Review: Crown Princess 7/19 - 31 British Isles

[Pam in CA]

Some thoughts and information about the Crown Princess:

• Skywalkers lounge is used as an Elite lounge every night from 5-7pm, with drinks and hors d'oeuvres. We haven't gone as that's way too early for us with an 8:15pm dinner time; it's essentially set up for early seating; not anyone in late seating. I went up one afternoon to see what it was like. They had salmon, Brie cheese, crackers, etc. It was busy but not crowded.

• I hate that there isn't a covered area with loungers where you can get out of the rain and cold. It's been in the low 60's every day so far, which is pretty chilly if you're going to sit outside. I don't like the design of this ship as opposed to the Sapphire Princess which has a covered pool where you can relax on a lounger and read without freezing or getting wet. That said, the Adagio Lounge on Deck 16 is a great, out-of-the-way lounge to go if you want to find a quiet place to read. There's no smoking so the comfortable chairs and couches don't stink the way they do in Skywalkers or the Wheelhouse.

• We had a Cruise Critic “Meet & Greet” yesterday, which was great as I got to put faces to screennames. James Deering, the Passenger Services Manager (aka hotel manager) was there to answer any questions. I asked him specifically whether Traditional diners were allowed to eat in the Anytime dining room whenever they wanted. He said that yes, they can and Princess makes every effort to accommodate them. Of course, this means that those with Anytime dining experience long waits but he felt that while this was a problem, there was nothing they could do about it. He said that Princess is going to start offering some things for free that have been extra charge, such as ice cream from Scoops near the pool. Other items going to be offered for free will be sushi. FYI, there was lemonade in the buffet every afternoon although it was very, very sweet to my taste.

• There are some very rude people on this cruise. Example: we were going up the elevator after our tour this afternoon and needed to get out to allow an elderly lady using a walker who was at the back of the elevator. One large woman in front refused to move, even after being asked multiple times. I finally had to give her a nudge and even then, she moved only partially out which meant that more people had to leave to let the lady out. As the lady was exiting the elevator, a group of Chinese passengers pushed into the elevator before we could get back in (the lady was still blocking half of the elevator door.) They refused to move back to allow us to get back in. When asked, they said, “We're smaller than you and can fit more in.” So, we just pushed into the elevator anyway over their objections. The two teenage boys across the hall partied every single night, with people pounding on their door and calling to each other throughout the night. Most nights, I was awakened at 1:30am and again at 2:30am. One night, I opened my door and asked them to be quiet. They were quiet for a while but started up again at 3:30am. There were adults with them holding glasses of liquor so they were part of the problem. I told them to go away and that I was reporting them. Thankfully, they did finally go away but it was awful. In general, there are a lot of pushy, “it's my vacation and I'm going to do what I want” people on this cruise. Yesterday, when we were getting off the tender for our tour in Guernsey, we were held up from boarding the bus because a couple, who had no tour tickets or tour stickers, had gotten on the bus and refused to leave. There was a huge argument before they finally got the man and his wife to leave but he was so angry, he was shaking and shouting all the way out. As it was, they filled the bus to 100% capacity without a single empty seat. There were several people from another tour bus (they had different sticker numbers) who got on (at least four people that I could see) and were allowed to stay on. While it's not bad in the seats with two people, I had sat at the back with five seats and we were all crushed in there for a 3-hour drive around the island. Very uncomfortable.

• Talking about rude people, there was a table with us with an older couple, a young woman (probably their daughter) and two children. One night, they arrived in the dining room 45 minutes late (mind you, this is late Traditional dining) and the young woman proceeded to make and receive phone calls throughout dinner.

• The Tour Office isn't particularly good. We had a couple of tours that were stuffed full with no empty seats, and quite a few people on the bus with other bus #s. When asked about it, the Tour Office said that couldn't have happened as they have only a certain number of stickers for each bus. Hate to prove them wrong but they were wrong as no one was checking who got on which bus. I've noticed that there's also not a clear communication that, for instance, people on Tour A1 with an A2 sticker should be on the 2nd bus for tour A1. When they call A1, people jump up and run out, thinking it's their tour without realizing they're calling bus #s. The tour office also didn't record that we'd turned in our ship-to-airport transfers which caused us a lot of grief when it came time to get our disembarkation luggage tags. Every time we tried to get luggage tags for when we wanted to leave the ship, the Passenger Services people automatically over-rode the request since it was still in the system that we had transfers. It took four arguments and a lot of grief to get them to correct the system. One person at the Passenger Services desk kept on assuring me that luggage tag colors didn't matter as we could all meet in the Platinum Lounge. Idiot.

• Overall, we felt that the food onboard the ship was either poorly prepared or merely "OK." Not one single course any night was a "Wow." The salad greens weren't well washed as they were still gritty; my chicken broth soup one night had one piece of chicken in it (which was OK) but there was a bone left in that small piece (which wasn't OK); the onion soup that I had on the Sapphire Princess and raved about was watery and almost tasteless; it took my brother-in-law three tries one night to get a rare steak; the Caesar salad was so poor and tasteless that we gave up ordering it; etc. The soups in general were watery and lacking flavor where they should have been rich and flavorful. This is all quality control. The recipes and ingredients are exactly the same on all ships; it's up to the chef how to prepare the food. What was great on the Sapphire in April was mediocre or poor on the Crown. The desserts and ice creams were excellent. We went to the Crown Grill one night and it was excellent. In the buffet, I often cleared off a table myself and sat there with dirty dishes through most of my breakfast or lunch before anyone cleared off the mess. That was pretty consistent. I wound up getting my own silverware and drinks most of the time 'cause they were very, very slow clearing tables and re-setting them. The food in the buffet was mediocre. Again, not very well prepared, i.e., lettuce not washed very well, meat that was obviously left over from the night before very tough, etc.

• They had a book club on the ship and apparently, this is being rolled out on all ships and cruises. There is one book for the entire fleet that changes each month. For our cruise, it was "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch. I think this is a great idea. We'd put together a book club through our CC roll call for "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society" and over 20 people showed up at afternoon tea on our first sea day to discuss the book. FYI, that was a great idea to have it at tea as we were able to sit around a very large table and eat and drink while we talked about the book.

• One interesting thing told to me by one of the Assistant Cruise Directors is that many of the staff on the ship are professionals in their native countries, i.e., doctors, lawyers, etc. They can make more money as crew members than they can in their professions. She was very clear about this.

The Cruise:

I traveled with my sister, brother-in-law, daughter and two friends. We elected to take ship's tours rather than independent tours as we wanted to limit the number of all-day tours since it was such a port-intensive cruise. We'll be back in Dubin and Belfast next year and I plan to take longer and more in-depth tours when we're there as we'll have lots more sea days.

We had several strong gales but I never felt the ship moving very much. It was pretty smooth throughout. If it wasn't announced that we'd be in a gale, I wouldn't have noticed. Granted, one person's "not very much" is another's hell so take that with a grain of salt.

The flight from LAX to LHR on Thursday, July 16, was uneventful other than being very long. We arrived at LAX at about 5pm for our 7:50pm flight, went to the gate at 7:10pm and boarded right away. I managed to sleep a bit on the flight, which arrived at LHR at about 2pm. Again, uneventful as we picked up our luggage and walked through Immigration; met our driver just outside baggage claim and were on our way into London. I highly recommend Woodford Chauffeur Cars (http://www.woodfordchauffeurcars.co.uk/); I've used them several times and they've been on time, courteous and very helpful.

We stayed at the Goring Hotel on Beeston Place (http://www.thegoring.com/home.htm), near Buckingham Palace. Lovely, old, privately-owned hotel that's been in the same family for close to a century. My room, a single, was small but very comfortable. It was extremely quiet... you couldn't hear anything in the hallways. We had dinner the first night at the hotel which was VERY expensive (in my opinion) and mediocre. No matter what you ordered, it was 47GPS which when you included something to drink and the service charge, came to over $80/pp. I had boiled chicken which you would think would be hard to mess up but it was tough, stringy and not very much of it. At that price, I should have been wowed. The afternoon tea there is a major event with extremely fashionable ladies and gentlemen (who looked like they'd just come back from Ascot) spent the afternoon having tea and pastries.

The next morning, my daughter went to visit a college friend now living just outside of London and my brother-in-law and I decided to take the 3-hour hop-on hop-off bus, that with traffic, took about 4 hours. It was nice, though, and we got to see a lot of London plus it was a sunny day. We arrived back at the hotel in time for a late lunch. After drinks at the hotel, we walked around the corner to a nearby pub for dinner. It was good... and a hell of a lot less than the food at the hotel.

Sunday morning, we met for a continental breakfast at the hotel and our driver showed up at 9:30am. We were all ready so we brought our bags down and hopped in the van; very little traffic, quick check-in and we were in our cabins on the Crown Princess by Noon. We were joined by our friends who flew to London on Friday (arriving Saturday) and took the cruise shuttle to the ship.

Dinner the first night was OK, the service was horrible. We had late traditional dining and were seated at about 8:15pm. The waitstaff forgot to bring us our salads and we decided not to have coffee, and weren't out of the dining room until after 10:30pm. Awful. If we'd had salads or wanted dessert, I don't think we'd have been out of there before 11pm. After the 2nd night of awful service (we got out of the dining room, without coffee, at 10:15pm), we had an entirely new waitstaff assigned to our area for the rest of the cruise. YES! They were our waitstaff for the rest of the cruise. We heard our first waiters were sick which was why the change but I kind of doubt that as they were seen working in the buffet the next day.

Just a note that we were supposed to sail at 5pm but due to a sudden gale that came through, we didn't sail until after 8pm.

Monday was Guernsey. What a delightful island! We took a bus trip that took us all around the island; it certainly is unique. The island is only a few miles (less than 20) off the coast of France so they have a history of mixed heritage of French and English architecture. They have an agreement with the British Royal Family but share no laws or any governance with any other country. As a matter of fact, they have few laws, not even habeas corpus. They keep a record of every single inhabitant on the island and only 13% of the homes are allowed to be sold on the free market. The rest can be handed down or sold only to licensed Guernsey inhabitants. To become licensed, you must have lived there for 15 years and cannot have dual homes, i.e., one in England, one on Guernsey. To inherit or own by marriage, you must marry a licensed Guernsey inhabitant, remain married for 15 years and live on Guernsey for all of those 15 years. They don't make it easy for outsiders to move or live there. Guernsey has a rich history of pirating which is the foundation of the island's wealth. There are also 47 banks and investment houses as they do not recognize the banking laws of any other country, including the US. Guernsey was occupied by the Germans from 1940 through 1945, and suffered greatly during WWII. The ****'s built many bunkers and anti-tank walls all along the shoreline of the entire island, using slaves. They also used ancient buildings as target practice, destroying an old monastery, among other buildings. I would call Guernsey “charming” and it would probably be a nice place to visit but not for long. The weather is pretty miserable as it's in the English Channel and subject to a lot of wind and weather fronts.

Formal night was Guernsey and I didn't see anyone not all dressed up. We sailed a little late due to weather that came in, arriving in Cobh, Ireland early this morning. I was up early and on a bus by shortly after 8am to Blarney Castle and the Woolen Mills. We had rain, sun, more rain, more sun, and even more rain; and, it's supposed to rain off and on for the next week or more. Ireland is very green and lush. There's a lot of foliage and beautiful blooming flowers. The tour was “OK”; if someone were to go to Cork and Blarney Castle, I'd recommend they take one of the many vans on the dock as it would have been cheaper and you wouldn't have had to hang around the woolen mill for a couple of hours if you didn't want to buy anything. Blarney Castle is more like a large tower with two or three small rooms per floor and a lot of floors and steps. We chose not to go to the top, which was supposed to be very steep and narrow, in order to get to the Blarney Stone so we could kiss it. That wasn't huge on my “to do” list. The Woolen Mill was big but I didn't see anything there that was worth getting. My daughter got a couple of nice sweaters.

Tomorrow is Dublin and we're taking a city tour. We also get to sleep late! Yay! Dublin was nice... in retrospect, I wish I'd taken a tour that went into the countryside. We visited Trinity College, Ireland's oldest University, and toured St. Patrick's Cathedral, founded in 1190. Interestingly, there's no Catholic cathedral in Dublin even though the majority of the population is Catholic. It's obviously old and the stained glass is beautiful, but as architecture, I've seen more interesting and/or spectacular cathedrals. I'm probably getting jaded. I was probably also influenced by the fact that it was overcast and spitting rain.

The next day, we were in Liverpool. I didn't see much of the city itself as I'd opted to go to Wales. What a beautiful countryside! It was like nothing I've seen before. The fields were an exceptionally bright green, almost a chartreuse. We drove to Llangollen where we boarded a volunteer-maintained and run steam engine train that went for seven miles up the river. Even though it was only seven miles, it took about half an hour. We then went to Chirck Castle, built by King Edward I in 1295. It's an ancient castle built around a large courtyard. We saw the living and servant quarters and I could have gone into the dungeon but the steps were very steep, very narrow and very uneven so I passed on that. It was a lovely day. My sister, brother-in-law and daughter stayed in Liverpool and really liked the city. There are a lot of museums, including the White Star museum.

The next day was Belfast, which I loved. It was what I'd expected to see in Ireland but that's probably because we went into the countryside rather than staying in the city. My daughter and I visited some of the sights in two and then drove out of the city to Grey Abbey, the ruins of a 12th century Cistercian monastery. We saw the Parliament building built after the creation of Northern Ireland in 1920. It was designed to look like the White House. During WWII, they covered it with a mixture of tar and cow manure to disguise it from the **** bombers, thinking they could wash it off after the war; it took seven years of cleaning to get it sort of white again. Belfast was a major ship, aircraft and ordnance building city during WWII so it was a target of **** bombings. They experienced four major bombings during the war with thousands killed, and tens of thousands made homeless.

Next was Greenoch, Scotland (near Glasgow.) I went to Loch Lomond where we visited the village of Lust about halfway along the shore. It was a gorgeous day and the temperature was probably up to the upper 60s (20 deg. C). After spending about an hour in Lust, we drove along the shoreline and saw Ben Lomond, the “mountain” along the loch and mentioned in the song, “The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” and on to Inveraray Castle, one of the castles built by the powerful Campbell clan. The title for the head of the Campbell clan is Duke of Argyle and the current 13th Duke of Argyle lives there part of the time with his family. He's young, in his early 40s, and married to Pamela Cadbury of chocolate fame. They have three small children and there are photographs of their family and friends throughout the castle. It's still used for events such as weddings and the Duke and his family live in a section of the castle. The drawing room has huge tapestries designed specifically for the room, that are probably the only original tapestries in their original room anywhere. And yes, the castle has a moat. We had lunch in Inveraray and after lunch, headed back to Greenock but by a different way. The bus was put on a small ferry to cross the Clyde, a very wide and deep river. We saw the loch where the British had a huge naval base during WWII, Holy Loch, and where the US maintained a submarine base in the 60s and 70s. It was a lovely day.

Today is a sea day and we had a Cruise Critic meeting this morning (which I missed for the most part because I didn't read my Patter until this morning), and this afternoon, we had a book club meeting where we discussed the “Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society”; there were some interesting discussions.

The next day was Invergordon where we went to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle, an ancient castle on the shore of Loch Ness dating back to the early days of Scotland. There are just ruins there now. It was a lovely day with only a little rain, and our tour guide was very good, very amusing, and had a lot of information about the local farming and agriculture, having grown up on a farm herself.

Yesterday, we took the EZ Edinburgh (I'd been to Edinburgh before and didn't want to spend all day there) and our tour guide was awful. She didn't know where to go, what she was talking about, and the first hour of the tour, once we'd gotten into the city, was spent going through traffic to a discount warehouse and “pit stop.” About the only thing of interest we saw was driving up on the hill near the Queen's residence so we could get views of the castle and the city. When we asked where she was dropping off those who wanted to stay in the city, she got snippy and made a huge production out of it, totally forgetting that our tour tickets specifically said, “Stay in city or return to the ship.” We were dropped off at Waverley Station and we walked down Prince Street where we found a great store that had a tea shop on the 3rd floor with great views of the castle. Had panini sandwiches and bought cashmere sweaters before heading back to Waverley Station to get a cab back to the ship. The cab was 19GBP, less than we were told it would be.

After another sea day, we were in Le Havre. I was the only one of our group who wanted to go to the Normandy WWII beaches and I have to say that this day was the "Wow" of the cruise. I was deeply affected when standing on Omaha beach and looking back at the cliffs and other landing sites. We went first to Pointe du Hoc, which is a point of land between Utah beach to the west and Omaha beach just to the east. It was heavily fortified by the ****'s with guns capable of covering both beaches. Two hundred Rangers landed here in preparation for D-Day to try to take out the guns. It was also heavily bombed; you can see the craters all around -- BIG craters. From there, we went to the St. Laurent Cemetery, the US cemetery with about 10,000 crosses. This, too, was deeply moving. After a delicious lunch in Arromanches, we briefly visited or drove past Gold (British), Juno (Canadian) and Sword (British) beaches. All-in-all, a fabulous day and well worth the cost of a tour. We didn't get back to the ship until 6:30pm and as we were disembarking the next morning, it was a mad scramble to shower, change, pack, go to dinner, and finish packing. My day in Normandy was worth it, though.

Overall, we had a nice time and a nice cruise. It wasn't "Great" nor would I put it among my top cruises. Even with the issues we had with the Crown, we're booked on her for 14 days in September 2010.

[Shogun]

Hi Pam,

Thank you for your review,

did the locls turn out in Greenock and Cobh for the sailaway.

As to the scots village it is Luss not Lust.

Did you tell james deering about the issues you had with the food etc,

we were told the Head chef was on holiday and the ship had issues with

food service.

yours Shogun

[Pam in CA]

Originally Posted by Shogun

Hi Pam,

Thank you for your review,

did the locls turn out in Greenock and Cobh for the sailaway.

As to the scots village it is Luss not Lust.

Did you tell james deering about the issues you had with the food etc,

we were told the Head chef was on holiday and the ship had issues with

food service.

Very interesting. Thanks for the info and sorry for the mis-spelling. And no, I didn't tell James Deering. It was the kind of thing that you expected would be strictly temporary and not day after day. Again, it was such a port-intensive cruise that there wasn't a lot of time or energy to follow up on things that one would ordinarily do. It did go on our comment cards. I used my notes, written on my netbook during the cruise, for my comment card.

[Shogun]

Hi Pam,

As I understand it the number one complaint on the Crown on the past few cruises has been food service.

I hope it is better for you in September.

I agree that they should use ships with a covered pool for UK / Norway cruises
yours Shogun

[Posaune]

I hope the chef is back next week!!

[firefly4423]

thanks for sharing!

[TracieABD]

Thanks, Pam, for the review. I am sorry the food was so iffy. That would certainly leave a bad taste in my mouth.

[Megsdad]

Originally Posted by Shogun

Hi Pam,

Thank you for your review,

did the locls turn out in Greenock and Cobh for the sailaway.

As to the scots village it is Luss not Lust.

Did you tell james deering about the issues you had with the food etc,

we were told the Head chef was on holiday and the ship had issues with

food service.

yours Shogun

Shogun

What's a locls?

[Clutterlady]

Thanks for the review Pam. Sorry to hear there were some things that didn't go so well, but I'm sure the ports made up for some of the problems

[cynbar]

Originally Posted by Megsdad

Shogun

What's a locls?

I think he means the locals, or townspeople, or residents--- depends where you are from!

[cynbar]

Thanks Pam, for your review. I was sorry to read James Deering's comment about traditional diners being allowed into anytime ---- seems so unfair to those of us who sign up for anytime. How does this make any sense, for them to be able to basically take up 2 spaces apiece at dinner??

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the intensive review.

[mii]

Pam thanks for the very extensive review. I always love to read thoe kinds. You were very thorough and hopefully most of your cruise was good. Again thanks.

Marilyn

[junglejane]

Hi, Pam. I enjoyed reading your comments on the cruise. DH and I are working on a review to submit to the members review section, but aren't done yet. Like you, we felt this cruise had more than its fair share of rude people. There also seemed to be an awful lot of hopelessly lost people who never seemed to have familiarized themselves with the layout of the ship. We think lots of these folks reflexively took the elevators everywhere, even just one floor.

This was our first time doing Traditional Dining on Princess and it was a bit disappointing. On the plus side, the wait staff was very friendly and attentive to our DDs' food allergies. But they always seemed harried and the service was slow. We were seated at a table for 4 in an area where all the other tables were for 8. The other diners in our section were almost all Filipino and were being served some sort of specialized cuisine. The waiters would bring large platters around and dish items onto each plate. I mention this just because I think it affected the pacing of our dinners. We would always arrive promptly at 6 pm and it was often well past 6:30 before we'd get our first course.

I really enjoyed all the ports on this cruise. I was usually too pooped after dinner to spend much time enjoying the ship. I never tried out Movies Under the Clouds -- too cold and blustery. But it was great to meet you and the other friends from the Roll Call and the Book Club get together was fun. Hope to see you on another ship. --Mary

[rdsqrl]

Pam, thanks so much for your detailed review; I really enjoyed reading it. Sorry about the bumps in the road but glad overall it was enjoyable. I totally agree with you about Normandy -- definitely the highlight of any vacation. Love the book club; hopefully I can participate in one on a future cruise (although given Princess's selection versus your group's, I think a private club is the way to go -- I can see Princess totally dumbing down to the lowest common denominator -- like Oprah picks or something [shudder]).

Very sorry to hear James Deering admit that Princess is caving and permitting TDers to use AD. That, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks. Not only is it unfair to Anytime Diners, who now are going to have wait in ginormous lines, but really leaves TDers in the lurch as you sit at your table for 8, wondering where the heck the other people went night after night.

[lovespositano]

Hi, Pam - Enjoyed your review tremendously. Do you still have the Patters and can you tell me the bands in Club Fusion, Wheelhouse and Explorers, as well as the pianist in Crooner's?

[loma linda ca a & j]

woweeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!

you really took a lot of time to give us an extremely
well written detailed critique !!

we've been soooooo pleased w/ all our princess cruises -
looking forward to sailing on star & 3 other lines next year

but am glad i switched from crown to holland westerdam
for their "scottish serenade" 8/14/10 - mainly because
of having 2 full days in edinburgh & beg & end in holland
so we can spend time in amsterdam & belgium before &
after cruise

[fridaythecat.u.k.]

Originally Posted by Pam in CA

....
The next day, we were in Liverpool. I didn't see much of the city itself as I'd opted to go to Wales. What a beautiful countryside! It was like nothing I've seen before. The fields were an exceptionally bright green, almost a chartreuse. We drove to Llangollen where we boarded a volunteer-maintained and run steam engine train that went for seven miles up the river. Even though it was only seven miles, it took about half an hour. We then went to Chirck Castle, built by King Edward I in 1295. It's an ancient castle built around a large courtyard. We saw the living and servant quarters and I could have gone into the dungeon but the steps were very steep, very narrow and very uneven so I passed on that. It was a lovely day. ....

Pam,

Thanks for the great review.

When you were in Llangollen/Chirk, you should have popped round to my house for a cup of tea I live about 20 miles from Llangollen and 14 miles from Chirk In fact, I drove through both yesterday as DH and I went out for a day trip in Wales (Llandudno)

[firefly4423]

thanks for the review! Very in depth.

[dcl1710]

Thanks for this review because we almost took the cruise! Working on it for next year. Two thoughts: 1. Regarding the food: we found the food on Princess substandard when we went to the Baltic and we attributed it to the suppliers that they used. 2. When we did RCL cruise around Spain and Italy there were a lot of VERY RUDE PEOPLE who were not Americans. We have the image of being ugly, but they is a lot of ugly manners out there. We are so much more line and structure oriented and other cultures are not. I enjoy experiencing other cultures and norms so I am not saying what way is correct. Just like Pam did, roll with the punches and enjoy the cruise.