life ring on the Royal Princess

On the Royal Princess, the ship itself has a variety of things to do without going to organized functions, but of course the daily newsletter called Princess Patter offers up plenty of those as well.

people dancing in the piazza

The daily schedule included things like games and dance classes, which we passed on. We did sometimes see other people in dance classes in the piazza, taught by our very enthusiastic cruise director who must have been in pretty good shape since he sometimes had several classes in a row.

relaxing in the enclave (spa thermal suite)

I tended to start my days at the gym, which luckily was open 24 hours, though I only knew that because one of the crew said the published open hours were just when it was staffed, but that the equipment was available anytime. I really didn’t need any staff there to run on a treadmill in the early morning so that information was greatly appreciated. I did wander about the ship in the very early morning one day because that’s a good time to get photos of places around the ship without anybody in them. Apparently my sisters and I did not spend enough time investigating what the ship had to offer in the evenings though because we totally missed the fountain show. We’d bought the spa thermal suite package and spent a lot of our free time onboard there and didn’t check out a lot of other options.

water fountain show video kiped from the internet

I did wander past the Princess Live show studio sometimes, but not usually when there was anything going on there and didn’t check out any of the shows. Apparently they film all sorts of different things like culinary shows, comedy, live concerts, and game shows to broadcast on the ship channel on the cabin TV’s. We didn’t spend much time in our room and I don’t recall actually ever turning on the TV other than to look for information so we did not catch any of their shows.

almost all the seats in the Royal Princess theater are good seats

I did go to a few of the organized events. We had invitations to the past guest gold and ruby level event. Attendance came with a show and free drink. The show was an actual singing and dancing performance in a shorter version of a nighttime production show. We had great seats and thought there wasn’t a bad one in the house, but when we went to an actual evening show we got there pretty late and nothing was left except for seats near the front off to one side by a speaker so we discovered that there are a few not so good seats in that theater. The free drink came in the form of a gift certificate to use later so it was the gift that keeps on giving since we got to enjoy their show at the event and then enjoy whatever drink we wanted later at a bar of our choice. We went to one on the edge of the piazza and had entertainment in the form of the dance class going on at the time while sipping on wine, daquiri, or piña colada depending on which sister was doing the sipping.

cooking demonstration in the theater that was part comedy show, part cooking

One day they had a cooking demo and galley tour that one of my sisters attended with me. Their cooking demo was more comedy routine than serious cooking, but they did show how to make a couple things. The chef also mentioned that he made 100 different kinds of potatoes and sure enough in the galley tour there were plates of all manner of potato dishes lined up along the edge of the counter the whole way, each with a little tag saying what it was. Not that I remember any of the names, but there was certainly a whole lot more than baked, mashed, and French fries.

galley tour with potatoes prepared 100 different ways

Like every attraction everywhere, the galley tour exited into a gift shop. Since the galley isn’t actually connected to any of the ship’s shops it was a makeshift gift shop in the dining room, but a gift shop just the same.

paper airplane contest with hoop, runway, and airplane marshall

Other events we attended included a paper airplane contest and a champagne fountain. The paper airplane contest was quite different from those I’ve done on other cruise ships where you just try to throw it farther than anyone else. Royal Princess actually had a little runway set up, with a crew member dressed as the aircraft marshaller who waves little lights around and directs the airplane where to go. There was also a hoop. The objective was to throw the airplane down from a balcony where it was intended to pass through the hoop and land on the runway. The hoop was pretty close to the balcony so the plane would have to drop down quite a lot and then go forward to get through. Only a couple people made it.

medal for a perfect landing

My plane sailed directly over the hoop and made a perfectly centered landing in the middle of the runway so they gave me a medal for a perfect landing even though I missed the hoop. Most people’s planes veered off to the side, completely missing the hoop and landing nowhere near the runway so very few people got medals. One person got one for going the farthest with a plane that sailed completely across the piazza and would have gone farther still had it not hit a wall.

champagne fountain

One evening there was a champagne fountain in the piazza, on a formal night when everybody was dressed up. People waited in line for a turn to pour champagne into a cup at the top of a pyramid of stacked champagne cups where it flows down the stack filling other cups along the way. Once everyone has a turn they pass out the cups to anyone who wants one, but we didn’t wait around for that. They had other special events in the piazza other nights. We saw all the balloons in a net one day ready for a balloon drop, but forgot about it by the time evening came around.

jogging track

The ship had a lot of other things to do, but we didn’t do any of them. We talked about going to afternoon tea, but never got around to actually doing it. We had early dinner and tea was served fairly late in the afternoon so it would have been a lot of food in a short amount of time. We also didn’t venture up to the sports deck, which has a jogging track, ping-pong table, game lounge, driving range, lasar shooting range, and basketball court. We did not go to the casino or any of the public freshwater pools or hot tubs. If we hadn’t bought the spa thermal suite package we may have gone to a hot tub, but since we did we used the spa pool instead. We never went to the nightclub either. We’re not really nightlife people. Relaxing in the enclave (spa thermal suite) in the evenings is more our style.

afternoon tea on Royal Princess (internet photo)

Music and dancing could be found around the ship, and of course it had quite a selection of bars too. Regardless of what people are into most can find something they like to do onboard. There’s also an art gallery and sometimes art auctions. The elevator bays all had video displays. These interacted with the medallions everyone had instead of a key card. They had additional functions besides room key card and onboard purchases. You could use the video displays for things like getting directions from where you were to where you wanted to go, finding out where your shipmates were, or playing video games.

Royal Princess ship model Christmas tree ornament

We did wander through the shops, where I got a Royal Princess ship Christmas tree ornament to add to my collection of other ship ornaments. We looked at the necklaces and bracelets they had to put the ship medallions in that were used on that ship instead of key cards, but they wanted too much money for them so we just stuck with the free lanyards for our medallions.

seawalk on the Royal Princess

The ship had a seawalk which curved out from the main deck and had a glass floor so you could see the sea beneath your feet and the side of the ship over the rail when walking there.

pro photo

When sailing with my husband we always avoid photos, but with my sisters we tend to seek them out in case we buy the photo package since it costs the same for everything whether there are a lot or a few. We visited the photo stations they had set up around the ship in the evenings several times to add a few more onto the stack. They merge some of the photos into fancier displays, but don’t usually use the ones we’d pick for that if we were given the option.

Lido deck movie screen

Besides the nightly theater shows, there were also movies out on the big screen on the Lido deck. If we’d gone to any of those we might have seen the water fountain show, though I don’t know that for sure.

surf & turf

Eating is of course something people do on cruises, and food is always plentiful. Between dining rooms, the buffet, the piazza café, and other little eateries as well as room service passengers aren’t likely to go hungry.

ship’s shops and casino

So basically the ship had a lot to do, but we did very little of it. We had lots of fun in our own way onboard and of course at the port stops too.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2020