Cruise editor Brian Major joined an early May preview voyage of
Princess Cruises' newest ship, 2,600-passenger Golden Princess. His
review follows:
ize is the cruise industry's
currency. Today's largest ships exceed 100,000 tons and encompass
enough space to offer features and facilities once considered the
exclusive domain of land-based resorts.
Today's big ships are designed to offer something for everyone.
The diverse amenities and facilities featured on these megavessels
are expanding the cruise marketplace and attracting new passengers
to this still-emerging vacation form.
But size also can introduce some negative qualities, including
crowding in public areas and an absence of the quiet and intimacy
with which a seagoing vacation is often associated.
The trick for today's operators, therefore, is to create
megaships that are large enough to feature all of cruising's
modern-day amenities but aren't so big as to alienate experienced
cruisers in search of peaceful days at sea and enjoyable port
experiences.
Princess Cruises' newest vessel,
109,000-ton Golden Princess, comes as close as any contemporary
megaship does in achieving this goal. While offering a broad
selection of passenger activities and venues, Golden Princess
rarely feels crowded. The ship has plenty of intimate areas that
allow more passengers to get away from it all, plus a spectrum of
activities for more active cruisers.
There's no getting around size when it comes to discussing
Golden Princess. It's a massive vessel, 201 feet high with 18
decks, four pools, three main dining rooms, three large show
lounges and 1,301 staterooms.
Golden Princess has nine bars and lounges and eight dining
venues. There are also a casino, an Internet cafe, a wedding
chapel, a spa, a two-story kids and teens center, a reading room, a
card room and an art gallery.
My sailing wasn't a "normal" cruise, and not just because of
Golden Princess' tremendous scale. For one, the itinerary consisted
of three straight days in the English Channel, with no port calls.
Secondly, while Golden Princess is designed for North Americans
(sister brand P&O markets to U.K. residents), the overwhelming
majority of the passengers were British.
Strangely enough, the Brits provided an intriguing test audience
for the gleaming new ship. While not completely new to U.K.
vacationers (due to P&O's Oriana), megaship cruising is still a
recent phenomenon here. Thus, our cruise was filled with hundreds
of new test subjects.
I sought advice from a friend at another cruise line (who
happens to be a U.K. citizen) to determine what U.K. residents
expect from a cruise.
"Cruising is considered a luxury product to the British
consumer," he said. "It is not perceived as a mass-market vacation
as much as it is in the U.S. In the U.K., cruises are sold to
people who desire to be lord of the manor but probably aren't. They
want to dress up and make the cruise a much more formal
experience."
Luckily for the British passengers,
Golden Princess, while not really formal in atmosphere, is among
the most upscale of cruising's megaships.
Indeed, tastefully decorated public rooms abound, beginning with
the Grand Plaza, Golden Princess' main lobby. The room features an
atrium with a lighted staircase made of glass and marble, panoramic
glass elevators wrapped in latticework and marble floors.
While impressive, the Grand Plaza is only three decks high, much
smaller than the soaring atriums found aboard other megaships. The
atrium design mirrors the rest of the ship: rather than using the
massive interiors to construct cavernous public rooms, Golden
Princess' designers created multiple areas of activity. Moreover,
these areas are surprisingly diverse.
For example, Golden Princess features the fleet's first AOL
Internet Cafe. One of the largest such facilities at sea, the cafe
houses 25 computer stations in an office-like setting that's tucked
into a corner on deck seven (in fact, it's easy to miss the
cafe).
During our brief voyage, the facility was heavily used, although
transmission problems occasionally forced the cafe to suspend
services. Still, the venue drew a steady crowd of passengers, some
of whom weren't just chatting with friends or browsing the Internet
but actually working.
There are plenty of other high-tech passenger facilities aboard
Golden Princess.
Wedding Cam, for example, part of Princess' weddings-at-sea
program, broadcasts real-time images from the ship's wedding chapel
on Princess' Web site, at www.princess.com. Guests who log on to the site can
join newlyweds as the ship's captain conducts wedding and
vow-renewal ceremonies.
The F/X Digital Photo Center offers digital photo finishing,
enabling passengers to create CDs, calendars and postcards from
images taken by F/X's photographers. Voyage of Discovery is a
virtual-reality center offering high-tech computer games and golf
simulators.
Because our sailing wasn't a regular cruise, it was difficult to
tell how many passengers took advantage of the Digital Photo Center
or the wedding program. But the ship's open decks were filled with
activity. Although the daytime temperatures barely reached 60
degrees Fahrenheit, plenty of passengers were enjoying deck 15's
expansive sunning areas during our cruise.
One afternoon, I walked the deck with another passenger from the
U.S. We were shivering from the cold, but along the way met several
shirtless men and more than a few women wearing bikinis.
In fact, the British passengers seemed to enjoy the ship's
outdoor areas more than the indoor facilities.
Princess Links, the nine-hole miniature golf course on deck 15,
proved quite popular.
The outdoor activity was a distinct change from North American
megaships, where, even on the sunniest days, a large percentage of
passengers can be found indoors, shopping or gambling.
Golden Princess also offers three main show lounges: the
Princess Theater, Vista Lounge and Explorers Lounge. There are
three main dining rooms, the Bernini, the Donatello and the
Canaletto. The Atlantis casino measures 13,500 square feet, and
there are separate shops for fragrances and cosmetics (Escapades)
and fine jewelry and gifts (Facets).
Other dining venues include Horizon Court, an indoor/outdoor
buffet restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, and Desert
Rose, a Southwestern-themed restaurant.
Sabatini's Trattoria showcases Italian-style seafood specialties
and other Mediterranean favorites in an "authentic" trattoria
setting. Passengers can also dine at Prego, a poolside pizzeria,
and Trident Grill, a poolside facility serving hot dogs, hamburgers
and other grilled food.
Despite these facilities, or perhaps because of them, Golden
Princess rarely feels crowded, even when the ship is relatively
full.
But there was crowding, and some confusion, during the first
evening of our cruise when the ship's mostly British clientele
encountered Princess' Personal Choice Dining system.
Personal Choice emphasizes flexible dining times and styles. The
program enables guests to choose from dining in one of the main
restaurants at any time and with whom they want, much in the manner
of land-based restaurants, or in traditional cruise ship manner in
the main dining room, with assigned dining times, tablemates and
waitstaff.
The system was created in response to North American desires for
a more flexible dining experience. But true to the my friend's
words, the Brits seemed confused by the need for less formal
"options."
Unlike some U.S. crowds on megaships, these passengers seemed to
prefer dressy attire and set meal times -- in other words, the
traditional cruise system.
In fact, passengers crowded around the entrances to the main
dining rooms that first evening, seemingly unsure if they should
make reservations or partake in the traditional two-seating system.
The traffic patterns seemed to ease as the cruise progressed,
however.
Golden Princess' four additional dining options (Horizon Court,
Sabatini's, Desert Rose and 24-hour room service) allow passengers
to spread their dining times out according to preference. This
evens the flow of passengers across the ship, meaning the
restaurants and other public areas are rarely packed with
guests.
Other public facilities aboard Golden Princess show off the
vessel's high-tech edge. Lotus Spa, located high up on deck 15
overlooking the ship's bow, is a state-of-the-art gym and health
spa with the latest weight-training equipment and exercise
machines, an aerobics room and an outdoor jogging track that
circles the facility.
The spa includes a swim-against-the-current pool and a full
complement of sauna and massage treatments from British operator
Steiner's.
Golden Princess is also kid-friendly. The ship features
above-average facilities for children and teen-agers, highlighted
by Fun Zone/Off Limits, a two-story activity center with play
areas, games, a video arcade, a teen disco and a full slate of kids
programs.
Topping off Golden Princess' public rooms (literally) is
Skywalker's disco, located atop the ship's rear "spoiler" and
accessible via a glass-enclosed moving sidewalk.
This was one area in which the British crowd seemed in tune with
North American counterparts -- everyone here seemed to be having a
good time as the disc jockey played hits that can be heard on just
about every other big ship.
With more than 1,000 staterooms, Golden Princess' diversity
extends to passenger accommodations. There are 711 staterooms (80%)
with private balconies, including 25 suites (measuring from 515 to
800 square feet); 180 minisuites (325 square feet), and 502
standard outside cabins (215 to 255 square feet).
Golden Princess also offers 228 standard outside cabins (165 to
210 square feet) and 366 inside staterooms (160 square feet).
In its inaugural season, Golden Princess offers 12-day
Mediterranean cruises between Barcelona and Istanbul, Turkey, with
port calls at Monte Carlo; Florence and Naples, Italy; Athens, and
Kusadasi, Turkey, with overnight stays in Venice, Italy; Barcelona,
and Istanbul.
Beginning Oct. 3, Golden Princess repositions to Fort
Lauderdale, Fla., for a series of seven-day Caribbean cruises
visiting St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Princess Cays, Princess'
private Bahama island.