Royal Princess - 10 Day Eastern Caribbean - A Photo Review!

[umbluemusic]

Thanks for all the comments! I'm glad the Coral will be going digital; I figured that the Royal or Regal would have done that since they have those face scanners (which we did not use, we just hunted the walls - it's like Where's Waldo) but yes, I totally get that not everyone wants to buy an embarkation photo. We didn't buy ours, but on my last cruise that one actually turned out really nice and we did purchase - you could tell how excited my aunt and I were to be going on our Panama Canal cruise that we'd been talking about for five years. :)

 

I should also warn that I will be updating sporadically - I am taking two courses at school this semester and I work full time, but I will definitely finish this because it will also become entries for my blog, so as long as you don't mind being patient occasionally it will eventually be posted!

 

~~~~~~

 

We went back upstairs and also swung by the SeaWalk to see what the fuss was about – I’m not nervous about heights though, but it was kind of a pretty feature. I don’t think we really went back there at all through the rest of the cruise.

 

Hey look, seating! I knew Royal didn’t have a traditional promenade, but the seats I could see looked pretty comfy so we made a note to try to find them at some point and hang out.

 

We then headed back to Outrigger and it was surprisingly empty; there were some of the big comfy couch type seats marked as reserved for certain groups but we sat at the bar in the middle and eventually headed over to the railing.

 

 

We decided for our sailaway drink to share a margarita – since you could do a double sized one in a large glass for less than two separate ones.

 

 

It was huge!

 

 

And delicious – it was a blue citrus margarita.

 

 

We were docked really close to Celebrity and when I first saw the ship it looked kind of odd, but it grew on me the more I checked it out. I like things that are a little quirky and compared to the overall look of most Princess ships this was definitely different!

 

This was also the moment that I realized just how friendly all the staff were really going to be – I was taking a picture of the Oasis and Constellation and a waiter came out of nowhere (seriously, I have no clue where he came from because I was all by myself near the railing!) and offered to take a picture of me with them in the background. ☺ I decided against it since I really didn’t need a picture of me with them in the background but it was still nice.

 

 

So there is the resulting photo from that interaction! I can’t believe how insanely large that ship is. I thought the Royal Princess was huge, but I also think that the Royal is the largest ship I’d like to sail on – I can’t imagine being in port when the Oasis is; it seems like so many people!

[OhioDogLover]

Love your review. I will look for more installments. I hope that all of your vacation was as fun as the first part. (My brother Andrew lives in Pittsburgh.)

 

Ohiodoglover

[Laurie7]

Thanks for your fun review! We leave on the Royal on Feb 27 and I can't wait to try that margarita that you were enjoying. We sailed on the Oasis of the Seas a couple of years ago and it was awesome. So many things to do and enjoy- that cruise was all about the ship not the port stops. Even with all the people on that ship, it never seemed crowded, amazing.

[umbluemusic]

 

A wake picture – here we go!

 

We headed down to our cabin and changed quickly for dinner. We had traditional seating at 5:30 pm with a request in for 8 people, so I was interested to see who we’d be dining with for the cruise.

 

A note for everyone – I know in my cruise personalizer for some reason, on this voyage I had three traditional seating options – 5:30, 6, or the 8:15 or whatever the last one is. I looked at my personalizer A LOT because…well, I like to do that (haha) and I thought it was odd but I was really excited to have dinner at 6 because 5 feels just a tad too early for me and 8:15 is just too late most of the time. Well, I don’t know if I was just hallucinating for the year that I had this cruise booked because once on the ship, everyone told me that 5:30 was the only early seating so I must be crazy. It was fine, we did end up missing dinner a couple of times because of being in port or other issues but if you, like me, see a time of 6 pm – I doubt it exists and you can join the nutty club at 5:30 ☺.

 

Our tablemates turned out to be a couple who had been married 53 years and were from Canada, (I believe their anniversary was coming up in the fall) and another that had been dating for about 5 years from Kentucky. We were only seated at a table for 6! Also, now that I’ve done late traditional on my previous trip and now early traditional, the early seating felt much more rushed. Maybe it was just our wait staff, but things moved along at a clip. I also felt like I got to know my wait staff on my last cruise so much better (Jarrett and Dejan were the best!) so overall, I was just ever so slightly disappointed but it wasn’t a big deal, we still had a great time.

 

This was Andrew’s first and only time doing any sort of seated dining on a ship; when he has traveled on Royal Caribbean he and his friends always just went to the buffet, and he really enjoyed getting to dine with our new friends every night.

 

One thing my review will not have? Lots of food pictures, I’m afraid. It seems like most people take some good shots of the menus and food, but as I never wanted to carry around my larger camera while at dinner and the night shows I will not have a lot of shots of meals. I assure you, most were pretty good and the conversation was really the highlight.

 

I tend to write like I talk – informally and a general rambling overtone, so hopefully I haven’t lost anyone with my musings!

 

After dinner we ended up going up to Movies Under the Stars; I brought my Nook and Andrew brought a play he was reading. We wanted to go up to see the fountain (which was James Bond that night) and the movie was Alexander and the Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (which we didn’t necessarily want to see) but it had finished by the time we made it up there. Instead they had a slide show of stars and galaxies, which made for a relaxing setting.

 

 

We were very cold though.

 

 

Ahhhh, so glad I’m not at home and finally can catch up on all the books I want to read.

 

 

All I could think of during the fountain show is that it would be fun to play in them like when I was little, only to see when we got back to the room and picked up our patter that they actually have playtime in the fountain for kids in the morning!

 

And now I must go get ready for work today - boo. Thanks for following along with me!

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Enjoying your review, we enjoyed our Royal Princess cruise way more than our Oasis but I am glad I tried it, DH did enjoy the flow rider and zip line but I would not like to do the Caribbean on her unless I took the kids plus talk about rude people, that ship had a lot of them :(

[MamaTene]

Enjoying your review and reliving our cruise with you and the gang from our roll call. Great group!

[caribill]

A note for everyone – I know in my cruise personalizer for some reason, on this voyage I had three traditional seating options – 5:30, 6, or the 8:15 or whatever the last one is. I looked at my personalizer A LOT because…well, I like to do that (haha) and I thought it was odd but I was really excited to have dinner at 6 because 5 feels just a tad too early for me and 8:15 is just too late most of the time. Well, I don’t know if I was just hallucinating for the year that I had this cruise booked because once on the ship, everyone told me that 5:30 was the only early seating so I must be crazy. It was fine, we did end up missing dinner a couple of times because of being in port or other issues but if you, like me, see a time of 6 pm – I doubt it exists and you can join the nutty club at 5:30 ☺.[emoji1]

 

Which dining room is your seating in?

 

If it is the Allegro (deck 6 aft), then you are in the regular early traditional seating. (In January, this started at 6 PM)

 

If it is the Concerto (deck 6 near the atrium), then it is the supplemental early traditional. (In January, this started at 5:30 PM)

 

The back page of the Patter will tell you for sure if there is one or two early Traditional dining times.

Edited February 22, 2015 by caribill

[umbluemusic]

Which dining room is your seating in?

 

If it is the Allegro (deck 6 aft), then you are in the regular early traditional seating. (In January, this started at 6 PM)

 

If it is the Concerto (deck 6 near the atrium), then it is the supplemental early traditional. (In January, this started at 5:30 PM)

 

The back page of the Patter will tell you for sure if there is one or two early Traditional dining times.

 

Well crap! Everyone I talked to on the ship insisted that there was only a 5:30 seating even though I know I had confirmed in my personalizer for 6 pm. I was in Concerto, though.

 

I'll have to look at my patters and double check!

[umbluemusic]

Just as an update - I did check my patters and there were only 5:30 seatings for traditional dining (and the late one too) so maybe they had so many 5:30 and not enough 6 that they just lumped us all into 5:30. Either way, not a huge deal, but I was looking forward to having a tiny bit more time before dinner so that we could stay in port longer a couple of days.

[jagsfan]

Well, crap is right. I was happy to get 6pm for our March 29 sailing. My diabetic DH eats dinner at 6:30, so 6 was perfect. 5:30 would make him want the buffet, and I'm an MDR person. Maybe we'll be lucky and wind up with 6, or maybe I'll start a new tradition, Lido deck for dinner!

[umbluemusic]

Well, crap is right. I was happy to get 6pm for our March 29 sailing. My diabetic DH eats dinner at 6:30, so 6 was perfect. 5:30 would make him want the buffet, and I'm an MDR person. Maybe we'll be lucky and wind up with 6, or maybe I'll start a new tradition, Lido deck for dinner!

 

I'm sure another option would be to just tell them right away that 5:30 won't work for you, and maybe they can do a standing reservation for anytime dining at 6 pm? I know I've seen people on here say that they did that.

 

I probably would have requested to switch to anytime if I had been sailing with a larger group, but with just us two it was nice meeting some new friends at our table. I like traditional dining for the conversation potential; Andrew and I see each other all day so it is nice to talk to others too :)

 

They could still have the 6 pm time though according to caribill, so hopefully it will all work out!

[sunsetbeachgal]

Well, crap is right. I was happy to get 6pm for our March 29 sailing. My diabetic DH eats dinner at 6:30, so 6 was perfect. 5:30 would make him want the buffet, and I'm an MDR person. Maybe we'll be lucky and wind up with 6, or maybe I'll start a new tradition, Lido deck for dinner!

 

On our recent cruise on the Regal, we ate dinner three nights in the buffet. The selection is great, love making our own salads the way we want, and you can see the meats being carved so can get it exactly the way you want it. The atmosphere was quite nice and we enjoyed it very much. The buffets on the Royal and Regal are unlike any other Princess ships we have been on, and we loved them!

 

Also don't forget that Alfredo's serves from 11AM to 11PM, continuously. A great little bistro!

Edited February 23, 2015 by sunsetbeachgal

[FraudBroad]

Enjoying your review, we enjoyed our Royal Princess cruise way more than our Oasis but I am glad I tried it, DH did enjoy the flow rider and zip line but I would not like to do the Caribbean on her unless I took the kids plus talk about rude people, that ship had a lot of them :(

 

Enjoying your review and reliving our cruise with you and the gang from our roll call. Great group!

 

Bravo for you review Mary! We had the BEST time with all of you!!! And Mama I didn't see you nearly enough on this voyage! Had such a great time I'm already booked to go again next January!!!!

 

Keep up the good work on your review Mary...I love reliving everything!

 

Regards,

Natalie

[CanuckCurlers]

Honestly, we didn't have any issues with noise. I know the cabin next to us was occupied but we never heard a thing. I was a little worried when we were assigned it (since we booked guarantee and didn't get our cabin until a few weeks until the cruise) but even being under Horizon Court and the Pastry Shoppe, I rarely heard anything. I know one morning when I was already up I heard something crash, but if I hadn't been awake already it wouldn't have woken me up.

Thanks so much for sharing. We also are under Horizon Court, as we booked during a stressful time and didn't notice, and it has been weighing on my mind that it would be noisy and now I can relax about our location. We also are booked for the 6:00 TD and our TA has checked 3 times that it is 6:00 and not 5:30. Of course our last 2 cruises also said 6:00 and ended up being 5:30. If it is indeed 5:30 we will switch to AD and will not get the advantage of getting to know some really nice Princess cruisers. Wishing you and Andrew a bright future together. Edited February 23, 2015 by CanuckCurlers

[jagsfan]

I'm sure another option would be to just tell them right away that 5:30 won't work for you, and maybe they can do a standing reservation for anytime dining at 6 pm? I know I've seen people on here say that they did that.

 

 

 

I probably would have requested to switch to anytime if I had been sailing with a larger group, but with just us two it was nice meeting some new friends at our table. I like traditional dining for the conversation potential; Andrew and I see each other all day so it is nice to talk to others too :)

 

 

 

They could still have the 6 pm time though according to caribill, so hopefully it will all work out!

 

 

We like traditional for the same reason you do, and have been lucky in our table mates. I'll cross my fingers that the 6pm happens. At least there's an alternate.

[perfect match]

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us. Ten days on the Royal is a cruise I definitely want to do so I will be following along.

[TinaLee]

Enjoying your review very much, and looking forward to more pictures and info! :)

[Grego]

Thanks for doing this review and for being great voyagers with a fantastic attitude. I am embarrassed for the arrogant frequent cruisers and having to spend any time at all apologizing to crew for their behavior.

 

It is indeed humorous to see folks race to get on a ship that won't leave for hours, to get to a cabin which won't see luggage for awhile, to get up to the hog trough to load their plates before the food runs out. Not quite my idea of starting an "Escape Completely" relaxing voyage...but then that's my thinking.

 

Glad you put up with the rude folks and enjoyed yourself. Safe travels back home and hope to see you on another voyage soon. We would love to travel with you.

[Woobstr112G]

OP;

 

Thanks for taking the tme to post your thoughts and pictures.....:):):)

 

Bob

[#1Nanna]

I am enjoying your review! : )

I am wondering if they have offered any special buffets, like out on the pool deck?