Rare jaycruising Posted July 22 Author #76 Share Posted July 22 Friday, July 19, Sea Day Since today is a sea day and we didn’t do too much I thought I would add some bits that I collected and share them in this post. Each day before a port we would get this guides in our patter for the port we would be visiting the next day. It was nice to have a sort of port guide back. First thing this morning I got up and went and did laundry, it is $3 per token to wash and dry and then $2 per token for soap and other things. I always bring from home. Only one washing machine was working and the other was in use so I sat and waited until it was available. It took about 30 minutes to wash and 45 to dry. Once our laundry was done I headed to the Thermal Spa for one last soak, I did get my moneys worth. When I went the other morning I was the only one in there so I did take a few photos They have ice water available Lots of towels and cold cloths There are 11 of these heated loungers, they can get very hot One of the steam rooms The other steam room, dry sauna and additional loungers These are the 3 showers, one is hot like a tropical rain, one is mid temperature and the last is a Siberian shower, nice and cold… I enjoyed these And finally the whirlpool, at the back is a bench to recline on, then 2 different areas with jets and then a rainfall shower in the centre. On a hot cruise we usually enjoy the Sanctuary for a few days, this was a great alternative 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 22 Author #77 Share Posted July 22 DM and I also went to the Future Cruise Desk and booked our next cruise, we are going to do the full 21 day Baltic adventure next year! Then it was time for one last visit to Alfredo’s. thanks to whomever told us we could half and half a pizza, it really worked for us. We then went to the behind the scenes talk in the theatre, it was by one of the officers he was quite funny! Then it was back to the cabin to rest and do the least fun part of any cruise, packing. We had such calm weather today, I caught this photo of Celebrity Apex coming up on us Down to the MDR for our last dinner Watermelon Feta for my starter For my main, I had the Prime Rib, forgot the picture, but was delicious! Then was time for the baked Alaska parade I I had to have the lemon meringue cheesecake one more time. I have to say the food was the best overall we have had on a ship since Covid. This is the saddest sight on any cruise ship! We went and spent the next few hours in Princess Live, playing a couple games and then listening to ABBA trivia, neither of us is the biggest fan. Time for one last wake shot 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare karatemom2 Posted July 22 #78 Share Posted July 22 Love all your photos and content! Thank you for sharing! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColoradoMom!! Posted July 22 #79 Share Posted July 22 Huge thanks for your wonderful review! I've enjoyed following along and appreciate all the pictures, details and information! I hope your journey home is/was a smooth one. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 22 Author #80 Share Posted July 22 (edited) 30 minutes ago, ColoradoMom!! said: Huge thanks for your wonderful review! I've enjoyed following along and appreciate all the pictures, details and information! I hope your journey home is/was a smooth one. Thank you! I have one more part to add, we did a disembarkation tour to Windsor. I am working on the photos now! We don’t actually return home until Saturday, we flew back to Norway (Oslo) on Saturday and have been touring the interior with family. Then back to Oslo tomorrow and then we are doing a train journey from Oslo to Bergen Edited July 22 by jaycruising Sp 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColoradoMom!! Posted July 22 #81 Share Posted July 22 Oh my gosh! More fun to come - that's awesome! We are touring Windsor on our own from Waterloo before our cruise - can't wait to hear all about it! And the bonus of more time in Norway! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 22 Author #82 Share Posted July 22 Saturday, July 20, Disembarkation We booked a princess disembarkation tour as we had a flight to Oslo, but we weren’t flying until 7:00pm so we needed something to do that would cover our luggage as well. They had 2 options Windsor or Stonehenge. I really have no interest in visiting Stonehenge and have been advised not to as it’s not worth. So off to Windsor we go. There’s been some not so great reviews lately, but we just went with it! Our meeting time was 7:30 in the theatre, so we went to the buffet for breakfast before heading down. We didn’t have to wait. Rey long until we were called to make our way off the ship… it was probably the fastest we have ever gotten off the ship and got our luggage. By 8:00 we were on the bus and getting our last glimpse of Sky Princess By 9:30 we had arrived in Windsor, we got parked and made our way toward the group entrance, where we met a giant lineup! Some sights as we waited in line We finally made it inside the building at about 10:30, we had to be back at the bus for 12:30. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalLuvsCrusingToo Posted July 23 #83 Share Posted July 23 Thanks for your take on Windsor debarkation tour! I had to cancel ours (month ago) as we had a ride to Heathrow instead, but wished we could have done it. Next time we WILL. Great pics & report. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnydrk Posted July 23 #84 Share Posted July 23 Thanks so much for the fabulous review and great pictures. I felt like I was there with you. I appreciate you taking the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 23 Author #85 Share Posted July 23 We really enjoyed walking around the grounds. There were many artists on the grounds painting and drawing, it was interesting to see the different styles. Wr don’t have Magnolia trees at home, I loved seeing these! I almost got run over by someone trying to take a video of this guard 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare cr8tiv1 Posted July 23 #86 Share Posted July 23 16 hours ago, jaycruising said: Our meeting time was 7:30 in the theatre, so we went to the buffet for breakfast before heading down. We didn’t have to wait. Rey long until we were called to make our way off the ship… it was probably the fastest we have ever gotten off the ship and got our luggage. By 8:00 we were on the bus and getting our last glimpse of Sky Princess Thank you for taking the time to post a live. You had a lot of content. Would you explain disembarkation? I know how it works on the ship, but this port is new to me. No immigrations? Just walk from ship to street? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 23 Author #87 Share Posted July 23 16 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said: Thank you for taking the time to post a live. You had a lot of content. Would you explain disembarkation? I know how it works on the ship, but this port is new to me. No immigrations? Just walk from ship to street? Yes that was pretty much it, walked off the ship, didn’t need our passports or anything, no immigration was required. Just through the building and grabbed our bags and got on our bus. It was the simplest and quickest we’ve done (this was our 5th disembarkation city). The bags were very easy to find, usually we have to search and this time I found them in seconds. If you are flying out same day, this is a great city to do it from! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 23 Author #88 Share Posted July 23 As we were entering the private apartments I saw this guard over on the side IMG_5057.mov 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 23 Author #89 Share Posted July 23 After touring the Palace we made our way to King George’s Chapel. It was very moving going by Wueen Elizabeth’s resting place. Then we made our way out to the busy streets of Windsor. We had about 45 minutes before we needed to be on the bus, and I had spotted a tea house while we were waiting in line, so we went there and had tea and scones, it was very good! Then made our way back to the bus The castle as we were heading out And then we went by the Long Walk I enjoyed the trip to Windsor, I just thought it would have been longer. We were back at Heathrow by 1pm, our flight was not until 7pm and e couldn’t check our bags until 4:30pm. I was definitely under the impression it would last longer, but c’est la vie! 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 23 Author #90 Share Posted July 23 Final Thoughts The ports were fantastic, don’t ask me to pick a favourite, I cannot. I would definitely like to return and get more information about the area and see more. The Ship - overall, it was very lovely, we did not get to explore it too much as there is just not enough time. I found a lot of the venues to be too small. Each night they would take the furniture from outside of Princess Live and pretty much move it in. For 5 Skies there was barely a seat available in the whole theatre. So my advice is if you really want to do something go early! Cabin - we had a balcony cabin on deck 15 mid-aft and I will never select this location again, the overhang above gets in the way of your views and taking pictures, it was annoying. I was worried about sound being right below the buffet (the galley was actually right across the hall from us) and we didn’t hear a thing from that, so the soundproofing was quite good, but we will stick with our preferred floors of 10-12! Our steward was fantastic! I asked and she said she was taking care of 18 cabins! The food - as I mentioned before I think this was the best overall food quality we had since the restart! It wasn’t perfect, but was better than our last 3. I was actually most disappointed with the international cafe, I found everything to be quite dry there. We ate at Alfredo’s 3 times, so I would say we are fans! Also Rudy’s was fantastic, cannot wait to come back. For us I would give this cruise a solid 8.5 out of 10, it wasn’t perfect (nothing ever is 😉) but it was really great for us. So much so, that we have booked the full 21 day Baltics cruise on Sky in July 2025! Thanks for joining me on this adventure! 4 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare phonejock Posted July 23 #91 Share Posted July 23 @jaycruising First, thanks for your excellent live review. You obviously spent a good amount of time doing it. Just a quick comment on your Windsor excursion. The exact same thing happened to DH and I when we did the same tour in 2018. We waited in a long line to get. I seem to remember the guide had to get the tickets. We had even less time than you did to explore. As with you, we got to the airport hours too early to check our bags. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare PATRLR Posted July 24 #92 Share Posted July 24 On 7/18/2024 at 5:38 PM, ColoradoMom!! said: You mentioned the RIB boat being a bit disappointing. I have one scheduled for Stravanger that I independently booked. Can you tell me a bit more about what you thought? TIA FWIW, we also did the same RIB excursion in Skjolden as @jaycruising reported on. I was not at all disappointed, it was one of the highlights of our trip and I recommend it. You say you booked a RIB in Stavanger and I think that is a very smart move. In Stavanger we did the Rødne Lysefjord Cruise which I thought was "OK" at best - it was on a traditional tour boat,3.5 hour trip but more than half of it was just getting to the fjord. I saw the RIBs going by and IMO, that is the way to do Lysefjord. Both the Rødne and the RIB do the exact same tour, just the RIB does it in less than half the time and is, I'm sure, more exciting. I'll be posting my trip report from this cruise with some pictures and more details of my excursions. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare PATRLR Posted July 24 #93 Share Posted July 24 On 7/23/2024 at 10:42 AM, jaycruising said: Cabin - we had a balcony cabin on deck 15 mid-aft and I will never select this location again, the overhang above gets in the way of your views and taking pictures, it was annoying. I was worried about sound being right below the buffet (the galley was actually right across the hall from us) and we didn’t hear a thing from that, so the soundproofing was quite good, For people reading this thread, I'll point out that the overhang is not all of deck 15, I think it's mostly mid-ship. We were aft on 15 and had no overhang. I also agree with you that an overhand can be annoying. I'll also second the comment about sound proofing. We were all the way aft so under the area around the wake view bar and just outside the buffet. We didn't hear anything from above us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare karatemom2 Posted July 24 #94 Share Posted July 24 On 7/23/2024 at 7:42 AM, jaycruising said: Final Thoughts The ports were fantastic, don’t ask me to pick a favourite, I cannot. I would definitely like to return and get more information about the area and see more. The Ship - overall, it was very lovely, we did not get to explore it too much as there is just not enough time. I found a lot of the venues to be too small. Each night they would take the furniture from outside of Princess Live and pretty much move it in. For 5 Skies there was barely a seat available in the whole theatre. So my advice is if you really want to do something go early! Cabin - we had a balcony cabin on deck 15 mid-aft and I will never select this location again, the overhang above gets in the way of your views and taking pictures, it was annoying. I was worried about sound being right below the buffet (the galley was actually right across the hall from us) and we didn’t hear a thing from that, so the soundproofing was quite good, but we will stick with our preferred floors of 10-12! Our steward was fantastic! I asked and she said she was taking care of 18 cabins! The food - as I mentioned before I think this was the best overall food quality we had since the restart! It wasn’t perfect, but was better than our last 3. I was actually most disappointed with the international cafe, I found everything to be quite dry there. We ate at Alfredo’s 3 times, so I would say we are fans! Also Rudy’s was fantastic, cannot wait to come back. For us I would give this cruise a solid 8.5 out of 10, it wasn’t perfect (nothing ever is 😉) but it was really great for us. So much so, that we have booked the full 21 day Baltics cruise on Sky in July 2025! Thanks for joining me on this adventure! Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments, and especially your amazing photos. I would agree - we found the food on Sky to be pretty excellent across the board compared to some of our other recent Princess sailings. We really do find it our favorite Royal class ship. Love, love, love your photos of Windsor. It makes me want to go back again. We did a tour a few years ago on our transfer to the ship, but definitely needed more time. Really great trip report - thank you so much! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 24 Author #95 Share Posted July 24 1 hour ago, PATRLR said: FWIW, we also did the same RIB excursion in Skjolden as @jaycruising reported on. I was not at all disappointed, it was one of the highlights of our trip and I recommend it. You say you booked a RIB in Stavanger and I think that is a very smart move. In Stavanger we did the Rødne Lysefjord Cruise which I thought was "OK" at best - it was on a traditional tour boat,3.5 hour trip but more than half of it was just getting to the fjord. I saw the RIBs going by and IMO, that is the way to do Lysefjord. Both the Rødne and the RIB do the exact same tour, just the RIB does it in less than half the time and is, I'm sure, more exciting. I'll be posting my trip report from this cruise with some pictures and more details of my excursions. I really did enjoy the Rib boat tour in Skjolden, but the one in Stavanger was just a bit better. I really enjoyed doing Lysefjord this way. While waiting for our time to gear up we watched them loading the boat with people going on the cruise out and I couldn’t believe the number of people getting on that boat, it seemed like they were loading forever! We went at 12:15, and were back around 1:45ish. We passed 2 cruising boats on our way out and on our way back to Stavanger they were just getting out there. If you are able I highly recommend this tour! Thanks for confirming about the boat and I am looking forward to your review 1 hour ago, PATRLR said: For people reading this thread, I'll point out that the overhang is not all of deck 15, I think it's mostly mid-ship. We were aft on 15 and had no overhang. I also agree with you that an overhand can be annoying. I'll also second the comment about sound proofing. We were all the way aft so under the area around the wake view bar and just outside the buffet. We didn't hear anything from above us. We were in M612, so more aft then mid, but as far as I could tell it was most balconies on the side. Glad to know the aft ones didn’t have this! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare PATRLR Posted July 24 #96 Share Posted July 24 3 minutes ago, jaycruising said: While waiting for our time to gear up we watched them loading the boat with people going on the cruise out and I couldn’t believe the number of people getting on that boat, it seemed like they were loading forever! I was in that line!!! We showed up about 30 minutes before departure and was shocked at the number of people in line. That one line was actually for two boats (the two you passed). Surprisingly, the boat I was on (the bigger one) wasn't as crowded as I feared. I couldn't get a seat up on deck, but, there probably was a seat for me in the lower area if I wanted it. I'm sure anyone who wanted a seat was able to get one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare PATRLR Posted July 24 #97 Share Posted July 24 9 minutes ago, jaycruising said: We were in M612, so more aft then mid, but as far as I could tell it was most balconies on the side. Glad to know the aft ones didn’t have this! We were in M720 - the last cabin on that side. This picture was taken from our balcony. I think you are right, it is most cabins. Looks like 3 or 4 at the aft don't have that bump out and looking at the deck plan for Deck 16 it kind of confirms that it's most of the cabins on that side. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcprncss Posted July 28 #98 Share Posted July 28 @jaycruising Thank you for taking the time to share your cruise. I enjoyed reading about your journeys and learned about brown cheese and the RIB excursions and took notes for my cruise next year. 🙂 When you said you had to gear up for the RIB, what does this mean? Did they provide extra clothes for you? Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jaycruising Posted July 28 Author #99 Share Posted July 28 (edited) 40 minutes ago, rcprncss said: @jaycruising Thank you for taking the time to share your cruise. I enjoyed reading about your journeys and learned about brown cheese and the RIB excursions and took notes for my cruise next year. 🙂 When you said you had to gear up for the RIB, what does this mean? Did they provide extra clothes for you? Thanks again. You Re so welcome! We just got home from our extended tour in Norway yesterday and I brought a big block of brown cheese home with me. For the RIB boat, yes they have gear. They will put you in the suit below, you will likely be warm before you get moving on the boat, but it’s very necessary as it will get cold on the boat. Each company also provided googles, in Stavanger I wore my own Sunglasses, but I Highly recommend something covering yours eyes as you will be going direct into the wind. The company in Skjolden also provided toques (winter hats) and gloves. I never wore the gloves i also recommend carrying as little as possible with you. The one company locked your stuff in shore and the other had a wet bag they brought on the boat. I only had my cell phone in hand Edited July 28 by jaycruising Add Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcprncss Posted July 28 #100 Share Posted July 28 12 minutes ago, jaycruising said: You Re so welcome! We just got home from our extended tour in Norway yesterday and I brought a big block of brown cheese home with me. For the RIB boat, yes they have gear. They will put you in the suit below, you will likely be warm before you get moving on the boat, but it’s very necessary as it will get cold on the boat. Each company also provided googles, in Stavanger I wore my own Sunglasses, but I Highly recommend something covering yours eyes as you will be going direct into the wind. The company in Skjolden also provided toques (winter hats) and gloves. I never wore the gloves i also recommend carrying as little as possible with you. The one company locked your stuff in shore and the other had a wet bag they brought on the boat. I only had my cell phone in hand Thank you so much. Good advice on carrying as little as possible too. Thanks for the picture of the outfit. Your Mom looks so cute! 🙂 Welcome home. It's sad to leave vacations but always good to be home when they are done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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