The third and fourth days of our cruise from Chile to America on Star Princess were spent at sea. We’d left Chile behind now, the visit to the observatory and recovery of our missing luggage being both fabulous events on that day, and our next stop would be a new country for us, Peru.
Ordinarily, I would take a crapload of photos around the ship at this point and you might even expect more pictures than usual because I’d been rationing my photo-taking on account of not having a battery charger until the evening of the previous day. However, the weather didn’t really inspire this sort of activity for these sea days. Our trek northwards along the South American coastline was accompanied by low clouds for the most part. It was still nice and warm but the light wasn’t good enough to really show off the cruise ship in its best light. For this reason, and because I knew there would be plenty of other opportunities to take a photo tour of the ship, my camera stayed mostly in our room while we wandered around Star Princess’s venues, entertaining ourselves or finding relaxing spots to drink and read and watch the world go by; the vast majority of pictures on this post, therefore, were taken on my phone.
Star Princess Shots
There were still some photos of the ship itself, of course. Despite us having been on Star Princess before and despite us having been on Grand-class ships more than any other and despite the light not being great I still took photos of the pool and from the balcony. These things are not just traditional, they’re also a means by which I can assure my wife I’ve not been taken over by pod people. Had I not taken these sorts of shots then I would have been stabbed through the neck with a Princess biro and thrown overboard, and rightly so. I know they say you’re not supposed to throw anything overboard during the muster drill but there’s a good argument for exceptions being made for pod people.
The piazza hosted some Argentinian Tango dancing on a number of occasions and it was on one of these sea days that I managed to capture some of it. This brought back fond memories of our previous cruise to this part of the world.
One of our big joys on this cruise was chancing upon the following sign on our cabin steward’s cleaning cart in the corridor outside our room. We already knew that we were in the area of the ship designated Ten Forward but to also discover that we were in Section 31 really made our Star Trek-loving hearts flutter with happiness.
We watched shoals of flying fish from our balcony for the best part of an hour on one of the sea days. There were easily over a hundred of them. We’d never seen them before and it was surprising not only how far they flew over the water but that they also changed direction so frequently. We had hoped that they were fleeing from something below that waves that would surface at some point but we never saw anything and for all we know they just really like the feel of air across their fins.
We swam both days because that’s what we do on cruise ships. Our preferred location is the adults only pool and that led to a run-in with a South American family whose young son started peeling off his outer layers ready to clamber into the pool. I swam to the side and tried to explain that it was adults only and that he wasn’t allowed. His mother came along. I explained to her. She pretended not to understand while reading the pool rules sign written in English. The father came along. I explained to him. I pointed to the sign that said it was for adults only and figured that word “adults” was probably similar enough in most languages to be understood. I tried to explain that there were four other pools on the ship that the kid could swim in. It would be fair to say that my attempts to be helpful were not appreciated. The sarcastic clapping I got from the father was proof of that. The gesture I got from the kid behind his parents’ backs was further proof. The loud laugh I gave to that which made the child’s face look like it was about to break into sobbing was something I am proud to have done and I’m only sorry that we never bumped into them again on the cruise as I would have delighted in smirking into that entire family’s faces.
Drinks On Star Princess
A surprising thing for us, given that we’d been on Diamond Princess only five months earlier, was that all the drinks menus had changed. The first two travel portfolio posts from this cruise have included scans of drink menus in Crooners and the Wheelhouse Bar, and below is another menu that was in a few other lounges around the ship in case you’re interested in seeing how much it will cost to damage your liver on a cruise.
It’s here that I’d like to give a quick mention of the Princess drinks packages. This is a topic that comes up frequently enough on Facebook groups that it still surprises me that nobody there has come up with a tool for group admins to pattern-match on certain keywords and direct anyone posting on that subject to a frequently asked questions page. I suppose Facebook still haven’t perfected their perversion of democracy through targeted political advertising yet but I’d like to think that once we’ve all transformed into fascist states they’ll get around to it.
The drinks package, though: if you’ve ever wondered whether it’s worth getting the drinks package on a Princess ship then for the love of all that’s holy, work it out yourself. Don’t ask anyone else because they won’t drink the same way you do and the advice you’ll receive will be useless. We’ve worked it out for us. We know that for us it is never worth the purchase price of the drinks package with Princess Cruises. Other lines may be different because the average price of a drink might be less and the package price might be less too. But with Princess we’ve determined that we would need to drink seven or eight drinks a day to make the package worth the price. We will typically have one big blow-out day on a cruise where we drink in excess of that and on a port day we won’t get anywhere close because we won’t be on the ship. On most sea days we still won’t hit the level required to make a drinks package worth it and we’re not light drinkers by any means but if you are a raging alcoholic then it might just be worth it for you. Again, though, only you can know that. The following photos show some of the drinks we had over the two sea days.
Edit: The above information and ranting was correct at the time of publishing for this cruise in 2019, but subsequent drinks package changes have changed that somewhat.
Formal Night
If this were a Facebook cruise group then moving from drinks packages to talking about formal night would be the ultimate in trolling, but it isn’t and, more importantly, this isn’t going to be a talk about appropriate wear for men and women in the dining room.
The first of our two sea days was the first formal night aboard Star Princess. Early evening saw us up in Skywalkers Nightclub which is transformed into the Elite Lounge for a few hours for Platinum and Elite level guests, serving up complimentary nibbles and exclusive, lower-priced cocktails. It was a popular location every day but especially so on the formal nights on this cruise. As we dined late in the evening we would always turn up in our shorts and tee shirts we’d been wearing during the day but others made more of an effort and plenty of attendees were already in their posh frocks and dinner suits or tuxedoes.
We ended up sharing a table with two older women, one a solo cruiser since her husband had passed away, the other someone who’d gone cruising with a friend only to discover they shared almost nothing in common and wanted to do completely different things both on and off the ship, and who had subsequently bumped into the first woman on the first day’s excursion, got chatting, and decided to hang around together and keep each other company. The solo cruiser had some stunning stories to tell about her experiences on cruises but I wouldn’t do them justice recounting them now so I shan’t.
While the food quality is usually very good indeed and the range of food options perfectly acceptable too (especially when you consider just how many people need to be catered for), we have often found that formal night dinner offerings on Princess leave a lot to be desired. The last formal night does tend to be a little better in terms of food choices with lobster often making an appearance but by then we’ve usually had enough of formal dining. For this first of the formals on Star Princess we were again marginally underwhelmed with dinner but the chocolate dessert was absolutely gorgeous, as usual.
One thing that happened during dinner made us smile. We were on a table for eight, sharing with an Australian couple, a Californian couple, and two Hungarian ex-pats who lived in America. During the main course the Hungarian man put down his cutlery and told us all at the table that he was so pleased he’d dined with us all that night because in the 44 years he’d been living in America and on all the cruises they’d taken this was the first time he’d ever sat with people who knew how to use their knives and forks properly.
Speciality Dining At Sabatini’s Italian Restaurant
While the formal night dinner had been mostly unexciting, the same cannot be said for our dining experience on the second of the two sea days.
When we’d booked this Star Princess cruise it had been during one of Princess’s 3-For-Free deals. The three free elements are additional onboard credit to offset against excursions and bar bills, one free speciality dining evening, and one bottle of wine. That’s all per person and not per cabin. In our room, therefore, on our arrival we’d been greeted by this:
It’s my understanding that you can change the allocated sitting date and time if it’s not suitable but even though it was considerably earlier than we’d normally eat (as we’re not barbarians), we figured that the time slot probably worked best for the restaurant’s planning so we’d go along with it. We’re good like that.
We’ve eaten in Sabatini’s before and enjoyed it immensely (even if we learned that you cannot trust an Italian chef to cook you a steak properly so just don’t even bother asking) so we were happy with the allocation of that restaurant. It was as we sat down for the meal that we realised that it wasn’t just the drinks menus on Star Princess that had changed; the Sabatini’s menu had been completely revamped too. Apparently, only a few ships in the fleet currently have this new menu and that’s a shame as it’s far superior to the older one.
First order of business was picking a wine and, true to recent form, Princess didn’t have the first one we wanted. It’s an Italian restaurant, Princess, so please have Barolo stocked. That moan out of the way, our waiter gave us a recommendation for a Pinot Noir that he said was similar and which, it turned out, we would have a number of additional times on the ship. It was bloody lovely. It’s worth mentioning here that the “free bottle of red or white wine” voucher that comes with the 3-For-Free deal is really just a wine discount and you pay the excess.
And so to our speciality dining food. Not pictured here is the basket of assorted bread that was delivered to the table. I feel nothing but shame for this omission on this occasion but can assure you that it was possibly the finest bread I’ve ever eaten. If you like bread half as much as I do – and that’s quite a challenge – then you are going to love the bread at Sabatini’s. Also not pictured is the plate of prosciutto and the deep fried pizza dough ball things (I don’t know how to describe them, but they were great!) with dipping sauce. This aperitivo course was described on the menu as “warm rustic whole-wheat loaf, tuscan zonzelle with roasted tomato & bell pepper passata, prosciutto crudo, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar.” Again, I have no excuses other than to say that I’ve let myself down here. This wouldn’t be the only time that we went to Sabatini’s, though, so a later post in this cruise series will make up for this.
For our antipasti dishes my wife chose Frittino di Paranza (chickpea fritters, squid, prawns, eggplant, carrots, green beans, lemon garlic aioli) while I had Arrosticini di Agnello (grilled lamb skewers marinated with oregano & extra virgin olive oil, arugula salad).
Next up was a choice of soup or salad and we both went for the soup, the Grana Padano Fondue (celery, foraged mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts). Now, I don’t like cheese and I really don’t like mushrooms but this was unbelievably tasty. Plenty of bread was used mopping up the bowl.
Next was the pasta course, the dal pastaio. My wife picked Buckwheat Pappardelle (wide ribbon pasta, celeriac, nebbiolo-braised beef cheek) here while I chose the Tortelloni (mint-speckled pasta, roasted lamb, pecorino crosta nera, cacio e pepe sauce, broccoli rabe). The pasta was so good and the sauce was almost identical (and might even have been the same) to the soup I’d just devoured so this was particularly nice even if it meant I was in danger of overdosing on the stuff.
The secondi piatti course saw me choosing Scaloppine di Pollo, Salsa al Limoncello con Rosemarino (seared chicken breast, sorrento lemon, asparagus, rosemary sauce, garlic, pine nuts, capers, olive oil & parsley mashed potatoes) while my wife went for Porchetta (rolled pork belly toscana, potatoes, spinach, roasted tomato).
We went tiramisu crazy for dessert, both picking the famous Italian dish to finish the meal with and also selecting a tiramisu cocktail from the exclusive drinks list. The tiramisu was presented beautifully but its deconstructed and rearranged nature wasn’t what we were expecting and it seemed to lack that tiramisu taste overall.
The new Sabatini’s menu aboard Star Princess was excellent in every respect except one: there was too much food. I don’t want to hear any rubbish along the lines of “Nobody was forcing you to eat all that bread, Mark” because I’m half Irish and consider that a racist attack on me. After the cruise I gave feedback that amounted to saying “please reduce the portion sizes in Sabatini’s by about 20%” because speciality dining should be an occasion where you reach the end of the meal and feel comfortably full but neither of us did and we were both struggling ahead of dessert. I know that Princess are an American company first-and-foremost and that American culture has this thing of wanting value for money and taking food away in doggy bags when you order more than you can sensibly eat – indeed, we saw other people having portions of their courses wrapped up for them – but this just feels so very wrong to us.
That one gripe aside, though, our Sabatini’s dining experience was so good that not only did we book speciality dining at the Crown Grill during the cruise but we also booked a second sitting at Sabatini’s in order to try out some other courses from the superb menu.
After two days at sea we would next have two days on land, both in Peru, and the first of those will be covered in the next post in this series, featuring our excursion to an Incan administrative complex.