 |
| The Regal Princess |
The boarding process was quite interesting as it was not the standard process - it was more like what the crew go through when they come on the ship. We had to go through three levels of security (one dog sniff and two X-rays for our bags) and then passport control. We were interspersed with many embarking crew, and first felt like we were really getting the white glove treatment when the Istanbul port agent came to passport control and told all the crew to step out of the way so that we (as passengers) could come to the front of the line. The port agent walked us through the rest of security and deposited us with a representative from the cruise ship who actually remembered Aaron from Barcelona! Princess had canceled our booking a few days earlier (terrible timing!), so we were only half in the computer system, so they couldn't create our medallion yet, so we had to be personally escorted to our room, and a porter carried our luggage all the way to our room for us (so nice to finally not be hauling it ourselves!). Shortly after we arrived they delivered complimentary wine to our stateroom, and when we went down to guest services with all our questions the AMAZING lady there gave us a handful of laundry tokens for free (so nice! I was WAY behind on laundry at this point) and treated us to complimentary drinks at the closest bar. Later at the safety briefing the head of guest services tracked us down and offered us a complimentary couple's massage at the spa. Several days later the same lady discovered we were in an inside cabin and upgraded us to a balcony. WOW! We felt so appreciated!!
 |
| Our inside stateroom. I hope you can see the pure joy on my face at finally being on the ship! |
 |
| Free wine! |
 |
| Our upgraded balcony cabin! |
 |
| Complimentary massage time! |
I can't move on to the destinations without giving a shout out to our stateroom attendant, who we were able to keep when we transferred cabins (we just moved across the hall). He was AMAZING, by far the best we've ever had on a cruise ship. He was always around with a huge smile on his face (well, I couldn't see his mouth because of the mask, but I could tell he was smiling from his eyes). He is one of the only (maybe the only?) stateroom attendants we've had that paid attention to our room door magnets and knew to call me Becky ('Miss Becky' of course) and not Rebecca. He volunteered to move all our things between cabins (I didn't let him move all of it, but he still insisted on helping!). I just can't say enough nice things. This being our only Princess cruise, I don't know if this is standard or if we just really lucked out, but he was SO awesome.
On to the destinations! Lots of cool and famous places on this trip! First stop: Mykonos, Greece. We took a tour here that we booked for the first time through a company called Shore Excursions Group. We had the opportunity to speak with their customer service when we had to cancel an excursion we missed due to COVID, and between their excellent phone support and two excellent tours we took with them on this cruise, I can say we're quite impressed and will probably use them again. On to the tour... Mykonos is a small island and we had an awesome tour guide who spoke perfect English (her English was so good I could even hear her British accent!). We saw all the highlights here, including an old monastery, tons of churches, the famous windmills, and the old town (whose roads were very sinuous not to confuse pirates as is rumored but rather to break up the wind). We enjoyed some local pastry at the high point of the island.
 |
| This is a 'miraculous icon' - found drifting in the ocean mostly intact - the monastery was founded around it |
 |
| The famous windmills |
Next stop: Athens! We booked a tour to see the Acropolis and Parthenon - of course! We had some free time during the tour and went to the new Acropolis Museum as well. It was neat to see the ancient and famous buildings, but very crowded!
 |
| In front of the Parthenon |
On to Aaron's favorite stop in the whole trip - Santorini, Greece. This island was so neat because it had a little bit of everything. We booked a tour through the ship to hike on the volcano and visit the hot springs, then toured the area around the pier on our own afterward. The tour was very cool - we boarded an old-style wooden boat to get to Nea Kameni, where we were the first tourists of the day and had the volcano all to ourselves until right as we left. The boat took us to the hot springs, which were really more of tepid/warm springs, but still neat. We were two of only four people on the tour to actually get out and swim in them! At the pier we took the cable car to the town at the top of the cliff, explored around a bit, then rode donkeys back down! Most donkeys were tied together, but ours were free range and we had no control - they had no reins. The donkeys were NOT at all concerned about people coming up the path - they just plowed on through. It was an interesting experience, quite possibly the best 12 euros we've ever spent!
 |
| On top of Nea Kameni |
 |
| The pier at Nea Kameni was so small that boats tied up to each other - you had to walk across other boats to get to yours! |
 |
| Proof that Aaron does occasionally swim! This is on the way back to the ship from the hot springs, in what our tour guide termed 'refreshing' water (read: COLD water) |
 |
| Donkeys!! |
On to possibly my favorite port and definitely the most surprisingly enjoyable to both of us - Kotor, Montenegro. I had never really thought of Montenegro as a tourist destination (my loss!), so I wasn't sure what to expect. We did not book a tour here, but just explored on our own. Our main plan was to climb the 1350 steps to San Giovanni Fortress, which we did early in the morning before they started collecting fees (and before the heat of the day set in), along with many other people from the ship. The climb was intense, and several of us kept together, encouraging each other and helping each other to find the path when it wasn't so obvious. The view from the fortress was well worth the climb, and as with most European forts/castles we'd visited we were free to walk all over all the unsafe places. On the way back down we took a particularly unsafe looking wooden ladder out a window because I wanted to explore the ruins of an old church we could see in the distance. We continued along a different path back from there and ended up having drinks at an old man's old house halfway down the mountain, where he advertised amazing views on a handwritten sign on two rusty headboards. We finished out the day souvenir hunting in the old town. Overall it was just a really fun day, we so enjoyed our independent adventuring in the grassy hilltops above the city.
 |
| Looking down at the ship from the top of the fortress |
 |
| Climbing down the very safe wooden ladder from a window in the wall |
 |
| Enjoying lemonade and a view at the old man's house |
The most unremarkable stop of the Princess voyage was at Messina, Sicily. We did not book a tour here, and perhaps that was a mistake, as there was not much of interest to us in Messina itself. We did visit the Messina Cathedral with its famous bell tower, and that was cool, but that was definitely the highlight of the day. We attempted to go to two different forts, but could not find the entrance to either one.
 |
| Messina Cathedral - we sat through two of the 15-minute chimes watching the figures on the tower move |
 |
| Inside the cathedral there were two of these 3-D pieces of artwork showing the nativity - I'm not sure we've seen anything like this in a church before |
Our last stop was the one I had been most excited about before the cruise - Naples, Italy - for Pompeii and Vesuvius! We took a tour to both Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii was AMAZING for the incredibly intact architecture...sadly though they had removed all but one of the body castings due to COVID (they were causing too much crowding??)...so now everyone stands in a tight crowded line to go inside a tiny room to see the one body casting left...I think that plan backfired. Unfortunately for us it was quite an overcast day, and though we hiked to the top of Mt. Vesuvius, we were walking through (very cold misty windy) pea soup and couldn't see ANYTHING. It was very disappointing! We definitely need to return to Naples on a sunny day after they return the bodies to Pompeii so that we can get the full experience. Still, it was an interesting stop overall.
 |
| The one and only body casting still on display in Pompeii |
 |
| In the main square of Pompeii |
 |
| Atop Mt. Vesuvius - can't you tell? |
 |
| The one highlight - we got Aaron some limoncello (he wanted to have some in Italy) at a small shop at the top of Mt. Vesuvius |
Finally, I haven't said much about the ship or the cruise after our wonderful treatment during embarkation. The staff we met that first day checked in on us throughout the cruise and we felt very well looked after. We had a great cruise director who headed up some very entertaining game shows every night. The entertainment in the evening was not nearly as good as Disney, but I suppose that's not a huge surprise. We felt that it wasn't as good as some of the recent stuff we've seen on the larger Carnival ships either though. We loved that all the entertainment we wanted to see/participate in was completed by 9:30 or 10 every night - Princess's motto is "Come Back New" and it really feels like that is their goal as they don't try to keep you up all night partying (though there is still live music and whatnot going on if you do want to stay up late). They had an entertaining and informative host giving destination presentations every day - he was a wealth of information about the port history as well as current things to do. There was an enrichment speaker as well, though we didn't enjoy her quite as much, but she did tell us Darwin almost didn't make his famous sailing because the captain didn't like his nose! We enjoyed meeting several friendly fellow passengers with great stories to share. Overall we felt well-looked-after and enjoyed nearly all of the activities we chose to participate in on the ship.
 |
| These guys - "Just John and Paul" - performed on the Disney Magic as well! We liked their shows on the Regal Princess better for some reason. |
 |
| Ice carving! |
 |
| The Queen's platinum jubilee happened while we were on the ship, and our cruise director, being British, hosted a celebration on deck |
One more cruise to go! Stay tuned for Part IV!
No comments:
Post a Comment