Enrichment Lectures, Athens to Barcelona?

[Learningtocruise1]

We absolutely loved all the enrichment lectures on our first Princess cruise this year, Alaska northbound on Royal.

 

We are booked on our second Princess cruise in May, Athens to Barcelona.  What types of lectures could we expect on this itinerary? 

[BarbinMich]

You're on a pretty intensive port schedule with only 3 sea days so I'm not sure there will be any lectures.  We've usually encountered them only on transatlantics that have a lot of sea days for lectures.  However, we were on a 14-day Celebrity cruise in 2014 that was RT out of Southampton to the western Med and we did have one lecturer on that cruise for our 6 six sea days.

[adam7392]

We were on Emerald from Rome to Athens this summer which is one of the 3 legs of the Barcelona/Rome/Athens/Barcelona 3 week cruise.  I'm not sure if there were live lectures in the theatre but there was a 30 min or so video on the on demand TV in your room for each port.  However the guy doing them was, in my and my wife's opinion dreadful.  He literally sent us to sleep.  Found the guy to be repetitive and boring in the extreme and the videos looked amateurish in their production.  They were so bad  it was one of the things  I mentioned on the feedback form.  They could almost have been a TV mockumentary - in fact the more I think of it I reckon Ricky Gervais should get his 'The Office' team back together, have a look at those videos, and then try to 'worsen' them!  

 

[Learningtocruise1]

Hi!  Thanks for your responses! I'm so sorry I didn't keep our Patters, but these are examples of the lectures from our Alaska cruise that we thoroughly enjoyed:

 

* Male Iditarod racer who at a young age took in the "throw away" dogs no one else wanted, but he loved and trained with them, found a different race formula, and won!

* Libby Riddles -- Female winner of Iditarod

* Lady (so sorry I don't have her name!) who moved "off the grid" with her children. Her Alaskan cabin and how she lived was so fascinating.

* Same lady who provided great history of the glaciers, and current receding status

* Nic Jans -- "A Wolf Named Romeo" lecturer-- we bought 2 of his books. Made me choke up at the end of his lecture.

* Lumberjack history from a winning contestant.

 

I'm kicking myself that I didn't keep better notes on these great lectures. Since it was our first Princess cruise, we assumed this level of Enrichment Programs would be on all cruises. Sounds like may not be the case? 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Learningtocruise1
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[BigGuy25]

I think this is one of Princess weak points. Alaska always has good lectures and presentations. The lectures on other voyages seem to me to always be trying to sell you something ... spa services, art, cameras, etc.

[capriccio]

45 minutes ago, BigGuy25 said:

I think this is one of Princess weak points. Alaska always has good lectures and presentations. The lectures on other voyages seem to me to always be trying to sell you something ... spa services, art, cameras, etc.

 

I agree that this is a Princess weak point.

 

Ten years ago we had a guest lecturer on our Baltics cruise,  John Lawrence (retired earlier this decade I think), who was so good every other one we have encountered is judged against him.  Since then we've had better luck with quality lecturers on more exotic cruises. On our South American B2B LA to Rio cruises in 2016/2017 we had an excellent port lecturer (what to see and do on your own) and an excellent SA studies (anthropology, history, culture, etc) retired professor.  On our Norway cruise this summer we had both a very good port lecturer and an interesting naval historian (WWII).   On the other hand, we had an absolutely terrible port lecturer on a Western Med/TA B2B 3 years ago.  DH (with a European history PhD from 40 years ago) could have done better with minimal preparation even for the ports we'd never visited before!

[caribill]

2 hours ago, capriccio said:

 

I agree that this is a Princess weak point.

 

Ten years ago we had a guest lecturer on our Baltics cruise,  John Lawrence (retired earlier this decade I think), who was so good every other one we have encountered is judged against him. 

 

John Lawrence was a port lecturer (and, as you indicated, one of the best). (His Baltic itinerary DVD was outstanding.)

 

The OP is asking about enrichment lectures with topics that are not port oriented. Princess does not have this type lecture on a cruise of the type the OP will be taking.

[capriccio]

9 hours ago, caribill said:

 

John Lawrence was a port lecturer (and, as you indicated, one of the best). (His Baltic itinerary DVD was outstanding.)

 

The OP is asking about enrichment lectures with topics that are not port oriented. Princess does not have this type lecture on a cruise of the type the OP will be taking.

 

John gave subject matter lectures on our cruise:  I especially remember one on Fabrege eggs, but I agree with you that on OP's itinerary that type of lecturer will (most likely) be lacking.  We were actually pleasantly surprised to have the enrichment lecturer on the Norway cruise (that had relatively few port days) this summer.  His lectures were very well attended.

[Learningtocruise1]

Thanks for all the feedback.  I think my question has been answered -- seems that unfortunately we cannot expect the same quality enrichment program lectures as we experienced on our first Princess cruise to Alaska.  But heck, we loved Princess for many other qualities and know we'll have a fantastic cruise regardless!