Just off Royal Princess 5 day 10/29 - 11/3

[sherman931]

Just back from the 5 day Royal Princess cruise 10/29-11/3

 

This is not a full review, just some observations (likes and dislikes) about the Royal and the cruise. Wife and I were in Aloha708 a balcony cabin.

 

Living Area

 

The cabin was nice. The big screen TV mounted on the wall is a nice improvement. The layout is basically the same as grand class ships. With the TC on the wall the area over the refrigerator was more open. There was some nice to have shelving adjacent to the refrigerator cabinet. Took a while to figure out you have to leave your cruise card inserted in the master lighting switch by the door.

 

The balcony seemed a little less deep than grand class ships, but is was still OK.

 

Cabin storage also seem a little smaller in the area of the closet/shelves. Sare is a little bigger and now has a shelf included. You can easily store a tablet, but not a laptop

 

Bathroom had a bigger shower with a foot rest for the ladies. Shelving seemed larger also. The sink and counter is definitely larger Same storage under the sink. These space improvements are at the expense of standing area in the bathroom. Not a lot of room for standing and drying yourself after a shower. NOTE: toilet paper holder is definitely a problem. Princess needs to find a better location.

 

Horizon Court

 

Big improvement. Spacious and open, with lots of seating. Takes awhile to figure out the food station arrangements. Food was good although we only had breakfast up there a couple of times.

 

Anytime Dining

 

We always eat any time dining. We had a standing reservation for 8PM at the same table with the same servers. Service was excellent. Dining room was never really packed on any of the nights. Princess makes great appetizers and soups. I seem to find entrees hit or miss, especially meat dishes. Meats tended to be dry and tough. As always fettuccine Alfredo was great. We ate lunch at Alfredo's Pizzaria once. I had a calzone and antipasta, wife had a pizza, all was good.

 

General Areas

 

Atrium is spacious and very elegant. Vines, International Cafe still on deck five. Purser and Tour Desk is now on deck five also.

 

No Explorers Lounge (which I missed greatly) and it is replaced by Princess Live which is like a TV studio. There were a lot of activities i.e. karaoke, Princess Pop Star, newly wed game, scheduled in this venue. It is not that big and as people walk by they group around the small entrance door to see what is going on and others can't get in or out. Personally I think in is totally impractical concept.

 

No central staircase above deck 7 which seemed to overcrowd elevators as those whose cabins are in the central area of deck 8, 9, etc. had to use elevators to go up/down one or two decks. Also elevators are smaller. I could touch both sides.

 

Crown Grill is adjacent to the Wheelhouse Bar. In order to get to grill you have to walk through wheelhouse. Also there is no separation, some of the tables in the grill are right next to tables in the wheelhouse. Close enough to shake hands with the people at the next table.

 

It seemed to me that Princess may have lowered staff ratios. Hard to find a server in the Atrium area. Also while on the upper decks no one seemed to be soliciting drinks as was the usual practice. If you wanted a drink you had to find a server.

 

I like playing slots, but for the life of me could not win a nickel, until the last night when I did cut my losses a little. Early on in the cruise I was sitting at a bank of 3 machines. I was playing at #3 and won $0, a lady was playing at#1 and she hit a jackpot for $9,000. The casino had a small smoking section. Also the chairs in there are so big it makes moving around difficult.

 

Shows were OK. Typical Princess fare.

 

Summary

 

All in all we had a good time. Ship is really very elegant and beautiful, but I found it to be all show and little substance. I guess I am just a big fan of Grand Class ships because we will not sail on Royal again, but are still Princess fans.

[theZsatsea]

Thanks for your thoughts on the Royal.

 

Our group will be on the Regal Maiden TA next October and are thinking of using anytime dining. How and when did you make your reservations?

 

Thanks in advance.

[windsor26]

Thanks for your thoughts They do echo lots of other devoted Princess fans so Princess top people should listen and think again before they complete the Regal

[dforeigner]

Thanks for taking time to write a review.

[Mom33]

Thanks for your review. :D Can you tell me how the Grand handles the missing central stairs? Are there long waits on those elevators too?

Edited November 3, 2013 by Mom33

[CruisinChris]

During a refit years ago, they opened the staff stairs and made them public.

[Mom33]

During a refit years ago' date=' they opened the staff stairs and made them public.[/quote']

 

Then perhaps they will do the same with the Royal.:)

[SeaCBear]

We have Aloha 732 booked - not too far from the cabin you were in. Did you notice any bad smells or odors in your cabin or on your balcony? Did you have any soot issues?

 

Thanks for the review - very helpful.

[MauiLvrs]

Thanks for your review. :D Can you tell me how the Grand handles the missing central stairs? Are there long waits on those elevators too?

3 options. Go all the way forward, aft, or wait.

Yep. Waits can be long. Especially at peak times. With 1000 less people likely the Grand is not as crowded as the Royal.

[Keith1010]

Thanks for sharing this information.

 

Keith

[sherman931]

Thanks for your thoughts on the Royal.

 

Our group will be on the Regal Maiden TA next October and are thinking of using anytime dining. How and when did you make your reservations?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Check the Patter the day you board. There is usually a notice stating where and when the Maitre D will be taking reservations. He is usually in one of the dining rooms.

[sherman931]

We have Aloha 732 booked - not too far from the cabin you were in. Did you notice any bad smells or odors in your cabin or on your balcony? Did you have any soot issues?

 

Thanks for the review - very helpful.

 

No problems with soot or anything else. Great cabin and great location.

[SwissDave]

During a refit years ago' date=' they opened the staff stairs and made them public.[/quote']

 

No, they didn't open them up. Grand still only has central stairs upto deck 7.

[san diego sue]

Found the Grand much more of a problem. With no center staircase and elevators constantly out of service, much worse than the Royal.

[hannibal54]

We were on this sailing also, we did have a good time. We did have a few problems, our AC was not very cool, they came twice, then it was fine. Our toilet sometimes would not flush every time. We would have to either turn the shower on or the bath sink to get it to flush.

Getting to the Horizon Court you had to walk through the buffet area. This normally had many people going in all directions. To fix this we had D147, we would walk to the aft elevator then go up to the deck. To get anywhere, there is a lot of walking involved. Many times the elevators were full so you had to wait. I have bad knees so the stairs are hard on me.

We never had anything bad to eat, loved the food. The staff were very friendly and helpful.

The room TV's were great, there was a large selection of movies that you could watch with no charge. Plus the movie starts when you clicked it on.

The little complaints are not deal breakers. We really enjoyed ourselves.

[iceman2a]

Just back from the 5 day Royal Princess cruise 10/29-11/3

 

This is not a full review, just some observations (likes and dislikes) about the Royal and the cruise. Wife and I were in Aloha708 a balcony cabin.

 

Living Area

 

The cabin was nice. The big screen TV mounted on the wall is a nice improvement. The layout is basically the same as grand class ships. With the TC on the wall the area over the refrigerator was more open. There was some nice to have shelving adjacent to the refrigerator cabinet. Took a while to figure out you have to leave your cruise card inserted in the master lighting switch by the door.

 

The balcony seemed a little less deep than grand class ships, but is was still OK.

 

Cabin storage also seem a little smaller in the area of the closet/shelves. Sare is a little bigger and now has a shelf included. You can easily store a tablet, but not a laptop

 

Bathroom had a bigger shower with a foot rest for the ladies. Shelving seemed larger also. The sink and counter is definitely larger Same storage under the sink. These space improvements are at the expense of standing area in the bathroom. Not a lot of room for standing and drying yourself after a shower. NOTE: toilet paper holder is definitely a problem. Princess needs to find a better location.

 

Horizon Court

 

Big improvement. Spacious and open, with lots of seating. Takes awhile to figure out the food station arrangements. Food was good although we only had breakfast up there a couple of times.

 

Anytime Dining

 

We always eat any time dining. We had a standing reservation for 8PM at the same table with the same servers. Service was excellent. Dining room was never really packed on any of the nights. Princess makes great appetizers and soups. I seem to find entrees hit or miss, especially meat dishes. Meats tended to be dry and tough. As always fettuccine Alfredo was great. We ate lunch at Alfredo's Pizzaria once. I had a calzone and antipasta, wife had a pizza, all was good.

 

General Areas

 

Atrium is spacious and very elegant. Vines, International Cafe still on deck five. Purser and Tour Desk is now on deck five also.

 

No Explorers Lounge (which I missed greatly) and it is replaced by Princess Live which is like a TV studio. There were a lot of activities i.e. karaoke, Princess Pop Star, newly wed game, scheduled in this venue. It is not that big and as people walk by they group around the small entrance door to see what is going on and others can't get in or out. Personally I think in is totally impractical concept.

 

No central staircase above deck 7 which seemed to overcrowd elevators as those whose cabins are in the central area of deck 8, 9, etc. had to use elevators to go up/down one or two decks. Also elevators are smaller. I could touch both sides.

 

Crown Grill is adjacent to the Wheelhouse Bar. In order to get to grill you have to walk through wheelhouse. Also there is no separation, some of the tables in the grill are right next to tables in the wheelhouse. Close enough to shake hands with the people at the next table.

 

It seemed to me that Princess may have lowered staff ratios. Hard to find a server in the Atrium area. Also while on the upper decks no one seemed to be soliciting drinks as was the usual practice. If you wanted a drink you had to find a server.

 

I like playing slots, but for the life of me could not win a nickel, until the last night when I did cut my losses a little. Early on in the cruise I was sitting at a bank of 3 machines. I was playing at #3 and won $0, a lady was playing at#1 and she hit a jackpot for $9,000. The casino had a small smoking section. Also the chairs in there are so big it makes moving around difficult.

 

Shows were OK. Typical Princess fare.

 

Summary

 

All in all we had a good time. Ship is really very elegant and beautiful, but I found it to be all show and little substance. I guess I am just a big fan of Grand Class ships because we will not sail on Royal again, but are still Princess fans.

 

My impressions were very close to yours!

Since this was my first Princess cruise I can not compare but it did seem that staff to pass ratio was low! Right on about the elevators I thought they were "miniscule"!

I was happy with my balcony cabin, found it to be much roamier than my balcony cabin on the NCL Epic!

[billco]

We have Aloha 732 booked - not too far from the cabin you were in. Did you notice any bad smells or odors in your cabin or on your balcony? Did you have any soot issues?

 

Thanks for the review - very helpful.

We were in D730 on the 5 day Caribbean. On checking in, we noticed quite a bit of soot on the balcony. Our steward cleaned it up. We noticed very little soot the remainder of the cruise. Don't recall any smells in our cabin or balcony. Did notice smells at various sites around the ship, especially just forward of Princess Live bar, but that went away.

[caribill]

Thanks for your thoughts on the Royal.

 

Our group will be on the Regal Maiden TA next October and are thinking of using anytime dining. How and when did you make your reservations?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Check the Patter the day you board. There is usually a notice stating where and when the Maitre D will be taking reservations. He is usually in one of the dining rooms.

 

I sugegst another method.

 

a) Call the DINE line from your cabin. If they will allow anytime reservations, it can be done this way.

 

or

 

b) Stop by the Anytime dining room when it opens and ask the headwaiter there.

 

I would avoid the Matre d' meeting. There will usually be a long line of people wanting to change from fixed to any time or from one fixed tiome to a different one or wanting to change the size table they are at. You could easily spend an hour in that line which could be better spent exploring the ship or unpacking.

[hannibal54]

I sugegst another method.

 

a) Call the DINE line from your cabin. If they will allow anytime reservations, it can be done this way.

 

or

 

b) Stop by the Anytime dining room when it opens and ask the headwaiter there.

 

I would avoid the Matre d' meeting. There will usually be a long line of people wanting to change from fixed to any time or from one fixed tiome to a different one or wanting to change the size table they are at. You could easily spend an hour in that line which could be better spent exploring the ship or unpacking.

 

When ever I tried to call for reservations, nobody answered the phone. We just went after 8:30 every night and got right in.

[dmwnc1959]

Thanks for taking the time to list all of the negatives and positives. Interesting that two people on the same ship can have decidedly different experiences, and despite the 'design faults' there are still those that are eager to return to Royal Princess having sailed her as well.

 

Looking forward to experiencing Royal Princess myself for two weeks in December. :D

[TorontoTL]

Thanks for the review, I'm really looking forward to my cruise in January. :)

[Woobstr112G]

Thanks to those who took the time to post your thoughts about their experiences.....:):):)

Bob

[Steven_&_Daniel]

We enjoyed the maiden Caribbean voyage on the Royal. I love the new buffet with plenty of options and seating. On the first day there were some people who thought you had to follow a line through all the food, but I think they eventually caught on. We like the fact that they have sinks for people to wash their hands when entering the buffet. Unfortunately, not many people were using them (even though they encouraged this on the first day).

 

Having spent a lot of time near the pool all week, there were plenty of servers and I never had to wait too long to order a drink. Maybe it depended on your location in the area. One of the servers is very good with magic tricks and entertained people at the bar during slow times. I like that they limited the daytime movies and mostly had relaxing music and nature/scenic videos on the HD screen. We really like the new seating groups that they have near the pool (small sofa like areas).

 

The Fitness Center seems to double as a hallway, which can get annoying at times (especially when some old guy plops down on a weight bench to watch the TV in the free-weight area). I preferred having the weight training area near a window instead of in the back, but that's not a big deal. I also would prefer lockers which actually lock over cubbies with doors that can't be locked. Two frosted-glass-door stalls with hand-held and rain-head showers were okay, but miss the steamroom & sauna (somewhat disappointing, but not a big deal).

 

I would definitely avoid booking a mid-ship cabin due to the lack of central stairs. We made do with the walk to the fore and aft stairs.

 

The new Piazza is great and we enjoyed hanging out there.

 

We did miss the ability to view forward since there is no observation deck on top the bridge (Grand class) and the forward sections of the Promenade were roped off during the entire cruise (eliminating 1/3 of the already limited Promenade).

 

I found the entire Retreat pool area to be too windy to enjoy during cruising. The main pool area was somewhat crowded on sea days, especially with the usual chair hogs. We thought it odd that one of the four hot tubs around the main pool does not have jets...basically making it a big bath tub. (not having experience with hot tubs on the other ships, is this unusual or normal? ...anyone?)

 

Overall, we definitely enjoyed the cruise. Given the right itinerary, I would probably book the Royal again, but avoid a mid-ship cabin.

[TorontoTL]

Steven and Daniel, thanks for your comments as well. The hot tube should normally have jets. I'm not sure why one did not on the Royal.

[SusanL10]

We were on this sailing also, we did have a good time. We did have a few problems, our AC was not very cool, they came twice, then it was fine. Our toilet sometimes would not flush every time. We would have to either turn the shower on or the bath sink to get it to flush.

Getting to the Horizon Court you had to walk through the buffet area. This normally had many people going in all directions. To fix this we had D147, we would walk to the aft elevator then go up to the deck. To get anywhere, there is a lot of walking involved. Many times the elevators were full so you had to wait. I have bad knees so the stairs are hard on me.

 

Hi - I am trying to find out if the Royal has connecting room. What deck was your cabin D147 on? Do you recall if there was a connecting door inside your room?

 

Thanks!