LIVE: Crown Princess Transatlantic Cruise, 9/22/19 - 10/8/19

[geoherb]

7 hours ago, mthomp5 said:

Thank you for the live report.  I love following along.  I really want to do a Transatlantic one of these days because  I love sea days.  But we have to wait for a time when my DH can take more time off from work.  Right now, the longest vacation we’ve been able to take is 10 days!

 

We had to wait until after we retired before I could take enough time off from work for any European cruises. We started with the British Isles two years ago, the Royal's transatlantic last year, and now this cruise. I managed to get nearly two weeks off in a row one summer for a 12-day Alaskan cruise tour. I worked on a Monday, then we flew out that evening for Fairbanks. We also managed an 11-day partial Panama Canal cruise, but that was over the Christmas holidays, so I did not have to take as many vacation days. My 93-year-old mother-in-law keeps us from doing anything longer than three weeks now. We'll be gone just 19 nights on this trip. Before my mother died this past winter, I had to coordinate our cruises with my brother's vacation schedule. He and his wife are leaving on a cruise three days before we get back, and both of us being gone for so long is something we never did while she was living.

[geoherb]

8 hours ago, Kingofcool1947 said:

 

Thanks for posting your dailies.  

I embarked Crown in Dublin, September 13.  On to FLL.  I lucked out and got one of the few remaining barrel chairs in my balcony stateroom.   Did you?

Did you notice the serious engine vibrations when leaving the ports of call?

 

We're in an inside cabin. There's no room for a barrel chair. I noticed the engine vibrations last night as we were leaving Zeebrugge. We were at the back of the ship in Club Fusion at the time. Our cabin is between the two forward stairs on the Aloha Deck. I haven't noticed any vibrations in it. Just a couple of big thuds last night in our rough seas.

[hpeabody]

Did you notice the vibration leaving Southampton as we pushed away from the dock on Sunday evening. I was at early dinner in Bottacelli.  Whoa!

 

For those following ...

Around 7am the captain was on the PA to announce he is aborting port in Portland UK today due to weather, wind and sea conditions. 

 

I had a tour scheduled and I know it would not have been enjoyable in this weather.  Now I have to deal with 100 GBP I specifically had to get for this tour and we have no more use for GBP on the cruise.  I do not like losing money on trading it back in. 😞

[geoherb]

I did not notice vibration leaving from Southampton. We were on the Lido Deck then. Perhaps it's just the lower decks, closer to the engines, that feel it.

 

Here's today's original Patter and the revised version with updated activities for the morning and afternoon. We enjoyed trivia in the morning. I did the chipping contest. I managed to get one out of four balls. The winner had three in the hoop. We did the jeopardized trivia. (They don't call it that anymore due to trademarks.) We went to lunch in the dining room. Here's the menu for it. I had an appetizer size portion of the bucatini and the perch. One man who also had the perch described it as oily. My piece wasn't. 

Edited September 24, 2019 by geoherb

[Griller]

The same Trivia 20/20 every game winners were on the last cruise as well, they use the notebooks they win to write all the questions and answers down and the woman always has a book of past quizzes with her, they won the grey "potato sacks" or drawstring bags today, we have struggled to give those away in he past if we won them.

There has been some boo-ing when they have won, and I can only expect this to increase as the cruise wears on.

What do they do with the prizes?  Sell them on Ebay or give them to their cabin steward instead of the gratuity?

When they were at the MTP Cocktail party last week no one sat or chatted with them while the rest of us had a great time.

Apparently having a good memory and filing system doesn't mean you're popular.

 

At what used to be called Jeopardize today they got a full game in as opposed to last week when Bingo over-ran and they only had time for half the questions. So that was good and everyone had fun. And I do not think the unpopular team won.

[metairiegal]

Thanks for the review and pictures!

[Griller]

6 hours ago, hpeabody said:

Did you notice the vibration leaving Southampton as we pushed away from the dock on Sunday evening. I was at early dinner in Bottacelli.  Whoa!

 

For those following ...

Around 7am the captain was on the PA to announce he is aborting port in Portland UK today due to weather, wind and sea conditions. 

 

I had a tour scheduled and I know it would not have been enjoyable in this weather.  Now I have to deal with 100 GBP I specifically had to get for this tour and we have no more use for GBP on the cruise.  I do not like losing money on trading it back in. 😞

In Botticelli you are at the back of the ship where the props are and I cannot say we noticed any undue vibration elsewhere.

We were meant to be 2nd seating in Botticelli but the others at the table for 6 never turned up and we asked for another table 9 days ago and haven't heard back so we go to Anytime or the buffet and its been fine.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Griller

[canadarocks]

geoherb  you've mentioned that  you have late dining.  Is it at 7:15pm in the aft dining room?

[Griller]

1 hour ago, canadarocks said:

geoherb  you've mentioned that  you have late dining.  Is it at 7:15pm in the aft dining room?

Sorry I know you didn't ask me but I have unlimited wifi and the OP doesn't

 

yes

[c-boy]

2 hours ago, Griller said:

The same Trivia 20/20 every game winners were on the last cruise as well, they use the notebooks they win to write all the questions and answers down and the woman always has a book of past quizzes with her, they won the grey "potato sacks" or drawstring bags today, we have struggled to give those away in he past if we won them.

There has been some boo-ing when they have won, and I can only expect this to increase as the cruise wears on.

What do they do with the prizes?  Sell them on Ebay or give them to their cabin steward instead of the gratuity?

When they were at the MTP Cocktail party last week no one sat or chatted with them while the rest of us had a great time.

Apparently having a good memory and filing system doesn't mean you're popular.

 

At what used to be called Jeopardize today they got a full game in as opposed to last week when Bingo over-ran and they only had time for half the questions. So that was good and everyone had fun. And I do not think the unpopular team won.

🤨 wow.

[BarbinMich]

Enjoying your TA report, esp. since we are no longer able to cruise.  TAs were our favorite, did 5 WB and 5 EB over the years, including 2 on the Crown.  Have a great crossing!

[geoherb]

Actually I had to break down and purchase the unlimited WiFi on the first day because it's so slow. It was taking over 20 minutes to download my hometown newspaper. The download speed is up to 7.21 Mbps, which is three times the speed it was on the first day--but still very slow.

[Griller]

14 minutes ago, geoherb said:

Actually I had to break down and purchase the unlimited WiFi on the first day because it's so slow. It was taking over 20 minutes to download my hometown newspaper. The download speed is up to 7.21 Mbps, which is three times the speed it was on the first day--but still very slow.

For the last day or two I have been getting lots of stuff related to Luxembourg on my MSN pages and that can only be because somehow the satellite internet is routed through there and of course MSN spies on me and tries to send me stuff it thinks will be relevant, just now I got an Msn page in German for some reason.

My problem with the internet on the ship is the ping, up to 4 seconds delay between me pressing a key and getting a response back from the server I have to communicate with  in North America. I am sure its thousand of miles and a tortuous path.

For 4 devices for the 25 days it was $224 with the first day elite trade in 25% discount. Half that for one device.

I now realize I could have had one device and set up my own hotspot and run the others off it, but maybe it would have been just too slow sharing the bandwidth.

 

[geoherb]

I signed up for just one device, but I can log off the computer and sign on through my cell phone if I want. DH can check his emails on my computer, although this afternoon it did not like that he was trying to sign on from a different device from a strange location. I guess that it's good to have some security. He had to answer some security questions before he could get in.

 

With the one device, I can have multiple tabs open at a time, downloading the paper, for instance, while typing here. 

 

Ollie Mulkeen's show in the theater after dinner was pretty good. He sang a number of songs and played the trumpet and flugelhorn. We sat in the same row as last night's singer. She is going to do another show on Saturday night. DH is excited.

 

We have our first scheduled day at sea tomorrow. I went back to Vines to ask again about the Stammtisch. This time the manager was there. He said he is planning on having it the first sea day after Lisbon, when they're expecting a shipment of wines to get on the ship. One of the couples at our table have the drink package as part of their cruise deal. They have complained about some of the wines covered by the glass in the package have been out of stock. Here are the pages from tomorrow's Patter.

 

[Griller]

Calypso Cove where you can buy various tobacco products is already out of stock of British passengers favorite Golden Virginia, just several days out of Southampton. The sales clerk's usual reason they give is that they load it on in Southampton and now the ship has been in the Caribbean for the season so they're sold out.

This time their pathetic excuse is that they didn't know there would be so many British passengers on board buying it all.

Both as a passenger who wanted to buy some and a fairly decent sized stockholder interested in not having lost sales and profits I am annoyed about this.

If the ship runs out of the British passengers favorite teabags, English Breakfast tea then we are well prepared, 480 more in our cabin we bought in UK just in case.

We never did get out Elite toiletries on here but don't care as we bring decent products for the bathroom. Not even worth mentioning to our friendly cabin steward who was feeling seasick last night as the ship is rocking around a bit, but nothing is falling over or drawers sliding out so its not that bad.

Spray was coming up to our window on Deck 8

 

If anyone is interested the cutoff number of days for the MTP cocktail party is about 630 or so depending if every higher passenger accepts the RSVP. About 100 more days than the previous cruise around the British Isles.

 

The day we embarked the ship Sep 13th I noticed a buffet chef sneezing into his hand, when I remonstrated with him about this he was sent to wash his hands, about 3 or 4 days later we went down with a cold which we still have and are now on antibiotics for bronchitis, mine is on the way out now but Mrs Griller seems as bad as ever in spite of the Z pak.

Fortunately as we are both retired medical professionals we carry an extensive first aid kit so had what we needed, but there is a lot of coughing and sneezing around the ship.and passengers seeing the doctor at $95 a time plus cost of meds.

The flimsy Chinese Kleenex in the cabin are not up to much but the paper napkins from the grill or pizza place on deck 15  are great if you have a cold.

Edited September 25, 2019 by Griller

[dandylion]

geoherb!

We sailed/dined  with you on that Royal Transatlantic...pat/bill/carol/joanne/ We are using the credit from that cruise to take another TA as well on the Pacific Princess out of Rome in Dec. I will follow your report on this cruise ….enjoy

pat

[Lucky TGO]

On 9/23/2019 at 8:11 AM, jimbri said:

Looking forward to the rest of your review!

Ditto!! Great photos

Tony

[geoherb]

4 hours ago, dandylion said:

geoherb!

We sailed/dined  with you on that Royal Transatlantic...pat/bill/carol/joanne/ We are using the credit from that cruise to take another TA as well on the Pacific Princess out of Rome in Dec. I will follow your report on this cruise ….enjoy

pat

 

Great to hear from you. Hope you have a great time on the Pacific. Another friend was on it this summer to Iceland. I used up my credit from the Royal on my Island Princess cruises this summer. Sam's using his on this one. It was nice to have a little bit off the total price.

[MissP22]

9 hours ago, Griller said:

If anyone is interested the cutoff number of days for the MTP cocktail party is about 630 or so depending if every higher passenger accepts the RSVP. About 100 more days than the previous cruise around the British Isles.

Those crossings usually does attract more of the most traveled cruisers. 

Let us know how the cocktail party was? 

Seems that this Captain doesn't like lunches even if he has the time. 

[geoherb]

We had a well-attended meet and greet this afternoon in Skywalker's with probably around 150 people in attendance. The cruise director and entertainment director as well as bar manager attended. Several other officers who may have attended were dealing with a helicopter med-evac that happened during lunch. Angela and Duke spoke but the bar manager did not. There was a small holdup with tickets for door prizes, but we were enjoying talking with the people around us. We actually stayed after the last door prize drawing and talked for nearly an hour.

 

I stopped by the pizza place for a piece of the Cali-avocado toast. It's toasted bread topped with guacamole, bacon, pine nuts, and cheese. It was tasty. It would make a nice vegetarian snack without the bacon. I played afternoon trivia as a team of one since DH was taking a nap. The people with whom we played this morning already had a team of six. I did not see anyone else I recognized. I did OK, getting 15 out of 20 points. The winners had 18. If our morning team had kicked off one of their members, I would have had the right answer to get them into a tie with the winners.

 

I went to the gym for the first time this trip to exercise a bit. There were not many people there. The rocking of the ship made some things challenging.

 

The champagne waterfall is scheduled for tonight. I'm not sure they'll be able to stack the glasses. They had not started at 4:30 when I walked through the atrium.

 

[geoherb]

They set up the champagne waterfall as planned somehow even with all the rocking and rolling. We had a few glasses of champagne before dinner. It was our first formal night. My estimate of men's attire in the dining room: 5 percent pants with dress shirt and sweater or vest without a tie, 10 percent pants with a dress shirt without a tie, 10 percent pants with a dress shirt and tie, 20 percent pants with a dress shirt and jacket, 20 percent in formal attire (some, though, without ties), and 35 percent in suits with a dress shirt and tie. I hope that adds up to 100 percent. I did not see any men in the dining room in a polo shirt, T-shirt, or jeans at second seating traditional dining.

 

Tonight was the first production show: Sweet Soul Music. The singers and dancers are good. None stood out to me, though. We'll see if someone makes more of an impression in the later production shows.

 

Here is a photo of the champagne waterfall before they started pouring along with tonight's menu and tomorrow's Patter. We will take the shuttle bus provided by the port into Soulac-sur-Mer. I've included the front page of the Patter, which tells about the procedure for picking up tickets. We will go after the first rush of folks. I'm hoping a lot of people have excursions booked for Bordeaux or else will stay on the ship so that it's not too lengthy a wait for the shuttle. I'd like to get to town around 10:30 and leave after walking through the market and basilica and perhaps eating lunch, around 2 or 2:30.

Edited September 25, 2019 by geoherb

[geoherb]

I forgot to mention that our first batches of laundry came back last night, the ones we went out the first night. It's nice to know that they came back in 72 hours instead of longer. 

[geoherb]

We had an enjoyable morning in Soulac-sur-Mer. We stopped by the Explorers Lounge after breakfast to see about getting a ticket on the shuttle bus. Everyone leaving the ship had to go on one of the free shuttle buses unless they were on a Princess excursion. I'm not sure if they let any private excursion vehicles enter the port area or if those people who had arranged private excursions had to meet them in the town. 

 

There is a train that goes from Soulac to Bordeaux, but I don't think the times are workable. Passengers who want to go to Bordeaux have to purchase an excursion or find some other way to make it.

 

Soulac is a small seaside town. There's a nice market in the middle with fruit and vegetable, meat, seafood, and other vendors. There are a lot of small shops and restaurants on the main street and the side streets off of it. The central feature of the town is a medieval basilica (Basilique Notre-Dame-de-las-fin-de-Terres, which loosely translates into Basilica of Our Lady of the End of the Earth). It was built beginning in the 12th century. It eventually became buried in the sand. They excavated and restored the building in the late 1800s.

 

The museum in the town is closed for renovations until next year. We shopped at the grocery store--SPAR--to buy some cookies, chocolate, wine, and jam. We bought another bottle of wine at a little store near the market. The grocery store wine had a Soulac-sur-Mer label. The second bottle we purchased was from Libourne, near Bordeaux. 

 

There was a small line of people waiting for the shuttle back to the ship after we finished touring the basilica. We missed one bus by six people, but there was a second bus waiting for us. We came back to the ship. It's about a 20-minute ride. I'm so glad it was a free shuttle. That's such a nice touch for the local authorities to offer. We ate lunch at the International Café then played the champagne ring toss. I was the second winner of a bottle. They had four to give away. We played the afternoon trivia and came in one point behind the winners. We could have tied them if I had gone with my first instinct on a question. The professional teams weren't there.

[c-boy]

wine for formal night ?

[CruzinNoony]

Did you have any problems with bringing the two bottles onboard?