Transatlantic Cruise: Part 2 of 2 - March 16th to 24th, 2025

To get to Europe, we took a Princess 15 day Transatlantic cruise on the Sky Princess, called the Moroccan Passage. The cruise started in Fort Lauderdale Florida and ended in Southampton England, with three ports of call along the way. Our previous post, Part 1, covered our experience on board for the first week. This post, Part 2, covers our second week on board. The post after that will be a ship tour of the Sky Princess. There will also be a separate post for each port of call.

Sunday, Day 8, seemed to be a little cooler, not quite breaking into the 70’s, with a few clouds. The ship seemed to be rocking a little more than the couple of days before. It may have rained the night before and we noticed a mist every now and then.

After a buffet breakfast, we went to the presentation by Daniel Burton on his biking from the coast of Antartica to the South Pole, given in the Princess Live! Venue. It was interesting because he was a computer nerd who turned into a cyclist, on the mountain biking trails of Utah. He was the first person to bicycle from the coast of Antartica to the South Pole. There had been more experienced athletes and explorers who have attempted to cycle to the South Pole and failed.

At noon, we lost another hour again. We didn’t really have time for lunch at the buffet before going to the Behind The Seas: Meet the Guest Entertainers in the Princess Theater. So we grabbed salami sandwiches from the International Cafe on Deck 7 and ate them in the theater. The International Cafe is included in the base cruise package and is open 24 hours per day. It has a variety of sandwiches, pastries, and soup.

It was interesting to learn about how the guest entertainers work. They are contractors and usually stay in one of the cabins amongst the crew cabins set aside exclusively for the guest entertainers. But, because of the long stretch of sea days which meant there were more guest entertainers on board at the same time, some of them were in passenger cabins. The group was expecting to get off the ship at Madiera and had to change flight arrangements when our port of call switched to Tenerife.

From there, we headed up to the Deck 16 to complete our lunch. Ann made a salad at the buffet and grabbed a piece of vegetarian pizza from Slice. Keith grabbed a hot dog and fries from the Salty Dog.

By this time, it was close to 3 pm. It was time for Ann’s afternoon walk. However, she decided to jog two miles instead of walk, in order to get her pulse rate up higher, followed by another mile of walking. She feels so much better after a good workout, than going days without getting her heart pounding. Meanwhile, Keith hung out in the room.

Ann got cleaned up and then we headed down to dinner. Our normal waiter, Carlo, was sick, so we had a different waiter. Apparently, this was the second evening Carlo was out sick. There are normally two waiters at dinner, but our other waiter, Bappa, was still there. Henri and Jackie informed us we missed lobster and chateaubriand the night before. We guess we should have looked up what the menu was before deciding to go to Alfredo’s. Oh well.

This night was Italian night. For an appetizer, we both had proscuito and melon. Before our main dishes, we were served fettuccini Alfredo in a fried parmesan basket. Henri and Jackie ordered it for us. They made a special request when they found out that one of the cooks on board knew how to make it. It was an old Princess cruise dish that was served years ago. Thank you Henri and Jackie! Keith’s entrée was veal while Ann had the breaded chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese. For dessert, Ann had the soufflé while Keith ate the tiramisu. Everything was delicious as usual. Even though it was Italian night, Keith drank a Heineken instead of the Italian lager, since he just had the Peroni Nastro Azzuro the night before.

The evening show was Dan Looney, the cruise director. We weren’t sure what to expect, but he turned out to be a wonderful vocalist. Dan became our cruise director part way through the cruise. The previous cruise director, Thomas Reasoner, was still on board and also performed one number. He had a lovely, deep singing voice.

Monday, Day 9, we at breakfast in the Estrella Dining Room. It was nothing special. The port side was called the Reserve Collection Dining which required an extra charge. We don’t know what they served differently over there.

In the morning, we attended Tenerife with Destination Expert Lance in the Princess Theater. The presentation provided us with some great information on where to go and what to see on Tenerife along with showing us maps.

After the presentation, Ann went back to the room while Keith went to the Quiet Reading Room. That seems to be his favorite place on the ship. There is coffee to drink and a comfortable table to sit at and use his iPad.

For lunch, we ate in the buffet again. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day, the themed area of the buffet was Irish. Every day, there is a different theme for just a small area of the buffet. There were always so many different things to choose from. There was a section where you could make your own salad, compound salads, sandwiches, soups, American comfort food, rolls and beads, and a wide variety of hot dishes from all around the world. Then, of course, there was the pastry shop, with a selection of different sweets. Most of the pastries were not overly sweet. They seemed to be following more of a European standard for sweetness than an American. We appreciated that.

In the afternoon, Ann attended Emily Viancourt’s Country Roads performance in the Princess Theater. She is the other half of the Ebony and Ivory performing duo. She has a wonderful, deep voice, but Ann still enjoyed the selection of songs from the Ebony and Ivory show better. While Ann attended the show, Keith went to the fitness center to work out. After the show, Ann walked her two miles on the jogging track.

At dinner, it was only the four of us, with Henri and Jackie. We enjoyed a wonderful conversation along with our wonderful food. Ann’s appetizer was pineapple, pistachio, dates, and cheese while Keith’s was the French onion soup. Our entrees were Jamaican jerk chicken and turkey pot pie with sweet potatoes. Dessert was key lime pie and chocolate cake with ice cream.

The evening’s show was Colin Barkell again with a different set of songs. It felt very appropriate to have an Irish dancer perform on St. Patty’s Day. Colin performed another group of rock-n-roll songs by singing, playing guitar, and, of course, mixing in some Irish dancing. It was another great show. For some reason, we liked his first show better.

The Sky Princess Band backs up most of the guest performers. The band was just as impressive as the main performers. From what we heard, the band receives the sheet music about three hours before the performance. They rehearse each song about once before performing it that evening. Occasionally, they have two different shows to perform in the same day. And the music is not just background chords and beats, but solo highlights on saxophone, guitar, or piano. The band seemed very talented in their own right.

After Colin’s performance, we went over to the Take Five lounge where we listened to a live jazz band, the Philippe Lavoipierre Trio. Keith enjoyed a Sam Adams beer while Ann drank a Key West Cooler. Apparently, the lounge had a slightly different beer list than the one Keith saw at the Crown Grill Bar. He doesn’t remember seeing Sam Adams as one of the choices before.

At 9 pm, we stood on the stairs in the Piazza to watch Maria & Juan from Argentina perform some ballroom dancing. They were very impressive. It was a short show, less than 15 minutes, but we couldn’t imagine them continuing longer after all of the energy and strength they exert during their performance, including some spectacular lifts.

Tuesday, Day 10, was our Tenerife port of call. We’ll cover our visit to Tenerife in a following post. We were back on board a little after 4 pm.

After relaxing in our room for a little while, we went down to the dining room for dinner. We were the only ones who showed up at our table. The others must have been too tired or needed more time to clean up from their day on shore.

The menu that evening included some Portuguese dishes, since we originally were supposed to be docked at Madiera, part of Portugal. We picked out a chorizo appetizer, but our waiter, Carlo, also brought out the warm appetizer with yucca fritters. They were both tasty. For our main course, Ann had a steak with a fried egg on top while Keith had the Portuguese pork. For dessert, we both had the Black Forest cake. To wash everything down, Keith had a Corona beer.

In the Princess Theater that evening, there was a production show, called 5 Skies. The show was about being in a video game. The costumes, stage sets, and use of visual effects were phenomenal. Even though the topic was not our favorite, the show was fantastic.

Wednesday, Day 11, started out with pretty calm waters, but they gradually got a little rougher throughout the day, nothing too bad, though.

We had gone to bed early, so we got up pretty early, about 7:30 am. After breakfast at the buffet, Ann spent time on our balcony while Keith went to his favorite place, the Quiet Reading Room. We did something a little different for lunch. We picked up food from the International Café and sat at a table in the Piazza, listening to a live piano player. Ann had a tomato & cheese sandwich, a bacon & cheese quiche, and a Coke from the nearby Piazza Bar. Keith at a warm ham & cheese sandwich. It was a lovely, relaxing atmosphere.

For dessert, we bought some gelato from the Gelato Shop on the other side of the Piazza. The gelato was hand crafted daily. Keith ordered a scoop of vanilla and another scoop of salted caramel, while Ann had chocolate, of course, and raspberry sorbet. Delicious. There is an extra charge for the gelato. We were charged $11.80 total.

After lunch, Ann played with the four-foot tall interactive displays that are found near each set of elevators. One of them is like a directory, showing where everything is on the ship, deck by deck. It allows you to ask for directions to a particular location from your current location. If you hold your Medallion up to the button next to the display, it will show you where your state room and muster station are along with locating shipmates. The other display is similar to the Princess App on your phone. Without logging in, you can see the ship schedule of events. Again, you log in using your Medallion. Then you can view the events you have bookmarked and bookmark new ones. You can also see your dining room reservations. Just be sure to log out before walking away from the display (although we’re pretty sure it will time out). The display is very useful if you don’t have the phone app.

Keith went back to the Quiet Reading Room and Ann tried out the lounge chairs out on Deck 7. It was nice to be out in the fresh air, looking up from her laptop to stare at the ocean every now and then. The deck lounge chairs were padded, so they were more comfortable than the chairs on our balcony. Then Keith went to fitness center and Ann walked the track.

Before dinner, we got more dollars out of the ship’s ATM. To our surprise, it dispensed $100 bills. That wasn’t very useful. So we waited in line at Guest Services to get the large bill changed into small bills. The ATM had a transaction fee of $7.50.

We were the only ones at our table again for dinner. We ordered the chef’s recommendation of Twice-baked Goat Cheese Soufflé, Trout Amandine or Carved Beef Tenderloin, and Sea Salted Caramel Pot de Crème. Of course, Keith had the trout while Ann had the tenderloin. The salted caramel dessert was Keith’s favorite dessert so far.

Thursday, Day 12, was our port of call at Casablanca, Morocco. We’ll cover our visit to Casablanca in a following post. By the time we returned from Casablanca and freshened up back in our room, it was time for dinner.

We were the only ones at our table yet again. The menu had Moroccan specialties, so that is what we went with. We were both hungry as all we had to drink and eat during the day was mint tea and cookies. So we both ordered two appetizers. Keith had the grilled pineapple while Ann had the Moroccan lamp chop and salad. For our main course, Ann went with the falafel while Keith had the Moroccan chicken. Ann really enjoyed the lamp chop, it had a lovely, spicy flavor. Carlo was nice to us and brought us out another serving of the lamp chop. For dessert, we both had the baklava with a side of vanilla ice cream. We may have been hungry to begin with, but we were definitely full by the end of dinner.

We were done with dinner by 6:15 pm. The shows that evening were earlier than normal. The first show was at 6:30 pm, so we hurried over to the theater to see if there were any seats left. Normally the shows fill up by 20 minutes before show time, but not early on a port day. People were not required to be back on the ship until 7:30 pm, so there were plenty of seats to choose from.

The entertainment was not the originally scheduled show. Instead, they had swapped in Goronwy Thom, a juggling comedian. He was pretty entertaining. Goronwy interacted a lot with the audience. One of the participants almost stole the show, as he added his own flare. We were laughing pretty hard by the end of the show.

After the show, we headed up to the Sky Deck for the sail away. The ship played the Love Boat theme as we pulled out from the dock. Some ports don’t allow Princess to do that, as there are protocols for the ship’s whistle to indicate a ship is leaving port.

As we were sailing away, the Hassan II Mosque turned on their laser. The laser shines from the top of the minaret towards Mecca, indicating which direction the worshipers should face for their prayers. It was a lovely sight to see, with the bright light shining into the night sky, a great way to end our visit to Morocco.

Friday, Day 13, was an unlucky day for us. It was the roughest seas so far on our cruise. High winds and rain dominated the day. The pools on the Sky Deck were closed and the water sloshed around in them, sending ten foot splashes into the air each time the waves reached the end of the pool. Some of the elevators were shut down part of the time, as the sway of the ship was too great for them to operate properly.

In the morning, we went to the La Coruña Spain presentation by destination expert Lance Schuler. La Coruña looked like our type of place to visit. It was a smaller city than Casablanca, with the old town and most of the sights within easy walking distance from the ship. The ship would be docked next to a small boat marina, a much better setting than the industrial dock in Casablanca. We had a 45 minute walking tour scheduled, with the rest of our time in port on our own.

At noon, the captain informed us of yet another time change, losing another hour. We were now on Madrid Spain time. Then he delivered the bad news. Due to the weather, we would be arriving in La Coruña three hours late, at noon, past our time for our walking tour.

After our buffet lunch, there was another announcement. La Coruña was canceled. We would still dock in La Coruña, but only for an hour as a service call, to allow scheduled disembarking guests to leave the ship and for UK Border Force Officials to embark the ship. No other guests are allowed ashore. All shore excursions were canceled and a refund would automatically be credited to our account.

The Sky Princess had to reduce its speed to allow the worst of the weather system to pass as we approached La Coruña. Leaving La Coruña early will allow us to maintain a favorable speed to cross the Bay of Biscay where we would still experience high winds and heavy seas.

We were disappointed to miss La Coruña, but we would rather have a safe passage. We knew that there was a high possibility of canceling ports of call when we booked the cruise. It is a repositioning cruise and March is not a favorable time to cross the Atlantic due to weather. So far, we have not felt any seasickness and Keith has not used any of the medication that he brought with him. Hopefully, that will continue all the way to Southampton.

After being kicked out of the Quiet Reading Room when it closed at 3 pm, Keith went up to a protected table on the Sky Deck while Ann went for her daily walk. She stuck mostly to inside decks, but did cross the Sky Deck a couple of times. There was no way she was going up on the jogging track with the high winds and rain. She had to be careful crossing the Sky Deck, as there was a couple of sections of tile that were pretty slick when wet.

Then we got cleaned up for dinner. It was another formal night. And yet again, we were at the table by ourselves. For dinner, Ann had the Chilled Cucumber, Melon, and Mint Soup, the Beef Wellington, and the Chocolate, Pistachio Dome. Keith ate the Escargot Bourguignon, the Broiled Lobster Tail, and the Spiced Biscuit Soufflé. As usual, it was all delicious.

After dinner, we went to the 7:30 pm show, ShellyAnn. She was a wonderful vocalist from Wales. ShellyAnn was originally scheduled for the previous night, but was switched to Saturday so that the juggler could perform during calmer seas. Then ShellyAnn was moved up to Friday, because it was too stormy for the Rock Opera production show to perform. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the Rock Opera can perform on Saturday.

Saturday, Day 14, was another rainy day with rough seas. The morning started as usual, with breakfast at the buffet, followed by a little time hanging out in our room.

While in the room, Ann played with our room TV to see what was available on it. It was actually quite extensive, from movies and TV series to music and exercise routines. You could also explore the ship, dining options, the ship’s event schedule, and future cruises. You could even request room service or food delivery. However, we didn’t feel like we missed anything, we had no desire to sit in our room watching TV. But if one of us became sick and needed to stay in the room, it was nice to know it was available.

At 10 am, we went down to the Quiet Reading Room down on Deck 5. Around 10:30 am, Keith spotted a tower along the shoreline. Ann grabbed her phone and tried to go out to the lounge area on Deck 6 to take pictures, instead of trying to take them through glass covered with rain drops. However, the deck area was closed. So Ann went back down to Deck 5. Then she realized that our room balcony was on the shore side, so she hustled up to Deck 9 to our room. After taking a few pictures, Ann recognized the tower from the presentation the day before. It was the Tower of Hercules. Even though we were not scheduled to dock until noon, we were approaching La Coruña!

Zooming in on the tower would be nice, but Ann, for some unknown reason, had left her Canon Powershot camera down in the Reading Room with Keith. So she hustled down to Deck 5, grabbed her camera, then hustled back up to Deck 9 to take more pictures and videos of the coastline as we approached the dock. Even though it was dark and raining, the waves crashing onto the rocky shoreline added some drama.

From there, Ann climbed the stairs up to Deck 16 to get some pictures from a higher advantage point. She stayed up there until the ship was docked, taking pictures of what she could see of the city. It’s a good thing that she got pictures of the tower while she could, because you could only see the tip of it from the dock. She did get a good view of the buildings along the waterfront, with their glass balconies. They are what gave La Coruña its nickname of Crystal City or City of Glass.

After Ann got her fill of pictures and videos from Deck 16, she scurried back down stairs to Deck 6, where Keith was guarding her laptop. She felt a little bad that Keith was waiting for her down there all that time. From there, we dropped off our laptop and iPad in the room on Deck 9, then headed up to Deck 16 for lunch. By the time we finished lunch, the ship was pulling out of port again. Back down on Deck 9, from our room balcony, Ann got some final shots and video of some lighthouses and stormy shoreline before we got too far away from shore.

Then it was back down to the Reading Room on Deck 5 until we got booted out at 3 pm. Back up on Deck 16, we had our daily soft serve ice cream cones. We know we said they were not anything special, but they were tasty enough that we had one almost every day we were on board. After our refreshment, we walked the stairs back down to Deck 7, making a couple of laps around some of the decks before sitting down in the Piazza for a couple of soft drinks. Without even trying, Ann had closed her 60 minute exercise ring without resorting to walking laps on the jogging track. So we didn’t feel too guilty about sitting there, relaxing and listening to the live music, while taking in more calories.

Instead of the normal two performances of the evening show, there were three show times. The added time was an early show at 5:15 pm. We decided to go to the early show and try a different venue for dinner. The show was the Rock Opera by the ship’s production cast. The seas were still a little rough, but they said they modified the show a little to make it safer. Not knowing what they changed, we thought it was a spectacular show. It was Keith’s favorite show of the cruise so far.

For dinner, we tried the Estrella Dining Room. This is the third traditional dining room on the ship. This one was walk in service only, no reservations. We had stayed away from this one originally because we thought we would have to wait for a table. However, that didn’t seem to be the case. As with the other two dining rooms, you could choose whether you wanted a private table or a shared table. We chose the shared table. We were seated right away at a table of six. If we had known how easy it was to do the walk-in dining, we would have done it every night from the start of the cruise.

We joined two other couples, Brenda and Mike from Missouri along with Stacy and Bob from California. We discovered that most of us had spent some time living in Europe at one point in our lives, so we had a lot of experiences to share. For dinner, Ann had the gazpacho soup and the Indian Korma while Keith ate the chorizo and the pork roast. We both had the chocolate & caramel tart for dessert. We were enjoying the conversation so much that Ann forgot to get pictures of most of our food.

Sunday, Day 15, was our last full day on the ship. It was still rainy and cool, but the seas were a little bit calmer. As we entered into the English Channel, the seas really calmed down.

Like the day before, we managed to get our exercise in by walking around the ship, especially up and down the stairs. It was up to Deck 16 for breakfast at the buffet. On the way back to the room, Ann made a short loop around one of the decks. When she got back to the room on Deck 9, she realized that she forgot to put her Medallion on that morning. Luckily, Keith was already in the room and could let her in. Ann had her phone with her, so if Keith had not been in the room, she would have been able to find him via the Princess app.

Then we went back up to Deck 16 to hang out at a table in the buffet area, since the Quiet Reading Room didn’t open until 10 am. At 11:15 am, we went down to the Soleil Dining Room on Deck 5 for our scheduled appointment with the UK Border Force Officials. It was a pretty easy process. We showed them our passports and answered a couple of questions like how long are you staying in the UK and where are you going next. Then we checked out of the dining room with our Medallions. The whole process took about 2 minutes.

After returning our passports to our room on Deck 9, we returned to Deck 5 to go to the Reading Room. When they kicked us out at 3 pm, we went all the way up to Deck 16, where Keith had an ice cream cone, then we went all the way back down to Decks 7, 6, and 5 to stroll around and get some more steps in.

We stopped off at Guest Services to have them search for a place to store luggage in Southampton for us. There are lots of them. The most popular service is Bounce, where you pick a location and pay through their website. Then you go to the location to drop off your bags, usually at a local business, hotel, or restaurant that has a contract with Bounce. We’ve never heard of that before. Nice!

We sat down on Deck 5 in the Piazza for a couple of soft drinks and listened to the acoustic guitar and vocalist, David Tavares. While we were sitting there, a crew member came around with freshly baked cookies. OK, twist our arms, we’ll have one. Then it was back up to our room on Deck 5 to freshen up for dinner.

For dinner, we went back to our assigned table in the Soleil Dining Room. Henri and Jackie showed up this time as well. The dining room staff did a baked Alaska parade, which apparently is a tradition on Princess cruises. It was a very festive atmosphere.

Even though we prepaid the tips for the crew, we gave an extra tip to our waiters Carlo and Bappa to show our appreciation of their great service. Bappa always had an iced tea waiting for Ann when we arrived at our table and promptly brought Keith a coffee with sugar at the end of the meal. Carlo was easy to joke around with and loved bringing out extra items from the kitchen for us.

We later gave our room steward, Aaron, an extra tip as well. We’re not use to being pampered that much and getting to know the staff so well. They work hard, putting in 12 hours per day, 7 days a week. We’re not sure how often they get a day off. Through our conversations, they sometimes get a chance to go on shore during port days, but not always. The room stewards are responsible for 15 to 19 rooms, cleaning them each twice per day. Aaron always had our room freshened up by the time we returned from breakfast, except when Ann forgot her Medallion, since he probably thought she was still in the room.

After dinner, we went to the show, the Farewell Variety Show. It was entertaining, just like all of the other shows. We were impressed with all of the talent that Princess brought on board for our entertainment. It was top notch all the way.

On our way back to our room, we noticed all the luggage sitting out in the hallways, waiting to be picked up. If you wanted your luggage to be taken off the ship for you, it needed to be packed up the night before. We chose to carry our own luggage off the ship with us, but we packed most of it after we got back to our room. If you were hand carrying your bags off, you could choose from three different times to disembark. Since we were in no rush, we chose the latest time, 9:30 am. But everyone needed to vacate their rooms by 9 am.

Monday was disembarkment day in Southampton England. We got up at 7 am so we could eat one last meal at the buffet. Even after taking our time, we were both ready to go by 8:30 am. So we headed down to see if they would let us off the boat early. It was no problem, as no one was really checking what our time slot was.

We got in line to head out the gangway. The line didn’t take long, as all you had to do was scan your Medallion so they knew you got off the ship. Then we walked down a covered gangway that zig-zagged down to the dock level from the ship, then up another covered gangway, zig-zagging its way up to the terminal building. Another ramp took us down to another level where all of the luggage was lined up and waiting for their owners to claim them. Of course, we were carrying ours, so we breezed right through that area and out the terminal.

And so ended our transatlantic cruise. It was much more enjoyable than we expected. We thought we would get bored with so many sea days, but we found plenty of things to do, and got plenty of exercise, even when it was raining. Keith never needed to take any seasickness medication and made it through the rough sea days with no problems. Our ports of call changed, but we knew that was a possibility ahead of time. And we enjoyed the ports of call when we were able to go onshore. Meeting and getting to know other cruisers at dinner really made the cruise rather sociable, even for us introverts. Would we do a transatlantic cruise again? Most definitely.

Check out our related video: Transatlantic Cruise: Part 2 of 2

(Ann)