the cruise-long trivia. Our team had the 3-point lead I thought we would. There was a 1-point difference between the third and fourth place teams. We needed 18 out of 20 points to ensure our victory. We ended up with just 16. Fortunately, we held on to 1st place when the second place team got just 15.

They gave out prizes to the top three teams—water bottles for one of the runner-ups and note pads for the other. I’m not sure which one got which. We each got a Princess drawstring bag with a notepad, water bottle, and bottle stopper. I was hoping for a bottle of champagne, too. Four out of the six of us would have appreciated that. The last time we had a cruise-long trivia, the prizes included daily ones for the winning team during each session plus a grand prize of Princess bags and Swarovski crystal snowflake ornaments for each team member plus a bottle of champagne for the whole team. But the thrill of victory was sweet even without better prizes.

We had our last dining room lunch. One couple at our table was one with whom we had eaten before—the guy with 28 shirts and 7 pairs of shoes. We met back up with our trivia teammates for the money trivia. Five categories with answer values ranging from $100 to $500 in columns. We missed just one question and may have had the lead going into the final question with $7,400. But we missed it and ended up with nothing. The team that got the final question right had just $6,700 doubled.

We played our final trivia this afternoon. We lost by one point. If we had gone with our instincts, we could have won by one. That’s OK. We still have water bottles to give away before we finish packing.

I’m saving all the Patters in case people have questions about activities after we get home tomorrow night. I’m throwing away all the other flyers we received, including some inserts in the Patters: 16 from the shops, 14 from the spa, and 5 from the art auction.

We’ve started packing. I’m hoping to have our two large bags out before we go to dinner. Someone mentioned the United Nations conference going on tomorrow in New York. Let’s hope it doesn’t mess up people’s travel plans. Our flight isn’t until 3:40 in the afternoon, so we should have plenty of time to make it to LaGuardia.

Overall, we’ve had a great cruise. We met many nice people, ate great food, enjoyed the activities, and had good weather in all the ports and smooth seas for the most part. Some things that could improve: the temperature of rooms around the ship, the scheduling of activities (especially as it concerns those of us with traditional dining), and some of the menus. We enjoyed the off-menu items offered in the dining room. I asked people with Anytime Dining if they had them as well and they said yes.

Thankfully we haven’t run into the people who are really upset about the itinerary change. I posted a reply to our roll call about the storm that hit Northern Ireland and included a link to an article about a man who was killed during it. It’s hard to believe that people would rather have kept our original itinerary and endured horrible weather in the ports and rough seas.

Geoherb

Thanks for taking us along on your journey (and answering questions for us).

We board the Royal Princess in a Month so really enjoyed your posts.:D

Sounds wonderful overall. Happy you had a safe and enjoyable crossing. Thank you, I enjoyed reading your daily accounts.

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Someone mentioned the United Nations conference going on tomorrow in New York. Let’s hope it doesn’t mess up people’s travel plans. Our flight isn’t until 3:40 in the afternoon, so we should have plenty of time to make it to LaGuardia.

 

No problem going from Red Hook to LGA.

Big problem if trying to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn.

We are waiting in Club 6 now to disembark. They're currently running about half an hour behind.

Thank you for your interesting posts. We will be boarding this afternoon so thank you for bringing the Royal into safe harbour. :D

As you know by now, the weather is absolutely miserable in NYC today. I'm sure you made it to the airport OK (many neighborhoods are flooded) but I hope you're not still sitting on the tarmac waiting for the weather to clear. Safe travels.

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I will concur with the miserable weather in NYC today. I flew from LGA and there were 25 planes ahead of us. That’s a record for me

LGA held the last record of 18 ahead for takeoff. Nice to sail but always nice to get home. Mike

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Really enjoyed following along on your sailing! Hope you made it home safely.

Welcome Home! Thanks for taking me along.

Thanks, everyone. We made it home around 6:30 tonight. There was a delay at LaGuardia, with around two dozen planes ahead of us waiting to take off. It took around 40 minutes from the time we pushed off from the gate to takeoff. The weather also made for a bumpy ride for the first half of our flight. The flight attendants kept their seats. We did get to see Air Force One sitting to the side as we taxied around.

Thanks, everyone. We made it home around 6:30 tonight. There was a delay at LaGuardia, with around two dozen planes ahead of us waiting to take off. It took around 40 minutes from the time we pushed off from the gate to takeoff. The weather also made for a bumpy ride for the first half of our flight. The flight attendants kept their seats. We did get to see Air Force One sitting to the side as we taxied around.

Glad you made it home safely! I really enjoyed following along on your journey...thanks!

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I really enjoyed it too especially because we were

On the same trip and I got to see it through another’s eyes

We did not meet but were at many of the same events and I would have written almost the exact same. I think that is a good sign. Mike

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Thanks. Mike, we were part of the Hurricanes team if you attended any of the cruise-long trivias. I was the youngest one on the team. I went to the Cruise Critic gathering, but there were so many people there that I only met a few.

I just finished my survey. Princess should have fixed it before sending it out. There were questions about the three ports we missed and none about the two ports that were added. They've had over 10 days to make changes. I'm sure some of the folks on our cruise had more to say about the missed ports than I did.

I agree. But did you get the special addendum about likes and dislikes about various food and venues. I thought it was very interesting. Mike

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I agree. But did you get the special addendum about likes and dislikes about various food and venues. I thought it was very interesting. Mike/quote]Yes. It was interesting. I wonder what a family style Italian concept would look like on a Princess ship. We've enjoyed a few meals at Maggiano's Little Italy restaurants. Our meals there worked best when we were with a large group.

Thanks, everyone. We made it home around 6:30 tonight. There was a delay at LaGuardia, with around two dozen planes ahead of us waiting to take off. It took around 40 minutes from the time we pushed off from the gate to takeoff. The weather also made for a bumpy ride for the first half of our flight. The flight attendants kept their seats. We did get to see Air Force One sitting to the side as we taxied around.

I enjoyed your report....and especially enjoyed sharing dinner with you. I continue to be amazed at how well you used your extra hour every day...3 meals in the dining room, 2-3 trivia games, wine tastings, deck games, cocktail parties, evening shows, etc. etc. etc. Thank goodness you didn't go to bingo...

pat

I enjoyed your report....and especially enjoyed sharing dinner with you. I continue to be amazed at how well you used your extra hour every day...3 meals in the dining room, 2-3 trivia games, wine tastings, deck games, cocktail parties, evening shows, etc. etc. etc. Thank goodness you didn't go to bingo...

pat

Our check for our refundable onboard credit came in today's mail. It's exactly seven weeks since our cruise ended. Someone on our rollcall mentioned that Princess was running behind due to the number of us onboard getting refunds. We did not spend the $200 per person OBC for missing ports or the money we received back on port fees and taxes. It added up to just a bit over $500.