 |
| Photo from Princess Cruises |
The Grand Princess is now the oldest ship of the Princess Cruises line. Its inaugural cruise was back in May 1998, a mere 26 years ago. It was last refurbished in 2019. The Grand Princess carries about 2,600 guests. At 107,500 tons and a length of 857 feet, the Grand pales in size to the latest Sun Princess, which is rated at 175,000 gross tons, has a length of 1,133 feet and a guest capacity of 4,300. As a comparison, the Viking Ocean ships from our most recent cruises only have a guest capacity of about 930. These Viking ships do not have features such as casinos or art auctions - which is fine with us. That said, the Viking Ocean ships have a wonderful sauna offering - complete with ice room and cold bucket rinse.
On a three day cruise, there's just enough time to reacquaint ourselves with the Grand Princess, relax in our cabin and enjoy a few dining venues - and maybe enjoy an ice cream or two. One dinner for us will be at the Crown Grill (extra $40 per person) and all other meals will be in one of the included dining rooms, Horizon Court (buffet area) or smaller cafe areas. We have some on-board credit (OBC) from a Princess promotion and from ownership of Carnival Cruise Line stock. Between the Crown Grill and gratuities, we'll pretty much exhaust our OBC. I don't believe we'll have any other on-board expenses on this short duration cruise.
While in Victoria, we'll have lunch with neighbors that have a second home near there. This is a nice departure from our typical Victoria outing to Butchart Gardens.
Upon docking at Canada Place, Vancouver, we'll disembark the Grand Princess and head over to a nearby Fairmont Hotel for a few days. Afterwards, we board a flight from Vancouver to San Francisco and will use a 24 hour Hertz rental car to return us to our Northern California home.
