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

[tothemall&beyond]

Geoherb,

 

Hello friend! Just started reading your thread. Informative and fun as always. Hope to sail together again soon. PM me on FB and we can coordinate... Hope you're enjoying CD Matt and his all boy band of Asst CD's. He is truly terrific. We did TA with him in April. I know he's doing his best to make up for the missed ports. Talk to you soon. Give Matt and also Bruce Wilson of the Entertainment staff (lead singer) big hugs from me. OK, maybe not hugs, but my best regards.

Nancy

[geoherb]

Breakfast in the dining room has been consistently good, even if it’s taking a little too long most days. This morning, we asked for a table for two so that we would not be dragged down by others’ orders. And then I decided to go with the eggs benedict but with smoked salmon instead of the ham (eggs Nova Scotia). They came out in time for me to make it to the early morning trivia on time.

 

I ate lunch at Alfredo’s with our dinner companions. DH got a quick bite at Horizon Court.

 

We won the afternoon trivia with 21 out of 22 points. The second place team was a couple of points behind. It’s too bad we did not do that well in the cruise-long trivia instead. We got the drawstring bags. We had a hard time giving them away.

 

Tonight was the first three of five Captains Circle parties. We went at 6:15. I think there was an earlier one and a later one tonight in addition to two tomorrow. DH isn’t drinking since his knee has flared up with gout. I had a couple of glasses of red wine. I probably could have gotten in a third glass and maybe even a fourth, but I did not need that many since we had two partial bottles of wine to finish at dinner. They served hors d’ouvres as well—puff pastry bites with Parmesan, seafood filling, or tiny sausages.

 

The Captains Circle hostess announced the totals of everyone except the first-time cruisers. From my math, there are around 700 of them. There are 426 Gold, 354 Ruby, 1,158 Platinum, and 941 Elite. She said 19 guests have more than a thousand days on Princess. The cutoff for the most-traveled passenger luncheon was 520 days. The third place couple have 1,153 days. The second place couple have 1,157 days. The first place couple have 1,222 days. It was a nice party, even if I did not win a bottle of champagne.

 

Our regular waiter was not at dinner. The guy filling in was good. I had a surf and turf combo of lobster tail, crab cake, and chateaubriand. For once, the rare was too rare for me. I ate around the edges. The lobster tail and crab cake were both good. I was not offered melted butter for the lobster, but it’s not something I usually have—just a squeeze of lemon juice for me. It was tasty.

 

Tonight’s featured entertainer in the Princess Theater was Jassen Allen. He’s new to Princess. He said he was previously a featured singer on other cruise lines for 10 years before moving to Las Vegas to be a performer there. I enjoyed his show, although I wish he had more up-tempo numbers and fewer of the slow ones.

[geoherb]

Thanks, Nancy.

[floridalover5623]

The Captains Circle hostess announced the totals of everyone except the first-time cruisers. From my math, there are around 700 of them. There are 426 Gold, 354 Ruby, 1,158 Platinum, and 941 Elite. She said 19 guests have more than a thousand days on Princess. The cutoff for the most-traveled passenger luncheon was 520 days. The third place couple have 1,153 days. The second place couple have 1,157 days. The first place couple have 1,222 days. It was a nice party, even if I did not win a bottle of champagne.

 

Thanks for the detailed numbers. It's always nice to know where we stand.

Did you make it to the MT luncheon?

[USCcruisecrazy]

I've enjoyed reading your posts. I may show my complete ignorance, but why do you mention giving away the prizes when you win them? Is that some sort of standard? Or am I missing something? :)

[dickinson]

I've enjoyed reading your posts. I may show my complete ignorance, but why do you mention giving away the prizes when you win them? Is that some sort of standard? Or am I missing something? :)

 

If you cruise often you already have the prizes. They are just token prizes and not worth having a lot. That is why WE would give the prizes away. It is fun to play trivia even if you don't win. You learn a lot.

[USCcruisecrazy]

If you cruise often you already have the prizes. They are just token prizes and not worth having a lot. That is why WE would give the prizes away. It is fun to play trivia even if you don't win. You learn a lot.

 

Thanks for that answer. I thought it was likely they had the items (based on how many times they seem to win), but didn't know if it was a "thing" they do as fun or if it had a particular meaning. Maybe I can win some one day and give them away as well!! :D

[geoherb]

The weather turned rainy and windy, but seas are still just moderate. We ate breakfast separately in the dining room. I wanted to make it through in time for the early morning trivia. Our team won. We had a one-point lead in the cruise-long trivia and scored the highest. I’m not sure how far behind the second place team scored. We’ll find out in the morning. Our teammates went on to win the music duo trivia. We were eating lunch and missed most of it. I went in for the last four questions and helped out a couple. They were so far behind it did not matter.

 

I played the alpha hunt game with a couple from England with whom we ate dinner the second night. We ended up in second place.

 

Tonight’s featured entertainer is Darren Dowler. He’s described as “the lead vocalist for the legendary Paul Revere and the Raiders” and as a vocalist and “singing impressionist.” It will be interesting to see if his publicity photo outside the theater looks like him or not. I can’t imagine that he still looks as young as it makes him look.

[Pia1913]

 

Tonight’s featured entertainer is Darren Dowler. He’s described as “the lead vocalist for the legendary Paul Revere and the Raiders” and as a vocalist and “singing impressionist.” It will be interesting to see if his publicity photo outside the theater looks like him or not. I can’t imagine that he still looks as young as it makes him look.

 

He's 55 years old, but whenever you see his photo, it's always the old ones when he was in his 20's.

[geoherb]

Thanks for the detailed numbers. It's always nice to know where we stand.

Did you make it to the MT luncheon?

We’re way far behind. I was amazed at how closely bunched up the leaders were. We’ve been on cruises where passengers had way more days than the top three, but then there was always a big gap down to us lower levels of Elites.

 

I've enjoyed reading your posts. I may show my complete ignorance, but why do you mention giving away the prizes when you win them? Is that some sort of standard? Or am I missing something?

Yes, what Dickinson said about not really wanting the prizes if we already have won the same thing on a previous cruise. We’re planning on giving the bottle stoppers to our tablemates at dinner.

 

It’s fun to play and see how many useless facts you can dredge up from your memory. The problem is that they seem to use a lot of the same questions over and over, so those people who take a lot of cruises have an advantage. We’re nowhere near the top of repeaters. That’s why it’s good to have people from different countries and people of different generations on a team.

[USCcruisecrazy]

We’re way far behind. I was amazed at how closely bunched up the leaders were. We’ve been on cruises where passengers had way more days than the top three, but then there was always a big gap down to us lower levels of Elites.

 

Yes, what Dickinson said about not really wanting the prizes if we already have won the same thing on a previous cruise. We’re planning on giving the bottle stoppers to our tablemates at dinner.

 

It’s fun to play and see how many useless facts you can dredge up from your memory. The problem is that they seem to use a lot of the same questions over and over, so those people who take a lot of cruises have an advantage. We’re nowhere near the top of repeaters. That’s why it’s good to have people from different countries and people of different generations on a team.

 

I am thinking we will need to try some trivia next time on board. All the cruises we've done, we've never really done the trivia. We have stood around before and answered some of the questions just because we were passing by. I shall report in and give the results...although I'm thinking (based on some of the questions you cited) a score closer to zero than to 20 will be the result. LOL!!!:o

[Optotronics]

He's 55 years old, but whenever you see his photo, it's always the old ones when he was in his 20's.

He's not an original band member. Joined Paul revere and the raiders in 2008 so any band photos more than 10 years old wouldn't show him.

[geoherb]

Thanks, Pia. I googled Darren Dowler and found out about his joining the band a decade ago. I did not see his age. I was thinking 10 years older if he’s 55. The photo looks about 10 years old. His show was enjoyable. I liked his energy. The vocal impersonations included Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Kermit the Frog, Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Bolton, Louis Armstrong, and a bunch more.

 

We’re rocking and rolling a bit now. Cruise director Matt O’ said it will continue throughout the night and morning. I should sleep well. We also gain back another hour. We’ll have two hours left to gain over the next three nights.

 

Tomorrow’s schedule is full. We’ll do three trivias plus go to the afternoon Voice of the Ocean contest. We have a new friend who’s one of the finalists. We’ve missed the preliminary rounds. We also missed the passenger talent show this afternoon since we ate lunch late.

 

We’re getting escargot tomorrow night. Our head waiter came around after dinner and asked if we’d like them. All six of us said yes. He said they’ll also appear later on in the cruise. I’m guessing that’ll be Sunday night, which should be our third and final formal night. The head waiters prepared an off-menu pasta item as an appetizer. We also received an off-menu shrimp dish even without ordering. Both were tasty.

[caribill]

The problem is that they seem to use a lot of the same questions over and over, so those people who take a lot of cruises have an advantage.

 

On one cruise I went to the library and brought a Trivia Pursuit game to the cruise staff person doing the trivia so she would use different questions. The people who had been on the previous cruise suddenly stopped winning.

[geoherb]

Having the extra hour to sleep was nice. We made it to breakfast in the dining room in time so that we did not have to rush to get to the early morning trivia. We came in second or third. I went to the chocolate culinary demo. The head chef and head pastry chef were very entertaining. They made chocolate mousse, truffles, and cookies. We got to sample the truffles and cookies at the end but not the mousse. One interesting fact the head chef talked about was that the ice cream starts as a base—a powder in a bag. I’m still not sure what’s in it and what they have to add to it to get the final product. The flavors I’ve had in the dining room have been good. One of our tablemates, however, never gets it served hard enough. I guess they keep it on the soft side to make it easier to dip.

 

DH tried to go to the morning lecture. Today’s topic was ocean corals. By the time he got to the Vista Lounge, all the seats were gone. He stood up at the back for a bit then decided to leave. One of the problems of having it there instead of the theater, of course, is the fewer number of seats. But then the art auction folks had already started loading in the works of art for the afternoon auction, making some of the seats unusable. The art auctions have been popular, judging by the lines of people waiting to get in when we’ve walked by. The auctioneer, though, has a horrible habit of making an announcement during lunch about the upcoming auction. It’s the only obtrusive announcement I’ve heard—none for bingo or other events around the ship. It would be good to get rid of his as well. Let the people interested in it be responsible for reading the schedule and showing up on time.

 

We are still in the lead on the cruise-long trivia. One team, though, said their score for yesterday wasn’t included on the chart, so the size of our lead probably isn’t as great as it looked like this morning. We did OK on 20 hard questions, getting in a tie with a couple of other teams with 16 points.

 

We ate lunch in the dining room with the British couple from our team. It was nice. We had three punches left on our wine card, so we’ve started getting a bottle at lunch and finishing it off at dinner. Apparently we’re not able to finish a whole bottle at dinner every night like we used to do. It will work out perfectly with two punches left to use over tomorrow and our last day.

 

I’ve met some folks who are ready for the cruise to be over. They said they were bored. We’re still having fun.

 

It was great to have the Voice of the Ocean finals competition in the afternoon. On previous cruises we’ve been on, they’ve had it had night. We usually arrived late from our second seating dinner and never got to vote. Our friend in the competition wasn’t feeling great today but still performed well. He sang “You Raise Me Up.” A more up-tempo song choice would probably be better. The guy who won (“All Shook Up”) took advantage of both going last and having the only upbeat song. Our friend’s mentor had another contestant on his team. He chose our friend as his contestant in the finals.

 

The questions in the afternoon trivia were much easier. We ended up with 20 out of 21 points—tied with four other teams. We won the tie-breaker question to get more bottle stoppers. When we got back to our cabin, we found some of the Princess drawstring bags in our mailbox. We think they may be a Wake Show prize.

 

Laundry has been taking three days ever since our first batches came back in two. This morning was the last time to send any out, but we did not. We’ll have enough clean clothes to last until we get home. We both have small batches that should come back tomorrow.

[Micahs Grandad]

The weather turned rainy and windy, but seas are still just moderate. We ate breakfast separately in the dining room. I wanted to make it through in time for the early morning trivia. Our team won. We had a one-point lead in the cruise-long trivia and scored the highest. I’m not sure how far behind the second place team scored. We’ll find out in the morning. Our teammates went on to win the music duo trivia. We were eating lunch and missed most of it. I went in for the last four questions and helped out a couple. They were so far behind it did not matter.

 

I played the alpha hunt game with a couple from England with whom we ate dinner the second night. We ended up in second place.

 

Tonight’s featured entertainer is Darren Dowler. He’s described as “the lead vocalist for the legendary Paul Revere and the Raiders” and as a vocalist and “singing impressionist.” It will be interesting to see if his publicity photo outside the theater looks like him or not. I can’t imagine that he still looks as young as it makes him look.

 

Thinking the Raiders were from the 60's so that would make him in his 70's.

[Micahs Grandad]

He's not an original band member. Joined Paul revere and the raiders in 2008 so any band photos more than 10 years old wouldn't show him.

 

Guess that answers the question from my previous post.

[geoherb]

On one cruise I went to the library and brought a Trivial Pursuit game to the cruise staff person doing the trivia so she would use different questions. The people who had been on the previous cruise suddenly stopped winning.

I’d love it if they did this. At my mother’s retirement apartment, they use the cards from Trivial Pursuit for trivias twice each week. I usually make it to one of them. Even with five different editions to draw from, it doesn’t take long to start repeating questions. The way they play, they read the questions and get people to shout out the answers. They go through around 150 questions in an hour.

 

I’ve done well with my internet minutes. I write most of the posts to Cruise Critic in Word then copy and paste over into WordPad. For some reason, copying and pasting directly from Word doesn’t work well. I’ve downloaded our hometown newspaper each day except for Sunday’s edition, when I did it in Vigo on my phone instead. I’ve checked a few sports scores, some trivia answers, my email, and Facebook. I still have over 40 percent of my free minutes left for the next two days.

[Colo Cruiser]

Sounds like an excellent day. :)

[geoherb]

Getting back an hour each night has been great. We had breakfast with a couple of women who talked about losing an hour going eastbound on a trans-Atlantic in the spring. They said the ship moved the clocks ahead at 2 p.m. each day. I like that idea for losing an hour. Seems like it would get me to bed on time. The thing they did not like was they had early traditional dining. It made dinnertime too early for them.

 

I played the early morning trivia with two of our teammates from the cruise-long trivia plus two men we’ve picked up on past trivias. We won with 17 out of 20. We could have had 19 if we had gone with some answers we came up with then talked ourselves out of.

 

I watched the 60-second game in the piazza. I was going to sign up, but the list was already 28 people long. There were three different challenges today. Two were repeats from when I played it earlier in the cruise: moving coffee beans from one plate to another using chopsticks and catching ping-pong balls in a cup and then stacking another cup and continuing on until you had a stack of six cups with a ball in each. The time I played it, we were required to hold only the bottom cup and couldn’t use our other hand to steady the stack. The staff members running it this time were letting anything go. There were several winners of it. The new game was keeping two balloons in the air for a minute. Of the several people I saw try that game, no one won. On a previous cruise, we saw a man doing that lose his shorts. They fell down to his ankles. I didn’t get a repeat of that event, but one guy did fall down pretty hard going for a balloon.

 

The cruise-long trivia war continues. Our 8-point lead yesterday shrunk to just 4 points going into this morning’s session in spite of tying for the top score. I think it will be just 3 points going into the final session tomorrow.

 

I’ve added up our laundry and bar tabs. It’s great that we don’t have to pay for laundry. It added up to a little over $200. We have not had as much to drink as many people, but even so, our bar tab is up to $350. The big chunk of that, though, is the 10-bottle wine package for $241.50. We have two bottles left to drink today and tomorrow. We may have a cocktail each at the evening event, which will bring it up another $30 or so. I should get almost all of our refundable credit back after the cruise.

[CruzinNoony]

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. Also, which dining room is serving breakfast and lunch? :D Meredith

[sunsetbeachgal]

Good luck on the trivia challenge !!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[geoherb]

The magician last night, Greg Moreland, was pretty good. He’s doing two shows in the Vista Lounge tonight, but unfortunately, they’re scheduled in conflict with our late traditional dining. We could catch around the first 20 minutes. It would be great if they’d move up the time half an hour to give those of us with late traditional dining a chance to see these performances. There’s also the balloon drop tonight at 9--during our dinnertime.

 

We just received a letter from the captain about an additional goodwill credit. It’s 20 percent of the cruise fare paid against any cruise booked by December 31, 2019. People with existing bookings not yet paid in full can use it against them. It’s non-refundable and non-transferable.

 

We had a good next-to-last evening. DH enjoyed a hot tub. I watched the Saints beat the Falcons on MUTS. I met friends for the Elite lounge while he got ready for dinner. There was a surprise of a cocktail party in the piazza. I had seen it in the Patter, but I had not realized they would be handing out free drinks. We enjoyed a gimlet and a cosmo. I’m betting a lot of other folks missed it as well, because there wasn’t a crowd of people hanging around for the free drinks. In addition to our drinks, they were offering champagne, beer, and rum punch.

 

Our last formal night’s dinner was good. Escargots was on the menu again, and five of us at our table had them for a second night in a row. Other menu highlights were beef Wellington and lobster tail. I had the latter. It was good.

“Sweet Soul Music” was my favorite production show. The singers and dancers got to show their stuff in it.

 

We get back our final hour tonight.

[geoherb]

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. Also, which dining room is serving breakfast and lunch? :D Meredith

It's the Allegro dining room, the one at the back of the ship on Deck 6. It's accessible from the rear elevators and stairs. You can't get there from Deck 6 since another dining room is in the way.

[geoherb]

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.