Our review of the cruise as a whole would be that the ports of call were superb and the Royal Princess itself was a beautiful ship inside and out but there were some design and feature choices on the ship we didn’t particularly like (personal preference so your views may differ) and, far more importantly, we were treated to some incredibly un-Princess-like levels of service during the trip that left us vowing to never set foot on the ship again during and just after the cruise. Time has a way of smoothing out those peaks and troughs and looking back through the pictures I’m reminded of some of the better parts of the ship and holiday so… the right price, the right itinerary might change my mind. But the Royal Princess would not be my first choice of ship in the Princess Cruises line.

Embarkation

We’d arranged flights to Italy and transfers to the port and ship with Princess for convenience (and they’re very well-priced, we’ve found) so a 4 a.m. start, drive to Heathrow, and check-in resulted in the holiday starting in traditional British fashion with drinks in the airport before we’d normally even be awake.

The weather was perfect across Europe for our holiday (which always helps) and obligatory phone photos of the landscape and lakes we flew over swiftly followed.

Luggage was retrieved, we found the Princess representatives easily, and with only a little bit of hanging around until everyone from a couple of flights had gathered together we made our way to the coach (quite a walk as I recall) to then take the fairly quick drive to Civitavecchia where the ship was waiting. Unlike everyone else, it seemed, we’d filled in all our paperwork early and walked straight through to pick up our ship card, boarding the ship itself within about three minutes of arriving at the port. Outstanding work.

State Room E102

Our late deal gave us the most forward balcony on the Royal Princess, low down on the port side of the ship. The room was decorated in much the same way as any other Princess ship we’d been on but everything was newer and a little brighter as you’d expect from a more modern ship. The Royal Princess was the first (and at time of writing, only) Royal-class ship we’d been on, with all our previous cruises taking place on Grand-class vessels. The only major layout change in the room we could see was a large, wall-mounted TV opposite the bed rather than the smaller, corner-set ones we’d seen elsewhere. In the bathroom there was a minor change in positioning of the toilet which is usually at 45 degrees to the vanity unit.

We like balconies on our cruises and if you like balconies too then you probably really need to think about any of the Royal-class of ships (Royal, Regal, Majestic from Princess, or Britannia from P&O) as balcony depth is appalling unless you’re willing to really splash out on some of the higher priced rooms. As it was, though, our room was at the flaring point of the ship near the front which gave us an angled, deeper balcony than typical; the three or four cabins further back from us had deeper cabins again; the only “downside” was that our balconies were described as partially obstructed which in this instance meant that the barrier portion of the balcony was metal instead of glass. This was no obstruction at all and it even meant there was a metal shelf that was handy for putting drinks on when we were sitting out there. The balcony was partially covered and partially exposed and the ship’s bridge was above and just behind. If you’re concerned about privacy it’s worth thinking about but it didn’t concern us. We’d read that when the bridge windscreen was cleaned some of the cleaning fluid could drip onto the balconies where we were but for E102 this didn’t seem to be possible as we were set ahead of the bridge.

In Civitavecchia we were docked alongside the Celebrity Eclipse. As we unpacked and enjoyed a drink in our room a sudden thunderstorm hit the area; lightning was flashing across the suddenly dark afternoon sky and the rain came tipping down. With only a half-covered balcony we couldn’t step out to really take in the splendour of nature but we did sit for a while with our bodies sheltered and our legs exposed to the elements; the warm rain coming down was nice but the subsequent drips from the metal overhead were decidedly cooler. The storm passed quickly in time for a pleasing sunset before muster and departure.

So, Royal Princess state room E102 was perfectly adequate (and arguably better than the majority of balcony cabins on board) and it was conveniently located just one deck above the promenade deck making it easy to walk to between them rather than rely on elevators (although it’s a big ship so it’s still a fair distance). One thing I must point out, though, is that if you’re a fan of sleeping in then best find another room. Proximity to the anchor meant an alarm clock was rarely required. This didn’t bother us, but it might bother you.

Piazza

The piazza was huge, light, and a very attractive space with some very familiar bars and shops hanging off it as we’d come to expect from Princess Cruises along with a few new places too. But looks aren’t everything. We came to realise very quickly that one of favourite things to do when we’re on a Princess ship – enjoy a cocktail from Crooners at the top of the piazza in the early evening before (and sometimes after) dinner – was completely ruined on Royal Princess because of new functionality for the atrium area; namely, activities. Specifically, noisy activities. It seemed there was almost always something happening in the piazza with the subsequent noise rising up to fill the space. At times it was difficult to hear yourself think because of a band or dance class taking place. This was a real disappointment for us.

Art Gallery

We’re fond of art, always make a point of attending at least one auction on board, usually buy something, and Princess (or, rather, Park West, who manage art sales on numerous cruise lines) knows this so we were invited to private events during our week on the ship. Yes, we bought again; one of the pieces is shown below but I won’t say which (other than it’s not the sculpture because we’re not made of money). The location of the gallery on deck 7 was a shock to us and we didn’t really like that it was along a main walking area on this class of ship but I understand the reasoning in trying to capture a bit of passing traffic (more on this in a bit). Our experience says that people who like art already know they like art and it’s unlikely you’re going to entice someone in for a sale on the off chance but I suppose it’s possible. The art gallery was by a stairwell above the casino and we did notice the smell of smoke every now and then which was unpleasant. The gallery staff were superb, friendly, and we enjoyed many chats with them both on and off the ship in ports when we bumped into some on occasion (more on friendliness of staff in a bit too).

Club 6

Our favourite venue on the Grand-class ships operated by Princess Cruises is Skywalkers Nightclub; nothing beats some late nights dancing and drinking. So it was an immense disappointment to discover that not only did the Royal Princess not have this club but the club it did have instead, Club 6, had no views out to sea in the evening and was both adjacent to the casino (smoking smell would creep in from time to time) and formed a corridor between the theatre and the piazza. The reasoning – we suspect – is again to capture passing traffic to the club, something that’s not possible for Skywalkers as it’s at the aft and up top of ships. The reality – we found – was that a crowd of people would just suddenly walk through the place a few times each evening talking loudly while you were trying to enjoy the music, blocking most of the routes to and from the dancefloor until they’d cleared. Baffling design decision. We’ve subsequently talked to a DJ who has worked on Princess ships and who made all the same complaints about Club 6 that I’ve done here.

One interesting thing about Club 6 on the Royal Princess, though, was that the resident DJ was Pedro who had also been on our South American cruise aboard the Star Princess. To date we think he’s the only crew member we’ve encountered twice on a trip. If he wasn’t so fixated on playing latin music all the bloody time then this would have been a good thing.

Other Interior Spaces

The food locations were (mostly) all excellent and none more so than the buffet; huge, open, well laid out, fantastic choices; this was one area that was substantially improved over other Princess ships. Quality and range were all excellent. With our recent experiences on P&O, for example, it’s incredible just how good and varied the breakfast is on Princess with regular choices, local dishes, changing dishes sensibly making use of food not eaten the night before, etc. With P&O it will typically be the same five things every day. Wonderful cake choices too.

The blot on the food landscape was the specialty dining in the Crown Grill, something we always like to do on a Princess cruise but… the location was attached to the Wheelhouse Bar which transformed it from a specialty location to a side room in a pub, and a noisy one at that; it was too bright so intimate dining was gone; the waiter didn’t listen to me at all (more on service in a bit). Anyway, awful.

A TV studio replaces one of the lounges on the Royal Princess and it’s a complete waste of space. That’s all I have to say on that. Another lounge had an odd layout of seating that made talking to other people difficult. Pleasant enough artwork was dotted around the ship and the namer of the ship, the Duchess of Cambridge, had her photograph in one of the corridors.

Promenade Deck

We like a nice walk around the promenade deck on other ships. Sadly, this was impossible on Royal Princess with just a few small areas of decking you could step out on and no walking circuit except for up on top of the ship. The deck areas on the promenade deck were pleasant enough but the views were a little limited by the presence of lifeboats. A nice view to the SeaWalk above could be had but that’s little compensation.

SeaWalk

One of the big features of the Royal Princess cruise ship is its SeaWalk, a glass platform jutting out from the side of the ship and allowing views down to the sea. Sort of. It’s mostly over the promenade deck below so there’s no worry about falling through into the water as the wooden decking below would probably cushion any fall. It’s a nice enough gimmick and looks attractive from the ship’s exterior. Except with the lights on in the evening you can’t really see through the glass because of the reflections. What you can see, though, is onto the balconies and into some of the state rooms nearby. And as for what those rooms can see out to? If you like to gaze out at the stars at night (we do) then you’re only going to see a glowing glass obstruction I imagine.

Sports

The sports and gym options seemed to be improved from what we’ve seen on other ships with plenty of equipment and walking and jogging lanes. Not that we tried any; we’re not insane.

One piece of equipment looked like it was installed backwards from the accompanying explanation of how to use it and its proximity to the ship.

Swimming Pools

Swimming pools were generally very good with lots of lounges around. A water fountain area seemed to be a little bit of a waste of space but it was fairly entertaining on a few evenings when a sound and light show was performed. The best discovery, though, was the Retreat pool; adults only, sheltered, large enough to do plenty of laps in, and pretty much ignored by most of the passengers on board which suited us perfectly. We were very pleased to get in plenty of swims on our week on the Royal Princess.

Service

The biggest, biggest, biggest problem we had with our week on board Royal Princess was that the level of service was nothing close to what we had come to expect from Princess Cruises. We were met with indifference from bar staff who would take orders with barely a glance, no chat, no smile, then head off without a word until they’d return to hand over drinks in silence, and this happened in every bar we visited on board; at the Retreat pool we couldn’t even catch the eye of a bar steward when we were the only ones there who went out of his way to wander around looking out to sea and ignoring us.

While the food was good in general the level of service was perfunctory at best in the main dining room, and in the Crown Grill it was atrocious with the waiter getting my order wrong and sighing loudly when it was pointed out. By far the worst service we had was when we had to go to the customer services desk to re-register a credit card that had stopped working because two digits had somehow transposed themselves between us booking the cruise and it being entered in their system somewhere; during a puzzled query as to how this could have happened since the card numbers had only been entered once and had obviously initially worked to get us on board we were met with an eye roll from the customer service person and an accusation that it had to be our fault. It was all I could do to hold my wife in check who was livid at being treated in such a way. We’ve never been treated that badly before or since and it just seemed to be pervasive among all the crew we encountered in some manner or another, again with the exception of the art gallery people who couldn’t have been nicer.

I know that sometimes something isn’t quite right or an encounter might not be perfect but it happened to us throughout the week and we weren’t the only people to experience this; during our disembarkation tour in Athens we were talking to some elite-level passengers who had all the same complaints to raise that we did.

Anyway, to finish: a few more photos and a couple of videos of the Royal Princess cruise ship top deck because despite problems on this cruise she was a pretty ship. It just might be a while before we’re tempted back on her or any of her class though.

This post will cover our experience on the first sailing by a Princess Cruises ship out of the UK since that painful pandemic hit us all and locked down our ways of life. With this being a so-called Seacation cruise, and therefore not stopping at any ports, I’ll cover the entire trip in this single post as opposed to my usual day-by-day breakdown. I didn’t take anywhere near as many photos and videos as I might have done on a normal cruise because this wasn’t a normal cruise. Not only that, but with this cruise taking place aboard Regal Princess this was a familiar line for us, a familiar style of ship for us; this was like getting out of bed after a long time recuperating, putting on some comfortable slippers, and just saying Aaaah!

Embarkation

There was nothing normal about embarkation, and while the general process worked well enough – drive to the Covid testing centre, have your vaccination documentation checked, take a lateral flow test, drive to the terminal, wait for the test result to say you’re negative, get your Ocean Medallion, zip through security, and board the ship – that need for a pre-boarding test changed the feel of the cruise right from the start. We’re used to that terror before a cruise that comes from wondering if there will be a road closure that makes you late, or your alarm won’t go off, or your car won’t start, but once you do reach the port there are no more worries. Not the case here. Even after having your luggage taken away by the porters there’s still a chance you’ll get a notification to say nope, you’ve failed the test. That’s stress you don’t want. I get why the cruise lines are doing it – they’re trying to be super-careful in a world where every moron is looking to blame them for anything they can – but you can go to hotels, B&Bs, theme parks, gyms, stadiums, indoor events, pubs, restaurants, and more in the country without any testing at all. I’d really like to see the cruise lines drop this as quickly as possible.

Regal Princess Mini-Suite

We knew that the balconies on Regal Princess, as with all these Royal-class ships, were pretty dreadful, and there was no way to pick a specific cabin ahead of time, just the general type. As it would be just a few days at sea we opted for a Standard Balcony Cabin because there seemed no point in paying extra and not getting an improvement in the one part of the space we really liked. Prior to the cruise, though, we were notified that we’d been upgraded to a Deluxe Balcony Cabin, differing from a standard grade by the addition of a seating area. Okay, fine. But then we got a second upgrade to a Mini-Suite. This meant a larger bathroom as well; one with a bath. We didn’t use the bath on this cruise but it does make showering a lot easier and provides more room to dry wet swimming gear over.

And then the free gifts started turning up.

It began with a private message on Twitter from Princess’s UK media team asking for our room number (A336 if you’re interested) and the arrival soon after of two small bottles of sparkling wine with glasses. That was nice, and we had them on our balcony. That was followed in fairly swift order by two plates of nibbles, a bottle of white wine and a bottle of champagne, a box of chocolates, flowers, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Wow! I know from posts on Twitter that a lot of people got gifted similar things, although they all seemed slightly different. There’s no disputing that it was a lovely gesture from the company.

Cocktails, Muster, Sailaway

First cocktails were taken by the pool area. Not our usual location for our first cocktails but the piazza area was busy and fairly noisy with people still boarding. My wife had been looking forward to a Dirty Banana for a long, long time. No comments, you. I asked the friendly face serving us at our table to recommend something for me and that’s how I ended up with a 24K Gold Margarita as my first cocktail back on board a cruise ship.

Muster was a different process, and soooo much better for it. We watched the safety video on the TV in our cabin – this registered us as having seen it – then went to our muster point (the casino), checked in there with our medallions, and received additional information from the member of staff there to complete the process. And that was that. Never change this. This is how I always want it to work.

We decided to grab a drink in Vines next. Vines was the one venue where the Ocean Medallion seemed to work best for us on this cruise (more on the Medallion later). We were simply asked what we’d like and that was that; no checking our names, no checking our cabin number; the staff simply knew. In fact, before we’d finished our glasses a member of the ship’s security staff walked straight up to our table asking if we could take our passports to reception to be scanned again as there’d been a problem with them. The ability of the staff to recognise us and know where we were was very good here. The issue with the passports was one we’d wondered about as the woman at the terminal hadn’t ever seen the new post-Brexit pieces of crap we now had to carry and seemed to take a long time to attempt to scan them, then simply resorted to typing in our details. At the front desk the man who took our passports away to photograph was similarly interested in seeing our new and less useful passports out in the wild for the first time.

Before we took the passports back to our room we wandered out onto the promenade deck for some air. It’s not a full wraparound promenade deck, but it does the job if you’re looking for some outside space. Obviously, dockside at Southampton doesn’t make for the most attractive of sights, but if it means you’re about to head off on a cruise then you don’t mind it too much.

We then made our way to our room so we could enjoy the sailaway from there. We’ve never been fond of the top deck and all its singing and dancing and waving of flags. What we did enjoy was not only being able to see the Spinnaker Tower in our home city of Portsmouth but also the next cruise ship we would be sailing on, Scarlet Lady, in Portsmouth Port, too. We hadn’t realised she was large enough to see from the Solent.

Crown Grill Speciality Dining

We’d booked dinner at the Crown Grill ahead of this Seacation cruise and it was to there that we headed on this first night back at sea. It’s always a rare filet mignon with the usual sides of mushrooms (for my wife), creamed spinach (for me), and fries (between us), with some dipping into different options for appetisers and desserts. Faultless food – Princess Cruises do this very well indeed – although the service was a bit haphazard, with our main course starting to be placed on the table before my wife had actually finished her hotter-than-the-surface-of-a-star soup. Teething issues with a lot of new staff, I’d like to think, and it didn’t spoil a lovely and recommended meal.

We finished up our evening with a bit of a chat and some drinks with Sandra and Chris of Brits On A Ship, and we shared some of our experiences (or issues) of using the Ocean Medallion aboard Regal Princess. Chris ended up with more drinks than he’d planned at one point as his first order had gone off for an explore around the ship without him. More on that at the end, though.

Trivia

The app that Princess would like you to use while on board encouraged people to book for things they’d like to do. But we don’t like to commit ourselves like that, and we weren’t sure what we’d want to do ahead of this cruise anyway, so we played the whole thing by ear on this Seacation. We hadn’t intended to go to the trivia that was taking place in the mornings in the Princess Live venue on the ship but as we’d finished breakfast in the buffet with plenty of time to spare we decided to chance being able to get in. This turned out to be no problem at all.

And then we won the trivia. We honestly thought we were doing terribly during the first part of it but we made some inspired guesses and took home a slew of prizes: a bag, a notebook, a coaster, and a wine-stopper; then a representative from the Effy store handed us a little gift bag with some small jewellery pieces and a pen. Our streak of winning at least one trivia aboard every single Princess cruise we’ve taken continues. It will come to an end one day, we know, but not this day.

Regal Princess Photographs

After dropping our prizes off in our room we decided to go for a bit of a wander around the ship. Having spent a week on her sister ship, Royal Princess, back in 2016 (see: Royal Princess, Europe 2016) there was nothing to really surprise us on Regal Princess.

On the top deck we decided to complete a circuit of it. This started off on the Skywalk viewing platform and took us past the main swimming pools towards the front of the cruise ship.

Forward of the main pools was the Retreat Pool, an adults only swimming pool in normal times, although they all were on this cruise thanks to everyone needing to be double-vaccinated. We would end up swimming in here on the final day of our time aboard Regal Princess. The pool was heated… a bit. It was more than good enough, though.

In addition to a (what we understand to be a very well-equipped) gym onboard there were also some outdoor spaces for those who like to exercise or play games: a walking and running track, some exercise frames, a court for basketball or similar sports, a miniature golf area, a golf driving net, table tennis tables, and shuffleboard areas are the ones I can recall. We don’t go in for that exercising lark, but each to their own.

Everyone loves an aft view on a cruise ship. There’s something about looking at the wake the ship is leaving on the sea’s surface that is just so calming. If I have to be critical of something then it is that the smoke being left by Regal Princess wasn’t great.

Moving inside and down many flights of staircases brought us to the heart of Regal Princess, the Piazza. Off from here, as you’ll no doubt be aware, are the shops, several bars, the International Café, and Alfredo’s Pizza. The bottom of the Piazza almost always had some form of live music, whether a pianist, violinist, or jazz trio. From this area you can also get to the casino and art gallery along with passenger services, future cruise booking, the photography studio, and the spa area.

Club 6 can be found on deck 6 and on a normal cruise it would be the late-night disco area. It’s no Skywalkers (night club on Grand-class ships). We didn’t check it out on this short Regal Princess Seacation because we were mostly bloated at the end of the evenings so disco dancing would have been a terrible idea even if they’d allowed it, but I don’t believe they did anyway.

Sabatini’s Speciality Dining

Our second day aboard Regal Princess included some more speciality dining in the evening at the Italian restaurant aboard. Knowing just how large those meals are we thought we might try to get away with no lunch at all, but after trying some interesting concoctions in the Good Spirits cocktail bar around midday we made the sensible decision to get a light bite to soak up some of that alcohol. We decided to use the Ocean Medallion app to order food to our table and I’m pleased to say it actually worked. Eventually. Well over half an hour from ordering to getting the food, and the bread of the tuna sandwich I chose was on the stale side, leading me to suspect it had been prepared too far ahead of my wife’s hot food. It served its purpose, though. We could have walked to the café which was a few metres from our seats in the bar but we wanted to test the app out. It’s something that will improve, I’ve no doubt.

A little later we discovered some chocolates delivered to our room (they’d stopped the nightly chocolates-on-pillow service for this cruise) and we hit Vines just before dinner because, well, it’s traditional, and we’re traditional people.

And so to Sabatini’s. If you like Italian food and you like getting value for money then this is one of the best bits of additional cash you can spend on a Princess Cruises cruise. Feedback I’ve provided to Princess in the past has included the recommendation that portion sizes are reduced to make the meal more special and less coma-inducing. That feedback seems to have been listened to because we found all the courses a little smaller – less bread, smaller and fewer tortelloni, improved and reduced sauces – and yet we still came away from the table absolutely stuffed to the gills.

Now, the food and service here wasn’t what we would consider Princess-standard. Most of the food was gorgeous but the dessert included a take on tiramisu that was offensive to the palate. Runny and rubbery would be two good adjectives to describe whatever that horror in the pot was. Our service from our staff member was as good as it could be but the problem was that it couldn’t be too good because he was absolutely run off his feet trying to cater for too large an area of tables on his own. He was flustered, sweating, doing his absolute best, and we could see that and account for it, but it spoke of problems with staffing levels that should have been communicated to guests. Indeed, a table near us had two guys dining on it who didn’t seem to understand that and loudly mentioned how disappointed they were by the whole experience. They didn’t receive their cutlery ahead of one course. Can you imagine how that could ruin your entire cruise? Anyway, the end result was that we decided not to ask for an end-of-meal limoncello and cocktail in order not to give our guy extra work to do, and that was possibly a good thing as we waddled away and got some fresh air on the promenade deck before working out what to do for the remainder of the evening.

After heading to the Vista Lounge for some entertainment, sitting there for ten minutes while the staff were taking orders from everywhere but where we were sitting (right near the front, in the middle), realising that because my wife had left her phone in the cabin we couldn’t actually order two drinks using the app on my phone alone without incurring additional charges (more on that later), and starting to get annoyed by the group of women near us who were getting a little too boisterous for our liking, we decided to head back to our room, risk the bottle of white wine we’d been given as a gift, and catch a movie on the TV instead.

Opening the wine involved calling our steward to come to our room with a corkscrew, have him turn up with a bottle opener instead and tell us they weren’t allowed to carry corkscrews, disappear off to take our bottle down to a bar to open, then return. Had we known then we’d have done it ourselves.

The movie we watched was Wonder Woman 1984 and my advice to you if you’ve not seen it is to continue to not see it for as long as you live.

Final Sea Day

Our morning on the final sea day aboard Regal Princess saw us return to the trivia in the Princess Live lounge after breakfast and win it again. We declined the offered prize as we’d won pretty much everything they had to give away the day before. The important thing was that we’d won.

We were distracted by dolphins for a bit from our balcony before taking the plunge and going for a swim in the lightly-heated Retreat Pool. It had been about two years since my wife had last had a swim – not so long for me as I solely braved the pool in Kos the year before – and it was lovely to get back in the water and spend half an hour swimming laps.

After our swim we entered full relaxation mode on our balcony with our books. There was enough sun at times to send us scurrying for sun cream. The balconies on Regal Princess, as mentioned, are not great. The depth of the balcony means you have to sit upright if you’re facing outwards to the sea, while the round table took up so much space that squeezing past it was annoying, and if you’d wanted to turn your chair sideways to use the foot stool then you could only do so by blocking off the doorway to the room. Despite that, we enjoyed being out on the balcony; we always do.

As the afternoon rolled around we headed towards the Piazza area for a drink first – in Bellini’s, where we had some fabulous service – and a bit of people-watching while we read, then walked the few metres across to Alfredo’s for some freshly-made pizza. Service here again was superb, and the food was just amazing, and especially so when you consider it’s included at no additional cost. We had a great seat by the window and followed up our fantastic pizzas with some proper tiramisu to try to take away the memory of the previous night.

A bit more reading and one more cocktail in Bellini’s finished up our afternoon.

Alfredo’s was very filling so we decided not to bother with any dinner, figuring if we needed to snack on something there’d be plenty of chances to do so. We took in some final sea views from our balcony before getting ready for some final evening drinking.

Crooners ended up being our pick for a last bit of fancy cocktails. Service here was all over the place, ranging from woefully inept (forty minutes for our first drink, with the first twenty just to be spotted by a member of staff) to absolutely perfect. We ended up finding out where Chris and Sandra were hiding and joined them for a couple more drinks right at the end too, before heading back to our room and placing an order for food and drink via the TVs while watching a bit of The Princess Bride for the gazillionth time.

Disembarkation And Cruise Conclusion

And so we returned to Southampton with some bright blue skies to greet us, had breakfast, and walked straight off the ship at our designated time of eight o’clock. Three quarters of an hour later we were home.

This cruise was just what we needed. It was great to be back at sea. It was fabulous to have some fine food and fancy cocktails. Having our first cruise back be with Princess Cruises, allowing us to reacquaint ourselves with the familiar rather than dive right in to something completely new, was a good call on our part.

But I have to make note of…

Ocean Medallion Issues On Regal Princess

The combination of technology and software limitations in the Ocean Medallion app created numerous problems and we ended up having to order most drinks with staff directly and telling them our cabin number. That defeated the point of the much-vaunted tech. And ordering with the staff wasn’t without issues either. We’re aware of rumours that the staff was short-handed in terms of experienced, trained members because of issues getting them into the UK, but those are just rumours and some honest communication from Princess if that was the case would have been useful in setting expectations.

The technology was problematic because the sensors that locate people weren’t accurate enough. Sometimes hilariously, badly so. We would have situations where the pair of us were sat at a table with one registered as in that bar (maybe) while the other was detected in a shop or, in one case, someone else’s cabin. Because you could only order food or drink to where the app on your phone thought you were or your cabin, this made ordering drinks impossible. Food could have been done because there was no charge but, despite a drinks package, there was a limit to ordering just one drink per person at a time otherwise you’d be charged. So, with my wife and I in a bar she ordered drinks for the pair of us and we got billed for one of them. When we tried to order drinks separately only one of us was registered in that bar so we couldn’t do that either. That failure to allow a person to order drinks for other people in their group also means that if Princess want people to use this tech then they also want everyone to carry their phone with them at all times. Not great for the evenings if you’re female and lacking trouser pockets, not wanting to carry a handbag, etc. as we discovered.

The app software also just listed the core drinks available, but individual bars would have their own menus that could be viewed by scanning a QR code. Viewed, yes, but ordered using the tech, no. This might be a design choice, to use the tech when somewhere else while relying on staff when in an actual bar, but that wasn’t the impression I got from all the promotional blurb.

The app itself was also horribly bloated, slow, and power-draining for phones, thanks to the animations for the daily planner in particular.

On the plus side, the door-unlocking as you approached your room worked well every time, even if the purported benefit of not needing to use your hands is a lie since the door handle still needs to be pushed down in order to enter your room.

I expect things are better in terms of location-tracking on the newer Princess ships as they have better sensor technology built-in rather than retro-fitted, but the apps needs work.

I have some app recommendations:

• Option to disable animations, or an expert mode to simply list planner activities without the fancy and slow overhead.
• Ability to pull up the menus of the bars through the app without having to use a QR code scanner. If the QR code on the table was supposed to be for health reasons and stop people touching menus then it didn’t work because the angle of the QR code made scanning without lifting up the Perspex block and tilting it tricky at best.
• Ability to set the delivery location without relying on where the app thinks you are. This is vitally important.
• Ability to order multiple drinks at once if there is more than one of you with the drinks package travelling together, and not be charged for it if you’re not over your daily allowance. This applies to ordering on the TV too. We had to order room service on two TVs at the same time in our room because of this. That’s a silly limitation.

I think those software changes aren’t difficult, and will go a long way to offsetting the technology constraints on ships built prior to the Medallion technology being fitted.

But those gripes aside, we had a lovely time back cruising, even if far too briefly, and we didn’t want to get off the ship.

This cruise was still taking place during a period of heightened pandemic precautions so there was the pre-cruise testing to get through first, but this was an absolute breeze. We drove to the testing centre to find there were barely any cars there at all – a benefit of being the only ship from the Carnival line sailing out of Southampton that day – so we were directed straight through to the marquee, got swabbed, and were on our way with hardly time to slow the car to a stop. The terminal experience was a joy too, with us walking in, being directed to a counter, and them having our medallions ready to go when we got there without even asking our names. In fact, this part was spookily good because we had, and still have, no idea how they knew it was us. Maybe they’d put tracking devices on us when we were on Regal Princess earlier in the year? Weird. But good weird.

Thus it was that by just after midday, we were on the ship. Our cabin – B737 – was an aft-facing balcony. We’d not been able to pick the room we wanted but had selected the grade and been allocated this space. The room itself was exactly what we’d come to expect from a cabin on most cruise ships, but what we very much liked about this particular room was the size of the balcony.

We do like a good balcony. The aft design of these Royal-class cruise ships includes a tapered balcony structure so there was some opportunity for other cabins to overlook us but for this deck of rooms the balcony was half-covered, meaning it could be used even in unpleasant weather (or to get some respite from the sun) or you could perform naked lunges in the open air with only the seagulls as witnesses. Not that we ever did anything like that. I swear.

The decks above and below us had no covered space at all, and that included the suites on the corners. This pattern of partly-covered and fully-exposed balconies at the ship’s rear appeared to be every other deck, so consider this if you’re booking an aft balcony on Sky Princess or one of her sister ships.

The view from our balcony while in port was, well, Southampton. Southampton is never going to win any prizes in the Most Attractive Cruise Port category of whatever ceremony chooses to dish out awards to ports (I guarantee there’s at least one; the travel industry is very big on self-congratulations and promotions). Still, if you’re looking at Southampton from a cruise ship then you know there are good times ahead, and not just because you’ll soon be leaving the city, although that is a big part of it.

Muster drills these days are mercifully easy. The days of suddenly having to grab your life jacket part-way through the afternoon and trudge into a packed venue to sit through safety instructions has been consigned to history on Princess ships. Now, thanks to the medallions tracking you, you can stick the safety video on in the room while you unpack (I mean pay attention to the important information), mark you’ve watched it, then head to your muster station so they can confirm you know where to go in an emergency, and that’s it. Leaves more time for exploring and drinking on your embarkation day. These are much more fun activities.

A good boarding experience helps to set the tone for a cruise, and, so far, our first impressions of Sky Princess were very positive. We were also seeing the medallions working in a way they hadn’t on Regal Princess, with our room unlocking from quite a distance as we approached the door, and with us being able to use the app and see that it was far more accurate in identifying where we were on the ship.

We don’t usually get on a ship as early as we had boarded Sky Princess as it’s just not that important to us. I know there are some people who simply have to get on early; even some people who will ignore when they should be boarding just to be able to get on the ship. That last lot are wankers. So, while it’s never been a thing that’s concerned us before, this early start to our week at sea did mean that we’d have a chance to get some lunch for a change, and, as we hit the central area of the ship – the Piazza – we saw that the Alfredo’s Pizzeria had plenty of seating free. Why not?

Service was admittedly sluggish, but this was embarkation day with lots of people coming and going, and likely a reduction in staff in certain areas to allow others to assist with those boarding, so we were fine with it. Besides, it’s not like we had anywhere we needed to be. The food was very good, and the wine was perfectly fine.

We’d chosen wine to go with our Italian lunch because that felt like the right thing to do, but one thing my wife likes to do very early on a Princess cruise (and then fairly frequently throughout) is have a Dirty Banana cocktail. If you’ve not had one and you are about to cruise with Princess Cruises at some point then make this something to do too. I went for something a little more grown-up, but, as you can see, fruit was included. This means it was healthy.

Southampton Sailaway

It eventually came time for the ship to cast off. We decided to order a glass of something sparkling each in order to sit on our balcony and watch the grey sight of Southampton disappear in our wake. Ordering drinks to the room is very easy on a Princess ship – you can use the phone app, or you can use the TV in the room – but it’s an area that still could use improvement for passengers on the Princess Plus package – this is the small daily charge that includes tips, really good internet access, and up to fifteen drinks per day, and yes, we always get it – because there was no way to order for both of us in one go. If there are two people in a room then each has to order separately otherwise one of the drinks gets charged. It’s, quite frankly, an unnecessary faff. A minor irritation that you get used to, but still an irritation that could easily be addressed.

Our drinks turned up ridiculously quickly. In fact, as we very soon realised on this Sky Princess cruise, ordering to the room, whether food or drink or a combination of the two, was by far the quickest way to get anything. You could easily wait over twenty minutes in a bar, whereas the same thing might be in your room in under five.

I rightly mock Southampton for its grim appearance, but that’s commercial ports for you the world over. Despite everything, I am a fan of industrial architecture designs, and you’ll be able to find many occasions on this website where I rave about brutalism to back that up, so I do enjoy the grain silos that are the last big things to see as your cruise ship starts its run down the Solent and out to sea.

All that remains to describe of this first evening aboard Sky Princess is what we ate and drank, and where we were entertained.

We actually ate in one of the main dining rooms on Sky Princess, and this felt like quite a novelty. In fact, it had been around two years since we’d last done this, with all the cruises of 2021 to date taking place in speciality dining venues: Virgin’s Scarlet Lady didn’t have the concept of normal dining rooms, and on both Regal Princess and Iona we’d booked in for something special on each night. I have to say that we really enjoyed the main dining room experience a lot, helped, I think, by there being fewer people aboard than on a normal cruise, and the concept of sharing tables having been knocked aside for the most part. We would end up in the main dining room several times on this cruise, and the only issue we had was that we found booking a table for two impossible on the app or TV; as soon as the pair of us were selected, the option to pick a time became disabled. Shakes fist at technology! We worked out, though, that we could book a table for one, so ended up doing that, and just turning up when due, on the basis that they wouldn’t try to allocate us to a tiny table facing the wall somewhere or refuse the pair of us entry. That seemed to work fine.

A venue on Sky Princess, not on other ships we’d been on prior to this, that we wanted to check out, was Take Five. Confusingly located on deck six, this was the jazz lounge. Live acts performed in the evening and there was a jazz jukebox to select tunes from during the day, but it also had a fantastic selection of cocktails that we felt obliged to sample. This would end up being our place to go most evenings. Great atmosphere, fabulous staff, lovely drinks.

So, not a lot to report on for this first day aboard Sky Princess, but in the next part of this cruising travelogue series we’ll be docking at Portland near Weymouth under clear blue skies, and there will be a wander around the ship (plenty of photos), an afternoon tea, and another sailaway video to share.

If you remember from the first post in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series, we had an aft cabin, and the morning view that greeted us in Portland was of the Dorset coastline towards Lulworth Cove.

Once a reasonably late breakfast was out of the way we went for a wander around the top deck of the ship just to see how different this Royal-class ship was to the other ones in the Princess fleet on which we’d cruised. Our experiences aboard Royal Princess (in 2016) and Regal Princess (earlier in the year) had confirmed that, the lack of a Skywalkers aside, the upper decks of these ships was a good design, featuring plenty of pools and an especially-improved adults only pool near the front. But we also knew that the Royal-class ships had undergone some design changes with their newer vessels and wanted to see if these were improvements in our minds or not.

We started at the aft of the ship as it was close to our room, and the following photographs show the aft pool on Sky Princess as well as some of the outside fitness areas: the jogging track and court.

As we moved forward along the top deck of Sky Princess it was nice to look at some of the Portland landscape that we’d not quite reached when we’d walked along some of the South West Coast Path on our prior visit. Our legs had only taken us into part of the walled harbour area in which the cruise ship was anchored but the hill to the ship’s port side was on the Isle of Portland and we’d never quite got off the mainland.

I like a bit of art and we started encountering some sea-themed and Princess-themed pieces around this part of the ship. In keeping with the overall cruise line colours, blue and white featured a lot, and that’s nice but I think it can be bolder to go vibrant and contrasting where such pieces are concerned. At least if you were ever concerned that you couldn’t remember which hashtag to use on social media there was a handy reminder to be found.

The swimming pools are some of the biggest draws for us on a cruise ship, although for other people, being near a swimming pool, taking up space around a swimming pool, and preventing those who want to swim in the swimming pool from having anywhere to put their stuff close by is what they most want. Have I mentioned how much I hate people who lounge by pools but never use them are? Yes, yes I have. Sorry, can’t help the odd, repetitive rant.

Princess Cruises do swimming pools pretty well. There are usually plenty on their ships, and they’re usually a decent size. One difference we spotted on the main pool area on Sky Princess was an altered space between the two pools that had previously been reserved for a fountain show, now adding a couple of hot tubs. That felt like a better use of the space.

The adults-only pool on Sky Princess – the Sanctuary or Retreat pool – was quite different from Royal and Regal, and not for the better in my opinion. It’s possible that the design change was to reduce some of the more luxurious lounger areas in order to encourage more use of the additional-cost Sanctuary itself, while also providing some shelter from cross winds, which the earlier iterations of this area had been exposed to. For the latter, if that was the case then I can confirm this has not worked. This day off Weymouth was beset by a strong and rather bitter wind and our experience was that, even stationary at anchor, far from sheltering passengers in this pool area, it served to somehow funnel everything down into it. That didn’t stop us making use of the pool later in the day, but that’s when we encountered another unwelcome change; the Sanctuary pool depth was simply not deep enough for a decent swim. If you weren’t in motion then you needed to crouch down to keep as little of you above the water line and under attack from the wind as possible.

Overall, we would come to love Sky Princess during this week aboard her – handy, with us having future cruises planned on her as well – but the adults pool was a downgrade from earlier Royal-class ships.

After we’d had a swim and freshened up we decided to have a light(ish) lunch in the form of an afternoon tea. Either side of the savoury and sweet nibbles we treated ourselves to some wine, and, as we were inside the ship, took some photos of the air balloons sculpture that decorates the piazza area because that’s the law. If you see someone has been on Sky Princess and has not taken photos of these striped balloons then make sure to report them to the authorities. There’s no place on a cruise ship for people like that.

The early evening saw Sky Princess depart from Weymouth and Portland ahead of a cruise around the coastline towards Northern Ireland. While we’ve never been massively bothered with sail away events on cruises, happy to be in a bar or showering or anything else really, I had decided before this cruise, and due in part to having the aft balcony, that I’d try to video the cruises out of the ports. Thus it was that we found ourselves back in our room and ordering a drink to have on the balcony as the ship left Dorset.

The sun was starting to set as the ship left the harbour, making for some truly wonderful seascapes and skyscapes. Sunsets are best experienced at sea. That’s a fact.

I was very taken by the Portland Breakwater Fort as we cruised past it. Built a few years either side of 1870 to guard the port, the stone structure was laid down on a granite base of a ring sixty one metres in diameter on the seabed. Originally armed with cannons, then replaced with guns, the fort was in use up until the end of the second world war but was finally abandoned in 1956. A listed building to this day, it is sadly not accessible to the public, but looks like it has a huge amount of potential for an investor.

Evening aboard Sky Princess was much like any evening aboard any cruise ship: a little bit of musical entertainment around the ship, dinner (in this case in the main dining room, and very good), and drinks in various bars.

So, a quiet day on Sky Princess for us with not a lot to report, but a lovely and relaxing one, and with the promise of more to come. The next post in this UK cruise travelogue series will cover two days at sea and two evenings of speciality dining before we hit another port and, for both of us, a brand new part of the world to explore.

We relaxed, in a relaxing manner, relaxingishly. Relaxedly. Relax-like. In the manner of people relaxing, like they do.

This post, therefore, is a bit of blurb around the photographs taken on Sky Princess as she cruised from Portland (that’s the previous post in this series) around the British coastline, and up between Wales and Ireland towards Northern Ireland where a first visit to Belfast and that part of the UK awaited us. What photos did I take? Sea views? Yes, because we were at sea. Food? Yes, because we hit two speciality dining venues on these two days. Drink? Yes, of course, because, holy crap, have you read any other post I’ve ever put up?

How do you relax on a cruise? Do you wander into the atrium on the ship and find a seat to have a drink? It looks like we did. The Piazza is what Princess call their atrium area, but because they don’t have glass roofs and because someone went to Italy once and thought it sounded exotic they decided on piazza instead. It fits, especially given that most of the ships are built in Italy and this is the central hub off which you can find all those sorts of things you’d find in any Italian town square: bars, restaurants, a place to people watch, drive-by Mafia shootings, the Pope, Vespas beeping, colourful Minis careering down the stairs, and so on.

We are fond of trivia when we go cruising, and we usually do very well, winning on most cruises. That didn’t happen on Sky Princess and we’re going to blame the venue for quizzing – the Live Lounge – for that. It wasn’t that it was rammed – although it was, every day – or that there’s constant distraction because people keep passing by since it’s open plan and close to a main corridor, but it was the silly Covid restrictions they kept enforcing (or trying to enforce) here. Everywhere on the ship, if you were sitting down, you didn’t need to wear a mask, with two exceptions: the big, spacious Princess Theatre and the big, open plan Live Lounge. If you were in the lounge, sitting quietly, wanting to do a quiz, you were supposed to mask up. If you were sitting across the corridor – where the shot is taken from – and still able to do the quiz, you didn’t need to mask up. I will follow instructions unless they’re stupid. A lot of people ignored the restriction because it didn’t make any sense, and when you’re quizzing it is actually a hell of a hindrance. Leaning in to whisper an answer to a team mate, having that whisper muffled and unaided by lip-reading visual clues: “Did you say you thought the capital of Sierra Leone was Fermmermegh? That’s not a word!” Yeah, we didn’t enjoy the quizzes that much. And that’s why we didn’t win any. It wasn’t because we’re thick. Or drunk. It wasn’t just because of those reasons.

We had what we knew would be filling evening dinner plans for this first sea day so lunch was light, if you also go along with my definition that some beer and wine in Vines is a light meal. It was a good place to listen to the piano and string trio in the piazza.

We went to an art auction in the early afternoon, although you’ll have to take my untrustworthy word for it since I neglected to take any pictures. We still haven’t really forgiven Park West (the people who run these auctions on many Carnival group lines’ ships) for The Incident but we are nosey, and there’s only so much drinking and reading in a day you can do (I lie!) so we thought, why not? We didn’t buy any art at the auction. But… we were invited to the gallery afterwards and given an offer we couldn’t refuse for a sculpture and a piece that would fit our collection. Honestly, it was a stupidly good price.

Early evening on a Princess ship is the time when the Elite Lounge opens up. On Sky Princess this took place in the Vista Lounge. For Platinum and Elite level guests only, this place offers light nibbles of the bread, cheese, and meats variety, plus some exclusive cocktails at discounted prices. Prior to the introduction of the fabulous Princess Plus package which includes up to fifteen drinks per day, this was a way to save a little bit of money on drinks, but its role these days is less exclusive. It’s still nice to go there, and it didn’t stop us trying every drink on the menu. We were on holiday, so you shut your mouth.

You’re going to think we’re weird but one thing we really like to see on cruise ships is rotating light patterns on walls and curtains. We will always pass them by and say “Now, listen to me. Listen to me.” Look, we watch a lot of movies. I’m sure you know which one I’m referring to here.

Dinner on this first sea day was in the excellent Crown Grill speciality restaurant on Sky Princess. We will almost always dine here on a cruise. Yes, it’s a little extra (but so good value for money). Yes, we don’t tend to vary what we have very much at all. It’s just that good. Hit the search on this site (you do know you can search for things off the Content submenu, right?) and look for all the other times we’ve visited the Crown Grill on Princess Cruises ships if you want more information.

If you thought we didn’t do a whole lot of much on the first sea day then just you wait for day two! Which is here now.

We spent a lot of time on our aft balcony on this day, reading and drinking. There are cruisers who absolutely love aft balconies and get all giddy with excitement at being on them, and fair play to them; we’ve all got our thing. We’re a little more ambivalent towards them, preferring to see waves go past the ship and feel more up and down motion with a tilting horizon that you get nearer the front of the ship, but the aft balconies on Sky Princess – especially on our deck (see the first post in this series to find out where that was) – were huge, partly covered, and especially nice. They made for nice sun traps and protected us from the wind which was strong and cold.

If you are a fan of wake views from the aft of a cruise ship then feast your eyes on these photos below.

The Vista Lounge was where we headed again in the evening, though not for the Elite Lounge this time, but the Captain’s Circle Party instead. Another chance for free nibbles, and free drinks as well for all attendees (and you can do very well out of this if you keep catching the eye of staff). This event is a chance for the captain and senior members of the loyalty scheme to boast about the number of people aboard, what’s happening in the fleet, new ships and destinations on the horizon, etc. It’s also a chance for the most-travelled passengers aboard to win some goodies, for everyone to win the chance of a bottle of something, and for photos with the captain for those who want it.

After the Elite Lounge we made our way to Take Five, which, as you can guess from its name, is the jazz lounge on the ship, and which, as you can’t guess from its name, is on deck six. Still annoys me. We did like Take Five a lot, though, and ended up in here pretty every night at some point. Jazz – either from a jukebox or the trio led by Larry King (not that one) on piano – and a wonderful array of cocktails on the menu. Photos and some video of the jazz are below.

And the evening meal for the second of these sea days before Belfast was at wonderful, wonderful Sabatini’s. If you were to ask me to describe Sabatini’s in one word then it would be wonderful, but I’d likely repeat it because it’s really quite wonderful. Again, as with the Crown Grill, there’s a small upcharge and you can tell we visit this venue a lot on Princess ships by making use of the search facility; and you’ll be able to find out more about the restaurant and its menu that way because I’m not repeating it now. I’m just repeating the word wonderful. Wonderful.

The only problem with Sabatini’s is that you really should opt for elective surgery prior to your cruise in order to fit in an additional, elasticated stomach. We didn’t, and tried to fool our bodies into thinking everything was okay and this was another day and please don’t explode by taking a walk onto the ship’s promenade deck for some air. We didn’t explode, but we did decide on an early night.

In the next post in this Sky Princess UK cruise travelogue series I’ll cover Belfast, a city we’d never been to before and which… we still really haven’t since we took an excursion to the north coast to look at the Giant’s Causeway instead. There will be rock formations.

Often, when we’re returning to a cruise ship in port we’ll look out for our cabin so that we can point at it and say “There’s our cabin.” If you cruise then you’ll probably do it too. It’s like spotting a cow in a field and saying “Look! A cow!” It’s just one of those things you end up doing when you cruise; file it there alongside waving at people from your balcony as one of those activities that you don’t feel compelled to do when you’re flying or taking a bus somewhere. Cruising is a different way to travel.

Anyway, we couldn’t see our cabin because we had an aft balcony, so we were able to board without any pointing-at-things delays.

Cruise ports are generally not very attractive places, and particularly so when they’re simply additions to more traditional commercial docks dealing with huge amounts of cargo and ferries. We’ve seen worse, but Belfast certainly counts as one of those ports only a mother port could love. Puddle-covered tarmac, silos, cranes, a general feeling of isolation and despair.

Now, where Belfast cruise port does excel is in its wildlife. You’ll always see birds at ports – mostly gulls, of course – because birds are nature’s natural lovers of cruise ships. They just love the effortless way in which ships glide over the oceans and seek out interesting sights or new experiences. It’s far less common to see seals, though, but we got lucky after we’d returned to our room to freshen up a bit and have a drink on our balcony ahead of departure time. We ended up watching at least two seals swimming, floating around a bit, and sometimes going on extended dives for the best part of half an hour. A little bit of research indicates that these were harbour seals which, quite frankly, was a waste of researching time and I really could have guessed it if I’d given it a little more thought.

After Sky Princess started to move away from Belfast cruise port – and after the Love Boat theme blasted out across the deserted, industrial landscape – she made a 180 degree turn as she had been facing westwards and needed to head east. This brought into view the P&O cruise ship Azura which was in the docks undergoing maintenance ahead of her own post-pandemic cruising restart. Azura, to us, will always be known as “the poo ship” thanks to the – at time of writing – two short cruises we’ve had on her six months apart and the presence of a persistent odour both times near one of the lounges. It’s the sort of thing that could put someone off ever cruising on a particular ship again, but we like to give ships time to change, and perhaps one of the many refits and refurbs she’s had in the intervening years has addressed the problem, so – again, at time of writing – we are due to give Azura another chance to impress us in 2023 when we’ve booked a week in the Mediterranean hitting Italy and Croatia on her.

The sun was behind the hills around Belfast as we pulled out into the main channel away from Northern Ireland and towards Liverpool across the Irish Sea. Belfast cruise port may not have been pretty, but the sunset and dusk views back towards it as we left certainly were.

And so to the evening aboard Sky Princess. It won’t surprise anyone to discover that this followed the pattern of most evenings aboard cruise ships for us. There would be drinking, and there would be food. First up was a pre-dinner cocktail in Take Five. We were too early for the band but the venue was still a relaxed, quiet place to just take the weight off your feet and try some of the fabulous cocktails there. When the band aren’t playing there’s also a jazz jukebox you can select tunes from, although each time I tried it on this cruise we ended up leaving the lounge before the tracks I’d picked came up.

Our evening meal was our first chance to try out Bistro Sur La Mer, a new eatery on some of the more recent Princess Cruises ships. My wife enjoyed everything she had but I wasn’t so lucky with my choices; the paté en croute in particular was just this side of revolting, with a questionable texture conjuring up impressions of pencil erasers embedded in corned beef gelatine that came close to triggering my gag reflex. I also wasn’t enamoured with the location of this speciality restaurant with it being right off the piazza and subject to a lot of ambient noise. Still, there are more food options to choose from so we’ll definitely give this place another go.

Just because we fancied somewhere different to have some evening drinks after dinner we tried first the Crown Grill Bar, then the Vista Lounge. The first location was quiet, peaceful, and offered interesting cocktail options; the latter was more vibrant, with music playing, people dancing, lots of people-watching opportunities, but a more limited drinking range to select from, it being mostly limited to the core drinks you can typically get through the app.

In the next post in this Sky Princess UK cruise travelogue series we’ll hit Liverpool, the city in which I went to university more years ago than I like to be reminded of.

We’d spent our day in Liverpool, the final port on this short Sky Princess UK cruise, doing not a great deal, if truth be told, although we’d spent money ashore in an art gallery and some pubs, and we’d experienced culture in the form of public artworks and monuments along the Liverpool waterfront. That simply left waiting for the sail away from the Merseyside city, then dinner and drinks aboard, ahead of some time at sea before returning home.

This post, therefore, will consist almost entirely of pictures taken of the Liverpool skyline along the Mersey, passing between Bootle and Wallasey on her way out across the north of Wales to the Irish Sea. A few videos too, just because I took some, and some mentions of buildings of interest (to me) along the way completes the content here.

We were quite taken with Liverpool’s Dazzle Ferry, Snowdrop, operating from just aft of Sky Princess so therefore in a perfect spot to see her from our balcony. Who couldn’t love that explosion of patterns of colours? The unique design is by the pop artist, Sir Peter Blake, and if the name sounds familiar then it’s because he was the man who designed the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover for The Beatles.

Another vessel that proved to be very interesting was the catamaran car ferry that operates between the Isle of Man and Liverpool. To start with it was mainly because she appeared to be a “clown car of the seas” after docking to our rear. We watched as cars left… and more cars left… and more… and more… and more… and it started to really amuse us just how many vehicles had been packed inside the boat. Every now and then it would seem like all the cars had left, only for another long stream of cars to start emerging… and then more… and more. According to Wikipedia, HSC Manannan can hold 200 vehicles, but it felt like double that were aboard as we waited to leave Liverpool, or that those leaving were secretly driving down some tunnel connecting to the vessel’s lower deck once out of sight and coming back out again for comedy value.

The further interesting point about this high-speed catamaran is her history, which includes an initial period of commercial service between Australia and New Zealand before conversion for military purposes and use by the US military. I guess that military conversion included the specification “to deliver an unfeasibly large number of vehicles ashore” and it was clearly successfully implemented.

Two churches for the price of one! Dead centre in the photo below is the very identifiable roof of the Liverpool Metropolitan Church. As I’d studied at Liverpool University in the 1990s this was a building that held a special place in my memory, situated right outside the doors to the students’ union. In the foreground is the Liverpool Parish Church. While this particular church is post-World War II, a church has stood on this location since the thirteenth century.

You can probably guess the approximate age of the building below and its original purpose without looking it up. This is Waterloo Dock, and it dates back to the 1830s, and the main building, the Waterloo Warehouse, was the world’s first automated grain warehouse, constructed when the dock chiefs gambled that the repeal of the Corn Laws would likely see the USA becoming the main source of additional grain to feed Britain, and that Liverpool’s existing ship route links to America made it the ideal place to import that foodstuff.

Either side of the Mersey by Waterloo Dock are towers like the one below. These are the ventilation towers for the Kingsway road tunnel that runs beneath the river. A nice bit of brutalism, but if I’m being honest, not a patch on those on the North Sea Canal.

Looking far older than its 1920 age thanks to the Neoclassical architecture, across the river we could see Wallasey Town Hall. In fact, the building is technically a little older than 1920, but its earlier usage was as a hospital for soldiers in World War I before being converted into its intended form. The foundation stone of the building was laid by King George V.

Opposite the town hall we passed Victoria Tower, a mid-nineteenth century clock tower constructed to allow sailors on ships departing for the Irish Sea to set the time correctly. A bell on the tower also gave warnings of fog.

The rest of the evening, you can probably guess. There were cocktails. There was food in the main dining room. We were more than satisfied with all of it.

We spent a reasonable amount of time in the Take Five jazz lounge, as we had on numerous other nights during this cruise. The Larry King Trio were great, and if you’re ever on a Princess Cruises ship and they’re performing then ask about their Love Boat theme rendition; it’s absolutely superb.

Just one more post remains in this Sky Princess cruise travelogue series, and that will cover the remaining time at sea aboard the ship and some thoughts about her.

I left my wife at the Crown Grill Bar on Deck 7 with her Kindle and the prospect of a frothy coffee on the way if the app was to be believed.

Heading forward takes you past Princess Live!, the location for a number of failed attempts to win trivia on this cruise for us, and then onto the Piazza.

The starboard side of the top level of the Piazza is where you can find Alfredo’s for complimentary pizza (edit: at time of writing; no longer true) most of the day. If the ship is travelling southwards and it’s not overcast then this is a lovely spot to head for dinner instead of one of the main dining rooms as you’ll get a lovely view of the sunset from here.

The Ocean Terrace bar is also on the top level of the Piazza and it serves sushi. I’m not sure we ever saw anyone eat there and it feels like a spot that could be better used in our opinion.

For ecological reasons they no longer have balloon drops on Princess ships but you can still find some on Sky Princess. The glass balloons are popular with people holding cameras.

Opposite Alfredo’s is Bistro Sur La Mer; a bistro by night, and a spot to order coffee during the day, but another area that’s perhaps not utilised optimally and that’s perhaps too large for its intended purpose. This top level of the piazza really needs a rethink. Like the pizza place, though, with this being on the port side of the ship then it might be a nice location for dinner on a clear evening if the ship is heading northwards, but unlike the pizza place, you’ll have to pay for the privilege here.

Continuing forward takes you past a number of shops. Perfumes, bags, watches, shirts, that sort of thing. Also a snazzy-looking Princess onesie.

Every landing on the stairwells has artwork to admire and, by the end of the cruise if you use the same stairs over and over again, use as a way of identifying which deck of the ship you’re on.

Deck 6 is where you’ll find the Casino. As they no longer have the machine where you drop coins in and hope they’ll knock more out or some notes or gifts this wasn’t a place we ever went to. This is one of the only places on the ship indoors where you’re permitted to smoke and it’s a terrible, terrible place because of it. Your health on a cruise ship is very important… but not as important as fleecing money from people with addictive personalities.

Good Spirits At Sea (cocktail bar) and the Take Five jazz lounge are also on Deck 6 off the piazza. There will be more on the former later in this post, and the latter has been covered in other accounts of this cruise as it’s where we ended up spending most evenings.

The lower part of the Piazza is on Deck 5 and it’s here that you’ll Bellini’s, the International Café, Vines, and Gelato.

Moving forward again on the lowest Piazza deck takes you through the Guest Services area (often a good spot for looking at queues of people if that’s your thing), off which you can also reach Sabatini’s and the Lotus Spa.

Because this short walk around Sky Princess’s interior took place during The Pandemic Era I had to wear a mask when not seated so took the opportunity to head out onto the Promenade on Deck 7 before returning to my wife in order to get some air. The promenade area on these Royal-class ships isn’t terribly good, it has to be said.

Arriving back at the Crown Grill Bar to tell my wife I was tired and done with photographing things I took the opportunity to duck into the Crown Grill itself for a few final pictures.

We decided that lunch for our final day on Sky Princess would be in Alfredo’s and, since that was right next to the Good Spirits bar we also decided that some cocktails might be in order. At the time of this cruise we were on the Princess Plus drinks package and were only paying the difference above the $12 threshold for these drinks. Since this time Princess have changed the terms of the packages and you would now pay the full price for drinks over $12 in this bar unless they were under the $18 limit and you have the new Princess Premier drinks package. I don’t think this is a sensible move and could lead to far fewer people trying drinks from the Good Spirits bar but time will tell.

I’ll finish this post with some photos from our aft balcony of the sea and the ship’s wake, some evidence that we didn’t solely drink alcohol on this cruise, our dinner on the final night, and the last couple of cocktails from Take Five before calling it a night.

Southampton greeted us the following morning, as it often does when we cruise.

Sky Princess Cruise Conclusions

That brings this travelogue series to an end for our first cruise aboard Sky Princess. What did we think?

Sky Princess was the third Royal-class ship we’d cruised on at this point, with the other two being Royal Princess in 2016 and Regal Princess earlier in the year in 2021. Sky Princess felt like an improvement over those ships generally. The Princess Live! change from a TV studio to a more normal entertainments lounge was a welcome one and we liked the addition of the jazz lounge even though we still miss a small, cheesy disco environment such as Skywalkers on the Grand-class vessels. The adults pool, however, was not as nice on Sky Princess as on Royal or Regal; it wasn’t bad, but there was no opportunity to look out to sea, it felt a little claustrophobic, it didn’t make any difference to how much wind was blowing in, and it was too shallow. Certainly, for this cruise, the technology was a big improvement over our experience on Regal (it didn’t exist for Royal at that time) and that can be attributed to it being built in during construction rather than retrofitted later. Food was very good, and particularly in the main dining room.

In terms of the destinations, for both Portland and Liverpool these were places we were familiar with so there was nothing outstanding to report there. However, getting to visit the Giant’s Causeway while also ticking off a trip to Northern Ireland for the first time was excellent, and about the best we could do during this period that was only just seeing cruising find its sea legs again after the numerous global lockdowns

What did we think? We thought it was a fabulous cruise, and the first of those in 2021 that really felt close to being a proper cruise again.

I have eased off taking pictures on the cruise ships over the years – not that you’d really be able to tell if you took a look through my cruise history photos here or elsewhere online – as we’ve cruised on some ships or with some lines often enough that there’s little new to see, and even with some new-to-us cruising experiences, once you’ve cruised a lot you tend to see the same things over and over again and it’s nicer to just enjoy it rather than try to capture it all. However, Britannia is P&O’s only Royal-class design of ship so I was keen to see how it compared to other ships in the P&O fleet and to the similar class that Princess operate.

Some pictures of the top deck of the cruise ship to start with, simply because I made sure to take my camera with me when we left the room for breakfast in the buffet. It was a little overcast to start with and with this being the North Sea in May, it wasn’t very warm, hence the lack of many other people around.

One of the things we’d seen in photos of Britannia from years ago was a lot of straight lines in the decor and design, although we knew she’d had a refurbishment that had tried to round and soften some of that. On the top deck you could still see a lot of straight edges and symmetrical layout, but it worked there. The huge deckchair – a staple feature of P&O cruise ships – was also present.

You can’t take photos from the top deck of a cruise ship without making sure that there’s a wake view in there, somewhere. Everyone likes that ship’s wake.

Inside Britannia it was easier to spot more flow and curving elements in the furnishings and layout. There’s no doubting that Britannia’s design was very stylish across every venue we ventured into even if the darker colours sometimes made a place feel a little claustrophobic when the designers were possibly looking for cosy.

Britannia’s atrium was a lot better than older photos of it showed, and the central art piece was nicely abstract, but the layout and design of the decks around it with those thick pillars kept bringing to mind a sort of shopping mall from the 1990s feel. To be fair, though, we rarely hang around the atrium areas of any cruise ship, largely because the space makes them so very noisy and completely at odds with the relaxation we’re after when we travel by sea. Good for five minutes of people-watching, sometimes, but for us it’s a hub to get to better places – well, hopefully – and not somewhere to hang out.

A large point of booking a balcony for us is that it does give us the perfect spot to relax, soak in those sea views, and not get deafened by music and tens of dozens of people trying to hold audible conversations over that deafening music. With our slow amble around the outside and inside of Britannia done, and once we’d judged we’d given our room steward enough time to clean our cabin, we returned to it for a cup of tea with the sea air, our books, and one another for company. The morning’s cloud cover had disappeared but the sun was behind us and our balcony was in the shade so it wasn’t the warmest place to be, but still fabulous.

We don’t do an awful lot on sea days normally but prior to this cruise on Britannia we’d booked the additional cost Afternoon Tea at the Epicurean. We’d had this before on P&O and enjoyed it – although Virgin still wins the cruise line afternoon tea prize for us, I’m afraid – and it was good, but it wasn’t quite as good as we remembered. Some people on a table near us had some allergies that needed to be catered for and that seemed like that took an awful long time to resolve for them, leaving them sitting like lemons while we and others made our way through the food selections and teas. Yes, of course we had a glass of fizz with it. We were on holiday, I’ll have you know.

The afternoon tea filled us up nicely enough that we decided to forego dinner in the main dining room. Cruise lines like to put their formal nights on sea days if they can so this saved us having to dress up too smartly, although we were then limited to certain bars and lounges. That was okay with us, though, and we spent a bit of time in The Live Lounge being entertained by P&O’s house band, Pulse, performing a mix of songs from the 1970s.

We grabbed a bite to eat in the late-night buffet, just because we could and it had now been long enough for that afternoon tea to weigh less heavily in our tummies, then called it a night.

In the next post in this Britannia cruise travelogue series we’ll be making our first stop in Norway when we arrive at Stavanger for the first time in nearly ten years.