Just off Regal!!

[Murphey]

Hi gang....just wanted to let you know that I'm working on a review that I will post soon.....trying to get my thoughts together. Briefly, had a wonderful time and the Midway experience was absolutely awe-inspiring. It was truely a cruise of a lifetime in that respect. Was sad to say good bye to the Regal.....many good memories....will answer any questions if you have any that can't wait a day or 2.....have to catch up on the home front.

[margord]

Can't wait to hear the details.

[DrivesLikeMario]

My friend just returned also and said she couldn't wait to get home. In her many, many cruises, she said this was the worst weather-wise and ship-wise. It's interesting to see a different perspective on the same cruise. :)

[Fuzzzy]

Thanks. I am anxious to hear you review. I have only sailed on the Regal once. I too will miss her. I think she might have been my favorite ship.

[madjohn]

Hey Murphey,

 

Hope you are getting back to life and its not to much of a shock.( you know, having to make your own food and clean up after yourself, always takes me a week to get back to that) Looking forword to your review.

 

John

[madjohn]

Hope life is getting back to normal. Would still love to read your review if you have time to post.

 

Thanks John

[happy cruzer]

I don't mean to hi-jack this thread. But here is my review of the Midway/Hawaii cruise on the Regal. I hope it helps some folks.

 

I plan to submit it tomorrow night. It's just one couple's opinions, I'm sure Murphey will have more to say:)

 

Cheers!

-------------------------------------------------------------

 

20 Night Cruise Midway/Hawaii on Regal Princess 5/27 to 6/17 2007

Perspective: We are ages 55 and 47 semi-retired. We love fine dining and ballroom dancing.

Disclaimer: We LOVED our cruise. Ship was very clean and well maintained. We thought it a great value and very premium. I tend to mention a lot of details some of which sound negative but they are just factual observations. Please keep the details in perspective and understand that Princess did all the big things excellently. Thanks!

DFW parking hint: Our home airport is DFW. We found a deal on parking at the Holiday Inn Select DFW Airport North. Room for one night at around $90 with up to 30 days of parking included. They have an airport shuttle every 30 minutes. With most parking over $8 per day, we took this deal. Room was OK; hotel a little noisy from the State Foosball (yep you did read Foosball) Championship.

Pre-Cruise: We flew in a day ahead to SNA/John Wayne/Orange County (medium size airport, seemed easier than LAX). With 6 sea days to start the cruise we did not dare risk missing the ship. We used Priceline to book a room in San Pedro (PEE-dro) at the Crowne Plaza which has a local shuttle service including to the cruise ships. Nice hotel with very friendly staff. Room freshly remodeled, very nice.

We had one afternoon and the next morning for sight seeing. We rented a car from Enterprise across the street from SNA ( this was a $5 cab ride, the cab driver was unhappy with such a small fare, it is possible to walk to Enterprise, it would be the equivalent of about 3 city blocks).

We drove to the Crown Plaza and checked in. Ate lunch at the Green Onion, good and lots of local color. Quick visit to Sam's for some wine. Then we toured the outside of the LaBrea Tar Pits, drove Sunset BLVD, and ended at sunset at San Monica pier/beach. In the morning, we drove Mulholland Drive which was very scenic. We enjoyed our few hours in the LA area.

Embarcation: We arrived at 12:30. Luggage porter area was very disorganized. Long line for security. Did not notice any liquor being taken. I think the San Pedro port employees did not look for liquor this time. After security, a Princess employee asked for your liquor but not for wine. He did not have a single item that he had confiscated. All in all painless, we were onboard in around 30 minutes, but it seemed longer because of some of the confusion.

The dining room was closed by the time we got settled. So we had our first visit to the buffet. It was a zoo as most buffets are at lunch on boarding day.

A note in the cabin warned that luggage would take a long time in San Pedro. Ours arrived at 8:00 pm.

Cabin: We had an inside cabin on Caribe deck. Very nice mattress style bed, good linens, no comforter/duvet. Great bathroom with large shower. We really liked the little extra space on the Regal. AC did not keep room cool. It was adequate, we never complained to give them a chance to fix it because it was good enough for us.

Wakeup calls via the phone were very nice, especially with the many time changes. TV is pretty old. No connections for video from our DVD player or Video camera.

Cabin was serviced at least twice daily. It was very clean with very little wear noticeable. No towel animals.

Food:

Room service menu was very limited. Very few hot offerings. Continental Breakfast only.

Buffet is the traditional style of one long line for food. That worked great for us. There is a waiter stationed to make sure you sanitize your hands and to provide your plate and silverware. When the buffet first opened it would be crowded, we would wait 15 minutes and usually no waiting. We just cruised down the line to get what we wanted. Separate beverage areas for tea, coffee, and water. No trays so you need an extra hand or trip for your beverage.

Main buffet line food was typical and not kept very warm. Limited selections of fruit and cheeses. At the end of the buffet, tables were set up to offer additional choices. These were served in warmers. These seemed to be best buffet choices and were hot as well as 1 hot soup for lunch. If you have a special item that you want, you can ask the server and they will usually bring it to you. I had an omelete specially made (they have pre-made ones that were cold) and boiled eggs; these were my only hot items at breakfast; lunch had hotter food for some reason. Many days at lunch had lots of additional tables set up with extra entrée choices and desserts. There are no covers provided for your plates. Coffee was syrup based and not very good. I don’t like buffets so I am always a hard critic. I think this one was about average when you consider the added extra tables.

I had a grilled Hamburger from the area near the pool that was good. The one in the dining room for lunch was better. Fries were good.

The Regal has a separate Pizza Restaurant for no charge. They do not allow carry out. It’s a nice quiet room which many people enjoyed. My pizza was average.

Dining Room service and food was excellent. The dining room was open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Regal has only one main dining room that provides two traditional style seatings. We had late seating with a table for two. We really enjoyed meeting our waiter and assistant waiter who were from the Phillipines. They also do the wine service. We brought on a few bottles of wine and we were charged a corkage fee for two thirds of them. The actual wine glasses were too small for our red wines, we thought, so we asked the waiters serve them in water glasses. They provided a larger wine glass (crystal, actually) then and had it waiting for us each night which was a very nice touch. They did have champagne glasses for our sparkling wine. We purchased two bottles of wine from the wine list. Princess provides a very good value-based wine list. For example, we purchased Nobilo Savignon Blanc for $28 + 15% gratuity. Most nights we spent close to 2 hours in the dining room because we like a leisurely meal.

Food at dinner was excellent. The menus on the 20N iteniary have all the favorites from the short cruises. They did seem a bit heavy on the roast meats both lamb and beef (however very little pork but they did serve roast buffalo one night, which was very tender and was served with a wonderful sauce). Portions of all courses were on the large size, plenty to eat. Some of our favorites items included: Lobster Seafood Puff Pastry, Ossobuco (at lunch), lobster tails on two nights, Veal Chop, lamb chops, rack of lamb, and Beef Wellington. The rack of lamb and the Beef Wellington were exceptionally good. Great souffles (served about 5 nights). Brazilian Cake was a hit too. The anytime favorites that we ordered were really good.

Lunch and breakfast in the dining room when at a table for two was served pretty quickly. About the same amount of time as the buffet except you got to relax and the waiter made the trips for food and beverages. Breakfast was served HOT! Ice cream in the dining room was wonderful; very creamy; and many flavors to choose from. Lunch and breakfast at larger tables took longer but the meeting people and the conversations were worth it.

Entertainment: We did not make a single show. We did go to the lounges and danced. The Stage Door has a huge dance floor. Dance classes (ballroom and line) were held here daily; this venue is exceptional for anyone who loves ballroom dancing. We enjoyed all the music venues. Musicians were very talented and sound level was perfect. Bar service was very good; often just bringing us water with lemon.

Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party and Repeat Cruisers Cocktail Party were nice. Free drinks (can order any well drink) and horsdeavors. No lines to get in and no obligatory photos. Very nicely organized and well attended.

Pools, Etc: Two pools and 4 hot tubs were not crowded. Enjoyed the gym and ping pong. This cruise they added a golf net to the back of Baja deck.

Princess theater showed recent movies. The seats are very comfortable. Show times were usually 2:30, 8:00, and 10:00. The 2:30 was often totally full.

Library and Internet café: These are small and sort of hidden near the front of the ship. Seemed adequate for the few folks using them.

Casino: Had a variety of slots and a slot tournament. Real blackjack with 8 decks, otherwise good rules, hand shuffled after 5.5 to 6 decks dealt, Fun 21 (like Spanish 21 with slightly less favorable rules), roulette, craps, and poker were available. One poker table with a $3/$6 limit ring game($1/$3 blinds) was full only from 2-4 pm, but would play 5-handed or so until 5:30 pm and after 9:00pm, no poker tournaments.

Ports of Call:

Midway – It was a 30 minute tender trip to Midway. We had tender tickets 1023 and 1024 and arrived on Midway at 12:40 for the 12:30 ceremony celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. I applaud Princess for taking part in this ceremony.

Midway is currently a National Monument and part of a Wildlife refuge. We were there when there were thousands of Lysan Albatross chicks getting ready to learn to fly (at that point, they are larger than their parent but they still just sit still until they are hungry enough to fly to get their own food). Loved seeing the birds and the monument. They also opened an area of beach for us to swim. This beach is beautiful and unspoiled.

Honolulu – We used The Bus for transportation. It is $2 per ride (included one transfer). We were very happy with the Bus, those in a hurry would not like the waits of 15 minutes or so. We went to Diamond Head and hiked to the top. The trail is well marked. It’s about as much of a hike as I enjoy when on vacation. You climb uphill including about 100 stairsteps. Views are wonderful. We also went to the beach at Ala Moana. It is a local’s beach and very nice.

Kona – We just walked in the port area for a couple of areas. Lots of shops and a local market.

Hilo – We rented a car from Harper car rental. Good shuttle service. We drove to Volcano National Park ( our second time to visit VNP and still greatly enjoyed it. Also drove the Pahola area and visited the Lava Tree Park (this would be of average interest to most folks); since it was our second trip, we wanted to just do a quiet scenic drive.

Maui – Tenders were quick. We rented from Dollar Rental. The shuttle to pick us up was ready and waiting. One note is that they only did one return shuttle per hour and on the last shuttle of the day, they only take drivers, they expect the drivers to drop the others at the ship. We did not like this policy, we do not like to split up on vacation, therefore we had to turn the car in earlier than we had planned. Lesson learned - be sure to check how many return shuttles are provided. We drove to Haleakala Volcano. Round trip for this takes about 4 hours from Lahaina. We also visited the Alii Kula Lavender Garden. Both were extremely enjoyable. Because of the shuttle policy we had plenty of time to enjoy a drink at the Front Street Café. Seemed to be many nice spots fairly close to the ship.

Kauai - Princess excursion Na Pali Explorer. This is an explorer class boat that has pontoons but is much larger and more stable than a zodiac. The ride is only rough a very short time and only due to wind or waves. First there is a van ride of about 40 minutes. Then you board the Explorer which holds about 44 people. You can sit in the front on the pontoons or seats on the sides and rear. There is some covered area. The point of the excursion is to tour the coast for it’s beauty and wildlife. You also snorkel but for a relatively short time (if you are really wanting just snorkeling there are probably better tours). We really enjoyed this tour and highly recommend it for medium level activity. The boat gets close to the beautiful parts of the coast. We were able to see spinner dolphins, turtles, and lots of fish. The tour takes from 8:30 to 3:30.

Ensenada – We did only a service call due to weather delaying our return.

Weather and Seas: Almost all our sea days (about 13 of them) had rough seas and cool weather. On a trip this long that does put a damper on most people’s days. Only a few afternoons were warm enough for sunbathing ( 80 degrees). It was also very windy at times. If warm weather is very important to you, I would do a lot research about sailing out of LA to Hawaii and know what to expect.

Summary: The cruise was a fantastic value. We were never bored. We enjoyed the longer cruise and getting know passengers and staff. We enjoyed the traditional cruise experience that the Regal provides. Might hesitate booking out of LA this early in the summer.

[madjohn]

Happy Cruzin,

 

That was not a highjack at all. Thanks for the, what seemed to be, a very balanced reveiw. I am with you on buffets and in july I will mostly eat in the dinningroom. Thanks agian, glad you had a great trip

 

John