mathan416

Hey Everyone,

Anyone headed from Barcelona to New York City via the Azores, Sydney and Halifax in September?

Sounds like something that would be fun to arrange for the Transatlantic in September!

On top of what everyone said, also consider that pop (soda) and non-alcoholic drinks are included in the price. No having to buy a package extra. :)

Food is on top.

Nothing is free at the Atlantis :)

Just as I thought. Thanks! :)

Thank you for posting this. We're sailing RCI and Enchantment for the first time in February, so good to know a few tips and tricks for enjoyment on the ship and things to look out for.

I was wondering if there were any food options that are included with the rates for Atlantis or are you having to pay for that on top?

And looks like we're adding another cruise to our list - Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas to the Bahamas on Feb 1st. :)

If you're travelling outside your home country, ALWAYS have a passport. I can't stress this enough, although others have pretty much said the same thing. ;)

Congrats everyone getting married, celebrating an anniversary or just going on holiday!

Successfully, Scott and I, since our wedding have managed to go on a proper vacation since our honeymoon! Prior to that, it was just something we never planned.

Anyway, 2016 we're doing the Disney Transatlantic from Barcelona to NYC via the Azores; Sydney NS and Halifax. It should be a nice relaxing time.

We're considering something for between January and March as I have time off I need to use, or lose it. So maybe we'll do a Princess Caribbean as we still have credits to use.

Hey Everyone,

I'm back with my husband on our second cruise ever. This time doing the Transatlantic on Disney Magic in September 2016. Anyone on that cruise?

If you booked by phone with Princess or with a travel agent, that is a question the rep should have asked you.

 

It usually is in the form of "would you accept an upgrade?"

When I booked with Princess, I don't recall being asked that question, but I will certainly keep it in mind. I have no issue being offered an upgrade, as long as it's not in a noisy area of the ship. :)

There have been several posts on various threads that have agreed that the coffee served in the Horizon Court is much better than on the other ships.

That was something that was missing in my review thread. I was expecting the coffee to be absolutely horrible, and it was pretty comparable to good diner coffee.

I've had better, but it's by no means the worst and I was more than happy to drink it.

BTW I also had a cappuccino at the Princess Live cafe which was pretty good.

Thanks everybody for the advice. I'll heed it well. ;)

Hi Everyone,

Scott and I are looking at booking Alaska for next year, and it may be possible we'll be bringing along 6 other folks including Scott's mum and, possibly, aunt; two friends and their mother and stepfather.

What I am wondering is, are there any particular times of the year that Princess puts Alaska on sale that may possibly be better than the current sales?

I know Alaska is currently on sale, and we're totally working the referral system as 5 out of the 6 additionals have not been on Princess. We also have our FCC in and will be getting OBCs.

Also, I need some advice about room selection. If it ends up Scott's Aunt can't come along, I was considering getting a Mini Suite or something with a pull out bed. BUT would Scott and I be comfortable on the pull out (we're big guys) or would Scott's Mum be comfortable (she's 70). I really do want to think of her comfort.

Thanks in advance!

Congrats on your marriage. I assume, maybe incorrectly, that you're from Toronto? I'm glad that the police have the Rob Ford video as well. I can't wait to see it.

Yes, we're both from Toronto. An amazing 48 hours so far. ;)

Thanks for taking the time to post your excellent review and congrats on your nuptuials.....:):):)

Thanks Bob! :)

In Post #3, you mentioned that you can get the Princess Patter on an iPad. Could you please tell me how that works? Do you have to use your internet minutes every time you want to read it?

 

Second question: Are Prego's and Alfredo's both pizza places?

 

Thanks for your help!

On Royal Princess, if you connect to Wifi and go to http://royal.princess.com in your browser, you'll see the events happening for the day, up to the minute. It's REALLY useful. It does not use your internet minutes either - we actually never used the internet onboard, simply too expensive and we were looking to disconnect.

Prego's is the Pizza place on the Lido deck. Not bad.

Alfredo's is the italian restaurant that overlooks the Piazza. It serves pizza and other italian dishes. VERY good.

Thanks for the congratulations everyone. ;)

Please tell me more about this tour. Is it through Princess or a local company?

It's offered through Princess, and run by another company. They take you in a van, giving all kinds of details about Eleuthera, nuances on the language, floral and fauna, and they make a few stops.

The last stop is lunch where they did a conch cleaning demonstration, sampling of conch salad and then a Junkanoo dance demonstration that you can participate in.

It completely rocks.

Great review and you added some stuff I forgot to add about how comfortable the beds were, and I LOVED the TV system. Some great info on it.

I highly recommend the Taste of Eleuthera tour, getting out of Princess Cays and explore the island you're on. Fantastic people, amazing food, amazing place!

My take is that they are not selling well!

3 to 4 day cruises are pretty short, and I know when we looked, we didn't want to do something that short. 5 days was perfect for us and really allowed us to get a good taste of cruising.

I'm a little confused about why were the police were onboard looking for a video. And who's Rob Ford?

Sorry, it was a non-sequitor about news notification updates I was getting on my phone about the mayor from the city I live in - Toronto.

In short, there was a video of the mayor allegedly smoking crack. The mayor said it didn't exist, and the police finally found it in Toronto - not on Royal Princess. LOL!

As with any new thing there will be pain points, and they'll get fixed in time. It's like the watch I just bought that needs to go back to Citizen for a firmware update. LOL!

Seriously - yes there are some challenges, but my husband and I would not have an issue with returning to Royal Princess in a heartbeat. We fell in love with cruising, and while there were some wonky service things, overall, we were pleased.

Also, people forget how hard the crews do work.

When you provide your flight details, etc... Princess will assign a disembarkation group taking into consideration when your flight is, etc... So you should have lots of time.

My husband and I have found Princess to be very elegant but not over the top elegant. It's sophisticated.

You'll find things like wine tasting, lots of shopping opportunities, fun stuff like Princess Pop Star and some of the game shows, art auctions, food galore, etc... It's nicely elegant.

You've got movies and bars on the Lido deck which are great, and if you're looking for something more refined there is the piano bar, Crooners, The Wheelhouse by Crown Grill (on Royal Princess), etc...

Definitely not a party ship, but there's a time and place for everything. Just nicely relaxing.

Further Thoughts

Yeah, things aren’t perfect on Royal Princess and I do hope they get addressed

• The slow service in the MDs - They really do need to do something about this
  
• The elevator algorithms at mid-ship - I think this will help a lot with no staircase, and I appreciate how much of a walk it would be for older people
  
• The soot issue wasn’t something that concerned me, but I know Princess is looking into it.
  

I have no doubt that Princess will rectify these issues.

We often had a late night snack, sharing pizza from Prego’s, ice cream at Swirl’s, Gelato/Ice Cream at Gelato’s or something from the International Cafe.

I will say the sweets and sandwiches are very good at International Cafe, and the Tiramisu did redeem itself there on my second trying. Scott loved the chicken salad there.

The water fountain shows, while to some they may be corny, I actually found them quite romantic. Try sitting with your feet in one of the pools while they run or watch from a higher.

On our Honeymoon celebration day, the staff put up a poster and balloons on our door. This was really sweet, and I loved seeing people celebrating birthdays and such all over the ship. This is a REALLY nice touch and much appreciated.

During MUTS, the pools aren’t closed but it can be a bit cool out. Try jumping in and watching the movie! Just be sure to not splash about too loudly for the enjoyment of others. Also don’t expect to be served cookies and milk in the pool either - a bonus, watching on one of the chairs. ;)

I actually walked on the SeaWalk a few times on both sides (by the SeaView Bar). I actually kind of like it.

The only explanation I have for the lack of Promenade space is the way the tenders and emergency boats are placed. I wouldn’t want someone tampering with them. Could the placement have been designed differently? Probably as they are on other ships. I can appreciate the Promenade deck point of view now, because it would have been pretty romantic to have one, more so than the glass of the Lido and Sky decks. I suspect Princess has heard us loud and clear for the next generation of ships, but I suspect Regal Princess and Britannia (P&O) will probably have the same issues as Royal in this regard. Maybe we’ll see something different.

After talking to several crew members - I think they honestly enjoy working for Princess, and I don’t think they were touting the party line. They genuinely enjoy working with Princess and they work hard. And seeing that Princess has put in amenities for staff like the pool and two hot tubs at the front of the ship for staff, says a lot to me. I’m happy to support a company that treats their staff well.

All in all, yes we had challenges, they were resolved to our liking as much as they could and quite honestly, I was brought to tears with how perfect everything turned out for Scott and me on our honeymoon.

One last thing - we never met our Stateroom Steward. Not at all. Now I'm not sure if it was because we were up early and on the go and we didn't stay in the room that much. Now we also never called Passenger Services to say, "We'd like to meet our Steward" - so we may have to bear some responsibility there. ;) Still, the room was always tended to - turned down, chocolates at night, etc... save for vacuuming, which others had noted.

That said, we’ll definitely be back, as I mentioned at the beginning of this series.

Day 4 - Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands

Welcome to the 6 mile by 1 mile island of Grand Turk. I had no idea what to expect, and of course being who we are, we got off the beaten track and actually visited the whole island, learning about what makes these people tick, visiting a church, the main town, passing by parliament, eating conch fritters and visiting where they used to make salt.

The tour stopped at Governor’s Beach which is close to the Cruise Ship Terminal. I was initially hesitant at going swimming and snorkelling - don’t ask me why, I just wasn’t totally the mood, but I decided to go with the flow and I know Scott really wanted to.

WOW! I’m so glad we did! I learned a few things

• Snorkelling is such a mind trip. Breathing underwater and all that. I finally got the hang of it.
  
• The fish we saw!! So much wildlife swimming around below us!!
  
• I have to admit, I freaked when I saw jelly fish and pretty much did run out of the water and on to my lounge chair. It was confirmed later that they were harmless - still, it’s a fear I’ve had and they still scare the you-know-what out of me
  
• Scott saw smaller sharks in the distance. Very cool!
  

This was the prefect complement to the semi-sub tour we took later in the day that took us over the reef and where it drops off by 7,000m; explaining all the fish we saw.

Before that we did a big no-no for us. We ate at Margaritaville at the Cruise Center. Yeah… no… Won’t do that again, I mean it was a good burger and all that, but… I want local flavour! Not that there was much in the Cruise Center.

We also went and saw the NASA/John Glenn exhibit. So cool seeing this as I had written a speech, I though, in grade 4 but it may have been in grade 6, about John Glen’s orbit around the earth.

On our way to the semi-sub, we noticed an ambulance picking someone up at one of the tours. Be smart people - drink in moderation and be aware of how much sun you’re taking.

Going to and from the semi-sub, we got some great photos of Royal Princess.

After we got back from Grand Turk, we headed to Lotus Spa for our facial massage as part of our honeymoon package. They surprised us by taking us up to one of the Cabanas at The Sanctuary for the massage! The view there is amazing, and the cabanas are AWESOME if you’re able to afford it. The Sanctuary wasn’t all that busy when we got up there, but I suspect Lotus spa was pretty busy.

That night we went to Alfredo’s and had, what I think is the best meal of the trip. Prosciutto and salami antipasto, Hawaiiana pizza (YUM!), and Tiramisu. YUM! The service was great and quicker than any of the restaurants we ate at.

The Latin Night party was fun, with a bunch of us from the LGBT meet hanging around the SeaView Bar. Sam, the Cruise Director and her husband stopped by to introduce themselves. I really like Sam’s approach and how personable she is.

Day 5 - Sea Day

We pretty much had nothing planned this day except for the Grapevine Wine Tasting, packing, sunning ourselves and going for Afternoon Tea however our plans were turned up side down because… I was selected to go on the Ultimate Ship Tour! Unfortunately, Scott was not - and I think there was a miscommunication on how to fill out the form. I thought I had to put Scott’s name with mine on one line, instead of using two lines.

So that said, I will sign Scott up for the tour on our next cruise.

We had breakfast in Horizon Court and then went to the second wine tasting of our trip. I figured out why they actually do the wine tasting before they even finished the tasting. Yes, one reason is so that we can have some great tasting wine and learn a few things. The other part of it is so that the staff, especially those who speak english as a second language can get used to speaking publicly and build their confidence. Such a wonderful program, seriously! So I really do hope the people who say that the "wine tastings are not great" do give this a second thought. Some great stories, some great humour and again great lessons in wine for those of us who are only just starting to appreciate wine. We all have to start somewhere.

And we got a free glass at this wine tasting.

The Ultimate Ship Tour started at 1pm and we saw Princess Theatre during practice, the galley (drink and canapés served), where they moor the ship, procurement, photo shop, print shop, engineering, stacks and the bridge (drinks and canapés served). It was a great tour and I learned a lot about how the ship runs and hive mentality (from one particular person on the tour who was asking inappropriate questions and making statements rather than asking questions).

Those taking the tour also get:

A Princess Cruises apron - used to be a chefs jacket, which I think the apron is more appropriate

A bathrobe

4 ot 5 pictures, one framed with the captain and actually signed

A pad of paper with your name on it

Scott went and had Tea and also attended an Art Auction. No mysterious packages have arrived yet and no odd charges were made to our stateroom, so I think we’re okay! LOL

We ate at the main dining room and we both had lovely steaks, plus witnessed the parade of the Baked Alaska.

After we went to our first show at sea - Colours of the World, capping off a lovely trip.