Myles, it's my remembrance that the PG bar was restricted until '93 or '94, but generally only passengers booked for the PG used it. Since it was so far out of the way, hardly any others would use it and were discouraged by the bar staff due to the size of the space available. In the early years, your ID card was marked with PG, although after the Queens Grill and Bar were added, my card with PG admitted me to the QG bar as well. Additionally, the PG bar was only open in the evening starting an hour before dinner and closing an hour after the PG ended serving, unlike the QG bar which opened late morning until an hour after the conclusion of dinner.
Many times, especially during world cruises, the PG bar would host small parties and a PG diner would be admitted but usually chose to have their before-dinner drink at their table upstairs. Often, if we just wanted to chill out after dinner, we would head to the QG bar before retiring to the cabin because the QG bar was larger and had more comfortable seatingand the PG bar staff seemed impatient to close.
As to the wild tales, there were VERY few, once again due to the confined space available and the restricted hours the PG bar was open. However, I have one tale! Early summer in 1971 enroute from NY to Southampton to join my grandparents at horse farms in Surrey, I was having a predinner drink in the PG bar with my girlfriend(at the time and many years afterward)when a gentleman, very mod and with an english accent stood up from a nearly table and exclaimed that he was going to"slide the rail" from the top of the spiral stairs(he also wasn't in good shape to go to dinner). Despite the protests of the bar staff and his table mates, he climbed to the top, perched himself on the rail and let go. He made the first turn only to fall outbound. After leaving the PG bar on a stretcher, we learned the following day that he had minor back injuries and was confined to his cabin for the duration of the voyage. So much for "sliding the rail", especially at sea!
