scubacruiserx2

On 7/4/2024 at 10:38 AM, Ken the cruiser said:

It’s time to start getting ready for our upcoming 21-day cruise on the Sky Princess out of Southampton that includes visiting ports in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, and Finland! The last time we cruised to the Baltic was back in 2018 and are looking forward to visiting this part of the world with Princess for the first time!

 

       

 

7-Day Norwegian Fjords				14-Day Norway, Denmark & Sweden
Date	Port	Arrival	Depart	Date	Port	Arrival	Depart
7/12	London-Heathrow	6:25 AM		7/20	Southampton UK		4:00 PM
7/13	LHR Ship Transfer		10:00 AM	7/21	At Sea
	Southampton UK	12:00 PM	4:00 PM	7/22	Skagen DE	9:00 AM	6:00 PM
7/14	At Sea			7/23	Copenhagen DE	7:00 AM	5:00 PM
7/15	Bergen NO	12:00 PM	8:00 PM	7/24	Warnemunde GE	8:00 AM	10:00 PM
7/16	Skjolden NO	8:00 AM	4:00 PM	7/25	At Sea
7/17	Olden NO	8:00 AM	5:00 PM	7/26	Stockholm SE	8:30 PM
7/18	Stavanger NO	10:00 AM	5:00 PM	7/27	Stockholm SE		2:00 PM
7/19	At Sea			7/28	Tallinn EE	8:00 AM	6:00 PM
7/20	Southampton UK	7:00 AM		7/29	Helsinki FI	7:00 AM	5:00 PM
				7/30	Visby SE	8:00 AM	6:00 PM
				7/31	At Sea
				8/1	Kristiansand NO	8:00 AM	6:00 PM
				8/2	At Sea
				8/3	Southampton UK	7:00 AM	9:00 AM
					LHR Ship Transfer	11:00 AM	3:55 PM

  

We have excursions booked where we will visit a few glaciers and waterfalls and some to sites with a little more historical relevance.

 

 

Informative Links:

    Current Sky Princess Location

    Northern Europe Weather

    Wildlife in Norway

 

As always please feel free to follow along, and if you have any questions let me know and we will try to find the answer.

 

  Thank you for doing this Live travelogue thread with photos . As a fellow photo threader ( about 15 years ) we understand how much work it takes to do this and we appreciate you and your effort .

 One question , when you did your Baltic cruise in 2018 were you allowed to visit the Crown Jewel of the Baltic , Saint Petersburg ?

7 minutes ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

 

 

 

 

Thanks for everyone's kind words - I appreciate it very much.   

 

We had a day of packing.   

 

We were surprised by dozens of towel animals out by the pool this morning.   This usually happens once a cruise toward the end and is often not announced.   If you are up late, you can see them setting up the night before.

 

 

Our final show of the evening was Step One Dance Company - In Tandem

 

Fantastic.

 

 

We are flying back to San Diego tomorrow.   

 

 

  Thank Pete and Judy for this Live thread and all of the hard work that you put in writing a thread . We hope that you have a safe trip home . We are also packing today to leave for our next cruise on Tuesday . 

A horrible bit of news from the Caribbean Princess yesterday , as a 14 year old boy is missing from the Caribbean Princess in Germany . He and his family are in our prayers . 🙏

https://www.foxnews.com/us/american-teen-missing-germany-after-family-fears-he-lured-from-caribbean-princess-cruise-ship

18 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

Happy Birthday Pat

 Thanks Mic and Rosie and CC for allowing us to meet . She's still sleeping while I take the desk watch  , but I will tell her when she wakes up . 🙂

 A Happy Birthday to my bride of 48 years . I'll love you forever ! The 🏆 wife for life , the ring  and the garter .

  On our last cruise 

 Wake up temps this morning . Home  80 - 93 F  rain , London 57 - 67 F rain , Reykjavik 52 F - 48 F rain . 

  We booked a dining date with my doctor today and he said that my health is cleared to go medically . We just booked all of our returned transportation . Less than a week for takeoff . ✈️🌐

On 6/30/2024 at 10:45 AM, Ladyandtramp said:

We have the late queen.  I was told by one of our private excursion guides the King would not be on until early July (I believe)

  We sure hope so , today is July .

 We just booked our ride to the ship in Southampton from our hotel in London .We found out that there is a company that will allow you to negotiate the price . We did get the best price with them .

On 6/28/2024 at 8:48 PM, beshears said:

Scubacruiserx2, well I never know (81 but most people think I look/act younger), but this may be the last cruise, so I'm planning on making the best of it, like I have done so far. 🙂 

 We think that you will have a great time at a great time of the year !

  Because of the lack of available hotels near the airport we picked another of our favorite sites near The Royal Albert Hall , the Knaresborough Hotel .

https://www.knaresboroughapartments.co.uk/location/

 We first stayed there when we went to see one of my favorite 70's singers and his band live , Al Stewart . It was a 1 mile walk from the hotel and we always play his song The Dark and the rolling Sea on the first night of a cruise . 

 Thank you Mic . I just did a quick weather check . 80 ( F ) 26.6 C 0500 here this morning , 59 F ( 15 C ) in London and 55 F ( 12.7 C) in Reykjavik . Looking forward to cooler weather . 

 We have asked our guide in Inverness to show us one of these .

1 hour ago, Sea42 said:

Thank you, I didn't know that!

  Ditto ! I've been doing photo review threads for more than 15 years and have never noticed that . Thank you for sharing ! Sometimes old dogs can learn ..

2 hours ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

I use an iPhone 15 for many shots. iPhones are great except for darker rooms, theatre, and long-range wildlife. iPhones are amazing cameras, and many people use them for everything with terrific results. I always use my phone instead of bringing my wide-angle lens for the Sony A6600. I now only use my DSLR for telephoto and theatre shots or if I need a bigger flash.

 

I used the Sony RX100 VII for most other stuff.  

 

It's easy to upload iPhone photos from your phone to cruise critic.  Sometimes you have to make the images smaller so they don't upload looking black.    

 

I will often copy my longer posts from my blog where I use Adobe Lightroom to tweak the photos and make them smaller.  

   Thank you ! I also have a Sony RX 100 and a couple of Canons . We did get an older iPhone which we will use in Europe but I've never taken a photo with it . It seems like the smart phone is smarter than I am . 🙂

Best wishes and the rest of your cruises . And thank you for the information on Spartina 449 , we did get 2 beach towels from them . 

On 6/26/2024 at 9:56 PM, beshears said:

As someone just posted, I am so thankful to be able to read these Enchanted Princess reviews. Yes, I KNOW it is their opinion, but so far it sounds/looks pretty good to me. In fact, I just contacted my PVP day before yesterday, as all of my group WANT to do the Enchanted, and are looking forward to doing the 10 day cruise. I and them as well have never done 10, so this will be a new experience for us. We have mentioned that if we don't (some of us have visited the ports before, but quite some time ago) want to get off the ship, there is always something going on if we want to be entertained.

 It sounds like a good trip . We think that you will love 10 days  Our longest was  6 weeks and we thought that may be too much , but we loved it ! 🙂😊

  One thing that we have never done on the CB is the Ultimate Breakfast which we will try to reserve with Princess today . We also hope because it's a longer cruise that they will have a Winemaker's Dinner . The last time that we did it was on our last cruise with Princess , The Enchanted for Valentine's Day and our anniversary  .

The Wine Makers Dinner

20 hours ago, Host CJSKIDS said:

 

Technically it's not a live from thread as it was started two months prior to a sailing, it's more a live from their life and their memories. This is technically a REVIEW of past cruises and ships. They still aren't on the journey to the cruise if you read the thread.

 

Live from threads have started to come about maybe a week earlier as people are traveling to their destination and cruise.  I have done that myself.  I will say that this is a first for me in the many years that I have been both a member and a Host on the boards where one is started so far in advance. I think this is what has confused many members. 

 

New members as well as seasoned members,  may not realize that what they are seeing is not coming from a current cruise and time.

 

  We started this thread less than a month ago as we booked the cruise at that time on post #7 . We have also made it clear to people who have become confused when we stated what area that our suite was in  ( Post #6 )  on the first day .

 Sometimes if people come in late to a movie show ( Or on a thread like this ) , they may become confused if they miss the beginning . I'm sorry if that is the case , but have never tried to portray that we are currently on our upcoming cruise . We will fly to London to stay for a couple of days on July 9th , a week from Tuesday . Meanwhile , we have labored to walk people through the process of booking dining reservations , and shown some of the locations that we hope to visit in the future , by using photos from past cruises . Are we allowed to do this ?

Day-by-Day Itinerary:

 Thank you for sharing your trip live with your great thread . I'm trying to do my first live and I would appreciate your help if possible . It looks like you use a DSLR as I do . How do you upload the photos or do you use a smart phone ? Thank you .

 We purchased 1000 £ from our bank today but no ISK . It will be interesting to see if we get the King or if the Queen is still in circulation .

2 weeks from today we are scheduled to leave . And so we are in the hunter and gatherer but soon to be packer mode . ✈️🌐

London is in a heat wave with tomorrow's forecast of 85 F tomorrow afternoon . It is that hot here currently at 1000 .

Whales , Penguins and Puffins  ( oh my ! )

 The first trip that we made to Europe ( the Baltic ) was in 2006 and the first trip to South America was 2007 both on the NCL Dream . So like the NCL Star and the CB Princess it's about the location . A Star  was born in 2001 to NCL and it has room for 2813 passengers . The Caribbean Princess was made in 2004 like it's sister ship the Sapphire Princess . The difference was that the CB has 19 decks and holds 3134 passengers while the Sapphire has only 17 decks and holds 2678 , leaving the Star in the middle of the passenger count but 3 years older than the Princess sisters .

 Both of the ships depart after about a 9 hour flight with a 2 day say in London for the Princess and 2 days in Buenos Aries for the Star . Both of the departure ports we will return to after the cruise and both will be the warmest ports of the cruise . The price is similar for suites but the Star has a much larger suite . They both have side balconies but the Star also has a forward facing balcony . Our last suite cruise on Princess was the Enchanted and it has a concierge while the CB does not . It does included a Spa pass instead of the Concierge , but the Spa on the Enchanted is much nicer than the CB . For a review of the Enchanted please see below . The Star has a Concierge before and during the cruise and a butler .

2 hours ago, galensgrl said:

This is the 2nd awesome review about Enchanted Princess. There was Itchy & Scratchys excellent recent review and now there is this excellent review from Scubacruiserx2. A while ago I was hoping someone would post a comprehensive review for our upcoming trip on Enchanted and I feel very lucky to have 2 reviews to get acquainted with the ship before we travel. Thank you!

 Thank you and if you have questions , ask away . Best wishes for the upcoming cruise . We leave 2 weeks from tomorrow to London for the CB but it's more about the location rather than the ship for us .

 We started the Southern Summer with a visit that included Penguins and we hope to continue with a Northern Summer with Puffins . Coming up is a look at the other ship compared to the CD .

A pair of Kings vs

 A pair of Puffins

  The only suite that we ever had was in 2018 . We think it was A -753 .