Days 3 - 6 My How Time Flies……….

…when you’re having fun!!!


We arrived at Coral Princess without incident and in time for lunch on Friday afternoon. All Larry’s hard work paid off as he was presented his shiny, black Elite Boarding Card, while Monica had to make due with her “Newbie” Blue Card. What’s the difference? In Princess’ loyalty program, the Elite Level is for those guests who have completed at least 15 cruises (or sailed 150 days) with Princess. In other words, the most loyal clientele, or people they really want to keep coming back! Princess’ agent education programme rewards those who complete the entire 20+ courses with Elite membership and all the benefits that come with it. Our experience in the first few days is that the staff do take notice of the Black Card, as one of the ladies in Larry’s office said they would!

Back to Friday…….. We arrived at the ship about 1:30 and were quickly through check in and onboard. The ship is 91,000 GRT and carries about 2000 passengers. It’s not the biggest ship we have been on, but it’s close. After lunch we spent the next two hours exploring, getting our bearings and, most importantly, sampling as many of the bars as we could! The ship is well laid out and has a really “comfortable” feel to it; something like what you would expect from an “old school” country club. Lots of comfortable chairs, leather and dark wood paneling. It’s very much like we suspect the original passenger liners would have been set up. Our Mini-Suite on Deck 9 is not overly large, actually it’s a bit smaller than we had anticipated, but it is comfortable. Of course we were not terribly impressed with the twin beds we found on arrival, but our cabin steward quickly fixed that. The only real drawback to the cabin is that Princess puts these suites on a lower deck with the “standard” balconies on the decks above, meaning the balcony has no overhead cover, making it useless in the rain and very hot in the sun. Not to mention everyone above is looking down into our balcony. No fooling around on the balcony this trip!!!

The sitting area in our mini-suite

Since our first cruise in 1988, we had always been among the youngest on any ship we have sailed. Of course the reality is we haven’t been able to say that for several years. Until now that is! While we are not the youngest by any stretch (even allowing for the half-dozen children onboard), we are certainly not the oldest. By several DECADES! Given the type of cruise, ten days to the Panama Canal in early January, we expected an older crowd, but we don’t think there are ANY walkers left in the Continental US. They are ALL on this ship! Along with several dozen wheelchairs and more electric scooters than we have been able to count! The average age of the total passenger load, children included, has to be close to “Deceased”! And that 91,000 GRT we mentioned previously? That is the combined weight of the passengers! Larry and Norm look like under-weight and under-fed orphans next to some of the people on this ship. And the less said about the 300 pound “gentleman” sunning himself by the pool in a Speedo, the better for all concerned. Larry’s eyes are still not fully recovered from stumbling on this guy at the pool yesterday!

It is now Monday and we have settled in to a nice little routine with Norm and Barb. We spent most of the first two sea days at the Spa Pool, one of the two main pools and the one that is covered. The first two days were windy, cool and periodically damp, so “cover’ was important. Here is the Lotus pool area, quite nice, and even better as we saw that Toronto had 15 cm of snow and a temp of -13C!

The food - of importance second only to the bar, of course - has been as well-prepared and presented as we had heard, but the selection in the main dining room is not quite as varied as we had hoped. Nonetheless, everything has been quite tasty, and all of the staff (especially in the bars) so far has been very friendly and helpful - pretty much to the same standard that we’ve come to know on Crystal.

Last night we had dinner at Sabatini’s, Princess’ alternative Italian dining room. The dinner is quite an experience, as they give you a menu that lists antipasti, pizzas, soup, pastas, main courses and desserts - and the ONLY things you actually pick are the main and dessert. The servers bring out platters of the other items and give you as much of any of them (or all of them) as you want. Needless to say, PACING is the order of the day here, and doing laps around the deck the day of the meal AND the next day is a requirement to work it all off. Here’s a picture of our main courses, including Norm’s dinner, which we have dubbed the ‘Lobsterfish’ since he ordered sea bass with a side of lobster tail…



No, this wasn't a drink - it was Larry's dessert - complete with a chocolate roll that looked like a straw!

 Of course, we’ve found the bars - even Crooner’s, the martini bar that has on its menu an entire page of chocolate martinis. Barb thinks she has died and gone to choco-heaven!!! Here’s a look at a couple of them, along with a few other pictures we thought you might find interesting:



Norm waiting for his drink to be shaken and poured.  Martini and a floor-show, anyone?



Today’s first stop was Aruba, where there was enough time to either 1) take a short island tour, or 2) shop. We needed to look for a couple of things, so we opted for choice #2 - and hardly bought anything. So we spent another relaxing afternoon by the pool, and walked another few laps of the Promenade Deck…

Not to be outdone by either of his kids, here's Norm with his lunch of Fish 'n' Chips and Guiness...Of course, he had his at a much more reasonable time, unlike Mitchell who ordered it at 8:00 in the morning (see earlier blog posts for more details).  Traditional English Pub Fare lunch was on the specialty menu for today, and of course we couldn't pass that up!
More tomorrow after Cartagena - one place we’ve never been before.