LIVE from Regal NYE Cruise 27DEC-07JAN

[bethfelk]

What I Thought Was Good

-Cruise Director Allie herself. I think she did a great job at her various hosting duties and loved that she came and spoke to us at the CC meetup. She is very down to earth and more "chill" than most cruise directors I've had, which may be a lot of Princess cruisers preference but wasn't really mine tbh. My favorite CD I've had is Kyndall Fire (on Carnival Vista, before she got promoted to Jubilee) so I definitely prefer a very energetic and loud CD. But I have nothing bad to say about Allie

 

-The food, in general. Nothing I ate really wowed me, so I hesitate to put it under great. But most things I ate were tasty, some extremely so, and I respect how logistically difficult running the food operation on a large ship must be, so I am not expecting gourmet quality. Overall I was very happy with the food. 

 

-The entertainment in general. I really loved Mute Out Loud, the steel pan guy (also went to his class which was a lot of fun), and pianist Kateryna. Seascape was very good except on country night, and the violinist was very talented although some of her song selections seemed a little boring for a cruise but maybe that is what Princess audience wants. The acoustic guitar guy Cathal was hit or miss to us depending on his song choice (he had a great voice for gentle-voiced artists like Kenny Rogers but his power ballad covers were rough). We did not watch any of the comedians or magicians. The guest soprano Caroline was amazing and her show in Vista Lounge was honestly better than any of the main shows in Princess Theatre imo. The theatre shows were all good, but entirely carried by the talent of the singers and dancers. Three had no plot at all, and Fiere the plot was extremely loose. But the 4 shows were a MASSIVE upgrade over the shows we saw on the Ruby last year so there is that.

 

-Design of the ship for handling crowds. Not sure how full we were sailing, but the ship never really felt crowded, with two exceptions. Exception 1 was sushi day in the buffet, which was a madhouse. Exception 2 was the princess theatre capacity which I will discuss in a later point. We always were able to find space in the atrium or one of the surrounding bars to have a drink when we wanted.

 

-Most of the activities. I had a lot of fun at the speed painting, the steel pan class and at various trivias. I did not participate in the minute to win it but watched from afar both times it was happening and it also looked fun. Scavenger hunt was a letdown for us personally bc it was just a speed race where we would've preferred clues or a more puzzle aspect, but others seemed to be enjoying it. My parents went to some of the enrichment talks and seemed to enjoy them

[bethfelk]

What I Thought Was Meh/Mixed Emotions

-The casino. As I mentioned, I was expecting to play in here a lot more than I ended up doing. I went a total of three times. The first two nights were honestly quite boring and I got up from the table fairly quickly bc the vibe was just not fun. The third night I went (which was the last night of the cruise) I had a ton of fun at the blackjack table and played for about 3 hours continuously. However, this was mainly due to the other players and not the dealers. None of the dealers I had were bad per se, but a not single one of them was really much fun either. Very different than my experiences on previous cruises (and even on Princess last year)

 

-Alfredo's. I debated to put this on meh or bad. In short, we were really underwhelmed. The first time I had the Hawaiian pizza, and it honestly was the quality I would get at like Domino's or something. The second time I had the Bianco e Nero, and it seemed higher quality but I did not like it. Honestly none of their pizzas appealed to me, and we all felt that their pizza was worse than the deck pizza. 

 

-The design of the ship. Now don't get me wrong, it is a very beautiful ship. And it was very well maintained and spotless. However, I was not a fan of the fact that almost nothing is an enclosed space. Alfredo's, Good Spirits, Bellini's, Vines, are all open and all kinda blend together into one mass. Wheelhouse is also open which I thought was vastly inferior to its design on the Ruby. This is probably intentional with the design, and maybe some like it, but for me it was not something I enjoyed. But I am putting it on meh not bad bc everything was very pretty despite blending together too much for my liking

 

-The app. I know many people think it's awful, but honestly it's not that bad imo. It served all the purposes I needed it to, and I actually do think the new interface is a significant improvement at least aesthetically (functionality seems the same to me). It is not particularly intuitive tho so I can understand why older or less tech savvy cruisers have trouble with it 

[bethfelk]

What I Thought Was Bad

-Princess Live venue. This is an awful, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad venue for almost everything they were doing in there. It's awful for trivia bc it's very hard to confer with your teammates when you're seated in a straight row. It's awful for the evening gameshows bc it's too small for the number of people that want to attend and also not enough aisles to easily get out (many of the game shows required delivering answers to the front). Also no tables or cupholders makes it very hard to enjoy a drink while participating in activities there. It's frustrating to see these events being hosted in Princess Live when they would work much better in Vista Lounge (which was barely used for anything all cruise). I concede that it's probably a good venue for karaoke, which they did host in there but we didn't attend. And it seems to me like it would be a perfect venue for showing movies rather than Vista Lounge since it's essentially setup like a very small movie theatre. 

 

-Rock Opera Tenor Ryan Story. This guy was unquestionably the worst entertainer of any kind I have ever seen on 13 cruises. People were getting up and leaving his show in droves after every song and I don't blame them. I have no idea how he landed a cruise ship contract as a singer bc his singing voice was godawful and his covers were honestly insulting to the songs. He was an extremely talented rock guitar player though, so his show could've been ok if he just only played and didn't sing. 

 

-Capacity of Princess Theatre and management of crowds here. I feel like this is not big enough to be the main theatre on a ship the size of the regal. For the 4 production shows you needed to arrive 15 minutes early at least to get a seat (and we always sat in the very back). We learned this from the first show and did it for the rest, but honestly it was stressful and it's not my idea of a relaxing cruise to have to show up that early for things. In addition, they did a very bad job of managing the low capacity. The cruise staff would stand outside telling people it was full, but people would just ignore them and walk around looking for seats anyway (that they didn't find), blocking your view of the show in the process. They should've closed the doors when it was full imo. 

 

-Sickness. Now to be clear, I am not blaming Princess at all for sick passengers and I understand getting sick is the risk you take with cruising these days. But it seemed to be worse to me on this cruise than any of our other post-Covid cruises. About day 9 we started coughing along with seemingly everyone else on the ship. It is pretty gross though to witness how about 80% of passengers blow right past the handwashing stations into the buffet, and I wish princess would have staff encouraging people to like the "washy washy" people on Royal that I've seen videos of. 

 

-Obnoxious teenagers. Teenagers grouping up and hanging out in large packs is gonna be a thing on pretty much any holiday cruise, I am well aware. And as I mentioned I am only 22 so I was literally part of these packs on cruises only 5 years ago so I am not the "old man yelling at cloud" here lol. But wow the ones on this cruise seemed especially terribly behaved to me. It seemed like the events they were at they were getting more enjoyment from annoying the other guests than actually participating, which is very different to my own teen groups back in the day and many other teen groups that I have seen on more recent cruises. I remember going to the trivia and stuff with my friends and really trying our best and having a lot of fun with it. Again tho this is not Princess fault and they actually deserve major props for how they handled it at Disney trivia. But just wanted to share for others to know since it was my experience

 

-Obnoxious adults. In fairness to the teenagers I will call out the other end of the spectrum too. We had two negative interaction with groups of older cruisers in Wheelhouse Bar. The first was on NYE, there was a large group trying to gather up a bunch of chairs for all their friends which is fine in theory, but they were being pretty ridiculous about it with trying to snatch up the chairs of people who'd gone to the bathroom and were clearly coming back. The second was much worse tho on a later night, a smaller group rearranged a bunch of chairs in a way that they were completely blocking one of the walkways from Crown Grill and also blocking the staff from delivering drinks to the back of the bar. They were asked to move the chair twice first by a guest at Crown Grill and then by a waitress and straight up said "no you can go around" (which people couldn't even go around bc the other side was blocked by the piano.)

 

I also heard a lot of people just generally being rude to the staff which makes me sad (one lady at dining room breakfast I'm not sure exactly what the issue was but she was screaming at the waiter "no it's too late you were too slow I don't want it now" which is just very sad to me with how hard the staff works.) Also people being mad that they weren't getting drinks instantaneously in a busy bar, like again be realistic the drinks are not being made by magic. Again this is obviously not the fault of Princess, conversely I feel bad for the staff in situations like this. The majority of passengers were not like this tho so I hope that staff are treated generally well on balance

[daveAZBC]

Thank you to Bethfelk for a very complete, interesting and comprehensive review!

[beshears]

I liked your report on the Ocean Now delivery, as this will be something new to me. That was a good suggestion. When ordering something and knowing it might take about 20 minutes, just be looking for one of the delivery people, as it will make it easier on them as well. Now you didn't tip, did you? I know before this was started, normally we would tip, but if we have the main package, that should cover tips, or that is what I was told.

[nini]

1 hour ago, beshears said:

I liked your report on the Ocean Now delivery, as this will be something new to me. That was a good suggestion. When ordering something and knowing it might take about 20 minutes, just be looking for one of the delivery people, as it will make it easier on them as well. Now you didn't tip, did you? I know before this was started, normally we would tip, but if we have the main package, that should cover tips, or that is what I was told.

Even though the gratuity is included, we tip extra in cash.

[TheMichael]

Thank you so much for the review @bethfelk! We board in four days, so we'll be looking forward to exploring those positives.

 

I know it's the in thing to say "people suck" (even the people who suck say that) but it seems like the goal of a lot of folks is to do whatever's necessary to get what they want, and it's unfortunate that they've got plenty of role models for that these days.

 

Just think about someone other than yourself for a damn minute, folks - it can actually make you feel better than sitting in your own selfish bubble where "well, nobody's nice to me" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[dog]

2 hours ago, beshears said:

I liked your report on the Ocean Now delivery, as this will be something new to me. That was a good suggestion. When ordering something and knowing it might take about 20 minutes, just be looking for one of the delivery people, as it will make it easier on them as well. Now you didn't tip, did you? I know before this was started, normally we would tip, but if we have the main package, that should cover tips, or that is what I was told.

It is always up to you. The packages include crew appreciation.

[cruisinsince75]

Enjoyed following your LIVE FROM posts.  Glad to see they got embarkation and disembarkation procedures smoothed out.  Or as someone else posted recently calling it the dismemberment procedure.  🤪

[KKB]

Thanks @bethfelk for your thorough honest review.

Glad to see most of your negatives were more situational.

I love trivia & game shows & Princess Live looked like a not great venue for those things--I think I even thought why not use Vista lounge for those??!!

HOPEFULLY management sees reviews like this & thinks "Oh, Yeah, that's a great idea!"

 

Reminds me of my wedding reception...manager wanted to do things "the way they always do" & I insisted my way was better. Welp, I WAS RIGHT--and he even admitted I was after I forced him to do things my way. Hoping they change this b4 April or I may need to speak my mind to management early in that cruise!

[Pittypatbr]

Thanks for taking time to do your review.  I enjoyed reading about your experiences and it gave me ideas for things I will enjoy when I go in a couple of weeks. 

[starvenger]

2 hours ago, KKB said:

Thanks @bethfelk for your thorough honest review.

Glad to see most of your negatives were more situational.

I love trivia & game shows & Princess Live looked like a not great venue for those things--I think I even thought why not use Vista lounge for those??!!

HOPEFULLY management sees reviews like this & thinks "Oh, Yeah, that's a great idea!"

 

Reminds me of my wedding reception...manager wanted to do things "the way they always do" & I insisted my way was better. Welp, I WAS RIGHT--and he even admitted I was after I forced him to do things my way. Hoping they change this b4 April or I may need to speak my mind to management early in that cruise!

I doubt that they will. Princess Live looks almost purpose designed for the game shows, and all the monitors help out with the Powerpoint decks they use for trivia. But as you and Beth mentioned, the seating configuration is not ideal for trivia. It might be too late for Regal (unless they do something during the next drydock) but I do hope they took that into consideration with the newer ships.

 

As for your wedding reception... good for you! Even if their way was better, it's your reception - they should try to accommodate your requests.

[TheMichael]

2 hours ago, starvenger said:

I doubt that they will. Princess Live looks almost purpose designed for the game shows, and all the monitors help out with the Powerpoint decks they use for trivia. But as you and Beth mentioned, the seating configuration is not ideal for trivia. It might be too late for Regal (unless they do something during the next drydock) but I do hope they took that into consideration with the newer ships.

 

I liked the "lounge-like" open version of Princess Live! on the Discovery. Looking at walkthrough videos, the one on Regal looks kind of weird in comparison.

 

 

Edited January 11 by TheMichael

[nini]

6 hours ago, KKB said:

Thanks @bethfelk for your thorough honest review.

Glad to see most of your negatives were more situational.

I love trivia & game shows & Princess Live looked like a not great venue for those things--I think I even thought why not use Vista lounge for those??!!

HOPEFULLY management sees reviews like this & thinks "Oh, Yeah, that's a great idea!"

 

Reminds me of my wedding reception...manager wanted to do things "the way they always do" & I insisted my way was better. Welp, I WAS RIGHT--and he even admitted I was after I forced him to do things my way. Hoping they change this b4 April or I may need to speak my mind to management early in that cruise!

Agreed... The Vista Lounge is overlooked for many activities.

[talkorpi]

Thanks for the review @bethfelk! I'm also considered somewhat of an infant on this app since I am only 23... we are definitely a rarity here sometimes! Loved this review as I sailed Ruby out of Galveston last year and I am considering booking the Regal's NYE cruise this year... thanks for sharing your experiences!

[no1superfan]

On 1/9/2024 at 5:39 PM, bethfelk said:

He was an extremely talented rock guitar player though

His performancewould have been worlds better if they had a real backing band. 

[no1superfan]

On 12/28/2023 at 9:37 AM, bethfelk said:

the party/house band would be Mute Out Loud

NYE! Mute Out Loud proved to be a great dance band.

[no1superfan]

On 1/10/2024 at 10:14 PM, starvenger said:

(unless they do something during the next drydock)

The uncomfortably awkward seating in the Vista needs to go.