Live from the Regal Princess 2/2/2020 Collaboration

[CruiseVA]

Soon to be a Live from the Regal Princess, everyone - please add content. A continuation of our Roll Call (I hope).

 

[Fishingbabe suz]

I’m packed and ready to go.....bring something to do while we all wait on the health lines....I thought our medallions were going to get us on quickly but then come this virus 🦠 and we will be getting a health inspection before we board. I am sure they do the same for the crew! 

Thank you Regal for protecting us.

[CruiseVA]

Hopefully the screening will go quickly and they have a lot of Medical people there.

[CruiseVA]

We flew from Richmond, VA (RIC) direct to Ft Lauderdale (FLL) this afternoon, well, it was supposed to be afternoon but they delayed us, undelayed us & delayed us again. Finally touched down around 7:30PM, grabbed our luggage and headed over to the Lyft/Uber area. I ordered a Lyft and our driver picked us up in about 15 minutes.  He was either tired, drunk or high - right off the bat he turns right instead of Left, didn't offer assistance with the luggage, and, almost missed the Hotel. We made it though! 

We checked in and then proceeded to Kelly's Landing for an excellent meal & some beer. We always sit at the bar there, they have awesome bartenders.  Warning - this place is popular with the locals, so, there can be a wait. We got there around 9:10PM, so there was no problem get a seat.

DW has turned in, I'm getting drowsy, but, am a night owl. 

Here's a picture of the Polynesian Wings we got at RIC bar, delicious. (I promised myslf that I'd start taking more photos of food this year - LOL. There were 8, but, well, I couldn't wait. They were delicious... (of course I forgot to take a photo of my food at Kelly's - LOL).

Boarding tomorrow! Gotta walk in the AM, then go to Total Wine for some wine, and a few cans of beer to smuggle).

[Croptop]

I'm sitting in the Regal's piazza having a coffee from the IC on the last day of my two week cruise. I have a very late departure from FLL tonight so I'm scheduled to be one of the last ones off of this ship this morning. So I'm going to pretend that I'm on this sailing for just one day. 😞 

 

Everything on this cruise was fantastic. I don't want to go home now.

[CruiseVA]

2 minutes ago, Croptop said:

I'm sitting in the Regal's piazza having a coffee from the IC on the last day of my two week cruise. I have a very late departure from FLL tonight so I'm scheduled to be one of the last ones off of this ship this morning. So I'm going to pretend that I'm on this sailing for just one day. 😞 

 

Everything on this cruise was fantastic. I don't want to go home now.

Glad to have you along, if at least for 1 day. Happy to hear that it was a great voyage.  What time is your disembarkation?  DO you remember when you boarded last week.

Safe travels home.

[Croptop]

6 minutes ago, CruiseVA said:

Glad to have you along, if at least for 1 day. Happy to hear that it was a great voyage.  What time is your disembarkation?  DO you remember when you boarded last week.

Safe travels home.

 

When I boarded on 19 January we got into the terminal around 10:00 and were onto the ship around 10:30 or so. However, the ship was just out of wet dock so they didn't have any departing passengers to get rid of first.

 

My disembarkation time is around 9:00 this morning. If things go as usual, though, I expect that they'll start calling us earlier than that though. I had a bunch of OBC left so I "splurged" on a Princess transfer to FLL -- overpaying with Princess' money is better than getting a deal on an Uber with my own money.  

 

So if you spot a sad looking dude in tan pants getting on the last bus out of the port, wave. That'll be me.

 

Off to the dining room for one last breakfast. On that note, if you're in the Anytime dining room, sit in Jeffrey C's section. He is a great waiter is quick to figure out what you like and don't like. I had breakfast (and most lunches) in his section and by the end of the cruise he was pretty much telling me what I was having. I'm going to miss the pampering.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Croptop

[CruiseVA]

Thanks John, I can see the ship from my room t the Four Points Sheraton.  I tried taking a picture, but, my window is so fogged!  I suspect that I will be you next week!

[Croptop]

For those of you planning to come to the port early, disembarkation appears to be going quite quickly. They just called some colour groups that, according to the schedule, are slated to disembark at around 08:00 and it's only 07:10.

[Croptop]

Update as of 07:40: They just announced in the Platinum/Elite disembarkation lounge that *all* colours are cleared for disembarkation. I don't know if that applies to all passengers or just to the Platinum/Elite passengers that get priority disembarkation. But regardless, they are getting us off of the ship fast!

 

I'm going to drop offline now and get my fat arse off of the ship. Then I just have to figure out how to kill 14 hours before my flight home.

 

To everyone boarding the Regal today: have a great cruise. I'll be following your thread. Bon voyage.

[pilot]

We are sitting in our cabin on the Nieuw Statendam. Going to stay on as long as we can before catching a taxi to the Regal. Our group of 6 have our KC Chiefs gear on. 

[jimbri]

Bon Voyage!

[CruiseVA]

Thanks for the updates John, aka, Croptop. Safe travels home.

[CruiseVA]

We're getting ready to take a walk, then get it together . Planning on leaving the hotel around 11:00AM.  There she is, looking all pretty for us.

[CruiseVA]

Ahoy! There be bars of soap onboard Mateys!

[AF-1]

CruiseVA;  have fun out there and look forward to your week onboard

[voljeep]

32 minutes ago, CruiseVA said:

Ahoy! There be bars of soap onboard Mateys!

what kind of 'health screening' did you go thru when you boarded ?

[snoozecrooze]

Bon voyage everyone! Watching you guys leave on the PTZtv cams right now! 

 

~Let's get loud~ indeed! 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by snoozecrooze

[CruiseVA]

2 hours ago, voljeep said:

what kind of 'health screening' did you go thru when you boarded ?

They asked us one question, have you been to China, Hong Kong, and two other locations in the last 20 days? They would not lets us tap our medallion until we answered the question. It added 10 seconds to the process. Curb to onboard was 15 minutes.

[CruiseVA]

I took a picture of the menu in the DR tonight earlier. These are not from the Dining Room, but the menu posted outside earlier...

Edited February 2, 2020 by CruiseVA

[CruiseVA]

It's Mongolian BBQ in the "Buffet" tonite, next one will be next Saturday.  Pretty tasty.

[CruiseVA]

I stopped by the Aft bar today to confirm that they did indeed have Ballast Point Sculpin, yes they do, despite the fact that it's never displayed anywhere and there is no mention of it on the menu's.

[CineGraphic]

23 hours ago, CruiseVA said:

I ordered a Lyft and our driver picked us up in about 15 minutes.  He was either tired, drunk or high - right off the bat he turns right instead of Left, didn't offer assistance with the luggage, and, almost missed the Hotel. We made it though! 

 

I'm surprised you didn't recognize me, lol! (you still owe me that drink)

 

Enjoy your cruise....glad to see you doing another group live, I really enjoyed our group live last summer.

 

We'll be on the Crown 2/15 - 2/25. We are so ready to escape the brisk, cold winds we've had lately, for some lovely tropical sunshine and frothy rum punches served with a smile.

[jeno]

We boarded yesterday, too.  Also arrived at10:00 with same 1 health question before medallion scan that was mentioned above.  On the ship by 10:30.  
After 10 days on the Crown which ended last Sunday, I’m noticing one big difference with the Medallion charging.  Almost no servers are carrying the scanner.  Just pieces of paper and a pen.  Asking name (never hear you correctly) and cabin number and fumbling around taking a huge amount of time.  The first encounter was lunch at Alfredos.  The server did the above and then charged me for an extra drink.  Same in Good Spirits bar, same in Crooners ( quizzed the server and he said he didn’t have the scanner. Finally came back and I thought he had the scanner. I was talking to my friends and when he asked for my medallion I lifted my wrist to scan and he just read my name from my medallion himself and wrote it on the paper.  Then in the dining room it all started again, same thing, but the waiter also wanted us to sign a slip for everything.  I looked at him and told him I would not be signing any more papers.  That one was it. In 10 days on the Crown we never had to sign one paper or scan our Medallion More than once.  If I hadn’t just done that I would probably think the Regal lack of efficient use of the Medallion was just the way it was.  We all agreed that it was much easier to get our cruise card out in the old days than it is to be quizzed over and over (sometimes for the same order) for your name and room number after he keeps repeating it wrong.  I don’t know if others are having the same experience.  
Otherwise, the ship is bright, clean and beautiful.  
We all took a Move Down last Wednesday on this cruise, so we’re in inside cabins with a huge amount of OBC. Inside is fine with the huge amount of storage.  
The beds are hard compared to the comfy Crown beds.  I called my last one my cocoon.  Loved it. But the bedding is still very nice.  
The ship must be full, but nothing seems crowded.  Always plenty of room to sit.  
I’m really happy with this cruise so far. I hope they get the Medallion charging squared away soon.  
I just stopped for a coffee in the IC and the server scanned my medallion with no drama or quizzing me for my info. Maybe today will be better. 
Looking forward to a great day on the Regal! 
 

[Daniel A]

Our party left an hour earlier than planned because the Port Everglades website had a banner warning about severe traffic congestion near Terminal 2 because of an event at the Convention Center.  They advised using off site parking as they predicted parking at the structure at Terminal 2 will be full.  Not only was there no congestion, there were plenty of parking spaces in the Terminal 2 parking structure.  Once they started letting us through security, everything was easy-peasy.  The health screening took about 15 seconds and consisted of asking us two questions and no forms to complete.  We got on board, and for the first time for us, there were no crewmembers operating the elevators up to Lido.  A lot of folks were getting off on different decks to drop their bags.  Once we were onboard, we had some early drinks from the Mermaid bar and had 'brunch' of Prego Pizza.  On a note from threads a while back, the Prego Pizza was very, very good.  It was a welcome change to the stuff they were calling Pizza for the past few years. 

 

We had dinner in the Horizon Court around 7:30 last night and it was almost empty.  I guess everybody was watching the Superbowl.  As an aside, they were distributing blankets to the people at poolside watching the game.  It was very chilly yesterday - lots of sweat shirts and long sleeve shirts all day.  Right now at about 9AM, it is 69 degrees here.

 

Another note from other threads, I looked at my folio this morning and I did see that we were indeed charged fort Lauderdale tax on our drinks while we were still in Port Everglades.  I will try to post some photos of Princess Cays a little later.