"The Secret Door." Look very carefully and you'll see the Hand of Wanda holding a door open. That passageway (in a house or building it's a hallway, a ship it's a passageway) on the left goes from the Pursers Desk area to the Princess Theater. The one on the right passes through to seven cabins called, Window Suites.
We sailed in F-307 the center-most suite.
Some Cruise History: (I told you to skip on down). Now, before I get started here, all this information is from my memory and a little research. If you want to get more details, I suggest you click over to The Princess web site.
In 1998 Princess introduced the Grand Princess. Over the next four years two more ships joined the line. Golden, and in 2002, Star Princess. Each ship sailed with 2,590 passengers.
In 2003 Wanda and I went on our first cruise, Star Princess to Alaska. I am so thankful our then travel agent matched us to this ship. It was new, it was exciting, and it was beautiful. I remember driving up to the pier and seeing the ship for the first time, it took my breath away. I've experienced love at first sight a few times in my life, this was one of those times.
People like new: With each new cruise ship, and many have come into service over the last nine years, comes new ideas and features. In an effort to 'keep up with itself' Princess has made extensive changes and upgrades to all of it's ships. On Golden Princess these changes included, a large outdoor movie screen, a new area called The Piazza, and the addition of seven Window Suites.
On Saturday morning Wanda and I passed through the security lines, received our paperwork, and were aboard Golden Princess around noon. We had a tote bag and a back pack to drop off in the cabin and then we were planning on going to lunch. We found "The Secret Door" and we found our cabin door. We walked in and our jaws hit the floor, we never made it to lunch.
I'll never know what it is with women and bathrooms? The first thing Wanda did was check out the bathroom. It had, a Jacuzzi tub and a full tiled stall shower. The counter had a double sink, two sets of shelves, two large drawers, and under the counter storage.
Also, just in case you were feeling real good about yourself the bathroom had a large convex make-up mirror mounted on the wall. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my thinning hair and every facial blemish in super magnification every time I used the sink. My suggestion, there are lots of towels and pillowcases in the cabin, use one on the mirror.
Does posting pictures of a toilet seem a little odd to you?
Now men, we know what's important. Cruise or no cruise, can I watch football on Sunday? and Monday? and Thursday? So, of course, while she is looking at the bathroom I'm searching for the TV remote. By the way, I was going a little nuts trying to figure out why the TV was so slow responding to the remote control commands. Eventually I switched out the batteries with the DVD remote but that didn't help. Our neighbors were having the same problem. All the guys switched out batteries, the ladies laughed at them.
Oh really, Soaking in a Jacuzzi tub while on a cruise is OK but watching football is a waste of time?
I never did improve the remote/TV response time but what the Hell, I had all week. And, just in case you were bored or lacking proper entertainment there was a DVD player in the cabin. We had a listing of several hundred movies. The room steward, Orlando, from the Philippines (and I was sure he would be from Florida) would bring the selections, two at a time, for our viewing enjoyment.
We had two movies out the entire cruise, "Madagascar" with Alex the Lion, Mellman, Gloria, and Marty and "National Treasure." We watched the first in two sittings, the second in seven.
Last night Wanda couldn't get to sleep. I offered to shake the bed a little and put on a DVD.
.jpg)
The Window Suite, beside all the bathroom storage, has; three full size double door closets. Thirty drawers in various places. Shelves and counters and dressers and desks. The bed was very comfortable. The only odd thing, aside from the razor outlet in the bathroom, there was only one plug in the entire cabin. Or, one plug we could find. I never did crawl around on the floor looking behind furniture.
The other comment. The windows were so large, a window seat would have been a nice addition. I'm sure not complaining, some of the amenities:
Complimentary mini-bar set up. We had eighteen various drinks and had all the alcoholic, except two, which I still have, switched out for water and Perrier. Complimentary laundry and dry cleaning. Full service 'private' breakfast served in Sabatini's which is one of the speciality restaurants. Extended room service menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Afternoon tea service in suite if requested. Later in the week I'll have a few pictures of our tea. Complimentary cover charge for one of the speciality restaurants on embarkation evening. Eight of us went to the Crown Grill, pictures tomorrow.
Luxury pillows, linen and bathrobes. Upgraded bathroom amenities. Fresh flowers and fruit. Nightly canapes, chocolate covered strawberries and several other goodies upon request. One evening a steward, not Orlando from the Philippians, brought a plate with three white and three dark chocolate morsels. These were indescribably delicious and hard to describe but I'll try, "OH MY GOD, THESE ARE INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS."
My older brother went on a cruise several years before us. I remember him telling me about his first one. How, at dinner, he got to talking to a couple who were booked in a cabin with a balcony. He didn't have one, he didn't know about them, and it practically ruined his cruise. Because from that evening on, he wanted one. I didn't want to go through that.
In 2003, when we finally decided to take a cruise to, and through, Alaska. What I knew about cruising wouldn't overflow a thimble. All I knew nine years ago when I called that travel agent was, Cruise, Alaska, Balcony. Earlier I wrote how lucky we were to have an agent that matched us with Princess. We sailed out of Seattle. When the cab taking us to the pier came around a bend and I saw the ship for the first time, I was speechless. It was so long, it had so many windows and balconies, it was so high, it was not our ship.
The cab driver said, "That's not yours, that's another cruise line, yours is just around this corner" he turned into a parking area and I said, nothing. I was speechless. I was looking at the Star Princess. Just one year old at the time, sailing it's first season in Alaska, this ship put the other one to shame.
I know me rather well. If we had booked the first ship I would have been miserable. OK, maybe a tad too strong. After all, it would have been Alaska and it would have been our first cruise. But every time I saw what I knew was a better ship I would grouse and mope and complain and get in the danger zone with Wanda. If I wasn't careful she would stuff a pair of sweat socks in my mouth to shut me up.
Cruise, Alaska, Balcony. This was our fourth Alaskan cruise. We have been so lucky and are so thankful we've been able to sail and visit so many places. I'm glad we had that balcony on our first cruise. Since than we have sailed in others. We have also sailed in cabins that just have a window. And now, this last one, the suite.
Aside from an inside cabin, Wanda gets a little claustrophobic, we can sail in any type cabin. This last cruise was a real treat. Having the Window Suite, our cruise experience was very different. We so enjoyed the space, and the windows, and the privacy, we spent much more time in the cabin. There were several times when we thought maybe we were missing something? But, considering this would most likely be our one and only (unless we win the lottery) time with a cabin this nice we took full advantage of it.
By the way, we very rarely gamble so our chances of winning the lottery are pretty slim.
So, we found the cabin and there we plopped. The muster drill was scheduled at 3:15, sail-a-way at 4 and dinner at the Crown Grill at 6:15.
Tomorrow, we came, we saw, we ate.....the cruise begins in earnest. And here I thought we were in Seattle.
No comments:
Post a Comment