Information reqiured on the Royal Princess

[Bazbel]

Can someone please help with what to expect in our normal cabin on the Royal Princess.

Where are the powerpoints located?

The profile on the princess says toileties are in the cabin-what sort of toileties?

Does Princess make available via the Pursers Office a writeup of each port that you are visiting?

Wardrobe space-How much?

Also are there coffee/tea machines out on the back deck that you can use for free, are there tea making facilities in the cabins?

We have been cruising on the ships around Australia but I get the impression from these boards that cruising over there is different.

What is a soda card? and what would be the price of a bottle of beer,

:) and anything-else that you think we should know.

I thank you for your help

 

Bazbel

[relevart]

Bazbel,

 

Since no one has answered you for a few days I will answer with what I know. I have never been on the Royal Princess, but will be on 2-21. I have been on a 16-day cruise on the Golden and a 30 day cruise on the Star. The toiletries come in cardboard containers, there is soap, shampoo, conditioner and I believe some sort of lotion. It was perfectly fine.

 

 

The travel desk has write ups of each port and they are also sent to your cabin.

 

 

No coffee or tea making facilities on deck but you can always get it from room service or in the café. No charge unless you get fancy coffee like espresso etc.

 

 

A soda card gives you all the soda you care to drink for the length of the voyage. The price varies. I paid about 32.00 on the 30-day cruise. I guess it is a lot more expensive for 7-day trips (like $20 – 25). You do not get cans only on-tap soda. I don’t remember about the price of beer. Maybe 3.00.

 

 

That is all I can help you with.

[pmcrusta]

Was on the Royal from Buenos Aires to Ft. Lauderdale in 2004.

Powerpoint (a guess electricity outlet) it's just above the vanity/desk near the TV. Bring a power strip so you can have more outlets.

 

There is some shampoo and hand soap if memory serves me correctly.

 

As relevert stated there is a discription of the ports in your cabin when you arrive. Plus the tour desk can help you. But you may want to reserve before you get on board. We learned as we went along that the earlier you book the better you guide is/tour. I'd never realized this before. But when your on a smaller ship and for longer the crew chats with you and you can find all kinds of little points of important information.

 

Wardope was large enough. We kept our suit cases under our bed. We kept just moving things we weren't using in the suit cases. The temperature changes so it worked fine. Packing is rough because of the hot then really cold weather.

 

Coffee, teas (hot & cold), lemonade, milk, orange juice. Are available on Liddo deck at the buffet. Nothing in regular cabins for making tea or coffee. Room service was not 24hrs. like other ships, when I was on the Royal. There is a small refrigerator.

 

I think a beer was $3.50. It may be more now.

 

You may want to ask your room stewart for a egg crate cushion for your bed, the wall one (that folds up) is a little hard, do this as soon as you get on the ship.

 

Most every where we went US dollars and $5's were the most used currency.

The pursers desk even ran out at the last part of the cruise of those small bills.

 

Since your asking on this board I assume your taking a cruise in SA. It's a great part of the world to visit. I got some interesting information on http://www.lonelyplanet.com before going. It's not a cruise web site but it can give you some insight from people that are on land. As this cruise has a number of land tours. Have a great cruise. :)

[Bazbel]

To pmcrusta and relevart,

 

Thank you for your replies. They were of great help.

Only 16 days till we leave Australia

 

Bazbel:D

[pmcrusta]

Have fun, this is a great cruise...

[Bazbel]

If you're interested in any possible tours, could you email me at

bazbel4@hotmail.com

 

Thanks Bazbel :)

[Kwaj girl]

....after a wonderful 14-night cruise from valparaiso to Buenos Aires. We are waiting in the AMEX lounge for our flight and they have free internet here so thought I'd just check in....

We were lucky enough to get a jr suite but had friends in the standard cabins. They did say that they did not have enough storage space in their cabin. Beware that some suitcases may be too big to fit under the bed but your cabin steward will store them for you if you wish. Toiletries include some good bar-type soap that is hard-milled...doesn't melt away after your first shower....also in packets you will have shampoo, conditioner and lotion. These are okay for most purposes.

If you can, try to get some liquid hand sanitizer gel to keep with you. They do have it at the Lido buffet area for passengers to use and hopefully more will use it on your cruise than did on ours. Many ill passengers...NOT the Norovirus, just the usual colds and such that happen when large numbers of people gather in confined spaces. The hand sanitizer will be useful in-port when using public restroom facilities which may not be quite up to cleanliness standards that you may be used to.

Be prepared for a variety of climates, from well-below freezing to very hot and humid. We experienced these extremes and everywhere in between. Our sea days were sometimes cloudy or overcaast and a bit rainy at times. But our port days were always good. We even had almost ''flat'' seas around Cape Horn which kinda disapointed us! They say that calm waters occur there less than 20 days out of the year and on the previous cruise it was quite rough, so we were lucky?

I think the soda sticker was around $35US for the 2 weeks. We preferred to stick to the wines! If you have not yet signed up for your excursions, 2 of the best ones are the Bluff Cove Penguin Rookery at Stanley(Falkland Islands) and the City Highlights-Juanico Winery tour at Montivideo (Uruguay). Wait for the rest of the passengers to go to the coffee-refreshment hut at Bluff Cove and if you are very still and quiet the penguins will come right up to you. DH got a great video clip of a brave little penguin that came right up to me and gently pecked at my leg as if trying to figure out what I was! Also the winery tour includes a luncheon as well as wine tasting. Don't be afraid to try the meats and cheeses...we had no ''ill effects'' if you know what I mean. The salads-cold dishes were wonderful but when they brought out the first hot barbeques meat trays we had what looked like some kind of white meat that we thought was pork...but it just didn't taste ''right'' so we didnt eat it. The sausages on the same grill-plate were very good. When our waitress brought out the grilled beef I asked what the first meat was....she said it was sweetbreads! I think if I had known that, I never would ahve tasted it. But now I can say I've had sweetbreads!

The Royal is a wonderful ''small'' ship by Princess' current size standards. While there are not tons of activities to choose from every second of the day, there's enough to keep you busy especially if enjoy trivia games (3x daily), art auctions, enrichment lecture programs (a PhD that used to work with the Apollo space program was on board and gave sevral interesting lectures...also a psychologist that had several ''motivational'' seminars and another lecturer on various health and fitness issues. There's always bingo and bridge, plus tons of board games to play with other interesting passengers. We found that many passengers were from South America on this cruise...for once, English was NOT the ''main'' language. We were seated for dinner with a lovely couple from Bogota, Colombia....luckily I am fairly fluent in Spanish so we had a good time.

If I can squeeze it in after going right back to work tomorrow...I'll try to post a more comprehensive review. Hope this helps...

Sandy aka ''kwaj girl''

[Bazbel]

Hello Sandy.

Thanks for your input. Any further information would be most helpful.

We leave in 5 days.

Language has been worriying me a bit. We only speak English, and I've been told that Americans have a hard time understanding us, so it could be very interesting. We are about to find out

Thank you

Bazbel

[Aussie Gal]

Bazbel,

 

Have a great trip and please write a review on your return. We are going next January on the Regal Princess, it is replacing the Royal on this itinerary.

 

You will be fine with the language. We have been on about 6 cruises now with mainly only U.S. and Canadian passengers and we were understood and have made many friends from the U.S. There are a few words which we say that are not in their language and vice versa but on the whole it is the same language.

 

Jennie

[juliejoe]

You gave us lots of good information! Any more you have time to share will be appreciated too.

 

We will be on the Regal next January with Jennie for your itinerary and adding Antarctica to make 21 days. :D

 

Julie

[wander]

Your comment brought back a wonderful memory. We were on a cruise that went from the Petropovlof (Russia) down the coast of Asia to Broome Australia. We had three stops each in China and Japan, along with stops in South Korea, Thailand and Cambodia. We had wonderful guides in each port and their English was clear and extensive. When we got to Boome, our guide was ever so knowledgeable and friendly, but some many passengers could hardly understand him. (I have been to Australia and am used to the differences. Many passengers were not.) Anyhow, we all did chuckle that this was the first English speaking country and the one that more had difficulty understanding the guides. Of course, he may well have had as much difficulty understanding us!

[Aussie Gal]

Wander,

 

That is a lovely story and could be feasible because often people who live a long way from the cities, such as in W.A. and far North Queensland have a completely different way of speaking. They have the real aussie way of drawling which a lot of us do not have. We come from Melbourne and as it is the most English of all the cities in Oz we are often confused with being English when people first meet us overseas.

 

Sydneysiders also speak differently. They are a bit broader and of course within Australia we have different words to describe objects. eg. Sydneysiders call bathing suits cossies and we call them togs. Funny isn't it.

 

Jennie

[MisVic]

Hi, we were on the same trip with Sandy and also had a wonderful voyage. We did the Essence of Uruguay at Montevideo and it was one of the most remarkable experiences I have had. It is a visit to a private Estancia. We were greated by 13 children all in their working gaucho apparel on horseback! We got to mingle with the entire extended family, were treated to a caravan ride on hay wagons and antique vehicles to the Rio de la Plata, a fabulous BBQ luncheon with local wines and beers served, sheep shearing, folk dancers, etc.

 

As for the Royal, we were also in a mini-suite with plenty of storage space. Amenities included in the bathroom were nice soaps, shampoo, conditioner, moisterizer and plenty of bathroom storage. Hairdryer was placed next to the desk along with plug ins for curling irons, battery chargers etc.

 

We asked our steward right away for feather pillows and terry bathrobes. They arrived within minutes of our asking.

 

The Pizza on the Lido was very good - if you stay away from sausage - sliced hot dogs. We discovered that we could have it delivered right to our stateroom by calling the steward. We liked the pepperoni.

 

The food at the Lido was, in my opinion, pretty bad. The dining room good for the most part. We had a wonderful head waiter, Rafael, who aimed to please and never batted an eye when we couldn't decide on an entree and arranged for both the surf and turf. The king crab legs were to die for.

 

Have a wonderful voyage.

 

Vicky

[MisVic]

An important note on clothing. They made special cleaning offers three times during our voyage for laundry services - $15 for all the dirty clothes you can stuff in a laundry bag. A very good deal. If I'd know that, it would have cut in half the stuff I brought along.