Review Grand Princess CA Coastal Oct. 22-29, 2016

[jsiegel]

I joined friends on a 7 night coastal California cruise leaving from San Francisco. I've been on about 15 Princess cruises (recent Elite level) and also cruised a few other lines for a total of about 20 cruises.

 

We live in central California and decided to take the ferry from Vallejo to San Francisco. This was a really convenient and inexpensive way to get to pier 27. We purchased a monthly parking voucher in advance online for the Vallejo city garage at the ferry terminal. The ferry ride was smooth with lots of cruise passengers along with us. The walk from Pier 41 to the Princess terminal at Pier 27 was easy, even with big luggage. On our return a week later our car was as we left it, no problems on that count. Total costs: $20 for parking, $27.60 for round-trip ferry tickets.

 

Embarkation was a breeze as I had priority check-in. We arrived at the terminal at 11:45 a.m. and were on board by noon. We went straight to the main dining room (deck 6, mid-ship) for a nice sit-down meal. Then we dropped off our carry-on luggage at our cabins and began our tour of the ship. I've been on several Princess ships so was familiar with the general layout but the Grand had a few differences to get used to, primarily the lack of a center staircase above deck 7. I avoid elevators as much as possible and kept forgetting to go forward or back to go up to my cabin.

 

My cabin was an interior, B628 on Baja, deck 11. It was fine, pretty quiet, until 1:10 a.m. the first night when I was woken by loud metallic noises for a minute or two. It repeated each night at 1:10 a.m. I kept hoping it was an anomaly but finally went to the Passenger Services Desk after the sixth night to find out what it could be. Turns out that my cabin was directly below the Room Service Galley. I never found out what exactly was going on but the passenger services night manager guessed it was some sort of cleaning operation. The final night the noise was at 10 p.m. instead of 1 a.m., more manageable to my sleeping. Had I asked earlier into the cruise they would have tried to move me to another cabin. They did give me a ship board credit for my sleeping problems.

 

We ate one night at the Crown Grill. The food was really off that night. The red-skinned mashed potatoes were over cooked and looked like library paste. The lobster was tough. The Norman Love dessert was disgusting. The consistency of one of the layers was like hard rubber and it had no peanut flavor.

 

I found the main dining room menus more limited than past cruises over the years at Princess. The food was fair to good. I did notice that whenever a menu item had avocado they used a puree instead of sliced fresh avocado.

 

The cruise director, Dan Falconer, is quite young and his Wake Show is quite short. His performance at the Liar's Club game was hilarious. It had everyone in stitches, including his staff. That's about all I saw of him.

 

Other than art talks (to promote the art auctions) and jewel talks (to promote jewelry sales) there were no enrichment activities on this cruise. Perhaps because it was port intensive.

 

Steve Moris was one of the featured entertainers and he put on two great shows. I also watched part of the British Invasion production show but left after about 15 minutes because the sound system kept cutting out on the singers' voices and I found the costuming too satirical.

 

In most of the ports of call I set out on my own as Santa Barbara and San Diego are very walk-able cities from the piers. In Long Beach I used my cruise card for free admission to the Queen Mary and spent a couple of hours exploring the ship on a self-guided tour. In Ensenada I took the ship's excursion to two wineries. The excursion was reasonably priced and the countryside was interesting to view. Of note, I had reserved the excursion online before the cruise and noticed that the price charged on board was $10 more expensive.

 

I had planned to going on the Ultimate Ship Tour but the night before it was to be held it was cancelled. It had never been promoted in the Patter so they did not have enough people signed up for it.

 

My cabin steward was great. He called me by name from the very first day and kept my cabin refreshed and spotless. The dining room waiters (anytime dining) were all personable and professional. All the staff throughout the ship were friendly and helpful.

 

The ship will go through a dry dock in December. They will be installing new cleaner engines and MUTS will be replaced with a newer clearer system. Upholstery throughout the ship will be getting much needed replacements.

 

Jackie

[Mr DK]

The ferry from Vallejo is a great way to go for those of us who live North of the Bay Area. We've done it several times.

 

 

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[Mr DK]

By the way, we get off and return from the Ferry Terminal rather than Pier 41. The walk is just a little longer and we can be at Pier 27 by the time the ferry is letting off passengers at Pier 41. Going back, the ferry stops first at the Ferry Building, so the seat selection is better, although there always seems to be plenty of seats.

 

 

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[Cruiserkenn]

Thanks for your detailed review.

 

How did you make your reservations for Crown Grill? Dine line or in person? Was it hard or easy?

 

I ask because some have reported recent difficulties, on some ships.

 

I have two Grand cruises coming up in 2017.

 

Thanks so much for any insight you might have.

[easyboy]

Thanks for your review.

 

 

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[jennybenny]

Thanks for your review, big fans of the Grand.

Looking forward to our next trip on her.

That sucks about the Crown, it's one of our favorite dining spots. Hope that issue gets clarified quickly!

[Woobstr112G]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review.....:):):)

 

Bob

[jsiegel]

Thanks for your detailed review.

 

How did you make your reservations for Crown Grill? Dine line or in person? Was it hard or easy?

 

I ask because some have reported recent difficulties' date=' on some ships.

 

I have two Grand cruises coming up in 2017.

 

Thanks so much for any insight you might have.[/quote']

 

I didn't make the reservations but I know that reservations were made somehow. We were a group of 9 and had a table on the first formal night at 5:30. There were still empty tables while we were dining and as we left.

[Cruiserkenn]

I didn't make the reservations but I know that reservations were made somehow. We were a group of 9 and had a table on the first formal night at 5:30. There were still empty tables while we were dining and as we left.

 

Thanks! Glad to hear that there seems to be space available.

 

Thanks again for your great review.

[LHARTWICK]

Thanks for the review - the CA Coastal is our favorite along with Alaska. So your ship card gets you into the Queen Mary? That's good to know. Also, can you confirm that the Grand does NOT have a Skywalker's Lounge at the back? We love this feature of the PCL ships, but it is disappearing. It's great for watching wildlife, etc. during the AK cruises.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the detailed report.

[StampKutie]

Husband and I were on the same cruise, and loved every minute of it!!

 

We dined at Crown Grill second night as well, and enjoyed our meal very much. I used the first phone that I found after boarding to call the dine line to make reservation.

 

And nope, Skywalkers is not on this ship...their nightclub is the One5 on the 15th deck!

[ar1950]

................... Also, can you confirm that the Grand does NOT have a Skywalker's Lounge at the back? We love this feature of the PCL ships, but it is disappearing. It's great for watching wildlife, etc. during the AK cruises.

 

Skywalker's was removed from the Grand because of structural issues. Those issues were resolved on newer ships. The Royal class ships were not designed with a Skywalker's.

 

Watch the removal here:

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[TracieABD]

Thank you!

[Cruiserkenn]

Husband and I were on the same cruise, and loved every minute of it!!

 

We dined at Crown Grill second night as well, and enjoyed our meal very much. I used the first phone that I found after boarding to call the dine line to make reservation.

 

And nope, Skywalkers is not on this ship...their nightclub is the One5 on the 15th deck!

 

Thanks so much about your use of the phone and the dine line for making successful reservations for Crown Grill.

 

Glad you enjoyed!

[cruiselvr1]

I joined friends on a 7 night coastal California cruise leaving from San Francisco. I've been on about 15 Princess cruises (recent Elite level) and also cruised a few other lines for a total of about 20 cruises.

 

We live in central California and decided to take the ferry from Vallejo to San Francisco. This was a really convenient and inexpensive way to get to pier 27. We purchased a monthly parking voucher in advance online for the Vallejo city garage at the ferry terminal. The ferry ride was smooth with lots of cruise passengers along with us. The walk from Pier 41 to the Princess terminal at Pier 27 was easy, even with big luggage. On our return a week later our car was as we left it, no problems on that count. Total costs: $20 for parking, $27.60 for round-trip ferry tickets.

 

Embarkation was a breeze as I had priority check-in. We arrived at the terminal at 11:45 a.m. and were on board by noon. We went straight to the main dining room (deck 6, mid-ship) for a nice sit-down meal. Then we dropped off our carry-on luggage at our cabins and began our tour of the ship. I've been on several Princess ships so was familiar with the general layout but the Grand had a few differences to get used to, primarily the lack of a center staircase above deck 7. I avoid elevators as much as possible and kept forgetting to go forward or back to go up to my cabin.

 

My cabin was an interior, B628 on Baja, deck 11. It was fine, pretty quiet, until 1:10 a.m. the first night when I was woken by loud metallic noises for a minute or two. It repeated each night at 1:10 a.m. I kept hoping it was an anomaly but finally went to the Passenger Services Desk after the sixth night to find out what it could be. Turns out that my cabin was directly below the Room Service Galley. I never found out what exactly was going on but the passenger services night manager guessed it was some sort of cleaning operation. The final night the noise was at 10 p.m. instead of 1 a.m., more manageable to my sleeping. Had I asked earlier into the cruise they would have tried to move me to another cabin. They did give me a ship board credit for my sleeping problems.

 

We ate one night at the Crown Grill. The food was really off that night. The red-skinned mashed potatoes were over cooked and looked like library paste. The lobster was tough. The Norman Love dessert was disgusting. The consistency of one of the layers was like hard rubber and it had no peanut flavor.

 

I found the main dining room menus more limited than past cruises over the years at Princess. The food was fair to good. I did notice that whenever a menu item had avocado they used a puree instead of sliced fresh avocado.

 

The cruise director, Dan Falconer, is quite young and his Wake Show is quite short. His performance at the Liar's Club game was hilarious. It had everyone in stitches, including his staff. That's about all I saw of him.

 

Other than art talks (to promote the art auctions) and jewel talks (to promote jewelry sales) there were no enrichment activities on this cruise. Perhaps because it was port intensive.

 

Steve Moris was one of the featured entertainers and he put on two great shows. I also watched part of the British Invasion production show but left after about 15 minutes because the sound system kept cutting out on the singers' voices and I found the costuming too satirical.

 

In most of the ports of call I set out on my own as Santa Barbara and San Diego are very walk-able cities from the piers. In Long Beach I used my cruise card for free admission to the Queen Mary and spent a couple of hours exploring the ship on a self-guided tour. In Ensenada I took the ship's excursion to two wineries. The excursion was reasonably priced and the countryside was interesting to view. Of note, I had reserved the excursion online before the cruise and noticed that the price charged on board was $10 more expensive.

 

I had planned to going on the Ultimate Ship Tour but the night before it was to be held it was cancelled. It had never been promoted in the Patter so they did not have enough people signed up for it.

 

My cabin steward was great. He called me by name from the very first day and kept my cabin refreshed and spotless. The dining room waiters (anytime dining) were all personable and professional. All the staff throughout the ship were friendly and helpful.

 

The ship will go through a dry dock in December. They will be installing new cleaner engines and MUTS will be replaced with a newer clearer system. Upholstery throughout the ship will be getting much needed replacements.

 

Jackie

We were on the 10/15 California Coastal, a lot of what said I agree with. We were in C749, we never had suite with two entry doors, the second kept getting in the way. We took a penthouse Because the vistas were booked. The room wasn't any bigger, and the balcony was smaller. DW and I thought the dining room menu, was not up to what have seen in the past. The every night options were not at all what we expected. My DW ate the same dish every night, (where's the beef). One night I had 4 appetizers as my dinner, Our waiter and his assistant Mark and Miranda were great. Mike the head waiter was very personable, and had a great singing voice. We ate in the Crown grill the first night, because it was complementary, and we had to eat there the first night. We didn't have any complaints, except the meat seem to have more fat on it than we have seen in the past. No problem we just cut it off. We walked over to the QM, if we didn't have shore excursion coming up, we would have gone through her. Santa Barbara was a great place to walk, from the pier we walked downtown. On a whole the cruise was not one of my favorites, would not do it again.The Grand is a fine old lady, and we enjoy her.

Edited November 12, 2016 by cruiselvr1
Grammer

[Capt. Johnny]

Thanks for your report on the 2016 Coastal. We are headed onto the coastal in Spring on 2017 after dry-dock and very much looking forward to it. Last cruise was on the sister ship, the Star and we loved it so it should look and feel pretty familiar in most places. Skywalkers was still on the Star then in 2015.

 

Older ships don't worry me as much as ships that are not maintained well. We found the Star to be very good overall and hope the Grand is the same.

 

Really happy to hear about walking on to the Queen Mary with your cruise card, that will eliminate the need for an excursion there.

[jsiegel]

Thanks for your report on the 2016 Coastal. We are headed onto the coastal in Spring on 2017 after dry-dock and very much looking forward to it. Last cruise was on the sister ship, the Star and we loved it so it should look and feel pretty familiar in most places. Skywalkers was still on the Star then in 2015.

 

Older ships don't worry me as much as ships that are not maintained well. We found the Star to be very good overall and hope the Grand is the same.

 

Really happy to hear about walking on to the Queen Mary with your cruise card, that will eliminate the need for an excursion there.

 

I've been on the Star, I really liked Skywalkers. Missed that wonderful location on the Grand. The layout of some of the public areas is a bit different on the Star vs the Grand. The Grand did have one area called Leaves that doubled as the library. In the afternoon they served fancy teas there and pretty cakes. I did not partake as it had a fee of $3 (if I remember correctly) Also the Grand does not have a center staircase above deck 7 so I was constantly going to the middle and then having to turn back aft to take the stairs to my destinations as I avoid elevators when possible.

 

I do hope that during the dry dock they address some of the plumbing issues. Some public areas were roped off due to leaks.

 

I love the coastal California itinerary and sailing from San Francisco is so convenient to northern California, no airplanes needed.

[Lucky TGO]

We ate one night at the Crown Grill. The food was really off that night. The red-skinned mashed potatoes were over cooked and looked like library paste. The lobster was tough. The Norman Love dessert was disgusting. The consistency of one of the layers was like hard rubber and it had no peanut flavor.

 

Jackie,

Thank you for the review. Is it just me but the more I read about the Crown Grill the worse it gets??

Tony