The time has come to start a new travelogue series, a mere sixteen months after actually taking the cruise! And what was that cruise? This cruise was described as a 10 days Western Europe cruise and it took place aboard Island Princess, which, as you can probably tell or even guess by the name, was a ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises. If you’re familiar with our cruising history in general then you’ll know that we like Princess Cruises a lot – they suit us well – and if you’re familiar with our cruising history with a sharp degree of specificity then it’s always nice to have your stalker reading what you’re posting on the internet and you’ll know that this was our first cruise on Island Princess.
Island Princess is one of the older vessels in the fleet (launched in 2002), and one of the smallest. She is one of only two Panamax ships (that’s ships that meet the requirements to pass through the older locks of the Panama Canal) owned by Princess Cruises, the other being Coral Princess, and the pair of them being Coral-class vessels.
When we cruise, for us it’s the itinerary that is the primary driver, coupled with value for money next. The ship is less important than the cruise line because not all cruise lines suit all types of people – for instance, I really don’t see us hopping on Carnival at any time soon; although, to be fair, I did say the same about Virgin Voyages – and only then does the ship potentially play a part, with us preferring to try ships that we haven’t over those that we have.
Hence, in September 2022 we boarded Island Princess. This would be a cruise visiting three new ports including one new country (that’s the itinerary part checked off), with Princess Cruises (and we know we like them), on Island Princess (a ship we’d not cruised on before). The price per person per night (which is how we determine value) was at the high end of our typical spend but we decided to go for it anyway. Naturally, we opted for the drinks package, knowing we’d get our money’s worth there, and hunted around for big balconies, because we are fond of a nice big balcony.
A very easy embarkation process had us aboard Island Princess at Southampton in no time where we discovered our balcony was enormous. As you can tell below. Newer ships are just terrible in this respect. However, newer ships do tend to have somewhat larger shower units. The shower on Island was a tight fit. And yes, the oft-talked-about clingy shower curtain was there.
The photographs below of the room and balcony are for cabin C317.
It wasn’t just our balcony that surprised us with its space. In fact, we’d find out on this cruise very quickly that far from feeling small and cramped, Island Princess often felt cavernous. The venues were larger and laid out in a way to be longer along the ship’s length given its narrower profile. Additionally, entertainments lounges were located on two decks rather than the one more typical on Princess ships, further spreading out passengers. Finally, add in the slightly older demographic attracted to a smaller, older ship – the overwhelming majority of passengers were Americans who’d come across to see jolly old Europe – and you ended up with a quieter, emptier-feeling ship for this cruise, although not in a bad way.
Embarkation day activities on a cruise ship are fairly limited and the ship can be a little chaotic as people are boarding throughout the day so we went for a small wander to orient ourselves, enjoying the differences in familiar locations such as the Wheelhouse snug areas with lots of old P&O memorabilia.
We grabbed a drink in Crooners – starting with a not-a-cocktail each because it was fairly early (I know; that’s a terrible reason; I feel bad even admitting it and writing it) – above the Piazza stretched strangely over four decks on this class of ship, and waited until close to sail away to see what it was like from the top deck for once.
It was grey and drizzly and there was nobody about so we headed back to our cabin instead to see Island Princess leave Southampton behind and start her European cruise. We’ve had far more pleasant sail aways but let’s be honest: who actually cares what the sail away is like? The important point is that you’re sailing away and you’re about to begin a cruise.
To finish up the barebones account of our first day aboard Island Princess here are some photos of more drinks in Crooners and food in the main dining room. You might notice that there’s nothing from general entertainment venues; no dancing, late-night music, that sort of thing. What we would discover on this cruise is that entertainment was rather poor, finishing far earlier than we were used to. It wasn’t a big deal for us and it was likely limited to the type of cruise, high proportion of older Americans aboard, and perhaps just the cruise director at the time.
While our embarkation day experience for Island Princess had been fine but grey and damp and cool, the following day at sea before the first of our port stops took place with gorgeous weather to accompany us. The North Sea often conjures up images of rolling grey waves, views of oil rigs, lots of container ships and car ferries, but it was warm and bright and calm enough to have been somewhere in the Pacific.
We spent the day doing very little indeed. Trivia was undertaken, unsuccessfully, and there was a little bit of a wander around. We would have had a swim if the pool had been filled but it wasn’t for reasons not shared with us. So, instead, once our room had been freshened up by the steward we returned to it and made use of that large balcony, reading, enjoying the sunshine and sea views, and ordering the odd drink and snacks just because we could.
We booked speciality dining for the evening. One thing we had been keen to try was the Bayou Café, one of the additional charge restaurants on Island Princess, and not something we’d seen on any other Princess Cruises ship on any of our travels.
It’s been a very minor gripe of ours with cruising over the years that there are often overlooked opportunities to make ships stand out in the fleet, and perhaps encourage people to try different vessels and itineraries. If you’ve cruised a lot with Princess – and we have – then you know that the two main speciality dining venues they have on board are the Crown Grill and Sabatini’s, catering for steak fans and Italian food fans respectively. They’re very good, and yes, it is nice to have something familiar, to look forward to treating yourself with something you know is good. But we’ve often talked about maybe mixing it up a bit and putting something else in place, perhaps specific to an itinerary or a ship based on its name, just to add a little variety. I know that ships will theme offerings in the buffet, but that’s the buffet.
[IMPORTANT UPDATE! Since writing this, it’s come to our attention that Princess have decided to turn the Bayou on Island Princess into a generic steakhouse experience instead now. Hugely disappointing to see, but a likely sign of cost-cutting to simplify things across the fleet and satisfy both shareholders and the old traditionalists who can’t bear to embrace the differences. Ho hum.]
So, we were looking forward to what we’d eat in Bayou Café because it did exactly what we’d always wanted: provide something close to unique amongst the ships in the fleet. We had some pre-dinner drinks for that is the law of the sea, then headed to the restaurant to be greeted by a small queue of people. It transpired that we all had bookings for around the same time and there weren’t seats available according to someone ahead of us. This isn’t good, we thought. We were all ushered into the small music and bar area next to the restaurant to wait, and our expectation given the number of people apparently in the same situation as us was that this would take a while. Not a great start. However, we’d been there barely a minute before we were called to our table. Why did we jump ahead of everyone else? Who knows? Perhaps they all turned up stupidly early whereas we were there pretty much on the dot of our booked table. Perhaps we just had those don’t-mess-with-them faces. Perhaps both.
What was the food like in the Bayou Café on Island Princess? That’s a tricky one to answer. It might have been excellent and it might have been terrible and it might have been just okay. We had nothing to compare it against because we don’t eat Cajun-spiced food. We wanted to try something in that style to see if we liked it, and it was okay, but ultimately not to either of our tastes. Was it cooked the right way? Haven’t a clue. Was it too spicy or not spicy enough? How would we know? What we did like was that it was different, and new experiences are always good. But we’d have to see if the menu changed significantly before we’d visit again, I suspect. [EDIT: Given that it’s now a generic steakhouse with nothing to distinguish it from any other in the Princess fleet, we probably wouldn’t bother.]
We finished off the evening with a slow walk around the wonderfully wide promenade deck of Island Princess.
In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll be docking at Hamburg, a first time in this port for either of us and also the first time in Germany for either of us.