I slept until nearly 7:30am, and G was MIA when I awoke. He must have been really quiet leaving the cabin without waking me even the slightest bit. I tried again from our cabin to get on Wifi (I was totally unsuccessful at it last night), but fared no better this morning. By the time I was showered and ready to start the day, G returned to the cabin, having already eaten his first breakfast of the day. He joined me for his second one, in the Concerto Dining Room. Service was painfully slow; it was well on to 10am before we were done and an announcement had ready been made that tender operations for Princess Cays had begun.
We were in no hurry to go over to the island, but instead spent a bit of time sitting on the lovely teak loungers on the side of the Promenade Deck (honestly, I could have been happy there all day), but left soon to explore the areas of the ship we hadn't seen yesterday: the Vista Lounge up close, the fitness center, the jogging/walking track and the sports court. I'll save my thoughts on them all for another post, but I have to tell you now that we loved all of the areas (except for the ridiculous seating in the Vista Lounge).
When we walked down to Deck 4 after noon to catch a tender, tender tickets were still being required. Captain Tony later apologized for the delay in tendering people over to Princess Cays, but it was not surprising given that it was the ship's first visit there ever, and the first Princess ship to stop there this season. Apparently the Royal's larger tenders required some modifications to the dock on the island, and that was the major cause of the delay. Luckily, one of the perks of our loyalty status (Elite) is that we get priority tendering, so we were able to avoid the whole "wait in line for a tender ticket" process.
And, speaking of tenders...wow, they are huge (they hold 200 people) and beautiful and the top, open part where we like to ride is much more comfortable, with a hard back to sit against instead of the plastic banners stretched between posts. And the tender loading area, with wide stairs leading to it...really an improvement.
Princess Cays looks pretty much the same as last year. It's hard to tell a hurricane even passed over it almost exactly 12 months ago. The first aid station has been moved a bit to the left, but that's all that we noticed. There was a nice banner stretched across the bridge welcoming the Royal Princess on her maiden stop.
We stopped for lunch at the BBQ and sat at a picnic table to eat it. We then spent some time feeding the fish from the feeding pier that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy. We had not packed gear for swimming or snorkeling- we just wanted to enjoy the BBQ and see the island- but we decided to walk down to the brightly colored bungalows area. On the way, we passed a lot of passengers going the opposite way, towards the tenders to return to the ship. Most of the loungers were already unoccupied and we found two in the most ideal location and sat down to enjoy the view and the sound of the waves.
The wind whistled through the pine trees above us, the waves crashed, and I could feel all the stress of preparing to leave home just melt away. I guess you could say that that was the moment our cruise really began for me.
We returned to the ship on the second last tender (last tender wasn't until 4pm!), and were in Club 6 for the Elite lounge by 5:15pm. Once again, no one came around for a drink order, but at least the hors doerves hadn't yet run out. I'm still not impressed by the service or the lack of views, but it certainly is a more convenient location than Skywalkers to get to.
We went to dinner early, just after 5:45pm, as we wanted to go to a show in the Princess Theater at 6:45am. Waiter April was up for the challenge, Two courses later, we left to attend a performance by David Cats, a illusionist. It was our first experience in the Princess Theater, and, wow, we were really impressed by the sound and lighting. But this show...I'm not one for magicians, but David. Cats (from Venice) is amazing. His show quality was way above anything we've seen on other Princess ships. As proof, how many illusionists have you seen on ships that get a standing ovation? David did, and G was one of the first on his feet (and he's a tough critic!).
Afterwards, we decided to go to Alfredos, the pizza restaurant on Deck 6 just for dessert, but I saw a salad caprese on the menu with roasted red and yellow peppers and fresh mozzarella cheese and had to try it. We now love Alfredos, and hope to get a pizza there later in the cruise. Milos from Serbia provided friendly, efficient service, which we've generally found in short supply in the dining areas, aside from our own wait team of April and Michael.
Immediately afterwards, we watched the singers and dancers perform a new show in the Piazza called Escape Completely. It's just a quick 5-7 minutes, but it was really cute. The singers and dancers are dressed like crew on the ship, wearing a steward's uniform, chef's uniform, waiters uniforms, officer's uniform, etc. Two of them are dressed as a young passenger couple and they are dragged onto the floor to participate in this song and dance telling them how they can escape completely, which is Princess' tag line. At first, I didn't realize they were really part of the show, they played the reluctant recruits so perfectly. All in all, it was a cute and creative performance.
Next up was the Wheelhouse Bar for pianist Ray Cousins. Wow wow wow. This man is AMAZING, the best I've ever heard on ships, and got a standing ovation after every song. His talent is huge! When he took a break, we headed to Crooners piano lounge to listen to pianoman Kory Simon, who had played in Crooners on the Emerald Princess last year. It was really great to see him again.
Finally, we could go no longer. G is already asleep, and I plan to be soon.
Our verdict today: we would definitely cruise again on the Royal Princess. We know that the service issues we're encountering could be resolved well before we board again next fall, and although the ship design certainly has its faults, we've seen no show stoppers yet.
We feeling better about our decision to spend next winter on this ship. Yay!
Photos: scenes from the Royal Princess' first visit to Princess Cays