Do ship activities vary much?

[charlene19]

After doing a search, I found some old patters for Mexican Riviera cruises, of course, not the same ship as ours next year, but they are princess ships. What I was wondering, if you read a patter from 2005, how different will the activities on board the ship be in 2008? do the activities change each week there is a new sailing or are they pretty much the same, no matter what ship you are on or when you go?

 

I liked looking at these, getting me more and more anxious for our cruise next year. I really wish our cruise was this december, not december 2008!!!

[Pam in CA]

Activities change depending on the itineraries, number of sea days, and how creative the CD is. I've been on the 15-day LA > HI > LA cruise two times; the first had a CD that had all sorts of fun activities every single day that I've never seen elsewhere (such as remote controlled-dune buggy races on the dance floor) and the other CD had only a few activities and blamed it lack of budget. Lack of imagination was more like it. He was one who was an "entertainer" and while everyone loved his singing, he was very bad when it came to activity planning.

[Druke I]

Gross generalization of course, but larger ships have more activities scheduled than smaller ships; they have more venues.

[NSWP]

Princess still has plenty of Trivia and Bingo, coming over on Regal Princess recently we had trivia twice a day and bingo twice a day, plus the usual dancing lessons, karaoke, passenger talent show, etc. Time for change, but what else?

 

:cool:

[Pam in CA]

Gross generalization of course, but larger ships have more activities scheduled than smaller ships; they have more venues.

Yes and no. I think it depends on the CD and the ship. We had TONS of activities on the Regal Princess and there were plenty of venues so that several activities could be going on at once, including movies, lectures, get-togethers, games, and quite a few very creative activities.

[Druke I]

Well Pam, I guess it depends on what your definition of smaller is!

 

Yes, Regal (now gone from the fleet) is smaller than the Grand class, but I consider the three "babies" (Royal, Pacific, and Tahitian) to be small (and love them for their size!).

 

Activities on those ships are more limited than on the megaships - but I consider that part of their charm. I don't need to be entertained 24/7, and have never found myself bored due to lack of activities.

[c_dog]

After doing a search, I found some old patters for Mexican Riviera cruises, of course, not the same ship as ours next year, but they are princess ships. What I was wondering, if you read a patter from 2005, how different will the activities on board the ship be in 2008? do the activities change each week there is a new sailing or are they pretty much the same, no matter what ship you are on or when you go?

 

I liked looking at these, getting me more and more anxious for our cruise next year. I really wish our cruise was this december, not december 2008!!!

 

Recently cruised to the Mexican Riviera on the G.P. Activites were lacking---same o same o. Cruised previously with this same C.D. with the same results. This cruise has 3 sea days and I found it sad that more varied things were not planned.

[newmexicoNita]

Recently cruised to the Mexican Riviera on the G.P. Activites were lacking---same o same o. Cruised previously with this same C.D. with the same results. This cruise has 3 sea days and I found it sad that more varied things were not planned.

Gee, I just got a copy of the Princess Patters, looks like there is plenty to do on sea days: cooking demos, trivia a couple of times a day, game show, golf clinics, cards, scrabble tour plus casino activities and lots of night time entertainment plus daily lectures and don't forget things like wine tasting. It looks to me like the activities are about the same or maybe even more than some cruise lines, certainly more than Celebrity or HAL. What more could anyone want?

 

Nita

[Pam in CA]

Well Pam, I guess it depends on what your definition of smaller is!

 

Yes, Regal (now gone from the fleet) is smaller than the Grand class, but I consider the three "babies" (Royal, Pacific, and Tahitian) to be small (and love them for their size!).

 

Activities on those ships are more limited than on the megaships - but I consider that part of their charm. I don't need to be entertained 24/7, and have never found myself bored due to lack of activities.

Michael, I agree completely. I'm never bored and don't have to be entertained. I will say, though, that others do like entertainment and if you're on a large ship where people can't get outdoors thus congregating indoors, you need a good CD who can schedule lots of activities to keep people occupied. That's what happened to us on the Golden last February. There were very few activities, no one could go outdoors, even in the covered pool area, because it was so cold, and there were just too many people milling about, looking for something to do. I was incredibly thankful that I had a mini-suite and could get away from them all.

 

FYI, I just returned from being on the "new" Royal Princess and while the ship is lovely, it can't compare to the "old" Royal Princess. The cabins were better and very elegant but I'll take the old Royal any day. Ironically, she was docked almost next to us in Kusadasi.