South America, 2014: Aboard the Crown Princess

We were blessed with great weather on our embarkation day. The ship was strung up with all sorts of colorful flags – have no idea what they spell out.

15 February 2014

Aboard the Crown Princess – Days 1 and 2

We left the hotel about 11 am on February 15 for the cruise port and spent the next 2.5 hours going through the process of getting on board the ship. The terminal was very crowded; we counted eight cruise ships in port. The most I have ever seen in San Pedro is three. As a result, traffic was crazy. So glad we took the hotel transfer rather than trying to drive to the port and then figuring out how to drop off the rental.

Even though we were on the list for first boarding, the line was already quite long when we arrived. Things worked smoothly; it just took time to get 3,000 people processed so they could board the ship. I found the passengers to be patient and the staff to be very competent, so all in all, it wasn’t bad. And once we were on board with no glitches, we had nothing more to do except have lunch and pick a spot on the Lido deck for the bon voyage party.

The ship is huge; it is 19 floors high and I don’t really know how long except it takes quite a while to walk from the front to the back. And we can’t even really get to the front of the ship; unlike others we have been on, the entire front is blocked off with staterooms and crew quarters. We think that the ship designers have figured out that the front of a ship is quite windy and miserable most of the time, so they have swapped that space for more public space in the aft of the ship. This ship has a third large pool at the very back of the ship with two terraces surrounding it. In addition, the buffet restaurant which has been in the front of the ship on every cruise we have taken (Royal Caribbean and Princess) is in the back on this ship.

We spent the first two full days of our cruise exploring the ship and figuring out our routine. We choose Anytime Dining which means we can go to dinner when we wish and choose one of two different restaurants. The ship has a theme of Italian artists so the restaurants are named Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Botticelli. The walls of the restaurants sport copies of paintings from their namesakes. So far, our dining partners have been interesting folks. There is a huge crowd from Australia so at every meal we have shared our table with one or more Australian couples. I am slowly acclimating to their accent and learning a lot about the country and its current issues. Very nice folks to visit with.

Over half of the passengers are “49ers” meaning that they are on the cruise for the full 49 days. The cruise is made up of three legs; the first ending in Buenos Ares, Argentina, the second ending in Valparaiso, Argentina and the third finishing up in Los Angeles. As you might guess, most of the passengers are retired, older folks. Russ and I are amongst the younger ones. But there are a few teens and small children and couples in their 30s and 40s. I understand that most of these folks are Argentinian and are debarking in Buenos Ares. About a third of the passengers are Americans, the next largest groups are Aussies and Canadians, then Argentinian along with smaller groups of Spanish, Russians and Serbian folks; truly an international group. And Princess has done their best to accommodate the interests of the groups; there are activities specifically for the non-English speaking folks including in-port tours. And the in room TV channels include a Spanish speaking one with movies, sports and news.

We have cruised enough to feel somewhat comfortable with the layout of the ship and the schedule of activities. Even so, the ship is so large I am having a hard time remembering where things are and whether I go aft or forward to get to them. I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed with the wealth of activities. I suspect that will calm down as the cruise goes on – I mean they have to repeat some of these things, right?

Tomorrow, we dock in our first port – St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I am taking a city tour while Russ goes scuba diving. Afterwards, I hope we can find each other and have some time in the afternoon for lunch and a little walkabout.

Here is all the luggage we lugged across the country, not counting the backpack and purse I was carrying.

A snapshot of the crowd waiting to get on the Crown Princess. And the line went on behind us out of the building and down the ramp.

Our balcony is much larger than the one we had on our Panama Canal trip. I envision spending lots of time here.

Enjoying our first lunch onboard. Lots of good healthy choices like salad and fruit. I will see how long our resolve to eat healthy lasts in the face of all the temptations.

Waiting for our call to muster stations briefing. This is one of three pools on the ship. There will be lots of places to sit and catch some rays.

Russ finds the loaner dinner jacket for the bar to be pretty agreeable.

In the atrium (which is 3 stories high) there are regular musical performances. This was the latin duo performing a tango. It was shortly after this shot that the gal had a wardrobe malfunction – there was a gasp in the crowd – but she recovered quite nicely and the crowd was gracious.

A proper sendoff would not be complete without a tropical drink!

There were 8 cruise ships in port on embarkation day. This is the Oasis of the Seas – I think this is currently the largest cruise ship in the world – it can handle up to 5,000 passengers.

Here are 4 of the 8 cruise ships in port.

Our ship was the last to leave, had to wait for two hours for a couple hundred people whose flights had been delayed because of the snow storms in the north. I wondered if there would be a traffic jam getting those 8 ships out of the port, but all lined up nicely and just tootled out of the channel.