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Princess Cruise Line

MS Regal Princess

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: H. Sandiego
# previous cruises: 10-20
Date of Trip: March 16, 2003
Itinerary: Australia

Overall, an excellent cruise experience. Best: new menu, better quality meals in the main dining room; also enjoyed the extra large mini-suite with lots of storage and closet space. Worst: worst library and game rooms at sea.

The public areas are gorgeous, particularly the main dining rooms. Areas that need improvement: (1) the library and game rooms are extremely small and do not have any view (inside cabins), (2) there are no quiet lounges where one can go to read or simply enjoy the view---every lounge has music or casino noise, (3) the promenade deck does not go all the way around the ship, (4) the email and computer arrangements on the ship are disappointing, with only 5 laptops available for passenger use on this huge ship.

The food in the main dining room was excellent. The ship has a new chef on board and he produced some extraordinary meals. The service in the dining room was excellent, quite comparable to Crystal and Cunard.

The cabin was very spacious, in fact it was much more spacious than comparable mini-suites on Crystal, Cunard or Holland America. The beds in the cabin face the sea, so that the first view upon arising is the sea; a nice touch. The bathroom was well designed and featured marble throughout.

The production shows in the main show lounge were excellent, featuring talented singers and dancers, expensive costumes and sets. The seating in the show lounge provided excellent sight lines for the main floor and the balcony.

The shore excursions were satisfactory and well organized, though they lacked imagination for passengers with any intellectual curiosity about the ports.

The itinerary was acceptable. Port calls that had been scheduled for Bali, Singapore and Saigon were cancelled due to security and SARS issues. New ports were added to the itinerary as substitutes. Overall, Princess did an excellent job of protecting passengers from potential problems.

The passengers seemed to be a bit older than I had expected, with an average age of, perhaps, 70 years. The passengers seemed to be average in every respect. The nationalities of passengers included approximately 33% Americans, 33% Aussies, 33% British, 1% other. A nice mix.