avp1234

Hi. We love Celebrity. The food, the ambience etc. We always do a reg balcony.

I've read NCL has a really good suite experience with specialty dining included. We are foodies and love Celebrities specialty restaurants. If you done both, can you can compare or give your opinion? Also concerned about the number of kids on NCL. I love kids, but on vaca I need a break.

We are thinking about booking the Jan 12th, 2019 12 nt. Not sure whether to plan it or not now.

What about the Casino Host on Silhouette?

I'm wondering this also. Boarding next month. I must spend too much time in the casino:cool:

We will be on Silly in 2 days in a Royal Suite (first time trying this room). Was wondering what room you had. Worried about the room attendant now:o. My husband will be sad if the casino staff aren't friends. He spends a lot of time there!!

We spend every night in the casino and I agree, the staff and vibe can make or break it. On the Equinox last Oct. we had a lot of fun. On the Eclipse year before and went with a group of 10 and everyone eventually quit playing. Surly staff who were rude and acted like they didn't want to be there. Will be on the Silhouette next month and hoping to have fun. We'll see

At one time, we received an email about the Blue Chip Club. I never received any more since. How do you join? We are at the tables in the casino every night and will be on the Silhouette March 4th.

I have the same dilemma. We've been to Maya Chan but wondering if Blue Kay is nicer? Loved everything about Maya except for the ocean water. Is it the same at Blue Kay?

Is there a way that someone could send a TA recommendation via private message or even e-mail it to you so the name isn't on the board? Or is this against forum rules.

We went to Aruba a few years back and stayed at the Hyatt. We are beach people and my favorite thing to do every day was rent a palapa, chairs and a raft and float in the calm ocean water all day. I don't see where Hyatt rents to non-guests. Any info on places that do or suggestions?

vpish - I agree the servers in the dining room were very overworked. They were moving constantly and I'm sure it was hard to keep up. My husband usually orders 2 entrees and 2 nights he only got one, along with not getting drinks other than water. We could have said something but by that time we were ready to go. Guess he didn't need that second one :)

Someone mentioned why we didn't go to the dining room for breakfast and lunch. We like to sleep in, relax, go to the spa etc and don't want to have to dress and have a sit down meal at that time. I guess it's just our routine.

We just got home from the Dec. 27th cruise. We ended up leaving port around 8:30, supposed to leave at 5. The captain announced during the drill that we were waiting on the weather (winds) and would hopefully be able to leave the channel. He held onto the tugs. We never heard anything else until I felt the boat moving. We missed Costa Maya due to the delay, but it was replaced by Cozumel.

To the OP, I don't discount your experience at all, the CB is an older ship and there have been so many problems with the cruises out of Houston that I do think it may be bringing down the crew. I'm a little worried, we are booked on the CB in May because we want to do the British Isles and that's the ship sailing that route. Hopefully things will improve, plus we'll be off the ship most of the time. I see your last few cruises have been on Celebrity. We sail both Princess and Celebrity regularly, love both lines and find them comparable although of course some cruises have been better than others. I know you say you won't take another Princess cruise, but if the right itinerary pops up, I hope you'll reconsider. Your description of your cruise is just not typical of the overall Princess product.

Yes, we do love Celebrity and will stick with them for now. I went in trying not to compare them to Celebrity, and not expecting them to, but wow what a difference. The staff on Celebrity are top notch and make you feel so welcome it's hard to say anything bad. I would say the dinners are comparable on both lines. I really didn't want to make this post a Celebrity vs Princess post because we truly did have a good time. It takes a lot for us to have a bad cruise.

Im the opposite of a picky eater, in fact my coworkers joke that I'm like a garbage disposal. While I've never had an issue with the breakfast buffet, the lunch buffet I've always struggled to find good food. I'm not sure if you ever tried the dining room for lunch but we often eat lunch there. Also the trident grill on the pool deck has excellent burgers and chicken sandwiches. The international cafe also has a great assortment of both breakfast (egg my muffin type of sandwiches amongst other items) and lunch options. While I agree the buffet should be better, there are a lot of other options that I hope you were able to find on board. I also couldn't agree more that the pizza is fantastic on Princess.

 

I hope you give the line another shot, your experience in my mind is atypical.

The egg mcmuffin type sandwich became our go to breakfast although I did miss the really good breakfasts I usually splurge on vacation. I was craving waffles and asked twice at the breakfast buffet and no go, yet when talking to someone else she said they had them one day. We don't really do the dining rooms for lunch, but the grill did have some good offerings. Like I wrote earlier, our dinners on the other hand were really good with the exception of Curtis Stone items. We only tried 2 - the shrimp cocktail and flank steak. We didn't care for either but food is subjective. We by no means went hungry, just not as good as we were expecting.

I'm surprised about the wake up calls. Those are automated. We've used the system on several Princess cruises (and ships). Once we have set and confirmed the time we have never failed to get the call no matter how unwelcome that ringing phone is in the morning. :cool:

We tried placing our wake up calls by pressing the button that puts you to the I'm assuming automated system, but it never went to it. It just rang and rang. So...I called the front desk and they said they would take care of it. This happened each time I dialed that number.

I wonder if all of the issues with bad weather and missed ports which translates to upset passengers has gotten to the crew?

 

We sailed once out of Houston (or maybe Galveston) and said never again - and this was a good 10 -15 years ago.

That could be so. But the passengers we talked to were ok with the weather and port issue, it happens. It was the numerous other reasons that was the problem. We met one couple that has cruised Princess for years and said they won't again that it's been going downhill every year.

Thanks for your comments. Sorry you had a bad experience.

 

Just curious, did you check here on CC for these issues on many previous CB cruises before you booked/sailed?

I knew about the port problems, sailing with the fog etc and was expecting that and was ok with missing Costa Maya, would rather be safe. Was surprised with the other issues.

I forgot to add, we never saw the constant cleaning, painting, maintenance etc like we see on other ships. I also had to seek out the hand sanitizer after the first 2 or 3 days which was odd after the Noro outbreak a few weeks ago.

I'll begin by saying we did have a good cruise. We love cruising, some have been better than others, but we haven't had a really "bad" one.

We cruised on the Caribbean Princess out of Houston in a balcony. The room was fine, yes it's dated but that didn't bother us. Our stateroom attendant Aneel did a wonderful job.

I have to admit we were a bit disappointed with the Princess product. Customer service was terrible. Any problems we had, and there were a few, we were sent from one person to another to be sent to yet another. It seemed like they were really understaffed and we really didn't get that welcome feeling like we have on other ships. The crew outside of our room steward seemed unhappy in general. Just a few examples, I asked more than once for tea at dinner and got it maybe 3 out of 7 nights along with missing food items. If you wanted a drink from the bar, you may as well get up and get it yourself.

We did miss a port and went to shore excursions a couple of times and there was only 1 guy working with a line at least 20 people long. He was doing his best but I'm sure it was frustrating. We were also disappointed with the food. I have to say our dinners were really good with the exception of the Curtis Stone items we ordered. The pizza was the best we've had at sea, and that became our fallback. The breakfast and lunch buffets were simply bad, and the layout isn't the best either. As for our 2 wake up calls, we never received either, which wasn't surprising.

Hate to be negative, but we heard the same complaints from other pax that I'm saying here. It was just so unorganized, lacking service along with an unhappy crew. I know I'm posting this on the Princess board and this probably won't be a popular post, but it's very true. Will we cruise Princess again? Probably not. I'm glad we tried it, just wish we would have had a different experience.

Thanks for the updates. We board tomorrow hopefully

Thank you for posting this. We are supposed to leave Sunday, but received an e-mail our trip may be delayed. Sorry for your issues and hope you make it back in time.

We will be on the Dec. 27th sailing and just got an e-mail that the Dec. 20th sailing may be delayed due to heavy fog which may affect our departure. I booked this cruise because of the ports so hoping we make them all. My fault for not researching the problems with this port before booking. This is our first Princess cruise, we'll see how it goes.

We will be on the Dec. 27th sailing Sunday and really hope it goes smooth. This is our first time to Houston and when I booked I had no idea of the fog issue. My fault for not researching better. Also our first time on Princess. We booked this cruise because we haven't been to these ports. Belize, Roatan and Costa Maya. With the weather forecast:(, I'm really hoping we don't miss one.

Hi. First time out of Houston next Sunday. We are used to flying to Florida's warm weather previously and the forecast says a high of 60 and scattered showers. How long does it take to sail to warm weather? Not sure what clothes to bring.

This thread has a wealth of information for first time cruisers from this port and has been very helpful in our planning. Just wanted to thank the posters that have contributed.

Cheaper yes but we sat for 20 to 25 precious minutes and finally left at 10am which was right on time because that was my deadline for ditching the transfer and grabbing a taxi. Just something to consider.

We are flying out of Hobby. I think we will purchase the transfers and like you we will grab a taxi if there are problems. I didn't know the problems with this port when I booked this cruise (my fault) but I'm being positive and hoping for the best.

We are sailing in 2 weeks and didn't purchase Princess transfers. Are there plenty of taxis at the port when you get off the ship like there is in Florida? Our flight coming home is at 1pm. This is our first time sailing from Houston.