Cruise review - Golden Princess - San Francisco to Sydney 2015

[sir-magoo]

I enjoy reading everybody else’s reviews so thought that it was about time to write one of my own. This will probably be more about the ship and experience than a detailed run through, but hopefully that will be useful for somebody.

Pre Cruise

We flew on a Qantas A380 through LA and onto Las Vegas. First time on a 380 and was really impressed with how quiet and smooth it was. I thought the Qantas service was quite good overall, no concerns there.

We spent a couple of days in Las Vegas, couple of days at the Grand Canyon and couple of days in San Francisco before boarding. Vegas quite hot and very crowded (as expected). I am not really a Vegas fan but there is always plenty to do. Absolutely loved the Grand Canyon and was kicking myself for not staying a little longer. San Francisco was ok, but again I am not a huge fan of the city.

Boarding/Departure

We had read a lot of horror stories about Boarding in San Francisco. Our experience was very good. Arrived around 11, easy baggage drop off, quickly through security then comfortable in the lounge before boarding around 12. There really wasn’t anything at all that they could have done differently to improve this process.

Departure was delayed around an hour due to stores loading, but that didn’t bother us. Went out under the Golden Gate Bridge and had a large pod of whales just off our starboard side so that was a really good start to the cruise.

General Golden Princess comments

Golden Princess was a nice ship, probably not our absolute favourite, but in the top couple. She was in pretty good condition after the drydock earlier this year and had a pretty good layout I thought. The only two complaints I would have had about the ship were 1) lack of usable jogging track, the level 7 track they had was dangerously slippery even for walking, running was near impossible, it is also very narrow too. 2) I found the Golden Princess a little too “tail happy” when it was windy. What I mean by that is towards the back of the ship, it constantly wobbles left-right-left (about 6 inches) on a cadence of about 1 second. I have been in aft cabins on many ships and not felt it this bad before. I wondered if it was perhaps caused by the Skywalkers Nightclub catching the wind. The wobble was noticeable at the back most days, on really windy days it was noticeable half way along the ship.

Really loved the Movies Under the Stars. They had fairly recent movies in the afternoon and evening, they also typically played some form of concert around dinner time which we really enjoyed while eating dinner out on the deck. The movie and TV selection in the cabin was really good too.

Dining options were good. We started in Traditional dining but cancelled our booking after a few nights (couldn’t get a 2 person table). Horizon court was well layed out and served good food. Crown Grill was great. The Pizza, BBQ and Ice Cream places on level 14 were also very good.

Service was fantastic across the board. We have travelled a lot with P&O and always liked their service, Princess was another step above. On the other hand, on our couple of cruises with RCCI, we found their service to be lower than P&O.

We thought that the entertainment was really good. Cruise Director was good, there is also a new assistant CD who was very good and introduced a few new activities that I hadn’t seen before.

Cabin

We had Cabin E728 which was the last Mini-Suite towards the back of Level 8 Port. We deliberately chose a L8 Mini-Suite as the majority of MS (on L9) do not have any cover over them. Having the last MS also had the added advantage of a little extra balcony room, and some aft facing views.

Generally (wobble from above aside), we liked the cabin. It was what I have come to expect from other MS cabins and was in good condition. I think that the P&O MS cabins are a bit larger, but this was perfectly adequate.

A quick word of caution to the light sleepers, you can hear noise from the L7 Vista Lounge below at times. To put a scale on this, we found that you couldn’t really hear general activities such as Trivia or Movies, if you listened carefully you could just hear the Zumba in the morning, but the more major shows (I assume they turn up the volume for larger crowds) were coming through fairly loud and clear. None of this really bothered us, but it could bother others.

Itinerary

The itinerary was what really drew us to this cruise.

Honolulu – nice place. Did a private tour to all 4 Pearl Harbour sites which was very good (ship tour only offered 2 of the 4 sites). Caught the bus to/from the ship which was amazingly easy and much cheaper than a taxi would have been.

Maui – Did a ships snorkelling tour. Honestly a bit of a disappointment compared to some of the fantastic snorkelling spots that we have been to (Lifou, Mare and so on). Nice little island though.

Tahiti – Did a private ATV tour which was fantastic. Little self driven 2 seater “jeep looking cars” following the tour leader through the mountains with regular stops for information.

Bora Bora – Did a private tour with Patrick’s. It wasn’t a great day weather wise, but the tour was still very good.

American Samoa – Did a private bus tour. Ok tour and another pretty ordinary weather day.

Auckland – Did a private tour – Bridge Climb which was quite good.

Wellington – Did a ships tour – was a 4X4 down to the Seal populations. This was very good.

Akaroa – The ship skipped this due to weather.

Dunedin – Did a private tour in a little 8X8 vehicle down to the seals and penguins, the trip to/from that farm was with awesome tours. This was very good.

Sounds – Didn’t think that we were going to get in, the night before was rough and very windy. We did get into Dusky sounds, was cold and windy but very nice. Missed Doubtful sounds due to weather. Got into Milford sounds which was one of the highlights of the trip. Beautiful place!

Sydney – Disembarking was a bit of a pain. The ship arrived an hour early, but we actually got off about an hour late. I understand that it was due to a combination of people not filling out their Ebola cards correctly and I also saw Immigration having some systems issues.

[Guest012]

Great informative review.......thank you so much for posting, she is on our list of will do's just need to work out when we can squeeze her in.... :)

Could the wobble be from the coat hanger design on the back, sure one of the sisters had that removed... someone with technical knowledge might be able to tell us more...... ;)

Last visit to Bora Bora we too did Patricks tour and the weather was not brilliant...but the tour, food, company and wine definitely were....do it again in a flash :D:D

[icat2000]

Thanks for this great review. Looking forward to getting on the Golden Princess.

Edited October 21, 2015 by icat2000

[GUT2407]

Interesting thank you.

[Aussie FF]

Thanks for your review.

We board in 9 days.:D

[MargoK]

Thank you.

 

I was most interested in your comments on your cabin location and the noise. We have booked E716 - Inside Accessible for Christmas 2015 and 2016. Although the cabin is over the Vista Lounge we are closer to the bar area and entrance so hopefully the noise will be OK. Otherwise we may just have to venture downstairs and join in!:D

[Gnomey]

Interesting about the "wobble". Many of us felt this on Radiance of the Seas and I have heard other people since say they felt it too. Looking at the wake shows a zig zag pattern. I believe it is something to do with the "azipod" propulsion systems modern ships are using. Azipods turn the motor/propellor units for steering and if currents or winds require a bit of correction then they seem to go out of "sequence" so to speak. Not as smooth a progress as our old Sun class girls which use fixed propellers and rudder. Having said all that of course, I do hope Golden does have Azipods, if not - disregard my comment! ;)

 

Steve.

[yatchet]

No Azipods on Golden, she has a conventional propulsion system with twin props:)

[Guest zafra63]

Great review, looking forward to board next week.