The Rest of Day 1

Pizzeria, Two Main Swimming Pools & Horizon Court Buffet:

After checking out our cabins, we headed to lunch. The young boys had arranged for us to meet at the pizzeria, “Prego.” On the Star, it is an outdoor, poolside affair with a walk-up buffet where you order cheese, pepperoni or “daily special” slices. It was a gorgeous day in LA—I assume 72 as always, but smog-free—so sitting outside with a slice of pizza and beer was a pleasant way to begin our cruise vacation. However, we much preferred the pizzeria as executed on the Dawn, where it was a true restaurant, indoors, with table service and menus featuring a variety of whole pizzas and other selections from which to choose. So, what did we do to get over our disappointment? Ate more, of course!

We walked across the pool deck to the Horizon Court buffet passing the two main swimming pools on the way. The one nearest the pizzeria is “Neptune’s Reef and Pool.” It’s an open-air family affair with a moderately-sized pool, a bridge or two cross the pool, a large flat area covered with 4-6” of water (the reef?) with a curved-glass shower in the middle of it, an Orca whale sculpture/fountain (by Wyland, who else?) and two hot tubs. Note, there are no steps leading into this pool, you have to get in/out by jumping and crawling or using a ladder. Like all of the Princess pools, it’s filled with fresh water (chlorinated) and, contrary to what we’d read from other reports, the water temperature was pleasant, not cold.

The second pool walking aft toward the Horizon Court is the “Calypso Reef & Pool” located in what Princess calls the Conservatory because strategically-placed automatic doors (wonderful when your hands are full and/or the wind vacuum makes opening the door difficult) and a see-thru retractable roof can transform this two-story pool area into a steamy, comfortably warm room, free of the cool winds that whip around on those first and last At Sea days. I particularly liked the second floor seating with a view to the Pacific, except that the ping pong tables in the corner nearby made it necessary to don the Walkman and ignore stray balls. (My son and I enjoyed several ping pong games over the course of the cruise, and I must say, it’s a lot better to put the tables inside vs. outside where we’ve usually found them and struggled to play in the wind.)

Both pools look to me like giant tea cups sitting on the deck—there are mosaic tile-sided enclosures around each pool that start at deck level on either side of a break to allow entry into the pool and curve upward in an undulating fashion to a maximum of approximately 4-1/2 feet high. I suppose the purpose of the wall is to protect sunbathers from pool splashes. While the tile design is an attractive mix of blue, green and white with various ocean creatures and vegetation mixed in, I don’t care for the bulky wrap-around. It breaks up the view—I like the visual of looking across a flush pool deck into the ocean.

But, I digress. Our initial foray into the Horizon Court turned up the expected fare. Throughout the week, the buffet offered mediocre to good hot foods (plus fresh salads and fruits) when we tried it from breakfast through late afternoon. The daily sushi spread was attractive—but we don’t eat sushi, so can’t comment on the quality. We never ate in the Horizon Court for dinner or late night (it’s open 24 hours).

The layout is horrible. I guess Princess decided to dedicate more of the available space to the dining area, and it was nice not to have to fight to find a table, but the consequence of that decision is there’s a much smaller buffet area than we’ve seen on other ships. (I’m describing one side, e.g., port side of the Horizon Court; there is an identical buffet & dining area on the starboard side of the ship.) Think about being inside an elongated oval, with entry/exit allowed at the top and bottom, as well as at one or two points on one side, and multiple food stations along both insides of the oval plus several island salad bar stations squeezed into the middle of the oval. By departing from the usual single line buffet, which has its own drawbacks, to be sure, Princess created a traffic nightmare with people darting in and out, back and forth, around and around, juggling their plates and silver (no trays—boo) as they roam from station to station. This presented a fairly treacherous situation for pax needing assistance—we had to get my mother-in-law’s food for her. There were two drink stations at either end of the large dining area—it was smart to move the drink lines away from the food service, but unless your table was near, the extra walk to get your drink or a re-fill was inconvenient. Princess should have its buffet wait staff offer table beverage service in the Horizon Court. Speaking of service, we always found the Horizon Court and adjacent table areas (you can also eat outside on the pool decks fore and aft of the buffet) to be clean. Tables were bussed promptly. The buffet itself was kept presentable and well-stocked. Except for the first day, when the hawking of refillable soda mugs was obnoxious, a bartender would only occasionally push a soda/alcoholic beverage cart through the Horizon Court dining area.

First Day’s Business, Muster & the Mystery of In-Cabin Announcements:

Once our first meal was finished, the kids went swimming and the adults divided to hang with the kids, disembark to make last minute purchases, and take care of business, e.g., book spa appointments, rearrange seating (with 5 cabins and a mixture of traditional and PC assignments, we needed help constructing a table for 8), tend to a shore excursion issue, etc. While at the purser’s desk to get extra keycards made to allow my husband and me to access the kids’ room, I saw a stack of pocket-sized ship maps and grabbed one to keep in my purse, thinking Princess ought to put this out on your bed with all the other not-so-important papers—mostly art auction and other sales flyers—that await your arrival. Later, our newbie friends informed me that the map was stuck inside the maroon leather-bound book on the desk that also contains room service menus, menus for Sabatini’s and Tequila’s, a complete phone directory, general information about the ship, stationary and post cards, etc. Note that among the papers on the bed was an information sheet about the recent occurrences of Norwalk virus on cruise ships. It contained factual information about the illness and preventative measures taken by Princess and to be taken by pax, and it touted the Star’s two-time 100 rating by CDC inspectors and negative (reportable) occurrence of Norwalk. I saw a sign inside the exit door of one common area ladies’ room to the effect that hands should be thoroughly washed before leaving, and one guest comedian made a Norwalk joke. That was the extent of our exposure to Norwalk.

Our bags had been delivered to our staterooms before 2 p.m., and I spent some time late afternoon unpacking the kids and me and getting our rooms set up. (My husband does his own packing/unpacking. He napped through most of my comings and goings.) Then, I went to find the gang at the pool. I noticed the ice cream stand nearby—I thought the deal was that Princess only sold Haagen-Dazs, but no, they charge for the regular stuff here, too. Sigh. (Actually, we don’t think Princess nickels and dimes much at all compared to our most recent NCL experience on their Star, where fresh-squeezed orange juice at breakfast was extra, among other things.) Anyway, I found the swimmers and got them out to go to the cabins to retrieve life jackets for the 4:15 p.m. muster. Our cabin steward had already supplied a child-sized vest for our son. Muster was held Princess-style in a lounge with a mixture of live and pre-recorded safety instructions.

This is as good a place as any to comment on the in-cabin announcements. Yes, safety announcements blare through, no matter what—my husband’s doze was interrupted by the call to muster. But all other announcements can only be heard out in the hall. That’s a decent thing, unless you want to hear them. We could never figure out how to enable the audio to receive announcements inside the cabin—if there was some knob with on/off/volume control on the wall somewhere, we didn’t find it or any related signage pointing to its existence; and if the announcements were aired on one of the closed circuit TV stations like they were when we were on the Dawn Princess in Alaska, we didn’t figure that out, either. This was probably explained in the maroon directory that we never sat down and read cover-to-cover, but we mused that if we failed to quickly solve the enigma of the announcements (believing ourselves to be of superior intellect and fairly travel savvy, LOL), surely there were others who missed those daily art auction and bingo calls, too. I’m confident that if anyone who’s cruised the Star/Grand/Golden has made it this far and knows the answer, they’ll clue me in. Be kind!

Sailaway Dinner:

We enjoyed sailaway from our balcony, dressed and went to dinner at 6:00 p.m. in the Portofino dining room at the reserved table that had earlier been arranged for us. There is one traditional dining room, the Amalfi, located aft on 6, and two “anytime dining” rooms amidships, the Portofino on 6 and the Capri on 5. A central galley serves the same menu to all three dining rooms and, also, physically blocks that portion of the 6^th floor that would otherwise have been in our most direct path of travel from our aft staterooms to the 6^th floor amidships dining room. Wheelchair pax and others who have difficulty ambulating (as well as those who are easily befuddled by which lifts do/don’t serve which floors and route plans that require detours—that’s usually me 'til oh, about the 6^th day of the cruise!), should study the deck plans before booking. Those preferring traditional dining should book cabins near the aft elevator—it is a long, long walk from a forward cabin to eat in the aft Amalfi. Similarly, those who opt for Personal Choice would do better to book amidships cabins near the central lifts. The length of the walk and the somewhat confusing journey was just enough to intimidate my mother-in-law from ever making the trip from her cabin to the dining room alone, which was a pity on those days in port when she chose to stay behind.

Our wait service at the sailaway dinner was only fair, and both the waiter and assistant commented separately that they didn’t know if they would be with us the next night. The sailaway dinner itself was good, but obviously nothing memorable, as I can’t recall anything in detail save two things about the dessert course. First, my husband and I both thought the coffee was much improved over past cruises. Second, the crackers so carefully arranged with apple wedges on the cheese plate (a different assortment of cheeses was offered nightly) were plastic-packaged Keebler duos. What a jarring note…the only possible rationale I could come up with was that individualized packaging combats staleness better than quantity packaging. We live on the water, and I know it’s tough to keep crackers crisp. But gee whiz, it’s a ship’s kitchen—they’re experts at food storage solutions. The cynical side of me says, come on, it’s a cost-cutting move, they can re-serve unused packages. Yet so much food is wasted on cruise ships…is the galley budget really going to be saved by recycling Keebler club crackers? I won't even go into the fact that a (yummy) salted butter cracker is not the proper choice in the first place--it defeats the gustatory pleasure of sampling different cheeses.  I know some folks are rolling their eyes in disbelief that I am so wound up over these darn crackers. Don't worry, I'm laughing at myself, too. It just goes to show what strange tidbits stick in people's minds....or what tidbits stick in strange people's minds?!

The fact that the first night’s menu offerings and food presentation/quality were competent, but not outstanding, did surprise me—I would think a chef would want to wow pax at sailaway to whet their appetites for a week of fine dining. All in all, this dinner was unsatisfactory—the evening meal is an important part of our day whether we are at home or away. We like to cook and eat; we like the socialization; and when we eat out, we like good food and service. Toward the end of the meal, my husband spied the head waiter and went to talk with him about our service concerns. Mariusz, who reigns over the far aft starboard section of the Portofino dining room, turned out to be the best and most involved head waiter we’ve had in 7 cruises. On the spot, he changed our table assignment to one where he promised we would enjoy top notch service. He proved correct. Additionally, when my husband told him our daughter would be celebrating her 12^th birthday the next day and we wished to order a cake, Mariusz came to the table and asked our daughter what kind of cake she would like.  When she replied that whatever was served would be fine, he insisted that she choose what she wanted and rattled off a variety of flavors, not just the usual white and chocolate. Mariusz’s warmth and professionalism saved the night, and we left feeling like we were in good hands for the rest of the week.

First Night’s Entertainment, the Patter and Getting News Onboard:

We skipped the welcome aboard show, which, as described in the Welcome Aboard Princess Patter, sounded a lot like the tepid first night out we experienced on the Dawn Princess—a mix of dance numbers, stand-up comedy and the cruise director’s overview of the week ahead. Our friends hit the pool, and we went to the Vista Lounge to see “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which we had missed in the theatres. It’s a fun movie. The Princess showed recent releases in the theatre several times over the course of the cruise, sometimes in the afternoon. There was a daily selection of movies on the stateroom TV, also. “The Perfect Storm” was one of the choices the last day at sea. Another pax and my husband talked about that ironic selection, joking that Princess had an odd way of motivating us to disembark the next morning.

As long as I’m going on and on, I might as well say here that I was amazed to find that the Patter remains so graphically unattractive, poorly organized and blasted busy that it’s a challenge to read and use as a daily guide. I missed events and key information simply because I didn’t want to spend the time required to scrutinize all four pages daily—you should be able to read the headlines, skim and zero in on just what interests you. There should be a boxed timeline of all of the day’s events with a one-line description and place for each event—I had to comb the rag with pen in hand and scribble my own timeline and notes in the scant white margin available. Wake up, Princess!

And speaking of news, my husband and his mother are avid Times crossword puzzlers, and he had told her they wouldn’t miss a beat at sea. I’m a news junkie—but not a TV watcher, and the redundant CNN international headlines broadcast just doesn’t do it for me. So, when the first full day at sea came and went with no TimesDigest (f/k/a the TimesFax) in the library as has been the custom on most ships, he went to the purser’s desk to ask if there was a problem with delivery that day. Indeed, there’s a problem with delivery every day—the Star doesn’t subscribe! Now that we’re back, I thought I’d check this issue out at the New York Times site. Interesting. The list of cruise lines and individual ships within lines that subscribe to the TimesDigest is posted here. Most of the Princess fleet gets it. Why not the Star? My husband and I agree, news is one of those items that cruise lines could charge extra for, without people fussing about it. I buy newspapers everywhere we go—I’d do the same aboard ship.