Coral Princess - review, kids & answers to random queries

[Jean C]

Funny thing about covid - out of all our group just me and both my daughters caught it. Mine feels like a heavy, feverish and achy head cold ( without the runny nose). One daughter's sounds very similar, although her progression is a day or so behind mine. Other daughter had her booster in November, about 3 weeks before boarding. She is asymptomatic, however is testing positive! No males and no kids though!

[Jean C]

Another thing I thought interesting. I recognised the Brisbane couple who were on board for two years and briefly chatted to them. They'd done about 18 or 19 months already and still had another 9 months to go. They came 3rd in the most cruise days passenger rankings. The couple who came first are also on board long term, until August. 

 

We're really naughty with our constant teasing of the 14 year old granddaughter - she genuinely takes it well and is smart enough to give back as good as she gets. Anyway, I keep telling her that she must marry money (my sense of "humour") and that I thought the 14 year old geeky looking boy along the corridor's parents were rich so he was to be her target - he was much, much shorter than she is and much "younger" in maturity (a shrimp in her words). 

 

Anyway, sad as it sounds, I had a bundle of OBC I didn't know how to use up (not interested on this occasion in shore tours).  14 year old has the "shopping gene" so I asked if there was anything in the shops she wanted. She set her heart on a ring, on trying it on and toying between best size to get, another passenger glanced over at her. 14 year old announced to her "I'm getting married" (although very tall she still looks young). The lady gave her a very shocked look. 14 year old said "it's an arranged marriage". The other passenger's look was priceless 😱

[patch nine]

2 hours ago, Jean C said:

Funny thing about covid - out of all our group just me and both my daughters caught it. Mine feels like a heavy, feverish and achy head cold ( without the runny nose). One daughter's sounds very similar, although her progression is a day or so behind mine. Other daughter had her booster in November, about 3 weeks before boarding. She is asymptomatic, however is testing positive! No males and no kids though!

Hope you feel better soon Jean.  Mine feels like a head cold too - was very tired this morning (maybe I tried to do too much) but feeling a bit better this afternoon.  It must be the female strain of covid as my husband doesn't have any symptoms either.  We will both test again tomorrow.   I feel sure I caught it on the tender over to Airlie Beach (Sunday) as was in it for a long time and it was very stuffy and crowded and my husband didn't go.  This would tie in with when my first symptoms started (dry throat on waking on Wednesday morning).   I also had my booster just 3 weeks before boarding

Edited December 3, 2023 by patch nine
update

[patch nine]

7 hours ago, Jean C said:

Funny thing about covid - out of all our group just me and both my daughters caught it. Mine feels like a heavy, feverish and achy head cold ( without the runny nose). One daughter's sounds very similar, although her progression is a day or so behind mine. Other daughter had her booster in November, about 3 weeks before boarding. She is asymptomatic, however is testing positive! No males and no kids though!

Give the men time, Jean.  My husband has now come down with it!  

[Jean C]

9 hours ago, patch nine said:

 [Covid] I feel sure I caught it on the tender over to Airlie Beach (Sunday) as was in it for a long time and it was very stuffy and crowded and my husband didn't go. 

We all went on a similar tender to Airlie Beach, so that might have been our contact too. It was very stuffy and crowded and our youngest girl, 7 years, turned decidedly green - she clutched a sick bag but didn't need it.  All kids on board the tender, ours and all others, looked weary and uncomfortable. On arrival staff thankfully announced "kids first" - there's always one though, a man was determined to be first off and although he looked bright and none the worse for wear, jumped ahead of the kids and was first off! 

 

They also used comfortable, air conditioned catamarans at Airlie Beach and Port Douglas and we were fortunate to be on them for all other journeys. One sensible man hung back from boarding the tenders until the catamarans pulled up - a good tip for the future 🙂

[Jean C]

PS, I feel as though I've turned a corner with covid, I'm feeling much better. Slept most of first and second day. At one stage my long haired layabout house mate woke me up touching my eyelid with his paw, checking I guess that I was still in the land of the living 🥰

[Jean C]

Decorations

How could I forget to mention that the atrium was beautifully decked out with Christmas decorations, along with beautifully decorated Christmas trees in the corridors around the atrium.  I particularly liked the cream themed tree in the atrium and the red tree outside the Wheelhouse Bar, the lights twinkled particularly brightly in the evening, with the corridor being that little bit darker - very magical 🎄 

[patch nine]

1 hour ago, Jean C said:

Decorations

How could I forget to mention that the atrium was beautifully decked out with Christmas decorations, along with beautifully decorated Christmas trees in the corridors around the atrium.  I particularly liked the cream themed tree in the atrium and the red tree outside the Wheelhouse Bar, the lights twinkled particularly brightly in the evening, with the corridor being that little bit darker - very magical 🎄 

Yes they were lovely weren't they, and they worked very hard all day.  Not long before we left Cairns they were frantically trying to get everything finished so they could leave the ship.  We were quite surprised at them starting halfway through as the last time we cruised at this time of year the decorators boarded as soon as we docked in Brisbane at the end of the cruise so obviously came from there.  Maybe with the new port being so far out it is easier to get the decorators on board in another port?  

[Jean C]

1 hour ago, patch nine said:

Yes they were lovely weren't they, and they worked very hard all day.  Not long before we left Cairns they were frantically trying to get everything finished so they could leave the ship.  We were quite surprised at them starting halfway through as the last time we cruised at this time of year the decorators boarded as soon as we docked in Brisbane at the end of the cruise so obviously came from there.  Maybe with the new port being so far out it is easier to get the decorators on board in another port?  

I didn't realise that the staff themselves hadn't done them!  I'd previously seen photos of ships decorated for Christmas and thought it would be like a Westfield shopping mall. How wrong I was, it was so very much better. Beautiful decorations 😊

[Jean C]

Some pics 😊

[Aus Traveller]

3 hours ago, patch nine said:

Yes they were lovely weren't they, and they worked very hard all day.  Not long before we left Cairns they were frantically trying to get everything finished so they could leave the ship.  We were quite surprised at them starting halfway through as the last time we cruised at this time of year the decorators boarded as soon as we docked in Brisbane at the end of the cruise so obviously came from there.  Maybe with the new port being so far out it is easier to get the decorators on board in another port?  

I could be that the specialty decorations team were working on other ships and dates had to be juggled. They probably contract with the decorators to work for 'X' number of weeks on their locally-based ships. Their decorations could easily have been loaded when the ship was in Brisbane.

[patch nine]

1 hour ago, Jean C said:

Some pics 😊

Lovely family photo Jean.  I certainly don't recall seeing your group around the ship.   It is funny but some people you just keep running into all the time and others you might talk to once and then you never see them again.  I guess a lot of people have routines as to when and where they eat etc. so if they are on your "schedule" you will keep seeing them.  On a cruise we did some time back there was a man (from Germany I think) who looked just like my brother and so we named him "John".  It became quite a joke wherever we went that we had to look for "John".  Whether we were eating, at a show, on a tour, it seemed "John" was always there 🙂