Golden Princess Hawaii Dec 6-20, 2009

[Cruise Fanatic]

I can' believe that it is two weeks since we disembarked from our cruise to Hawaii.

Would like to share some observations of the cruise.

My partner Paul and myself (Larry) live about 50 miles from San Pedro, so we stayed at the Doubletree Hotel and took advantave of their "park and cruise" package.

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Embarcation: The hotel shuttle dropped us off at about 11:30a.m. We checked in and then were directed to a waiting area. They started boarding about 12p.m. by 1:45pm. we were aboard and went directly to our cabin. I do have to say, Princess does a very good job on embarcation, very orderly.

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Cabin and Ship: We booked a mini-suite on the Emerald Deck E-719. It was just as described. While I thought the balcony was on the small side, it was roomey enough for Paul and Myself. We dropped off our carry-on's and proceeded to tour the ship.

To digress for a minute...this was the first time on Princess for Paul, and my third time sailing on Princess and that was around 1996.

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The Golden Princess is a beautiful ship, and probably even more so after her extensive upgrades in April-May of last year. They were decorating the ship for Christmas and by time the ship sailed, all decorations were in place. I found the public lounges to be very well kept, and the decor was very nice. I really like the Vista Lounge, very comfortable chairs and couches. The Princess theatre was also very nice.

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We were assigned to the Canneleto Dinning Room (2n seating) Had a very nice group of folk from Washington State and Michigan. Our Waiter, Rusty and his "brother" Asst Waiter Jay, were fantastic. The service is some of the best I have received in all of my years of sailing. I was a tad disappointed with the food, the presentation, and the varity were all right, it was the taste, I found alot of the dishes to be very bland...needed alot more seasoning. I had the prime rib twice and both times it was like eating cardboard. The second time I sent it back and ordered something else.

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From reading other posts, It seems that the layout of the Horizon Court left something to be desired. I found it to be very easy to get around. I liked the different stations. I hate standing in a buffet line, just to get one or two items. We would always eat breakfast and a late lunch there.

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The only other dining venue we ate at was the Crown Grill...FANTASTIC!! I have to say it was the best meal that I had on the whole cruise.

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Entertainment: I usually don't really pay much attention to ships entertainment at night, but on this cruise, we were always finished with dinner in time to catch the late show at 10:15pm. They had a couple of comedians and a hypnotist and they were very good. The ships entertainers were so=s0, but then again, it takes alot to get me jazzed up on "Musical shows"

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There were plenty of daytime activities. I noticed that they played trivia at least 3 times a day and each session had plenty of passengers joining in. Two of the people at our dining table (Laura and Rochelle) were avid players. I joined them a couple of times for the afternoon session. One of the things that I really enjoyed was the lack of announcements over the PA announcing bingo, trivia etc...you had to refer to the daily Princess Patter for time etc.

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Ports of Call: Paul and I didn't any of the ship's tours. At each port of call, we just went out on our own, and expored. The islands are beautiful and no matter what one does it is enjoyable.

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Passengers: As expected, there were lots of Senior Citizens on this cruise. I never saw so many scooters in my life almost got run over several times. There were not that many kids on this cruise, and the few that were were well behaved.

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Disembarcation: I have to admit, this was one of the best disembarcations I have ever gone through. Princess has their act together on this procedure. The rough part was getting our luggage and a porter.

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I have to say, this was a very enjoyable cruise. One of the main reasons we booked this cruise was the number of sea days which we throughly enjoyed.If one want to take a cruise where you can relax and unwind, then this is the cruise for you. Intend on doing it again.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for your review.

 

I echo the sentiments on the Crown Grill, we loved it on the Golden in June.

[Coolmama_1]

Thanks for your review. I think we are going to try the Crown Grill on our next cruise!

[mycruz]

Thanks for the review, we're counting down now, under 60 days!