Grand Princess 10-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise - Photo Review - Jan 9-19th, 2016

[shredie]

There's the French Onion soup, and good old Dave Cole. You are making me very antsy for my cruise in March!

[damiross]

Menus and Patters from Day 3 - Monday, January 11th - At Sea

 

As an aviation enthusiast, I find the aviation safety lecturer fascinating. Hopefully he'll be on the March 26 coastal but probably won't because I imagine the lecturers are changed often.

[Kiwis Afloat]

I just enjoy reading anything that you are willing to write. I appreciate the time it must take to do this. I also love looking at you photos. Their size is great! Thanks! :)

[CruisingJs]

There's the French Onion soup, and good old Dave Cole. You are making me very antsy for my cruise in March!

 

Dave Cole got off the ship at the end of this cruise. His replacement was Kelvin Joy who is also very good.

[CruisingJs]

Thanks again for doing the review. One thing that I loved about this cruise was the made to order Belgium waffles. They were outside at the ice cream stand every morning until about 10:30 am.

 

How did I miss the waffles?!?!

[Mrs. Winks]

Thinking about trying Princess for the first time, so I appreciate the menus, dailies, and your comments. We are looking at the Grand out of San Fran in March. I think there will be some cool days, so I'm interested in hearing about the covered pool? Was it warm enough to swim in? Was the air warm in the covered area, or jus protected from the wind?

 

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

We didn't swim in the covered pool although we did see some people in the water and hot tubs. There seemed to always be people hanging out around the pool. But never too crowded. The days at sea and at night the air was actually on the cool side (way to chilly for my delicate skin). I think it may have been because the automatic doors kept opening and the ceiling fans were on the whole time. Not sure why they kept the fans on with the temps on the cool side but they did!

[WinksCruises]

 

 

By our third day at sea, Mrs. Winks and I had fallen into a pretty chill, oceanic groove. I really enjoyed not having the obligation of getting up in the morning - forgoing all the protocols and madness associated with disembarking at a destination port. We got into the Zen of simply attending the day’s activities (or not) - which was typically dictated by how much rabble rousing we’d engaged in the evening before. Mrs. Winks found a new appreciation for having a stateroom balcony and actually enjoyed spending significant chunks of time there reading and relaxing and, eventually, working on her tan.

 

Time on the ship flew by quickly - and we fell into a pattern of having later and later lunches and dinners as we fit various activities into our day without chaining ourselves to a rigid schedule. And our sea experience would have been perfection itself, if we hadn’t keep losing an hour at night; as once again, on the second sea day, our pillow chocolates were accompanied by the blasted little card instructing us to put our clocks forward another hour before bedtime - as the Grand Princess crossed over into yet another time zone. This was all initially unfathomable to me, until I inspected the ship’s navigation chart hanging in the Piazza and saw how far east we were actually sailing. By Puerto Vallarta, we’d be legitimately in Central time.

 

Mornings at sea were the best. The view from our aft facing balcony treated us to an ever changing light show, hues of pink and yellow, as the sun rose under varying atmospheric conditions and cloud covers. And as we finally left the dreary greys of northern California behind us, the trip began feeling more like a cruise vacation. With each passing day, the temperatures got warmer, and by day three, it was full-on sunbathing weather.

 

Shamefully, I took no small joy on the morning of the second clock-change when Mrs. Winks missed one of the 9am Zumba classes that had become the foundation of her daily ritual. It was sweet verification that it “wasn’t just me” having trouble with these time zone changes.

 

As it was our custom, every morning after Zumba class we had breakfast in the Sabatini’s specialty restaurant, a perk reserved exclusively for suite guests. Here we were taken care of by one of the most attentive and personable service staffs we’ve had the good fortune of having on a cruise. (And that’s not just the mimosas they generously plied us with talking, either. They were REALLY that good!) Food was fresh to order and the dining experience beat by far that of battling the ravenous crowds up at the Horizon Court Buffet.

 

 

Overall, we found the food on the Grand Princess to be really good. I wasn’t always a huge fan of the selection available in the main dining room, but everything we ordered ended up being good. One thing we noticed was that the dinner service was uncharacteristically fast. We usually find dinner service taking close to two hours on other ships, but on the Grand we could easily be served appetizer to dessert in less than an hour. We had Anytime Dining and never had to wait for a table. We usually went to dinner after 8pm and consistently noticed that the Da Vinci dining room had plenty of empty tables. We wrote it off to the fact most of the passengers were seniors and were probably just used to grabbing up the early bird specials.

 

The buffet was pretty lackluster but serviceable. When we were starving and it was the only option, it always did the trick. Pizza up by the pool was always a great afternoon snack. One afternoon, we had lunch at Alfredo’s, the sit down pizzeria on Deck 5 just off the Piazza. Their gourmet personal pies were fine, but I think we ended up enjoying the traditional, fresh-out-of-the-oven pies up at the pool even better.

 

Someone in the comments asked about the indoor pool. It was swimmable as you can see in the picture below, but it wasn’t really any warmer inside. Again, leaving out of San Francisco, things got better by Day 2 and by Day 3 it was in the 70s. But overall, while there was a lot of sunbathing going on, there wasn’t too much pool swimming going on.

 

 

As for nightlife, there were plenty of ballroom dancing opportunities for the Fred Astaire Dance Studio gang. From the Piazza to the Wheelhouse Bar to the Explorer’s Lounge, we watched a sizable group ping-pong from venue to venue (candidly? Just like another scene from The Walking Dead!) on a never ending quest for the perfect foxtrot.

 

The Crooners bar at mid ship was dominated by musical entertainer, Funch, who belted out classics on the piano every night to an adoring crowd of followers. There was also a young, indie-rock guitarist who rotated between the Wheelhouse Bar and the Piazza (Josh Wheeler, Mrs. Winks is reminding me) whose selections seemed a little bit lost on this crowd - but whose CD you could pick up in the sundries store.

 

There was also the signature Princess “Ye Olde Pub Night”, where the entire Cruise Director staff puts on a cheesy vaudeville show, (see below) packed fill with bad jokes, bawdy songs and painful puns. I always get a kick out of it, but after a few yucks, an unamused Mrs. Winks is tugging on my shirt sleeve and pulling me out of the venue so we can move onto the Casino.

 

And speaking of Pubs, Princess also holds their popular British Pub Lunch on several of the sea days. They hold it in the Crown Grill and it was packed the time I stopped to poke my head in as you can see below.

 

 

Most evenings, Mrs. Winks and I would settle into the Wheelhouse Bar for a pre-dinner cocktail. And while the 5$ drink-special happy-hour was available to us up in the Elite lounge (the One-5 Club on Deck 15), we found the ambience in the Wheelhouse more to our liking. And after a few days, the bartender there was showing off his magic skills and bar-bet tricks to us. There’s one pictured below. The challenge is to make the equation rightfully add up to four, by moving ONLY one stick. His tricks kept us perplexed and amused and we enjoyed it better than the Elite lounge where the only mental Olympics going on was figuring out how to get a refill of shrimp on your appetizer plate before they closed down the food station! Plus the Wheelhouse Bar gave out free nut snacks peppered with hot wasabi peas - so life was just fine there.

 

 

Although the Grand is one of the more senior vessels in the Princess fleet, we found her to be in excellent shape. We’d cruised an older Celebrity ship earlier this year (photo review linked in my signature below) and there was no comparison. Celebrity’s Summit was a rust bucket. The Grand Princess is holding her head high with only minimal signs of wear.

 

The crew were excellent and friendly and about the only thing we missed was more visibility from the Captain and senior officers. The cruise director and his staff were everywhere - and really became the only public facing personnel we noticed aside from our food servers and bartenders.

 

So, just as we had comfortably settled into our seafaring routine - something I could have continued enjoying forever - Day 4 finally arrived, and we woke to the sun rising over something new and different - a mountainous land mass! We had finally docked in Puerto Vallarta.

 

 

Coming up next: Exploring the city and beaches of Puerto Vallarta.

Edited February 1, 2016 by WinksCruises

[shredie]

The two of you look mighty cute having fun. :)

[ar1950]

 

 

 

 

Nice to see that they do the Eggs Benedict correctly in Sabatini's.

 

 

 

Too funny. Heard that one on "Car Talk" (Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers) years ago.

 

The crew were excellent and friendly and about the only thing we missed was more visibility from the Captain and senior officers. The cruise director and his staff were everywhere - and really became the only public facing personnel we noticed aside from our food servers and bartenders.

 

 

IOHO David Cole is one of the better CDs that you will find on any cruise line.

[arctickitty]

really enjoying reading this--thanks for posting.

[js4rq]

More please! :D

[StampKutie]

Loving your review of the Grand~ Thanks for the great pictures!

[crzy4cruises]

We want more.:D

[vplsh]

Loving your review, and the pictures are great! Thanks so much for taking us along!!

[WinksCruises]

Did someone mention dessert? Here's a typical sampling for the Main Dining Room menu

 

 

 

And here's the Princess Patter from our final day at sea...

 

 

 

 

 

And in our next installment... Land Ho! It's Puerto Vallarta!

 

Thanks again for your continued readership and helpful comments.

 

 

 

 

[romancing_the_sea]

We had Funch on the Ruby in September. Loved him! Wondered where he was now.

[Silent Penguin]

I have a newbie question about dining times. If we opted for assigned dining but change our minds while on the ship, can we switch to anytime-dining?

[Jasperdo]

Those Norman Love chocolates look interesting. I'll have to try them if they're still available on our cruise in March.

[WinksCruises]

 

 

We didn’t have firm plans for Puerto Vallarta, so we took our time getting off the ship that morning. I of course was halfway-hoping it was all a bad dream - this reaching land crap - and that I would suddenly wake-up in the cabin, still ensconced in the comfortably rocking cradle of night one (minus one-hour of sleep, of course). But it wasn’t to be. The talk in Sabatini’s that morning was all about places to go and things to do… on shore. My happy days at sea were over.

 

Mrs. Winks and I had ported in Puerto Vallarta once before. On that first visit, we took a ship-sponsored shore excursion to John Houston’s “private island,” Las Caletas. It was fine. But this time around, we wanted to explore the downtown area that we’d heard so much about from others.

 

After breakfast, we decided to take a walk along the top deck to take a look at the port and discuss our game plan for the day. As you can tell, Mrs. Winks wasn’t thrilled with my suggestion that we just stay on the ship… (That's the Carnival Miracle docked in the background, by the way).

 

 

Peering over the side of the ship, we watched as shore excursion groups boarded their busses. We spotted a couple of taxis in the fray and decided we’d take one into town and maybe inquire about the possibility of a local resort offering a day pass.

 

We made our way down to the gangway, explored the little tent city of vendors and then found out a cab to downtown would cost a flat fee of 16$ no matter how many passengers. The cab was a small car that only held three comfortably, so the other couple standing near us bailed. We decided to just pay the full fare and go on our own.

 

Our cab driver Martine welcomed us to the Puerto Vallarta and we headed out of the port and onto the main drag into downtown. During the ride, Mrs. Winks and I discussed what we would do after visiting downtown. She wanted to go to the beach, which is when Martine piped-up from the front seat that we could simply hire him as a private driver for the day. For $80, he would take us downtown, wait while we explored, and then take us off to the beaches, up to a scenic point, anywhere we wanted to go, for as long as we wanted, and then back to the ship. This sounded like a more flexible option than having to secure cabs at each location, so we commissioned his driving services for the day.

 

 

We had spotted what appeared to be a bullfighting ring from atop of the ship, so one of the first questions we asked Martine was when the fights were held. He laughed and explained that bullfighting was illegal in Mexico, and that the stadium we had seen had long been abandoned. They had tried to maintain a restaurant there, but last he knew, it was out of business.

 

After the cruise, I did some investigating and learned that bullfighting is only banned in 3 of Mexico’s 31 states, and that Jalisco, Puerto Vallarta’s state, is not one of those. So I’m not sure what was going on there. Does anyone here know if this ring in Puerto Vallarta is still active?

 

 

Once downtown, we explored the shops along the El Malecon boardwalk that separates the business district from the rocky beach waterfront. The first attraction we came across were the Papantla flyers, a troupe of acrobats that spin down from suspended cables off a 50-foot high pole.

 

It’s incredible to see and the flute music and beating drum are hypnotic when played against the background of the crashing waves. Once down on the ground, the Papantla hasten to hit the assembled crowd up for tip money… and that’s when you see some real creative flying - as the cash-strapped tourists scatter faster than the wind!

 

 

Situated all along the boardwalk are surreal statues of alien looking creatures. On the beach, sculptors stack and balance rocks - forming impressive cairns that seem to defy gravity. Along the walkway, living statue performers, portraying everyone from conquistadors to arch angels, tease tourists and solicit tips for photo opps. It makes for a real interesting commercial area and I'm glad we went.

 

 

We took pictures along the beach, unsuccessfully trying to time an action shot with the crashing waves, and did some souvenir shopping. After 90 minutes or so, we headed back to the central taxi drop-off area where our driver Martine hailed us. We got back into the cab and he told us he would take us to one of his favorite beaches, one that the tourists don’t know about it.

 

Up Next: Beach Day in Puerto Vallarta

Edited February 2, 2016 by WinksCruises

[Woobstr112G]

More great pictures, thanks for taking the time to post them.....:):):)

 

Bob

Edited February 2, 2016 by Woobstr112G

[cvpends]

Loving this review!

[Belle]

Do you know how long Kelvin Joy is going

to be on the Grand? He's a great CD.

 

Thank you in advance for answering.

[Clarea]

Excellent photos.:)

[CruisingJs]

Do you know how long Kelvin Joy is going

to be on the Grand? He's a great CD.

 

Thank you in advance for answering.

He didn't say. He was kind of hiding out because he wasn't starting until the end of the cruise. I'm guessing he will be on during Dave Cole's break then Dave will be back. Isn't that 2-3 months? I'm not sure how long CD vacations are.

[WinksCruises]

Playing catch-up now with Tuesday's Dinner Menus - and some bonus "At Sea" shots - before we resume with our report from the beach in Puerto Vallarta...

 

 

 

 

Art auction

 

Mariachi Band Plays in the Piazza

 

Fruit infused refreshment in the Sanctuary

 

Passing Cabo San Lucas on our way south to Puerto Vallarta

 

Okay, so we'll pick up with our Day 5 adventures in Puerto Vallarta next...