Saturday, September 23, 2023. Day 1
Today we began an 84 day Adventure across the Pacific Ocean and around Australia and New Zealand. Price and Ciara drove us up to Vancouver BC to deliver us to Canada Place to board the Grand Princess, which is scheduled to cruise from Vancouver to Sydney Australia between September 23, 2023 and October 21, 2023. We will then rent a car in Sydney and explore the Blue Mountains and Hunter Valley regions of the New South Wales Australian state. We will then board the Coral Princess in Sydney on October 25, 2023 and circumnavigate Australia in a counter clockwise direction. We will arrive back in Sydney on November 22, 2023 and will rent another car and explore the coast line north of Sydney with day trips out of New Castle. Then we return to Sydney on November 25, 2023 and join a Princess cruise tour that will journey to the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, and Uluru, or Ayers Rock in the middle of the outback. The land tour will end in Sydney December 1st. We will then be joined by Price and Ciara to board the Royal Princess for a 13 night circumnavigation of New Zealand, returning to Sydney. We then return to Seattle on December 15th, 2023.
Since all 4 of us have Nexus cards, crossing the border into Canada was a breeze. We zipped pass a lot of cars in the holding lanes leading to the border crossing booths in the Nexus lane. It took only minutes for us to have our cards scanned and off we were. We did stop in Richmond, which is a large suburb of Vancouver which is a massive Asian community. Instead of Chinatown, it’s more like a whole city. We explored a huge mall called Landsdowne Center which is filled with Asian owned stores. It is very modern, clean and vibrant. There is a huge food court where we had dim sum items including Xiao Long Bao and pot stickers that were delicious and filling.
We then explored the huge T & T Supermarket, which is a mega Asian store on steroids.
The seafood department had huge aquariums filled with many different kinds of live fish and shell fish, including geoducks. You could watch the employees net the fish, knock them out and then wrap them up for customers.
It was interesting to see unusual versions of snack foods tailored for the Asian market, such as shrimp flavored Lays potato chips and K-Pop branded special flavored Oreos cookies.
The weather had started looking threatening, and by the time we left the Landsdowne Center, it had started to rain pretty hard. Traffic in Vancouver is terrible. It’s hard to imagine anything could be worse than Metro Seattle, but those Canadians have managed to top the Americans on that. It took nearly an hour to drive the 15 km from the Landsdowne Center to the Canada Place Cruise Ship terminal on the Vancouver waterfront.
We unloaded and said our farewells to Price and Ciara, who were planning on spending the night in a “Capsule Hotel” and exploring a famous Asian night market which is like a huge food truck/street vendor festival.
Dropping off our large bags and getting through the check in process was very quick and efficient. We didn’t really encounter any waiting until we hit Passport control, where we did have to line up and wait for self service kiosks to scan our passports and take our photos. Then our bags got whisked through X-ray and we walked onto the ship pretty much straight away. It took less time to get from the drop off curb to our stateroom than it took to drive from Landsdowne Center to Canada place.
We were a little taken back by the apparent size of our balcony stateroom. We had gotten accustomed to the large closets and bathrooms on the Royal/Regal class ships. To be fair, although our initial impression was that the room was small, the only major difference was in the length of the closet, which was probably 18-24” shorter. The toilet and shower were oriented differently, but most likely only a couple inches narrower. We were still able to get all our clothes and gear unpacked and stowed without having to leave much in the suitcases stored under the beds. What we do really like about the room, however, is the size of the balcony, which is HUGE. You can very easily lay two adults out on it comfortably and still have the table set in the middle. It is at least 8’ in depth and the same width as the stateroom. It is more than twice the depth of the Royal/Regal class ship balconies. It is, however, possible to view down into the balconies from areas above, so beware what you do on the balcony is in public view.
The Grand Princess is one of the oldest ships in the Princess fleet now. It was refurbished in 2019 so it doesn’t look or feel shabby in any way. However, it is smaller, so there are fewer stair cases and the Piazza is smaller. While the general layout is recognizable from our other Princess ships, there are relatively minor differences. It is a sister ship to the Golden Princess, which we took on our first New Zealand cruise in 2017. There are places on the ship where vibrations can be noticeable.
Perhaps the most confusing aspect of our first day is figuring out what happened with our drink/wifi and gratuity package. When we booked the cruise in December 2021 we upgraded to what is called a Princess Plus fare, which includes a fairly inclusive beverage package (soda, cocktails, wine, beer up to $12 per drink and up to 15 alcoholic beverages per day including gratuities), crew gratuities prepaid and unlimited Wifi for one device. At the time we booked, the Plus fare included free shipping of the medallion devices that are your room keys and onboard tracking devices for food and drink deliveries, free delivery and free room service. But sometime in the last few months, Princess rolled out a new Plus and Premium fares which supposedly added more benefits such as free exercise classes, free medallion delivery and free delivery and room service with the Ocean Now app. However, people on the standard fare now have to pay for medallion home delivery prior to embarkation, room service charges and a fee to activate the Ocean Now onboard tracking/delivery features. But when we tried to use the Ocean Now to order drinks, it appeared to want to charge us for everything. A waiter assured us that the drinks were on both the old and new Plus fares, but there was a lot of confusion about if we would be charged for placing orders on the app or for delivery. So for now, we’ll have to get our drinks at the bar or in the restaurants by placing orders in person. We’ll have plenty of sea days to sort this out at customer service.
Getting unpacked and getting the room set up took up most of the afternoon. The muster drills have be replaced with a video presentation and in person check in at muster stations where they scan your medallions to prove that you managed to find the muster stations. We then got our internet devices logged on to our wifi plan. However, the plans are not all that intuitive on how to switch between two devices like a smart phone and iPad. You have to manually log one device completely off the network before you can log one with your other device, and frequently, the log out link fails because its certificate is expired, or some nonsense. They do encourage people to purchase a $300+ upgrade that will allow simultaneous us of 4 devices. The Medallion Net now appears to be driven by Star Link technology, but the crew seems unhappy with the performance of the network for their hand held ordering devices.
In the past, we were assigned a dining room before embarkation, but on this voyage, there was nothing in the booking or itinerary information indicating our dining room assignment. We eventually figured out you have to do your own reservations on the in room TV. We booked an early dinner at 5pm. We skipped out on dessert so that Ben could go on deck to watch the sail away, which passes under the landmark Lion’s Gate Bridge and around Stanley Park. It was quite scenic, but there was light rain and grey skies hindering photographic opportunities.
Ben had wandered on the upper decks taking pictures and stumbled on the Martini bar and lounge at the back of the ship which was hosting the Elite Lounge event, so we had a drink and then headed down to see the show in the Princess Theater.
The Grand Princess theater is smaller than the Royal/Regal class, but the seating is well laid out. There are box seats in the wings for those who like a more Birds Eye view of the stage. I suspect the stage itself is not as well equipped with gimmicks as the larger ones, but we’ll have to see how the stage productions turn out. The show tonight was a Crooner style male vocalist, Alex Yost, who is from North Carolina. While he did have a bit of a southern twang, that doesn’t come through in his singing. He has a good voice and stage presence and put on an entertaining show, although the theater was probably only 70% occupied. He kept insisting on the audience singing along, and I’m thinking he’s not getting paid to make us sing, but of course, he’s just trying to engage with the audience.
After the show, Janet headed up to the room and Ben made his customary soup run and discovered they had a Ramen station that was a special event, and that turned out to be worth the trip.
Earlier, Janet had discovered to her disappointment that Princess no longer has Bigelow Earl Grey tea bags in the buffet beverage areas. They have downgraded to plain old Lipton tea bags. We have also noticed a few other corners that have been cut since returning from the Covid Pandemic. We didn’t receive the customary packet of Elite bathroom accessories which used to include some nice lotions, sprays and loofa sponge. There were also no slippers or robes. We’ll see if we can get our steward to get us robes tomorrow.
Our first port of call was supposed to be a half day call to Victoria where were going to meet up with a gal we cruised to Japan with. We were on a trivia team and she unfortunately lost her husband last year. We were looking forward to a visit, but a low pressure system is supposed to build up off the Pacific Coast which may cause up to 50mph head winds and heavy seas. So the Captain cancelled the port call in order to ensure we get to San Francisco in time to disembark passengers.
Apparently, there are a whole lot of people on board for a 3 day cruise from Vancouver to San Francisco. I guess it counts as one cruise credit for those working on their Captain’s Circle status. About half the passengers are Canadians, while the remainders are largely American, Australians and people from the UK. Apparently a lot of those Canadians are Chinese because there are a lot of Chinese families on board.
The next two days may be an adventure if the winds and waves live up the forecasts. Now that we have survived crossing the Drake Passage twice and sailed around Super Typhoon Saola in the Sea of Japan, we are confident the ship will do just fine, but there may be a run on Scopolamine and Dramamine if it does get rough.
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