Just a summary

An opportune time to simply summarise our impressions to date.  As mentioned many times before in many different forums, we have come to the conclusion that the single most important aspect of cruising for us is not the newness or grandeur of the ship; not the quality of the entertainment; not the quality of the staff, whether service staff or entertainment staff; not the itinerary; not the weather, not even the food.  It is the people, specifically, the travelling companions – and the dynamics.  The dynamics of a short cruise are totally different from the long cruises on several levels.  Over the period of a long cruise, it is inevitable that friendships are made or at worst, acquaintances, through the various activities.   Even trivia is not just about your own team(s) but also the teams who generally sit nearby, as most are creatures of habit. 

Our first Princess Cruise was in 2011 and was 5/6^th of a World Cruise.  Through Cruise Critic, we’d met several people before we set off and were fortunate enough to meet Ros & Arnold when we were staying at Broadbeach.  We hit it off and Ros invited us to join their table for the cruise, which included Jo & Garry, Col & Jude also from Australia plus Anthea and Dennis from NZ. That table cemented not only enduring friendships, but was central to having a lot of fun at the evening meal, not to mention Trivia and a few private tours during the days.

We were also blessed with fantastic evenings with Alan & Alana in the Atrium, with dancing and silly trivia quizzes and an entertainment cruise staff that were a lot of fun and who made an effort to communicate with the passengers.

Fast forward to 2015 and another half World Cruise on a similar ship to 2011 and then 2 weeks on the new Royal Princess and comparisons are inevitable.

Firstly, the Royal Princess 12 day tour around the UK.  As you may have gathered, we weren’t exactly blown away with the experience.  It isn’t too difficult from the above, to work out what was missing. The dynamics as above, of a short cruise are such that unless you board knowing a few people, making enduring friendships is highly unlikely.  Although we’d hooked into the Cruise Critic group, we failed to make their meets and the weather was such that sailaways weren’t on our agenda.  One meet clashed with the Captain’s lunch for most travelled passengers and we certainly weren’t going to miss out on that!

In a nutshell, we found the ship a bit too big.  A bit too impersonal.  Had we been fortunate enough to have been allocated a table with several others, it might have been very different.  We never really bonded with other passengers or even the staff, as there weren’t the opportunities.  Catching the noro-virus on the last night certainly coloured Paula’s trip but we did enjoy the ports.

Going back to several weeks on the Sea Princess, thankfully we did enjoy the trivia with morning and afternoon teams and in some respects, they were the highlights – people again.

Sadly, neither the dancing nor the entertainment staff were in the same league as 2011.  The staff lacked the people skills and the sense of fun of 2011 and 2013.  This time, more than half of them weren’t  really very likeable either.  It left quite a hole.  When the singers and dancers who were only on theatre door duty as they were bored with nothing to do, had a stronger tie to the passengers than the staff, it reflects badly on the entertainment staff. 

The fact that the (agency) singers and dancers also seemed to have so little support in terms of scenery and backdrops (especially compared to the flash, modern, colourful Royal Princess) just emphasises the somewhat cheapskate attitude towards the Australian based ships.  Thankfully, most of the actual entertainers were very good, even though one or two need to totally refresh their acts.  With over 700 Elite passengers, most would have been aware of these repeat performers with tired acts.

Pity our table wasn’t a particularly joyous one so all we can really do is emphasise the value of the Cruise Critic roll call as a means of trying to establish friendships before sailaway.  Sure, there will be people you don’t click with, but the ones you do click with in advance, will be the ones who will enhance the cruise by a massive amount.  The pre-cruise meal at the Pyrmont Hotel in Sydney is now an established part of the cruise experience and for my money, just as important, if not more so, than the first meet and greet on board.  Travelling to Sydney the day before is now a stressless start to the adventure.

With that in mind, we are really looking forward to 2016, as we KNOW there are people we really like, who have a sense of humour and who will make the trip memorable!

If this summary reads as a bit negative, that is unfortunate, as that wasn’t the intention, but the poor weather and choppy seas for the first week negated the attraction of Melbourne and Busselton a wee bit but once we hit Fremantle and turned north, we felt that we were at last on holiday.

Next year, it will be back to Darwin as a first port of call which does mean improving warmth almost from day one.

We now have a month at home before a few days at Broadbeach, so I’ll keep this blog ticking over until the end of that break then I’ll need to start planning for 2016!  The Grand Circle or Circle Pacific, from Sydney, via Asia to Alaska and back to Auckland via Hawaii.

I hope that some of you got some value out of this scribble and others at least just kept up with our whereabouts.