Regal Princess 7/27/05 Review - long!

[SharkieRools]

Ok, we finally finished our review. Sorry about the length! Links to this review and to our pictures can be found at:

 

Alaska Cruise 2005

 

And now without further ado, the review:

 

Regal Princess: July 27th – August 6th, 2005 - 10 Day Roundtrip San Francisco to Alaska visiting Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Tracy Arm, and Victoria, BC. This review is rather long so, but we’re sure we missed a thing or two so feel free to ask any questions!

 

Background:

We traveled with a group of around 25 people or so, some of who we know and others who we never met (or saw on the cruise!) This cruise also happened to be only a few days after Morisnfan and I were married so it became our 1st Honeymoon Cruise (we’re planning for our next cruise to be our honeymoon too, away from everyone we know!)

 

Pre Cruise:

Being our honeymoon and living close to San Francisco, we decided to book a limo to take us to the ship. Our day began by rushing with our luggage outside to meet our limo. After waiting and waiting and waiting some more we finally decided to call them to see what was happening. After hmmming and hawinnng it was determined that they lost our reservation! We let them know that we would spread the word of their “fabulous” service, so if you are in need of a limo in the San Francisco Bay Area, DO NOT use Drive Me Transportation, unless you want to gamble with your pickup! Anyways we proceeded to call a cab which promptly arrived within about 10 minutes. Not as glamorous or romantic as a limo, but he got us there in record time since the dispatcher was hounding him about a scheduled pickup he had to make after ours. Even the usual traffic jam on the Embarcadero on cruise days didn’t faze him; he weaved in and out of traffic and other cabs with the precision of a fighter pilot!

 

Check in and embarkation:

We quickly found a porter who whisked our luggage away and headed on inside. Upon entering we were asked to fill out a simple health questionnaire, presumably to screen for the Norwalk Virus and other illnesses. Even with our limo debacle we arrived before embarkation began so we took a seat with the other early arrivers. After a relatively short wait the lines opened up – by the time we got in line, checked in, had our photo taken and walked up the gangway, we were on the ship within about 15 minutes (approximately 11:30AM or so.) At the top of the gangway at the opening of the ship there is a hand sanitizing station that you must use before you are allowed onto the ship. We sanitized our hands, entered our cruise card into the reader, walked onboard and our cruise had begun!

 

Stateroom

We had a balcony stateroom, B118 on the Baja Deck. This is the forward most balcony on the port side – we purposely chose it since we like to feel the motion of the ship. The first thing we noticed is that they finally added mailboxes outside the door like the other ships in the fleet. Other than that the room was as we remembered it having sailed twice before on her. The room is listed as 183 square feet, including the balcony (like the Sun Class ships, the balcony is cut from the hull and takes space from the cabin.) Although not the largest of rooms, it was well laid out and had plenty of storage space. Though we didn’t take advantage of it your Steward will store your luggage for you if needed.

 

Stateroom Steward

Reynaldo (or Rey for short) was our Stateroom Steward. He was very attentive, extremely friendly and did an outstanding job! He seemed to be very excited that we were on our honeymoon, the first few nights he even left numerous chocolates in different designs on the bed – I think he noticed the uneaten chocolate piling up on the desk so the amount of chocolate tapered off as the cruise went on. As usual we decorated our door which Rey added to with the Happy Honeymoon sign as well as the balloons. Instead of just attaching the balloons to side like we saw on many other cabins, Rey securely fastened them to the top of the doorway, almost making it look like a mini-archway. Rey told us he is scheduled to transfer to the Crown Princess when she begins sailing, so if you’re going on that ship be on the lookout for him! He tells us that he will be assigned to midship on the Baja Deck.

 

Cruise Director and Staff:

Stuart Mac was the cruise director. We didn’t have much interaction with him (we were on our honeymoon after all!) but in the times we did we found him and his staff to be friendly and entertaining.

 

Entertainment and Public Areas:

The Patisserie is located on Plaza deck across from the Pursers Desk and offers free coffee and pastries along with reasonably priced espresso and iced coffee drinks (and of course regular bar drinks!)

 

The Adagio Lounge is located on the Promenade Deck and features an expanded martini menu at night. This was our lounge of choice in the evenings for our pre dinner martinis. We were usually waited on by a wonderful bar steward from the Ukraine, Elenora. In the evenings Jere Ring would play the piano, sing and entertain people. He played nightly to standing room only crowds, there were literally people spilling out into the hallways to hear him. He made us think what Will Ferrell would be like as a musical entertainer! During the day various trivia, Pictionary, Outburst and other contests and games are held here.

 

The Bengal Bar is also located on the Promenade Deck. At night there was a variety of musical entertainers playing here, as well as the occasional Karaoke nights (always good for a laugh! :) ) Make your own ceramics as well as bar demonstrations were held in here during the day – we attended the martini demo and Morisnfan won an appletini! Everyone in attendance received recipes and a small martini sample – WooHoo!

 

The Bacchus Bar also located on the Promenade Deck serves as the champagne and caviar bar.

 

The Stage Door located on Dolphin Deck had live music from the Arc Trio before 11pm and late-night disco with a DJ afterwards. There was a daily afternoon polka session as well (which we didn’t attend!)

 

The International Show Lounge located on Promenade and Dolphin decks offered nightly production, comedy, and variety shows. The old time favorite Bingo was also held here twice daily on sea days. As has been reported before, there was no horse racing. We didn’t get around to seeing too many of the nightly shows, but we heard that they were very good, especially the Piano Man show. We did see Dick Gold the comedian one night and weren’t overly impressed – it just wasn’t our style I guess! We did catch the Newlywed/Not So Newlywed game - a couple from our group were selected to participate. It was very entertaining and hilarious; in fact Stuart made a faux pas when talking about one of the wives he almost wet himself he was laughing so hard!

 

The Princess Theater on Emerald Deck shows a different movie each day, which are shown the next day on your stateroom TV. Movies on our cruise included Phantom of the Opera, Finding Neverland, Meet the Fockers, etc. This was also used as the Scholarship@Sea computer room in between showtimes.

 

 

Other Public Areas

 

The Library on Dolphin Deck is a small room right next to the upper part of the International Show Lounge which has a small selection of books. I never checked to see if they still had abridged shipboard versions of the daily NY Times and The Canadian there in the mornings, but I assume they did.

 

The Future Cruise Office is next to the library, housing many brochures, pamphlets and of course the Future Cruise Consultant. We of course took the opportunity to sign up for a future booking. You can do this 24 hours a day as all you need to do is fill out the form and leave it in the mailbox, the next day or so you’ll receive confirmation in your stateroom.

 

The Internet Café has taken over part of the space of the old Scholarship@Sea computer room, which in turn had taken the space of the former card room on the Dolphin Deck. The card room has been relocated to a sectioned off area of The Dome. There are 12 or so computers available here – you need to buy blocks of time from the purser’s desk first. Like most shipboard computers the internet connections could be painfully slow so be sure to logout if you aren’t connecting. We actually saw someone at the purser’s desk complaining that they spent all their time waiting and they never connected! This room used to house a replica of the Regal Princess crafted entirely out of sugar, but it was no longer there so I’m not sure what fate became it.

 

The Captain’s Circle Hostess office has taken over the other part of the old Scholarship@Sea computer room. The only interaction we had with this office was to request destination stamps for this cruise that we didn’t receive in our stateroom.

 

The Dome on the Sun Deck is where the casino is located. The casino includes a variety of slot (many with ocean views!) and video poker machines as well as some table games including Craps, Roulette and Blackjack. They also featured 2 slot and blackjack tournaments - we entered one of the slot tournaments but sadly did not make the finals. Though the slots seemed tight at times, I was able to win $60 and Morisnfan twice pulled out $120 from the machines! The Dome also houses an observation area along the outer rim, a bar and dance floor which featured live music from Fun and Joy nightly, and the before-mentioned Card Room which has taken over an area on the starboard part of The Dome that once housed some underused chairs and tables.

 

Pools and hot tubs: There are 2 pools on the lido deck, one with a swim-up bar (Waves Bar.) These pools are a little different then the ones you see on newer ships, as they don’t have the wading area around the pool. Due to the weather and sea conditions the pools were closed part of the time on the way up to Alaska, however they did open up most of the time we were up there and on the way back. I don’t think I ever did see the Wave bar open on this trip, again presumably because of the weather conditions. There are 4 hot tubs, 2 on the same deck as the pools, and 2 on the back of the Baja deck.

 

The Photo Gallery is on the port and starboard hallways leading up to the Palm Court Dining Room. This is your regular run of the mill photo gallery selling shipboard pictures, photo albums and film. Warning: A 6x8 picture will run $9.95, an 8x10 is $19.95!!! You’d think that since they print all the pictures anyways why not sell more of them at a lower price, but that isn’t the case. In Tracy Arm they took pictures of the ship and people out on decks both from the ship as well as from a lifeboat, which were ready for sale that afternoon. They were running a special where if you purchased a Tracy Arm photo of yourself they would throw in a picture of the ship they took that morning in Tracy Arm. While looking for a photo of us on our balcony (which we never did find) I glanced at the ship photos they were giving away. I noticed that they mixed in a few older pictures in there since in them the ship clearly had the P&O symbol on the side, which is no longer there!

 

The 3 story Atrium houses the Purser’s Desk, shore excursion desk and a desk for the Port Lecturer. This was also the home of the Art Auctions. On the first formal night the Captain’s Welcome Aboard party is held here, complete with free canapés and drinks. On the last formal night Princess Cruises’ traditional Champagne Waterfall was assembled here, always fun for a free glass of champagne or three! We also got to see our neighbors’ crazy dance moves – we think they might have taken lessons from Elaine on Seinfeld.

 

The Lotus Spa located on Holiday Deck and is your typical Steiner run cruise spa. The great thing is the complimentary steam and sauna rooms, not to mention the large showers (great for couples who are trying to get ready at the same time.) There is also a small gym down here with treadmills, bicycles and weights as well as a studio that offers aerobic and yoga classes (some of the yoga classes have a fee.) Be sure to check the Princess Patter daily the spa specials and to book your treatments early!

 

There are Laundromats on the Baja and Plaza Decks. They feature free washer and dryers and ironing boards (soap costs extra unless you bring your own!) They also prominently advertise the $15 a bag laundry special. On our cruise they offered this twice, once early and late in the cruise.

 

Dining

Palm Court Dining Room:

The Palm Court is located on the Promenade Deck is the main dining room. We had late seating at a table of 8 with 3 other couples from our group that ranged from novice to seasoned cruisers. The first night we noticed there were actually 3 people servicing our table, one waiter and two junior waiters. This continued on for several nights until we were left with just out waiter Ludi from the Philippines and Bun from Thailand. It turns out that Ludi was actually a junior waiter who was working as a waiter in hopes of a promotion (which probably explains the extra help the first few nights.) The duo wasn’t bad, just not up to the usual standards we’ve come to expect on Princess (and that we saw at other tables.) It was mostly the little things that were missed, like forgetting to clear the crumbs off the table before dessert, ground pepper not being offered and drink preferences not being memorized. They were however very friendly and were trying to do their best in accommodating everyone’s needs. Ludi would bring extra desserts every night and would encourage us to try every one. The food quality seemed consistent, not 5 star quality, but very good for the most part nonetheless. Some of the more memorable entrees included lobster, chicken kiev, halibut and the newest addition to the always available menu, the beef filet. Some of the more tasty desserts include all the soufflés (especially the passion fruit,) the Love Boat Dream (seemed different than before, but still good although only offered one night now,) cherries jubilee (made in the dining room,) mandarin sorbet, and our honeymoon cake – mmm mmm good!

 

Breakfast and lunch are open seating, being on our honeymoon when we ate here we would opt for a table for two. The breakfast menu is the same every day including all the usual breakfast items (fruit, cereal, yogurts, oatmeal, eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc etc etc.) as well as two daily specials. Everything is a’la carte and cooked to order. There is a different lunch menu every day featuring 2 pastas and 6 other entrees.

 

Afternoon tea is held here each day from 3:30 – 4:30. This features warm scones with jam and cream, miniature sandwiches and pastries, cookies and of course tea.

 

The Cafe Del Sol

The Cafe Del Sol on the lido deck serves as the buffet. Breakfasts include the usual items such as fresh fruit, eggs, breakfast meats, smoked salmon, pancakes, pastries, yogurt, cereals (hot and cold,) toast and bagels. At the end of the buffet you’ll find a made to order egg station. One addition we noticed is that there is now a hand sanitizing station at the beginning of the buffet that the buffet steward requires you use before they hand you a plate (yes, we saw several people over the course of the week balk at it’s use but no sanitizing, no plate!)

 

 

Lunch includes different salads, lunch meats and cheese, smoked fish, a hot carved item, a steam tray with other hot items that changed daily, assorted breads, rolls and soup. In addition each sea day they had a themed buffet setup in the middle of the cafe, these included an Italian buffet, Mexican buffet, Oriental buffet, and Neptune buffet. There is also a dessert station set up at the end of the buffet. Water, ice tea, milk, hot tea and coffee are available at no charge, bar waiters are available for your other beverage needs. Warning: The Cafe Del Sol gets extremely crowded during peak times; you may have trouble finding a place to sit. On the outside deck on either side of the Cafe Del Sol they have specialty areas. On one side they have a hamburger bar which also serves hot dogs, bratwurst and chicken burger. On the other side they have a more extensive salad bar, which features cereal, fruit and pastries in the morning.

 

At night (and until 4AM) they divide the Café Del Sol in half, the starboard side becomes the dinner buffet and later on a light snack buffet, and the port side becomes The Bistro. The Bistro features tableside service with cooked to order entrees. We decided to try this late one night (just so we could report on it!) We were the only people there when we went, however several were eating snacks on the other side. Morisnfan ordered the salmon pasta, and I ordered the steak. After a short wait they came out steaming hot and were delicious. This was are first time eating at The Bistro and is definitely a good option if you are tired of your tablemates but still want to be waited on for dinner. In addition to these entrees, there was also Chicken Kiev, Tilapia and a few others as well as a salad bar, several appetizers and of course desserts.

 

 

Pizza

Bravo Pizzeria is on the front of the lido deck. There are several different choices including a specialty pizza of the day. At night additional items are added such as Caesar salad, an antipasto tray and different pastas. Note that they don’t have iced tea here, so you have to drink water or purchase a beverage. There’s also no take out, everything is to be eaten in the pizzeria. We ate here one night instead of in the dining room ordering the antipasto platter, a pepperoni pizza and a California pizza (complete with avocados baked on it.). The antipasto plate was full of different meats, cheeses and veggies. The pizzas came out hot from the oven and were extremely good. As our cabin was only 2 decks below every time we would walk to the forward elevators or stairs we could smell the enticing aroma wafting through the air!

 

Room Service

The room service menu is extremely limited, a few sandwiches and salads and that’s it! If I recall on other Princess ships there are a few hot items such as hamburgers, hot dogs and the Croque Monsieur, but these are not to be found on her menu. In fact one of the members of our group called for a hot dog and they told him he needed to go to the hamburger grill to receive one. We didn’t really utilize room service on this trip (other than for the meal included with our Honeymoon Package – more on that below) so we can’t speak from experience, but we heard from several people that special requests were not being honored as they were in the past.

 

Deluxe Honeymoon Package:

We were given this package as a gift which included the following: Vase with 2 roses in the room, a bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries the first day, 2 engraved champagne flutes to keep, in room appetizers each night, 2 Princess waffle robes to take home, a 30 minute facial or massage per person, a framed 8x10 formal picture, complete breakfast in bed one morning with a half bottle of champagne, and an invite from the captain to tour the bridge. The appetizers we received each night (in order) were: Assorted canapés, chocolate strawberries, chicken wings, caviar canapés, mini pizzas, shrimp cocktail, jalapeno poppers, fried shrimp, salmon mousse and pate canapés, and some sort of sliced hot dog wrapped in pastry concoction (the strangest of them all.) We had thought about doing the $25 Tracy Arm Balcony Breakfast, but decided to get our included breakfast in bed instead in Tracy Arm. Rey left a breakfast menu the night before along with a special order form for us to leave out that night. Rey delivered our breakfast at the appropriate time, we didn’t realize we ordered so much but it took him several trips to bring it all! Unfortunately as I was carrying one of our plates outside….CRRRAAASSSH! It slipped out of my hands! We cleaned up what we could, so if anyone is staying in this room and can see the beans smashed into the balcony, well you know where they came from! :) I told Rey about our mishap and he promptly had the plate replaced with a new one.

 

The bridge tour took place on the sea day between Tracy Arm and Victoria. We received a letter signed by the Captain telling us the time and place we were to meet security, who would lead us to the bridge. The letter also advised us not to tell anyone of when the tour was taking place for security reasons. We met the security officers who verified our identity along with 8 or so other people at the indicated time. They led us through a couple of doors and up some stairs and we finally found ourselves on the bridge. The Captain was not there at the time, the third officer was the Office of the Watch during our visit. He started off with a short orientation of what he and the others up there were doing. While we were up there several times he pointed out pods of nearby whales to us. The ship was in autopilot while we were up there so we didn’t get to see them maneuver the ship, but we were able to walk all around the bridge looking at the different charts, alarm panels, controls, radar, GPS, etc. We were also able to go out onto the bridge wings and look around, we could see people on the aft of the top deck looking and wondering what we were doing there. We had a good view of our balcony from the bridge wing, which made us wonder if they ever were spying in on us. :) I would say we got to spend around 20-25 minutes up there exploring and taking pictures before they told us that it was time to go.

 

Ports of Call

Having been to these ports before and also being on our honeymoon, we decided to take it easy in port and mostly relax. Therefore it may not seem like we did much, but in actuality we spent a great deal of time walking around the towns just looking at the sights (and of course shopping!)

 

Ketchikan: After a quick breakfast in the buffet we left the ship and made our way up to Creek Street. On the way we had to stop at the Orca Corn store, which sells different varieties of popcorn, including kettle corn. Unfortunately they hadn’t opened yet so we continued on to Creek Street and went through the little shops that had already opened. We caught the funicular up to the Cape Fox Lodge and purchased drinks at the coffee shop up there (they have a large assortment of flavors.) After exploring the area up there for a bit we made our way back down to Creek Street via the Married Man’s trail, a long winding trail. On the way down we took in the scenery and stopped for a while at the salmon run. Once back down on Creek Street, we decided to tour through Dolly’s House which we missed the first time we were here. Dolly was a famous “woman of the night” whose house has been preserved and now offers self guided tours for $5 a person. It was fun to see all the old furniture, especially the homemade rose petals on her shower curtain (they were actually made from condoms!) Afterwards we browsed through more of the shops that were opening that we missed earlier. After we had our shopping fill (for the moment) we proceeded to the bridge and watched the fisherman catch salmon one after the other (and leave them oozing on the sidewalk while they caught more.) We made our way back to the ship in time for lunch, but quickly decided we weren’t in the mood for any of the ship’s offerings so we got off again to grab some salmon, halibut and chips from a stand on the dock we could see from our balcony. We took them back to our room to enjoy since it began to rain (this is Ketchikan after all!) This was a short day in port (2PM) so shortly after we had finished lunch the ship pulled out and headed off to Juneau.

 

Juneau: Today we had breakfast in the dining room before heading off the ship. We had booked the Taste of Juneau tour (which only accepted 20 passengers.) We boarded our minibus which took us to our first stop, Taku Smokeries. Here the guide told us about the history of the company and the procedures they use to process and smoke their fish. They passed samples around of their hot smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon, salmon spread and salmon jerky (very chewy!) Afterwards we proceeded to the dock where the workers had just unloaded a fishing boat. They showed us some of the salmon and huge halibut that came off the boat and was on it’s way inside to the processing plant (which coincidentally was where we were going next as well.) Here we viewed the workers moving and cleaning and processing the fish that was just caught, in preparation for it to be headed to the smokers. Before we left, we were encouraged to go back inside and take more free samples and to make any purchases we wished to. We decided to order later online so we wouldn’t have to worry about where to store the fish on the ship, but we did end up buying a few of their canned products to take with us. Our next stop was the Mendenhall Glacier. We hiked down the trail to get a closer view of the glacier and to take a ton of pictures of it and the surrounding water and scenery. After taking in the view for a while we made our way up to the visitor’s center and used the telescopes to get an unclose look at the face of the glacier. After perusing the exhibits and gift shop it was time to meet our minibus. Our last stop was the Alaskan Brewing Company. Upon entering everyone was handed a glass and encouraged to try all their beers – and as much as you wanted. Root beer was available for any passengers under the age of 21 or who didn’t want to try the real stuff. We were told the story of how the company was started, how they make their beer including their award winning Alaskan Smoked Porter, and various funny stories from a man who has worked there since the beginning. We managed to try all the beers they had on tap (6 of them) so when we were through it was good to get back on the minibus and relax! Back on the minibus they driver handed everyone a bag that had a clean Alaskan Amber glass and some recipes as souvenirs. Our tour guide “Smokey” was extremely friendly and pointed out the sights during our drive as a pro. Smokey lives in Juneau year round, in addition to working for Princess Tours, he also works as a monitor of ship’s emissions when they dock there (hence his nickname.) Smokey told us how he was happy we came on Princess since they tie into the cities power and turn their engines off when they dock at their Franklin Street Dock, even though it took away from his job! :) After our tour was over we headed over to the Red Dog Saloon for lunch and then to the Juneau Public Library. Smokey had tipped us off that they offer free internet to everyone, not just residents. We slowly made our way back to the ship (stopping at Taku for a few more samples,) and discovered the laundry rooms were empty so we decided it was a great day to do a load!

 

Skagway: After eating in the buffet we got off the ship and began exploring. We originally joined a walking tour offered by the park service, but found it too slow so we left it and headed back out on our own. We spent some time walking up and down the town’s street’s browsing through the various shops before heading back to the ship. We spent most of the afternoon on our balcony relaxing just watching the sights – sight seeing helicopters taking off and landing, passengers of the Celebrity Summit walking back and forth from their ship, the surrounding scenery, etc. Suddenly we noticed several seals swimming between our ship and the Summit. They swam back and forth for some time, and then one of them appeared with a fish in its mouth. Soon the others followed suit and they all had fish in their mouths. We literally spent several hours watching this. Soon afterwards it was time to head off for Tracy Arm.

 

Tracy Arm: As mentioned earlier we had breakfast on our balcony as we went through Tracy Arm as part of our Honeymoon Package. The scenery is breathtaking as you make you way to the glaciers. On our last trip here we were able to get within about ½ mile of the South Sawyer Glacier (which almost seems like you cold reach out and touch it.) However due to ice conditions this year no one has been able to get that close. We made it as far as Sawyer Island, just about as far as anyone has gone in this year. Still the view was amazing and we enjoyed it immensely. A life boat was lowered not only to take pictures of the ship and the passengers on deck and balconies, but the captain wanted them to pick up a small glacier – we could hear him shouting directions from the bridge wing to the lifeboat crew. They finally picked up a small one, but we never found out what he did with it! After a while it was time to head back out of Tracy Arm, passing the icebergs and wonderful scenery along the way.

 

Victoria: We had originally booked the Rainforest Coastal Walk, but were notified it was cancelled so we decided to do the city on our own. After eating in the buffet we headed off the ship and caught the first bus (its a few bucks per person for an all day pass) headed downtown. We went to the Empress Hotel and wandered around and took pictures for about an hour or so. Afterwards we walked through the garden outside and walked over to the museum across the street to see what time it opened and what IMAX movies were playing (we never did make it back here!) We then proceeded to the visitor’s center to use the restrooms and pick up a few maps. We then took a self improvised walking tour of downtown Victoria eventually making our way down to Chinatown (which is only a block long.) On the way back e browsed through the many shops and stores along the way and stopped at Sam’s Deli to share a yummy shrimp and avocado sandwich. We then headed off to the wax museum and spent another hour or so looking through their exhibits. After some more sightseeing and shopping our tummies were calling out to us again so we walked out to a fish and chips restaurant and shared a giant platter of halibut and chips that came with a Labatt Blue beer. On our way back to the bus stop we caught one of the last busses back to the ship.

.

 

Immigration/Disembarkation: Everyone had to go through immigration on the last morning. Based on our previous experiences we planned to have breakfast first, and then head to immigration later when the lines have dies down. As we were on our way to breakfast we heard an announcement that there was no line for immigration, so we decided to check that out first. Much to our surprise either everyone slept in or was having breakfast because the line was extremely short so we jumped in it. Within minutes we finished immigration and then headed off to the buffet. After we were done we picked up our carryons, said our final goodbyes to Rey and head out to relax on the Promenade Deck. Our previous times on the Regal Princess this was almost our private disembarkation lounge as virtually no one else was out here, however our secret got out and after a while this area began to fill up. After numerous announcements for people who have not gone through immigration to do so and for people to clear the area around the plaza deck (where the gangway was) the ship was finally cleared a little before 9AM (the estimated time provided on the disembarkation procedures paperwork.) Our color was called around 9:30 so we sadly headed off the ship, found our luggage and a porter and grabbed a cab to take us back home.

[Pam in CA]

What a wonderful review! You captured the things I love about the Regal Princess and the things I miss about her that aren't available on other Princess ships. Loved the Adagio Lounge for a drink before dinner, and hung out in the Bengal Bar during the day in one of those wonderful chairs. We also attended the martini tastings -- I don't drink them but I still had a lot of fun. Great review. Thanks! And congratulations!

[scousecruiser]

Sharkrookie

 

 

What a great, comprehensive review. I feel as if I know the ship like the back of my hand already. Thanks.

 

SC

[mii]

What a great and comprehensive review. Congrats on your wedding.

 

Marilyn

[Druke I]

Good review - catches essence of Regal Princess, which we shall be on next March, 'round the Horn!

 

Congrats on the marriage.

[SharkieRools]

I'm glad you all enjoyed :)

 

Thanks all for your responses :D

[Aussie Gal]

Sharkie Rools,

 

Thanks for the great review. We will be on the Regal in January going from Rio to Valpariso and cannot wait to board here. It seems to be a great ship.

 

Jennie

[nanlaur]

Thanks for the comprehensive review. We'll be on the Regal in May, going through the Panama Canal! Can't wait:D

[Lonny]

Thanks so much for the excellent review and photos -

very complete and well done, and a treat to see!

 

I loved sailing the Regal Princess to Hawaii in 2003. This year we cruised to Alaska on another line that we didn't enjoy as much as Princess (and that line didn't get us to Sitka as promised.....). Glad to know that Princess is keeping the Regal going - she really does offer a special experience and I felt very pampered by the excellent staff.

Best of all was the wonderful live music day and night -

and a REAL afternoon tea - elegant and special! - was the

crowning touch.

 

Happy cruising,

Lonny