In June 2013, Princess Cruises was safely delivered a new ship, after what seemed about an elephant's-length pregnancy. All new cruise ships are big news, but this one seemed even more newsworthy than most: it's Princess's first new ship since 2008; it's the first of a brand new class of ships with an entirely new design; it's Princess's largest ship to date; and it was named the Royal Princess and baptized by none other than the Duchess of Cambridge in one of her final duties before her maternity leave and the birth of Prince George. I have to admit that the arrival of a royal prince does top the arrival of the Royal Princess, but then there was so much fanfare about the former that I was expecting a star to appear somewhere over southern England and three wise men to be booking flights that direction. Come to think of it, the arrival of the latter prompted exactly the same response on the website CruiseCritic.com. ;-)
Until April of this year, I really wasn't too caught up in the buzz about the Royal Princess. Part of it was that we had been force fed a steady diet of Royal Princess marketing videos all last winter while on the Emerald Princess. Part of it was that I thought the Royal Princess was just too big for a cruise ship. But most of it is that I would never consider myself one to get caught up in the newest...anything. All that changed in April, when Princess announced their Caribbean itineraries for Winter 2014/15 (next winter) in late April. Of course, I looked to see what Princess was offering in the way of longer (more than 7 nights) Caribbean cruises, and saw that the Royal Princess would be taking over the 10-night itineraries that the Emerald Princess has been doing for several years. I wasn't thrilled; the Emerald is like home to us. It kind of felt like we'd received an eviction notice.
Luckily, G adapts to these things more easily than I do, and was immediately excited about the prospect of a new ship. About 18 months after everyone else, we began to study up on this ship design, and noticed that our favorite area of the ship in which to book a cabin, just steps from the aft Terrace Pool, doesn't even exist on the Royal Princess. We had no idea where we'd want our cabin to be. The Royal Princess brochure we'd picked up on the Emerald occupied prime real estate on an end table in the family room, and we took turns studying its deck plans. We decided our best choice was to "follow the pools" (and I have claustrophobia that allows me to stay in inside cabins, but only if I have a quick exit to a large, open area with lots open sky above. Silly, I know...). When the Winter 2014/15 schedule opened in May, I immediately booked 155 continuous nights in the same Lido Deck inside cabin, close to a pool, hot tubs, Movies Under the Stars (MUTS) big screen, and the Horizon Court buffet. (Don't get excited...we won't actually cruise for 155 nights; we just like to have some flexibility in when we start and when we stop).
The Royal Princess finally launched in June, and we were glued to the Internet, viewing its christening and media reports. Early passenger reviews were mixed, and we started to notice things we'd not before, most notably that there are only 2 significant pools on a ship with 3600 people (by comparison, the Emerald Princess, with 3100 people, has 5!), there's no Promenade Deck and no free steam rooms and saunas. Hmmm...
We were taking a transpacific cruise from Sydney to San Francisco and flew to Sydney a week early to sightsee. We stayed in The Rocks area, right across Circular Quay from the Opera House. The morning our ship, the Diamond Princess, was due to arrive, we awoke in the early morning hours (not a hard thing to do since we'd been waking up at 2am all week due to the time change) and walked through the foggy night to watch the ship emerge from the darkness and pass by the Opera House. A bit eerie, it was exactly like a ghost ship as it appeared in the distance, then silently loomed larger and brighter and slipped almost soundlessly into its berth at the Overseas Passenger terminal.
The Royal Princess finally launched in June, and we were glued to the Internet, viewing its christening and media reports. Early passenger reviews were mixed, and we started to notice things we'd not before, most notably that there are only 2 significant pools on a ship with 3600 people (by comparison, the Emerald Princess, with 3100 people, has 5!), there's no Promenade Deck and no free steam rooms and saunas. Hmmm...
We began to get a bit worried; we'd booked an entire winter on a ship we'd never before been on. A combination of concern coupled with excitement about the new ship (the photos looked gorgeous) motivated us to book the Royal's very first Caribbean cruise after it arrives from Europe, beginning next Tuesday, October 29th. It's only a five-night cruise, but we hope it gives us enough time to decide for ourselves if the Royal Princess is a contender for our future second home.
Once that was done, we considered flying to Fort Lauderdale early- the Royal Princess is arriving in the US for the very first time early Sunday morning, October 27th, and there's something special about watching a cruise ship emerge from the darkness, especially for its first arrival in a new port. In the end, we're not...we'd've had to spend three nights pre-cruise in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale before we sail on October 29th and having once lived there and spending several turnaround days there very winter, we've kind of exhausted the list of things to do/see in South Florida. So we'll be up at 3:30am EDT Sunday morning (according to the Port Everglades schedule found at https://pevweb01.broward.org/Public/PublicMovements.aspx) watching her arrival on the Port Everglades webcams, the same one you can use to watch our sailaways this winter.
This webcam keeps getting fancier every year...it seems like Cameras #3 and #1 are our best bet to catch a glimpse of the ship as she first arrives in Port Everglades, but if you ever have a need for a serenity moment, choose the Fort Lauderdale Beach webcam in the upper left corner, turn up your sound, and relax to the sound of waves washing ashore. I've been doing that all summer, to tide me over until I get to the real thing.
The real thing is finally just next week. Woohoo!
On a related note, and since we won't be on the southern end of Fort Lauderdale Beach early Sunday morning to welcome the Royal Princess, I'll share with you another story of when we did something similar in Sydney, Australia in 2006. I've never forgotten it...
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| Princess Cruises ms Royal Princess Launched 2013 142,700 tons 3,600 passengers |
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The Diamond Princess at Circular Quay, April 2006.
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Luckily for us, the fog quickly lifted, because we were scheduled to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge later that morning. What a way to start a 30-day cruise!
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G and J (far right) and other Cruise Critic friends at the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge
with the Diamond Princess in the background. |