Cruise Chronicles – Day 4 – At Sea on a Very Big Ship

Regal Princess, Nynashamn, Sweden (12 May 2019)

Travels have been rich source material for Images and More. There was a four-part series from Iceland in 2016. Eight stories came out of a five-day trip to northern Italy in 2018. This was a trip of a lifetime…eleven days at sea with stops at seven different northern European ports. I believe fifteen stories will emerge from this adventure but this one will be about the ship itself and the theme is BIG.

Regal Princess Lido Deck (19 May 2019)

Standard cruise ship open air amenities. A pool that nobody 

used since it was a chilly week. Hot tubs on two decks that 

were used. And new since I last cruised – a big screen that 

showed movies and concert films day and night. The sound 

was quite adequate for an outdoor venue (except when 

the ship’s horns blasted the theme from ‘The Love Boat’).

I have limited experience with large-ship, ocean cruises. In 2002, we did a wonderful Inside Passage cruise from Vancouver to Alaska and back. I thought that boat was big…2000 passengers on a 77,000-ton liner.

Regal Princess Sea Walk (11 May 2019)

One of the distinctive features on this boat is a clear-floor 

walkway that loops out over the sea, 16 decks below. 

Some passengers found that stroll to be a bit disconcerting.

I always thought aircraft carriers were the biggest ships on the sea. The mere phrase connotes ‘big.’ The late basketball coach, Al McGuire used to call big centers like Shaq and Wilt ‘aircraft carriers.’ I’m old enough to remember watching the great World War II documentary series, ‘Victory at Sea.’ In it you saw the great naval battles in the Pacific and learned the names of the legendary flat tops.

USS Wasp – 788 feet long; 15,000 tons.

USS Yorktown & USS Hornet - 824 feet long; 20,000 tons.

Over the decades, the carriers grew into the behemoths they are now. The supercarrier, USS Gerald Ford, launched in 2013, is 1106 feet long and tips the scales at 100,000 tons.

Regal Princess Atrium (19 May 2019)

This might be the ‘town center’ in the floating city.

Ringed by eateries, bars and shops, live music 

is often playing for dancing on the open floor

(or drowning out your conversations while you dine).

To that, cruise ship builders say, “Pffft!” Our Regal Princess, launched in 2014, is almost 1100 feet long and displaces over 142,000 tons…twice the mass of our Alaska boat. I joked when I said I’ve seen smaller aircraft carriers. Turns out ALL aircraft carriers are smaller than this ship.

Fountain and Light Show (19 May 2019)

One evening, there was a light and music 

show with dancing waters. The display here 

was played to Prince’s ‘Purple Rain.’

During our short stay in Tallinn, Estonia, we docked next to another cruise ship. The MSC Meraviglia is truly huge…4,500 passengers and 171,000 tons. A floating city. I had to look this up. Google “largest cruise ships” and you’ll find our beast ranks a mere # 28 on the list. The MSC boat at least cracks the Top Ten but the Big Kahuna…until the next Biggest Thing is launched…is Symphony of the Seas…over 6,000 passengers and 228,000 tons.

Big Brother, Tallinn, Estonia (16 May 2019)

I’ll just conclude that it was quite an experience sailing on this mega-boat (our Regal Princess is on the right). It had every amenity one might want and many I had no interest in. We encountered no rough seas and I wonder if we would have felt the rolling waves if we had. There will be more references to the boat as the saga continues.