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2013 Christmas Cruise on Royal Princess - A Photo Review!

LittleMissMagic

By LittleMissMagic,
in Princess Cruises

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The Big Booper

The Big Booper

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Yours is the first writeup on how Princess stages The Quest, compared to RCI. A bit tame (heck, a lot tamer). Lining up on the stairway neatly leading to the stage? Meh.

 

We once had a Quest on a Vision class ship with 60 teams, in the large rear lounge with a circular dance floor. No neat lines but full of women in bare feet or white sox skidding across the dance floor holding up their team number and the object, trying to avoid crashing into other players or the CD staff, while looking for the CD with the wireless microphone who was a moving target. Pure mayhem highly lubricated with adult beverages.:D

 

And NO children in sight.

 

I'm too old now to wear a women's pair of high heels now. But I have in the past.:D

 

Great pictures.

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lynwar

lynwar

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We live in Central Florida-the center of the state, where Ft. Pierce is directly to the East, and Bradenton/Sarasota is to our west, about 90 miles each direction. We will remember that motel for future reference if we decide to go over for the weekend. Ft. Lauderdale is our "home away from home", about 2 1/2 hours southeast of here. My husband and his family lived and vacationed down there when he was in high school. His sister and family still live there.

The 3 of us- you, me and he (who enjoys photography, also) would have been the quiet, "nerdy" ones in a big group of teen-agers! What a time WE would have had. :)

 

I'm loving your review. As for the casino, there is a smoking side tucked away on one side away from the open staircase. The tables separate one side from the other, and the other sets of slots are along the wall. Once we determined the separation, we stayed on the other side of the staircase, Club 6 side, and didn't have any trouble with the smoke. (We didn't have much luck with the Sex in the City or Elvis slots, after an initial "newcomer's luck" win or two, so stuck to the poker machines. ;) I did get my BIG win on a poker machine on the smoking side the first or second night with a royal flush, but never matched that again.

 

Thank you for all your photos and comments. They really are informative!

 

Lynne

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The Big Booper

The Big Booper

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Fort Pierce is a good place to transition from the Turnpike to I-95, only 3 blocks apart here. When coming to or fro Orlando from Boynton Beach we always shift here. Good spot for bathroom breaks and gas and/or snack breaks. It is almost two hours from FLL tho.

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LittleMissMagic "Live from...." Rare

LittleMissMagic

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Yours is the first writeup on how Princess stages The Quest, compared to RCI. A bit tame (heck, a lot tamer). Lining up on the stairway neatly leading to the stage? Meh.

 

We once had a Quest on a Vision class ship with 60 teams, in the large rear lounge with a circular dance floor. No neat lines but full of women in bare feet or white sox skidding across the dance floor holding up their team number and the object, trying to avoid crashing into other players or the CD staff, while looking for the CD with the wireless microphone who was a moving target. Pure mayhem highly lubricated with adult beverages.:D

 

And NO children in sight.

 

I'm too old now to wear a women's pair of high heels now. But I have in the past.:D

 

Great pictures.

 

They tried to keep it tame in the room, but they did send people running around the ship on several occasions which I thought could potentially be dangerous (mainly to the people not playing who could get trampled). After the first Quest when a man slid across the floor into their uplighting system (another reason I think it was a poor choice of venue), they really put an emphasis on lining up.

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LittleMissMagic "Live from...." Rare

LittleMissMagic

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11810082083_6170c92f8a_b.jpg

12.28.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11810080873_2061c57ab8_b.jpg

12.28.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11810079973_6920b63f95_b.jpg

12.28.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

Watermelon and Feta... I really just wanted the Feta

 

11810609336_f8df3b86fe_b.jpg

12.28.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

Princess's Baked Alaska is the best I've seen. They do the parade with cakes that have fake flames and then torch the cake in the kitchen before serving. Angelika said that they used to do real flames for the parade until it became a safety concern.

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LittleMissMagic "Live from...." Rare

LittleMissMagic

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We were in port this morning beside this little ship...

 

11841925633_deeeb107be_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

Princess requires that you leave your room by 8AM. We were originally assigned a 10:55 departure time because we never bothered to fill out the departure time request form. However, a quick visit to Guest Services, and we were able to disembark the ship at 8:05 AM.

 

Our porter was great and took our bags all the way to our car, so we didn't have to wait on Dad to get the car and bring it up to load.

 

11841631855_bf0775e530_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

Goodbye, Royal Princess!

 

11842427506_cafa6e0ce1_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

We'll miss you!!

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LittleMissMagic "Live from...." Rare

LittleMissMagic

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Now, Rachel loves the beach. And she fought for a beach day. So dad agreed and made a compromise that we would spend one night in Fort Lauderdale and then drive to Disney the next day. This meant that we would have to pack some beach things like chairs and an umbrella. It sounded absolutely miserable, so I made Rachel a counteroffer. Instead of spending a day in Fort Lauderdale and have to lug our things to Florida so that we could spend one day at the beach, what if we dedicated one day as a pool day at Disney - no parks except maybe late in the evening. The other positive about this plan was that Florida weather is crazy in the winter. So if we got back from our cruise and a cold front suddenly came through, we wouldn't be freezing our butts off at the beach. Rachel accepted the counteroffer.

 

That being said, Rachel insisted on "saying goodbye to the beach," so we drove to the beach immediately after leaving the ship so that she could stick her feet in the sand for one last time.

 

11841630765_b85ea5717f_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11841630305_18ced20933_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11841630055_2111dacf6a_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11842061014_c6eac1e5d9_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11841629355_dec97a1b86_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

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LittleMissMagic "Live from...." Rare

LittleMissMagic

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We were booked at the Waldorf Astoria at Bonnet Creek because we realized that this was our opportunity to try something new. The prices for the Disney resorts are just absolutely ridiculous for this time of the year, and they weren't dropping. Ever since we sold our vacation home in Central Florida back in 2004, we have stayed on Disney property. And we love it. So we considered staying at the Swan or Dolphin hotels because although they are not Disney resorts, they are located on Disney properties and use Disney transportation. However, we had already stayed at the Swan before, and we decided that we would try something completely new.

 

Bonnet Creek is actually a little piece of land surrounded by Disney property which was not obtained by the Walt Disney Company when they originally bought the land in the 60s. Later, Disney made several attempts to purchase the land, but the owners would not sell. Now it is a development very near Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort which includes a Wyndham, Wyndham Timeshare Resort, Hilton, and Waldorf Astoria. The price for a standard room at the Waldorf, a five-star resort, was less than the price of all Disney deluxe hotels and only a little more than their moderate resorts.

 

11841918423_a4a1594b7b_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11841625005_059fa7d497_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11842055354_6a9c05593d_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11841624085_81069c95c2_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

11842054654_589f334bd8_b.jpg

12.29.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

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