Jul. 5th, 2011 | 06:02 pm
It occurs to me that I haven't said much about the ship and what it's like to travel on one for 12 days. Honestly? For me it felt like I was on a bad, continually running episode of the love boat with a crew that drove me up the wall.
I should first explain how the dining options work. Mom and I were with the "Anytime" dining which means they assign you a dining room (in our case the Michael Angelo) and you go down there (dress code: smart casual) and stand in the "non-reservation" line so they will seat you as tables come free. We had the option of sitting at a table for two or sitting at bigger tables so you could sit with other couples and compare notes. If it were up to me, it would have been a table for two, no question but Mom is a social person who loves chatting and "getting to know" people. So, for the times I went down there with her, I bit the bullet and sat with others. It was pretty much what I expected. A lot of people bragging about past cruises and their "around the globe" adventures. If one started in on a "must do" cruise, another piped in with a more exotic location. It's the kind of thing I detest and what kept me away from the setting as often as possible. That said, there were some interesting nuiances to this particular group of passengers.
One thing I noticed a lot of, multi-generational traveling. The grandparents were with their grandchildren (one little boy I sat with had fun gulping down any dish that was new to him-including escargot) He was with his well to do grandparents. "We take turns with the grandkids so they each get their own adventure." Sign me up.
It didn't end there.If the kids weren't with their grandparents, they were with their whole families. Mom and Dad were in the stateroom while Johnny ran around with the kids' club.
There were also couples who had met on previous cruises and now travelled together without fail, on a yearly basis. I found the whole thing odd, I've never liked anyone enough to travel with them every year. I consider it an accomplishent that Mom and I came back from all of this relatively unscathed. :-)
Oh, there was in fact, another intereresting dynamic. There were a few occasions when we found ourselves with Brits on one side, Americans on the other. This was when you saw the difference in lifestyles. The Americans were jonsing for their "Obama fix." They were really missing their US news. There was NONE of it on the cruise, and I have to tell you, I enjoyed it very much, and wasn't afraid to say so. Canada gets nothing but US news, quite often, at our own expense because it's not Canadian content that pays the bills, so we get this neverending stream of US news. We joke about it, but let's just say, it was a nice break.
Anyway, you had the US contingent at one end, enter the "reserved" Brits on the other, with Mom and I in between both. The British couples had literally driven to South Hampton (our starting port) and walked on the boat at the last minute. The cruiseline had been looking to fill some empty cabins so offered some great deals
I looked in a couple of papers and this is where the UK has the advantage, they have so many countries within driving distance/flying distance, that they can literally hop on a plane/ship/boat and be any number of places in a matter of hours. It showed. I found them to be interesting conversationalists with a vast amount of knowledge/experience but they weren't snooty about it. They had fun laughing at themselves and they weren't afraid to tell you that they were "castled out." The woman next ot me on the plane home (hi Rosemary) spoke about that. "People think because we aren't forthcoming with everything about our lives that we're reserved, they label you." Indeed they do.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. I only did the "fancy" dining with Mom twice. I found the rapt attention of the waiters to be too much, and frankly I didn't feel like the food was worth the two hour wait. Everything just got ridiculously stretched out and like I said before, food isn't worth that to me. The desserts were decent. (I can still taste the chocolate dreamboat brownie) but they can keep the fancy food and the two hour mealtime.
The lido deck was where the action was. This was where the two "casual" dining places were. They would share the burden of hungry passengers. (When one was open, the other was preparing for the next food service) It was buffet style and much more to my taste but there was a pretty serious issue with it, almost right off. Anytime they saw Mom or I enter the food area, they would come running up to us and either grab for the plate I was holding, or grab for the back of my wheelchair (even as Mom was gripping the handlebars) "We help you Madame." It sounds nice, until it continually happens, and you just want to yell at them to stay the hell out of your way. That's what I felt like saying by the end of the twelve days. We had tried the nice appraoch "She can't see the food from her chair and she likes for me to look at each one and tell me what it is." "Really, she can hold her own plate." They were everywhere. Finally, we got smart and Mom would drop me off at a table and go in search of food herself. I resented it, because half the time I didn't have a say in my own dinner, but it was self-preservation by that point.
The seating in this area was nice. You could sit by the window and watch the ship navigate the sea. We joked that we were looking for whales and I swear every staff member came up to us during dinner "You see whale yet? I wish for whale for you." It was a running gag. It turns out, it wasn't unusual to see SOMETHING in the different areas, it was just too early. I enjoyed the different views. Sometimes it was small islands, sometimes a receding hillside, most of the time it was vast amounts of waterway, but it was still new and I made the most of it.
On the deck outside of the common eating areas was a pool. It wasn't used much (I recall two days warm enough) Mom mentioned that on Carribean cruises the pool would be packed. This atmosphere was subdued (location? Older crowd?) but it did pick up on our last full day at sea as the sun came out beating down hard on some very pale bodies.
The ping-pong table was a popular spot and I almost got nailed a few times as I tried to have my burger out on the deck. My favourite spot on the deck involved me parking myself in front of the burger stand. Grilled burgers while you wait. The mustard threw me though, it was "English" mustard with horseradish in it. EWWW.
By the end of the cruise, I found the regular mustard. The pizza/ice-cream place was right next door. I never tried the pizza (not big on it believe it or not) but I did get my hands on some rich chocolate ice-cream. But my biggest weakness came in the form of a cookie.
Usually, I'm a chocolate chip kind of girl. Well, they kept over-cooking the dough, I mean, they were dark brown. No thanks. But the peanut butter ones, to die for. "Cookie Madame?" Yes please! I'm still walking around pointing and shouting "Cookie Dude!" I miss my cookie fix from my "Cookie Dude!"
Enough about the food. Honestly, it wasn't much to write home about, basic fair in bulk.
Honestly, in general, I found the boat itself pretty shabby. Though only five years old, you could see the wear and tear and the decor was definitely 70's style. The chandeliers, high ceilings and colourful dome lights looked nice in the evening, "classing" the ship up, but they insisted on having a violinist playing every night and you could hear him on every level. I felt like I was on the titanic and he was playing as we were going down. The tiatanic was built in Ireland so being that close to the original ship was enough for me thanks!
The "boutiques" didn't open unless we were sailing, something about the "duty free" issues, so, evening shopping it was. They had some interesting "events" in the shops, and you were instructed to consult your "Princess Patter" for featured sales. (Everyone onboard took their cue from us, and kept calling the newsletter the "Pitter Patter." :-)
We snagged some pretty nice watches (I piled them on my lap until Mom was able to disentangle herself from the crowd and make her selection. Having a lap to put stuff on when you need to be quick? Priceless. :-)
I got sucked in to a silent auction and ended up buying a pretty nice ring for a pretty good price. I think I drove cute jewellry guy a little nuts checking on my competition every few hours. "Cheers, you're still good." I only had one bidder against me, glad she came to her senses before things got out of hand. :-)
The casino never seemed to be open. Britian has some pretty strict laws on gambling (you have to be thirteen miles from shore before you can open any casino.) so, the small/smokey room seemed to mainly be used for traffic flow. I had wanted to try one hand of blackjack but my common sense kept winning out and I was busy spending money on rings. :-)
We seemed to keep saying "is this the right floor?" for a lot of things and others seemed to do the same. If everyone was onboard, the waiting time for elevators was 15 minutes no kidding. It really is beyond me why some people can't use stairs. They were right there, yet people didn't want to get out and use them. I absolutely would have if I could have because I don't enjoy small spaces in the chair I always feel as if people are crushing against me when I'm so low.
Getting off the ship for tours was always an ordeal. We would have a meeting place (they always had signs saying "tours this way" yet we still managed to end up in just the wrong place.) They would start out by giving us a coloured sticker with a number on it, then call us in groups to disembark. I hated disembarking. The crew at the door was forever grabbing at my chair any way the could. I was forever telling them not to grab the arms of the chair (which slide out easily, so it's a very unsteady grip and not safe for lifting.) As I would try to get this across to them, they would say "you're okay Madame." without a clue what I was saying. I was lucky I didn't fall out on a couple of occasions as the ramps were VERY steep for lifting/going down in a chair. Add to that, this is when they want to take your picture.
Throughout the cruise, they set up pictures in the photo gallery of people disembarking/coming abroard. In Scotland you get your picture done with bagpipers, in Ireland leprechans, you get the idea. The next day they post the pictures in the photo area, and scads of people start walking around looking for their own faces. It's fun looking at other peoples' pictures. You can get a real sense of how things are going for them based on their expressions as you zero in on their faces. Many people kept saying "we saw your pictures" throughout the cruise, I guess the purple wheelchair gave me away. :-)
Anyway, Mom insisted on buying two (because as you can see we didn't take enough photos) for $25 each. I thought it was ridiculous but she did pick a "formal night" photo where I was dressed up, I guess she figured it may not happen again for a really long time, so she wanted it forevermore. Lest you think we gave up our contest winning ways while on our travels, think again. We went to several "backgrounds" to have our picture taken in hopes of winning the images in a draw later that evening) No luck, but by the time we got to the fourth or fifth background we were laughing hysterically. Mom CANNOT take any kind of direction when it comes to posing, she just couldn't get it. Another priceless moment, pictures that take thirty minutes to get right, priceless.
I wasn't a picture taking guru myself. I discovered a button that would have brought Mom's face/body in closer (no not the zoom lense, a feature that brings people into better focus while keeping the background at a good distance) the day before the end of our trip. So if you see Mom way in the background looking very small with lots of impressive stuff around her, that's totally my fault, sorry Mom! I really should have listened to you while you were trying to show me stuff about your camera! :-) opps!
Oh, we had a cruise director that ran around with a clipboard remember how Julie and Gopher used to do that on the Love Boat? "This is Ron your cruise director, art auction in the lobby, games for the kids on deck twelve! So predictably annoying, lol.
Oh, oh, oh, the absolute worst was the "morning show" that came on in our stateroom. The cruise director hosted the show with some other chick who had this cackily laugh that drove you mad and this was at 6am while getting ready for a tour. We saw her around a lot as she seemed to be the prepetual hostess for every single game on the ship, she was leaving Princess after this sailing, they could have put that in their next brochure and counted it as a real selling poing:-) I kid, I kid (thougfh she was EXTREMELY annoying:-) )
Anyway, that was ship life. Lots of "Where are we?" and "What floor is this?" we never really seemed to get our bearings but hey, that's just us, nothing new here. :-)
I should first explain how the dining options work. Mom and I were with the "Anytime" dining which means they assign you a dining room (in our case the Michael Angelo) and you go down there (dress code: smart casual) and stand in the "non-reservation" line so they will seat you as tables come free. We had the option of sitting at a table for two or sitting at bigger tables so you could sit with other couples and compare notes. If it were up to me, it would have been a table for two, no question but Mom is a social person who loves chatting and "getting to know" people. So, for the times I went down there with her, I bit the bullet and sat with others. It was pretty much what I expected. A lot of people bragging about past cruises and their "around the globe" adventures. If one started in on a "must do" cruise, another piped in with a more exotic location. It's the kind of thing I detest and what kept me away from the setting as often as possible. That said, there were some interesting nuiances to this particular group of passengers.
One thing I noticed a lot of, multi-generational traveling. The grandparents were with their grandchildren (one little boy I sat with had fun gulping down any dish that was new to him-including escargot) He was with his well to do grandparents. "We take turns with the grandkids so they each get their own adventure." Sign me up.
It didn't end there.If the kids weren't with their grandparents, they were with their whole families. Mom and Dad were in the stateroom while Johnny ran around with the kids' club.
There were also couples who had met on previous cruises and now travelled together without fail, on a yearly basis. I found the whole thing odd, I've never liked anyone enough to travel with them every year. I consider it an accomplishent that Mom and I came back from all of this relatively unscathed. :-)
Oh, there was in fact, another intereresting dynamic. There were a few occasions when we found ourselves with Brits on one side, Americans on the other. This was when you saw the difference in lifestyles. The Americans were jonsing for their "Obama fix." They were really missing their US news. There was NONE of it on the cruise, and I have to tell you, I enjoyed it very much, and wasn't afraid to say so. Canada gets nothing but US news, quite often, at our own expense because it's not Canadian content that pays the bills, so we get this neverending stream of US news. We joke about it, but let's just say, it was a nice break.
Anyway, you had the US contingent at one end, enter the "reserved" Brits on the other, with Mom and I in between both. The British couples had literally driven to South Hampton (our starting port) and walked on the boat at the last minute. The cruiseline had been looking to fill some empty cabins so offered some great deals
I looked in a couple of papers and this is where the UK has the advantage, they have so many countries within driving distance/flying distance, that they can literally hop on a plane/ship/boat and be any number of places in a matter of hours. It showed. I found them to be interesting conversationalists with a vast amount of knowledge/experience but they weren't snooty about it. They had fun laughing at themselves and they weren't afraid to tell you that they were "castled out." The woman next ot me on the plane home (hi Rosemary) spoke about that. "People think because we aren't forthcoming with everything about our lives that we're reserved, they label you." Indeed they do.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. I only did the "fancy" dining with Mom twice. I found the rapt attention of the waiters to be too much, and frankly I didn't feel like the food was worth the two hour wait. Everything just got ridiculously stretched out and like I said before, food isn't worth that to me. The desserts were decent. (I can still taste the chocolate dreamboat brownie) but they can keep the fancy food and the two hour mealtime.
The lido deck was where the action was. This was where the two "casual" dining places were. They would share the burden of hungry passengers. (When one was open, the other was preparing for the next food service) It was buffet style and much more to my taste but there was a pretty serious issue with it, almost right off. Anytime they saw Mom or I enter the food area, they would come running up to us and either grab for the plate I was holding, or grab for the back of my wheelchair (even as Mom was gripping the handlebars) "We help you Madame." It sounds nice, until it continually happens, and you just want to yell at them to stay the hell out of your way. That's what I felt like saying by the end of the twelve days. We had tried the nice appraoch "She can't see the food from her chair and she likes for me to look at each one and tell me what it is." "Really, she can hold her own plate." They were everywhere. Finally, we got smart and Mom would drop me off at a table and go in search of food herself. I resented it, because half the time I didn't have a say in my own dinner, but it was self-preservation by that point.
The seating in this area was nice. You could sit by the window and watch the ship navigate the sea. We joked that we were looking for whales and I swear every staff member came up to us during dinner "You see whale yet? I wish for whale for you." It was a running gag. It turns out, it wasn't unusual to see SOMETHING in the different areas, it was just too early. I enjoyed the different views. Sometimes it was small islands, sometimes a receding hillside, most of the time it was vast amounts of waterway, but it was still new and I made the most of it.
On the deck outside of the common eating areas was a pool. It wasn't used much (I recall two days warm enough) Mom mentioned that on Carribean cruises the pool would be packed. This atmosphere was subdued (location? Older crowd?) but it did pick up on our last full day at sea as the sun came out beating down hard on some very pale bodies.
The ping-pong table was a popular spot and I almost got nailed a few times as I tried to have my burger out on the deck. My favourite spot on the deck involved me parking myself in front of the burger stand. Grilled burgers while you wait. The mustard threw me though, it was "English" mustard with horseradish in it. EWWW.
By the end of the cruise, I found the regular mustard. The pizza/ice-cream place was right next door. I never tried the pizza (not big on it believe it or not) but I did get my hands on some rich chocolate ice-cream. But my biggest weakness came in the form of a cookie.
Usually, I'm a chocolate chip kind of girl. Well, they kept over-cooking the dough, I mean, they were dark brown. No thanks. But the peanut butter ones, to die for. "Cookie Madame?" Yes please! I'm still walking around pointing and shouting "Cookie Dude!" I miss my cookie fix from my "Cookie Dude!"
Enough about the food. Honestly, it wasn't much to write home about, basic fair in bulk.
Honestly, in general, I found the boat itself pretty shabby. Though only five years old, you could see the wear and tear and the decor was definitely 70's style. The chandeliers, high ceilings and colourful dome lights looked nice in the evening, "classing" the ship up, but they insisted on having a violinist playing every night and you could hear him on every level. I felt like I was on the titanic and he was playing as we were going down. The tiatanic was built in Ireland so being that close to the original ship was enough for me thanks!
The "boutiques" didn't open unless we were sailing, something about the "duty free" issues, so, evening shopping it was. They had some interesting "events" in the shops, and you were instructed to consult your "Princess Patter" for featured sales. (Everyone onboard took their cue from us, and kept calling the newsletter the "Pitter Patter." :-)
We snagged some pretty nice watches (I piled them on my lap until Mom was able to disentangle herself from the crowd and make her selection. Having a lap to put stuff on when you need to be quick? Priceless. :-)
I got sucked in to a silent auction and ended up buying a pretty nice ring for a pretty good price. I think I drove cute jewellry guy a little nuts checking on my competition every few hours. "Cheers, you're still good." I only had one bidder against me, glad she came to her senses before things got out of hand. :-)
The casino never seemed to be open. Britian has some pretty strict laws on gambling (you have to be thirteen miles from shore before you can open any casino.) so, the small/smokey room seemed to mainly be used for traffic flow. I had wanted to try one hand of blackjack but my common sense kept winning out and I was busy spending money on rings. :-)
We seemed to keep saying "is this the right floor?" for a lot of things and others seemed to do the same. If everyone was onboard, the waiting time for elevators was 15 minutes no kidding. It really is beyond me why some people can't use stairs. They were right there, yet people didn't want to get out and use them. I absolutely would have if I could have because I don't enjoy small spaces in the chair I always feel as if people are crushing against me when I'm so low.
Getting off the ship for tours was always an ordeal. We would have a meeting place (they always had signs saying "tours this way" yet we still managed to end up in just the wrong place.) They would start out by giving us a coloured sticker with a number on it, then call us in groups to disembark. I hated disembarking. The crew at the door was forever grabbing at my chair any way the could. I was forever telling them not to grab the arms of the chair (which slide out easily, so it's a very unsteady grip and not safe for lifting.) As I would try to get this across to them, they would say "you're okay Madame." without a clue what I was saying. I was lucky I didn't fall out on a couple of occasions as the ramps were VERY steep for lifting/going down in a chair. Add to that, this is when they want to take your picture.
Throughout the cruise, they set up pictures in the photo gallery of people disembarking/coming abroard. In Scotland you get your picture done with bagpipers, in Ireland leprechans, you get the idea. The next day they post the pictures in the photo area, and scads of people start walking around looking for their own faces. It's fun looking at other peoples' pictures. You can get a real sense of how things are going for them based on their expressions as you zero in on their faces. Many people kept saying "we saw your pictures" throughout the cruise, I guess the purple wheelchair gave me away. :-)
Anyway, Mom insisted on buying two (because as you can see we didn't take enough photos) for $25 each. I thought it was ridiculous but she did pick a "formal night" photo where I was dressed up, I guess she figured it may not happen again for a really long time, so she wanted it forevermore. Lest you think we gave up our contest winning ways while on our travels, think again. We went to several "backgrounds" to have our picture taken in hopes of winning the images in a draw later that evening) No luck, but by the time we got to the fourth or fifth background we were laughing hysterically. Mom CANNOT take any kind of direction when it comes to posing, she just couldn't get it. Another priceless moment, pictures that take thirty minutes to get right, priceless.
I wasn't a picture taking guru myself. I discovered a button that would have brought Mom's face/body in closer (no not the zoom lense, a feature that brings people into better focus while keeping the background at a good distance) the day before the end of our trip. So if you see Mom way in the background looking very small with lots of impressive stuff around her, that's totally my fault, sorry Mom! I really should have listened to you while you were trying to show me stuff about your camera! :-) opps!
Oh, we had a cruise director that ran around with a clipboard remember how Julie and Gopher used to do that on the Love Boat? "This is Ron your cruise director, art auction in the lobby, games for the kids on deck twelve! So predictably annoying, lol.
Oh, oh, oh, the absolute worst was the "morning show" that came on in our stateroom. The cruise director hosted the show with some other chick who had this cackily laugh that drove you mad and this was at 6am while getting ready for a tour. We saw her around a lot as she seemed to be the prepetual hostess for every single game on the ship, she was leaving Princess after this sailing, they could have put that in their next brochure and counted it as a real selling poing:-) I kid, I kid (thougfh she was EXTREMELY annoying:-) )
Anyway, that was ship life. Lots of "Where are we?" and "What floor is this?" we never really seemed to get our bearings but hey, that's just us, nothing new here. :-)
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