First Regal Princess (1991-2007)

[Ombud]

Canada/New England 2004. Everything was broken down. Tons of leaks. I was surprised it was so rundown

[BarbinMich]

Just saw that I started this thread a few yrs ago.

Edited April 9, 2021 by BarbinMich
added more accurate info

[Renmar]

22 hours ago, Ombud said:

Canada/New England 2004. Everything was broken down. Tons of leaks. I was surprised it was so rundown

We thought it was a wonderful ship. Maybe because it was our first cruise (10 day Mexican Riviera out of San Diego) to celebrate our 40th anniversary in 2005. It got us hooked on cruising and Princess.

 

Theo

[Ombud]

Internet rumors has it being turned into a ship with a new startup. Wonder if its the one led by previous CMV CEO

 

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24650-former-bitcoin-cruise-ship-sold-to-new-startup.html

[Astro Flyer]

2 hours ago, Renmar said:

We thought it was a wonderful ship. Maybe because it was our first cruise (10 day Mexican Riviera out of San Diego) to celebrate our 40th anniversary in 2005. It got us hooked on cruising and Princess.

 

Theo

We sailed the Regal in 2004 roundtrip LA to Hawaii and everything I remember about the ship was in good condition & like you thought it was a wonderful ship.

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Astro Flyer

[NSWP]

We were on the last cruise of old Regal, out of LA to Sydney in September 2007. Great ship, we got hit by 12 metre (40 foot) seas off bottom of NZ, but she got us through it with a great Master, Capt Andrew Froude.

[Fat Albert]

1992 our first Alaskan Cruise on thr Regal 

[Fat Albert]

[Fat Albert]

[Fat Albert]

Captain 

[laslomas]

My first ever cruise was a  Christmas cruise in the Caribbean on Regal Princess in 1998. Maybe everyone has fond memories of their first cruise, I certainly do. It was my first Christmas away from my family and I was missing all the hoo ha of the usual family gathering, but the highlight was that my husband had arranged a Renewal of Vows Ceremony and that was such an amazing highlight of the trip. I still use the commemorative champagne glasses that were included in the package and the memories come flooding back. One thing I really loved was that we had a mini-suite and the layout was just great. The bed faced out towards the balcony and it was wonderful having breakfast in bed looking straight out. All the lower class cabins in the current ships have the bed side-on to the window so the view does not compare.

 

So sad to know she is no longer making memories for people.

[Sea Hag]

We sailed on the original Regal Princess more than once, and she was a great ship. We really liked the big lounge, forward with all those forward facing windows. Cabins were larger than on some ships, as I remember it.

[BarbinMich]

Regarding the next "life" of old ships:  Celebrity was our no. 2 line in terms of cruises and we have seen several of them we were in Europe.  They still have their distinctive colors.  The ones we saw had been bought by a German line and I understand that's the language used on the ships.

[TheRabbit]

 

On 4/9/2021 at 10:50 PM, NSWP said:

We were on the last cruise of old Regal, out of LA to Sydney in September 2007. Great ship, we got hit by 12 metre (40 foot) seas off bottom of NZ, but she got us through it with a great Master, Capt Andrew Froude.

 

 

We sailed what we believed was the last sailing of the Regal in Aug of 2007, round trip LA to Hawaii. It was our understanding the above cruise was actually flagged under P&O though the ship still had the Regal Princess name on it. We also got to experience the Tasman sea on the Star. We stayed in bed and and tried to enjoy the rockin' and rollin'

 

The Regal wasn't in as good of shape as Atro Flyer mentioned above. We got a knock on our door at 2AM first night out asking if we had water in our room, After first saying no, we heard a loud slosh. We were on deck 13 I believe so either we had slept through the ships alarms that the ship was sinking or....  Turns out a 6" water line ruptured in the equipment room across from us and there was enough water in the room to go over the equipment room's 8" threshold. 5 Rooms were flooded. Maintenance was on it in minutes. I ran down to the the pursers and got us in an unused room for the night. The other four rooms had to stay in their rooms with the dryers going after the water was vacuumed. The next day all the carpet was replaced and we were back in. During the the first few minutes of the flood, I grabbed my laptop case that was on the floor, Case was wet, but computer was dry. Placed the computer elsewhere in the room, but maintenance in their infinite wisdom placed the wet case on top of the computer. Princess got to buy us a new one.

 

[Ombud]

My ceiling had a leak. It was considered minor compared to other leaks so they gave me a bucket to catch it. I emptied it 2× a day but it wasn't maintenance fault. Still cruised the following year --- on the Sea Princess. Now THAT was a great ship!!

[NSWP]

2 hours ago, TheRabbit said:

 

 

 

We sailed what we believed was the last sailing of the Regal in Aug of 2007, round trip LA to Hawaii. It was our understanding the above cruise was actually flagged under P&O though the ship still had the Regal Princess name on it. We also got to experience the Tasman sea on the Star. We stayed in bed and and tried to enjoy the rockin' and rollin'

 

The Regal wasn't in as good of shape as Atro Flyer mentioned above. We got a knock on our door at 2AM first night out asking if we had water in our room, After first saying no, we heard a loud slosh. We were on deck 13 I believe so either we had slept through the ships alarms that the ship was sinking or....  Turns out a 6" water line ruptured in the equipment room across from us and there was enough water in the room to go over the equipment room's 8" threshold. 5 Rooms were flooded. Maintenance was on it in minutes. I ran down to the the pursers and got us in an unused room for the night. The other four rooms had to stay in their rooms with the dryers going after the water was vacuumed. The next day all the carpet was replaced and we were back in. During the the first few minutes of the flood, I grabbed my laptop case that was on the floor, Case was wet, but computer was dry. Placed the computer elsewhere in the room, but maintenance in their infinite wisdom placed the wet case on top of the computer. Princess got to buy us a new one.

 

From memory we left San Pedro on 31 August 2007, enroute to Sydney, disembarked, think it was 1 October, the Regal then sailed for Singapore for conversion to Pacific Dawn, handover to P and O Australia.

[TheRabbit]

3 minutes ago, NSWP said:

From memory we left San Pedro on 31 August 2007, enroute to Sydney, disembarked, think it was 1 October, the Regal then sailed for Singapore for conversion to Pacific Dawn, handover to P and O Australia.

That is close to what we understood. When we booked, there were no other Princess sailings available after ours. That could have changed. We were told on board by the crew the ship would sail under the P&O flag to Sydney, but would still be named the Regal Princes until it went under the conversion to the Pacific Dawn. Doesn't matter, both sailings were at the end.

31st sounds right. We left for Hawaii on the 16th for 15 nights.

[jhannah]

We sailed her in May, 2003. It was a fantastic 10-day sailing in the Baltic. We, too, lost power for about four hours one day while we were at sea. No lights, no flushing, etc. Being daylight, it was fine.

 

At one port (I forget which) we met her sister. The captains had a good time hailing each other with their horns.

 

We loved the ship. The photo shows what was under the "porpoise" dome.

[caribill]

On the Amazon River in 2006.

 

It had a poolside bar, Bengal Lounge, Dome Casino, movie theater.

 

Last photo shows when we were stuck on a sandbar on the Amazon River.

 

[Crystabel]

We sailed on the Regal Princess to Alaska in 2006. It was our first Princess cruise and our first balcony cabin. I told my DH that I’d never sail again in a cabin without a balcony. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Crystabel

[BRANDEE]

6 hours ago, jhannah said:

We sailed her in May, 2003. It was a fantastic 10-day sailing in the Baltic. We, too, lost power for about four hours one day while we were at sea. No lights, no flushing, etc. Being daylight, it was fine.

 

At one port (I forget which) we met her sister. The captains had a good time hailing each other with their horns.

 

We loved the ship. The photo shows what was under the "porpoise" dome.

 

We sailed her in 2000 to Mexico, she was and still is the classist ship I ever sailed on.  Her wood trim interior was so elegant. I remember one night dancing on the dance floor when a big wave gave a huge roll..that white pole saved me from joining a dozen others who ended up on the floor or sitting in the lap of a stranger drinking their cocktail..Our first of 25+ Princess cruises!

[1emerald1]

19 hours ago, caribill said:

On the Amazon River in 2006.

 

It had a poolside bar, Bengal Lounge, Dome Casino, movie theater.

 

Last photo shows when we were stuck on a sandbar on the Amazon River.

 

I loved the Bengal Lounge, so beautiful!

[SeaHunt]

We sailed on both in 1994 (ancient history!) - a 16 night PC on the Crown followed by a 7 night Caribbean on the Regal. JMO I thought the Crown was a little better kept up than the Regal 😉

 

We had great MDR tablemates, one couple from California and the other from Arkansas. The wife of the Arkansas couple was a winning gambler (especially craps), and she tried to teach us how to play everything "correctly" (good bets, etc.). We spent more time in the casino during that cruise than any before or since LOL.

 

One thing we still laugh about was that all of our husbands talked all of us wives into entering the "Horseracing" event as jockeys. We spent lots of time in everyone's cabins  trying to come up with different jockey racing "silks" out of the clothes we had brought (and maybe imbibed in a little too much champagne while doing that too!), including getting black crepe paper from somewhere on the ship to wrap around our legs from feet to knees to look like racing boots.

 

Then there we were on stage on "Race Night" standing behind these arm-cycle type contraptions to cycle our arms as hard as we could to move our "horses" to the finish line, with the MC whipping the crowd into a frenzy while they were cheering for their favorite colors/horses! Anyone else ever attend one of those? Good times were had by all - well, except that I had to trash my expensive white slacks where the dye from the black crepe paper "racing boots" bled all over them!

[NSWP]

2 hours ago, 1emerald1 said:

I loved the Bengal Lounge, so beautiful!

The Bengal Tiger stayed on Pacific Dawn and I believe it is now on Pacific Explorer, P and O Australia.

Edited April 12, 2021 by NSWP

[Margarita Jane]

On 4/10/2021 at 1:50 AM, NSWP said:

We were on the last cruise of old Regal, out of LA to Sydney in September 2007. Great ship, we got hit by 12 metre (40 foot) seas off bottom of NZ, but she got us through it with a great Master, Capt Andrew Froude.

We were on that last cruise with you! Those 40ft seas were very interesting! Some table mates in a balcony cabin had water coming in under their balcony door. It was an interesting cruise!