Cruising on the Pacific Princess - 2018

We just returned from a six week trip, our longest time of being away from home. The timing worked out well for us as contractors started a ten-week kitchen remodel during our absence. No need to live through the initial noise and dust of removing cabinets and replacing appliances. If you’ve been reading this blog, you might wonder why we’re updating the kitchen of a new house – but that’s another story for another time.

The journey started with a transatlantic crossing on the Pacific Princess. The Pacific is the smallest vessel in the Princess fleet, carrying about 700 passengers. The first portion of the trip started in Ft Lauderdale and the original itinerary included stops in New York City, Iceland (Reykjavik, Isafjordur and Aukereyri), Scotland (Scrabster and Dundee), with a disembarkation in Dover. The transatlantic portion of this cruise was rocked by high sea swells and winds that reached up to 50 mile per hour. Instead of disembarking in Dover, we continued on the Pacific Princess, with plans to visit several Norwegian ports, including Alesund, Bergen, Flaam, Geiranger, Hellesyit , Honningsvag, Longyearbyen, Stavanger, Tromso and Trondheim with a final return to Dover. After our final disembarkation in Dover, our plan was to rent a car for a visit through southeastern United Kingdom before catching a return flight from Gatwick to Oakland, California.

Since this trip was fairly long, I’m planing to share the details of the trip via four blog entries. This entry will focus on the Pacific Princess. The second entry will describe the Ft. Lauderdale to Dover transatlantic crossing. The third blog entry will describe the Dover round trip cruise to Norwegian ports. The final and fourth posting will share information and tips from our driving day trips.

What’s It Like to Sail on the Pacific Princess?
Being a small vessel, the Pacific has only 11 decks, is 592 feet long and has 338 guest cabins. In comparison, the larger and newer Majestic Princess is 1,083 feet long, has 19 decks for 1,780 guest cabins. With a smaller size, we found it is much easier to reach different areas of the ship. For example, from our eighth deck cabin, we could walk up to the ninth deck buffet and fitness area (an  interesting juxtaposition) or down to the fifth deck to a small theater, restaurant, retail shops, casino and larger public areas. We could also take the stairs or elevators up to the large forward Pacific Lounge and cozy aft library, both on the tenth deck. Despite the smaller size, the Pacific has all the typical Princess amenities, such as pool, Internet room and WiFi, golf practice area, shuffleboard, laundromat, library, fitness center, specialty restaurants, open deck grill, pizza offerings and spa – but each are a little on the smaller size. If you’ve been a guest on the larger Princess ships, some of the dining offerings on larger ships aren’t offer on the Pacific Princess. This includes a wine bar, Alfredo’s Pizza parlor, International Café and soft ice cream counter.

As I walked around the halls of different deck, I noted that the noise, from perhaps from the HVAC equipment, was most prominent behind the rear most stairway between the seventh and eight decks, around cabins 7090-7093 and 8050-8053. If you’re considering a trip on the Pacific Princess, I recommend not selecting a cabin in these locations to avoid the possibility of having this noise filter into your cabin.

Entertainment
Production shows, musical entertainment and recently released movies were presented in the Pacific’s Cabaret Theater. Enrichment lectures discussing cultural themes were also available. The theater seats were not typical theater fixed seating but individual seats. The slope of the theater floor was minimal and, thus, it could be difficult to see a movie screen or stage area if you found yourself sitting behind a taller person. My shorter wife said the height of the seats prevented her feet from touching the ground when seated. Not very comfortable if you’re sitting for some time.

As we were on “back-to-back” cruises, it was not unusual to have movies and production shows repeated from one cruise to the other. There’s only a limited number of movies and shows available to add to the schedule.

Did We Go Hungry?
The Pacific has a main dining room, the Club Restaurant, and, on alternative nights, opens either the Italian Sabatini Restaurant or the Sterling Steakhouse. The Club Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is a Panorama Buffet that provides dining and snacks during most of the day, with the exceptions of 11-11:30am and 4-4:30pm, when the buffet is closed for changeover to lunch and dinner. The buffet closes at 11pm rather than offering a 24x7 schedule.

Pacific Princess Interior and Cabin
What does the interior of the Pacific Princess look like? The Pacific Princess has more of an older traditional ship interior décor that reflects its earlier construction era. Originally placed into service by Renaissance Cruises in 1999, Princess added the vessel to its fleet in 2003. The Pacific Princess has an abundance of dark stained wood veneers in public spaces and cabins that you rarely see in newer ships. In fact, you’ll find three non-functional fireplaces on board the Pacific that add to the ambience of early cruising.

We found the Library a convenient place to read and for WiFi access. It’s location just above the tenth deck buffet allowed us to easily grab a cookie and beverage to accompany our library visit.

We resided in a mid-forward located mini suite cabin for our trip. This cabin category is one size smaller than the larger Pacific full-suites. Besides having greater floor space than just balcony or inside category cabins, the the cabin has a full bath-tub and shower combination. This category cabin has more floor and balcony square footage than than the mini suites on the newer Princess ships. However, the length of the sofa (full bed length) and TV screen size in our cabin were both smaller than what we’ve had on other similar category Princess cabins. This made lounging in the cabin somewhat less satisfying. It was challenging to stretch out on the sofa lengthwise and watching any movies in our cabin on the small 21 inch TV screen was difficult.

One common issue for all Pacific Princess’ cabins is the old-style hairdryer. These units generate very low heat and air flow and, thus, aren’t very effective. The dryers weren’t an issue for us as we don’t have very long hair. It may be that the ship’s power system can’t tolerate a large number of hairdryers that demand greater electricity use. When we checked in for the cruise, we were asked not to use our multiple electrical outlet extension even though it did not have a surge protection function. We are aware that most cruise ship electrical systems are incompatible with surge protection devices.


Riding the Waves
During the transatlantic crossing, we ran into rough seas over several days, perhaps 12 to 16 foot sea swell and winds around 45 to 50 knots.  Pacific Princess was tossed around a bit – even with its two stabilizers – by the high winds and sea swells. The newer and larger Princess ships, such as the Majestic, have four stabilizers which may better reduce ship movement due to high winds. On the other hand, the larger ships are likely to be even more susceptible to pitching from high winds. As a general observation, the Pacific Princess seemed to noticeably pitch when buffeted by winds over 25 knots across its decks. The Captain altered our course to directly avoid rougher seas and reduced ship speed to diminish weather related ship movement.
 
Summary
Overall, we found the Pacific Princess to be comfortable except during very rough weather. The vessel had all the comfort features and services we enjoyed. Cabin stewards and service staff were always attentive and courteous, which always makes a great voyage experience.. If we missed anything by being on a smaller vessel, we found that we appreciated the additional day and evening entertainment and activity offerings and additional and larger places to gather (and dine) as a couple or small group that only a larger Princess ship can offer. We’ll likely travel on the Pacific Princess in the future but only to visit ports that cater to smaller ships and perhaps with a minimal number of at-sea days.

We docked along side a Viking Ocean ship in Stavanger that hosts around 1,000 guests. This all balconey ship looked interesting to us and we may take a look at the Viking brochures to learn more about Viking Ocean itineraries.