shdenham
April 5th, 2004, 08:13 PM
My husband and two other couples just got back from our cruise on the Diamond. Beautiful ship, beautiful cabins (though not much different than any other of their ships). We were on the Caribe deck (midship) with the larger balconies. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cool on two of the three sea days and we couldn't do our usual "breakfast on the balcony". Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan were very warm (in the 80's), but Cabo was a bit chilly and overcast.
Food was of course excellent. Service was also wonderful, but we did have a few complaints, things we never encountered on our previous 3 Princess cruises.
As a tip, we reserved a minivan with a driver in Cabo since we weren't going to be there but a few hours. The cost was $259. The driver was okay, but didn't really go out of his way to be friendly or very helpful. He had a script to follow and through no fault of his, I'm sure, he tried to follow it. When we told him we wanted to see some golf courses, it seemed to throw him off a bit. By comparison, in Mazatlan the day before, we threw caution to the wind and hooked up outside the ship's docking area with a young man named Marco, who offered to show us all of Mazatlan for a fee of $18 per person for 3 hours or $25 for the whole day. He had been trained at a university to be a better tour guide. He pulled up to a store, asked us what kind of beer we wanted, got beer, cold water and put it in a cooler. He was very friendly and knows Mazatlan very well. We ended up giving him $30 each, so the total was only $180, significantly less than the Princess-arranged tour.
Also, we were quite disappointed with the way the Princess line has apparently gone with respect to the quota of children under 16. Apparently, since Carnival took them over, that quota is no longer abided. It used to be they wouldn't allow more than 10 percent of the passengers to be under 16. There were 600 kids of all ages on this cruise. Teenagers in the bars at 1:00 a.m. can be very annoying. Little ones (like 6 or 7) in Club Fusion for the Princess Idol contest that didn't even start until 11:15 all among drinking passengers. Well behaved kids are one thing, but kids who are allowed to run amok on the ship at all hours without parents is not at all appropriate, in our opinion. Lots of jeans and t shirts at night in the bars, maybe a California thing, I don't know. But I've always thought of Princess as a classy cruise line. They might as well put up the Carnival logo. It's going to be awhile before we cruise them again. We did address this in our survey when we left the ship, and two of the cruise directors said they definitely have to address the minors in the bars at late hours problem. I think their nightclub is open late enough to accommodate them, rather than having them in the adult lounges. Just our opinion.
Happy Cruising, All!!!
Sharon
SS Norway
SS Norway
Dreamward
Grand Princess
Sea Princess
Diamond Princess
Food was of course excellent. Service was also wonderful, but we did have a few complaints, things we never encountered on our previous 3 Princess cruises.
As a tip, we reserved a minivan with a driver in Cabo since we weren't going to be there but a few hours. The cost was $259. The driver was okay, but didn't really go out of his way to be friendly or very helpful. He had a script to follow and through no fault of his, I'm sure, he tried to follow it. When we told him we wanted to see some golf courses, it seemed to throw him off a bit. By comparison, in Mazatlan the day before, we threw caution to the wind and hooked up outside the ship's docking area with a young man named Marco, who offered to show us all of Mazatlan for a fee of $18 per person for 3 hours or $25 for the whole day. He had been trained at a university to be a better tour guide. He pulled up to a store, asked us what kind of beer we wanted, got beer, cold water and put it in a cooler. He was very friendly and knows Mazatlan very well. We ended up giving him $30 each, so the total was only $180, significantly less than the Princess-arranged tour.
Also, we were quite disappointed with the way the Princess line has apparently gone with respect to the quota of children under 16. Apparently, since Carnival took them over, that quota is no longer abided. It used to be they wouldn't allow more than 10 percent of the passengers to be under 16. There were 600 kids of all ages on this cruise. Teenagers in the bars at 1:00 a.m. can be very annoying. Little ones (like 6 or 7) in Club Fusion for the Princess Idol contest that didn't even start until 11:15 all among drinking passengers. Well behaved kids are one thing, but kids who are allowed to run amok on the ship at all hours without parents is not at all appropriate, in our opinion. Lots of jeans and t shirts at night in the bars, maybe a California thing, I don't know. But I've always thought of Princess as a classy cruise line. They might as well put up the Carnival logo. It's going to be awhile before we cruise them again. We did address this in our survey when we left the ship, and two of the cruise directors said they definitely have to address the minors in the bars at late hours problem. I think their nightclub is open late enough to accommodate them, rather than having them in the adult lounges. Just our opinion.
Happy Cruising, All!!!
Sharon
SS Norway
SS Norway
Dreamward
Grand Princess
Sea Princess
Diamond Princess