At Sea Nearing Florida: This is the final night of the month-long cruise, and so we ate in the ship's steak house - the Crown Grill. Yes, you pay extra for it and, yes, it is worth it.
Our medium rare rib eye steaks were simply superb, the best we've had in years. I also had their version of a French onion soup - they call it Black and Blue soup - again very good. The desserts were good, but mine was not up to the high standards of the rest of the supper. The other DrC says her "molten chocolate" dessert was excellent. (N.B. I cannot promise you will enjoy the Crown Grill as much as we did; any restaurant can have an "off" night.)
The food on this cruise has been good. I am particularly impressed with the chef's effort to also have good food in the buffet - some ships don't try very hard in the buffet.
The variety in Royal Princess' Horizon Court and Bistro buffet is overwhelming. They don't have one carving station, there are always at least two and some days three with different meats - roasts, hams, turkeys. Sandwiches, soups, salads, pastries, breads, ethnic foods including a taco/fajita station with really good guacamole. A person who can't find something good for lunch just isn't very hungry.
New on the Royal is a pizza/pasta restaurant in addition to the usual semi-outdoor pizza bar and burger grill by the pool, topside. There are also a sushi bar and a gelato shop, neither of which appeared to be doing much business when I was looking.
For a ship with 3600 passengers, the Royal's library doesn't amount to much and the book selection was odd. I wonder if they buy "remainders." The best libraries in Princess' fleet are in her smallest ships, the 600+ passenger ships they bought when Renaissance folded. Very popular with many cruise passengers, the little ships are not big favorites with Princess management as they are not as profitable as big ships.
The Royal is the first Princess ship I've experienced with on-demand movies and TV shows, something Holland America has had for awhile. I prefer HA's approach using in-room DVD players and an extensive library of DVDs but the Royal's system requires no DVDs or players and still provides considerable choice.
