LIVE - Royal Princess Transatlantic & Baltic day by day

[luckymike]

Happy to hear the seas have calmed down.:) Thanks for your post.:D

 

Good morning followers!

 

We did not lose another hour last night which was wonderful! The skies are sunny and clear and the ship has hit some clear, smooth water again! The temperature at 8:00 is 72 degrees. Should be another warm day.

 

Breakfast in the HC again. The made to order omelets are wonderful. You choose what you want, they give you a ticket and you give it to your server. They bring it to you when it is ready. You can also give your coffee card to your server and they will bring you a latte right to your table. The coffee in the horizon court is brewed and very good! The formal dining room coffee is the same old syrup swill as on all the ships. I am puzzled as to why they can have brewed coffee in the buffet and not the dining rooms? The fruit has been really good too. I had some watermelon and pineapple that was excellent.

 

This morning you could play bridge, mahjong, shoot clay skeets, line dance, 3 different spa seminars to sell you stuff, pinochle, seminar on Russian diamonds, port talk on London/Southampton, volleyball tourney, bingo and Super Tuscan wine tasting at 11:00. We would have liked the wine tasting, but not at 11:00 - seemed like a really odd time. We watched yesterday's port lecture on the Azores on the wonderful TV in our room! We have been there on our last TA, but she did a great job and talked about all 8 islands, even though we are only stopping at Ponta Delgado. She was an excellent port lecturer.

 

We decided to go and sit in the hot tub before lunch. We found one that we could see MUTS from. The water temp was perfect and we had it all to ourselves - score! I have to comment on the screen - the picture is so much clearer than on all the other ships. We also could hear the audio clearly. The screen really is a step up! While we were in the tub they announced a medical emergency and asked for A positive or A negative blood if you had your blood donor card with you. Never heard anymore, so prayed they were OK!

 

We went to the main dining room for lunch and sat with 3 men from Australia and one man from Sweden. Food was not too good, but the company was great. I should have known better than to try tortilla soup - no seasoning. Fish was greasy, but my salad was great. Their honey mustard dressing is superb (thanks, Pam for recommending it!)

 

After lunch I went to the Vista lounge and watched a great movie, Rush. Jerry read on his iPad. There were plenty of activities. I love the dance lessons in the piazza. Fun to watch couples learning new things and the music is great! I saw the new $10 high tea at 3:30. It looked very nice and I am going to get a friend to go with me. Very fancy table settings and looked like nicer food than the free one. The afternoon also offered a blackjack tournament, art@sea presentation on the life of Thomas Kinkade, box making craft, riddle me this, tribond trivia, and various seminars to make Princess lots of cash!

 

Dinner in the formal dining room was excellent again. Our server, Bagdan gives us his recommendations each night and he is always right! We both had Crab cake

appetizer, I had turkey scaloppine with Gorgonzola cream sauce, Jerry had diver scallops and both had hot fudge brownie with ice cream for dessert.

 

We went to the Princess theatre and watched a really good pianist, Amy Abler, who called herself, Piano Divalicious. Afterwards we went up on deck 16 and watched the Watercolor Fantasy fountain/light show. This was the first one we went to and the theme was, Frank Sinatra. Very nice, but it was windy and a little chilly! Glad we saw it tonight!

 

We lose another hour tonight! Hope this is the last one for a while!

 

Stay tuned - for more tomorrow! We are the co-leaders of our Cruise Critic cabin crawl/poker run tomorrow afternoon. We have 80 signed up and I have a feeling it is going to be like "herding cats" - stay tuned!

 

 

Hi Gwen, love ur live review, just wondering if George Evans is still on the ship as the entertainer. He was there in the spring and we really enjoyed his style of music.

 

Lucky mike

[Bimmer09]

Gwen, I am following along on your fantastic adventure. Long time-no see but glad you are out there living the life!

 

Great "live' by the way and I am not usually a fan of those.

 

Are you taking photos and can we see them? Pretty, pretty please?

 

Best wishes,

 

Norris

norrisadair.blogspot.com

[GweninTX]

Hi GweninTX, enjoying your review and have a question regarding dining. If you are early seating for 6:00 pm which is really 5:45, can you tell me if late seating is earlier than 8:15 pm?

Thank-you for taking us along on your adventure.

 

Yes, they are seating at 8:00!

[GweninTX]

No George Evans so far. Pictures take an eternity to load, so I will post some when we get into port and I can use free wi-fi!

[GweninTX]

Another sea day and we lost another hour of sleep? A pattern is emerging! We have a very windy day in store today! We are also having very brief rain showers. We were rocked to sleep last night by the side to side swaying of the ship.

 

Breakfast again in the Horizon court! I have not bought a coffee card as of yet. I had 6 punches left on my card from the Caribbean Princess and finally used my last one. The coffee is so good in the Horizon court I do not feel the need to get a latte. Food and service still outstanding in the HC. We also ate lunch there today. Huge selection and everything hot and seasoned well. Only thing I did not care for was the Green Goddess dressing I tried today on my salad. Should have stuck with a tried and true.

 

This morning you could have a Bible study, play mahjong, Zumba (too windy for me), play bridge, get whiter teeth, scrap heap challenge, win lose or draw batting cage, Texas Holdem, play bingo or go to trivia twice. We made it to trivia once and got 12 out of 15. Winners had 13 - go figure!

 

Today my friend, Stu and I hosted the Cabin Crawl and Poker run. We had 60 people participate in the crawl and 45 participated in the poker run. Everyone had a blast and it was fun to see how the others chose cabins. I think everyone learned something about the Royal today and it will help them choose cabins for a future cruise. I can honestly say, I love my cabin and where it is located. Jerry won $110.00 for first place with 4 queens! I had a full house, but did not win second! A bigger full house beat me! They got $70.00 and the person with the worst hand was delighted with $40! My engineer husband planned 4 routes and it worked perfectly! We did have a host cabin that dropped out as the wife had a cold and no one wanted it! But the cabin was a mini suite and we had a other one to see, so it worked out fine! This took the better part of the afternoon and we took a nap afterwards.

 

Happy to say that the medical emergency is doing well according to the captain. He is very chatty and comes on the PA if there is anything coming up. He warned the sunbathers about every shower yesterday and talks for at least 5-10 minutes at noon every day. He speaks very clear English and I enjoy his chats!

 

We had great food again at dinner in the formal dining room. I had a German dinner with the best red cabbage and apple side dish. Jerry had the crayfish pot with a pretty Phyllo dough cover. He said it was seasoned well. Desserts were meh and I skipped. Jerry had his usual chocolate ice cream.

 

After dinner in the Princess theatre was the best comedian - Al Katz. He has done this for 38 years and is very talented! We really enjoyed him and will see his second show in the Vista lounge in a few days. This evening you could also enjoyed a Beatles theme party in the Piazza. Philomena at MUTS. Music of Motown with a DJ. Dancing on deck 5 all evening. The Blank game show and Karaoke power hour in Princess Live.

 

Jerry played roulette for a while and I played Craps. I came out $8 ahead after about an hour of fun! One high roller cashed out $895! We then headed for bed to turn our clocks ahead an hour!

 

Tomorrow night is our Captain Circle party - we are platinum. I will take notes on how many are on board for each level. It will be in the Vista Lounge from 5:15 - 5:45. Wonder if they are moving the Elite Lounge elsewhere? Stay tuned!

 

If you have questions, I will try to answer them!

[tiqittaq foo]

Gwen : I thoroughly enjoy following your posts. I will be on the Royal for the May 23 Baltic Cruise.

 

I have a question on the Specialty dining. We, too, have the Three for Free promotion. Do we have a choice as to Crown Grill or Sabatini or does Princess pre select for you including the date and time. My TA told me to reserve whichever restaurant we want as soon as we board. Thank you

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[PescadoAmarillo]

Enjoying your posts. Thanks!

 

They don't generally have the Elite Lounge on Captains Circle party nights.

[bluesea321]

Gwen, thanks for your posts. I am enjoying them.

 

I have a question. During the winter season Caribbean cruises the Royal experienced various power interruptions, most of them short but some delayed arrivals at ports. During my cruise in March we had one for about 10 minutes, nothing of concern except that it occurred at 2 am and the Captain had to come on the speaker system as the ship's alarms went off. Have you had any issues with the power? Just wondering if they have resolved this.

[ellie1145]

I also should have said the reason I thought it was SO very silly to complain is the Kleenex/tissue holder is right by your elbow and if you can't reach the TP - use a Kleenex!

 

Surely Kleenex tissues should not be flushed down the toilet? They do not disintegrate like TP does, as they would be pretty useless for a cold! Could cause a major blockage...... And we all know what that means! Ha ha!

 

Interesting that people have been told they are exactly the same so can be flushed. Problem would be if people flushed normal tissues down the loo because they were told it was ok to flush Princess tissues.

 

Royal Princess sounds amazing, would love to sail on her. Enjoy your cruise! Hope the weather stays fine.

Edited May 2, 2014 by ellie1145

[Mom33]

Thanks for today's update. It will be "land ho" soon.:D Sounds like you are having a nice crossing.

[lovevacadays]

I'm enjoying reading about your cruise and looking forward to more.:)

[caribill]

Surely Kleenex tissues should not be flushed down the toilet? They do not disintegrate like TP does, as they would be pretty useless for a cold!

 

The only resemblance that Princess facial tissues have to Kleenex is the color white.

[GweninTX]

Gwen, thanks for your posts. I am enjoying them.

 

I have a question. During the winter season Caribbean cruises the Royal experienced various power interruptions, most of them short but some delayed arrivals at ports. During my cruise in March we had one for about 10 minutes, nothing of concern except that it occurred at 2 am and the Captain had to come on the speaker system as the ship's alarms went off. Have you had any issues with the power? Just wondering if they have resolved this.

No power outages of any kind, knock on wood!

 

All shooting is virtual - sorry I implied otherwise!

 

And yes, they did not have the elite lounge last night because of the captain. Circle parties in the Vista lounge!

[GweninTX]

Good morning! I am starting to sound like a broken record, but we are really loving these sea days! Slept in again (for me) 7:45 - but with time change - 8:45. Lovely breakfast in the HC and then we went to the Piazza to read till 10:30. At 10:30 I participated in the line dancing for an hour! So much fun and a great teacher! I perspired as much doing that as Zumba - so will try to keep making this fun class! After the class we had the Runway at Sea and saw some nice fashions on our fellow passengers. There also was a lecture, crazy charades, trivia twice in the morning and various spa themed lectures to try and entice you to buy!

 

For lunch we went to the Lido deck to enjoy the pretty sunshine. There was a brisk wind that made it cool in the shade, but we found a table in the sun and enjoyed it! Pizza for me and a bratwurst and fries for Jerry. Always good, hot food up here served with a smile!

 

Jerry wanted to read some more and I went to see the afternoon movie in the Princess Theatre, "Saving Mr. Banks." Great movie and a full house. The ship was shuddering some, and swaying back and forth, but the Captain assured us it would be much smoother by late afternoon. And it was!

 

There also was arts and crafts, book club, bridge, Royal categories, pickle ball, knitters and crafters, camera seminar, Wii golf and the Pop Choir performance. They announced later in the evening a new Pop choir would form tomorrow.

 

Very nice Captain Circle party for elites and platinum members from 5:15 - 5:45 - this group was the early dining group - they also had another one after ours for the late diners! Here are the statistics - drum roll please:

738 Elite

1,138 Platinum

428 Ruby

484 Gold

 

Nicky is the future cruise consultant.

 

Most travelled -

3rd place - Hinkley's - 775 days

2nd Place - Dunchilla's - 805 days

1st place - Maggie Hollow - 897 days

 

We ate in the formal dining room after the party and the surf and turf and seafood skewers were both excellent! They also have had the best asparagus they have been serving as a side item. Weird desserts, so I just skipped!

 

The Princess theatre had David Cats - Master Illusionist. He was very good and will be teaching basic magic also. We loved the Liars Club afterwards in Princess Live. But this is such a tiny place, many could not get in and it is only held once. They did tape it and it will be viewable on our fabulous TV's. We got 3 out of 4, but one team got all 4!

 

No moving the clocks ahead tonight - score! Tomorrow night we are looking forward to the Winemakers table. Our sponsor is Robert Mondavi. Stay tuned!

[WendyG]

Great review :)

 

We love liars club....what were your words?

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Forums mobile app

[loma linda ca a & j]

Good morning! I am starting to sound like a broken record, but we are really loving these sea days! Slept in again (for me) 7:45 - but with time change - 8:45. Lovely breakfast in the HC and then we went to the Piazza to read till 10:30. At 10:30 I participated in the line dancing for an hour! So much fun and a great teacher! I perspired as much doing that as Zumba - so will try to keep making this fun class! After the class we had the Runway at Sea and saw some nice fashions on our fellow passengers. There also was a lecture, crazy charades, trivia twice in the morning and various spa themed lectures to try and entice you to buy!

 

For lunch we went to the Lido deck to enjoy the pretty sunshine. There was a brisk wind that made it cool in the shade, but we found a table in the sun and enjoyed it! Pizza for me and a bratwurst and fries for Jerry. Always good, hot food up here served with a smile!

 

Jerry wanted to read some more and I went to see the afternoon movie in the Princess Theatre, "Saving Mr. Banks." Great movie and a full house. The ship was shuddering some, and swaying back and forth, but the Captain assured us it would be much smoother by late afternoon. And it was!

 

There also was arts and crafts, book club, bridge, Royal categories, pickle ball, knitters and crafters, camera seminar, Wii golf and the Pop Choir performance. They announced later in the evening a new Pop choir would form tomorrow.

 

Very nice Captain Circle party for elites and platinum members from 5:15 - 5:45 - this group was the early dining group - they also had another one after ours for the late diners! Here are the statistics - drum roll please:

738 Elite

1,138 Platinum

428 Ruby

484 Gold

 

Nicky is the future cruise consultant.

 

Most travelled -

3rd place - Hinkley's - 775 days

2nd Place - Dunchilla's - 805 days

1st place - Maggie Hollow - 897 days

 

We ate in the formal dining room after the party and the surf and turf and seafood skewers were both excellent! They also have had the best asparagus they have been serving as a side item. Weird desserts, so I just skipped!

The Princess theatre had David Cats - Master Illusionist. He was very good and will be teaching basic magic also. We loved the Liars Club afterwards in Princess Live. But this is such a tiny place, many could not get in and it is only held once. They did tape it and it will be viewable on our fabulous TV's. We got 3 out of 4, but one team got all 4!

 

No moving the clocks ahead tonight - score! Tomorrow night we are looking forward to the Winemakers table. Our sponsor is Robert Mondavi. Stay tuned!

thanks again for your review !!

 

re desserts - whenever i cannot decide, i ask for creme brulee - they served it every evening on our march cruises !! it is the best !!!;)

[cruzisme]

Enjoying the read! Thank you

How is the music for ballroom dancing?;)

[pascalburns]

here is hoping the sea stays:) calm for the rest of the trip.have enjoyed

reading the review.

[Sydney24]

Enjoying reading your "Live from". Thanks for providing all of this information. We are on the Baltic cruise leaving Copenhagen on 3rd June. Really keen to see how Princess handles disembarkation in SPB. Anne

[CharTX]

Gwen thanks for the ststistics on the number of Elites, Platinums, etc. I think it was a good idea to have two Captains Circle parties.

 

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[GweninTX]

Enjoying the read! Thank you

How is the music for ballroom dancing?;)

 

There is always a.crowd in The piazza dancing. The party band Spectrum does better with some music, better than others. The female lead singer has a thick Russian accent, which ruins a lot of songs for me, but they always have a. Rows dancing. I really enjoy listening to the male pianist, Kory Simon - he has a velvet smooth voice and tinkles the ivories in the best way. I have not been with the DJ Shea, but I am sure it works too! If you love to dance, there are plenty of opportunities all day long!

[GweninTX]

Good morning! Another breakfast in the HC. Then Brazilian line dancing at 11-12. He puts us thru our paces and it is as good as his Zumba class. It is very crowded, but I found so e friends from the roll call and we enjoyed it together. The marble floor makes it very hard to slide, but we all fake it as best we can! After a quick shower, we head for lunch in the formal dining room. It was the first time that I did not like anything I ordered! But it was ok, as I knew we were in for a huge meal this evening in the Wine Makers dinner!

 

This morning you could also play trivia, Zymba, bridge, classical history lecture, port lecture on LeHavre/Paris, twist on words and play ring toss and play trivia again!

 

For the afternoon - make a box and decorate it, play Wii, pop choir rehearsal, afternoon movie Lone Survivor, bridge, dance lessons, Tx Holdem, crazy putt putt and various spa seminars to entice you to book appts.

 

Tonight is formal night and we met in Vines at 6:45 for our Winemakers dinner. There was 12 of us, all from the CC roll call. We were met promptly and taken to the special Winemakers table. It is very elegant and the table is gorgeous with a huge fresh flower arrangement. The high back ivory leather seats make the table very comfy too. We laughed, drank lots of wine and at amazing food! I highly commend it! We all and so much fun, we are doing it again on the Baltic cruise and are going to request the French winemakers dinner next. We had a huge prawn wrapped in prosciutto and cheese then wrapped in phyllo pastry for the appetizer! YUM! Our soup was a velouté of white beans, garlic and cheese, with shrimp and apples as toppings. It also was very good! The maitre'd then cooked a portobello mushroom and crab filled gnocchi table side for us and it was Devine! Our main course was a 3" thick filet mignon served with veggies. The meat had a Demi glacé sauce that was Rich and the meat was very tender. As if this was not enough, for dessert we had a stack of 3 Madeline type shortcakes that each had a different cream filling. And with our coffee he brought out a tray of beautiful chocolate dipped strawberries and other small pastries. We are NOT wine connoisseurs by any means, but everyone loved both the red and the white wines. I loved the white the most and had at least 3 glasses of it. They were VERY generous with all the wine and kept pouring till people said NO! This meal was worth every penny of $40 PP! We left the table at 10:30 just in time to catch the last show of comedian Al Katz and he kept us in stitches for an hour. He is a really funny guy! He was getting On the Ruby in the Azores and they are in for a treat! We dropped into bed afterwards as we have an early morning tour in Ponta Delgada! I know we will be napping tomorrow afternoon!

[Astro Flyer]

Happy to hear that your Winemakers Dinner was like our experience on the Royal in October. Recently some had a worse experience such as being stingy with the wine & the headwaiter rarely there. I keep suggesting they have it fleetwide like the CT which was successful even without the Royal's Lumiere area & would be the same on other ships even without the "wine cellar" dining area.

 

For me it was much better than the Super Tuscan wine tasting which cost the same as the Winemakers Dinner. Most of those wines were in the $20-$30 price range & despite the better food to us it was overpriced & nothing we'd do again.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Astro Flyer

[rabbitoh_777]

.

 

I'm enjoying reading about your cruise and looking forward to more. :)

.

 

.

Ditto for us too, keep up the live reports!

 

Thanks...

 

:cool:

.

[Lynda90]

Thank you so much for your wonderful review. I feel like I am reliving my experience on the inaugural TA last Oct. We also loved the Winemaker's Dinner and felt it was one of the highlights of the cruise. We also really enjoyed Al Katz and for me, he is the best comedian Princess offers. Watching the dance lessons in the piazza was also a lot of fun. And, loved, loved, loved Zumba! The Princess Pop Choir was another highlight of the cruise. Such fun as a participant! :p