2013 Christmas Cruise on Royal Princess - A Photo Review!

[janetz]

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

These balconies connect much better than Princess's in my opinion. Rather than the partition folding back parallel to the room and blocking the view from one stateroom, it folds all the way around and attaches onto the partition. Pictured above are three connected balconies.

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

The people above were fun to watch. They are arranged differently here, but later, a teenage boy arrives and is beside his grandmother and she casually hands her beer over to him every few minutes and he stealthily takes a sip. I don't think his mother ever caught on. And I'm not really sure if he liked it.

 

:p:p: You really were creeping

[LittleMissMagic]

:p:p: You really were creeping

 

People-watching is my thing. And I take pictures so that I can share it with you! And who knows - maybe someone on the Allure will find themselves in my photos and think it's cool..... or creepy. :D

[janetz]

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

It took forever for this ship to pull out far enough for me to get all of it in the frame!

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

See you in Port Everglades, Allure of the Seas!

 

 

 

Your Allure pics are great! You have to sail the Allure or Oasis someday. Awesome ships. :D

[CI66774]

Great photos! Keep 'em coming!

[jg21]

I know - I'll miss Maryland! I actually went to the stadium two years ago. I wasn't going for the game. I was on an architecture field trip in DC. But they gave us the night off, so we took the Metro to Maryland. That was the game where we were really sucking and then Sammy Watkins ran a 90-something yard field goal return and turned the game around. I'm going to miss Sammy!

 

 

I was at the game. Thanks for reminding me...

[janetz]

People-watching is my thing. And I take pictures so that I can share it with you! And who knows - maybe someone on the Allure will find themselves in my photos and think it's cool..... or creepy. :D

 

 

 

Hope you don't mind. I took some of your Allure pics to the RC board for people to see. Not the "creepy" ones though. ;)

[janetz]

People-watching is my thing. And I take pictures so that I can share it with you! And who knows - maybe someone on the Allure will find themselves in my photos and think it's cool..... or creepy. :D

 

 

 

Hope you don't mind. I took some of your Allure pics to the RC board for people to see. Not the "creepy" ones though. ;)

 

I have friends that were on the Allure Chistmas cruise. :)

Edited January 6, 2014 by janetz

[LittleMissMagic]

Hope you don't mind. I took some of your Allure pics to the RC board for people to see. Not the "creepy" ones though. ;)

 

I have friends that were on the Allure Chistmas cruise. :)

 

Oh, not at all! That's a good idea.

[LittleMissMagic]

It was the Chef's dinner in the dining room.

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

To cleanse the palate...

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

I actually wasn't a fan of the scallops, and I like scallops. They were pretty rubbery and tasteless.

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

I got the ice cream.

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

Dad got the Love Boat Dream.

[janetz]

Oh, not at all! That's a good idea.

 

 

 

Cant believe that I posted that twice. I will take a good look to see if you creeped on my friends.:)

[LittleMissMagic]

The Latin Party was that night.

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

[missymerv]

Victoria your pictures are stunning. Thank you for sharing. The band The Speakers were terrific too.

[Cruzin-K]

 

12.26.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

See you in Port Everglades, Allure of the Seas!

 

 

 

I just can't get enough of your photos. I keep going over and stalking your flickr page to get the exif info for the ones I like. Do you just know what setting to put your camera on, or are you like me and take 20 photos w different settings to see which one turns out the best? :o I'm only just starting to be brave enough to use the manual setting, and aperture priority. I've been a slave to the P setting for years :(

[riclop]

I agree your Alllure pictures are awesome.Thanks!

[gr82cu2]

It was the Chef's dinner in the dining room.

 

 

Whoa! Princess needs a proof reader. I volunteer to be the onboard proof reader! :D

[nimiq]

Wow great pics and looking people. Love the review and you girls look great ever night :-)

Can you tell me what kinda party they have at night ? Is there still a white party ? How many deck part ? Did you attend the disco ? The Bellini bar looks amazing how did u like it there ?

 

We did Rccl Oasis in 2010 and loved it.

 

Thanks again for all as we will be on her this Sunday Jan 12th.

 

Sea ya

Eric

[Cupcrazy]

We were docked beside the Allure. What a giant ship! I'd like to sail on her some day... if the prices ever become more reasonable (or justifiable).

 

From following along on your last couple reviews, I think your family would love a trip on Allure or Oasis. I did Oasis this past year and am booked on Allure twice in 2014. The ship was amazing and you never realize there are 5000 people on-board with you.

Thanks again for the great pictures!

Edited January 6, 2014 by Cupcrazy

[LittleMissMagic]

I just can't get enough of your photos. I keep going over and stalking your flickr page to get the exif info for the ones I like. Do you just know what setting to put your camera on, or are you like me and take 20 photos w different settings to see which one turns out the best? :o I'm only just starting to be brave enough to use the manual setting, and aperture priority. I've been a slave to the P setting for years :(

 

I love that feature on Flickr!

 

I read Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure, and after trying manual mode, I've never gone back. I do shoot in RAW so that I can tweak things later. I keep my ISO low whenever possible. When I'm shooting outside, no matter how sunny, I put my WB in cloudy (but since it's RAW, I can change it later). And sometimes I intentionally underexpose things because it's a lot easier to bring up the exposure than recover blown highlights (though you don't have to worry about that so much in RAW). I post-process in Adobe Lightroom. Now I'm trying to get the hang of that exterior flash!

Edited January 6, 2014 by LittleMissMagic

[dz9yvr]

Hi Victoria, we were on the Allure that week. We were on the port side so we didn't get caught in any of your pictures. :) One thing that appears significantly different between the Allure and the Royal Princess is the use of the pool deck at night. Except for am occasionally person in the hot tubs the pool deck is really a dead area at night on either the Allure or Oasis, but on the Royal Princess the pool deck seem like a lively place with bands, dancing, pizza, bars, etc. However the winds were very strong that week so it was not very comfortable to be on the top deck or pool deck on Allure. Is the Royal Princess built in a way that protects the pool deck from the winds or were activities cancelled on several nights?

 

Thanks for another great review.

[clean1owner]

The kids' mom asked my Dad if he had ever been to the French side before. "Oh, yeah." "Okay, so you know about what is at Orient, right?" "You mean the nudity? Oh, yeah! It's not that bad. Every once in a while an old topless woman walks by, but they're never the ones that you want to look at, anyway." She didn't talk to my dad anymore after that.

 

 

Your dad is my kind of guy.

 

Love your review, even if you are a Clemson family. :D

 

 

Proud Terp here. Leaving for the big 10. What a mistake...:confused:

 

I too, like the way your dad handled that woman. I would have surely done something similar to that.

 

It's like the Big 10 is trying to become the Big 20. After Maryland and Rutgers join, there will be 14 schools, and being a traditionalist, I don't like it. The way scheduling goes, we will only be able to play some schools every 3 or more years!

[dmwnc1959]

Your pictures are making me want to invest in a better camera!

 

As for the illusionist David Cats, I ran across him in the International Cafe one day and asked him if he was going to be on for Week 2 of my B2B and he said 'No', that they were getting off the ship that next week but would be back. When I told him that I was sorry that I had not seen his shows during that week the look on his face was priceless, as if to say 'How could you possibly miss my shows'? Other than the opening number of his act, maybe it was a good thing I skipped it?

[whataboutport]

Ah, yes! That is because I stupidly used Facebook as an image-hosting site. I thought I would kill two birds with one stone by uploading them to Facebook and then creating my own image tags. What I ended up doing was creating a super giant Facebook album. And a year or so later, Facebook made some change which created new image URLs for all of the photos, so my IMGs are no longer linked. Unfortunately, Cruise Critic doesn't allow you to edit posts after 30 minutes or so, so I am unable to go back and fix my TR on CC. One of my goals is to bring all of my cruise and Disney trip reports onto my blog, and I'll recreate my Adventure photo review there. Until then, if you go to the last page of the thread, you should find a link that I posted with that sends you to the Facebook album with the photos.

 

Lesson learned: never use Facebook for image hosting.

 

Ok, thanks for the tip. and BTW what a sucky lesson to learn. :( Looking fwd to the rest of the review!

[Woobstr112G]

Love the pictures.....:):):)

 

Bob

[The Big Booper]

Hi Victoria, we were on the Allure that week. We were on the port side so we didn't get caught in any of your pictures. :) One thing that appears significantly different between the Allure and the Royal Princess is the use of the pool deck at night. Except for am occasionally person in the hot tubs the pool deck is really a dead area at night on either the Allure or Oasis, but on the Royal Princess the pool deck seem like a lively place with bands, dancing, pizza, bars, etc. However the winds were very strong that week so it was not very comfortable to be on the top deck or pool deck on Allure. Is the Royal Princess built in a way that protects the pool deck from the winds or were activities cancelled on several nights?

 

Thanks for another great review.

 

There are two dance parties in the partially protected Solarium pool complex at night during the week. This is the glass covered area at the front of the ship.

 

The Oasis class has two separate hotel buildings with the divider being either the Boardwalk on deck 6 or Central Park on deck 8. With the two side by side structures the ship is not wide enough to support a full pool party. The pool deck is deck 15.

[LA_CA_GAL]

Hope you don't mind. I took some of your Allure pics to the RC board for people to see. Not the "creepy" ones though. ;)

 

That's why I'm here.

 

TY.