LIVE: Royal Princess, Dec. 10-20, 2017, 10-Day Caribbean

[callmedeb]

Thanks for doing the live from! I especially appreciate it as the snow is falling outside my office window ;)

[geoherb]

The internet manager said he did not know when the Royal would receive the upgrades that the Regal had. In spite of the slow internet speed, I’m managing to conserve my free minutes. I’ve used 22 out of the 250 so far. It generally takes a minute to post a reply. I’m typing in Word, copying and pasting to WordPad, then copying and pasting again in the reply box. I’ve found that copying and pasting directly from Word doesn’t work well. It deletes spaces between words at the end of every line. I’ve also looked at the message headers in my email inbox to see if anyone has written me personally. I also checked Facebook. Those two activities add up to around six or seven out of the 22 minutes used. Our cell phones should work tomorrow in St. Thomas. We’ll call our mothers and my brother to give them an update.

 

We started out later than I planned. I enjoyed about two hours on shore in Amber Cove. We swam in the pool. I went down both water slides. They’re fast and fun. The open one is a bit scary to me. I felt like I was going to fly over the side. On the other hand, the closed one is totally dark most of the way down, so you don’t know what’s coming up in terms of the twists and turns. I also walked up the hill to the bar on top for a great view of the ship.

 

I left DH by the pool and made it back in time to change for the champagne ring toss. This time it took place in the atrium. The staff member brought four bottles, and we had to toss the rings over a bottle to win it. I had five turns (with three rings per turn) and never made it. A lady won the fourth bottle about five people ahead of me in line.

 

 

I enjoyed a little bit of the shrimp salad and the watermelon, tomato, and mozzarella salad at the International Café. This morning, I got one of the good tea bags from there to take with me to breakfast at Sabatini’s. I noticed the waitress reading the tea bag when she took away the wrapper. It would be a nice touch if they served the better teas there and the Crown Grill regularly. I remember being impressed when they did that at the Pinnacle Grill on a Holland America ship.

[somogirl]

We were on the cruise before you and had a wonderful time. My favorite island was Bonaire. We did the fun snorkel trip through Princess and it was great. After we got back we stopped at a pub on the water for drinks and watched the sunset. The place was called Karel's, it was quaint and the view was spectacular.

My second favorite was Curaçao, beautiful town and hugely decorated for Christmas. We stepped off the ship and took a taxi to Mambo beach, nice beach with shops and many tiki huts along the beach. Taxi $5 pp each way, beach fee $3.50, chair rental 3.50. Very easy to do on your own.

Edited December 12, 2017 by somogirl

[Juliayn]

Just curious if your phone/internet worked in Amber Cove? Always worked well in Princess Cays...

 

 

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[1emerald1]

I hate to bother you with this question, but did you happen to notice if they are still selling 50th anniversary stuff in the gift ship? Thanks.

[richsea]

Very much enjoying following you along on your sailing.

 

I do haveone question. Can you tell me what time early seating is for traditional dining? After years of MTD, we have decided to try traditional again next month. Our booking says 6PM, But I have read that they sometimes change it to 5:30PM.

[vickie_bernie]

I hate to bother you with this question, but did you happen to notice if they are still selling 50th anniversary stuff in the gift ship? Thanks.

 

I have been on six princess cruises this year and i have sadly not seen anymore 50th anniversary items in the stores. I did see some items in their clearance sales they do in the restaurant a few times in a cruise.

 

Vickie

[geoherb]

The pool and pool chairs were free. Amber Cove still had lots of opportunities to spend money. Cabanas started at $295 for the poolside and hillside ones. The ones over the ocean were $320. There was a super cabana for $1,170. I did not see anyone occupy them. The zip line was only $20 for unlimited rides. The following are the prices per hour: Paddleboard ($32), single kayak ($34), two-person kayak ($46), hydrobike ($50), aquaboat cycle 2x4 ($46) and 4x4 ($100). Some of these had half-hour options as well. The following are price for the whole day: Umbrellas ($20), lockers ($6), Wi-Fi ($8), pool float ($10), and VIP area ($125).

 

We ate lunch at Alfredo’s as planned. A lot of other folks had the same idea. When they seated us, they let us know that the wait for pizzas would be 40 minutes but the pastas would be quicker. We ordered the vegetarian antipasto, salad, and agnolotti. Unfortunately, our wait person did not understand my Southern accent and thought I ordered the eggplant. Yuck. DH, though, enjoyed both his portion and mine. I had to wait another 15 minutes for my pasta. I should have ordered a pizza. The people who came in after us got their pizzas before my pasta came. We finished with tiramisu for dessert. It was great.

 

We enjoyed sailaway from the aft Promenade outcropping. Then it was time for afternoon trivia. This was our first time having trivia in Princess Live. It’s not a great venue for trivia. The early teams got the good chairs that could be arranged around the tables. We were in the theater seats. Our team of four scored 14. We could have had 17 if we had gone with some different answers that we came up with, but that would not have been good enough to beat the back-to-back cruisers’ score of 19.

 

After afternoon naps, we went to the Platinum, Elite, and suite event for the first time. Today's featured items was steak tartare. Neither of us tried it. DH enjoyed his lemon mojito.

 

We went to John Joseph’s comedy act in the theater afterward, followed by singer Sonia Selby’s act in the Vista Lounge. Both were better than their first performances, although I preferred seeing Sonia’s act in the theater. Our trivia teammates were planning on going to the later show of the comedian, hoping he’d be a little bit freer that late. He had a few R-rated bits during the early show. With the average age on this cruise around 65 (by my guess), I don’t think he needed to tone it down even for the early show.

 

Dinner tonight was once again in the Club section of Concerto. Tonight’s special feature was Caesar salad with shrimp. It was good. The head waiter had a special edition of the seafood stew prepared for DH to avoid tomato seeds. DH said it was very good. I enjoyed the Dover sole. We came back to our cabin after dinner, DH lingering a bit in the atrium to watch rock-n-roll night activities.

[geoherb]

I hate to bother you with this question, but did you happen to notice if they are still selling 50th anniversary stuff in the gift ship? Thanks.

I have not seen any of the 50th anniversary items in the stores. I have been through the primary shop where they would be. I’ll try to remember to ask.

 

I do have one question. Can you tell me what time early seating is for traditional dining? After years of MTD, we have decided to try traditional again next month. Our booking says 6PM, But I have read that they sometimes change it to 5:30PM.

Early seating is listed as 5:30 p.m. for both Allegro and Concerto. The Concerto Dining room becomes open seating after 7:30 p.m. It’s for the Club Class between 5:30 and 9:30 p.m. The Symphony Dining room is anytime all evening long and is open for seating between 5 and 9 p.m.

[geoherb]

My laundry came back last night. The cost would have been $19.75. I had one T-shirt, two polo shirts, a pair of shorts, and underwear and socks. I’ll probably send some more items out today.

 

We enjoyed the Ultimate Balcony Breakfast this morning as the Royal sailed toward St. Thomas. It was way too much food, but we enjoyed most of it. You can tell they’ve served us too much when DH can’t finish all his bacon. Having mimosas on our balcony was a nice way to start the day, too. The card we received said the breakfast was compliments of Princess. I don’t know if it’s because I booked this cruise direct, if it was due to the upgrade to a suite, or if it’s something that always comes with a suite. It’s also our first cruise receiving the loyalty credit (21st). In any case, it’s nice that they did it.

 

Today was the third time we’ve enjoyed an Ultimate Balcony Breakfast. The first time was when we did not have a balcony, just an obstructed view cabin. A friend sent it to us as a wedding present. I’ve told this before on here, but at the time she ordered it, she was told that they would set it up for us on a vacant balcony. She envisioned someone leading us down a corridor to an available room while we were wearing robes. Of course they did not do this. The second time an apology for something that happened on a previous cruise.

 

Yesterday we had Amber Cove to ourselves. There are a ton of other ships in St. Thomas with us today. We’ve spotted a Celebrity ship and a Royal Caribbean one docked at Crown Bay. There’s also an MSC ship, and DH said he thought another Princess one.

 

We’re close enough to St. Thomas to get a few bars on my cell phone—just enough to send a text message but not enough to include a photo. I’m looking forward to cleaning out my email inbox. I’ve just been checking to see if anyone has sent something personal and haven’t wanted to waste minutes selecting and deleting the other messages.

[jplewis]

Thank you so much for your updates and taking time to answer questions. I love to get up really early (addicted to sunrise/sunset) and sometimes have a hard time finding a nice outdoor seating area. If you have a suggestion please share. Also, do they have coffee anywhere before 6 a.m.? I too have a Southern accent (MS) and sometimes misunderstood. Especially when we lived in CA a couple of years.

[1emerald1]

I have been on six princess cruises this year and i have sadly not seen anymore 50th anniversary items in the stores. I did see some items in their clearance sales they do in the restaurant a few times in a cruise.

 

Vickie

Thanks for your response. The reason I ask was that on a prior cruise I bought an anniversary tree ornament and as I was decorating this year the ornament is very flawed. Oh well, guess I should have opened the box to inspect before I bought it.

[geoherb]

The plan with my cell phone did not work out. I never got a 4G or even a 3G connection. We could send texts and make calls, so we did get to talk with our mothers, my brother, and a friend.

We had a lazy day after breakfast. I went for a swim. The middle pool was warmer than the Retreat Pool. I had it to myself most of the time. We played morning trivia. It was easy. We ended up with 18 out of 20 right. According to a guy on the last cruise, the questions were exactly the same as one of the trivias on it. The same team with back-to-back cruisers won with 20 out of 20. (The guy I spoke to from the last cruise forgot one of the answers—how long it took to build the Sydney Opera House.) We ate lunch at Alfredo's again. This time there wasn't a 40-minute announced wait for pizza so we each ordered one—the Hawaiian for DH and the Royal Princess for me. They were good.

 

We walked around the shops at Havensight after lunch. There was a brief light shower as we headed back to the ship, not enough to get us wet. One of the shop owners (I believe) told us that the hurricane damage to the shopping area at Havensight was minimal. She was also one of the fortunate ones to not have any major damage to her house. We could see the devastation to some of the structures on the hills. She also warned us that due to ongoing road repairs and repairs to the power lines, what should be a 20-minute trip can end up being 2 hours. According to her, Royal Caribbean paid to clean up the beaches, and the Royal Princess was bringing some equipment/supplies to help rebuild the electrical grid today.

 

Afternoon trivia was no better. The back-to-back folks scored 19 out of 20. We were way back with just 10. It was a lot of obscure questions—such as what does a pogonophobe fear.

 

We enjoyed a swim in the pool late in the afternoon. DH joined me. It was more crowded. Fortunately, there are not a lot of children on board and the ones at the pool were basically well behaved. They were showing a Lady Antebellum concert on MUTS. The screen provided shade for the pool.

 

I watched sunset from the Outrigger Bar as we sailed away from St. Thomas. It was beautiful. I could see scattered bands of showers coming down from the clouds. A star gazing session is on the schedule for tonight. It conflicts with our going to the show. I’m hoping they schedule another one. Tonight’s show is “What the World Needs Now,” the music of Burt Bacharach. It’s the first production show with the singers and dancers.

 

The Captains Circle hostess would not divulge the various number of Elites, Platinums, etc. She said she’d announce the numbers at our party on Friday. She did say that the cutoff for the most-travelled event was around 430 days. We’re not even close. She recommended going back to Alaska—that the number of days we have could get us an invitation on some of those cruises. Sounds like a good plan to me.

[geoherb]

Thank you so much for your updates and taking time to answer questions. I love to get up really early (addicted to sunrise/sunset) and sometimes have a hard time finding a nice outdoor seating area. If you have a suggestion please share. Also, do they have coffee anywhere before 6 a.m.?

The Outrigger Bar area at the back of the ship has good views and plenty of seats. The Horizon Court starts continental breakfast at 5 a.m. (I haven’t been up that early to see if it’s true. The earliest I’ve walked around has been 6:15 a.m.) There’s self-service coffee and tea there. It will be convenient to take a cup of coffee from there to the Outrigger since they’re adjacent to each other.

Thanks for your response. The reason I ask was that on a prior cruise I bought an anniversary tree ornament and as I was decorating this year the ornament is very flawed. Oh well, guess I should have opened the box to inspect before I bought it.

The woman working in the shop whom I asked tonight said they did not have any more of the 50th anniversary items. I’ll look if we go to the outlet sale on our sea days after Curacao.

[Redwing55]

Thanks for your updates. They are even more enjoyable with the snow that we have gotten.

 

A quick question about St Thomas: Did you notice if the tram (Skyride or whatever it's called) was in operation going up the hill?

TIA

[satxdiver]

...Afternoon trivia was no better. The back-to-back folks scored 19 out of 20. We were way back with just 10. It was a lot of obscure questions—such as what does a pogonophobe fear.

...

 

The Captains Circle hostess would not divulge the various number of Elites, Platinums, etc. She said she’d announce the numbers at our party on Friday. She did say that the cutoff for the most-travelled event was around 430 days. We’re not even close. She recommended going back to Alaska—that the number of days we have could get us an invitation on some of those cruises. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

I would be a threat due to my nice No shave November fur. :D

 

We were on a Seattle based AK Ruby cruise the first of August and were selected for the most traveled captain's cocktail party. It was a once in life time experience. BTW there were ~2500 blue cards aboard. Turns out there were 53 elite aboard and over 200 kids.

 

Thanks for the updates on your cruise.

[geoherb]

We joined a family for dinner at the Club section last night. They’re a mother, father, daughter, and the daughter’s friend. They had asked if we’d like to do this after hearing DH tell the hostess that we were willing to share. That was nice. We had a good time. The special dish last night was a pasta with a tomato and garlic sauce with shrimp and olives and other things. I stopped listening after our waiter said olives. He said the wagon wheel pasta with braised oxtail sauce was better. None of us ordered either one. I had an appetizer size portion of the seafood skewer and the pad thai. Both were good but not exceptional. The pad thai needed more spice and more peanuts. The mother and father had the duck and said it was very good. The daughter and friend ordered the surf and turf (filet mignon and shrimp). DH had the seafood skewer for his entrée. The difference between my portion and his was that his included rice, which I did not need since I had noodles.

 

Last night’s show was not great. Part of it may have been that I was tired. I originally sat in the back row of the front section. Waiters were keeping people from sitting in the row behind me. Then I found out why—that they were waiting for housekeeping to clean up where someone had been sick. I decided I did not want to be close to the possible germs and moved to the left section of the theater. There were plenty of seats for the second show. At one time, I thought one of the four lead singers wasn’t really singing. A friend mentioned the same thing after the show. The dancers were on the stage but did not do much. I like shows where the dancers have room to dance. The way the stage was set up with risers with the band at the top, there wasn’t room for them to do much other than sway.

 

Today in Martinique we’ll have to take a free shuttle from the ship down the pier. We’re not allowed to walk. People wanting to get off the ship soon after it arrives will have to wait in the theater and get numbered tickets. People on Princess excursions will meet them on the pier. If we get off the ship, it will be after lunch and hopefully won’t have to wait long for a shuttle.

[Todd320]

Today in Martinique we’ll have to take a free shuttle from the ship down the pier. We’re not allowed to walk. People wanting to get off the ship soon after it arrives will have to wait in the theater and get numbered tickets. People on Princess excursions will meet them on the pier. If we get off the ship, it will be after lunch and hopefully won’t have to wait long for a shuttle.

 

We were on the cruise before yours and we were able to get off the ship and walk down the pier into town. Maybe your docking at the pier on the other side of the fort, X was docked there with RCCL last week.

[geoherb]

There are two other cruise ships in Martinique with us today: Celebrity Reflection and Costa Magica. The Reflection looks to have the prime berth, right near the center of town. The Costa ship and Royal are both off in a more industrial area.

 

We enjoyed breakfast at Sabatini’s with another couple. (The wife said last night’s pasta special for Club Class dinner was very good.) I enjoyed a mimosa for my birthday, and DH is enjoying morning cappuccinos every day. He has not used many punches on his coffee card because he’s not ordering one most evenings. We need to eat light today to save room for the Ultimate Balcony Dinner tonight. The family with whom we ate last night is doing the Super Tuscan dinner at Sabatini’s tonight and the Chef’s Table tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to hearing details about them. According to the mother, our Ultimate Balcony Breakfast was included in the upsell to a suite. I overlooked that detail in the email if it was included in the one I received.

[floridalover5623]

We were on the cruise before yours and we were able to get off the ship and walk down the pier into town. Maybe your docking at the pier on the other side of the fort, X was docked there with RCCL last week.

The newer pier makes it so much easier to reach the middle of town than the older pier. I did see some cruise ships there when we were docked so I suppose it's still in use from time to time.

I would expect it to be very crowded waiting for a shuttle.....somewhat like waiting for a tender at Princess cays.

[Todd320]

The newer pier makes it so much easier to reach the middle of town than the older pier. I did see some cruise ships there when we were docked so I suppose it's still in use from time to time.

I would expect it to be very crowded waiting for a shuttle.....somewhat like waiting for a tender at Princess cays.

 

I guess we were lucky docking in front of town. It made it so easy to do a walk about. I hope the the Royal gets it again

on our Feb 18th cruise.

[jplewis]

The Outrigger Bar area at the back of the ship has good views and plenty of seats. The Horizon Court starts continental breakfast at 5 a.m. (I haven’t been up that early to see if it’s true. The earliest I’ve walked around has been 6:15 a.m.) There’s self-service coffee and tea there. It will be convenient to take a cup of coffee from there to the Outrigger since they’re adjacent to each other.

The woman working in the shop whom I asked tonight said they did not have any more of the 50th anniversary items. I’ll look if we go to the outlet sale on our sea days after Curacao.

Thanks, Geoherb, glad I don't have to wait for 6 for coffee. And good info about Outrigger.

[floridalover5623]

I guess we were lucky docking in front of town. It made it so easy to do a walk about. I hope the the Royal gets it again

on our Feb 18th cruise.

See you on the 18th. :D

What I don't quite grasp is not allowing the people to walk to town if they choose.

Edited December 14, 2017 by floridalover5623

[geoherb]

We stayed on the ship in Martinique. We played morning trivia, watching the back-to-backers win again, followed by the bean bag toss. I did great the first round, sinking all four bags to take the lead. Around two dozen passengers participated. I did not get any bags in the second round after the cruise staff member made the distance greater. We ate a light lunch at the International Café. Then we enjoyed a game of Scrabble in the Concierge Lounge. The unexpected happened at afternoon trivia. The back-to-backers lost to another team. We were just a point shy of winning. So now we know there is a chance.

 

The Ultimate Balcony Dinner was great. They set up a small card table on our balcony and covered it with a white tablecloth. We used the chairs that are there, which was comfortable enough. The meal started with canapes like we had had the first afternoon. A crab cake in a pastry crust came next. It was accompanied by a salad made with tiny ribbons of zucchini and carrot with fresh basil. A salad of greens with goat cheese, candied walnuts, pears, and tomatoes followed. They got our orders right, leaving the pears off my salad and the walnuts off DH’s. We chose a mojito and a banana daiquiri for our drinks. Our waiters delivered them with the salad, except they subbed a dirty banana for the daiquiri. DH enjoyed it nevertheless. That’s also when the photographer showed up to take a few photos. The lead waiter also took a few photos with my camera. They look good on the little screen. I haven’t transferred them to my computer to see if they actually are.

 

We had the surf and turf for our main courses. For those they listened and served us broccoli instead of the asparagus that normally accompanies them. We had wanted flourless chocolate cake, but the woman who took our order said she did not know if it was possible. Before we received the main course, the lead waiter let us see the dessert menu from the dining rooms to pick one of them instead of the chocolate mousse trio that usually comes with the UBD. (I find the trio too sweet and heavy to follow such a big meal.) We ordered soufflés. They served them with the custard sauce. As we were eating them, the waiters brought in an individual cake for my birthday and a piece of flourless chocolate cake. It was delicious. They sang Happy Birthday to me. I saved the birthday cake for today.

 

The view from our balcony overlooking the industrial area of the port wasn’t great for the beginning of dinner. Midway through the dinner, though, the Royal set sail We had a nice view of the lights of the island. There was a large sailing ship, probably one of the Windstar ships, docked away from the city. The breeze on the balcony after sailaway was not bad, but it did create a wind tunnel whenever they opened our cabin door. The water pitcher on the table inside our cabin got blown over. The lead waiter cleaned up the pieces of ice and tried to dab away the water with a napkin. Our cabin steward was delivering our laundry and helped by putting down a towel to blot the water better.

 

After dinner, we went to the theater for the show. We were too late and could not find seats together. So we ended up at a trivia of determining which celebrity was in a childhood photo. We got slightly more than half right, 13 out of 24. The winning couple said they had 20. The second closest team had just 15. I joked with one of the back-to-back team members that the winning couple must have counted each correct answer as two points.

 

I went by the dining room to check out the menu for tonight for DH to make sure there wasn’t anything he’d want that had one of his restricted items. The head waiter has been much better on this cruise than our last one at accommodating his special diet. He’s only had to place a special order once. Most of the time DH can pick around offending items or order safe menu items since his restriction is avoiding things like tomato seeds and nuts. The one special order he received was a seafood stew without tomatoes.

 

We stayed in Princess Live for a game show called Hollywould You. I submitted my name and got picked to be a contestant. (The odds were very good since they were picking two men and two women to play the game and only one other guy signed up. Eight or nine women signed up, so they drew names for the ones to participate.) I was on Natalie’s team with a passenger named Joyce. We faced off against CD Matt’s team, composed of passengers named Stu (Micah’s Granddad on CC) and Bernadette. We were behind one point after the first round, which was identifying movies from their theme songs. We came alive the second round, identifying famous people from photos of just a portion of their faces. The third round consisted of posing for a movie poster and having the audience guess which movie we were trying to represent. We got to use props from a table full of them to help. The audience got all of the titles correct for that round for both team, so we held our lead. The final round was answering trivia questions. We increased our lead by getting five answers right compared to the other team’s three. All four of us passengers participating got Princess bags with water bottles, notepads, and bottle stoppers. It was fun.

 

The 10:15 show in the theater wasn’t crowded. We sat in the front row with a couple from Canada we met earlier on the cruise. The act was Dan Bennett, a comedy juggler. He was very good.

[geoherb]

The newer pier makes it so much easier to reach the middle of town than the older pier. I did see some cruise ships there when we were docked so I suppose it's still in use from time to time.

 

I would expect it to be very crowded waiting for a shuttle.....somewhat like waiting for a tender at Princess Cays.

Yes, it was like waiting for a tender except without priority for Elite and Suite passengers. They had people wait in Princess Theater and handed out numbered tickets to control the flow of passengers. It was around three hours after we docked that they finally announced that tickets were no longer required for the shuttle buses.

 

A guy on the last cruise who’s also on this one said there wasn’t much to see in the town. Another couple I spoke with enjoyed their island tour. It went into the rain forest and to the rum factory. Some other folks we’ve met were going to the botanical garden, but I haven’t seen them since to find out how that was.

 

It’s a beautiful day in Grenada. We watched sailing in to the port from our balcony. It’s a short port call, 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. We are getting off the ship this morning to walk around the town. The last time we were here was Christmas Day many years ago on a Celebrity cruise ship.