Royal Princess Med Cruise July 1 videos & review

Hi everyone,

We just got back a couple of days ago from our two week cruise on Royal Princess (July 1-15, Rome-Athens-Athens) in the Mediterranean. We had a great time. I've made a short YouTube-video for each day, see links below if you're interested. Later I will probably also make a longer video for the entire trip. Also see below for a mini-review.

/Henrik

Videos:

Mini-review:

GENERAL INFO. All in all we had a great time. The travellers were I and my partner, we are in our late 30s and early 40s. For full disclosure I should also mention that our favourite cruise line is Holland America Line. We have only cruised on Holland America, Celebrity and Princess. This was our second Princess cruise, our first was Emerald Princess in the Caribbean.

THE SHIP. Absolutely beautiful. Perfect condition too, still looked new. More elegant than both Holland America's and Celebrity's ships. The Piazza is stunning. Best place of all is the shaded seating on the Horizon Terrace (aft Lido deck), we had almost all our meals here. A bit sad not to have a wrap-around promenade deck, however nice with sun beds in the shade on Sun deck. The elevators get a little crowded sometimes and you need to get to the theatre ahead of time, other than that the ship doesn't feel crowded. Also amazing how stable the ship was at all times, probably because of it's size. It was our most calm / stable cruise ever, but also our largest ship so far.

THE CABIN. We had an obstructed balcony cabin, E531. Nicely decorated and adequate size, however the balconies are tiny. The next door cabin E535 would have had a much better view. Very quiet location.

THE ITINERARY. The itinerary was OK. This was sort of a compromise. We wanted a Mediterranean cruise with a good cruise line and still som value for our money, Princess offered the longest duration for the least money. The duration was more important than the itinerary, so we repeated some ports from a previous cruise. The cruise was a back-to-back, but it was sold as one cruise, you could choose one or several weeks I believe. There were also repeat ports in the two weeks, which isn't smart. We were surprised that the menus and most of the entertainment was repeated for the entire second week, however it didn't impact us very much. We had two ports, Chios and Mykonos (second week) that they swapped the days with each other. We did private excursions (through the roll call) in Messina, Kotor and Chios - all three were very good. In the other ports we DIY, mostly walked around or used public transport.

THE SERVICE. Was generally good. Our cabin steward Jose was good. However we missed the outstanding service we get on Holland America.

THE FOOD. Quite good, especially in the Horizon Court (Lido buffet) and the speciality restaurants. The Horizon Court has great variety, especially for breakfast and the themed dinners. Also great dining hours, especially if I compare to Holland Americas restrictive hours. The only slight annoyance was that the buffet was scaled down on formal nights, which was sad for us since we didn't bring formal wear and hence couldn't choose the other restaurants. We always ate outside on the Horizon Terrace, a great space in the shade and with nice views. We liked Alfredo's and Crown Grill. We didn't try Sabatini's. We did not like the MDR very much, to us the dishes were not so elegant/special and the portions were too large so we couldn't get several courses. Trident Grill was mediocre. Also great with good brewed coffee, in contrast to the syrup-based coffee on Emerald Princess.

THE ENTERTAINMENT. We attended few shows. We liked the comedian, magician (Hawley magic) and the ventriloquist (Kieran Powell). The music was good, I listened to the Romantica strings a couple of times. The Piazza is a bit too noisy for classical music / strings. We didn't care for the production shows. Did watch MUTS occasionally. Watched several movies on the in-room entertainment system, which had a good selection but the tech had many bugs (many interruptions and everything reset on change-over day in Piraeus). I played craps on three nights in the casino, and came out ahead. It's fun when I get the opportunity to play, as craps isn't available in our casinos in Scandinavia. Also got a port tax refund and shareholder OBC.

MISCELLANOUS. My partner got some kind of short lasting gastro sickness, which was difficult, unfortunate and frustrating. However it was sort of interesting to see how professionally the crew / ship dealt with it. Also it was short, in the beginning and only affected ports we already had done before. He was quarantined but I was free to roam around, so I still did the ports. Afterwards we both got a mild cabin cough as well. The weather was beautiful throughout the cruise, after Italy we didn't see any clouds again for two weeks. Wonderful! Very calm seas, only Mykonos was very windy on both stops, they actually had to stop tendering prematurely. A bit too hot sometimes, but that's to be expected in the Med in Summer.

Thanks for our review and you tube pieces, very nice. Glad you enjoyed your cruise. We are going on the Royal for a 2 week Transatlantic from Barcelona to Florida in October. We also have cruised Holland America, Celebrity, Cunard, NCL and Princess recently. We have not been on the Royal or Regal yet. We plan to enjoy the Crown Grill a lot on the Royal and the buffet on nights where we are in port late and can eat outside and enjoy a sunset. Glad you liked the Royal more than Celebrity and Holland America. We have cruised the most on Princess... this will be cruise #24 on Princess. Happy cruising to you in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to do this!!

Laurino...thank you for your review of the Royal which we've previously enjoyed for a month during 2 cruises. It's good to read a current review since it's been 21 months since our most recent Royal cruise. We're sailing the Royal in a couple of months & looking forward to it.

I'm just beginning to view your great series of videos which are an enjoyable well done travelogue & are much better than home videos...thanks.

Thank you for the review and the videos. :):)

Thank you for your review. I enjoyed your short videos.

Nice videos and review. Thanks.:)

Thank you all for the comments!

Glad you liked the Royal more than Celebrity and Holland America.

It was an excellent cruise. I just said that the Royal is a beautiful ship, however I still prefer Holland America (Vista or Signature class). Other considerations are more important to me than the ship - such as itinerary, food, service and cabin.

Laurino...thank you for your review of the Royal which we've previously enjoyed for a month during 2 cruises. It's good to read a current review since it's been 21 months since our most recent Royal cruise. We're sailing the Royal in a couple of months & looking forward to it.

 

I'm just beginning to view your great series of videos which are an enjoyable well done travelogue & are much better than home videos...thanks.

Thank you for the comments and I hope you get a wonderful cruise!