ROYAL Princess - no Central Staircase a Royal Pain

[Coral]

What's interesting is that these two ships, Royal Princess and Norwegian Breakaway, were designed and built by two completely different companies (Princess and NCL), by two different competing shipyards (Fincantieri and Meyerwerft), and in two different countries (Italy and Germany) literally at the same exact time and entered service and month apart, yet came out with standard sized balconies that were nearly exactly identical in size. Why is that?

 

 

The shipyards build the ship to blueprints. If there is any correlation, it was done when the blueprints were being drawn.

[Rick-cruiser]

If this whole Central Staircase issue really proves to be a problem / major inconvenience (which has been reported already), I'm sure that the Crew Central Staircase can be re-engineered (ie, the "guts" are already there) into the much more useful and desired Passenger Central Staircase in dry dock at some point in time...... and that will rectify at least this particular design flaw.

 

- Rick

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[jackieo]

Rick. They have always had comments on the Grand Princess which suffers the same problem. But princess have never upgraded the staircase to a customer standard.

 

 

 

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[fabby50]

I've always wondered why they don't put escalators on ships. I've only ever been on one that had one (can't remember which one - I think it was an old Carnival ship). Seems like that could eliminate a lot of people that can stand upright with no assistance from using the elevators. Sure, they breakdown sometimes, but so do elevators. OR - another thing could be to have a dedicated wheelchair/scooter elevator.

[rkacruiser]

I've always wondered why they don't put escalators on ships. I've only ever been on one that had one (can't remember which one - I think it was an old Carnival ship). Seems like that could eliminate a lot of people that can stand upright with no assistance from using the elevators. Sure, they breakdown sometimes, but so do elevators. OR - another thing could be to have a dedicated wheelchair/scooter elevator.

 

A couple of the S-Class ships of Holland America came out with escalators, but after a few years were removed. There were excessive mechanical issues with them, as I understand it.

[Sunviking]

On other ships I have been on, the crew stairwells have been opened

during the muster drill, with a cabin attendant directing people to it.

Seemed like a good idea to remind people where it was, in case they

needed to use it in an emergency.

 

It has also been our experience that the crew stairwells are opened for use before the Muster Drill. However, at the conclusion of the drill those stairways have been closed forcing everyone to the regular passenger stairwells. On the Ruby and her sisters there has been a tremendous crowd of people waiting to go up the aft stairway and elevators (we have always been assigned to Club Fusion muster station). With only forward and aft stairways on the Royal I imagine the crowd will be even worse. I'm always concerned because many people have the life vest belts dragging on the floor and I worry about tripping on one and falling. I think I read that the Royal has a new style of vest. Hopefully the trailing straps aren't there anymore.

[Rick-cruiser]

Rick. They have always had comments on the Grand Princess which suffers the same problem. But princess have never upgraded the staircase to a customer standard.

 

 

 

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Hi Jackie.... thank you for mentioning that point.. Two things I can remember my mom telling me when I was young: "If you want to do something bad enough.... you'll find a way to do it.". and "never say never...". So I hope that, with enough reports of congestion/masses of people waiting at the central elevators banks - for those passengers just wanting to go up 1 or 2 decks to their centrally located cabin... or up to the central part of an outside deck.... that the Princess heads will do what's more convenient/comfortable for their passengers, and rectify this situation.

 

I can say that, on our last Princess cruise - which was for 10 days... I can remember using the central staircase at least 50 times, and probably much more than that.. SO convenient and prevalent for us to just zip down to deck 7 or 6 or 5.... to visit the atrium, International Cafe, casino, Explorer's Lounge, library, shops, Customer Relations desk, etc... and then be able to go right back up to our cabin.. If we had to, EACH time, walk ALL the way to the front of the ship.... and then ALL the way back to the middle - just to do this... it would definitely raise the frustration level.. I have absolutely no patience to have to wait for an elevator to take me down just 1 deck.. Especially if, when an elevator finally does arrive, it's already jam-packed with people..... then we all have to wait for another one..... more people are arriving at the elevator banks - some positioning themselves ahead of us... and on it goes.. I KNOW I would keep saying every time. "If only they had those stairs here...."

 

- Rick

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[Rick-cruiser]

Hi Sunviking.... yes, one must take into consideration that the aft and forward stairs will be much more crowded/utilized on the Royal without the Central staircase and with 1000 more people...

[fsulaw]

The Grand's middle staircase was eliminated when they did a major makeover on her a couple of years back. We have sailed her both before the renovation and after, and I was incensed that they did away with the staircase. It was a royal pain and I have said I will never sail here again. But just know that she did ORIGINALLY have a middle staircase.

[Coral]

The Grand's middle staircase was eliminated when they did a major makeover on her a couple of years back. We have sailed her both before the renovation and after, and I was incensed that they did away with the staircase. It was a royal pain and I have said I will never sail here again. But just know that she did ORIGINALLY have a middle staircase.

 

I don't think she ever had one available to passengers. There has always been one for employees but I don't think for passengers.

 

I have sailed the Grand many times, but not in the past 5 plus years.

[CamCruiser]

For those who have sailed on the Royal, how did the muster drills work out? Were midship passengers directed forward or aft? Or were the crew stair cases put into play?

[SwissDave]

For those who have sailed on the Royal, how did the muster drills work out? Were midship passengers directed forward or aft? Or were the crew stair cases put into play?

 

The crew stair were opened up as they are an official evacuation route.

[SOLIVITA LADY]

I know that there is no center staircase on the Royal going up from the 7th floor on, but can you access the center stairs from the 7th floor going down to the 6th & 5th floor in the center of the ship? Just not sure of this from the various comments on the center staircase.

 

Jackie

[sunsetbeachgal]

I know that there is no center staircase on the Royal going up from the 7th floor on, but can you access the center stairs from the 7th floor going down to the 6th & 5th floor in the center of the ship? Just not sure of this from the various comments on the center staircase.

 

Jackie

 

Definitely yes. The stairs go from the lower decks up to and including Deck 7...just not beyond that. We used the center stairs to go up and down to Deck 4, which is where the gangway was for most of the ports.

[Dragonqueen]

Just off the Royal on the 10th August, she is a beautiful ship but the lack of a central staircase from deck 7 upwards is significant, especially when you factor in 800 children, some of whom had no supervision & enjoyed controlling the central lift buttons, resulting in the lifts arriving at your floor & the child pressing the close doors button before you could reach the lift, & sometimes before you even had time to extricate yourself from the lift.:mad:

 

We were midships on Dolphin, deck 9.

 

Mostly we didn't have much time to wait for the lifts, the only time we had major problems were when entertainments were either starting or finishing in the atrium & people were moving to other events. We would have welcomed the stairs as 2 decks up the stairs would have been a welcome exercise, somehow, having to walk to either the aft or forward staircases to then walk back to the atrium just seemed ludicrous.:confused:

[SOLIVITA LADY]

Definitely yes. The stairs go from the lower decks up to and including Deck 7...just not beyond that. We used the center stairs to go up and down to Deck 4, which is where the gangway was for most of the ports.

 

Thanks so much for confirming what I thought would be true. Also, I really appreciated your "live" thread. It sounded like you were all having a ball.

 

Jackie

[sunsetbeachgal]

Thanks so much for confirming what I thought would be true. Also, I really appreciated your "live" thread. It sounded like you were all having a ball.

 

Jackie

 

 

Yes we did...lots of laughs and we all loved the ship! Please let me know if you have any other questions! And hope you weren't too close to that sinkhole...very scary!

[SOLIVITA LADY]

Yes we did...lots of laughs and we all loved the ship! Please let me know if you have any other questions! And hope you weren't too close to that sinkhole...very scary!

 

We are about 10 miles from that area (on the other side of I-4 - the major East/West road in Fl). Funny (not really) story about when we went to meet my son at a Bob Evans just off I-4 at Exit 10 to pick up my grandson for a visit. We pulled into the Bob Evans (about an hour from each of our houses) and it was roped off with yellow crime scene tape. Come to find out there was a sinkhole under the restaurant and part of it collapsed into the hole. So, off we went to the Cracker Barrel across the road - when we got our bill my husband noticed that the town listed for the Cracker Barrel was Seffner. We had never even given it a thought before but that is where the house collapsed and one person died. Florida has gotten a lot of rain this year and I really think that has played a big part into these sinkholes opening up.

 

Thanks again for all your insight into the Royal.

 

Jackie

[sunsetbeachgal]

And glad you are all well!