The cruise ship/days at sea

Ahh, the luxury of having all your needs in one place….

Let’s cruise!

Regal Princess

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After a few Disney cruises, this is our first with Princess. June’s folks are frequent Princess cruisers, so her mom chose this itinerary for our annual multifamily trip. The boat is huge, it looks like a sideways floating hotel. Supposedly there are 2400 passengers on board in Barcelona, and we’ll be going up to 3200 at Rome.

The embarkation vaccination verification was pretty disorganized and Covid testing was pretty loose. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

So was the one bottle of wine per person allowance. I’m pretty sure I could have brought whatever in, but that doesn’t matter because our travel agent gifted us with the drink package. So far so good! Hopefully we don’t get Covid.

Our inside room is pretty spacious.

Upon boarding we had to 1) watch a safety video in our room 2) go to our muster (emergency meeting point) station and 3) listen to the PA announcements. Those were the post boarding requirements.

We ate a buffet style lunch which wasn’t bad. I’m wondering how long it’ll take before the food gets old, so to speak. Hopefully the boys will put on a few pounds this trip, I know I will!

We familiarized ourselves with the boat a bit by checking out the kids club(s) and the gym.

Although the kids’ club wasn’t decked out like other (ahem Disney) boats we’ve been on, both boys ended up liking it and wanting to go each night which made me think maybe the whistles and bells aren’t all that necessary. I think there may have been around 100 teens total signed up for the teen club when we got on board.

Get this, what we were told is that if you order drinks via the phone app, they’ll find you and bring it to you wherever you are. (edit-not so true). They do that via a medallion. It’s around the size of one of those Apple tags.

Each guest has one with their name on it. Even the kids. The color also shows how many times you’ve been cruising with Princess. Noob here. Use it to enter your room, order drinks, purchase items and when disembarking. You can also locate family members on board.

June’s mom and dad have sailed with Princess more than a few times (in fact, they were the reason we took this cruise in the first place) so their tag color is the top tier, black. They also get complimentary mini bar booze. My liver might quit on me after this trip.

… And we’re off. 10:10 pm. In retrospect that means we could have checked into the boat and went back to town to party for a few hours. After all, what’s really important when traveling?

Kids club and kids on the boat.

There’s a teen club. There’s a kids club. There is supposed to be a day care also but supposedly that got flooded and is being renovated. At first glance the kids and the teen clubs looked pretty plain. Playstations, foosball and seating areas. The teen side has their own jacuzzi which is not available to non-teens. I had my doubts but the kids made friends quickly and ended up enjoying it. There were usually at least a handful of kids there when the boys went. Best thing for us is we could send them off on their own and they’d end up back in the room afterwards or they would come find us wherever we were.

Let’s see what else is there?

You’ve got a library with books and games.

You can hit balls.

You can eat some more.

First full day at sea.

One of the benefits of cruising is that you travel while you sleep. Some destinations take longer than a day to get to so you spend all day onboard the ship. If you have the drink package you can spend your time getting plastered. I wondered if it were possible for me to reach the 15 drink per day limit. Never did.

Our first full day onboard is completely at sea. Today is a good day to go to the gym because I’m not worried about tiring myself out before a day’s shore excursion. The only thing I have planned is formal dinner tonight which means I get to wear my sport coat for the first time. Fancy pants!

I did my first workout in around 2 weeks here on the boat. Whole body, light weight, stretching after. I imagine being retired would be like this every day. Exercise a little, eat and drink a little without a care.

I went to the Welcome to Princess cruises meeting at 945am hoping to win some prizes. I showed up late and realized I couldn’t win anything because I didn’t put my name in the pot. All I won was a mimosa.

Lunch was British pub lunch at the buffet (not Wheelhouse Bar).

I took a picture of bloody marys but not the fish and chips, toad in a hole or liver pies. Oh well.

Pax slept in and we walked up to the buffet around noon. A table of teens called out his name and he disappeared. I don’t even know where he is now, last I saw he had walked off with 2 gals.

In other news, they’re filming the first series of “The Real Love Boat Australia” onboard.

We moseyed past and went to the pool.

Pig out responsibly and repeat. I’m curious to see how my body weight will do. I’m usually really consistent but here on the boat I get to eat unlimited. Some of those port days I think we’ll be doing plenty of walking, which should (hopefully) counteract some of the food.

Tonight was our first formal night. Take it in because you’ll probably never see me in a sport coat again unless Dickies makes one.

On formal nights they have photographers all around midship with backdrops for everyone to take pictures while all gussied up.

Day 2 at sea

Today we’re at sea and on our way to Marseille, France. So far here’s what we’ve got planned-pastries for lunch and ramen bar for dinner. I might wear my sport coat for funsies.

After dinner we watched a quick light/ fountain show…

And then a magic/comedy show.

Tonight is ramen night. I’m no foodie, but ramen night was disappointing. I felt offended for ramen everywhere. The vegetables were kind of weird. Mushrooms? The broths were ok but even the noodle types seemed unusual. To top it off, no chopsticks. Wut?

Last sea day-Italy to Greece

This morning I had eggs Benedict and then went to the gym for a short while before going to a beginner’s salsa class with June and the inlaws.

Pool time and pre lunch martinis are a good sign that you’re on vacation. I’ve learned a few things about drinking on this cruise. The first is that getting two drinks at a time is plain ol efficient. The phone app is fairly glitchy and although waiting at the pool bar is excruciating, it may be faster than using the app where your drink gets made and sits at the bar because the server simply has no idea where you are.

Eating and drinking

You have restaurants with menus where you can literally order anything on there as many times as your mind and body can handle. You have the buffet as an anytime go to. A few of their items change as there might be a specialty night like fish and chips for British pub night. You can also get ice cream at Swirls, or pizza or burgers at the poolside grill. There are a few formal nights (4 for this trip) which request that men wear sport coats at dinner. They’re not that strict on code though. The boat also has a few upcharge restaurants that have an additional cover charge to eat at. One is seafood, one steak, one Italian and another chocolate desserts. You can also order room service food and drink brought right to your room. Any order you make via phone app can be brought to you via medallion tracking or so they say.

Here we are at the steak house, which is supposed to be an additional charge but waived by our travel agent. June got the lobster and filet mignon and I got a porterhouse. It was better than the normal fare but still just ok.

One night when I dined alone my server asked where the rest of our original family of 11 were and if everyone is feeling ok. I thought it was a teeny bit intrusive until he mentioned that my family reminded him of his and that he missed seeing them. 9 months on a ship can do that. Perspective.

My spiritual advisors

One thing I’ve become very accustomed to is sitting at bars. Normally I don’t spend my money or time out drinking but our entire trip felt like one big outing with time to kill. Time to be spent pondering life. Life at the bar that is. When we bought our cruise ship tickets the travel agent threw in the drink package and the internet packages for free. Me wanting to make the most out of it figured that by sitting in front of the wall of liquor while watching drinks being made just made sense. That way I could point and choose what I wanted to try next and see everything that’s available. Chatting with the bartenders has been great. I’ve learned a bunch about working on a cruise ship through talking to Dhan and Christian, my favorite bartenders at Bellini’s bar near midship. A typical contracts lasts 9 months and crew members work 12/13 hour days 7 days a week. Although they put on a good show day to day, I think it’s a hard life. Better than life back in their home country though. Princess allows couples to work on board which is why Dhan and his wife like it. Not all boats allow this. Crew members can disembark at the different ports which I thought was a great perk but after years of doing the same routine the ports are mostly to buy necessities and get away from work for a few hours.

Dhan on the left, Christian on the right. Dhan’s wife works onboard at the bar upstairs.

Gambling

We do have gambling onboard, mostly machines and roulette and craps, but since I’m not much of a gambler I can’t speak much beyond that. June’s mom loved it though and the reason we were on this particular cruise was because the casino comped her balcony room.

Let’s see, what else is there to do

There’s movies out by the pool and live music in a few places onboard. Out on deck by the pool is a full band. Midship might be piano or a duet. Some of the bars may have a solo guy playing piano and singing.

We took a salsa class:

… And watched Joel do karaoke in front of an audience.

He made a few friends that night.

My sport coat/dress code

Supposedly our dinners during the 3 or 4 at-sea nights are “formal” meaning jacket required. You don’t have to eat at the restaurants though, there’s always the buffet. Anyway I began to take an interest in learning more about this unfamiliar article of clothing. 2 button, 3 button. Button it, don’t button it. Don’t take it off while eating or if it’s hot. Why are there so many guidelines?

Back home I went to the first place I could think of to get a jacket which was Men’s Wearhouse. I went there for the first time ever and dropped $250 on a basic jacket that I would never wear again. Probably not even when I’m dead. Luckily I found something similar at Armani Exchange on clearance for $28. And returned the first one. Done.

Anyway the buffet on the 16th floor is open almost all the time and you can wear whatever. For our restaurant dinners I wear short sleeve pull overs or button downs but I notice some people dressed kind of nice especially the women. I’ll save my 2 long sleeve Humana button downs and sport coat for the 4 (now 3 if we skip for ramen). They really aren’t that strict though, uncle Ben looked like he was going to work out at the first formal night we did.

I have to say though, now that I have a sport coat, I kind of want to wear it around. It helps that the boat is air conditioned. I brought it all this way and the other thing is that the only other jacket I have is my poofy down jacket.

Insights

Ok here’s what I learned about the behind the scenes on a ship over a few scotchs and talking with my bartender at Bellini’s.

A majority of the people who guests interact with are Filipino by race. Filipinos don’t make up a majority of the staff but they are culturally the most outgoing and friendly English speakers on board.

The median age for these Princess cruisers may be around 60 years.

There are a bunch of Ukrainian employees on board who keep extending their contract as the war goes on. Lots of them are doing mechanical work for the company.

Employees have an onboard ship store that they can buy knickknacks and necessities at.

Princess is one of the few cruise lines that allow married couples to work together onboard.

I also found Talisker, the only Islay scotch so far. Thanks Dhan!

Bellini’s

Yeah you may be thinking, why should one of ten bars aboard a ship have its own section in a travel blog? Why not the golf range or a specialty restaurant? My gut heart to hand feels tells me it should. Service is intangible yet when you feel it you know it’s present. After my second visit I was being referred to by name. The bartenders here are the alcoholic version of the school teacher- both having an amazing knack for names. Between its location midship and the constantly malfunctioning phone app it became my surefire place to grab a drink and say hello to a familiar face.

By my last night on board I realized that I had made friends with the two bartenders. For this I am sad to leave. And the twice a day room service. And the neverending food. I did also learn the salsa, and I heard June’s brother singing Bruno Mars at the top of his lungs in the jacuzzi.

Bellini’s is located on the 6th level midship. I’m not sure how I ended up there for my first visit but by my second visit it became my go to.

Yup. Unless I have a drink tomorrow before our 8am disembarkment, my last drink of the cruise was a Glenmorangie. Triple. Bartender’s choice.

Final thoughts

Cruising in general has left me thinking a few things. If you respect it for what it is-a brief introductory to several cities in several countries, it serves its purpose. If it’s your first or even second time to a place, it’s fine and when you only have 6 to 8 hours in any city you really can only have so much of a taste of it in that time. To do it on your own takes much research. How far is it to town and how do you get there? What’s the currency, how far can English and hand signs get me? Can I use a credit card? What do I avoid, and how do I not get targeted to get jacked? The questions are never ending, but a cruise can make it very streamlined. Buy a ticket and go see something. It’s all arranged from start to finish. Your guide speaks English. It’s super easy and safe. The down side is that you walk around in a huge horde. A large group can travel only as fast as its slowest, and everyone is relying on one leader whom you hope will be educational, engaging, funny and attentive. You pay a premium for this and it’s the least you should expect in my opinion. My problem today was that the communication devices we were using were having a hard time in the wind at Delos island and we ended up getting separated in Mykonos. I kept thinking that I wanted to wander on my own through those twisting white alleys, eating and drinking as we pleased, stopping and turning around as we like.

I feel our travel experience as a family at this point is reasonably high. My 12 year old has been to 17 countries as of this trip and after today’s experience running through those twisting streets and passing by everything that I wanted to see, smell and take pictures of. To me, that’s what a trip should be. Get into the streets on your own, and do whatever your heart wants. I guess my summary is that cruising isn’t ideal for me but it does have its upsides.

Here they are-a clean cool place to return to each evening. Neverending food and friendly faces. What feels like a clean room twice a day. A familiar place to get a drink or a few as it may be.

So that’s our boat, here’s our stops:

Start-Barcelona

Gibraltar

Marseille

Genoa-The Last Supper

Livorno/Porto Venere

Rome

Naples-pizza time

Crete-Heraklion

Kusadasi, Turkey

Istanbul not Constantinople

Mykonos-white and blue

Athens-pau

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