Caribbean Princess 4/2-4/9 Observations

[ericosmith]

I'm not going to post a formal review because frankly, as far as the ship is concerned, I have nothing at all to find fault with and most everything has already been written. Instead, I'll just post some random observations in no particular order.

 

Mariott Marina - Paid $75 on Priceline for one night and had no problem at all requesting a port view. It's worth staying here just to get up early and sit out on the balcony watching the ships enter port and dock.

 

Embarkation - Took the 11:15 shuttle from the hotel, only one other group with us and everyone was going to the CB. No delays or crowding. Was on the ship by noon. Would have been on in half that time if it hadn't been for those annoying photographers (ok, I do have one thing to find fault with). By far the longest delay of the entire process.

 

Crowding - My last cruise was on the former Renissance (sp?) Line and the CB didn't feel any more crowded than the smaller ship. Sure, there are a lot more people, but there is also a lot more space.

 

MUTS- Watching basketball under the stars was about the coolest thing ever. Unfortunately, watching MSU get beat was the only downer of the week.

 

Buffet - I kept reading where the Caribe Cafe and the Horizon Court serve the same thing. Not true, there was always a different selection in each one. It's worth checking out both for lunch to see the varied selection. Speaking of crowding....only once was there ever a line in the buffet and it resulted in perhaps a 5 minute wait. Always a place to sit either inside or outside in one buffet or the other.

 

Personal Choice - Ok, I don't like being forced into eating at a particular time so I think the idea of personal choice is great. Ate in both the Coral and Palm dining room, various times and at tables for two and with others. Always arrived at a different time without reservation and never had to wait at all for any table size. Service was always efficient and attentive.

 

Desserts - For you Love Boat Dream fans, it was on the always available menu.

 

Steaks - No filet on the always available menu. Just the same strip steak.

 

Beer - None of those Coors Light specials, just the Dos Equos special every day. Draft beer was available at the deck bars and a better deal than the cans.

 

Automatic tips - Great idea. In the past I've found that with individual tipping, the service at breakfast and lunch bordered on surly and non-existant. Automatic tips have led to a far more even service level.

 

James - Ok, I did find him annoying. At least I found his announcements annoying. All the activities are listed in the Patter...why do they have to be hyped on the PA a half dozen times a day. (hmmmm...I guess I found fault with something else)

 

GPS - I posted on another thread about this but I might have lost a lock on the Caribe balcony 3 times during the entire cruise, and these instances were less than 5 or 10 minutes. Tracked the entire cruise on nautical charts on my laptop and really enjoyed always knowing exactly where we were.

 

Princess Cays - Booked a cabana for two adults and got a letter asking to turn one ticket back in for credit. You only need to reserve for one adult. There was never a line at the buffet on the cabana side.

 

Godfrey (St. Thomas) - Wouldn't book with him again. He's obviously become too popular. He had a total of 4 "taxis" attempting to run together. It didn't work. Other than the pickup from the ship, we kept getting farther behind all day. Had to wait for him to start the tour, then at every stop, we had to wait for probably 70 people to get back to the vehicles. Didn't get to all the sites listed on his webpage and after talking up Coki beach in the morning, he talked everyone into going to Secret Harbor in the afternoon. He obviously couldn't have given everyone their beach choice since we were running so far behind. This might have been a good tour when it was only him, but it was just a mess trying to do it with four vehicles.

 

12 Meter Challenge (St. Martin) - A total blast and you don't have to do a thing if you don't want to. I'll look at the America's Cup in a whole new light in the future.

 

Disembarkation - Ok, don't tell people to ask for Red 1 tags any more. Red was way down the list. Light Blue 1 was the first group called. From number being called to cab was less than 15 minutes and much of that was taken up by trying to climb over all the people sitting on the floor in the atrium.

 

Spirit Airlines - May be a budget carrier but they were very well organized and got everyone checked in as painlessly as possible. Don't bother with the online checkin. They made you use the self serve check in anyway if you had luggage to check.

 

Teenagers - The only one that caused a problem was the young lady who apparently decided to spend the night somewhere other than her own cabin. Nobody appreciates a 5:30am missing person wakeup call broadcast throughout the ship.

 

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. If any thing else occurs to me I'll post it later.

[AliceJ]

Thanks for the recent review. Leaving on the CB in less than 2 weeks - can't wait!!

[IKE]

I also had no complaints with Our 2/26 Cruise on CP. Enjoyed Personal Choice Dining and never had to wait for a table.Service in the Dining Rooms was excellent. Wait Service was also excellent. Enjoyed Movies under the Stars. Different and very enjoyable. Also Academy Awards were shown under the stars and also on TV in your Cabin. That was a suprise! Food in Horizon Court and Cafe Caribe was very good. We never had to look for a table either.

Our Balcony Cabin on Baja Deck was lovely. It was covered and it rained last day out and We were still able to go out on it and enjoy the view without getting wet. Ship handled very well! Shows were very good. Can't say enough about the Ship. She is just beautiful. The staff was very friendly. We had a lovely Cruise. We have sailed 46 cruises total so far and this was one of the best........

[dkee]

Last Wednesday, the Princess seemed to return to port in St. Martin. We were on the Carnival Glory and saw the ship turn around and return> could you tell us what happened?

[MommyInSC]

Last Wednesday, the Princess seemed to return to port in St. Martin. We were on the Carnival Glory and saw the ship turn around and return> could you tell us what happened?

 

Young man got sick. Heard it was appendicitis. 2 hours from St. Martin, we turned around to take him back. Captain announced a couple days later that he was doing well.

 

I went on a tour of the bridge. The captain said it worked out that this particular week, we had went to the Cays at the beginning of the week, so turning around was not that big of a deal. Had we been doing the Cays on Friday like usual, they would have been hurting to get to the Cays on time Friday.

 

My items from the same cruise last week....

We did the Ultimate Balcony Dinner. It was absolutely lovely. I highly reccommend it!

 

I stayed in Lido 250. We loved this deck. Of course we determined our schedule by the food and where it would be...so the buffet was close to us ;) Absolutely loved our Cabin Steward...Catalin. If anyone sees him soon...tell him Scott and Beth said "hi!"

 

We ate at both Sterlings and Sabatini's. Both were great =)

 

Did the vow renewal. As said by others....very romantic.

 

We went to Orient Beach. The brochure said "Partial nudity may be encountered." We were most surprised to see the full monty...over and over again. Husband said we would skip that beach next time as I have now ruined his idea of a nude beach LOL!

 

We had not cruised in over 10 years, so it was before 9/11. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed with the security. I had thought about it before the cruise, but had not really seen any posts about it. After seeing everything they did, I felt quite safe on the ship.

 

5:30 am call for the teen on the ship the first morning sucked LOL.

 

Ship was beautiful. We had no real problems with the elevators and waiting. We really did not do the shows because we did not want to be tied to a schedule or our watches, so I can't comment on those.

 

Heard Bert Stratton though....like others, I say go see him =) Become "Bertified!!"

 

We had personal choice dining...no problem getting a table. Sometimes we sat with others, other times we chose to just sit alone. We did not make reservations the entire week for that. Of course we either went early, 5:30 or so...or late, 8:30 or so. Prime time dining, we may have had a wait.

 

Staff overall was wonderful.

 

We would cruise this ship again =)

[barb1026]

Apparently someone needed to be hospitalized so we turned around and returned to St. Martin. An announcement was made the next day saying the patient was recovering. We didn't find out was exactly happened. We were in Sabatini's at the time and didn't even realize that we turned around.

[jan15]

I just returned from the 4/2 sailing and am not going to go into great details about the ship but frankly I was disappointed with certain aspects of the ship.

Pros:

MUTS was great. Sitting by the pool every day and watching movies was a great added feature for Princess.

You do not have to be up at the crack of dawn to get chairs even on sea days. As long as you are out there by 8:30 or 9 the latest you can always find a chair wherever you want.

The gym was of the best I have encountered on a ship. It opened at 6. I never had any problems getting a treadmill but then I always was there when it opened. I heard by 8:30 it started to fill up. I read before I went on this ship that in order to get a treadmill you had to sign up for one and also take a tour of the spa. Great news!!! That is not true. The first day I got on the ship and took a walk to the gym I asked about that and the staff looked at me like I had two heads!!

Casino was great. Not very crowded and not smoky. People were winning. It does not pay out any less than Vegas. One woman next to me was playing nickels and won $562.00!!

Cons:

The Princess theater was one of the worst set-ups I have ever seen. They built this theater for a cruise ship of 500 people!!!! It does not compare to Carnival's 2 tier theaters. We had to get there no later than 7:45-8:00 for seats. People were actually sitting in the aisles and standing for the shows!!!

The food has really gone downhill. I was on Princess many years ago yet I remember how impressed I was with the quality of food. I was not the only one that complained. A lot of people were complaining about the food. The selection was much better on Carnival.

 

Princess Cays was great. The weather was a perfect 10. Cabins were a good size. We were on the dolphin deck and had no problem with no privacy. In fact it was fun to look and wave to the people above.

Overall, we had a great time and hard to get back to reality. Would I book another Princess cruise. Probably not. Originally we planned on doing an open booking while on the ship but changed our mind in the middle of the week. Next time its back to Royal Carribean.

 

Janet

[ericosmith]

A couple of things I forgot to add....

 

Snorkel gear - They rented it on the ship for the day or for the week. It was $25 for the mask, snorkel, fins, and vest. I think it is more than that to rent for the day on Princess Cays. They also had masks with prescription lenses for $10 more for the week.

 

Duct Tape - Found some at Walmart in various colors. My color shall remain secret, but put some on all 6 sides of the black luggage before leaving home. The porter found my luggage faster than I could. Sure saved a ton of time in disembarking.

 

As for food, I don't think the dining room menus have changed in 10 years. I would agree there is not a lot of variety there. However, I thought the variety of food in the buffets, particularly in the Caribe buffet was outstanding. My observation of the food was that those from large cities were unimpressed and those of us from small midwestern towns thought it was great. It just all depends on what you're used to I guess.

[jan15]

Ericosmith, I totally agree with you that the food in the Caribe was very good. It was the diversity of the dining room menus and quality of food we were not impressed with.