THE PACIFIC PRINCESS

 

 

ITINERARY of the SEPTEMBER 2006 VOYAGE

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 1st 2006 PACFIC PRINCESS

Departs Mumbai at 6:00 PM

12:00 noon saw us at the dockside ready to board the Pacific Princess, which has just over 600 passengers and a crew of 373 thus making it one of the smaller Cruise Ships in the Princess Line. Over the years we have found that we prefer the smaller ships to the huge more impersonal boats. We had booked a stateroom that had a window view of the ocean, but when we arrived, we found out that we had lucked out again. We had been upgraded from our view only room to one that has a balcony just below the bridge. This was in a similar location to the one we had for the South American Cruise. We could actually watch the Captain, on his flying bridge, docking and leaving port. Kind a neat .... Let the eating begin!!!!!

The other worry you have on board these boats is just who will make up your dinner group. We had asked for a table of 8, and if one couple did not work out, it could make the dining process rather tedious. Once again we were lucky. Our table mates turned out to be a good group, and we looked forward to dinner every night. We had two South African gentlemen, Hector and Michael, who were both widowers and now traveling together, Arthur and Gecko from California, and Linda and Len from Seattle. Many lively discussions and arguments were conducted between courses. Completely enjoyable!

Now comes the down side, unfortunately! Over the years we have seen the food go from being a true 5 star level quality to perhaps a 3 to 4 star level. They even have now two extra restaurants on the top deck that cost extra. One night it is a Steakhouse and the next night an Italian Restaurant. The Steakhouse charges a $15.00 pp surcharge and the Italian place $20.00 pp. That level of service and quality of food used to be standard in the main dining room. Not any more!!! It is a pity really! Booze costs have soared also. A bottle of wine at dinner costs the same as in any nice restaurant Stateside, as did any drink at one of the many ship bars. Now, this is not really a problem until you consider that the booze they are selling is duty free to them. In the old days of cruising, as soon as you were in international waters, drink prices reflected the duty free costs, and the average person could afford to have a G & T of an evening. The insult does not end there, even though they are charging you $10.00 per person, per day for tips to the crew, all liquor costs have an automatic 15% tip added on top of the price. So a beer that is $4.00 in the bar actually cost $4.60. The waiter gives you a nasty look if you just sign for the drink, and then leave with no extra tip on the table. "Whoa" said Elsie. "Too much money"!! So, I started to investigate. If you ordered a mickey of gin and 3 tonic waters from Room Service, it costs $15.00 plus tip or $17.25. Well, we had a balcony where we could sip a pre dinner beverage in the comfort of our own room. The bottle would last for 4 nights so gracious living was preserved! But no wine with dinner ... sigh!

As I have mentioned in previous epistles, we have done a fair amount of cruising with Princess. They have me down for completing 12 cruises and this entitles me to Platinum Status. The only thing that it is good for is free Internet service when the damn thing was working. If you are not a Platinum member, the costs are ... are you ready for this???? $.52 per minute -- just a tad expensive don't you think??? Our last bill totaled all costs and actually showed the Internet costs that were credited back to us as being well over $200.00 -- and we did not use the thing that often as it was more frequently not working as working. Cruising costs money!

 

Another cruising cost is the port tours.

 

Considering that the total cost of the cruise for the two of us, including airfares, was $5887.52US, this added touring cost is almost 50% of the cost of us getting there by plane, and spending 16 days eating and sleeping. It does seem to be a tad high! One proof of this was the cost of the transfer from the ship to the Princess Hotel in Bangkok. We had been to Bangkok before and had found a family run hotel that suited us to a "T". The cost of a night in this hotel, The Federal, was $37.00 (Cdn). The Princess one was well over $100.00 US. Plus, the cost of a transfer to the hotel was $59.00 US per person. We decided that we would dig up a cab and do it on our own. Princess warned us that the port was really out of town, and the local cabs were tiny and very uncomfortable for people with large pieces of luggage. This we totally ignored and just left the ship and looked around. It was not hard to find a van sized cab waiting on the dock and after a little talking, the cabbie was willing to take us to the Federal Hotel for a total of $50.00 US. Compared to 59.0 x 2= $118.00 US, it did makes us even more suspicious about the profit levels Princess has on its off ship experiences.

Would we cruse again? Probably, but it will depend ... As we get older, cruising is an easy way to see different countries, safely, but you don't really experience them. The two tour things that made this trip worthwhile was the India land Portion that we arranged and the Angkor Wat trip that Princess set up. Could we have done the Angkor Wat trip cheaper??? Probably, but it would take a lot of internet organization just to get there let alone the guides etc. So, I guess there was value there ...

Anyway, I won't spend a lot of time here talking about the Cruise portion. Clock on the picture link below for more details on the tours themselves...

Go to "Pictures"

Return to "India Page"