Live from the Regal - July 2-23 - Med Cruise - R/T Barcelona

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You must pick Princess excursions that a lot of people are not taking as all the excursions I have been on have nearly or full buses with some excursions with multiple buses going.

[tml1230]

Ken, your photos  and commentary continue to be incredible....and as others have mentioned... you make us feel like we are there with you!

I know your cruise is not over yet, but can you give me a heads up on your next cruise and "live from"? we want to follow that too....

Also your comments about hanging out by yourselves, and sitting to avoid crowds currently... makes a lot of sense in these covid days!  

After 35  plus cruises over the years, and working in careers that involved maximum human contact ,  we

always cherished time by ourselves....we still do... that probably offended some of the folks with the "Hi! what's your name? and where are you from folks?"  I apologize in advance.....

have a safe journey back to the great stay of Alabama!

[Alanr204]

I notice on cruisemapper.com that you’re heading southwest from Naples and passing south of Sardinia instead of taking the more direct route through The Strait of Bonifacio, between Sardinia and Corsica. Did the captain announce why he’s choosing a considerably longer routing?

[Ken the cruiser]

7 hours ago, tml1230 said:

Ken, your photos  and commentary continue to be incredible....and as others have mentioned... you make us feel like we are there with you!

I know your cruise is not over yet, but can you give me a heads up on your next cruise and "live from"? we want to follow that too....

Also your comments about hanging out by yourselves, and sitting to avoid crowds currently... makes a lot of sense in these covid days!  

After 35  plus cruises over the years, and working in careers that involved maximum human contact ,  we

always cherished time by ourselves....we still do... that probably offended some of the folks with the "Hi! what's your name? and where are you from folks?"  I apologize in advance.....

have a safe journey back to the great stay of Alabama!

Thanks! It has definitely been an incredible B3B where we have visited a lot of countries and ports along the way! Normally, we like a few more sea days on longer cruises, but we made an exception for this one.

 

Believe it or not our next cruise is on the Celebrity Summit in 2 weeks, which is a 24 day B2B from the US to Canada, Greenland and Iceland and back! Hopefully it will be a little cooler up there! 😁

[Ken the cruiser]

Actually the MSC ship that was docked next to us in Naples has roughly the same idea it would appear.

 

[Ken the cruiser]

15 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

A day to pause and reflect before it's all over.  Enjoy the sea day.  I appreciated having a preview of our voyages to come in October (actually 25 nights then).

As I sit on our balcony on our last sea day and ponder what caused those “trails” in the water, I’m also reflecting on what we’ve learned from an overall cruising perspective. In short, we have come to the conclusion we will not book any more 7 day cruises, or combinations of 7 day cruises, in either the summertime or over a holiday season, or pretty much anytime school is out for a vacation break. For example, on these 3 legs, there was an average of about 400+ kids and young adults, with a majority of the passengers under 50 years old. And that’s OK as it’s great to see cruising coming back and everyone having a great time!

 

However, being that I’m 70 now and my DW not far behind, we have found on the longer 15+ day “single” itineraries, the amount of kids and young adults (under 20) you’ll find may be a few dozen, if that. What that means to us is that the entertainment, such as production shows, guest entertainers and lectures will normally be more geared to an older demographic. 
 

I know, that sounds so self-centered and all about me. But when we first started cruising with HAL back in 2012, all we saw for the most part were productions shows mostly targeted towards the “Frank Sinatra and Big Band” demographic, and wondered when would it be our turn? Mind you I graduated HS in 1970, so I’ll let you drift back to remember the type of music that was playing back then. Hint: The term “Rock” was usually in most of the various types of music being played.

 

Then, HAL decided to skip our generation and created their Music Walk environment to target the younger “drinking” crowd and continued to back away from quality theater entertainment. Then around 2017 we discovered Celebrity and Princess and our dream was finally realized. No more 50s and earlier music and we actually started recognizing the music played in the theater productions shows AND both cruise lines usually had 4-5 assistant CDs to keep us entertained in the evenings and on sea days. HAL usually had 1.

 

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a round about way, is that we enjoy going on cruises where the target demographic is our age group and shy away from those cruise lines and/or length of cruises (such as those during various school vacation periods) where they do better by targeting a younger crowd. And again, that is fine, as there are a wide variety of cruising options out there for old farts like us! 😂

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[vickykay]

Couldn’t agree more.  Looking forward to your Summit journey.

[Esprit]

Ken, I have so enjoyed reading your cruise musings punctuated with amazing pictures. 
 

We have been far less adventurous on this cruise so I’m envious you did so much more. I agree that these 7 day cruises during the summer holidays attract a wide demographic but we chose this time of year due to work commitments. Given the choice I would probably cruise earlier or later in the summer.

 

I will certainly look out for your live threads on future Princess and Celebrity cruises.

 

Wishing you a safe uneventful travel back home.

[Billish]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 In short, we have come to the conclusion we will not book any more 7 day cruises, or combinations of 7 day cruises, 

Interestingly,  in the UK,  the cruise you are on is sold as a single 21 day cruise,  not a b2b2b ! 

[Ken the cruiser]

47 minutes ago, Esprit said:

Ken, I have so enjoyed reading your cruise musings punctuated with amazing pictures. 
 

We have been far less adventurous on this cruise so I’m envious you did so much more. I agree that these 7 day cruises during the summer holidays attract a wide demographic but we chose this time of year due to work commitments. Given the choice I would probably cruise earlier or later in the summer.

 

I will certainly look out for your live threads on future Princess and Celebrity cruises.

 

Wishing you a safe uneventful travel back home.

Thanks @Esprit and I definitely understand. When I was working way back when, we’d rarely go on a family cruise, and when we did it was usually a 7 day Caribbean cruise in the summer. But now that the kids are all grown up and living their lives, it’s our turn once again to be the “kids”. 😁 
 

BTW thank you for adding your experiences to the thread, both on and off the ship. You definitely provided a different perspective which was very well appreciated by me as well as some of the other folks following along. 😂

 

You have a safe trip home as well, and maybe we’ll meet once again on the high seas!!

Edited July 22, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

23 minutes ago, Billish said:

Interestingly,  in the UK,  the cruise you are on is sold as a single 21 day cruise,  not a b2b2b ! 

Actually, if you look a little closer, those 3 legs were included in 11 different 7, 14 and 21 day packages when we booked it over 18 months ago. Well, until the July 30th leg became a chartered cruise late last year. Then that number dropped by a few.
 

In any event, this 21 day “packaged” cruise was worth 3 cruise points which gets us that much closer to Elite and free laundry. Funny thing about that, though. We were on a 25 day Easter Island cruise in Jan 2020 and only got one cruise point. 

[coo359a2]

6 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Actually, if you look a little closer, those 3 legs were included in 11 different 7, 14 and 21 day packages when we booked it over 18 months ago. Well, until the July 30th leg became a chartered cruise late last year. Then that number dropped by a few.
 

In any event, this 21 day “packaged” cruise was worth 3 cruise points which gets us that much closer to Elite and free laundry. Funny thing about that, though. We were on a 25 day Easter Island cruise in Jan 2020 and only got one cruise point. 

Ken, check your past cruises to see if any of your  long single cruises could have been booked as segments.  Pre pandemic for example, if we had booked a  single 30 day cruise that could have been booked for 3 ten day cruises, we would have received credit for 3 cruises listed in our Cruising History.  We usually compare cost and OBC to see which way is best to book - one long cruise or in segments.  

[Steelers36]

10 hours ago, Alanr204 said:

I notice on cruisemapper.com that you’re heading southwest from Naples and passing south of Sardinia instead of taking the more direct route through The Strait of Bonifacio, between Sardinia and Corsica. Did the captain announce why he’s choosing a considerably longer routing?

 

7 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Actually the MSC ship that was docked next to us in Naples has roughly the same idea it would appear.

 

Perhaps to kill time since they had a day and a half to get there?  (IDK the direct sailing time between the two ports).

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Today, after our final lunch in CC Dining, we first went to Princess Live to watch David Knight, the hypnotist.

 

 

Then immediately afterwards we headed to the theater to watch Angela Kelly give an Antarctica lecture on the competition between two men to make it to the South Pole first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those staying on to the next leg, here’s the title to her next lecture.

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, coo359a2 said:

Ken, check your past cruises to see if any of your  long single cruises could have been booked as segments.  Pre pandemic for example, if we had booked a  single 30 day cruise that could have been booked for 3 ten day cruises, we would have received credit for 3 cruises listed in our Cruising History.  We usually compare cost and OBC to see which way is best to book - one long cruise or in segments.  

Unfortunately no luck on prior cruises as Princess was pretty accurate regarding our cruise history section on the website. But for this 21 day “packaged” cruise, as we did get 3 cruise credits, it was definitely cheaper versus booking the 3 legs separately, even though we are both retired military and get SHBs, plus we wanted the same cabin on all 3 legs.

 

I just think it’s fascinating that we can go on a 25 day cruise in a Vista suite and get 2 cruise points while others can go on a 3 day cruise in a Vista suite and get the same amount. Now it would be nice if we got double “cruise day” points. But sadly that’s not how the game is played. 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[Ken the cruiser]

25 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

Perhaps to kill time since they had a day and a half to get there?  (IDK the direct sailing time between the two ports).

 

Our take on the cruise path is like the old Greyhound Bus commercial, “Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us!” 😂

 

[JimmyVWine]

5 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Then, HAL decided to skip our generation

I wholeheartedly agree that we (and I am a bit younger than you, but our musical genre is the same) have been skipped.  And while Princess may be better than other lines, it still suffers from this affliction.  The CDs look at people who are 72 and think that they all want big band and swing, forgetting that a person who is 72 years old today was 19 when Woodstock took place. The Woodstock generation is poorly represented in musical acts on cruise ships. they tend to go from Frank Sinatra to Beyoncé and skip everything in between.  But on my last cruise before the pause (on Regal) there was a Beatles tribute band that was great and they brought down the house.  And the CD put together an impromptu rock band comprised of ship musicians who wanted to get their rock on, and it was awesome.  He said that a number of musicians liked to jam together during down time, and that they thought they were "show ready".  So they played a set (their first ever in front of an audience) in the Piazza one night for about 30 minutes and the place rocked.  Led Zeppelin, The Who, Aerosmith, etc.  They did so well that the CD found a slot for them in the Main Theater on the last night and it turned out to be the best show of the whole cruise.  So I guess that in itself shows that PCL is ahead in this area.  I just wish that it was a regular occurrence and  not a one-night gig of contract musicians who had to beg for the opportunity.  

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, coo359a2 said:

Ken, check your past cruises to see if any of your  long single cruises could have been booked as segments.  Pre pandemic for example, if we had booked a  single 30 day cruise that could have been booked for 3 ten day cruises, we would have received credit for 3 cruises listed in our Cruising History.  We usually compare cost and OBC to see which way is best to book - one long cruise or in segments.  

 

37 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Unfortunately no luck on prior cruises as Princess was pretty accurate regarding our cruise history section on the website. But for this 21 day “packaged” cruise, as we did get 3 cruise credits, it was definitely cheaper versus booking the 3 legs separately, even though we are both retired military and get SHBs, plus we wanted the same cabin on all 3 legs.

 

I just think it’s fascinating that we can go on a 25 day cruise in a Vista suite and get 2 cruise points while others can go on a 3 day cruise in a Vista suite and get the same amount. Now it would be nice if we got double “cruise day” points. But sadly that’s not how the game is played. 

 

I always book segments unless the price difference would be significant ( and I don't see that anymore).  More flexibility on price drops and booking EZ-Air for separate price-watching.

 

It doesn't matter if a guest books a logical 21-night voyage or three physical 7-night voyages.  Get same 3 cruise credits and same 21 nights.

 

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

I wholeheartedly agree that we (and I am a bit younger than you, but our musical genre is the same) have been skipped.  And while Princess may be better than other lines, it still suffers from this affliction.  The CDs look at people who are 72 and think that they all want big band and swing, forgetting that a person who is 72 years old today was 19 when Woodstock took place. The Woodstock generation is poorly represented in musical acts on cruise ships. they tend to go from Frank Sinatra to Beyoncé and skip everything in between.  But on my last cruise before the pause (on Regal) there was a Beatles tribute band that was great and they brought down the house.  And the CD put together an impromptu rock band comprised of ship musicians who wanted to get their rock on, and it was awesome.  He said that a number of musicians liked to jam together during down time, and that they thought they were "show ready".  So they played a set (their first ever in front of an audience) in the Piazza one night for about 30 minutes and the place rocked.  Led Zeppelin, The Who, Aerosmith, etc.  They did so well that the CD found a slot for them in the Main Theater on the last night and it turned out to be the best show of the whole cruise.  So I guess that in itself shows that PCL is ahead in this area.  I just wish that it was a regular occurrence and  not a one-night gig of contract musicians who had to beg for the opportunity.  

I agree and wish could hear more of the music you mention.

[Billish]

25 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

 

I always book segments unless the price difference would be significant ( and I don't see that anymore).  More flexibility on price drops and booking EZ-Air for separate price-watching.

 

It doesn't matter if a guest books a logical 21-night voyage or three physical 7-night voyages.  Get same 3 cruise credits and same 21 nights.

 

If you book three seven day cruises as a b2b2b2b instead of a single 21 day cruise, do you get three lots of shareholder obc, which would equate to more than you get if booking a single cruise. 

[Esprit]

We were in the audience too!

But never got as far as the theatre after, as we stopped to talk with David Knight and ended up buying a memory stick he was promoting. A snap at $125 🥴

[coo359a2]

35 minutes ago, Billish said:

If you book three seven day cruises as a b2b2b2b instead of a single 21 day cruise, do you get three lots of shareholder obc, which would equate to more than you get if booking a single cruise. 

Each of the bookings are considered to be individual bookings and you get all the OBCs you would get for only having one 7 day cruise then times 3.  You would have to consider any price differences between the 21 day booking and the 3 seven  day bookings and then how much total OBCs you would get for each of the bookings.  There's no pat answer for that.  Sometimes I have had prices go down on 1 or 2 of the  short bookings but no lower price on the longer cruise.  As I tell my grandson,-- answers can always be  different.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, Billish said:

If you book three seven day cruises as a b2b2b2b instead of a single 21 day cruise, do you get three lots of shareholder obc, which would equate to more than you get if booking a single cruise. 

But in our case the 21 day Regal cruise was $500+ pp cheaper than booking the 3 legs separately. 

[lynn2002]

Hi Ken

 

Really appreciate all the effort you put into this thread which has made me look even more forward to our cruise on 13 August.

 

Do you recall which port in Naples the ship docked at?  Do you recall how far the ferries to the islands were from where the ship was docked?

 

Have a safe trip home tomorrow

[coo359a2]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

But in our case the 21 day Regal cruise was $500+ pp cheaper than booking the 3 legs separately. 

Don't think I've ever had that much of a price difference.  Hard to beat that amount of savings.  Not hard at all to make your choice😀

 

Forgot to mention in reply to Billish that Elites receive the mini bar perk   automatically  for each segment no matter how you book.

Edited July 22, 2022 by coo359a2