LONG Review of Island Princess Panama Canal 3/25/04

About Us

We are in our 30s. This is our third cruise with Princess. We have done the Eastern (2003) and Western Caribbean(2002). We book with the same agency each time--prices/booking available online, but I book over the phone.

Embarkation

We took a flight to get into FLL at 10:30 in the morning. Got our bags and hopped in a cab for Port Everglades. We did the Princess transfer once and realized that it took way too long. We were in line and waiting to get in the building shortly after 11:00. We waited for about 20 minutes when the doors opened. The express check in line was long so we got into the Caribe deck line-we were second. We signed the paperwork and headed to security expecting to wait in the holding area for a while. To our delight, they were already boarding. We were standing on our balcony by 11:30. This was the fastest process yet.

The Ship

We had loved the Grand Princess and were a bit concerned that this ship might not "WOW" us or that it might feel too small. What we found was just the opposite. We loved the decor, the furniture and the art around the ship. The pools were great too. We didn't miss having a true night club too much. There was enough to keep us busy at night. The expanded Wheelhouse Bar was a great change. Much more comfortable and welcoming. The corridor outside Sabatini's and the Bayou Cafe made you feel like you were walking on a side street in a city. The glass work around the ship was interesting too.

Our Cabin

We booked an AB--Balcony cabin on Caribe. We usually have a mini, so we were concerned about feeling cramped. The bed/desk/chair/tv area was fine. The closet and cabinet space was similar to the mini. I did miss the storage area in the living sapce and found that we ran out of space each time I went shopping in a port. I was prepared for the small bathroom. But after a few days of peeling the shower curtain off my backside I was dreaming of the minisuite bathroom. I did bring an over the door shoe holder. Without it I would have gone nuts in the bathroom. The only outlet in the room was on the wall next to the balcony door. I brought a small power strip, but no extension cord. Bring an extension cord. The balcony was huge. I asked our room steward, Dino, to bring me a pool lounge chair. It fit nicely with the table and two chairs. Having that chair was a great way to relax on the balcony

Food

We did anytime dining. We tried tables for 2,6 and 10. We had a mix of good and bad service. Luckily, we found a waiter and a table that we loved so we started to call in the morning to reserve the table. Try to get table 94 (it's by a window) with Matt and Noel. His section also had a table for 4 and one for 12. There were times when he was slammed but he handled everything with a smile. Matt is very attentive and quite funny. He made our dining experience even better. We found the food in the dining room to be similar to what we had on the Grand, but the portions seemed to be smaller. Matt even told us which meals were small so we would order something extra to share. We loved all of the cold soups. The beef meals that I had were better than what I've had before on cruises. We ate breakfast and lunch in the Horizon Court each day. The food was good, but there was less of a variety than what we saw on past cruises. We did order the champagne breakfast for the Panama Canal. It was well worth the $25. Most of the items could have been picked up in the HC, but the presentation of the food and drinking champange just after sunrise going through the canal was an experience that I won't forget.

Entertainment

This was the first time that we enjoyed the production shows. There is great use of the rotating stages in the Universe Lounge and the tv's and video screens were a nice addition. It kept things interesting. The dancing was a notch above what wepve seen before. Better costumes and great choreography. We liked the two male singers (Scott and Patrick)and one the of the female singers (Tracy). we found Jenn to be a boring singer with one style and no range. The comic, Kevin Hughes, was fantastic. We went to all three of his shows (and we bought his CD!). We had a nice surprise in that Willie Tyler and Lester were part of the entertainment. We had been fans as long as we can remember, so it was a bonus to see him live. He was also very approachable around the ship. The other entertainers (juggler, comic and magician) were ok. But nothing that you hadn't seen or heard before. Avoid Jack Wilkes--we stayed for the entire show, but should have followed our fellow passengers out the door. David Moore, the piano player in Crooners, is fantastic. Make sure to grab a martini and sit and listen to him at least once. We didn't listen to the bands that much. Most of it didn't fit us, or wasn't that great...My husband enjoyed all of the pool games and sillyness involved. We ended up with some prizes and champagne too. The game shows and trivia were fun too. A good way to pass some time between losing money in the casino.

Ports/Shore Excursions

We did a private tour with Peat Taylor in Jamaica. A group of Cruise Critics booked a tour together. It was a great half day. Peat was very knowlegeable and funny. He's got a decent singing voice too. We went to Dunn's River Falls, through Fern Gully and around Jamaica. We enjoyed the falls, but it was a bit much for me so I stopped about 3/4 of the way up. Fern Gully was beautiful. If you are going to Jamaica, save your money and book a tour with Peat ($30pp) and you get a great tour....Panama Canal Ocean to Ocean tour: We enjoyed the tour. It was very long and the weather danced between hot and rain, but we loved it anyway. I think you have to enjoy the history and engineering behind the canal to really like this tour. We missed our initial lock time, so we were delayed about 1.5 hours in getting back to the ship. We didn't have time to shop in the market at the port, but I was worn out by then and did't care that much. I did see one man get sick at the front of the boat. His family just kind of ignored what happened and I promptly moved to the back of the ship to avoid any future incidents...Costa Rica: Sloth Santuary and Canoe Tour. This was a fantastic excursion. Our tour guide, Gloriana was the best guide we have ever had. She even made the bus ride fun. She knew so much about Costa Rica and her live for her country was great. The canoe ride was pleasant. There were four people in each canoe with a guide. We got to see many birds and there were monkeys swinging in the trees. Then we were introduced to the Sloths. They are incredible creatures. I fell in love with them. I even adopted one, along with another cruise critic member. I am proud to be one of Sid Wiggy's moms. We had a chance to enjoys a fruit buffet and a drink before heading out on a nature walk, where we learned even more about the wildlife and plants. I'd recomment this tour to anyone that loved animals and wants to learn a lot about Costa Rica...We did the Island Highlights in Grand Cayman. We enjoyed seeing Hell and doing the postcard thing. We were a little troubled by the Turtle Farm. It is a mix of conservation and meat supply. We could have skipped that and been happy. We ate lunch at Breezes. Excellent conch fritters...In Cozumel we did the Dolphin Swim and Snorkel. The swim part was great. You got a kiss from the dolphin, danced with it and then you got pulled by the Dolphin. I squealed the entire time. The snorkel part was ok. We were in a large circle and the dolphin just swam under us around the circle. Since the water was very cloudy there were times when I didn't know the dolphin was coming until it was right next to me. We were going to buy the video, but they wanted $35 for it. It wasn't worth that to us. But then a cool thing happened: my husband was picked to help train a baby dolphin. He got spend about 30 minutes in the water working with the dolphin and a trainer. It was a once in a life time experience. After that we spent some time in Chakanaab walking around. We ate lunch in the park--which was fantastic. Then is was back to the ship and on to shopping.

Scholarship at Sea

The only thing that we did was pottery. We took the throwing class with Barbara Kates and had a lot of fun. Barbara is a great teacher with a lot of patience! We both made bowls that we were able to galze and bring home. We also painted plates to bring home too. We loved this program and look forward to adding to our pottery on future cruises.

Pictures

The switch to digital photography made things interesting. We had a lot more opportunities to get our pictures taken, and there multiple versions of each picture available. But the prices have gone up again so we ended up buying fewer photos. Funny thing is that if the proces were cheaper, we would have bought more photos and would have given the ship more money in the long run.

Passengers

We expected an older crowd and we got one. There were many walkers and wheelchairs, but it wasn't a problem. For the most part, we found the older crowd to be pleasant and chatty. I even had a few grandmothers that claimed me as one of their own. I did see more 40s and 50s doing the complaining and I had expected it from the 70-80 crowd.

Staff

We had a great time getting to know the crusie staff. Kelly Neal, Deputy Cruise Director, was a riot. He always entertained us and made up for Trevor Bradford and his canned jokes. The other staff members, Josh, Tyrone, Kent, Erin, Sam and Robyn were so much fun. I look forward to seeing them on future cruises.

All in all it was a great cruise, made even better by the people we met from this board. I feel like we made some lifelong friends that we hope to see again someday.

Hey Amy, great review!! Glad you decided to write the review I think you covered just about everything. Even though we talked everyday I didn't realize how busy you were in ports!!

For those of you who aren't sure about joining the thread to meet some of the people that are on your cruise - your choice, but I can only say that meeting the people that we did definitely made our cruise from a great cruise to the best cruise yet!! We have always joined the threads and met people for drinks at the beginning of the cruise. It's nice to see some familiar faces around the ship but this time we have met some people that I really hope to stay in contact with and maybe cruise with again.

I will add a little information - we are in our mid 40's and had the time of our lives. We also had our daughter (19 - a dancer on the ship) with us most of the time. They did say that the crowd was younger (but average still older than us )this cruise and the current one because of Spring Break.

Weather - first day and a half it rained and was very rocky, of course, it was the first rain they had had in couple of months (Murphy's Law). Other than that we have nothing but sun, sun, and more sun - some of us got to turn brown and some turned a nice bright shade of red, right Tanya!!

Cabin - C637, cabin at the beginning of the bump out - loved the size of the balcony, great view for the panama canal but other than that because it's open on the one side we found it a little too wide open. I always way overpack (29" suitcase helps, example brought home 15 shirts that I didn't wear, and no, I did not wear the same shirt every day , 8 pairs of shoes including thongs, runners, high heels, etc) and still had enough storage. There are lots of hangers but I did bring along some wire extra hangers because I hang absolutely everything!! We requested housecoats and they came in very handy.

Food and Dining Rooms - We also had PC dining and really enjoyed it!! It was great meeting new people every evening. Because we had our daughter with us most of the time we enjoyed the flexibility of being able to eat when it was convenient and working around her shows. We never had service I would complain about, some days it was slower than others but never poor. We never tried the alternative restaurants and could always find something to our liking.

Entertainment - Amy covered pretty much everything!! and the dancers were awesome .

Shore Excursions/Ports

Ocho Rios - was on the same excursion as Amy and joined them for lunch at Margaritaville's. If I were to do it again, I would head back to the ship for lunch and then go shopping. It's only a short block from the ship and Margaritavillel's was just okay. Dunn River Falls were definitely mine and my daughter's favorite excursion.

Panama Canal - because it had rained the first 2 days we decided to stay on the ship and enjoy the pools (after going through the locks and getting lots of great pictures!!) The one tour that I did hear people rave about was the Native Village tour! so it may be a choice for some of you.

Limon - we had contacted Oscar Brown to do our tour but he was already booked with people from our ship so he had a friend Danny, give us a tour. We did a banana plantation - very interesting, stopped to see a friend that had a sloth and find out about some of the fruit along the way, and went ziplining at Almond and Coral. I can say that doing the zipline was definitely the biggest challenge of my life. It was a good tour but with the 1 1/2 hour drive over potholes I am not sure I would do it again.

Grand Cayman - Stingray City with Native Way WaterSports, great tour - my husband's favorite.

Cozumel - we have been here before so we kept it low key. Did some shopping and went to Carlos and Charlie's. Wild place!! There were 6 ships in that day (including 2 from Carnival) and the place was hopping.

Amy, no review of the casino!! She is now an avid Roulette player!! I did hear from people that the machines were very tight! Talked to one lady, quite young, who actually said that she would not come on Princess again because Royal Caribbean's machines are loser and that she had lost $6000, yes that's right, during this cruise. There were quite a few of us that enjoyed the tables for a little extra money.

I will definitely cruise with Princess again and if you have any questions just ask!

Joanne

03/25/04 Island Princess

08/15/03 Majesty of the Sea (b to b)

03/26/03 Sun Princess

12/15/02 Grand Princess

Thanks for the reviews

Great review,

We were also on this cruise, wife and I are in our 40's, my son, 15, was also with us. We all had a great time and made some new friends.

Joe

Glad you enjoyed your cruise. We were on the Rotterdam, in the lock next to you, while going through the canal. What a fascinating experience those locks were. Glad we did this cruise. Highly recommend the Panama Canal cruise for anyone thinking of doing it.

Welcome home.

Glad you enjoyed table 94, and interested to see it has a new wait staff. That means our waiter, Jose has gone home for awhile. I'm sending him some pictures we took the last night of our cruise, so it's nice to know he'll be home to get them.

Island Princess Feb. 2004

Grand Princess Feb. 2002

Norwegian Sky Feb. 2001

Amy - Great Review ! We are on the 4/14 sailing and I can't wait! Two questions please - Is Table 94 a table for two ? We canceled our Ocean to Ocean tour because of the heat issues and instead opted for the Railtour - did you hear any comments about this tour ?

Yes, table 94 is for two, with another table for two right beside it, maybe a foot away. Nice quiet area, not near a servary. Heard nothing but good comments about the train tour in Panama from people who had taken it.

Island Princess Feb. 2004

Grand Princess Feb. 2002

Norwegian Sky Feb. 2001

Chetsky:I was worried about the heat on the Ocean to Ocean tour too. I brought a small water bottle that has a battery powered fan attached to it and it solved all the heat problems. The ship also has free water for anyone to drink, pour over your head, whatever you need to do. We did get some rain on our trip, so that did help to cool things off a few times during the day. The ship has 4 decks--the upper deck is open to the sun and at the front so you can get a great view of the locks. The next deck is covered, but you are in the open air. The bottom two decks are inside and have great air conditioning. So when you need to cool off you can go inside and look out the windows. This was a great tour and we wouldn't have realized the dramatic changes in the different heights of the locks if we hadn't been on the smaller boat. It was also great to sail under the bridge of the americas. It's a stunning sight with Panama City off in the distance. And seeing the dolphins swimming with us was even better.

Amy in Georgia

Hi Everyone,

My wife ( Tanlamb) and I were on the same cruise as Amy and Joanne.

Had a blast, and can recommend Matt and Noel for

excellant service. Table 95 - for 4.

Ocean to Ocean - There is a bar on board on the

lower deck, airconditioned,and the tour boat has upto 6 bathrooms.

It does get hot, but yu can take a break and get a cold drink and some a/c when needed.

Also, you will get a boxed ( actually in a bag) lunch.

The worse part of this tour is the bus ride, but you can at least catch a nap!

hate snow-love cruising

Hi Amy ... Joanne ... and others,

We loved the dining ... and enjoyed most of the ports.

But Mitch, Barbara and I found the crowd a bit elderly. The ship fell asleep before midnight each night.

Glad to be home ... and planning the next cruise already.

Keep in touch and let me know when you have the pictures ready...luv to see them.

Amy - It's a great review. Wish we can go to another cruise soon.

Chetsky - My husband and I (ChattTenn) were on the same cruise with Amy and others (Island Princess 3/25/04). We did the train ride (Atlantic to Pacific). The train is nice and very comfortable (air conditioned) but it did go too fast we can't see too much of the canal because tall grass along the track. It was a long trip and did not have much time to shop at the pier, we also missed the dinner (we had early sitting tradition dining). If we ever do a Panama Canal cruise again, we will try the Ocean to Ocean tour (heard from Amy it was great). The train ride tour, they might take to you to Colon 2000 for shopping, there is a SuperMercado (Supper 99) toward the back of this complex, you can get coffee there very cheap and it is good too.

Maxine - We are planning for another cruise already and probably a Panama Canal cruise again because we both think Costa Rica is beautiful. Princess is one of my favorite cruise lines and will cruise on Princess again if the price is right eventhough we did not care for our waiter (table 175 Provence Dining Room) but he had improved alot toward the second half of the cruise but we had better.

Enjoyed to meet everyone on this cruise.

Truyen

Amy--great review with lots of detail. Since we were also on the same cruise (included my mother and 2 daughters (13 and almost 16), I'll add our shore excursion info.

Ocho Rios: Since we had been to Jamaica before for a 2 week vacation, we just went ashore to roam around.

Panama Canal: We did the Ocean to Ocean tour along with Amy and cruis'ncdn. The girls and I really enjoyed getting to see the lock operation up close. You get a different perspective than from the cruise ship. We spent most of the trip outside at the back of the boat so we didn't get wet when it rained or too hot when it was sunny. Each time it rained people off the 'sun deck' so when it was raining near the end, we moved to the bow of the boat to have a clear view when we went under the Bridge of the Americas. Seeing Panama City in the distance through the fog and mist was very pretty. We didn't mind the bus ride back, but we were on a different bus than cruis'ncdn. We were struck by the opposite conditions of the cities at the two ends of the tour--near Panama City it was cleaner, newer, and in good shape versus Colon is extremely poor with Panama's highest unemployment which you could instantly tell.

Puerto Limon: We took the Rainforest Aerial Tram tour. The rainforest was beautiful. The tram starts off pretty close to the ground and gets progressively higher as the ground falls away. There are 5 people per tram plus a guide. In talking with other people, most of the guides are quiet initially. I think this is part of their strategy to get you quiet and more observant, which worked. Our guide gladly answered all our questions of "What's that?" and began pointing out more and more detail as we went. We did not see any animals from the tram--only saw a snake, a few birds and some butterflies. What you really see if the foliage of the rainforest. It was beautiful and very relaxing. As soon as we got off, all of us wanted to get back on and go around again. The tour is a 2 hour bus ride to the rainforest, a guided walk through an area on the ground, the 70 minute tram ride, buffet lunch at a nearby restaurant (very good), and the ride back with a stop a banana plantation on the way back. Our bus guide (Carla) and driver were very good. They both love their country and want to convey that love as well as information to you. Highly recommend.

Grand Cayman: We did the Stingray Sandbar and snorkeling with Native Way. Although we got separated into a different bus and boat at the last minute from the rest of our Cruise Critics group (too many to fit on the bus), it worked out fine. Our boat was anchored next to the other group. We ended up with people from other cruise ships mostly booking the tour from the shore so we got to hear comments from Celebrity and Royal Carribean cruisers. At the sandbar you're given a squid to hold and the string rays will swim over your hand to take it from you. The guide will hold one so you can touch it (very soft). I liked that it's merely a sandbar in the ocean that the stringrays have the option to swim up to or not, and there are a lot of string rays (plus a lot of boats around this sandbar). The snorkeling is very close and was fun. Saw lots of different kinds of fish and coral. Fun excursion!

Cozumel: We slept in (teenage girls) and just walked around and did some shopping.

Dining: We did personal choice and mostly sat at different tables of 8 each night. The only table we really didn't care for was table 9 (a table for 10). We sat there two nights and would have passed on the table if it came up again. Too slow and inattentive.

Teen program: The girls enjoyed the program. There were 42 teenagers on the cruise. They described the activities as things mostly the guys would like, then mostly girls would like, and a mixture later in the evening. There were also playstation games for everyone (not just the teen center). The schedule is just a guideline, if they don't like what's listed, your teen should go anyway since they mostly likely won't be doing the activity anyway. It all works out. Teen staff is really nice.

All and all a great trip!

Cindee

Looking forward to another cruise

Thank you for your great reveiw. My husband and I along with another couple are doing the Coral Princess Panama Canal on January 27th, 2005. Your reviews answered a lot of questions for me. Now, if I could only make the time until January pass by quicker..

Thanks so much for this review, very insightful and complete

Happy Cruising

Chris

www.LifeIsCruising.com

Next up:

Caribbean Princess 06/26/04

Star Princess 10/24/04

Carnival Victory 12/19/04

Carnival Miracle 03/13/05

Thanks for the nice review, Amy. You took me right back there. We were on the Island on March 15-25. We absolutely loved our cruise.

Hi Truyen...

We're going in November on the NCL Sun...we have a large credit we must use before the end of the year.

This time it will just be Mitch and I. No family along .... whew.......that was a rough one.

AMy... your pictures were great. Mitch is still working on ours .. we don't have as many.

Hope all is well with you all.

Maxine

5kitty....Just read where you will be on the Jan. 27th sailing of the Coral Princess. We have a roll-call for the Coral sailing on that date going on the Roll-call Board and you are more than welcome to come join us in our impatience for this cruise. It is listed under Red Bow Coral sailing, Jan. 27th. I hope you will find your way over to our thread and join us because we have been looking for more people to share with. Hope to see you soon on the roll-call boards. Judy

Hi everyone from the March 25th sailing!

My husband and I were also on this ship(as Paul has posted above-cruis'ncdn) We had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed the Island Princess. Like you Amy I too was wondering if I would find it a bit smaller than the Grand and I was pleasantly surprised.

The ship is beautiful and clean and there was no lack of available space both inside and at the pools.

We met so many great people online before the cruise and it was a pleasure to meet them on the ship and some of them I know we will keep in touch with for sure. I highly recommend anyone planning a cruise to check the cruise critic board for a roll call thread for that date and get to know some of your fellow cruisers.

We had a balcony cabin at the front of the ship D210 and had very little problems with motion except for the first 24 hours onboard. The seas were very rough due to a windstorm leaving florida and the rocking in our cabin was BAD! But I also heard that it was pretty bad throughout the ship and did notice that the seasick bags were out and available for anyone who needed them. But as soon as we exited the storm area the motion ceased immediately and was almost non existant for the rest of the cruise.

I do agree with Amy that Matt and Noel are the best waiters we have ever had. We enjoyed dining in their section and had most of our dinners at table 95 with two of our fellow cruise critic friends - hello Julie and Bill!

Matt's sense of humor and his excellent service are definitely a benefit to the Princess Line.

Our room steward Marlyn was also wonderful and definitely deserves mention. She went above what was expected of her to make our cruise comfortable and enjoyable.

One more thing I want to mention is the tour we took with fellow cruise critic members in Costa Rica. Oscar Brown was fantastic and this tour was very much worth the $45 we paid. I highly recommend this tour.

I know this is long but I just wanted to mention a few things. The Island Princess is a beautiful ship, the staff were pleasant, and the food was good. The age was a bit above average but I did notice that there were more people in our age group (40's) than I expected. I seemed to see more people in the 35-55 age group than in the older age group on this cruise which I think had something to do with the time of year we were sailing.

Hi to Joanne and Terry, Truyen and Joe, Joe and Pat, Amy and Mike, Maxine and Mitch, Cindee and family and Julie and Bill

Tanya

Looking forward to Island Princess March 25/04

Grand Princess March/03