Time now to conclude this travelogue series of posts chronicling our week-long cruise in UK waters aboard Sky Princess in 2021 and, with the final day being a sea day, an opportunity to have a walk through part of the cruise ship’s interior spaces, taking photos. There won’t be a lot to say about these pictures but that’s okay because for the vast majority of people there won’t be a lot of point even looking at these pictures either. Consider this a small photographic walking tour around the piazza (or atrium) of Sky Princess, featuring all the sorts of sights you can probably more easily get a feel for by watching one of likely hundreds of cruise bloggers’ videos showing the exact same thing on YouTube. At the end I’ll put my conclusions about our first cruise on Sky Princess.
I left my wife at the Crown Grill Bar on Deck 7 with her Kindle and the prospect of a frothy coffee on the way if the app was to be believed.
Heading forward takes you past Princess Live!, the location for a number of failed attempts to win trivia on this cruise for us, and then onto the Piazza.
The starboard side of the top level of the Piazza is where you can find Alfredo’s for complimentary pizza (edit: at time of writing; no longer true) most of the day. If the ship is travelling southwards and it’s not overcast then this is a lovely spot to head for dinner instead of one of the main dining rooms as you’ll get a lovely view of the sunset from here.
The Ocean Terrace bar is also on the top level of the Piazza and it serves sushi. I’m not sure we ever saw anyone eat there and it feels like a spot that could be better used in our opinion.
For ecological reasons they no longer have balloon drops on Princess ships but you can still find some on Sky Princess. The glass balloons are popular with people holding cameras.
Opposite Alfredo’s is Bistro Sur La Mer; a bistro by night, and a spot to order coffee during the day, but another area that’s perhaps not utilised optimally and that’s perhaps too large for its intended purpose. This top level of the piazza really needs a rethink. Like the pizza place, though, with this being on the port side of the ship then it might be a nice location for dinner on a clear evening if the ship is heading northwards, but unlike the pizza place, you’ll have to pay for the privilege here.
Continuing forward takes you past a number of shops. Perfumes, bags, watches, shirts, that sort of thing. Also a snazzy-looking Princess onesie.
Every landing on the stairwells has artwork to admire and, by the end of the cruise if you use the same stairs over and over again, use as a way of identifying which deck of the ship you’re on.
Deck 6 is where you’ll find the Casino. As they no longer have the machine where you drop coins in and hope they’ll knock more out or some notes or gifts this wasn’t a place we ever went to. This is one of the only places on the ship indoors where you’re permitted to smoke and it’s a terrible, terrible place because of it. Your health on a cruise ship is very important… but not as important as fleecing money from people with addictive personalities.
Good Spirits At Sea (cocktail bar) and the Take Five jazz lounge are also on Deck 6 off the piazza. There will be more on the former later in this post, and the latter has been covered in other accounts of this cruise as it’s where we ended up spending most evenings.
The lower part of the Piazza is on Deck 5 and it’s here that you’ll Bellini’s, the International Café, Vines, and Gelato.
Moving forward again on the lowest Piazza deck takes you through the Guest Services area (often a good spot for looking at queues of people if that’s your thing), off which you can also reach Sabatini’s and the Lotus Spa.
Because this short walk around Sky Princess’s interior took place during The Pandemic Era I had to wear a mask when not seated so took the opportunity to head out onto the Promenade on Deck 7 before returning to my wife in order to get some air. The promenade area on these Royal-class ships isn’t terribly good, it has to be said.
Arriving back at the Crown Grill Bar to tell my wife I was tired and done with photographing things I took the opportunity to duck into the Crown Grill itself for a few final pictures.
We decided that lunch for our final day on Sky Princess would be in Alfredo’s and, since that was right next to the Good Spirits bar we also decided that some cocktails might be in order. At the time of this cruise we were on the Princess Plus drinks package and were only paying the difference above the $12 threshold for these drinks. Since this time Princess have changed the terms of the packages and you would now pay the full price for drinks over $12 in this bar unless they were under the $18 limit and you have the new Princess Premier drinks package. I don’t think this is a sensible move and could lead to far fewer people trying drinks from the Good Spirits bar but time will tell.
I’ll finish this post with some photos from our aft balcony of the sea and the ship’s wake, some evidence that we didn’t solely drink alcohol on this cruise, our dinner on the final night, and the last couple of cocktails from Take Five before calling it a night.
Southampton greeted us the following morning, as it often does when we cruise.
Sky Princess Cruise Conclusions
That brings this travelogue series to an end for our first cruise aboard Sky Princess. What did we think?
Sky Princess was the third Royal-class ship we’d cruised on at this point, with the other two being Royal Princess in 2016 and Regal Princess earlier in the year in 2021. Sky Princess felt like an improvement over those ships generally. The Princess Live! change from a TV studio to a more normal entertainments lounge was a welcome one and we liked the addition of the jazz lounge even though we still miss a small, cheesy disco environment such as Skywalkers on the Grand-class vessels. The adults pool, however, was not as nice on Sky Princess as on Royal or Regal; it wasn’t bad, but there was no opportunity to look out to sea, it felt a little claustrophobic, it didn’t make any difference to how much wind was blowing in, and it was too shallow. Certainly, for this cruise, the technology was a big improvement over our experience on Regal (it didn’t exist for Royal at that time) and that can be attributed to it being built in during construction rather than retrofitted later. Food was very good, and particularly in the main dining room.
In terms of the destinations, for both Portland and Liverpool these were places we were familiar with so there was nothing outstanding to report there. However, getting to visit the Giant’s Causeway while also ticking off a trip to Northern Ireland for the first time was excellent, and about the best we could do during this period that was only just seeing cruising find its sea legs again after the numerous global lockdowns
What did we think? We thought it was a fabulous cruise, and the first of those in 2021 that really felt close to being a proper cruise again.