Royal Princess Connoisseur Med Crz?

[darienill]

What's the connoisseur part refer to? anybody taken this cruise Barcelona to Athens? Sounds great, wonder if it would be better to stay a few extra days in Spain or Greece if you had a choice?

I can't seem to find a review.

[jonikal]

We're taking that cruise as a last minute choice. I've also been looking for info on the Royal, but since she is so very new, I think we'll have to wait until someone decides to do a report. The roll-call is pretty meager - only a few people on the Barcelona-Athens thread, and even fewer on the reverse cruise. I guess we'll be the guinea pigs. As a smaller ship, she is able to go to smaller ports - something we are particularly looking forward to.

[NorcalGuy]

I can't go unfortunately, but it sounds like a great voyage!

Smaller ship, unusual ports with fewer people on shore plus its' sort of a "Trans-Med" itinerary. I've seen some nice last minute prices offers - Well below the normal prices I've seen for this ship.

I'd sure go if I could!

[katisdale]

This ship hasn't joined the fleet yet. We should start getting reviews by the end of the month.

[gr8aunt]

The Royal is a ship that used to be one of the Renaissance ships. It is about a 685 passenger beauty. The people who originally started Renaissance started Oceania Cruise Line. If you go to Oceania.com (or OceaniaCruises.com) and click on any one of their ships, you can see what she looks like. Of course, I don't know whether or not Princess redecorated or how they did it, but you can get a pretty good idea. I cruised 3 times with Renaissance and had a 4th booked for Oct. 2, 2001; unfortunately 9/11 was the final straw for Ren and put them into bankruptcy. Hope this helps.

[georgiatravelcpl]

We have thought of taking the Royal Princess but realized it was not a new ship but was a retread of others. However, that isnt a bad thing. Thoughts? Anyone to give us confidence in booking???

 

Thanks!

[whale-watcher]

We looked at this itinerary for next summer on the Pacific (I think)...sounds really interesting. If it were just DW and I, we would take this cruise without hesitation, and we are still considering a Holy Land sailing on the Pacific with our 3 kids...

[Aussie Gal]

If anyone has been on the Pacific Princess or the Tahitian Princess you will know the Royal as it is another sister ship exactly as the three Oceania ships are. There were 8 Renaissance ships built originally and now Princess has three, Oceania has three and Celebrity has two.

 

They are our favourite ships for size and design and we love cruising on them.

 

Jennie

[CBHinkle]

We sailed on the Pacific Princess last summer--Bangkok-Mumbai--. According to members of the crew, a few changes were made, but most of the ship looked just like photos of the Renaissance ships. We really had a great cruise and liked the ship. We had a mini-suite--quite comfortable--although the Royal will have no mini-suites.

It seemed that a lot of space was saved in the elevator lobbies. They were quite small relative to other ships. From our perspective, this posed no problems.

We're booked this July 7 on the Royal's Rome-Athens itinerary. We'll be traveling into the Black Sea. We had no reservations about the ship whatsoever. We booked suites on this cruise and can't wait for July.

We had three wonderful cruises on the "old" Royal--one of our favorite ships.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Darienill,

 

Have been to both Barcelona and Athens and I would much rather see you spend the extra days in Barcelona. You will see a lovely city with great sights, museums, architecture, etc. It is a great walking city. Also by arriving in Europe early your body will adjust to the time change by the time you get on the ship. IN Athens once you see the Acropolis, shop a little and perhaps take in a museum, that might be enough. For our taste, Athens is not very clean and not nearly as nice as Barcelona

[fredder555]

I booked this cruise on our last Princess cruise and there had been some discussion during the art auction about special connoisseur art auction cruises. However, the booking agent on board said that it was just a name given to this particular cruise and she was not aware of any other significance to the "connoisseur" reference. We are starting in Barcelona on the late July departure.