Disney Sheep

What a lovely cruise review you have written, I really enjoyed reading it today.

Did I spot a Doctor Who phone cover on one of your photos? I've been to Cardiff but only for a weekend and unfortunately we didn't get time to visit the Doctor Who exhibition but Cardiff itself is lovely. Your St Helier photos also brought back some lovely memories of a weekend that we stayed there once. And don't worry about using Jersey or Scottish money in England, that's fine to do so though some shops might be reluctant to take it. Being English I really enjoy reading other people's reviews of their British Isles cruises. It gives me a new perspective of places that I have been to. Thank you :)

Thank you for your kind comments and I am so glad that you enjoyed the review. Yes, you did indeed spot a Doctor Who phone cover on my iPhone - my kids introduced me to Doctor Who right around the 50th anniversary special and I became a fast fan. My birthday cakes for the last two birthdays have even been Doctor Who oriented. I would love to get to visit the the Doctor Who exhibition in Cardiff - I have told DH that one day after we retire we need to rent a place in England for a couple of months and just visit the rest of the British Isles! There are so many neat places to see and so much history every where to enjoy. Next trip to London I plan to find a Tardis:).

Many thanks for the great review Harry. Just wanted to let you know that my friend had a great time on the Allure last week, and as a first time cruiser it was great for her to have your recent experience to fill in the blanks with the stuff I had already told her!

So again, thanks for the great review. And by the way, she too took your approach of sticking with what was available in the basic cruise price, vice paying for any of the 'extras'.

Thanks for the heads up wrt the differences between Gold kid member benefits and Gold adult members. In some ways if the kids were in the same cabin as the parents and paying a reduced rate for being passengers 3 and 4, this system might make sense... Sort of. but you paid for a second cabin, and we will be paying for a second cabin just for our kids, so I am personally not pleased that my kids won't get the benefit of the BOGO milkshakes etc. and when it comes to pictures, it is because I have kids that I might want to buy more!

Oh well. But on the bright side, I am still enjoying your review, and learning stuff too.

And my friend was very appreciative of your info about where to find water and drinks at no additional charge, so thanks again.

Thanks for the quick reply Harry - I refered my friend to your review, so I am sure this will answer her concerns. From her perspective she would probably be just as happy with strategically located water fountains, but since we had the soda packages, and the soda machines had not only soda, but Minute Maid Lemonade and Dasani flavoured beverages, we simply looked for a machine. That said we also enjoyed tea (mostly) and occasionally coffee at Cafe Promenade, the Solarium Bistro and Windjammer, but I can see why my friend would still be looking for clarification on drinks when I told her I was sure that she could fill her water bottle with boiling water! Perhaps I was not all that helpful :).

Did you notice any water/drinking fountains around the ship? Just curious.

And I am sure that my friend will find your review of the Allure to be very helpful. Many thanks again.

Still following your great review Harry. Especially liked the audience of elephants :). Hopefully you can answer a quick question for me, since you did not buy the soda or drink packages, what liquids are available free of charge and where, and especially outside of dining times. A friend of mine will be sailing on Allure in the near future, and she and her family are more inclined to drink water than pop. Is water readily available for free?

Thanks to the OP. We too took advantage of this today and booked $500 OBC in USD for $550 CDN. Since we had to call back in the afternoon to get RCI to add the C&A numbers for me and the kids (DH's was fine) we had them confirm that we actually do have $500 USD in OBC on our account (they came up as credits) since it did not show up on the newest statement they sent.

As a side note, we had a Dunn's River Falls excursion in our basket for the last couple of weeks, and when we checked it today, the price had been adjusted to roughly $89 per person - roughly a 1.28 conversion rate given that the US cost is approx $69.75 per person! Yikes. We will now probably wait until we are on the ship and try to book our excursion.

 

At any rate, I digress.

 

On with the show - literally. So this band is basically the ABBA impersonators and they do a very job in looking and sounding like them. Since I know their songs from old days - might even have a 45 or two in my LP collection, I enjoyed the show and so did my kids even though this is not their musical era. To demonstrate that music is subjective, my wife didn’t really care for the show as she didn’t grow up listening to the original ABBA. She liked the next day’s show, Blue Planet, which I thought sucked so there’s no accounting for musical taste, not even for accountants. We like what we like and just leave it at that.

 

 

 

Ok, so I am laughing out loud again - and DH just waited patiently until I read him what I was giggling about. Just to say that I agree with you about your thoughts about the headliner show. Being anal myself I have created a schedule for our upcoming Oasis March cruise and have booked the headliner spot in. And yes, I know we can simply not go if it doesn't interest us, but if I knew ahead of time who the headliner is going to be, I might just re-jig my schedule in advance. Oh well, clearly this is a 'tough' problem to have !

 

We had MO5AIC on our Allure cruise last March and enjoyed them, again luck of the draw. However I really did not like the music with Blue Planet, don't mess with the music arrangements of my 'classic' music.

Got it. Be sure to double check with the tram driver before you get on if he goes all the way to the end of the line at Columbus Cove - our didn't and stopped short and we had to walk the rest of the way ourselves.

 

I have a theory that the longer trams don't go that far as they can't make the turn to come back at the Columbus round-about due to length of the tram but not enough data to support that.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there is a boat in the morning to transport passengers over to Columbus Cove, we were definitely not the first off the ship, and we took it last March break from the Allure. Although it is not available in the afternoon, my DH and DS took a tram back to the ship from Columbus Cove ( right by the food area) while DD and I casually strolled back, checking out the route we had missed in the morning.

Sorry to interrupt Harry's outstanding story, but I wanted to add my perspective on kids and Chicago. Every kid is different, and every parent has a different way of thinking about what's right for their kids, so hopefully another "data point" will help you.

 

We took our then 13 and 16 year old daughters when we were on the Allure and they loved the show. My then 13 year old dances competitively and she really wanted to see the dancing. The theme is definitely mature (adultery, murder) but there's no nudity or swearing. Depending on you perspective, you might think that some of the women are scantily clad (although not much different from many dancers). There is also some innuendo in the dialog/songs. I figured that it was stuff that my daughters had already heard anyway, although I later found that my younger daughter said some of it went right over her head. I took several pictures if you want to get a more visual feel. Jump to posting #34 here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1430874

 

Back to Harry. Bring on Cozumel!

Ok, I am now all caught up on Harry's Central Park tour. Great photos by the way and still really enjoying the review.

Just a side comment on Chicago as another perspective - I agree completely with the comments above. We watched Chicago with our teenagers, 15 and 16 years old at the time, and we all enjoyed it, my DH most of all :). I honestly felt that my kids had seen worse stuff on TV during prime time, but then what we watch and what we let our kids watch is subjective - and for our family it is all about the communication afterwards. We definitely would not have been happy say if the kids had seen this without us - and DH and I did discuss attending with the kids both before and after, and while we were ok with it, I think if our kids had been a lot younger we would have given the show a pass.

I will say that the CD on our cruise made the comment before the show started: These performers work hard ladies and gentlemen, so if you see something that you like please let them know. Well, when the curtains opened and the female cast could be seen wearing form fitting costumes, there was a LOT of appreciation shown by the teenaged (and many no longer teenaged) boys in the audience 😀

Disney Sheep can you please point us to the website of your review of the Allure from last year as my family and I are going to be on the Allure for Spring break this year?

Since I am not sure of the specific etiquette on this board, I will simply say if you Google, Disney Sheep Go Rogue an Allure-ing trip report you should find it. In general, I compare our Allure cruise to our previous cruise experiences (see my user name :).

On this board I found FamilyGoBoston, Gambee and Middle Aged Drama Queen to have great reviews. FamilyGo Boston's was a family vacation with teenagers, so that was a good basis for us.

Now, back to Harry's entertaining tales. DH and I hope to check out the Central Park tour in March.

Not to be a broken record, but I think that about 1/2 the audience always leaves. We saw the show at 2pm on the second day, which is the first sea day. My husband stayed and said at least half left. Personally I felt like I was sacrificing sun deck time, but as you say it really is a great value when you consider you are getting a show included that could cost upwards of $300 or more (2x maybe) for a family of 3 on Broadway. This is why we attended.

 

Glad you had a great cruise, too. Can't imagine how anyone couldn't!

Thanks for taking the time to write a review, we are sailing on the Oasis in March and your review is helping me with the wait!

Just a comment, I have seen Cats at our National Arts Centre in the past, and although I enjoyed it, I didn't love it. That said, we plan to see it as a family (including our 2 teenagers), in March. I think the difference between audiences on land and audiences on a cruise ship, is that on land you spend a lot of money to go see Cats, and you go to see it specifically because you want to see it, whereas on Oasis, the audience members have not invested in Oasis either financially nor intellectually, and therefore if it doesn't immediately appeal to them, then they leave because really there are lots of other really neat things to do.

Hi,

 

Sorry couldn’t finish this before you guys sail away. Hopefully you find it enjoyable/entertaining. I want to see pictures of the Icky Woods dance when they called you folks to board the ship…

 

First of all, never get stock tips from people online. They know less than you do.

 

That being said, I wouldn’t buy RCI stock now when the economy is doing well. The stock has sky rocketed the past few years. The time to buy these economically sensitive stocks (meaning the company does well when people have jobs/money/401k doing well and then people spend money on cruises/vacations) is not when things are going well.

 

The best time to buy these stocks is when the economy is in the toilet. Everyone is laid off and nobody is working and taking vacation. The company does poorly financially and the stock drops. Basic adage of “buy low, sell high”. Wait couple years as the economic cycle turns downward (they always go in cycles), then buy the stock.

 

You must own at least 100 shares of the stock to get shareholder benefit and here is the link for what OBC you can get – typical $100 OBC per 7 day cruise.

 

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=103045&p=irol-shareholderbenefit

 

What you doing checking cc the night prior to cruising? Aren’t you supposed to either already be in FLL drinking away or at home packing instead of getting stock tips from a total stranger?

 

Have a wonderful cruise.

Ok, this made me laugh! Well, actually I have enjoyed all of your review and laughed before when reading, but this brought me out of 'lurkdom' since my DH and I have had similar conversations and made similar comments.

Although I am more 'administratively retentive' than 'financially' I do love me some numbers! Our family of 4 (including 2 teenagers) did an Allure cruise for March break last year, and we loved it so much we are heading back this March break to check out the Oasis. I did a cruise report on another board last year, and my spread sheet looked similar to yours - but being an 'admin type', I made my schedule in Word :). And yes, I already have a spread sheet made for our Oasis cruise, lots of pretty colours too.

Bottom line we are enjoying your review - I say we, since although I am reading it, every time I laugh I end up having to pass my iPad to DH - it is easier than explaining myself! And yes, that means he has read quite a lot of your review now as well! We also understand the 'camera concepts' you bring up, since we usually travel with a Canon DSLR, an Olympus waterproof camera, and a point and shoot Nikon - and DH grumbles when he has to deal with the time change issues.

Looking forward to 'the rest of the story'.

Hopefully this isn't too much/too long, however I cut and paste a post I made on a trip report I wrote on another cruise board after we did a cruise on the Allure last March:

GLUTEN-FREE EATING/OPTIONS. The morning of our first breakfast at Windjammer I took the opportunity to speak to the the available chef (Chef Victor) to discuss what was /wasn't safe for us to eat. Realistically, there were lots of choices, (note, stay away from the tasty sausages), but he then had GF pancakes (we declined his offer of waffles) made and delivered to our table.

Also, at the port side toast station in Windjammer they have individually packaged Udi's GF bagels and a dedicated toaster available, where one of the staff will don a clean set of throw away gloves and make you GF bagels on request. DD also discovered that they have individually packaged hotdog and hamburger styled buns at the same station. And they were all tasty.

We also took great advantage of the frozen yogurt available at both the Wipeout Cafe and at a machine across from the towel station on the pool deck. Wipeout had bowls and spoons available (since GF cones are never available on cruise ships it seems, but when 'forced' to use the stand alone fro-yo machine one day, I simply let DH eat the cone part of my ice cream, and yes I realize that I am lucky as most Celiacs would have a cross contamination issue with that.

Sorrentos has gluten free pizza available on request. In general it takes about 10-15 minutes for them to prepare it and your choices are either cheese or pepperoni. I tried to convince them to put some of the fresh toppings available such as ham and pineapple etc on my pizza, but I was told very firmly that they were not allowed to do this! Interestingly enough, my kids and I separately both went to Sorrentos just minutes apart. The GF pizza made for them apparently had a thick and delicious crust while the pizza made for me had a thin crust. It was still tasty though, but I think that I would have preferred the thicker crust.

DH and I visited the Promenade Cafe daily, usually more than once. The Promenade Cafe offers tea and coffee as well as small sandwiches and desserts such as muffins, pastries and cookies available at no extra charge. From this perspective, DH had lots of choices to nibble on. On the positive side, individually wrapped Udi's gluten-free cookies were available on request. They had both snicker doodles and chocolate chip - but the chocolate chip were very popular, so you had to score those in the morning and save them for later.

Another tasty treat that I discovered was in the Solarium Bistro. On a regular basis during our cruise they had what I called Nut'n'Honey cookies, since they were made from nuts and seeds and maybe dried fruit, held together with honey on a thin base of chocolate. There was nothing officially to indicate that they were GF, however when I inquired, the server behind the counter listed the ingredients as stated. I personally did not have a reaction and they were wicked tasty.

MY TIME DINING (MTD)/ GLUTEN-FREE EATING cont'd: As for the Celiac issue, we are very fortunate in our family that although we are officially diagnosed with this health issue, we don't tend to react to minuscule amounts of gluten such as that encountered through cross contamination, which means as long as we don't directly eat gluten we can enjoy a buffet for example, where getting 'glutened' as my kids call it, is a real possibility. Yes, all three of us did get glutened on this trip, possibly at the buffet (darn those tasty sausages) although it may have occurred at the pre-cruise hotels.

When we reserved our cruise, the early dinner seating option was no longer available, so we chose MTD. Based on me scouring reviews/ Compasses from the Western Caribbean cruises on Allure and Oasis, I created my planning schedule and we reserved our shows and our dining times as soon as the opportunity arose.

Arriving at the Adagio restaurant the first night (and all nights actually) we were escorted in to our table with almost no wait. Serving wise however, things did not go well. As soon as we mentioned to our waiter that we were gluten-free, we clearly threw him for a loop! Although the assistant server had already rapidly provided us with a plate of GF bread, the server literally backed away from us as if we had something contagious! Apparently he rushed off to locate the head server who was busy elsewhere. After a long while the server returned and told us that we could only order from the 'Classic' menu items ( I.e. Plain chicken breast, plain steak etc), despite there being symbols on the menu for several items indicating that they could be prepared GF. We were definitely not impressed and I was about to insist on seeing the head server when he appeared.

The head server had no problem taking our order for items from the normal menu that were identified with a 'wheat' symbol, and our dinner proceeded happily along. The head server also took our order for 'tomorrow night's dinner' as we were accustomed to on our DCL cruises. We were informed that wherever we would be seated the next night for dinner our food order would follow us.

Fast forward to dinner #2. We arrived at approximately the same time (most of our meals were reserved at times in line with the early dinner seating time) and we were lead to the opposite side of the dining room. We explained to this new serving team that we were gluten-free and that we had pre-ordered our meals the night before. Our serving team handled things well, however we were informed that they only two of our orders had been placed. I was honestly starting to question why I had booked us on this cruise if RCCL could not handle feeding us GF meals - really, we are not high maintenance when it comes to food (honestly, meat and potatoes in most basic forms is GF!).

Happily this serving team did not find this issue to be insurmountable and our meals showed up as ordered and our dining experience was pleasant. In fact even without making a formal request, we had this same dining team for the rest of the cruise, and their service was excellent.

With respect to the actual food, we thought it was good, sometimes it was even great, and on the rare occasion (classic menu item steak) not inspiring. However in our experience, the same can be said for DCL. As an example, DH found the breads, steaks and desserts to be better on DCL, however the WJ buffet breakfast, the salads and shrimp (in butter) was better on RCCL.

Patience my friend

 

Sent from my Galaxy Note 3 using Tapatalk

Now that is a smart and happy man who knows his football team. Great last '2 minutes' of the game! That would be 2 football minutes :)

Enjoying your review. I just celebrated my birthday too, but will have to wait to sail on the Oasis until March break! I think you are doing it the right way :).

My husband is also watching the football game right now and rooting for the Seahawks too- hope things turn around soon!

Special request please - If you happen to visit the Britto store, I would appreciate it if you could you please check on the price of their tea pots? I have asked DH as my b-day present to buy me a teapot on our Oasis cruise in March, but he would prefer to get it here at home if the prices are comparable, so as not to risk breaking it in transit.

Many thanks.

Bump - in answer to another thread

This is another vote for putting ironed/dry cleaned clothes in plastic dry cleaning bags.

I decided to relive our cruise once more before the year turned to 2015 by rereading this thread; thank you for the wonderful pictures, Yvonne. It was especially wonderful looking at the Tattoo pictures since we will have none of them due to the dropped camera.

 

I was hoping that my wife might show up in one of your poolside pictures since she spent so much time there, but alas she did not.

 

I can't believe I missed an early post of yours (I think it was on page 2 either right before or right after I first posted) in which you gave the dates you were on the cruise. We would have known 10 pages earlier that we were on the same cruise.

 

DW has now been able to wear the sweater she purchased in Dublin. And her mother got her Christmas gift sweater from the same shop. It's good that it fit.

 

We're considering a cruise for next summer that is mostly in your country, Canada. It would be either Boston to Montreal or vice versa with a day before or after in Montreal. Which date we pick would depend on which date gets picked for my (50th) high school reunion. We would have to work out the logistics of a cruise with a different starting and ending point, though at the moment it looks like flying to and from Newark might work best. It would be on Holland America. We have sailed once on that line Rome to Rome on an Eastern Caribbean cruise. Or we could do something entirely different.

Hello again! I am glad that you enjoyed this report, it was neat to be able to share this trip report with someone who was actually on the same trip - even if I wasn't sure of this at first :). I have to admit that I have re-read my own trip report in December when I was writing our annual family Christmas letter - just because it was fun to re-live it. This trip truly was enjoyable and we have lots of great memories. We also have the Christmas decoration that I picked up at Edinburgh castle on our tree, which brings back nice memories each time we see it :).

I am glad that your wife (and her Mother) are now enjoying their sweaters from Dublin. We have a cruise booked with Disney this summer and I am deciding whether to knit sweaters before hand or buy them in Norway!

Here is wishing everyone a Happy New Year - especially since I was amused to find out that 2015 will be the year of the Sheep... hopefully that includes Disney Sheep :D

Link to Western Compasses from Thanksgiving was posted in other thread with Western Compasses in the title.

Many thanks for the Compasses!

I noticed that Windjammer now has a theme for dinner each night, Day 1 to Day 7 in order, Turning Japanese, Seafood Extravaganza, Prime Rib Night, La Vida Loca, Ocean Drive, Shanghai Surprise and Texas BBQ. I did not notice this last year on the Allure, so perhaps this is new (?) as a result of the upcoming move to DD.

Train - Edinburgh. Inverkeithing to/from Waverley Stn. Tickets for passengers under 16 years of age are free, which meant our return tickets for off peak hours (on day 2), cost us only £11 for all three of us. That said, the train was late and we did not get in to Edinburgh until well after 10 am that day. Discussion we overheard on the train platform indicated that this had also happened the day before, so we were really glad that we had taken the taxi the first day and got ahead of the crowd.

When we got back to Waverley Stn to return to Inverkeithing, the monitors did not include Inverkeithing as a destination - after asking an attendant in an information booth, we discovered that we needed the train to Glenrothe (I.e. The final destination), which also stopped at Inverkeithing. Note, it actually left from the same platform that we had arrived on. Fortunately we had allowed ourselves a few minutes grace time at the station, which allowed us to find our platform on time.

Tenders. For ports where we had to tender, we lost at least an hour on arrival and an hour (or more) on departure - as in it was a greatly shortened port day. Although we were fortunate enough to dock in Rosyth (Edinburgh) and Dublin, we had to tender at Milford Haven and at St Helier. The process at Milford Haven was fairly simple and there was no issue getting the tender for the short trip to shore. Departure time at Milford Haven I.e. Last tender, was identified as being 2 hours before the scheduled sail away, but it wasn't too big of a deal since we had a reasonably full day in port 9 am to 4 pm, which became 2 pm.

At St Helier we were only scheduled to be in port from 9 am until 2 pm. The reality with tendering was that the first tenders were filled with those passengers on Princess excursions and maybe 20 other passengers. We managed to be on the next tender, but since it was about a 20 minute boat trip each way plus loading and unloading, it was after 1030 hrs before we arrived on the dock. And then the 'last tender' time was scheduled for 1 pm. So, realistically just over 2 hours available to us in this port. There were a whole lot of unhappy passengers. As well, luckily we were in line before 1 pm, since the excursion buses arrived back after we got in line, and they appeared to be waiting a couple of tenders after we got back! The sad part was that St Helier was one port that had so much potential that we would have loved a really long day there to explore it!

Ports on our Own. Since we chose to do all of the ports on our own, it was very important to build in time to relax as well as time to explore. In Edinburgh, Dublin and St Helier we enjoyed a quick stop at Marks & Spencer's food court/grocery store to buy gluten free cookies and pop for a quick refreshing break - and in each of the places we stopped in a local 'green space' for a break and our refreshments, in Edinburgh there is Princes St Gardens as well as Arthur's Seat, in Dublin there is St Stephens Green as well as Merrion Park, and in St Helier there is the Queen Victoria Park, which happens to be right across from a long stretch of beach, all of these places are great options for a break from sight seeing and/or shopping.

Money in St Helier and Scotland. Although both St Helier and Scotland accept Great Britain Pounds (GBP) as currency in stores and restaurants etc, they each have their own regional currency. The problem that arises is that the Jersey pounds and Scottish pounds are not accepted as tender outside of their specific regional boundaries.

Fortunately we easily spent all of the Scottish pounds that we received as change in local stores while we were still in Scotland. In St Helier however, we used a 20 GBP bill to pay for our coffee (desperately needed after the ventilation gremlins in our cabin woke me up and kept me awake for a good part of the previous night). The change we received was in Jersey currency. This did not concern us as there was lots and lots of shopping available in St Helier. Somehow or other, even after a stop at Marks & Spencer for the last package of gluten free shortbread cookies they had, we still had 10 Jersey pounds in our pocket as we headed for the tender. At that point DH and DS were not interested in any more shopping and just wanted to get back to the ship. Happily for me, we passed by the same coffee shop we had been in before, and I simply asked the cashier (who had served me) to exchange our money for GBPs, and she did without hesitation. I was very happy about this, and even more so when I read in a later review that the reviewer's bank at home would not exchange the Jersey money for her.

Phone signal on the ship. Prior to leaving Canada, and recognizing that we would need/want to contact DD while we were travelling, we purchased International texting plans with our carrier, Bell. For $30 for each phone ($60 total) we were able to receive all of the texts we wanted without any other additional cost, and we could each send 200 texts. Not inexpensive, but a reasonable price for peace of mind. Everything worked well with our plans and we were able to contact each other and to get together in Edinburgh without any issues. Unfortunately on the sea day after Edinburgh, just as we headed around the northern tip of Scotland, my phone indicated No Service. Although we were a bit surprised, given the location we accepted that we were perhaps in too remote an area for signal. Our table mates who used Verizon informed us that the same thing happened to them. What really threw us however was that after we reached Dublin we still had no signal and by Milford Haven we recognized that it did not appear that phone service was going to return on its own.

In Milford Haven we enjoyed tea at a small cafe that was open (one of the very few stores open on a Sunday, or even that was available at all, but I digress) and we were able to connect with DD by using the free WiFi available. On the morning at St Helier when I had to go to the Guest Services desk to report the continued issues with noise from the ventilation system, I explained to the officer in charge about the issue I was having with No Service on my phone. Her answer (since she had an iPhone too and had experienced this herself) - a hard boot! As in, hold the off button down on the phone until it shut down completely, not just turned off, wait 30 seconds or so and then hold the button down again until the phone came back on. That was it, 'magically' (or so it seemed to me), my phone suddenly started to receive texts again. Woo hoo.

Our table mates however had to contact Verizon's help desk to receive direction on the steps to put their phone through I.e. changing settings etc, before they got their service back. On the positive side, since they had also asked for assistance at Guest Services, the helpful crew member had allowed them to call from the desk and therefore there were no additional costs for them to figure this process out.

I had to pop back in to once again than you for posting your trip report.

 

You've made me even more excited for my own British Isles cruise this summer.

 

I certainly appreciate all the helpful hints!

 

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

 

Kristen

Glad to have had you reading along.i hope you really enjoy your British Isles trip. Honestly, I keep telling DH that I we need to put another British Isles cruise on our 'some day' list since we enjoyed it so much!

It must have been my wife who was splashed; after all who else was in the pool. Tell them she does not remember being splashed. Being in the water (mostly underwater according to your husband's description), she was already wet.

 

You could have joined cruisecritic back in June when you booked. It's really a good way to meet fellow passengers. On one of our cruises we found out that another couple who would be on our cruise lived one town away from DW's mother. We ended up meeting them before the cruise. On the same cruise (Baltic on the Star Princess) an excursion was set up in St. Petersburg. Setting up private excursions often happens on the roll calls, but they can also be used just to meet other cruisers.

 

The only thing that had me thinking we could have been on the ship at different times was you quoted temperatures a few degrees higher than I remembered. I have come up with two possible explanations. The first is DW really likes to swim early on cruises. (One of the great things on this cruise was the pool was never drained and covered until disembarkation day.) Maybe we were looking at temperatures at 6 AM or even a little earlier, while you were looking at later temperatures. The other (and probably more likely explanation) is that the formula for converting temperature is 9/5 C +32 =F. It is often approximated as 2C +32 =F. I may have been computing exact while you were approximated. This would explain the few degrees more that you cited compared to me.

Glad to have had you along for this review, it was enjoyable to see the same cruise from a different perspective. As for the difference in temperatures, perhaps we Canadians don't feel the cold!:rolleyes:. Actually, in the Patter, the temperatures were listed as 17 or 18 degrees on most days - and the days they were supposed to be 17 degrees were the days we found it to be warmer! Then again, we did wear jeans and light jackets most days, as per the pictures :D.

Thanks for a memorable and thorough review of your cruise.

 

I sailed on the Ocean P in September. Beautiful ship.

 

Norris

Just back from an unexpected business trip and am checking back in. Thank you for reading along too :).

Booking with Princess. When we first booked our summer British Isles cruise (June 2014), we placed two ocean view cabins on a courtesy hold while we organized vacation time at work. When we called to finalize the booking (within the courtesy hold period) however, we were informed that only one cabin was actually available for us to book and that the other was simply wait listed. At this point we were more than a little unhappy, especially when the Princess representative on the phone initially told us that she was sorry about the mistake but that there was nothing that she could do. At that point we insisted on speaking with a supervisor and within 20-30 minutes they offered us two balcony rooms at the same price as the two ocean view rooms we had initially placed on hold. Overall we were not happy with the mix up, but we appreciated that they did manage to sort this out without it costing us more than we were originally willing to pay, especially since this cruise was pretty much fully booked. Although they probably expected up to be impressed with the 'upgrade', this is not a cruise that we would have willingly paid extra for a balcony.

Balcony or no balcony. Although we appreciated having the large window that our cabin balcony provided us, realistically it was too windy and too cool to use the balcony during this trip. In Dover we started a 'mini-tornado' in our cabin when we accidentally opened the balcony door and the cabin door at the same time and all of the papers in the room flew everywhere, including out the balcony door, along with the curtains! Further, the balcony door/window was very difficult to move in either direction, period. The one port where temperatures and weather conditions were actually reasonable and we did go out on the balcony was in St Helier, but we did not stay out for more than 5 minutes. Realistically most of the ports were very industrial and combined with temperatures/weather/ wind, not really conducive to encouraging balcony use.

Clock/Alarm clock. Our cabins did not include clocks, although you could easily use the room phone to set a wake up call as required. Luckily for us we always travel with Eddie Bauer travel flashlights that include digital clocks with alarms as well, such as temperature gauges. I was comfortable with keeping my flashlight clock on my night table, but I did miss having a neon digital clock on display at all times. Just something to think about, especially if you are in a cabin without a window. Note, Princess sold similar 'flashlight clocks' in the gift shop, but I did not notice the price.

Princess robes. Although we are lowly Gold members of the Captains Circle, there were basic Princess robes hanging on the bathroom door in both of our cabins and the tag read 'one size fits all'. I am not sure who 'all' is, but unless 'all' is a size 2 vertically challenged individual, I would not count on the Princess robes fitting everyone.

Jackets/Coats. When you make wardrobe decisions make sure that the jackets/coats that you bring with you look really really good on you in photos - and make sure that you like them! Although I brought one windbreaker and two lightweight 'jackets' as well as three sweaters/ cardigans, my Lululemon jacket became my go-to jacket and essentially turned up in every picture! It was the right 'weight' and it had pockets - to carry my Seapass and iPhone etc. And with the zippered front it was easier to control my internal temperature - i.e. sun behind clouds vs sun out, windy vs in the lee of a building etc - weather and temperature really does fluctuate a lot within an hour in the UK, let alone within one day! Looking back at the photos of our trip it looks as if my blue Lululemon jacket was the only jacket I brought!

Photography/Lack of Photo Packages on Princess. Unlike Disney or RCI, Princess does not have (IMHO) reasonably priced photos/photo packages. As a result, on this trip I have way more photos taken with my own camera off the ship than on the ship (well as long as you don't count hot tub photos - but I wasn't wearing a jacket in those anyway). The 8 x 10 photos are either $19.99 (restaurant photos or port arrival photos etc) or else they are $25 for posed photos. Either way they are way way too expensive, so although I wore my cardigans with my dresses etc around the ship, I did not purchase those photos. IMHO Princess needs to get with the 21st century and offer photo packages. As an example, I bought only two photos this trip (and I was able to use coupons, so they weren't full price) - and I am a scrapbooker who usually buys the digital package on the other ships!

Cabin Maintenance. If you think there is a problem in your cabin report it ASAP! The first couple of nights when the ship was really moving fast we thought we were hearing a foghorn in our cabin (6082). Really. It was always somewhere between 2am to 3 am. But it was a cyclical/inconsistent sound in relatively short bursts at first. And, we were so so so tired that we attributed it to something passing by outside or else wind whistling through the balcony windows or else just our imaginations - however that 'imagination' caused us to lose sleep. By the night before Ireland things in the ventilation system had degraded to us being awake from 2-3 am to a sound so loud and for such an extended period that guest services could hear it over our phone. And it was still going when the night supervisor and company arrived 10 mins later. It turned out that part of the problem was a broken baffle (flap). When they replaced it the next day we did not hear the loud foghorn sound any more. That said, at the same time the next night the ventilation system still went through its cycle and although it did not get anywhere near foghorn levels, it still woke me up (not DH though). When I reported it (after losing a couple of hours of sleep since I couldn't get back to sleep(!), I was met with skepticism by the maintenance staff. Trust me, I did not appreciate the attitude and was just glad we only had one night left to the cruise by that point. And in case you are wondering, I went against my natural instincts and took a Tylenol nighttime to help me sleep on the last night - I was desperate for sleep at that point.

Pool/Hot Tub Use. If you are normally a pool and/or hot tub kind of person, make sure you enjoy these facilities while on the Ocean Princess. Potentially thanks to the older demographic on Princess combined with the cooler temperatures in the northern Atlantic waters, both the pool and the hot tubs were under used. This worked out to our advantage as the water temperature of these facilities was heated, although not hot in either case. Still, we enjoyed family hot tub time every day with mocktails - we took the approach of the US postal service motto (mis-quoted of course) neither wind nor cloud cover nor dark of night shall keep us from our appointed hot tub rounds :). Luckily for us, there were no periods of rain when we wanted to soak, although that probably would not have stopped us.

Afternoon Tea. We are a family that enjoys drinking tea. Although it is not a make or break thing for a cruise for us, quality of tea on a cruise is an integral part of the experience for us - maybe why we enjoy the British Isles so much??

The tea bags that are available on the Ocean Princess are the Twinings variety, so not bad, but not my preferred Tetley or Red Rose.

However, during afternoon tea, held each day in the main dining room on deck 5 from 3:30-4:30 pm (or in Sabatinis if there is a wine tasting scheduled in the main dining room) the tea is properly steeped. They also provide a wide variety of sandwiches, squares, cookies and scones - all of which contain gluten, which my son and I cannot eat because we are Celiacs - the tea however is still worth going for!

On our first afternoon the staff provided us with some kind of jellied dessert, which was edible and ok in a pinch. Before I left the dining room, I approached the staff member who appeared to be in charge and mentioned that I intended to attend tea each day and that I would appreciate it if he could find us something 'crunchy' to eat - and that gluten-free scones would be ideal! Although I clearly threw him just a little, he promised that he would bring my request to the chef, but he could make me no guarantees. I am very happy to report that on our next visit to afternoon tea, the staff were pretty much waiting for us, and for the rest of the cruise we had warm scones with whipped cream and jam available each day. They also offered to have sandwiches or other goodies made, but we were happy with the scones since they were such a treat and delicious as well.

Dublin Taxi Driver. Not all Irish taxi drivers are nice. Although it was still before 10 am when we got off the ship (docked), there was only one taxi waiting. All of my research had indicated that a taxi from the dock to Trinity College (approx 3 miles distance I.e. 4km walking route and 6 km taxi driving route), should cost around 10€ roughly. I was even prepared for inflation and I had factored 15€ in my cost estimate. However when we asked the taxi driver told us it would be 6€ each or 18€ for the 3 mile trip!!! If I hadn't been so tired (from the middle of the night personal foghorn in our cabin) I would have balked and convinced DH that we should find another way. Instead since we were later than planned DH just agreed. We did grab a taxi at the end of the day - he quoted us 15€ as the expected cost for the trip and then read the meter at 11€. DH gave him 15€ and told him to keep the change - it wasn't the money for the first taxi driver, it was the principle that bugged me.

Later in the hot tub, another passenger told us that about a mile from where we were docked there was a bicycle rental station that they had used, the kind where you swipe your Visa (I think) to unlock and rent your bike - if only we had known! Seriously, a mile walk would have been a breeze (15 minutes max) and then it was another 2 miles roughly to downtown Dublin. We love biking around. If we ever find ourselves in a similar situation, this is definitely an option to explore.