Caribbean Princess Photo Review – September 1-6, 2014

FYI – This should be a fairly long and picture heavy review, prepare yourself. My previous Carnival Victory and Legend reviews (see signature) should give you a good idea of what to expect. For this trip, I brought along my Canon T4i DSLR with 18-55mm and 55-250mm lenses along with a Canon SD1400IS and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS5 (waterproof) cameras. DSLR never left the boat as I didn’t feel like carrying the thing, but the point-and-shoot cameras do a pretty good job there. I’m going to try to post the review day-by-day as I get time (between the joys of work and online master’s program) to sort through 1000+ pictures and upload the better ones. Please feel free to post comments or questions and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Welcome to the review of my first trip with Princess aboard the Caribbean Princess. After the last couple rather disastrous trips I had on Carnival ships, I really wanted to get away from the ‘drunken party’ atmosphere and constantly degrading quality of product and service Carnival provides. I had several co-workers that took a quick trip on Ruby Princess in April, coming back extremely pleased and vowing never to sail on ‘the drunk boat’ ever again. So, I did some digging and was able to get a great deal on a 5-day trip out of Fort Lauderdale on Labor Day week, with port calls in Costa Maya and Cozumel. I used to reside in Tampa, but now I’m in Central Florida so FLL is only about an easy 3 hour drive from where I live.

As cruise time approached, I got all of my port excursions booked and made sure everything was set for a great time on what I hoped would be the nicest cruise both I and the GF had ever been on. On the Tuesday before sailing, I got an email from Princess informing me that I had received a complimentary upgrade from my booked interior cabin on Riviera deck (14) to Balcony cabin B527 on Baja deck (11), and was even more pleased to see that the cabin wasn’t above or below any public spaces and was in a good mid-ship location.

Here’s a quick roundup of what we did in the two port stops:

Costa Maya – Nohoch Cay Beach (all inclusive)

Cozumel – Nachi Cocum Beach (all inclusive – 4th visit)

Right off the bat, I’ll give you my impressions of the cruise then get into the day-by-day complete with pictures.

I was beyond impressed and satisfied with the cruise experience on Caribbean Princess. The overall cleanliness of the ship, attentiveness and responsiveness of the crew, layout of the public areas, entertainment, and food quality was all top-notch. Without a doubt the best cruise I’ve ever taken. All the food was absolutely delicious and prepared to my liking, with wait and food service staff extremely attentive and willing to cater special requests – something you NEVER get on a Carnival ship anymore. While the ship does show a little wear and tear (the pool tile looked a little rough in places and a few elevators were always under maintenance), it was very well maintained by a crew that knew what they were doing and did a good job of it. I’d highly recommend Princess to anyone looking for a high-quality, relaxing cruise vacation where you can actually completely relax and unwind in a serene, peaceful environment (one without constant hawking of alcohol, classless drunken cruisers, and a raucous party atmosphere complete with lousy “DJ’s” playing crunk music at all times).

Day 1 – Embarkation / Fort Lauderdale (Port Everglades)

We drove down to FLL on Sunday prior to embarkation and I used some Marriott ports to get us a night at a Courtyard Hotel near the Bass Pro Shops and FLL airport. We slept in a little Monday morning, and went to a Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. place for breakfast before heading to the port at around 11:30am.

Getting into Port Everglades and the Cruise Terminal was a pretty efficient process. I parked in the garage directly adjacent to the terminal, and wheeled our bags into the hands of the many waiting porters on the ground level at the terminal. From there it was only a short walk into the terminal, where we filled out a brief health questionnaire asking us if either had any flu-like symptoms before we went through security and were in a check-in line. We waited about 3-4 minutes in the check in line before we were helped, and it only took about a minute for the princess staffer to get our passports scanned and give us our cruise cards along with a handy folding map of the ship. There was a slightly longer queue to get boarded, but this only lasted a mere 10 minutes or so and we were crossing the gangway onto the ship.

Once onboard, we were rather pleased to find we weren’t hit by a barrage of sales pitches from various crew members, art auction staff, etc… We were able to quickly and easily head up to our cabin which was cleaned and ready for our arrival. Upon entering, we found two new plastic Princess Cruises glasses (Tervis-type tumblers with lids) that were part of the ‘Unlimited Soda and More’ package I had purchased beforehand, along with a certificate telling us to call room service to have them deliver the bottle of Absolut I had ordered as well (this was delivered within 5 minutes).

After getting settled, we decided to explore a bit and visited the International Café, Horizon Grill (Lido buffet), and Prego Pizzeria (which was bar none the best pizza I’ve ever had at sea). It didn’t take long at all for our luggage to be delivered (2pm), and we milled about and relaxed on the balcony and lido deck until sail-away came, which we spent on our balcony.

Here come the pictures - note they are posted on Flickr @ 1280px max size, you should be able to click on any one of the pictures and it should open in a new window sized for your device.

Baja Balcony:

Oasis of the Seas in port:

Carnival Freedom and Oasis:

Vision of the Seas:

Fort Lauderdale beach drawbridge from aft pool area:

Finally sailing away from our balcony!

More pics from sail-away:

Keep it coming! Just booked a trip on her, and can't wait to see/hear about it :) First Princess trip, so any insider info will be appreciated.

Yay! Can't wait to see all your pics and hear about your experiences! We board her in 12 days!

The last of leaving Fort Lauderdale...

Dinner First Night - Coral Dining Room

Menu Pictures:

Butter and Bread:

Deep Fried Sushi appetizer:

Trio of Melon, Cantaloupe, and Honeydew:

Dinner first night, continued:

Asian-Spiced Duck Breast w/Honey Garlic Glaze:

Prime Rib x2:

Dessert Menu:

Fantastic! Can't wait to read and see more as we head on CB October 11th.

Your food photo's are making me hungry.:D Enjoying your review and great pictures.:)

Great review and photos, thanks for posting. :)

Beautiful photos! Keep them coming.

Norris, CB fan

Thank you for taking the time to do such an in depth review with the amazing photos too. We will be on a 9 night B2B in October so this really is heightening my excitement.

Thank you for posting. We sail the same itinerary in February. Your wonderful pictures will help the time pass. Can't wait for more.

I was on this sailing too. Most enjoyable.

We have 86 days before we leave. Your pictures and review make me want to go right now! :p

Love the photos! Thank you for taking the time to post the photos. Love the menus. We are cruising in 39 days!

Amazing. Did you happen to take pictures of the Patters?

This is wonderful. Please keep it coming.

Thanks for the pics!! The CB is one of our favorites...more pictures please!

Steve

more please :)

Nice pics, looking forward to more!

Enjoying your review and pictures. Hoping to see more.:)