| Due to dessert taking about ten minutes to arrive despite us saying we had to go, we rushed but thankfully the fountain show hadn't begun by the time we got up there. the sunset apparently had been gorgeous but the remnants of it showed it had been good. The show lasted about six minutes and no problems when it got to the "Escape Completely" part of the song THIS time! Afterwards a group of people seemed very interested in one of the holes in the fountain. I said goodnight to Matt and Mark and made a detour to find the wedding chapel, which was locked, and couldn't get into the Concierge Lounge so headed to bed. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Up at 10am since it was an early start for the 6am boot off in Barcelona the next day. I had a wander as I waited for the Trident Grill to open and bumped into Mark then Hazel from my table. I managed to get photos of the Concerto Restaurant as it was open while Mark told me the wedding chapel was open so I popped up but short of breaking and entering, the Concierge Lounge still evaded me. At 1pm was the second John Maxtone-Graham lecture, The Only Way To Cross (part 1). I decided to go to it. When it began there were less than twenty people in the entire room, with the occasional person poking their head through the door then leaving again. It was a much better lecture than the one about the Royal Princess, but then he'd done it a zillion times before. He did make a few mistakes though. He kept putting up the picture of Samuel Cunard when talking about things before him, but that could be laptop error. He said Britannia while talking about the first Mauretania and referred to Captain Edward Smith of Olympic and Titanic as "Commodore Liverpool". But the most silliest mistake was when he was looking at the screen which had Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse in big black letters and he said, "Kaiser Victoria Der Grosse". Slips of the tongue maybe? He announced his next lecture would be about Violet Jessop. which was during the next cruise. If he did The Only Way To Cross (part 2), wouldn't new passengers be confused? He'd already been on since the 9th and the following cruise ended on the 5th July so how long was he on for? They had the fountain open for the kids for the first time the entire cruise, but the weather had turned chillier, people huddled under their towels, so the novelty worse off quickly. I bumped into Dot by the shops so after showing her the middle bit of the Prom deck she had no idea about, we went to the Vista Lounge for the quiz. Bingo over-ran so we were all moved to the Wheelhouse. The American couple from our table joined us and we got 16/20, which wasn't bad. Jeff's team of six had one more point than us but the people who won had 19/20. Hazel appeared so we all chatted before Dot went off with her and I returned to the cabin about 6pm after saying goodbye to the Americans. They would be on the next cruise. Finished my packing and put the case out. Popped into the Vista Lounge briefly before dinner and took a few pictures since it was virtually empty even though the party band, Atomic, were playing. I popped outside before heading to dinner and Ron was there. It was the hottest it had been all day! Dinner was the best of the week, although my turkey was so revolting and full of fat I sent it back. Aileen brought me some pasta, which contained red peppers even though the menu failed to list them. This is part of my dietary requirement due to my allergy and she was so apologetic but it's not her fault. It was the Baked Alaska parade with fake flames then some of the waiters sang for us in a band. Everyone on my table was dragged up to dance while Michael, our head waiter, grabbed my camcorder and recorded it. While it didn't do my back and knee any good, it was so much fun. Wendy went off somewhere and would be staying on. Dot, Hazel and Ron went to Crooners while I went to see what the Ye Olde British Pub Night in the Vista Lounge was. I'm glad I did because it was fantastic. It was the sort of thing P&O have done in their own way. It involved the singers and dancers, entertainment team, orchestra and cruise director singing songs, telling jokes and there was audience participation. Go and see it! I found Dot and Ron in Crooners listening to Kory Simon on the piano, who is Canadian and told everyone he was on until December. Once he finished we went our separate ways. I saw Matt and Mark briefly then went back to the cabin, deciding to get Horizon Court and being half-crippled by the time I was halfway thanks to the layout. I finished my internet before bed. There had been a lot of complaints from people being unable to even log on but I never had any issues. The only thing which drove me nuts was the slowness, being booted off and unable to upload photos to Wordpress. I had to buy another 100 minutes due to things taking so long to do though. We should have had it all free since it was so awful. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| After less than 2 hours it was time to get up for Baaaaaaaaaaaaaarrceeloooooooooooooonnnaaaaaaa!!!! It was a bit off most people's names outside the rooms had disappeared, although mine was back when my bill appeared! While the odd lift decided to break down during the week, I had never know so many along all banks, to have problems in one day at this morning. We were due to dock for 5am, along with Norwegian Epic while Liberty of the Seas was coming an hour later, the time I was being kicked off so hoped she would be early. Club Med 2 was meant to be in, according to the port site, but she actually sailed the previous evening. The last time I had seen Liberty, I'd been on Epic so this was a bit of a reunion! The deck, at first glance, looks like the awful stuff used on Vistas but has more grip than they do so I was able to cross from side to side without worrying about losing my footing. She was ahead of us and, once we'd docked, I popped the Horizon Court for breakfast once we'd docked in the D cruise terminal, which was a first for me as I was in A when sailing and had been in B during the call from Celebrity Equinox. Royal Caribbean/Celebrity give you turkey sausages, P&O give you vegetarian sausages and bacon. No alternative to pork on Princess but they'd closed the International Cafe so it's the only choice you get for an early breakfast. I got through it pretty fast as Liberty was in view and I didn't want to miss her. I noticed a lot of people struggling with their belongings in the buffet. Why???? It was 5am not five minutes until you were kicked off! Liberty took her time. Matt appeared, he too was being kicked off at 6am to the airport, so we watched her turn and go astern. I didn't stay to see her dock as I had to get my stuff and head to the Concerto Dining Room to wait. I saw Geoff and his partner in there so they'd be on the same bus to the airport. There were no announcements, just one of the crew saying to go. Paula, a lady who I met around the ship and it turned out she worked for Princess in part of the building process, arrived just as we were all leaving and had no idea if it was her colour so joined the throng. Disembarkation was really smooth but finding your luggage was a bit of a bugger. Because the terminal is so small, there were lots of cages still on the dock. They had mixed colours up so my silver was among the green. How on earth could anyone muddled those up??? Then it was of to the bus. Once we pulled up at the airport, our luggage was taken inside while was waiting onboard and put together for us to collect. Epic's bus arrived and the driver was told off for being in the wrong lane. Geoff's partner jokingly asked if I was following them. I said goodbye to Matt then went to security after checking in and my suitcase was two kilos lighter than when I went! Paula decided to get a coffee while I went through passport control. It was such a long wait as my flight wasn't until 10.30am so had over three hours to wait. When Paula arrived the chatting helped pass the time. Her flight was fifteen minutes before mine. Finally my gate, D12, came up so off I headed, spotting Geoff in the long boarding queue at D8, pointing out I wasn't following him and would see them both on Oasis of the Seas in 2014. At my gate, two of the staff would check the boarding pass but they kept walking past me so I had to go to them. Boarding was chaotic, a free for all basically. The flight to Gatwick was a good one though and we were provided with a sandwich in cattle class. It was the first BA flight I'd been on which hadn't any onboard entertainment. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| It was good to be home! While the ship is very nice, she doesn't live up to the Princess hype of being innovative and revolutionary. Unless you've only sailed on Princess, there is nothing which hasn't been done already in various forms on rival ships, and even the Grand class. If you have difficulty walking, this is not the ship for you unless you're in a wheelchair or have a scooter. Since I developed my back pain three years ago, which is aggravated by too much walking, I have NEVER been in as much pain and struggled to get around as I did on this. And the layout of this involves a LOT of extra walking you don't have on other ships because their design is better for passenger flow. A group of people had booked Regal for 2014 and subsequently cancelled it onboard. I didn't receive my Elite Captain's Circle pin and it was very disappointing the gratitude from Princess we'd all booked the maiden voyage of their 'innovative and revolutionary' ship amounted to a rubbish photo. Anything else, you had to buy. I heard those on the preview cruise got a lot of goodies, which, if true, is completely unfair. She's a nice ship for what she is and if my back gets better, I'd book another cruise on her in the future once the kinks are ironed out. Haven't had any decent weather to see what she's made of, such as a force 12! But for the moment I'll be sticking to the Grand class and anything but Royal, Regal and the as yet unnamed P&O half-sister as I know other ships won't half-cripple me before I've even managed to get from A to B. The crew (in my case anyway, I have heard different) were absolutely marvellous. I think I struck lucky with my steward and waiters.
To see more photos of the other ships, go to the Other Stalking index while those of Funchal, Porto and Lisboa can be found in Various Ships in Port. Photos of her sailing from Southampton can be found here. |
| Back to Our Cruises Index |