Now, let’s be clear up front about this post in our Sky Princess UK cruise travelogue series: there is not a lot to talk about. I know that doesn’t stop me waffling on and on, paragraph after paragraph usually, but, truly, the two days over which the photos and words of this post take place mostly just involved relaxing, and there’s not a whole lot that can be written about relaxing.
We relaxed, in a relaxing manner, relaxingishly. Relaxedly. Relax-like. In the manner of people relaxing, like they do.
This post, therefore, is a bit of blurb around the photographs taken on Sky Princess as she cruised from Portland (that’s the previous post in this series) around the British coastline, and up between Wales and Ireland towards Northern Ireland where a first visit to Belfast and that part of the UK awaited us. What photos did I take? Sea views? Yes, because we were at sea. Food? Yes, because we hit two speciality dining venues on these two days. Drink? Yes, of course, because, holy crap, have you read any other post I’ve ever put up?
How do you relax on a cruise? Do you wander into the atrium on the ship and find a seat to have a drink? It looks like we did. The Piazza is what Princess call their atrium area, but because they don’t have glass roofs and because someone went to Italy once and thought it sounded exotic they decided on piazza instead. It fits, especially given that most of the ships are built in Italy and this is the central hub off which you can find all those sorts of things you’d find in any Italian town square: bars, restaurants, a place to people watch, drive-by Mafia shootings, the Pope, Vespas beeping, colourful Minis careering down the stairs, and so on.
We are fond of trivia when we go cruising, and we usually do very well, winning on most cruises. That didn’t happen on Sky Princess and we’re going to blame the venue for quizzing – the Live Lounge – for that. It wasn’t that it was rammed – although it was, every day – or that there’s constant distraction because people keep passing by since it’s open plan and close to a main corridor, but it was the silly Covid restrictions they kept enforcing (or trying to enforce) here. Everywhere on the ship, if you were sitting down, you didn’t need to wear a mask, with two exceptions: the big, spacious Princess Theatre and the big, open plan Live Lounge. If you were in the lounge, sitting quietly, wanting to do a quiz, you were supposed to mask up. If you were sitting across the corridor – where the shot is taken from – and still able to do the quiz, you didn’t need to mask up. I will follow instructions unless they’re stupid. A lot of people ignored the restriction because it didn’t make any sense, and when you’re quizzing it is actually a hell of a hindrance. Leaning in to whisper an answer to a team mate, having that whisper muffled and unaided by lip-reading visual clues: “Did you say you thought the capital of Sierra Leone was Fermmermegh? That’s not a word!” Yeah, we didn’t enjoy the quizzes that much. And that’s why we didn’t win any. It wasn’t because we’re thick. Or drunk. It wasn’t just because of those reasons.
We had what we knew would be filling evening dinner plans for this first sea day so lunch was light, if you also go along with my definition that some beer and wine in Vines is a light meal. It was a good place to listen to the piano and string trio in the piazza.
We went to an art auction in the early afternoon, although you’ll have to take my untrustworthy word for it since I neglected to take any pictures. We still haven’t really forgiven Park West (the people who run these auctions on many Carnival group lines’ ships) for The Incident but we are nosey, and there’s only so much drinking and reading in a day you can do (I lie!) so we thought, why not? We didn’t buy any art at the auction. But… we were invited to the gallery afterwards and given an offer we couldn’t refuse for a sculpture and a piece that would fit our collection. Honestly, it was a stupidly good price.
Early evening on a Princess ship is the time when the Elite Lounge opens up. On Sky Princess this took place in the Vista Lounge. For Platinum and Elite level guests only, this place offers light nibbles of the bread, cheese, and meats variety, plus some exclusive cocktails at discounted prices. Prior to the introduction of the fabulous Princess Plus package which includes up to fifteen drinks per day, this was a way to save a little bit of money on drinks, but its role these days is less exclusive. It’s still nice to go there, and it didn’t stop us trying every drink on the menu. We were on holiday, so you shut your mouth.
You’re going to think we’re weird but one thing we really like to see on cruise ships is rotating light patterns on walls and curtains. We will always pass them by and say “Now, listen to me. Listen to me.” Look, we watch a lot of movies. I’m sure you know which one I’m referring to here.
Dinner on this first sea day was in the excellent Crown Grill speciality restaurant on Sky Princess. We will almost always dine here on a cruise. Yes, it’s a little extra (but so good value for money). Yes, we don’t tend to vary what we have very much at all. It’s just that good. Hit the search on this site (you do know you can search for things off the Content submenu, right?) and look for all the other times we’ve visited the Crown Grill on Princess Cruises ships if you want more information.
If you thought we didn’t do a whole lot of much on the first sea day then just you wait for day two! Which is here now.
We spent a lot of time on our aft balcony on this day, reading and drinking. There are cruisers who absolutely love aft balconies and get all giddy with excitement at being on them, and fair play to them; we’ve all got our thing. We’re a little more ambivalent towards them, preferring to see waves go past the ship and feel more up and down motion with a tilting horizon that you get nearer the front of the ship, but the aft balconies on Sky Princess – especially on our deck (see the first post in this series to find out where that was) – were huge, partly covered, and especially nice. They made for nice sun traps and protected us from the wind which was strong and cold.
If you are a fan of wake views from the aft of a cruise ship then feast your eyes on these photos and video below.
The Vista Lounge was where we headed again in the evening, though not for the Elite Lounge this time, but the Captain’s Circle Party instead. Another chance for free nibbles, and free drinks as well for all attendees (and you can do very well out of this if you keep catching the eye of staff). This event is a chance for the captain and senior members of the loyalty scheme to boast about the number of people aboard, what’s happening in the fleet, new ships and destinations on the horizon, etc. It’s also a chance for the most-travelled passengers aboard to win some goodies, for everyone to win the chance of a bottle of something, and for photos with the captain for those who want it.
After the Elite Lounge we made our way to Take Five, which, as you can guess from its name, is the jazz lounge on the ship, and which, as you can’t guess from its name, is on deck six. Still annoys me. We did like Take Five a lot, though, and ended up in here pretty every night at some point. Jazz – either from a jukebox or the trio led by Larry King (not that one) on piano – and a wonderful array of cocktails on the menu. Photos and some video of the jazz are below.
And the evening meal for the second of these sea days before Belfast was at wonderful, wonderful Sabatini’s. If you were to ask me to describe Sabatini’s in one word then it would be wonderful, but I’d likely repeat it because it’s really quite wonderful. Again, as with the Crown Grill, there’s a small upcharge and you can tell we visit this venue a lot on Princess ships by making use of the search facility; and you’ll be able to find out more about the restaurant and its menu that way because I’m not repeating it now. I’m just repeating the word wonderful. Wonderful.
The only problem with Sabatini’s is that you really should opt for elective surgery prior to your cruise in order to fit in an additional, elasticated stomach. We didn’t, and tried to fool our bodies into thinking everything was okay and this was another day and please don’t explode by taking a walk onto the ship’s promenade deck for some air. We didn’t explode, but we did decide on an early night.
In the next post in this Sky Princess UK cruise travelogue series I’ll cover Belfast, a city we’d never been to before and which… we still really haven’t since we took an excursion to the north coast to look at the Giant’s Causeway instead. There will be rock formations.