Bon Voyage Experience (BVE) on the Pacific Princess

[1emerald1]

I did a BVE on the Pacific yesterday in San Pedro. As I have never sailed on her I was excited to check the ship out. The ship in size reminded me of the old Sitmar ships which were similar size when I first started cruising. I thought the ship was beautifully appointed and as others have pointed out, she looks like a boutique hotel. I thought the pool area was big enough, I thought the Panorama Buffet was beautiful and really liked the aft area with tables. I thought the two showrooms were beautiful. I ate lunch in the Club dining room and thought the food was adequate, nothing special but nothing to complain about. The service however was very friendly, as it was throughout the ship.

 

I boarded on deck 4, the reception area, and the music was deafening. I asked if it was always this loud and was told no, they were testing out new equipment and the folks from Corporate were on board. They closed off one side of the dining room for them.

 

While waiting to board I chatted with a woman who was in transit, doing the BTB, and she had a lot of gripes about the condition of the ship, such as rust in windows, etc. I did not notice anything out of order, with the exception of a water leak in the ladies restroom, where paper towels were stuck in the wall to absorb water. And I did see several engineers in the public areas so maybe they were working on those issues.

 

After touring the ship I think I would most definitely want to sail on her!

 

Officers on board:

 

Captain: Andrea Spinardi

Staff Captain: Goran Favro

Cruise Director: Peter Tredgett (my least favorite)

Maitre D: Oscar Perego

[Thrak]

No matter which ship you sail and no matter how happy you are with the ship, crew, and voyage, it seems there is always someone else who had a terrible voyage on the horrible ship with the nasty crew. It's a bit mind boggling sometimes. So glad you had a great BVE and got to check out Pacific Princess. We've never sailed that ship and would love a chance to check it out.

[geoherb]

Thanks for posting. I keep missing the Pacific Princess. We came close to booking it last year, but a great deal on the Caribbean came along and it was hard to justify paying so much more. We did a BVE on the Regal before booking our first cruise on the Royal. I wanted to see the layout of the ship.

[1emerald1]

No matter which ship you sail and no matter how happy you are with the ship, crew, and voyage, it seems there is always someone else who had a terrible voyage on the horrible ship with the nasty crew. It's a bit mind boggling sometimes. So glad you had a great BVE and got to check out Pacific Princess. We've never sailed that ship and would love a chance to check it out.

Thank you! It's only in LA a couple of times a year, so as much as I hated doing it mid-week and dealing with all of the traffic both ways, it was worth it and now I know what it's like. And indeed it is much different than the rest of the fleet but I would like to try her out. I think I might book a 15 day Panama when the new releases come out, although I will wait for a better sale, and one that has refundable deposits. I like the itinerary better than the other ships, it goes through the old canals and goes to Aruba instead of Caragena!

[JF - retired RRT]

OP: that's exactly what we did. We were considering a B2B Panama Canal on the Pacific and did a BVE to see what we thought.

Booked it!!

We were captivated. Our favorite ship.

Rust? Did she realize it's a ship made out of metal...on an ocean...full of salt?

We were standing in line a couple of years ago waiting to get on the shuttle to go back to the ship (don't remember which one) and a lady in front of us was offended that the windows on the shuttle were covered with salt spray.;p

Sometimes there is a complete lack of thought when some make an idiotic comment like that.

[1emerald1]

OP: that's exactly what we did. We were considering a B2B Panama Canal on the Pacific and did a BVE to see what we thought.

Booked it!!

We were captivated. Our favorite ship.

Rust? Did she realize it's a ship made out of metal...on an ocean...full of salt?

We were standing in line a couple of years ago waiting to get on the shuttle to go back to the ship (don't remember which one) and a lady in front of us was offended that the windows on the shuttle were covered with salt spray.;p

Sometimes there is a complete lack of thought when some make an idiotic comment like that.

That's exactly what I was thinking, but just let her talk.

 

One thing I forgot to mention, I really liked the deep promenade deck with the teak loungers but was really dismayed at the condition of them. There was not one bit of varnish or oil on those loungers. In fact they were so faded and dry it looked like you might get splinters from the arm rests. And the cushions were very stained and dirty. I'm surprised they didn't spruce them up during the last dry dock.

[paul929207]

We love the R class ships. It is sad that we are down to just one in the fleet. We have about 300 days on the Pacific, the Ocean/Tahitian and the middle Royal. We will add another 48 to our total starting the last day of May.