This is a companion piece to the Cruising To Norway On Crown Princess post which had covered the first couple of days aboard the Princess Cruises ship Crown Princess on its way from Southampton to Norway via the North Sea. On the final day of this week-long cruise to see the fantastic fjords we had to make the return trip back to the UK because the Norwegians get snippy if you just let a load of cruise ships pile up around their coastline.
There wasn’t a whole lot of photographing around the ship on this sea day because pictures had been taken earlier in the holiday but I did decide to snap some shots as we completed a walk around the ship’s promenade.
Not every cruise ship has a promenade and not every cruise ship with a promenade has a full wrap-around promenade, but the Grand-class ships operated by Princess do. Located on deck seven – the top of the piazza and where the main entertainments lounges are located – it’s possible to step outside and walk around the ship’s exterior with just a small raised section requiring you to ascend then descend some steps. The promenade is a popular place for those who haven’t got balcony cabins but seek some peaceful, ocean-staring action, and for those who like to get some exercise to offset the calories all-too-readily-available on the ship; you’ll often see people power-walking laps and you’ll see signs on the deck telling you how many laps there are to a mile if you’re keen on tracking such information and still fond of imperial measurements. If you like getting close to the wave-cutting action of the bow or the powerful, churning beauty of the wake then it’s a lovely location for that, and if the weather’s behaving itself then one side might be shaded and the other in full sunlight to give you options to suit your preferences there.
This post, then, is simply a photowalk around the promenade deck of Crown Princess. Pictures of the sea, of distant oil and gas platforms, of the deck and other cruise ship passengers, of bits of the ship, just to give you a feel for the experience.
This final photo is a little bit of a cheat since it was taken from our balcony at the conclusion of our gentle exercise around the promenade deck, but it was also the last picture taken on Crown Princess on this Norwegian Fjords cruise back in 2013 and it’s not a bad one as it turns out.
