Princess Royal Class ships have the Lotus Spa in the forward portion of Plaza Deck (5), freeing up m

Our travels from the West Coast delivered us to Princess Cruises’ newest ship, the 3,560 passenger, 141,000-gt REGAL PRINCESS late on the evening of her maiden visit to Fort Lauderdale. Within moments of checking in at the pier, we had arrived enterprise rental car upgrade coupons at our 222-square-foot digs for the next five nights, Veranda Stateroom D409 on starboard Deck 9. The comfortable, well furnished space had twin beds (convertible to a queen), a walk-in closet, a large flatscreen television, writing area, mini-fridge and sofa. Due to its midships location, our balcony was larger than most, although enterprise rental car upgrade coupons we would have little time to enjoy it over the next few days.
The bathroom was just large enough, with the requisite shower, sink, loo and plenty of toiletry shelves. Excepting the moisturizer, Princess has done away with the small plastic bottles of yore and now has refillable soap and conditioning shampoo dispensers in the shower.
Fortunately, Horizon Court, the buffet eatery, was still open, so we quickly ascended to aft Lido Deck (16) and helped ourselves to a generous and tasty spread that included a salad bar, a selection of hot entrees (love the mini-chicken pot pies) and an entire pastry shop full of desserts.
I wanted to give my companion Mike a tour of the upper decks, so we each grabbed a crispy peanut butter cookie and ventured outside. We began at aft Sun Deck (17) with the Terrace Pool, an elevated wading pool that overlooks the ship’s wake. This is a feature that thus far is not available on REGAL’s otherwise virtual twin, the 2013-built ROYAL PRINCESS.
We worked our way forward through the Fitness Center on the starboard enterprise rental car upgrade coupons side of Sun Deck to the open terrace surrounding the midships enterprise rental car upgrade coupons pool area where workers were busy staging the giant magnum of champagne for tomorrow’s christening ceremony.
On the port side, we peered down through sail-like ceiling enterprise rental car upgrade coupons panels into the SeaView Bar, which hangs over the side of the ship from Lido Deck. From there, we continued forward to the Retreat Pool area, the Sanctuary and the Sky Deck (19) observation platform, all of which would be covered in detail later in the week.
Before heading to bed, we wrapped it up with a vertiginous enterprise rental car upgrade coupons visit to the ship s wow feature , the SeaWalk, which projects 28 feet from the starboard side of the ship with views through glass decking down 128 feet to the Ft. Lauderdale terminal.
Probably the most ideal morning eatery at sea is Princess’ International Cafe, especially when time is of the essence. Located at the bottom level of the three deck Piazza, it offers up excellent pastries, parfaits and croissants as well as my faves, Princess’ version of the Egg McMuffin (which they will happily accommodate with no meat). Unlike the McDonald’s version, these are made with quality ingredients like real cheese. Excellent coffees and a wide variety of loose leaf teas can be purchased here, so we grabbed double shot cappuccinos to go and began to document the ship before it filled with visitors. I should mention that the International enterprise rental car upgrade coupons Cafe offerings change throughout the day, with sandwiches, paninis and tapas-style noshes in the afternoon enterprise rental car upgrade coupons and eve.
Princess Royal Class ships have the Lotus Spa in the forward portion of Plaza Deck (5), freeing up more space at the top of the ship for suite accommodation. At the center of the spa is a thermal area called the Enclave with a hydrotherapy pool surrounded by Laconium, Caldarium enterprise rental car upgrade coupons and Hamam steam rooms as well as a wide variety of rainforest type showers.
For the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon, we roamed the ship’s public areas and show cabins, cameras in tow. After squeezing in a refreshing workout, we ventured topsides to secure a good vantage for viewing the christening. Princess outdid themselves the year prior with the ROYAL PRINCESS’ naming at Southampton by the Duchess of Cambridge but the REGAL s star-studded event promised to be the grandest ever.
On port Sun Deck, the action had already began with an alphabetical procession of 25 frequent “The Love Boat” guest stars. Of course, the show’s nine year reign at the top of television’s Neilson ratings is not only responsible for Princess’ massive transformation from a three (smaller) ship fleet to its current sixteen (mostly) mega ships but for today’s booming cruise industry at large. Being a sucker for vintage Hollywood and pop culture of all sorts, it was wonderful to be just steps away from the cavalcade of stars, even if we did join the throng mid-alphabet.
Son of Fernando Lamas and legendary beauty Arlene Dahl, 56-year old hearthrob Lorenzo Lamas is probably best known for his run on “Falcon Crest”. Almost unrecognizable in full beard, he’ll be featured in the upcoming season of “Celebrity Apprentice”.
Gorgeous Lee Meriwether is a former Miss America (1955) and might be best known for her turn as Catwoman and her supporting role as Buddy Ebsen’s secretary in the hit TV show “Barnaby Jones”. Her cohort Carol Lawrence played Maria in the original Broadway production of “West Side Story”, was married to Robert Goulet and is an acclaimed singer and actress.
Kristy McNichol starred in “Family”, “Empty Nest” and just about every teen flick of the early 1980s. Rich Little is one of the most renowned impersonators of recent times, most celebrated perhaps for his serial appearances as Richard Nixon on “The Tonight Show”.
Daughter of the Mamas and Papas’ (“Monday, Monday” and “California Dreaming”) John Phillips, Mackenzie Phillips was only 12 when she debuted in “American Graffiti” and then went on to star in the hit TV show “One Day At A Time”.
Not to be outdone enterprise rental car upgrade coupons in red couture, slinky 92-year-old Jeraldine Saunders introduced herself as “Jeraldine with a ‘J”” to the press pool. Were it not for her stint as a cruise director n the mid-1960s aboard PRINCESS ITALIA and her ensuing book, “The Love Boats”, enterprise rental car upgrade coupons none of this would have been happening.
A video tribute to Princess’ 50 years included footage of old favorites like PRINCESS ITALIA, PRINCESS CARLA, enterprise rental car upgrade coupons the first ISLAND, SUN and PACIFIC PRINCESSes and many more.  Singer Jack Jones was joined on stage by “The Love Boat Theme” composer Charles Fox as he delivered his familiar rendition of the iconic song and then a video tribute to Princess Cruises’ founder, Stanley McDonald was projected on the massive screen.
The ship was then blessed by Father Ronald Perkins of The Seafarers House of Port Everglades before the cast pulled a lever on an oversized telegraph, releasing the giant champagne bottle into the starboard balcony enterprise rental car upgrade coupons overlooking the pool area. In commemoration of Princess’ 50 Year anniversary, 50 champagne bottles were subsequently smashed into the ship’s bow.
Lovely story and I second that great photography. Just a shame given the apparent love for the Love Boat nostalgia, that while all of this was going on the MV Discovery is literally enterprise rental car upgrade coupons on its way to Alang ..