Bon Voyage Dave (DMWNC1959)!!!

[jangor]

Hi Mary Jane,

 

That happened in the southern end of the state near Charleston, and I live in the north-central part not too far from Pennsylvania. I'm sure, since it basically shutdown our state capital, that our lawmakers will be busy... ;)

 

On a side note, I received an email from Cruise Critic saying my review had been selected as one of their Reviews of the Week:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1968568

 

:D

 

I am not surprised they chose to spotlight your review. It is the most comprehensive review of the Royal that is out there.

 

Mary Jane

[jangor]

I feel as though you are all my 'compadres' and that I can share thoughts with you, so I hope you won't mind if a grumble a bit here about reviews. I just spent some time reading CC reviews of RP. I, obviously, do not expect everyone to agree with my assessment of the ship, bit at times I think the reviewer was a) never on the Royal b) was on another ship but thought they were reviewing the Royal Princess or c) likes to look for the negative in life. Here are a few examples: one reviewer was on the Dec. 14 sailing (there was no 12/14, it was either 12/8 or 12/15 or a different month altogether; one reviewer was told that Sabatini's had great steaks (presumably they meant Crown Grill and although they remembered incorrectly, they included it in review; my personal favorite remark embarkation was "only somewhat irksome when having to run the ubiquitous gauntlet of photographers (was that the two photographers at the top of the escalator who if you smiled and said "no thank you" simply turned to the next passengers?) Everything is subjective. In fact, I wrote in my review that even my husband and I didn't agree about food venues. However, do you like myself ever feel like you want to write a response to some reviews? Anyway, thank you for letting me gripe just a bit! I feel so much better.

[HRPro]

I feel as though you are all my 'compadres' and that I can share thoughts with you, so I hope you won't mind if a grumble a bit here about reviews. I just spent some time reading CC reviews of RP. I, obviously, do not expect everyone to agree with my assessment of the ship, bit at times I think the reviewer was a) never on the Royal b) was on another ship but thought they were reviewing the Royal Princess or c) likes to look for the negative in life. Here are a few examples: one reviewer was on the Dec. 14 sailing (there was no 12/14, it was either 12/8 or 12/15 or a different month altogether; one reviewer was told that Sabatini's had great steaks (presumably they meant Crown Grill and although they remembered incorrectly, they included it in review; my personal favorite remark embarkation was "only somewhat irksome when having to run the ubiquitous gauntlet of photographers (was that the two photographers at the top of the escalator who if you smiled and said "no thank you" simply turned to the next passengers?) Everything is subjective. In fact, I wrote in my review that even my husband and I didn't agree about food venues. However, do you like myself ever feel like you want to write a response to some reviews? Anyway, thank you for letting me gripe just a bit! I feel so much better.

 

Couldn't agree with you more--either people have unrealistic expectations or just like to complain. There are some legitimate concerns about RP, but overall she is a beautiful ship and we have a fabulous cruise. I think it all depends on your attitude approaching the cruise. To me, any day on a cruise ship is a wonderful vacation!

[#1winelover]

I feel as though you are all my 'compadres' and that I can share thoughts with you, so I hope you won't mind if a grumble a bit here about reviews. I just spent some time reading CC reviews of RP. I, obviously, do not expect everyone to agree with my assessment of the ship, bit at times I think the reviewer was a) never on the Royal b) was on another ship but thought they were reviewing the Royal Princess or c) likes to look for the negative in life. Here are a few examples: one reviewer was on the Dec. 14 sailing (there was no 12/14, it was either 12/8 or 12/15 or a different month altogether; one reviewer was told that Sabatini's had great steaks (presumably they meant Crown Grill and although they remembered incorrectly, they included it in review; my personal favorite remark embarkation was "only somewhat irksome when having to run the ubiquitous gauntlet of photographers (was that the two photographers at the top of the escalator who if you smiled and said "no thank you" simply turned to the next passengers?) Everything is subjective. In fact, I wrote in my review that even my husband and I didn't agree about food venues. However, do you like myself ever feel like you want to write a response to some reviews? Anyway, thank you for letting me gripe just a bit! I feel so much better.

I totally agree with you! I spent 12 days on the Royal on the Maiden Caribbean and b2b and loved every minute of it. I have a b2b booked for August YVR to Alaska (Whittier) and am getting very tempted to try to book something on the Regal. I miss the Royal a lot! And with the small improvements made to the Regal, that could well become another favorite ship! ;) Only a little more time and some phone calls to my Princess TA will tell!

[dmwnc1959]

What better way to end a vacation than to have your connecting flight cancelled. Will be spending the night in Dulles. :(

 

Travel Insurance should cover the overnight hotel under trip interruption so no worries there.

 

 

After much delay (procrastinating) I mailed in the claim form for the Trip Delay on March 5th and received my refund check in the mail yesterday. It's only $72.80 but I'm glad to have that!

 

:D

[JPEvans]

After much delay (procrastinating) I mailed in the claim form for the Trip Delay on March 5th and received my refund check in the mail yesterday. It's only $72.80 but I'm glad to have that!

 

 

 

:D

 

 

So Dave......have you made a decision on what your next cruise vacation will be. I'm seriously looking at booking the Royal westbound transatlantic in Sept 2015. It's pricy but 15 days.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LogansNini]

Hi Dave,

 

I'm glad you got your refund. Was this Princess trip insurance or another company? I've been looking for a good trip insurance company. Happy spring!

[dmwnc1959]

So Dave......have you made a decision on what your next cruise vacation will be. I'm seriously looking at booking the Royal westbound transatlantic in Sept 2015. It's pricy but 15 days.

 

Hi JP!

 

The transatlantic sounds great! I'd love to do one, but the cost of airfare, and my desire to do ALL of the shore excursions preclude me from booking such a trip. For the time being I'll stick with totally relaxing 'been there, done that' Eastern Caribbean cruises. Waiting on the Winter 2015/16 schedule to see what Regal Princess is doing. ;)

 

 

 

Hi Dave,

 

I'm glad you got your refund. Was this Princess trip insurance or another company? I've been looking for a good trip insurance company. Happy spring!

 

 

Hi Linda!

 

My insurance was through a provider my t/a uses. It's the first time I've ever filed a claim, and I was a bit hesitant which accounts for my procrastinating. But I'm off to WallyWorld in the morning to spend my little windfall on some groceries and other goodies.

 

:D

[CruisinJohn]

After much delay (procrastinating) I mailed in the claim form for the Trip Delay on March 5th and received my refund check in the mail yesterday. It's only $72.80 but I'm glad to have that!

 

:D

 

Hi David,

 

Glad you received your refund for the trip delay. Even though we hope things like this never happen, they sometimes do, and it seems like a great idea to get trip insurance. I'm thinking about getting it for the cruises on Regal this November.

 

I posted some photos on Flickr from my Sapphire Princess cruise in January. You can find them using my CC screen name.

 

Have a great Spring! :)

 

John

[dmwnc1959]

Hi John!

 

Hope all is well. Winter still has a loose grip on us and we're expecting snow tomorrow night.

 

For your Regal Princess B2B2B definitely get the insurance. My hotel reimbursement was roughly two-thirds the cost to cover the cruise, and had the delay/interruption been worse (as it easily could have been) it would have been a 'break even' situation financially.

 

I did see your pictures! For some reason I never saw the the Flickr notification until just the other day. Your sunset picture was amazing! :D

[jangor]

Just taking a minute to say 'hello'. I can not believe that it has been nearly four months since our wonderful cruise together on the Royal. Greg and I are debating whether we should do a transatlantic in the fall or simply a cheaper Carribean in February/March. Definitely considering Royal/Regal.

In the end, it is should your money take you for a longer cruise or ports never visited cruise. HMmmmmmm!

[dmwnc1959]

Just taking a minute to say 'hello'. I can not believe that it has been nearly four months since our wonderful cruise together on the Royal. Greg and I are debating whether we should do a transatlantic in the fall or simply a cheaper Carribean in February/March. Definitely considering Royal/Regal.

In the end, it is should your money take you for a longer cruise or ports never visited cruise. HMmmmmmm!

 

I really miss doing this LIVE thread, and need to get back at sea soon so I can do another one. ;)

 

 

As for your options, if the finances allow, take the one with the most ports never visited if you will have the opportunity to tour them. Otherwise, a week or two 'escaping completely' on Regal Princess would be quite nice. :D

[LogansNini]

Hi Everyone!

 

First of all, my apologies. It had been a year that my camera had literally sat in the closet unused, still in the camera bag, before I dug it out for this B2B cruise on Royal Princess. I had forgotten some of the manual settings available that you are suppose to use for indoors under different lighting, outside at different times of day, etc, etc., so some of the pictures may not look very good. Some of the pictures are also taken with my iPhone, so there is a large mix of both.

 

With that said, here is the first installment. There are exactly 525 pictures of the Royal Princess public areas, food I ate, ships I saw, ports and sea days from the first (rainy) week, and much more including many pictures from the Bridge Tour that I was privileged and honored to be able to attend.

 

Some of you that were on these cruises with me may notice that some of the pictures are 'out of order' or on 'the wrong day'. I tried to group the venues that I visited and ate at with the offerings that I had during the B2B, or that others that were there as well may have ordered (most notable at the Crab Shack and a few at Gelato). And if I forget anything from Week 1, I'll just go back and add it to the next set. ;)

 

I hope you enjoy them. I'll get to work tomorrow on the next set, which will be the rest of the public areas of Royal Princess, more sea day and port pictures from Week 2 (taken in better weather or at different locations), and of course more food pictures.

 

THANK YOU again for everything, for following along while I was aboard Royal Princess, and for all the incredibly kind words and personal support you've shown me along the way.

 

 

Royal Princess in pictures, Part 1

 

 

Royal Princess Bridge Tour

 

:D

 

Just wondering, Dave, did you get all your pictures posted? I really enjoyed this link. Postponed Spain for this year, airfare is outrageous. Best to you and grey kitty.

[dmwnc1959]

Hi Linda!

 

Hope you are well. Yes, they were all downloaded shortly after that post. I'll link them all here just in case anyone wants to dredge through them. Be forewarned, there are a lot of pictures.

 

 

Royal Princess Part 1 (482 pictures)

 

 

Royal Princess Part 2 (695 pictures)

 

 

Stairs and art (49 pictures)

 

 

Meet and Greet #1 (18 pictures)

 

 

Meet and Greet #2 (26 pictures)

 

 

Bridge Tour (55 pictures)

 

 

Patters and various menus (65 pictures)

 

:D

[LogansNini]

Hi Dave!

 

Thanks for posting all the links here. Have a wonderful summer and let me know when you plan another cruise so I can follow the roll call. I still want to do the Alaskan cruise. Not sure the best time to book. Maybe next year. We are well and hope you are, too!

 

Are you watching for changes on the Regal? Any pictures? Thanks!

Edited May 11, 2014 by LogansNini

[dmwnc1959]

Hi Dave!

 

Thanks for posting all the links here. Have a wonderful summer and let me know when you plan another cruise so I can follow the roll call. I still want to do the Alaskan cruise. Not sure the best time to book. Maybe next year. We are well and hope you are, too!

 

Are you watching for changes on the Regal? Any pictures? Thanks!

 

 

Hopefully some good folks on the first few voyages will come back with LOTS of Regal Princess pictures. From what I've seen the interiors of the public spaces are very similar to Royal Princess with the differences being in the artwork and sculptures.

 

I'm looking at booking for Winter 2015/2016 or may wait for the Fall repositioning NYC-Florida in 2016.

 

:D

[MarKay525]

I've been posting links to this thread and copying photos a lot lately, so I just wanted to say thanks to Dave for taking the time to post all these beautiful photos of the Royal Princess. This is definitely my go-to thread for photos, menus and Patters for the Royal. Kay

 

P.S. Post #1089 has links to all of Dave's marvelous photos - just like being on the ship again.

Edited September 25, 2014 by MarKay525

[riclop]

Thanks to all for the quick responses , Dave's pictures were the ones I was looking for.:)

[jangor]

Absolutely love Dave's photos and was great to sail with him last year!

[metairiegal]

WOW - I really enjoyed reading your review. The pictures (especially the food pics!) are fantastic.

 

Now I am even more excited about my Regal cruise that is coming up.

 

Thanks for posting such a wonderful review. :)

[lynwar]

Hi Dave,

It was so nice seeing your post today. I still have your photo of the Royal Princess sailing into the sunset as my desktop picture. Yes, you got credit for it!! :)

 

We were recently on the Caribbean Princess, 9/20-29. It was a 10 year reunion sailing for us since we were last aboard her the week of Sept. 18-25, 2004--Hurricane Jeanne week!! It was another great cruise this time, although, we didn't have as tight knit roll call as the 2004 voyage. That was OK, as we some of the folks around the ship. I really enjoyed Bert Stratton, the entertainer in Crooners. He put on quite a show but I learned that he also does sacred choral work and has his name is on many church anthems. That was an added bonus for me. He's a lyricist.

 

I hope to get back this ship in the future. Trevor found that the Royal was a bit too large for him. But, the scheme of all the ships is about the same so I got adjusted quickly.

 

Take care for now. I hope you don't get too much snow up your way this winter. We are in a "cold" spell right now: lower humidity, sun, and temps in the low 80's !

 

Happy Sailing. Lynne

[dmwnc1959]

Hard to believe it's been a year since that first embarkation and sail away on Royal Princess....such a truly great cruise with lots of really wonderful people.

 

For those two weeks I had the privilege to meet a lot of amazing and kind Cruise Critic members, even if it was just for a few moments. I feel blessed to have known you. We also had a few of us doing B2B's, and we formed a pretty tight little group. (HI Jackie, Bob, John, and Tom!).

 

For all those continuing the tradition this year on Regal Princess: have a wonderful time, I'll be thinking about all of you.

 

And THANKS to everyone who even now continue to supply us 'landlubbers' with LIVE reports from Regal Princess and Royal Princess. I look forward to the day when I can sail one of these beauties again!!!

 

:D