We are on our way to our next cruise adventure, a 7 day cruise to Norway with the Sky Princess of Princess Cruises. A completely new company for us and as they have a ship sailing from Southampton, we grabbed the chance and as Lesley managed to get a good deal by booking early, we went for it.  I do not know anything about the Princess Cruises product so it is all going to be completely new to us. The company is a relatively new cruise company, only 60 years young, compared to Holland America with 150 years, Cunard with 185+ years and the oldest one, P&O which started cruising in 1851 and sailing another 20 years earlier. (Although they did not call it cruising in those days but “excursions”.  Princess is also a sub company of Carnival Corporation and was for a while part of the HAL group under the leadership of Stein Kruse until it was decided not too long ago to abolish this holding company again. It had served its purpose and the “brands” where becoming too different to get any “synergy” out of it anymore, to use some management speak.

The Hilton hotel in Southampton which is an integrated part of the Utilita Bowl, for cricket games. (Photo courtesy Utilita Bowl)

So yesterday we drove to Southampton and stayed overnight in the Hilton Hotel at the Utilita Bowl, which is one of the biggest cricket stadiums in England. The drive down was interesting with a lot of small hold-ups mainly caused by cars that were overheating  or breaking down due to heat related issues. All the roads nearby the Hotel had Crowd Control Barriers in place, to stop wild parking , as there is the “England Men versus India” game tomorrow. While we were checking in, several die hard fans already arrived with cool boxes in tow, all set to spend a sweltering day in the sun, as the temperature is supposed to go up to 90 oF or 32 oC and that is very hot for England. If you want to spend the money, you can book a Hotel room that overlooks the pitch with your own private balcony. I have not even looked at those prices but they must be considerable. We stayed the night before with a “park your car” deal. That includes a taxi to and from the ship, and that makes life as easy as it gets.

The personal medallion. You do not have to wear it around you neck, it works as well when in the pocket,

So the next day the taxi popped as planned and were delivered at the ship right on time for our check in moment. The roads were busy as also in port where the Ventura, the MSC Orchestra and Celebrity Apex. Also big boys with a capacity between 3000 and 6000 beds. The Sky Princess (sailing with 4000+ this cruise) was docked at berth 37/39 commonly known as the Ocean Terminal. This is one of the bigger terminals which makes check in and going through security somewhat easier. Dropping of the luggage was very easy, there were 4 bays and all were clearly marked with the  cabin numbers and with Stewards directing people very efficiently.  Then I was really impressed in the way Princess handles check-in. There were about 500 guests going through the pipe line at the same moment but it took less then 5 minutes to get to the counter, The Lady took less then 5 minutes to verify our passports and give us our medallion. This is a sort of sensor / boarding pass/ cabin key , all in one and should take all the hassle out of being on board.  Even security was fast, noting that the  handling personnel was a lot younger than in  the smaller terminals. With Fred Olsen we always seem to have an older group  that handles security, and they tend to be too friendly with a nice chat and thus the flow slows down.

Lesley has booked an on board package “Princess Premium” which basically includes everything you normally pay for. Including all on board photos. (all digital and 3 print outs) So instead of avoiding the photographers at all cost we are now planning to stop at each stand to see what the result is. And that started directly in the terminal.

The front door screen, reacting when it senses the medallion. You can push the red button for privacy and your names are on the top. When you approach it shows the “mugshots” of yourselves as used y security.

The medallion kicked in and getting on board was a breeze and went very fast.  As Lesley had booked a Suite on Deck 14 (called Riviera Deck) we did not have to wait for cabins to be ready and could just march in. Here the medallion kicked in again. When about 5 feet away from the door, it senses the medallion and the door unlocks. At the same time the cabin steward can see that you have arrived and are in the cabin, so he/she knows when to go in and when to do meet and greet. It is a bit of big brother watching you but it works extremely well and no need to put your hand luggage down, find you cabin key etc.etc.

Suitcases arrived about 1.5 hours after dropping them off, which is for a big ship with  4000+ guests on board not a bad score at all.  While waiting for them to arrive we went to report at our Assembly station after watching the safety video. The ship had quite a bit of challenges to get the crowd to conform with the requirement as 20 minutes before sailing there were still 559 guests outstanding on the Boat drill record. I wonder how they dealt with that as it questionable that they could reach all of those in 20 minutes. We also have a considerable  contingent of Japanese, Koreans and Portugese on board , three nations who are not known for applying the rules on board as expected. Sometimes because of language barriers, sometimes because of a different approach to time constraint matters. And then there is always a group, who do not listen to any announcement at all, do not read any paper work, but do scream the loudest when something happens or they miss out.

But the ship sailed on time and the captain (more tomorrow) was in a hurry as Norway is a long way away from Southampton, so the ship has to maintain an average speed of 20 knots to get to our first port of call, Bergen, Norway. And we are going to have headwinds of about force 7 to 8.

We did a quick walk around to get a feeling for the lay-out of the ship. Most public rooms are on Deck 5,6, 7, and then on the top levels of 16,17.  You can book all your dining room reservations and other things on line before joining but if you want to change them you have to go to the outlet. We had ended up with two speciality dining options at 21.00 hrs. so we went to change them.  If you do not want to do it yourself, then there is the concierge in the concierge lounge,  which covers our cabin classification. That lounge  also has nibbles and hand food from 07.00 hrs. to 14.00 hrs.and then from 17.00 hrs. to 21.00 hrs. again. Between 1730 and 1930 there are free cocktails as well. It is only a small lounge but the Wedding Chapel is  attached to it and they can open the connecting doors and then there is more than enough space.  The concierge lady is Dorothy from South Africa and there is Irma from Mexico and Mi-luh from Bali (She is Indonesian from Chinese descent) as waitresses.

The Ships Theatre near the bow. There are 2 more show venues but this one is for the main shows. The side lines are excellent. except on the front section, where you have to hope that the person in front of you is not too tall.

The ship is setup is the same as are all larger ships nowadays, expecting that not all guests want to do the same thing at the same time, so only a 3rd of the ships capacity fits in the show lounge and also most of the food and drink outlets around the Atrium are based on a continuous flow  of guests. Thus very much based on the American system of moving along from one thing to the other. While the British tend to linger much more in place with multiple cups of tea and a good natter. On the MSC Orchestra that was a real challenge, so let’s see how it works here.

The Atrium in the center of the ship. It goes up 3 decks and a lot of venues are located around it.

We are expecting that the heat wave will follow us all the way to Norway and thus the top decks with the pools will be very busy. We had a quick look to see what the “Sail Away” party was all about but when we arrived there, it was only a very loud band.  They large screen is in use all day long, with the first movie at 10.30 and then running on into the late evening. Tonight they will screen the football match England – Norway and that should attract a large crowd.( It did when we walked by at 22.30 hrs. with hundreds of fans, huddled together and wrapped in towels and blankets, as the English heatwave is currently not extending yet into the night on a sailing ship.

The view towards the stern on Deck 16 with the large TV screen. As you can see the guests were already out in force to enjoy the nice weather.

After unpacking and cocktails in the Concierge Lounge, we descended into the ship and had another drink before dinner in the Crown Bar on Deck 7 near the Vista Lounge, which is the 2nd show venue. The Crown Bar and lounge has live music at times and an ample seating area but is split through the middle by the walkway into the rest of the ship. So if you want to do people viewing, it is a great location. Here we came across the next impact of the Princess Medallion. The moment the waitress approaches you,  your names, cabin number and drinks package pops up on her tablet. So you get always greeted by name and also informed at once, if you drinks order is covered by the package yes or no. With our package nearly everything is covered, as it goes to $20,– a drink. (We also are entitled to 15 bottles of water a day and we have no way how we are going to drinks those, plus there is free water in the Concierge Lounge as well)

For Dinner we were in the Crown Grill, which has a good selection of food but with a focus on meat. This restaurant has a cover charge of $ 55.– a person but for us it is included in the package. The food is cooked in an open kitchen, although from your table you can not see into the kitchen, only the heads of the cooks bobbing by. The food was extremely good, but the service chaotic. nothing arrived on time or was synchronized with other people on the time. Whether the TOP  is not high enough or they were under TOP, but the waiters (dressed as French Brasserie waiters) were keeping up a constant banter to distract the guests from regcognizing the hiccups in the service.

After dinner I was ready to collapse after the intensive drive on Englands Motorway’s so we have a quick walk around and then retired. We have to go forward one hour for Norway but on this ship they do the time change on formal night.

Tomorrow we are at sea. The weather looks sunny but very windy, but not too much swell so the ship should be fairly steady. Mainly overcast later in the day and chilly in the wind an temperatures around 14oC / 57oF.