Grand Princess out of Houston

Looking for information regarding the Grand out of Houston this Winter. Any tips and suggestions to make the sailing more memorable? How about the gym, pools, hot-tubs and sauna facilities? Has any one done the PC dining and/or paying for the speciality dining? Thanks for your help.

We went on the Grand last December. On the first full day, I asked one of the assistant cruise directors whether a friends of Dorothy party had been scheduled. He let me know one was scheduled for our first day at sea--the next afternoon.

We did not go to the gym except to look. The equipment seemed to be in good condition. There are four main pools. The aft pool is our favorite although it is small. It's adults only. The pool near the spa is for adults most of the time. It has the swim against the current feature. We only used that once, when the ship was in Costa Maya and it was too cool at the aft pool. The sauna is right there beside the pool. Our favorite hot tubs are near the Oasis Bar. It's a couple of decks up from the aft pool.

We like traditional dining better than PC. We had great tablemates at second seating. We tried PC once on the Golden and did not really like it.

We ate at Sabatini's on the Golden on two different cruises. It's good. My favorite was the old brunch menu, with unlimited mimosas (and other drinks), but that's been discontinued. When we were on the Grand, the other specialty restaurant still had the Tex-Mex menu. It was changing over to the steakhouse menu later.

Thanks Geoherb,

My partner and I are going this December on the Grand. We've been on RCI 3 times so we're excited about going on Princess (hey, it's a cruise of course we're excited!). We're going to try the PC dining. I've read mixed feelings about it. We kind of like the traditional seating, but since this is different we thought why not.

Thanks again.

Davebear