Questions on recent Crown Princess sailings....

[Fore on the Floor]

Here is a link to the patters form the Nov 12 sailing.

 

http://flic.kr/s/aHsjx5asiT

[Orangefan]

If you are into dancing (swing, cha cha, etc.) I would definitely recommend that you spend some time in the Wheelhouse Lounge or Explorer Lounge and see the band called "ELEMENTS". The lead singer has enough energy to run the ship! We enjoyed them almost every night on our 11/12/11 cruise on the CROWN PRINCESS!

 

Debjo

 

 

Hi Debjo ! How was your cruise ? How did you find all the sea days with everyone on the ship? I was on the 10 day Emerald 11/08/11 - 11/18/11 to St. Thomas,Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. Wonderful weather, people and cruise. I am still thinking about the Crown and your itinerary. The airfare is still very high. That is why I took the other cruise because it left on a Tues and returned on a Friday. Can't believe how lucky we are in Syracuse. It is Dec and still no snow. I know it is coming soon.

Sali

[Fore on the Floor]

Here is a quick video of Elements

 

[Elkhorn20fan]

Thanks for the video, guess i better bring my i pod

[debjo]

For Orangefan...

Sali, we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise. The sea days are always the best in our book. This time we went for "relaxation" and booked the Sanctuary for the week. It was the 1st Princess cruise we've gone on that had the Sanctuary option. Even though the other four members of our traveling group probably spent more time up there than we did, it still was well worth the money. Getting a bungalow at Princess Cays was a treat too. Being the "pasty-white-Northerners" that we are, the shade and air-conditioning offered by the bungalow were a welcome relief from all the sun. Don't get me wrong, we loved the sun and our pictures prove it...they are so nice to look at now that we are back to the gray environment that we all live in here in Central New York!

 

About the only time we really encountered any "crowds" was when we tried to go to our Second Seating dinner in the main "traditional" dining room at 8:15 pm when the "doors" opened. There would always be a crowd around the stairs and elevators waiting to get into the dining room. We just learned that if we showed up for dinner at close to 8:30 pm, we could walk right in. You do have to get the the Princess Theater early for the broadway style shows to get a good seat. We arrived 5 minutes late one night and the place was packed to the brim...we did find a couple empty seats WAY in the back, but our group of six were unable to sit together then. The comedian show in Explorers Lounge was the same way...we enjoyed "listening" to the comedian one night, but we were seated in the walkway outside the lounge and couldn't "see" the comedian at all. Still it was quite entertaining, just hearing him...he was that good!

 

We didn't go swimming in any of the pools, chosing to spend time in the Sanctuary instead, so we avoided a lot of the crowds that way. Embarkation Day lunch was crowded too...by the time we got around to getting lunch, we discovered that the Main Dining Room closed at 1:30 pm, so we had to go to the buffet at Horizon Court. Lunch was good, but we had to wait in a line before accessing the buffet...then we had a great deal of difficulty finding an open table for six people. Hint here is to make your way to the back of the ship and get a table in the Cafe Caribe (which seems like an extension of Horizon Court.

 

The CROWN PRINCESS is laid out much like the SAPPHIRE PRINCESS that we sailed on last year, so we didn't have any trouble finding our way around...except when we tried to get to the Miniature Golf Area all the way up on Deck 19. It seems that only one elevator goes there...Aft Elevator Bank. I don't know whether it was broken or not, but you could only take that elevator DOWN from Deck 19...you couldn't take that elevator UP! We could see the Princess Links from the outer deck by Center Court, but there wasn't any way to access Princess Links from outside the ship...you had to go inside the ship. Finally, we figured out that we could take another elevator up to Skywalkers on Deck 18, and then go up a set of stairs that seemed a bit hidden, in order to access Deck 19. This stairway isn't part of the main core of stairs that are adjacent to the elevator banks. But, that is part of the adventure of getting around a ship, isn't it! The other area that seemed a bit hidden was the desk for the Future Cruise Consultant. We discovered that the door to that office is tucked away between the Travel Cafe and the Internet Cafe in the Piazza on Deck 5.

 

Curacao and Aruba are great islands...warm friendly people on clean islands that we felt perfectly safe exploring during our excursions and on our own. I only wish they weren't so close to the equator, as the sun was really intense. Rather than snorkel, we took a semi-sub tour in Aruba, which gave us the thrill of the underwater environment without the rise of sunburn. The semi-sub was perfectly air-conditioned too. The windows were large and clean, which made "us" the occupants of the fish bowl. Traveling over the wreck of the Antilla made us feel like we were James Cameron filming the discovery of the Titanic! That excursion even included a land portion that took us to the "baby" Natural Bridge, scenic coastline, Casibari Rock, and the California Lighthouse.

 

We took a motor coach tour in Curacao that included a museum, caves, and distillery...quite a combination, but a great overview of the island, its culture, its history, and its products.

 

We "shopped" on our own in both Oranjestad and Willemstad. With our late departure in Curacao, we had the pleasure of seeing the CROWN PRINCESS all lit up like a Christmas tree at night as we walked back to the ship. The only thing that didn't work out good was the fact that the "swinging" Queen Emma pontoon bridge was out of commission, so we didn't get to walk across it while it was in action...ferry boats took us from one side of the inlet to the other side.

 

With this being our first time to all of these islands, we felt that we got a superb overview of things to allow us to go back again and do more exploring/adventuring on our own.

 

How was your trip on the EMERALD PRINCESS...we haven't sailed on that ship yet. I'd love to be able to take a cruise that was longer than 7 days, but it is hard for us to get that many days off. I hope that you get to enjoy the SAPPHIRE PRINCESS sometime. I know the airfare has a lot to do with what cruises we take too. We always try to book with JetBlue the minute their fares become available...it gives us the best rates that way. There may come a time that we end up only sailing from Boston, because of the high airfares and cost for extra luggage. At least we can drive to Boston in just five hours. So far, we've found that the passenger pier terminal experience in Boston is about the nicest...but then again, Boston doesn't have the number of cruise ships departing from there like NYC or Ft. Lauderdale!

 

I am so glad that we didn't come home to snow this year...we had quite the "warm" homecoming this time. Hey, another day without snow here is another day we a closer to spring!

 

Debjo