It was the biggest gondola Venice had ever seen.
The huge vessel loomed impressively over the cruise and ferry slip at the Bacino della Stazione Marittima. Its record-setting weight–109,000 tons–almost dragged it to the bottom.
Capt. Mike Moulin–tall, gray-haired, slim and unflappably British– glanced at a gauge in the high-tech wheelhouse and determined that the new Grand Princess–largest cruise ship afloat–could have been perilously close to not floating at all.
Slightly less than a meter of water (a little more than 3 feet) was all that separated the Grand Princess from an inglorious plop into soft Venetian mud. How would he extricate this behemoth and get it under way? “Very carefully,” Capt. Moulin said. Fortunately, he noted, tides aren’t much of a factor in that part of town.
This departure would be the second from Venice in a series of 12-day inaugural cruises (“her triumphant European tour,” the Princess Cruises Inc. publicists boast) that begin in Barcelona and end in Istanbul, or, conversely, begin in Istanbul and end in Barcelona After that, it will go to the Caribbean for the winter season, starting its 7-day cruises in Ft. Lauderdale and visiting St. Thomas, St. Martin and a privately owned Bahamian Island, Princess Cay, with two full days at sea.
Venice, the beautiful, canal-laced jewel of the Adriatic, comes precisely in the middle of the European itinerary, and I boarded there just in time to catch the second half of one southbound excursion and watch the Grand Princess back out of its tight, shallow parking space.
From the ship’s bridge I glimpsed a part of Venice seldom revealed to casual visitors. Industrial might and modern technology back up the delicate palaces and ornate basilicas that most people see.
Beside us on the dock were long rows of rolled steel and bales of steel rods. Factory smokestacks exhaled off to the left in Mestre, the ugly but productive adjunct to the charming neighborhoods. Convoys of trucks delivered fruit and vegetables for the remainder of the voyage.
Watching a forklift struggle with a tall stack of full crates, one passenger remarked, “I can’t believe I ate that much watermelon yesterday.”
Venetians, long accustomed to being watched, now watched us. Scores of them strolled over from the Piazzale Roma and gaped at the spectacle. Local newspapers at every port were announcing the arrival of the great ship and reciting her incredible measurements: 109,000 tons, 951 feet in length, 201 feet tall, 159 feet wide, 18 decks, 1,300 passenger cabins, a 2,600-passenger capacity, 1,100 in the crew. So curious people in the towns would come to look. The Venetians looked and also waved.
Capt. Moulin had arranged to wave back. While horns blared and the ship proceeded, very carefully, in reverse, a crew member leaned out of a starboard window on the bridge and waggled an enormous white poster board hand attached to a long pole. Waving hands of normal human dimension would have looked so pathetic, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the ship. The giant white paw struck just the right note — comical, yet warm and affectionate.
And there would be more.
Once Moulin had the Grand Princess safely pointed east on the Giudecca Canal, loudspeakers on every deck played “It’s Time to Say Goodbye,” rendered stirringly by the recorded tenor voice of Andrea Bocelli — another hint of the captain’s flair for showmanship.
During her trip toward the Adriatic, the ocean liner passed close to the famous buildings, squares and islands of Venice: the Byzantine arcades, ornate Renaissance facades, Gothic arches, thrusting towers and impressive domes. . . .
The Rev. Leo Glueckert, professor of history from Lewis University in Lockport, Ill., served as ship lecturer and chaplain. His pulpit was in the Hearts & Minds wedding chapel–a cruise industry first–although he left the 18 marriage ceremonies during the first few sailings to Capt. Moulin. Grand Princess is of Liberian registry, where marriages at sea have legal standing.
As we approached the mouth of the Grand Canal, Glueckert took over the public address system in his role as historian and provided a narrative that gave even more life to edifices that glowed pink in the light of late afternoon.
“Just at the time Venetians are sitting down to their Sunday dinner, we’re on our way out of their absolutely gorgeous city,” Glueckert observed. He proceeded to name the most important of the structures we passed, never failing to note the history involved, the most interesting architectural styles, the tales of intrigue, Crusader conquest, schools of art and religious movements that shaped this part of Italy.
Finally, the Grand Princess slipped toward the last of the islands, glided by the lengthy Lido strand and accelerated out toward the open Gulf of Venice and the Adriatic Sea.
At that point, Glueckert signed off, explaining, “We will give you a chance to be alone with your thoughts in this very beautiful part of the world.”
I was standing at the tip of the bow, on the eighth deck, letting the wind and the city stream past, almost alone with my thoughts, which went something like this: I had barely arrived, and already I sensed that I had just experienced the highlight of my seven scheduled days aboard. How could the Grand Princess top this unforgettable moment?
Well, of course, it could not.
By the time I settled in, most of the Titanic references and jokes had been exhausted, although one staff member did suggest that on Deck 8 at the tip of the bow, “You can do the Kate Winslet thing.” Yes, you can stand there and spread your arms, as she did in the movie, but I preferred not to think about the scenes that ensued.
By then, Titanic quips were out and the favorite crack went something like, “Bigger is not necessarily better.”
“Bigger is not necessarily better,” said the Southern woman with whom I was seated in the Michelangelo dining room. Or was it the Botticelli dining room? The Da Vinci?
“The dining rooms all are exactly the same,” said the Southern woman’s friend, also Southern. They were cruising to get on with their lives — one after recent widowhood, the other for respite. Her husband resides in a nursing home. They had cruised before, but never on anything nearly as immense as the Grand Princess. Halfway through the cruise, they had come to the conclusion that bigger isn’t. . . . But whenever I saw them again, they were smiling contentedly.
I checked and discovered that the dining rooms did look the same — huge, low-ceilinged, sinuous in layout with curved railings and round tables and obsequious uniformed waiters. The only difference was, each featured murals with paintings that suggested the work of the artists for whom they were named. These were not exact reproductions. They seemed a bit cartoonish, really, an homage rather than a slavish imitation.
But, then, how many cruise ships have three 486-seat dining rooms that can fill up every night for two assigned seatings? Omar Silingardi, the corporate food service chief, led me through the galleys one afternoon, a seemingly endless realm of stainless steel. “We cook 1,500 lobsters here,” he said. “We make 1,500 canapes every day, just for the suites and mini-suites. Handmade. We have 170 cooks.”
The food was certainly a few cuts above typical hotel banquet fare, but, even so, oceans away from Michelin stars.
Passengers could fatten up and then seek out all those endless decks to work it off. “I haven’t even found the gym,” Billy Vader told me. Vader, a comedian, was working the Vista Lounge, somewhere in the vicinity of the stern.
At the moment, we were taking an afternoon coffee break at the cappuccino bar in the central atrium. Yes, the Grand Princess is the sort of ship that has a cappuccino bar and an atrium three decks high in which to put it. “Anyway, you don’t need to exercise on this ship,” Vader said. “All you need to do is get up in the morning and walk to breakfast.”
Every morning, I found it difficult to get up early enough to catch the breakfast hour in my assigned dining room (Michelangelo, as it turned out), but I could take an elevator up four floors to the Lido deck and load up my plate in the Horizon Court cafeteria. This involved a lot of walking and waiting. The corridors are long, and sometimes the elevators were slow. Exercise enough.
Those who take a few cruises might begin to suspect that cruise-line comedians are essential members of the design team, making sure that a new ship is cramped enough to provide lots of hilarious material (“The walls are so thin . . .,” etc.) The best indication that the Grand Princess is the biggest liner so far may be that its resident humorists tend to focus on its immensity.
David Brenner, another headliner, provided one more take on the size question during his post-prandial show in the Princess Theater.
“The ship is beautiful, but it is a little complex, isn’t it?” he said. “I think the first day, when you get to your cabin, there should be a big piece of cheese waiting for you.”
Instead of cheese, my beige-toned mini-suite with balcony boasted two television sets — one facing the couch and the other facing bedward. The Sonys sat up high in a clever, rounded cabinet that also held the mini-bar. They played two in-house channels for port lectures and movies and a couple of outside channels, depending on what could be picked up via satellite. However, they had no VCR. A small refrigerator hummed quietly beneath a granite countertop. The bath was mostly white with tile and offered a genuine tub to go along with the shower and a single basin– plus room enough to turn around. (Only the largest suites get a private whirlpool, but there are nine of them in public areas around the pools and spa.) All in all, not a good punch line in the place.
(The most outrageous humorous image came from a staff member who told me that the reason Princess postponed its scheduled May 14 maiden voyage until May 26 was that the rear end was too heavy. “It came out looking like a speed boat,” he said, tilting an arm to demonstrate. Officially, the postponement was due to several minor glitches. “We had a lot of little bugs to get rid of,” an executive said.)
Princess Cruises’ Los Angeles-based publicists have let it slip that the Grand Princess has 710 cabins with balconies, “the most of any cruise ship afloat.” Those cabins that lack the sitting area of a mini-suite get a more spacious balcony.
People bunking in my region of the ship also enjoyed the ministrations of Paul Royle, butler extraordinaire. He knocked on my cabin door the first evening and stood on the threshold, resplendent in a tuxedo. He had brought a plate of canapes and a friendly smile.
Royle said he had done some hotel and restaurant work around his home in Bangor, Northern Ireland. “Then I saw an ad in the newspaper that said, `Want to work on a cruise ship?’ That sounded good to me. So I sent some money and got back a book that told how to apply. I wrote to 20 companies. Princess was my first interview, and they hired me. So that was it. Forget about the rest.”
Royle said he enjoyed the job, so far. The 1,000-plus workers share comfortable cabins, a pool, recreation facilities and a bar. “I found out one of the other butlers was somebody who lived on my street in Northern Ireland,” he marveled. “We had never met before. We went to different schools. Now he’s working the same deck as I am, on the opposite side of the ship.”
A placard Royle provided (“At Your Service,” it said) listed a wide range of chores he would gladly undertake. The butler might help unpack, serve as a liaison with room service and the shore-excursion desk. He would bring the canapes and the dinner menu at cocktail hour and get shoes shined. He would also clean golf clubs and make dinner reservations.
Oh, yes. Passengers are not confined to the precincts of the Three Painters dining halls or the cafeteria. They may eat at the 90-seat Sabatini’s Trattoria or the 92-seat Painted Desert Southwestern-style restaurant. Each diner is assessed a $3.50 surcharge to cover tips, but otherwise the meals are included in the cruise price. They must reserve tables in advance. Or have the butler do it.
What about those shiny golf clubs? After finding the gym, I discovered a nine-hole miniature golf course and a golf simulator, where one “plays” a course projected on a screen, hitting a real golf ball with real equipment.
During my explorations, I also came upon Voyage of Discovery, a top-deck parking lot full of dollar-fed virtual-reality racing cars and rocket ships, plus Skywalkers Nightclub, a disco reached by escalator and perched above the water at smokestack height.
Some features of the Grand Princess are industry “firsts,” such as the wedding chapel, and others, such as the duty-free boutiques clustered in the atrium, the 13,500-square-foot casino (“largest afloat”), the five swimming pools (at the Grand Princess, they’re even big enough to swim in) and the various show lounges, bars and snack stands have come to be expected on most of the big vessels these days.
The world’s largest cruise ship uses size to best advantage by making everything bigger than smaller ships can. Staterooms are compact but not claustrophobic. Public restrooms are spacious, luxurious and plentiful. Staff members reminded me several times that the idea of a gigantic ship is not simply to cram in more passengers but to attract them with a long list of activities and diversions, far more than any one customer could ever sanely use. In several areas on decks and around the atrium, one could even find some solitude and forget, for awhile, the big crowd of fellow passengers.
The Princess Theater, to mention another example of lavish space usage, turned out to be a Broadway-suitable jewel case with 750 seats, superb acoustics and sight lines, computerized lighting and sound equipment and a large backstage area filled with scenery, costume racks, dressing rooms and stage elevators. On most liners, the largest entertainment rooms serve many functions, from bingo games to shore-excursion lectures, but so far, the theater on Grand Princess sticks to major shows.
Rai Caluori, vice president of entertainment for the entire Princess fleet, was on board during my leg of the journey, coordinating the big musicals. Caluori also wanted to make sure passengers could wander the ship and find anything from a piano bar or a string quartet to a brassy revue or a small symphony orchestra. On tap he had magicians, Chinese acrobats, country-western music, R&B and soft-jazz combos.
As if that weren’t enough, passengers could go to the library and check out a book, from three floor-to-ceiling cases, or settle in at a bank of library computer terminals and interact with CD-ROMs. They could eat in their assigned dining room or try one of the restaurants, or the cafeteria, or room service, or a poolside lunch counter.
And, of course, the ship visited attractive ports of call in Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, complete with guides and transportation.
Caluori took a few minutes from fine-tuning his various productions and explained the concept.
“The whole theme is choice,” he said. “For example, we try to offer three different big entertainment options each evening in three entertainment venues.
“We want to change the mind-set a bit, get away from the regimentation that says, `This is when you have dinner and this is when you see a show.’ So rather than passengers adhering to our schedule, there’s no schedule for them if they so desire. They can dine wherever they want at whatever time they want and then see the show they want to see.
“It seems to be working, yet you’re fighting the mind-set of past passengers who feel comfortable with that regimentation. But then you also have the first-time cruisers, who like the freedom.”
First-time cruisers were hard to find aboard the Grand Princess, except, perhaps, in the day-care center for little ones (who were well-represented, possibly bringing the average age down into the late 40s). One of my table partners, 14-year-old Emily Kennedy of Eagle River, Wis., always bolted away soon after dessert and headed for the teen center, called Off Limits. “We party, we dance, we use the pool, we hang out,” Emily disclosed. “It’s really a lot of fun.”
Emily’s mother, Linda, works as a travel agent, so she and her daughter have had more cruise experience than the average vacationer. One evening, I asked Linda what she thought about the Grand Princess. “Well,” she began, “bigger isn’t necessarily better. But they do a good job. The service is excellent, and you can do as much or as little as you want to do.”
Before heading toward the teen disco, Emily said she agreed with Mom, on the whole. “But when we were leaving Venice, what was all that noise on the deck? That opera singing! I was blocking my ears and yelling, `Turn it off!’ “
Sorry, Emily. Freedom of choice has its limits at sea. The captain still rules.
IF YOU GO
– WHAT IT COSTS
Most cruise lines recommend that you book through a travel agent who is an expert in the field. Prices can fluctuate significantly according to type of stateroom, time of year, number of occupants (singles pay from 160-200 percent; families sharing a cabin get volume discounts), the itinerary and the various promotional incentives offered now and then. Several land-based excursions, at a range of prices, can be added to the basic European cruise — which has been virtually sold out for this year but probably will resume next May.
Just to give a rough idea, rates for the 12-day European tour ranged from $4,180 per person, double occupancy, for an inside cabin, to $10,780 for the Grand Suite (separate sitting room with fireplace, hot tub, wet bar, walk-in closet, etc.).
For the 13-day Atlantic crossing, beginning Sept. 11, Princess Cruises was offering a two-for-one sale. Inside cabins start at $4,310 and the Grand Suite costs $13,910. Fares include $120-$130 in port charges. Figure on paying another $36-$42 for government fees and taxes.
Those are “brochure rates,” the highest possible, and almost always some discounts will apply. For example, those who booked the European cruise early enough last year were eligible for a 50 percent discount on the fare of the second occupant.
Prices for week-long eastern Caribbean voyages — beginning in the fall — will start at $1,338 per person, double occupancy, up to $5,972 for the Grand Suite. Outside cabins with balconies generally fall into the middle of those extremes. Most, but not all, fares include air transportation to the city where the cruise begins and from whence it ends. Those living away from such gateway cities as New York and Chicago, may pay an add-on fare.
– EXCURSIONS
In Europe, shore excursions cost as little as $23 for a half-day city tour and as much as $450 per person for long-distance side trips by train. For those who prefer to tour on their own, the charge for shuttle bus service from the dock to the town center is $4 each way.
– DRINKS ABOARD
Liquor and wine cost extra, about $2.50 to $5 per drink. Liquor and wine by the bottle in the general-store boutique can be as low as half the retail price; a fairly broad selection of dining room wines by the bottle are costlier but still reasonably priced compared to some high-end restaurants. An automatic 15 percent tip is added to the drink price.In suites and mini-suites, the mini-bar is stocked free of charge for the first round. Passengers then pay for supplies that need replenishment.
– TIPPING
The cruise line recommends tipping waiters and stateroom stewards $3 per passenger per day, assistant waiters $1.75 a day, butlers $2 a day and head waiters and maitre d’s at your discretion. Diners at Sabatini’s and Painted Desert pay $3.50 apiece as a surcharge, which reportedly goes into wait-staff pockets. No extra charge for those meals otherwise.
– CASH ADVICE
Duty-free boutiques on board sometimes offer bargains, sometimes not. Bring travelers checks. Cash machines placed in the atrium will trade one currency for another (between frequent breakdowns) for a $1.50 service charge, but they do not accept plastic. Neither do pursers, except when settling your on-board charges. No ATMs and no cash advances from credit cards. Again, travelers checks are the best legal tender. The casino will charge chips and slot tokens to the room, but adds a 3 percent fee. Speaking of the casino, one Princess executive refers to it as “my pension.” Costs add up.
– INFORMATION
Although reservations are accepted only through travel agents, you may order brochures by calling Princess at 800-774-6237).
———-
Robert Cross’ e-mail address is bobccross@aol.com
