Showing posts with label Royal Princess May 18-25. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Royal Princess May 18-25. Show all posts

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Royal Princess Cruising to Hubbard Glacier


We've fallen into a predictable morning routine on the ship.
*Hubby leaves the cabin before 6 am to get some coffee and some oatmeal.
*I sleep until he calls the cabin a couple hours later to let me know where he is sitting in the buffet. (Side note - the Medallion's Shipmates section on the Ocean Compass app does an amazing job of pinpointing where he is on the ship. I can tell he is in the Piazza right this minute .)
*I take my shower and join him for breakfast and we make our plans for the day.

Today I was lucky enough to catch a rainbow off the back of the ship. It's barely visible above the horizon.

*Then after breakfast we go about our day.

Except today after breakfast hubby headed out to do his thing and I headed back to the cabin to have a little lie down. I was pretty tired so I planned on just a little rest before heading back out for the day. 

And I fell asleep. 

I woke up to go to the bathroom, came back to my little twin bed, and saw that hubby was sleeping in his twin bed. I checked the time and it was 2:00. Oh. My. Goodness. (That's what a dark inside cabin will do for you.) I turned on the bridge cam to try and keep myself awake, hubby headed back out, and I again somehow fell asleep. 

I woke up to a knock on the door. More treats for the 500 day celebration.

The bridge cam was still on the TV.
The time was 3:30 and we were almost at Hubbard Glacier. Yikes.

Just in the nick of time I made it outside to capture the glacier. Our go-to spot is the Horizon Terrace at the back of Horizon Court. Who wouldn't want to sit in these empty, comfy seats on the Horizon Terrace?
The Captain turns the ship around so everyone can get a good view no matter which side of the ship they are on. We didn't get as close as we have in the past. There was a heavy ice flow today. Plus, I'm wondering if the size of the ship made a difference, too.

Here are some other highlights of our time there.
 
 Tomorrow we're off to Glacier Bay.

Want to know more about cruising Alaska? You can search using key words and come up with a slew of posts, but you can also check out my Cruising Alaska resources section here where you'll find the most recent posts.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

Royal Princess in Whittier, Alaska


We got in early to Whittier last night.
Last night's 11:30 pm bridge cam view.
While the sun was out for a little bit this morning, the rain started not soon afterwards. We weren't planning on doing much today so it was fine with us.

Want to find out about Whittier? Check out my 5 Things to Know about Whittier, Alaska here.

We did spend some time here this morning:

Just like airlines have loyalty programs, so do cruise lines. The more days with the same line, the better the benefits. But people assume the benefits are unbelievable amazing. Like free cruises and being put up in suites. Nope. Other than some onboard credit, those of us with 70+ cruises on the same line aren't being treated any differently than those with 16 cruises. Or even six cruises. (Sail as a single in a suite on Princess, even if they are only one day cruises? You'll be Elite.)

Those who aren't yet Elite think one of the best benefits is the free laundry. Here's the thing on that - if there are a lot of Elites onboard it could be three days before you get the laundry back. That's half a cruise before you see your clothes again. Send it out more than a few times and the harsh chemicals will have your clothes coming back with little holes in them. Which is why we spend turnaround days, today included, in the laundry room. 

Others think the cruise line will give you free cabin upgrades like you might get with the airline. Heck, no. In fact, while we tried to get moved from our cabin with the bunk bed protrusions so hubby could get in and out of bed easier, we couldn't even get moved to a cabin in the same category even though there was one available. 
Bunk beds sticking out + handicapped hubby = problem
We've asked the cabin steward to put our beds into a twin set up. It won't be ideal, but at least we're not celebrating our wedding anniversary on this trip! After dinner we came back and found our new setup.
Presto, chango. New beds.

Others have told us they thought we got a special Elite rates or free Elite cruise. That we are treated like royalty because we're Elite passengers. We don't get special treatment just because we're Elite. We are treated like we're a valued guest, just like the 3,000 other valued guests onboard. The only time you may get additional benefits is for milestone cruises, like this particular cruise for us. 500 days with Princess. First extra benefit for this cruise, flowers and strawberries and champagne.

We've had a couple weird things happen today and it's not even dinnertime yet. 
1. We received a car seat in our cabin. It was delivered like luggage was and had a tag with meet me on the ship like the people who were on a land tour had. And it had our cabin number on it. Never had that happen before. Hope it has now made it to the proper cabin.

2. Our mailbox, this one right here that we've been using since last August on the Caribbean Princess, was stolen.

It seems a supervisor took it while WE WERE IN THE CABIN, thinking it belonged to someone else. How does that happen? A passenger is in a cabin and a ship employee takes something off that passenger's door without asking? Hubby caught up to him and he said he took it and would be right back with it. And that's been a few hours ago and we haven't seen it since. All these months of cruises where I've been worried another passenger or some kid might take it and here we have someone who works on the ship stealing it? I gotta be honest on this one - I'm a pretty easy going person but I'm pretty ticked that it was taken and still hasn't been returned.
Update: Still no return despite yet another visit with another supervisor. Grrr. I am getting more than ticked. 
Update to the update: Our new cabin steward has gotten involved as our advocate and guess what has been returned to our door? Yep, the mailbox is back!

On a more pleasant note, our mini bar (a nice Elite benefit) switch happened super-quick and tomorrow we're headed to Hubbard Glacier. I'm looking forward to getting some good pictures.

Want to know more about cruising Alaska? You can search using key words and come up with a slew of posts, but you can also check out my Cruising Alaska resources section here where you'll find the most recent posts.