Wintry weather in Canada began this year earlier than in other years, and I was definitely ready for a getaway to warmer climes. And Princess Cruises was ready for me with a 10-night cruise around the Eastern Caribbean on the Crown Princess.
Internet photo, obviously not taken in the Caribbean.
I'd originally been planning a January cruise into Antarctica, but I set that plan aside for reasons both personal and financial. Antarctic cruises are much more costly than others, and I think this may well be due to the need for the company to insure the ship heavily to travel into those icy waterways.
Also, for personal reasons, I found myself urgently wanting -- no, needing -- to get away from home during the Christmas and New Year's season.
I've actually been on the road for a week already, taking another short trip over to Germany to see my nephew dancing with his modern ballet company (see previous two blog posts), and then back to Canada before heading south to Florida. And then, after an overnight in a convenient hotel, it was time to join my cruise. Here's a map of our route plan.
Boarding a cruise ship always gives me a thrill, even when it's a ship I've sailed on before (two years ago in this case). The thrill is quickly supplanted by the realization that you will wait forever for a space on one of the overworked elevators, and it's better to just hike the four decks up to find your cabin.
A couple of months back, Princess gave me a complimentary upgrade from my cheap balcony cabin near the stern to one closer to the midships. Then, just a few weeks ago, I got an upsell offer to jump to a mini-suite near midships for about 1/3 of the price difference which I would have paid for such a cabin when I reserved. And this is what I got. It's a mini-suite designed for a handicapped passenger, which means that it's 50% wider than a standard mini-suite and has twice as much storage for everything in a whole wall of closets.
In a normal mini-suite, the wall would be directly adjacent to the door (the white line), not a metre further to the right. The 50% extra width also means 50% more space on the balcony.
I guess I can live with it. Maybe. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
So here we are, once again at anchor offshore from Princess Cays on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, a private resort belonging to Princess Cruises and used by their ships and (occasionally) by ships of the associate company, Carnival. Almost every Princess cruise in the Caribbean seems to begin with a stop here the morning after leaving Fort Lauderdale.
Boarding a cruise ship always gives me a thrill, even when it's a ship I've sailed on before (two years ago in this case). The thrill is quickly supplanted by the realization that you will wait forever for a space on one of the overworked elevators, and it's better to just hike the four decks up to find your cabin.
A couple of months back, Princess gave me a complimentary upgrade from my cheap balcony cabin near the stern to one closer to the midships. Then, just a few weeks ago, I got an upsell offer to jump to a mini-suite near midships for about 1/3 of the price difference which I would have paid for such a cabin when I reserved. And this is what I got. It's a mini-suite designed for a handicapped passenger, which means that it's 50% wider than a standard mini-suite and has twice as much storage for everything in a whole wall of closets.
In a normal mini-suite, the wall would be directly adjacent to the door (the white line), not a metre further to the right. The 50% extra width also means 50% more space on the balcony.
I guess I can live with it. Maybe. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
So here we are, once again at anchor offshore from Princess Cays on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, a private resort belonging to Princess Cruises and used by their ships and (occasionally) by ships of the associate company, Carnival. Almost every Princess cruise in the Caribbean seems to begin with a stop here the morning after leaving Fort Lauderdale.
This picture captures at least some of the brilliant colours in the waters nearer the shore.
Truth be told, Princess Cays is actually just a beach with a few small shops and cafes attached. There is only a limited range of scheduled tours or activities on offer. And I am not much of a beach person, for reasons I've explained before in this blog. So this time I just stayed happily on board.
But for those who haven't read my previous posts about Princess Cays, you can find more details about this private beach resort with photos at these links:
But for those who haven't read my previous posts about Princess Cays, you can find more details about this private beach resort with photos at these links:
Staying on board gave me a chance to scope out the public spaces on Crown Princess -- and enjoy the pool areas on decks 14 and 15 -- in a relatively uncrowded condition. This is one of the nine "Grand Class" ships built for Princess from 1998 onwards, with Crown Princess entering service, as one of the later arrivals, in 2006. The ship can carry a maximum of 3100 passengers and has a crew of 1200. The numbers sound impressive, and they were 13 years ago. But today, with Princess fielding half a dozen ships holding 3800 passengers or so, and Royal Caribbean entering the fray with their 6000-passenger behemoths, Crown Princess is looking more and more like a mid-sizer.
So, let's have a look around. Every Princess ship except the "small ship," Pacific Princess, has a multi-storey central atrium called the Piazza. Princess pioneered this innovation over 2 decades ago, and the basic recipe hasn't changed. The decor is intended to evoke an Italian piazza or town square. The three decks conform to that concept by housing shops, restaurants, bars, a coffee house, a stage for musicians to perform, and chairs for "just sitting" -- although servers will circulate regularly to offer drinks.
The colourful banners are "seasonal," but not in reference to the current holiday season. The banners depict flags and flowers of all the many countries Crown Princess is visiting during this winter's Caribbean cruise season.
A feature of every Piazza is the brace of glass-fronted elevators.
So, let's have a look around. Every Princess ship except the "small ship," Pacific Princess, has a multi-storey central atrium called the Piazza. Princess pioneered this innovation over 2 decades ago, and the basic recipe hasn't changed. The decor is intended to evoke an Italian piazza or town square. The three decks conform to that concept by housing shops, restaurants, bars, a coffee house, a stage for musicians to perform, and chairs for "just sitting" -- although servers will circulate regularly to offer drinks.
The colourful banners are "seasonal," but not in reference to the current holiday season. The banners depict flags and flowers of all the many countries Crown Princess is visiting during this winter's Caribbean cruise season.
A feature of every Piazza is the brace of glass-fronted elevators.
And that, of course, means that you must have a look at the Piazza from inside the glass cage.
The area immediately around the Piazza contains an art gallery, photo gallery, tour desk, guest services desk, Captain's Circle desk, two of the ship's three main dining rooms, and more.
Speaking of those dining rooms, Princess was also a pioneer of the "Anytime Dining" concept, which dispenses with the shipboard tradition of same table, same servers, same time, same group of people. The Traditional Dining option is still offered, but more people opt for the open-ended resemblance to a regular restaurant: arrive when you want, with whom you want, and get a table. Reservations are available for same-day dinner until a certain percentage of tables is reserved.
What changes from time to time is the proportion of capacity dedicated to Traditional Dining. On last year's cruise, there was a lot of demand for early-sitting Traditional Dining, so two dining rooms were allocated for that group. After 7:00pm, it shifted to two dining rooms Anytime Dining, and one Traditional. On this year's cruise, it's just one Traditional dining room and the other two are Anytime Dining all evening.
For me, the Piazza sums up the character of Princess Cruises -- nicely poised halfway between elegance and glitz, with an emphasis on relaxing. It's quite a change from the relentless go-go-go of some of the more "active" cruise lines.
It's not that there's no activity on a Princess cruise. Here's a picture of the daily newsletter, the Princess Patter, for the afternoon and evening of our departure day from Fort Lauderdale.
But for now, back to the Piazza. Take one of those glass elevators to the 15th deck and you'll see this sculpture at either end of the hall where the elevators stop.
Many cruise ships incorporate art pieces of all kinds, but this one is a definite favourite of mine.
And then, right outside the door, is the main swimming pool area. Crown Princess actually has a dozen or more pools and hot tubs in total. The two big pools are back to back, so to speak, on either side (fore and aft) of the midships elevators. The upper deck in front of the blank wall at the far end of the Neptune Pool is a stage where entertainers perform.
And above the mural of fish at the far end of the Calypso Pool is the giant screen for "Movies Under the Stars," another Princess innovation which has since been widely copied.
You know these were taken on a shore day with a beach, because on sea days these pool areas are swarming with people and buzzing with activity. Many people love to sit or lie in the shallow "reef" area surrounding the actual pool.
My personal favourite is this smaller, quieter pool at the stern, one deck lower down. The people you see sitting all around in this view are eating breakfast before going ashore, because this Terrace Pool is immediately behind and half a deck below the buffet. Any time the ship is travelling from west to east, the Terrace Pool is the prime place for a sunset swim with a grandstand view of the sunset. By tradition, people applaud and shout and whistle as the sun vanishes, so you can hear the wave of sound climbing from the pool upwards, deck by deck in sequence.
The area immediately around the Piazza contains an art gallery, photo gallery, tour desk, guest services desk, Captain's Circle desk, two of the ship's three main dining rooms, and more.
Speaking of those dining rooms, Princess was also a pioneer of the "Anytime Dining" concept, which dispenses with the shipboard tradition of same table, same servers, same time, same group of people. The Traditional Dining option is still offered, but more people opt for the open-ended resemblance to a regular restaurant: arrive when you want, with whom you want, and get a table. Reservations are available for same-day dinner until a certain percentage of tables is reserved.
What changes from time to time is the proportion of capacity dedicated to Traditional Dining. On last year's cruise, there was a lot of demand for early-sitting Traditional Dining, so two dining rooms were allocated for that group. After 7:00pm, it shifted to two dining rooms Anytime Dining, and one Traditional. On this year's cruise, it's just one Traditional dining room and the other two are Anytime Dining all evening.
For me, the Piazza sums up the character of Princess Cruises -- nicely poised halfway between elegance and glitz, with an emphasis on relaxing. It's quite a change from the relentless go-go-go of some of the more "active" cruise lines.
It's not that there's no activity on a Princess cruise. Here's a picture of the daily newsletter, the Princess Patter, for the afternoon and evening of our departure day from Fort Lauderdale.
But for now, back to the Piazza. Take one of those glass elevators to the 15th deck and you'll see this sculpture at either end of the hall where the elevators stop.
Many cruise ships incorporate art pieces of all kinds, but this one is a definite favourite of mine.
And then, right outside the door, is the main swimming pool area. Crown Princess actually has a dozen or more pools and hot tubs in total. The two big pools are back to back, so to speak, on either side (fore and aft) of the midships elevators. The upper deck in front of the blank wall at the far end of the Neptune Pool is a stage where entertainers perform.
And above the mural of fish at the far end of the Calypso Pool is the giant screen for "Movies Under the Stars," another Princess innovation which has since been widely copied.
You know these were taken on a shore day with a beach, because on sea days these pool areas are swarming with people and buzzing with activity. Many people love to sit or lie in the shallow "reef" area surrounding the actual pool.
My personal favourite is this smaller, quieter pool at the stern, one deck lower down. The people you see sitting all around in this view are eating breakfast before going ashore, because this Terrace Pool is immediately behind and half a deck below the buffet. Any time the ship is travelling from west to east, the Terrace Pool is the prime place for a sunset swim with a grandstand view of the sunset. By tradition, people applaud and shout and whistle as the sun vanishes, so you can hear the wave of sound climbing from the pool upwards, deck by deck in sequence.
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