After six Carnival cruises, we were in sore need of a change. This is something we realized following our cruise in September, 2025. Fortunately for us, we had booked a cruise on Princess two years earlier.
With a quick search, I can’t find a source to link to, so you’ll just have to trust me here. The cruise industry is, like probably most every industry, divided into market segments. Carnival is in the mass-market/resort segment, along with others like Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, MSC. The next step up is the premium segment, which includes Princess, Holland America, and Celebrity. We were expecting a much more refined and luxurious experience compared to Carnival. Princess delivered.
Carnival Corporation owns a large number of cruise lines, including Princess. There are actually very few players in the cruise industry, with Carnival, Royal, and Norwegian owning most every line you could name. Prominent exceptions to this are MSC, Disney, and Virgin Voyages. There are a few others, primarily in the higher-end luxury and expedition market segments that are not owned by one of the “Big Three.”
Princess is the cruise line most associated with The Love Boat, as the Pacific Princess is the primary ship used for the show, and the Princess Branding is seen throughout, even though the show doesn’t actually call the cruise line by name. Princess leans heavily into their legacy with the show. The ship we sailed on, Regal Princess, was christened by the original cast of The Love Boat. Did I mention that they lean into being part of the long-running show?
Embarkation Day
Regal is a beautiful ship. We knew that from videos we’d watched (we thoroughly research the ships we are sailing on or might be sailing on), but nothing prepares you for those first looks.
But, certainly, depending on the layout of a given ship, you may have a small section where you are just in a corridor with nothing to see. On Regal, we entered between two of the shops. In those first few feet before the atrium came into view, I was greeted with an interesting scent: the smell of a vintage railroad passenger car. It was just in that one area. I caught whiffs of it again later when we were walking through that part of the ship.
The atrium of Regal is grand. At one point on embarkation day, I remarked to Laurie that it brought to mind being in the lobby of a fancy hotel.
Not really visible in these pics are two small fountains at the base of both staircases.
Compare the above atrium to what we are used to, the stylings of Carnival’s Dream Class (pictured here is Breeze):
Even the atrium of the much prettier Carnival Miracle (our favorite on that cruise line) doesn’t hold a candle to Regal:
We departed Galveston much earlier than I expected. In fact, we were moving by the time we got to our stateroom and unpacked. Therefore, I didn’t get many good pics before we left.
Battleship Texas, I believe taken from our balcony:
Seawolf Park, which I have taken few pictures of:
Once we got underway, I got some pics of the interior, which was still decorated for Christmas.
Sea Day
With roughly 4100 people on the boat (double occupancy is around 3700), it was quite busy, even on port days. Therefore, I wound up not finding much to take pictures of. There was also a lot more entertainment and much higher quality than we were accustomed to, so we didn’t have to make our own entertainment. Normally, we spend a lot of the finding some place quiet to read.
I do have some nice cloud pictures from this day.
Cozumel, Day 1
This cruise was originally supposed to go to Costa Maya, Cozumel, and Roatan. Unfortunately, our Costa Maya stop was canceled and replaced with two days in Cozumel. We’re tired of Cozumel, as almost every cruise out of Galveston goes there. Sometimes, we don’t even get off the boat. We did get off briefly to go to one shop in the cruise terminal area.
This picture was taken on approach to our pier. In the foreground is Carnival Venezia, with the funnel of Carnival Breeze just visible in the distance. To the left is that ridiculous monstrosity Icon of the Seas. Seeing it in real life did not improve our opinions of it.
Most of my pics are with my Fujifilm X-T30. I also have a Fujifilm X Half, which is an admittedly expensive toy. I do think that it will eventually make me a better photographer since the camera doesn’t do much. There is no tone curve, I can’t adjust saturation, etc. It really does require more work at the time I take the pic. It’s a small camera (easily fitting in a pocket if it’s not in a case) and was a great choice for walkig around the port. The next two pictures were taken with that camera.
A family portrait of sorts; all three of these ships are owned by Carnival Corp.
Roatan
There’s not really much to say here. We didn’t have an excursion, and the weather was gross, so we just stayed on the ship. We’ll be back here three more times this year, with an excursion already planned for our February cruise.
A couple of pics from our balcony.
Sunset, January 2nd
All day on the 2nd, the Gulf of Mexico was exceptionally calm. We’ve seen it calm before, but not like this. Despite some clouds way off on the horizon, I got some great sunset shots, including an unexpected treat that I will get to in due time.
These next two are just after sunset. We noticed a white streak in the far distance to our roughly northwest. It looked somewhat like an airplane, but not quite. Our location was a few hundred miles roughly southeast of South Padre Island, and it turns out we caught a SpaceX launch.
Next up is our Valentine’s Day cruise on Regal. Valentine’s Day is the anniversary of my survivorship, and cruising is how we are reclaiming that day.