Review of Canada-Atlantic Oct 22nd Cruise

Now that I'm back to reality just wanted to provide a brief review of our lovely Oct 22nd cruise to Halifax and Saint John on board Regal Princess, while it's all still fresh in my memory. This was only my second cruise (and first with Princess) and my friend D's first one overall. Tl;dr version: we had a great time!

Me on the blustery deck of the Sanctuary shortly before sailaway.

Embarkation and disembarkation:

Both so smooth and fast! We got a car service to Brooklyn which was nice and hassle-free and when we arrived boarding was already underway. Got through security very quickly, check-in relatively quickly considering the long line, and then walked right off the ship. On disembarkation day, we were up early, had breakfast, finished packing, and then walked right off the ship. No complaints.

Cabin:

Our mini-suite on Aloha deck was gorgeous and the extra sitting area made things feel really nice and spacious. I found the bed extremely comfortable and I do like a firm mattress. The couch was BIG and the desk/writing area was very cute and comfy. The bathroom was also spacious and all the little shelves were ingenious for storing our stuff. I really loved the balcony though it was too cold to spend a lot of time out there, however I loved sitting out in the morning with pajamas and robe on and coffee in my hand. We were right next to the bridge which did not bother me, in fact when I was out taking pictures an officer on the bridge waved at me which I thought was very cute. We did not see a lot of our cabin steward but he did a nice job refreshing the stateroom daily.

Decor:

D and I LOVED the ship, we found it to be beautiful and elegant basically everywhere. My favorite area to hang out was Crooner's, I loved sitting at the little tables next to the balcony and looking out over what was going on in the Piazza. The deck areas were lovely as well, it was just too bad it was so cold and we couldn't enjoy them for long, but we got some nice walks in on the promenade deck and enjoyed half of a MUTS one night before it started raining.

Me on formal night, which was on Sunday. D was also in this photo but I didn't want to post his pic without permission. Suffice to say we both looked dashing. :D

Staff and passengers:

Lots of friendly people around, very few our age but that was what we expected. I talked to a lovely gentleman named Robert up on the Lido deck as we were sailing away from Halifax for a good hour or so and that was a really good moment. I also had a very nice experience with a staff member at the jewelry boutique and ended up with a gorgeous necklace to commemorate the trip. A couple of times the staff seemed less pleased to serve me than other people around me which I thought might have something to do with my age. This mainly happened at the Bar Piazza. They were simply a bit short and without smiles, which was different from the way they were treating other patrons, as well as different from the experience I had with virtually everyone else on the ship. The majority of the staff were very pleasant and accommodating.

Movement:

A bit rough on a couple of our sea days with 20+ foot swells. Not sure how typical that is or if veteran cruisers would consider that rough but I did. :D However I was taking low dosages of seasickness medicine prescribed by my doctor and was not bothered. Very glad I got that prescription! At one point I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to tip out of bed!

Ports:

As others have said, the wind forced the captain to reverse the original order of our ports and take the ship to Halifax first, then Saint John.D and I had only booked the hop on hop off bus in Saint John so we were pretty much unaffected. We explored quite a lot of Halifax on foot, walking to the Citadel first thing in the morning, then the Maritime Museum, then various stops along the waterfront. We ended up doing much the same in Saint John after the bus tour walking from point to point. Halifax was a nice day and Saint John was VERY cold. We had some great seafood in both ports.

Food and drink:

Our first night we ate at Sabitini's after attempting to head to the dining room for ATD and finding a very long line. The appetizers and pasta were delicious. Highly recommend the penne with braised short rib, it was cooked perfectly! For my main course I had roughy which I did not like as much. For dessert we had a chocolate dish and cheeses and they were superb.

Our second night (formal night) we attempted the dining room again--no luck with the lines! So we ended up at Crown Grill, which was fantastic. We ended up dining again on our last night at sea. Over the course of both our nights there I had the rib eye (twice), lobster tail, lobster cake, scallops, black and bleu onion soup, dessert samples, etc etc...all delicious. Great service too.

Our third night...we finally made it into the dining room! I'm forgetting what we ordered there which might be a bad sign, but I remember enjoying the food.

For the rest of our meals we visited the buffet and enjoyed it each time. They have a great variety and everything was very solid. Much better than I remember Royal Caribbean's buffets being.

On the subject of drinks, I'm so glad I got the AIBP! I had coffee from the International Cafe multiple times a day, plenty of bottled water, club sodas and all the vodka martinis I could want, plus a few other treats. It was very relaxing not worrying about the price of a drink and just ordering what I wanted when I wanted, which is exactly why I bought the package.

In summary:

D and I loved Princess and we are very glad we took this trip. I would sail on the Regal again in a heartbeat.

Hm, my pics won't embed so here are URLs instead: http://i.**********/qOxlvdk.jpg http://i.**********/m2Gvbtp.jpg

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for taking the time to post your review.....:):):)

Bob

Glad you enjoyed your cruise overall. Thanks for your feedback.