THE ROYAL PRINCESS AT SEA — There is no doubt that the Cruise Liner industry is Europe's biggest tourism drawers. I only knew about this kind of travel industry when I finally took a cruise. Thus when we boarded the Royal Princess in Barcelona on September 9, I was surprised to see five cruise liners lined up in the Barcelona Port. And to think that was mostly for the Mediterranean Cruise. Looking at their Cruise Magazines, they had so many areas to visit in the Mediterranean. Our trip was only one of many from the Princess Lines. There are many other Cruise Liners operating here.
I have done many foreign travels in the past, but always using airliners. The only time we took a ferryboat was on our trips from Cebu City to either Cagayan de Oro or the longest trip is when we bring our motorcycles to Manila when we have long rides in Luzon. Other than that, it was always an overnight trip to Manila. We are now on our 20th day at sea, which is a record for my family and me. We are now on the last leg of our trip.
I was supposed to do an article and a video presentation entirely about the Royal Princess, which is a very fascinating vessel. This is why I enlisted on the ship's tour, which would have cost me US$150.00. But when their daily newsletter (yes, the ship has daily newsletter) that reports on activities on board the vessel that passengers wishing to join the ship tour were warned that the ship tour meant climbing up the vessel's steep stairs to see the engine room and the ship's bridge, it was a bit of a challenge for me, who is still recuperating from my kidney transplant 10 months ago.
Mind you, the Royal Princess has four major elevator areas with six elevators per station and with 3,560 passengers on board, waiting for an elevator often takes time. But the ship's tour would have brought us to areas where access by elevator was not available. So as I said, I backed out on the ship's tour because their communiqué clearly stated that no video cameras or photography would be allowed during the tour.
Honestly speaking, long before we took this trip, I already planned to do a travel video feature of this family cruise vacation and show it on my TV show, Straight from the Sky. I already interviewed the International Management Group (img) in their Barcelona office using only my iPhone 7 and my Panasonic Lumix 4K camera, which creates a remarkable video resolution. So far so good with some of the video's that I took, except I ran out of memory for my SD card and had to get one for 40 Euros, which is quite expensive. But then this happened in the Island of Santorini where everything is imported to the island.
So it really is a matter for my video editor and director Albert Dajab to piece together all the footages that my daughter Katrina (I made her an impromptu cameraman) and we took a lot of footages. Yes, many of them were taken on board the hop-on hop-off bus, so there would be a lot of editing that he would be doing. So doing one show on the Royal Princess would be in a way, advertising the Princes Cruise Company, which I was willing to pay US$ 150.00 bucks. But when they warned the guests that no videos or photographs would be allowed, I backed out of this tour and decided not to feature the Royal Princess. After all, I have more than enough footage to do at least three TV shows.
We will soon be docking in Naples for our first-hand visit to the famous town of Pompeii, that National Geographic magazine years ago featured in colored and graphic photos. Then we end up in Rome for a couple of days before heading back for home. If you want to know the demography of the passengers on board the Royal Princess, I would say that at least 60 percent are senior citizens. While I am already a senior citizen, we can still walk, hence I suggest that before you get too old, plan a cruise now because many destinations are a bit taxing for most old people.
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