A short (for me; your opinion may differ) update here as we’ve only just come back from two weeks aboard a cruise ship we’d not sailed on before and I wanted to get some thoughts down about the cruise while it’s still fresh in the mind since it’s likely going to be absolutely ages before I get around to properly writing up about the full experience.
Island Princess is one of Princess Cruises’ oldest and smallest ships in the fleet.
Did Island Princess feel old? No, not if you’re comparing her to the Grand-class ships that Princess operates. The obvious odd sign of rust that is unavoidable, the tight squeeze into the shower unit (and associated shower curtain terror), and perhaps our bed was overdue a mattress refreshening, but otherwise clean, good carpets, good seating, nothing to say “Oh my God! How old is this ship!”
Did Island Princess feel small? Surprisingly, at least until you study the specs in more detail, really, really not. If anything, she felt much larger and quieter than Grand-class ships thanks to an abundance of outdoor space on top and on the promenade deck, and standard Princess venues such as Explorers and The Wheelhouse Bar being far larger than anything on other vessels.
Comparing Island Princess to other Princess Cruises ships.
- As just mentioned, Explorers and The Wheelhouse Bar were great sizes, and the two main venues aboard for activities.
- We don’t really do theatre performances but could tell that the one aboard Island Princess was somewhat smaller than that on other ships.
- There was a Sabatini’s, but no Crown Grill. Instead, there was the Bayou Café. We liked that it was different, and we’d love if Princess considered something unique like this on each ship to make them really stand out from one another; the current trend towards near-clones has become an issue for us in recent years. The food there was okay, but not really our thing, and the small space for music was a nice touch, but as a whole, thanks to its location, this felt an underused spot.
- The piazza or atrium was over four levels, not three, and the main venues were on decks 6 and 7, not just 7. The lower deck of the piazza felt tucked away, out of sight as a result. There was a very big Crooners bar on deck 7 but we did miss not having a Vines. The Good Spirits bar was just a general bar in all-but-name and didn’t seem to share any speciality cocktail options of its namesakes on other ships.
- Stairs and elevators were different. So, if you get on a Grand-class ship (and Royal-class too, I think) then all elevators go to all floors, and all elevators except the glass ones around the piazza face forwards so you always know where to head when stepping out of one if you need to hit the port or starboard side. On Island Princess the elevators at the fore and aft faced in opposite directions, and the fore ones only went down as far as deck 7. The stairs also stopped at deck 7. The glass piazza elevators only ran from decks 5 to 8. What this meant from a practical perspective was that finishing the evening in Explorers (deck 6) and going back to our room by the shortest route meant walking to the piazza, heading up to deck 7, walking through the Wheelhouse, then getting the elevator to deck 10. The upshot of these shortened stair and elevator routes, though, was that you never waited long for the next lift to arrive, and that was a boon when reboarding the ship in ports.
- Late night entertainment was non-existent. Maybe this will be different on other itineraries but 00:15 was the end of music in Explorers and that was that. No other venue played music late at night. No option for a cheesy disco somewhere.
- The smoking lounge, Churchill’s, was always busy, and we had feared that it being off the piazza right next to Crooners would be a problem, but in truth we never once smelled any cigarette smoke.
So, time for some statistics about this cruise. We sailed roundtrip from Southampton and visited Hamburg, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Oslo, Rotterdam, and Zeebrugge. Hamburg, Gothenburg, and Rotterdam were all new ports for us, and in Hamburg’s case this was our first visit to Germany. At full capacity Island Princess can carry around 2200 passengers and on this one there were around 1950, with about 1500 Americans, 300 Brits, and a smattering of other nations represented.
Some points about this cruise worth mentioning. Complimentary shuttle buses were in operation in several ports, and this was a nice surprise given our recent cruises aboard Sky Princess over the last year when it seemed like they’d been done away with entirely. The Captain’s Champagne Waterfall made an appearance for the first time since we can’t remember when too. We only did one excursion on this cruise and we both suffered from pre-cruise injuries that limited our walking (not that we didn’t push that to excess each day anyway) so far less was experienced than we’d have liked or have been used to in the past. We also both caught a horrible cold on the last couple of days – and it was just a cold – and came home feeling a little less invigorated and relaxed as a result. No fault of the cruise, though.
Now for a quick summary of each port stop:
Hamburg. We made use of the free shuttle bus here and visited two places of interest before rain drove us into the arms of bars. The first stop was Miniatur Wunderland, and I really cannot recommend this place enough. Check online for reviews, photos, videos, etc. if you’ve not been there before. We’d go again, and we’d aim to spend even longer than the two and a half hours we were there because there is just so very much to see and be delighted by. The next stop was to St Michael’s Church where we paid admission to access the tower and the crypt; the views over Hamburg from the former were fabulous. We sheltered from the rain in a bar that allowed smoking (urgh!) and only took cash (which we didn’t realise until trying to pay, but luckily had just enough Euros on us), both of which were unpleasant surprises you should be aware of when visiting Germany. The bar staff and patrons were very friendly, though. We then hit a craft ale place when it opened and had the place to ourselves, chatting with the barman, enjoying some weird drinks for ages. Weather and achy legs saw us curtail our planned walk to the ship along the waterside in favour of a returning shuttle bus instead.
Gothenburg. Another free shuttle bus here, and necessary because the ship docked about 12 kilometres from the centre of the city with very nearly absolutely nothing around of interest at the port. The city reminded me of St Petersburg in some ways with its wide streets, reasonably low buildings, and canals. We picked some points we thought would be of interest and walked to the Horticultural Society – a very nice 19th century Palmhouse there – then the Universeum science museum. That place was large and arguably a good choice for people with kids, but only the rainforest section really impressed us as adults. We came away from this Swedish port wishing we’d explored in another direction from the shuttle bus stop, and a general feeling that the local Swedes weren’t particularly friendly, certainly weren’t considerate, and that we certainly wouldn’t rush back to Gothenburg given the long shuttle bus needed and overall experience there.
Copenhagen. Our third visit to the Danish capital, and with two extensive tours under our belts on previous trips (one of which only a few months earlier) we simply did our own thing here, taking the complimentary shuttle in once more then going for a walk with only one destination in mind. In fact, we then spotted the city museum and popped in there first, and that was really interesting. There’s a section on the city’s architects and street photographers in particular that I loved. Our main interest was Taphouse, a craft ale bar with 61 beers on tap. Great staff, incredible range of ales to sample, very good indeed.
Oslo. Our only excursion was here, taking us first to Hadeland Glassverk as Marie wanted to see a glass-blowing demonstration and possibly pick up some abstract glass bauble of some kind. That wasn’t to be as this was more a small craft retail park with open viewing areas for people to watch glass-blown manufacturing. Good, impressive, but not what we’d expected. After that, though, was Kistefos, a park with modern art sculptures along a good trail and a world-famous architectural masterpiece of a bridge and gallery in one called The Twist. This was all fantastic, even if we didn’t have anywhere near enough time to see all that we wanted, and we had The Twist opened up especially for our trip as it should have been closed on the day of visiting, so extra special indeed.
Rotterdam. We avoided the places everyone else seems to visit – the food hall and Cube houses – and headed off through het Park then Museumpark to take a look around Huis Sonneveld. As fans of modernist art and architecture, this was an absolute joy to see. We’d live there if we could. Our injuries got the most of us on this first visit to this Dutch city, though, so we skipped the planned visits to the nearby museums and gingerly made our way back to the ship early. What we saw of Rotterdam we liked an awful lot, and with its incredible sail out past houses lighting up at night and with people in their windows watching us cruise past, this is a city we need to come back and visit again and again.
Zeebrugge. A familiar port, and somewhere from where we’ve always headed to Ghent or Bruges in the past, but on this occasion paid for the independent shuttle to nearby Blankenberge instead. The architecture along the seafront was stunning, helped by glorious sunshine, and the beach was very impressive. We visited Belgium Pier (we like a pier) and Sea Life Blankenberge (we like an aquarium) but that was the extent to which we could push our walking ailments.
Okay, that will do for now. We had a lovely time on Island Princess and there will be so much more to mention of the ship and ports when I get around to writing up about this cruise, but that could be a while as I’m about a year behind travelogue write-ups at the moment. On the other hand, no cruises planned (or even possible thanks to annual leave) for the next six months (sob) so there’s a chance I’ll catch up.