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My Royal Princess review 2/18/17- 2/28/17

Noblarneyimirish

By Noblarneyimirish,
in Princess Cruises

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Hi all,

I'm putting my review out here because before I cruised I didn't find a ton of Royal reviews.

Let me begin by saying I've been on roughly 15 cruises. I have cruised Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, NCL and now Princess. We are a couple in our mid 40's but in our minds we think we're still 30 ;)

 

We decided not to fly in the day before. We were flying Delta and our friends were flying Southwest. Got to the airport to discover both our flights were delayed 2 hours. Guess there was some weather in our flight pattern that caused the delay.

We made it to the cruise terminal at 2:30. This is cutting it a little too close for my liking but that's our fault for not flying in the day before.

The good news is there was no line and we were onboard within 10 minutes. It was so strange to me that they didn't take our picture until we were onboard. We went straight to our rooms to drop our backpacks. Oh wait that's not true. We grabbed a beer first :)

 

First impression of the room. We were in room E706, a balcony room on deck 8. Couldn't have been any closer to the stairs and elevator.

The room seemed small but it worked for what we need it for. It was clean and we loved the set up with the large closet and the private closet area. I think there were two outlets. The bed wasn't very comfortable. The balcony was REALLY small. We had the door on the balcony open between our room and our friends room. With the door opened it eliminated about 4 inches of our balcony space and we couldn't have both of our chairs facing out toward the water. One chair had to be be facing sideways. The tv had few live tv channels to choose from had a lot of movies and tv series to watch. We met our stateroom attendant once during our trip. Otherwise he snuck in like a little elf. He did a great job. I believe his name was Cef

 

Time for the muster drill. We were in the Wheel House bar. We had to bring our life jackets to the drill with us. It probably lasted about 45 minutes but it was painless.

 

Up to the pool decks for drinks and sail away. Oh and pizza. The sail away party was fun but we were so hungry we were more focused on the pizza and mudslides

 

My husband got the all inclusive drink package. I did not. I'm not really a drinker. Honestly I never felt like he over consumed, ok maybe the last day he did , but I felt as if he got his money's worth.

 

I'll post more later. That's all for now :)

 

 

 

 

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hllwdcruiser Great Review Rare

hllwdcruiser

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Looking forward to the rest - would also love to hear how you feel Princess compares to the other lines you've sailed. We've been thinking about jumping ship and trying Celebrity some day soon....

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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I think I'll just bunch the rest into categories

 

Ports of call- We have previously been to all these ports previously and loved them all. We've done all the adventurous excursions so decided this trip to make it primarily about the beaches

 

Princess Cays:

You need to tender to the island. It was actually really wavy that day. You can't just walk off and get on a tender. You need to head to the designated area, get a tender ticket and then wait for your number to be called. We waited to head down about an hour after we docked. It was still really busy but we only waited about 20 minutes. We had to sit up top the tender. The waves were making my hubby sick. There were a few others that were looking a little green. Loved Princess Cay. Enjoyed the beach and headed to the tender line about an hour before we had to be back. This time we waited in line for a tender about an hour

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St Thomas:

Awww. St Thomas. One of our favorite ports. Hopped in a taxi and took about a 20 minute drive to one of my favorite beaches, Coki Beach. Normally it's really calm in this bay but we were told the storms the day before we're bringing in the waves.

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Antigua:

Had heard of a great beach called Valley Church Beach. We decided to take a little walk into town and hop on the local bus to the beach. Taxi drivers in this port are very aggressive. Just tell them no thank you and keep walking. Made our way to the bus and took route # 22 to the beach. LOVED this beach. But the water is cloudy. I'm told this is because of the high salt content. Didn't care for the sand. It was crushed shells and hard on the feet. There was a beach bar. They had amazing coconut shrimp.

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St Lucia:

When in St Lucia I highly recommend the land and sea tour. Make sure you go to the volcano and play in the mud and get in the sulphur bath. Since we had already done this tour we thought we would walk to town and head to a bar. It's only about 1/2 mile walk. Wow! I thought the taxi drivers were aggressive in Antigua. The taxi drivers in St Lucia were coming at us left and right

We headed into the local market and they were extremely aggressive as well. After about an hour we decided to head back to the ship. It's a beautiful beautiful island but the over aggressiveness was too much.

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Barbados:

Oh Barbados! Where do I even begin with my love for Barbados. If you go to Barbados a swim with the turtles is a must and I can recommend the most amazing tour guide. This trip we headed to Harbor Lights Beach bar. Loved loved loved this beach. The water was amazing and the sand was a combo between sugar and flour. Loved this beach. It was a quick easy taxi ride. $7 pp I believe. Cannot wait to go back. This remains my favorite port in the Caribbean!

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St Kitts:

I wasn't too excited about going back to St Kitts but am I happy we did. We had the most amazing day. We went to Conkelshell Beach. When we got dropped off I was a little unsure. The beach bar was a little hut. Well it turns out the beach bar has cheap beer, plays great beach music and the staff was so friendly. There are other areas on the beach to choose from but this little beach bar was a gem. The island is extremely clean. Look for monkeys on the side of the roads.

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Food:

I've never been a huge fan of dining room food / buffet food on any cruise ship. This holds true to this cruise.

Don't get me wrong. I find plenty to eat.

We are at the Crown Grill twice. LOVED it. The food was amazing as was the service. I left there stuffed. Save room for the molten chocolate cake. OMG! Our server brought out sides to share family style. He was brought us lobster galore. It really was amazing. Cover charge was $29 per person and well worth it

 

The Crab Shack- this took place in a section of the buffet on two or three different nights. The servers dress cute and they have fishing nets up. They put cute bibs on everyone. Honestly we weren't that impressed. The food was cold when it arrived. I wouldn't recommend! I did however think the shrimp was good and I loved the hush puppies Cover charge was also $29 per person. The service was excellent

 

There is a seafood bar onboard. The serve lobster rolls and other seafood salads. It's charged ala carte. My husband likes his lobster roll. I had a Crab margarita salad. It was amazing. I think it was 6.95 for each item. We had lunch here twice

 

The buffet- I could always find something I liked. My favorite part of the buffet was the outdoor seating. We actually had dinner here several times just so we could sit outside

Oh, my fave thing in the buffet was the taco/nacho bar in the afternoon. So good!

 

Alfredo's- this is the pizza place on deck 6. I had a calzone and hubby had a pizza. Both were good. No cover charge. Make sure you at least try it. Great window views.

 

Pool deck pizza - I may have eaten pizza most days. They have two staples and one special pizza each day. So good ! Open 11 to 11 each day

 

Pool burgers- we never did have a burger. At night it turns into a BBQ place. My husband was obsessed with the chili. Open 11 to 11 each day

 

 

 

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Also ready to sail on the Royal on March 20th! This will be third time on her. Excited to read your review. Different islands for the most part. Thanks for the review!

 

Janet

 

 

My understanding is the ship only does the same route every 4 sailings.

 

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Entertainment - We never did make it to any shows so I can't speak to the theatre . We did enjoy the DJ out on the pool deck. We wished his sets were a little longer. He only played for 45 minutes a set. Same thing with the ship band. Loved their sets but they were short.

We really enjoyed the gentleman that played the steel drums at the wheelhouse bar.

I don't recall the name of the but it's on the pool deck. The bartenders there put on a great show.

Movies under the stars! I can't even tell you how much we enjoyed this. Loved that they have blankets and popcorn.

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There weren't a lot of activities that interested us. We did miss a lot of the sport activities a lot of other lines offer but I'm not complaining. We don't need organized activities to entertain us. We create our own fun.

 

Gambling- we did visit the casino a handful of times. I played the slots a little and my hubby likes to play craps. I actually thought the slots payed out okay. I ended up $100 ahead on the last day. Here's a little note about the slots. When you want to cash out you must have your card inserted into the machine. The machines don't print out a ticket. When you cash out it keeps a bank roll on your account and if you're ready to cash out for cash you can so that with the cashier. Hubby did pretty well on the craps table

On the last day we played Bingo. We've never played Bingo on a ship before. My sister in law won a $400 jackpot. I wasn't a winner but was still entertained. I was happy for the woman that won the $2800 jackpot.

 

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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The ship - The ship is beautiful and is very well kept up.

We weren't however impressed with ships layout. We found it hard to get our bearings. There are a lot of dead ends. Here is my best piece of advise, Deck 7 is like the super highway. Inside the ship if you want to get from one end of the ship to another go to deck 7.

The walking track is on deck 17. It doesn't make a full lap around the ship like other ships we have been on. In the middle of the walking track is the sports court and ping pong tables. 7 laps around is a mile.

We do workout when we cruise. I used the recumbent bikes and ellipticals. Hubby took too spinning classes. Classes were $12 and were a hour long. He's really physically fit and these classes kicked his butt. The gym was busy but never overly crowded.

I loved the pools on the ship. The main pool and the adult pool were bigger than most pools we have seen on other ships. I love sitting on the edge or the pool wall and just having my feet and legs in. Lots of room for this if your like me. They did sometimes play movies during the day on the pool deck. The adult pool is so pretty, calm and quiet. The hot tubs were never full. You could usually find one that was empty. Pools and hot tubs never close. Love that !!!

We really we're disappointed that there isn't a lower deck that goes all the way around the ship. There are a few small decks but if we didn't have a balcony room I would have felt as if I wasn't seeing the ocean enough.

We loved that there was a laundry room. We did pack lite and do two loads. Seriously loved this feature. Some of you may think you shouldn't do laundry on vacation. We thought why not. It was about 40 steps from our room and we enjoyed our balcony while we waited.

I've already mentioned our room. The room was nice and clean but the balcony was tiny.

We didn't purchase any spa services but we did tour it on day one. It looked pretty amazing and inviting.

 

 

 

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Overall- I think the median age on our sailing was about 65.

We did miss some of the fun factor that some of the other lines offer but we knew going into this that we wouldn't have this. We were sailing more for the itinerary than the ship.

We had an amazing vacation. This was our first 10'day cruise and I thought it might be too long for us. I would do 10 days again in a heartbeat.

Has Princess claimed the top spot in my heart as my favorite cruise line? No it hasn't. Would I sail with them again? Yes I would. The staff and service they provide was excellent. Overall this was the happiest crew we have found at sea. I have to give a shout out to the bartenders at the bar at the back of the ship outside the buffet. They were a hoot and made our evenings so much fun. If you have yet to sail this ship your in for a treat!

 

 

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Noblarneyimirish

Noblarneyimirish

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Looking forward to the rest - would also love to hear how you feel Princess compares to the other lines you've sailed. We've been thinking about jumping ship and trying Celebrity some day soon....

 

 

Branch out! You'll be so happy you did! Princess might have your heart as your top line but you never know. I think our favorite is Celebrity. You should try the Celebrity Reflection. I think you would love it !!! We were happy on Princess. We had a great cruise and we would do it again but it's not my favorite. We started out loyal to Royal Caribbean but once we started sailing other lines we realized they are all great in their own way. Happy Sailing !

 

 

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sailawaygirl

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so nice to read a positive honest review.. thank you..we too have cruised many lines and have heard that the Royal is a beautiful ship. We booked our March 10 cruise based on the ports and loved the pictures you posted. Love your hubby's bathing trunks...nice to make people smile. You didn't mention the formal nights...how dressy were people?:halo:

We have heard conflicting stories. (My husband would love to leave his suit home...lol)

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