Saint Greg's Regal Princess - Live - November 12, 2023

[Saint Greg]

 

[Saint Greg]

Greetings Princess Cruisers. A week from tomorrow I'll be boarding the Regal Princess in Galveston. This is my 24th cruise. It will be be my first on Princess, my fifth out of Galveston, my sixth time to Belize, my eigth time to Roatan, and my 15th time to Cozumel. My first 22 cruises were on Carnival. My 23rd was on NCL.

 

Why the change? I've been pretty comfortable on Carnival. I do have four Carnival cruises booked for next year. Two of those were booked during their spring sale of 2022. The other two are on newest ship Jubilee which is going to sail out of Galveston. 

 

For whatever reason Carnival's prices have skyrocketed this year. After planning to book Carnival Celebration, I ended up settling on an Alaska cruise with either Princess or NCL in August. Majestic Princess really appealed to me. But in the end the Monday-Monday schedule with labor day on the back end with NCL Jewel worked better for me than the Sat-Sat schedule Princess had. It probably worked out better this way because Alaska is mostly about the ports. This cruise is going to be more about the ship. I do still want to do an Alaska cruise on Princess. That is definitely on my RADAR for 2025 or 2026.

 

I'll be inviting people who followed my Carnival and NCL threads to this one. There will defintely be a lot of comparing Princess with Carnival and NCL. So far I'm a big fan of the bundling you can do with beverage packages, internet, and dining on NCL and Princess. I also like the upgrade bidding. I'm 1 for 2 on that. I was 1 for 22 on upgrades with Carnival.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Saint Greg

[Saint Greg]

Here are my prior trip threads. A lot of catching up for anyone new.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://saintgregtravel.com/breezy-like-sunday-morning/

 

 

https://saintgregtravel.com/seven-days-of-freedom/

 

 

https://saintgregtravel.com/i-will-triumph/

 

 

https://saintgregtravel.com/leaving-the-elation/

 

 

https://saintgregtravel.com/r1-my-intro-to-cruising/

[Saint Greg]

Booking        

I was originally supposed to be on Carnival Jubilee after Thanksgiving. Shipyard delays caused that cruise to be cancelled. I re-booked Jubilee for February but needed a replacement cruise for November or December. 

 

I decided to wait until the NFL schedule release in May before booking a replacement cruise. My preference was Carnival Venezia in December so I could visit New York while it’s decorated for Christmas. When the NFL schedule was released, it included home games for December 3rd, 10th, and 17th, ruling out a 7+ day December cruise for me.  

I was open to 4–5-day cruises out of Galveston or New Orleans which are drivable ports for me. For a full week I was looking at before Thanksgiving when the Saints have a bye week.

 

The best I could do was a Sunday cruise leaving on a day when the Saints have a noon road game and getting back on their bye week. 

 

Carnival prices were high, so I opened my search up to all cruise lines. I ended up finding a good deal on Princess. I was able to get an interior guarantee with the Princess Plus package for cheaper than just the base price on a 4–5-day cruise with Carnival.

 

I saved 10% by purchasing discounted Princess gift cards and using them to pay off the cruise.

 

Onboard Credit

I received $150 onboard credit for booking with my travel agent. I am a Carnival Corp stockholder which allows me to claim an additional $100 OBC on 7-day cruises. I applied and received that credit.

 

I found out that Princess also offers $100 OBC to veterans. I heard they stopped allowing people to claim both stockholder and veterans onboard credit, but I applied anyway. I can confirm my application for veterans’ onboard credit was denied because I had stockholder onboard credit. 

 

Upgrade

I was pretty happy with the room assignment I received. There is a video tour of that room on YouTube so I got the full tour. I did plan to bid on an upgrade when Princess sent me that email in August.

 

The upgrade email came a few days before my August Alaska cruise and I forgot to bid. I was surprised to get another email with a chance to bid on upgrades in October. I submitted $5 over the minimum in all categories just to put myself ahead of the minimum bidders.

 

Two days after bidding I was upgraded to a standard balcony for $210 total. This room location is pretty central. I’m four decks down from lido and four decks up from the promenade.

The standard balcony room looks to be fairly small. It doesn’t have a couch. That’s not a big deal to me but I think I am going to miss the closet I was going to have in my interior room. I do think the balcony will outweigh the closet. This will only be my second balcony room. The one I had on my transatlantic was unusable for most of the sea days due to cold and fog.

 

Pre-cruise Hotel

I’m going to be driving down but I do like to get within an hour of the port the night before. Normally I would stay in Webster for a Galveston cruise. In this case a friend in Houston wants to hang out the night before the cruise so the current plan is not to book a hotel room. 

 

I went ahead and did my hotel research in case plans change. In the event I need a hotel I will likely book the Comfort Suites Seabrook-Kemah for $76 after taxes and fees. This is a great area to be in if you want to visit Space Center Houston.

 

Parking

TBD

 

Cozumel

I have been to Cozumel 13 times on cruises and once on a three-day trip. I’m running out of activities to do there. One thing I have been keeping my eye on for a couple years is a microbrewery that also serves tacos. It’s owned by one of the former Cozumel Barhop tour guides.

 

In the past I haven’t been able to go when my ships have been in port due to it’s limited hours. According to their website they now open at 10am so my plan in Cozumel is to take a cab downtown for beer and tacos.

 

Roatan

I like to take advantage of the free beach in Roatan. I’ll go down after breakfast, get in a swim and some local beer, then return to the ship for lunch. We are the only ship in port that day so getting a free beach chair shouldn’t be a problem.

 

Belize

As you probably know my favorite thing to do in Belize is Mayan ruins. I have already done Lamanai, Xuntunich, and Altun Ha which are all of the ship-sponsored Mayan ruins excursions in Belize.

 

This time I went with an outside company to book Cahal Pech for $92. It’s a six-hour excursion that leaves one hour after the ship arrives in port. 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Saint Greg

[Saint Greg]

If anyone has any tips, feel free to send them my way. Anything special on the ship I should know about. For instance on my NCL cruise someone told me about the room they have where you can observe the bridge. I wouldn't have known about that otherwise. They don't have anything like that on Carnival.

 

Any food or drinks I shouldn't miss. Let me know.

 

[canes20]

[Hogladyrider]

All signed up and ready to get the party started!  Looking forward to this one as well as all the other fabulous reviews you have done!

[dickinson]

I'm not a veteran but I thought I read something the other day on here that they might be starting to allow people to bundle again the shareholder and veterans benefit.  Maybe start a new thread to ask or resubmit your veterans request to see what happens.

[Saint Greg]

3 minutes ago, dickinson said:

I'm not a veteran but I thought I read something the other day on here that they might be starting to allow people to bundle again the shareholder and veterans benefit.  Maybe start a new thread to ask or resubmit your veterans request to see what happens.

 

Thanks. I'll resubmit and see what they say.

[Saint Greg]

This is the room I originally had on my interior guarantee. I really like that hallway area to the bathroom with the open closets on the left and open shelves to the right. It doesn't look like I'm going to have that in the standard balcony. 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Saint Greg

[edspec]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Princess.

[Saint Greg]

Got a notice on Sept 12th that we would be leaving at 3pm instead of 4pm. Just means hopefully getting to international waters and the drink package an hour earlier.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

October 9th I got this emai from Princess saying I had till the end of the month to order my medallion or I have to pick it up on embarkation day. 
 

We hope you’re as excited as we are about your upcoming cruise vacation. To make it as effortless as possible,  you'll want to complete the OceanReady® travel checklist in the Princess^® MedallionClass^® app.

We ask that you enter some info and order your Medallion device so it can be shipped to your home address before you leave. It's complimentary for guests with Princess Plus^SM and Princess Premier^SMpackages, otherwise a $10 USD charge applies. This is now the only way you can access the Green Lane for faster boarding. Trust us, you'll want to do this so you can start your vacation sooner. The last day to order your Medallion device for home delivery is 10/30/23. If you miss the deadline, you'll simply pick up your Medallion via the Blue Lane at the terminal.

 

So I downloaded their app and got started. They have some customizations and things. I just went with the basic free medallion and lanyard. It didn’t give me the shipping option because you have to put in all of your check in info first. So I backed out and did all of that. That moved me from blue lane to green lane…and I was able to get it shipped.

 

 

[Saint Greg]

These were my October 18th upgrade bid options. I was thinking I bid $5 over the minimum on each category but I must've done better. I think I did that at first then went back and did $105pp on the standard balcony to jump ahead of the $100pp. The min bid was actually 85pp.

 

[Saint Greg]

October 25th.

 

[Saint Greg]

October 27th

[Saint Greg]

October 30th

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

This is the closest room I could find to my new cabin. It's down the hallway from my room. You'll see some problems they have navigating the closet and bathroom door in this one. Shouldn't be a problem for me as a solo but that sideways interior bathroom/closet setup was much better.

 

 

 

[Jamman54]

Hey Greg! We're along for the ride. We've never been on Princess so happy to get to see what they are all about! 

[avonlady6390]

When it comes to the closest in a balcony I think it will work just fine the placement may not be the same but you will have a nice big closet to hang up and another section with shelves including the safe.  I've been on the regal a few times but have never had an interior. I also sailed a few times on carnival but after trying princess I have not gone back to carnival.😊

[SenatorsFan]

I'll be following along also. 

[Mrhubbabubba]

Looking forward to another adventure and your thoughts on Princess.

[CynCyn]

Can’t wait for this review! 

[Saint Greg]

40 minutes ago, avonlady6390 said:

When it comes to the closest in a balcony I think it will work just fine the placement may not be the same but you will have a nice big closet to hang up and another section with shelves including the safe.  I've been on the regal a few times but have never had an interior. I also sailed a few times on carnival but after trying princess I have not gone back to carnival.😊

 

yeah I don't need a lot of hanging space. It's the open shelving where I can put all of my folded clothes without having to open and close closet doors that I liked in the interior. This one you have to open that door to get to the shelves. Then  you have to close it or you can't get into the bathroom Just a little less convenient.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Saint Greg

[Saint Greg]

2 hours ago, dickinson said:

I'm not a veteran but I thought I read something the other day on here that they might be starting to allow people to bundle again the shareholder and veterans benefit.  Maybe start a new thread to ask or resubmit your veterans request to see what happens.

I went ahead and resubmitted. The worst they can do is tell me no again. I had it backwards though. I got the vet credit then they denied my shareholder benefit. This was September 19th.