Crown Princess Questions

[crzinvp]

Hi

We are considering the June 14,2006 Voyage of the Crown,and believe it is the first one out. Have many of you taken inaugural or 2nd or 3rd voyages with Princess? How are these salings? Also have the senior officers been selected yet?

 

Thank you

[wilsonmurphy]

We've never done an inaugural cruise (or shortly thereafter). I do know that an experienced cruise friend has always warned never to go on a ship until it's had a while to shake-down, get all the bugs out and routines in order. While I think it would be cool to be on the first cruise, I guess it would depend on how upset the cruiser would be if things didn't go as well as expected. Some people are better at rolling with the punches than others. (I'm probably not one of them.) ;)

[kevinsac]

I have never been on an inaugural Princess cruise. Heck, I've never been on a Princess cruise at all (just 37 more days!)

 

But, I have been on several inaugural cruises for other lines. And I have spoken with many, many friends and acquaintences who have been, also.

 

I've grown up.....I'll never do it again. Yes, you have the excitement. But there are too many disappointments.

 

I am not a "critical" traveller. Things certainly will go wrong on every trip. I try to roll with the punches and remember, overall, I'm on holiday.

 

But give it several months for them to work out the kinks in the system. (And, by then, you'll also have a chance of some savings....fares are alway high at first.)

[bdjam]

My rule of thumb – never book a ship until it’s in the water and sailing.

[NEW YORK LADY2]

We've booked the Crown for it So. Caribbean Explorer Cruise on March 17, 2007. Figure by that time the crew is broken in and knows how to work with each other. Hope that's true! I'm really looking forward to this cruise on a new ship. We also have our first aft balcony on the Caribe deck (I think it is C753 or something like that). We were in a mid-ship Caribe deck location on our Grand Princess Greek Isles cruise in June and loved the cabin and large balcony.

 

Jackie

[Belle2002]

We were on the second sailing of the original Crown Princess way back in 1990. The ship was not completely ready, they were still laying carpeting in some of the cabins and lounges. There were workers all over the ship. Most of the crew was not familiar with the ship. Since the ship had set sail from the Italian shipyard and we were in the Meditteranean, because of Italian law, they couldn't open the casino until after it had left the Meditteranean. So for the entire cruise the casino was not opened, there was no bingo or anyother form of gambling.

 

I have heard that today they will take a ship from Europe over to the US, at that time they will familiarize the staff with the ship. Belle

[c-cruise]

I would only be worried about going on an early sailing if the ship were the first of a new class. Since the Crown is the 7th Grand class ship I wouldn't be as concerned about booking one of her first cruises. Not to say that nothing could ever go wrong of course...

 

What I might be concerned about is the fact that the crown is sailing out of a new port (Red Hook). Embarkation/Disembarkation could be a challenge for the first several cruises...

 

That said...

 

We were on the third sailing of the Sapphire and other than one of the production shows not being ready we didn't experience any issues related to the ship being brand new. Everything else was completely up to par with our other Princess cruises.