Regal Scandinavia & Russia - is it disruptive to have boarding at multiple ports?

[PrincessCatarina]

It looks like the Regal Princess is running a circle line in the summer by picking up passengers from Copenhagen, St. Petersburg and Berlin. This allows them to sell 3 different cruise products on the same ship and is attractive to probably more customers who may not need to pay for airfare etc.

 

I'm wondering if this impacts the cruise experience negatively in any way as it's only an 11-day cruise? Does it feel more like a ferry boat with passengers boarding and disembarking at these other ports if you are signed up to do e.g. the Copenhagen roundtrip? Or no impact and it's just a smart way for Princess to optimize revenue in the summer? Is the crowd as international as on the Mediterranean voyages or mainly Danish, Russian and German?

 

I have only taken roundtrip cruises in the past and enjoyed getting to know some fellow passengers and seeing them throughout the cruise. I've also experienced the overnight crossing on Scandinavian ferry boats (which they call cruise ships there due to similar amenities on board) between Sweden and Finland, so that's my other reference point.

[Loonbeam]

Many European cruise lines do this on a regular basis in the Med.

 

It IS tougher on the staff in some ways, easier in others (smaller and staggered changeovers) but that can impact service. This is not something Princess does on a regular basis so not sure how they will do logistically (at least in the beginning). It's little things like constantly having people available to deal with disembarkation issues as opposed to one day.

 

Traditional Dining is a special challenge because of the constantly changing makeup, tables are always being rearranged. While they usually try to sit people with the same itinerary together, you may find tablemates change at some point.

 

Operationally though you probably won't notice much except for more muster drill announcements and less familiar faces.

[bluenoser2]

We experienced this last summer on the Royal - I actually don't recall noticing it much at all - we embarked in Copenhagen which was the biggest embarkation bunch, and aside from feeling like they couldn't really talk about it being your last night on board when we were in the theatre on our last night, there wasn't any inconvenience, or anything that made it feel less like other cruises. I suppose it might make a difference if you were involved in a roll call where some people weren't there when you have your first meet and greet and such things. It didn't have a "ferry" feel to it for us. That might have been different if we had been embarking other than at Copenhagen. The St. Petersburg embarkation was pretty small as I recall.

[PrincessCatarina]

Thank you for sharing these insights! It sounds like Princess is able to make it work just fine. We would board in Copenhagen.

[cougaraz]

During our 14 night South America cruise, there was a fair amount of coming and going outside of the normally scheduled turnaround days. Honestly, it wasn't a big deal, maybe a little slow down when people were joining for the first time as we were returning on the pier, but otherwise I would say it was transparent.