Coral Princess Panama Canal Cruise Dec 18-28th review

[Kingofcool1947]

Hmmm...yeah I've never quite figured out how to post images on cruisecritic because they always change the link after I post them.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146297657@N03/sets/72157678499370565/

 

^hopefully that works.

 

"Page Not Found

Oops! Looks like you followed a bad link.

 

If you think this is a problem with Flickr, please tell us.

 

Here is a link to the home page."

[jagsfan]

It's not very clearly advertised but it's in the Sabatini restaurant I believe from 11:30-1:30 everyday.

 

 

Thank you. I'll take my Kindle and enjoy my Italian lunch while DH enjoys Horizon (his favorite place to eat on any ship, my least favorite!).

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[CineGraphic]

I still stand by my opinion that the first round should be chosen by cruise staff and the final should be chosen by the audience.

 

Princess would never put itself in a position to possibly upset a paying guest, that's why they let the audience decide.

Even in the finals, the judges are told to only say positive things.

[Colo Cruiser]

Lovely photos! Thank you!

 

Link has been disabled.

[piper28]

Just wanted to write an overview of this cruise that I thoroughly enjoyed! I (26 F) was sailing with my mom (not 26). We've sailed on Royal Caribbean and Holland before but this was my first time on Princess. We both agreed that Princess is now our favorite line!

 

I was on the same cruise, and while for the most part it was yet another great cruise, I did find that there were some areas where I feel that the Princess experience is starting to show some signs of cracks. Not enough to scare me away yet, but I'm glad that for now my next cruise is back on the Pacific versus the larger ships. (And I've been a fan of the Coral and pre-butchered Island).

 

Food: Definitely the best food that we have ever had on a cruise ship. I had read a lot about the princess food. I was fantasizing about that fettucine alfredo in a parmesan bowl but guess what? They don't make it anymore. Well they do, but not in the parmesan bowl. Oh well, I survived. They have a menu inspired by chef Curtis Stone and chocolate deserts inspired by Norman Love. I definitely felt like a lot of thought went into the food choices and there was never a night that I couldn't find something I wanted to eat off the main menu in the dinning room.

 

The highlight for me was the gingerbread souffle on christmas. It was so delicious!

 

This was something that I'll definitely disagree with. I found the food to be the most disappointing of the Princess cruises that I've been on. The Curtis Stone association really needs to be dumped. The Chilean Sea Bass, clams and mussels dish showed up on about 5 of the menus for this cruise. For the main part of the menu, that's pretty disappointing instead of seeing new choices for each day. For some reason, no Chef's dinner menu on this cruise - which means my wife was disappointed in not getting the goat cheese souffle. Not sure if we lost that because of the Christmas menu, but other Christmas cruises we've done haven't lost it. Had a couple of nights where the food was luke-warm at best.

 

I'm also a little surprised that you mentioned the gingerbread souffle especially. My wife and someone eating near us both made comments about the complete lack of flavor for that souffle.

 

I also felt the any-time dining room was somewhat hostile to people looking for tables for 2. Their attitude seemed to be that you were making it hard on them if you asked for a table for two - something I found especially odd considering there's actually a fair number of tables for 2 in the dining room.

 

Entertainment:

I was seriously impressed with all of the entertainment onboard the ship. The only show I didn't like was motorcity (it was cringeworthy).

Encore (a new princess show I believe) was especially impressive.

 

Heh, motorcity has basically horrified me since I saw it on my first cruise. I find it criminal abuse of motown music.

 

Encore really had me scratching my head and honestly thinking that maybe Princess needs to think about firing the people in charge of their entertainment and starting from scratch. To me it seemed like a completely random collection of songs that were thrown together with no relationship to each other, with the occasional random dancer thrown in for good measure. For me, the only real redeeming quality to the show was their guest soprano, who to me seemed pretty good - to the point that I felt a little sorry for the two main female vocalists from the ship's company when they had to go out and sing after her. I kinda hoped they'd have a show feature just her, but they never did. But when I look at what some of the other lines have been offering lately (without having actually seen their shows myself), I just can't help believe that Princess is trying to stay a little too old-fashioned with it's entertainment. That said, I'll turn around say I do happen to kinda like the On the Bayou show. It's probably the only production show that I make any effort to see a second time.

 

I also was really impressed by the magician that they had onboard (his name escapes me at the moment). He lead a class on the last day where he showed how he did some of his tricks. It was very interesting.

 

For the most part I found him relatively average. Most of his stuff was pretty standard packaged acts. His close-up card work was pretty decent, but somewhat spoiled by a flakey camera being used. The linking of the rings trick was worth the price of admission though. Part of me wants to say I've seen him on a past cruise (the slide-show before the act looked real familiar). I need to start keeping a list of the acts that I've seen before.

 

The Pub night show they did the one night was also an interesting attempt at doing something a little different that I haven't seen too much. I thought the pub games part of it slowed it down a little too much, but I think it's something they could work on to turn into a decent bit of entertainment.

 

Around the ship my favorite music act was the violin duo (Angelic Dreams). They performed in different venues throughout the day and were always great to listen to.

 

I definitely enjoyed them too.

 

Some of my other thoughts:

Probably my biggest pet peeve on this particular cruise was service in the buffet area. By far, the worst service I've had in the buffet area on any Princess cruise I've taken - at least for breakfast and lunch, the one time we ate there for dinner I found the service to be ok. Getting served a drink was an exercise in futility. And what's up with the absolutely tiny glasses they've gone to for orange juice in the morning? I don't think I had a single glass of lemonade on the cruise that wasn't badly watered down. The waiters were enjoying playing bingo with the omelette delivery, but from what I saw of my wife's experience, what was being delivered frequently seemed not to match up at all to what was being ordered, and seemed more like they'd just grab a random omelette and deliver it.

 

There were a pretty sizable number of kids on the cruise (seemed like everyone on the cruise was either under 20 or over 70). That said, I didn't really feel like the number of kids had much of an impact on the cruise - and I've been on ones where it has. Someone asked whether the Lotus pool was listed for adults only. I never saw any signs up saying that on this cruise (although I didn't often go through there). Quite honestly, in the past when I've been on this ship and they did have the signs up they never enforced it anyways because god forbid they offend someone by making them follow the rules. If they're not going to enforce it, no point in putting up signs for it.

 

We don't often do Princess excursions, but did do two on this cruise: Old City of Cartagena on your own, and the whitewater rafting in costa rica.

 

The Old city on your own tour wasn't bad, and if you want to wander around the old city on your down but don't necessarily want to deal with the taxis in town, it's not a bad choice - you pay more of course for not risking the taxis. The gold museum in town is worth a stop, it's free, has some a/c, and some of the small delicate pieces of gold items that they have that were produced quite some time ago are impressive.

 

The whitewater rafting in costa rica I thought was a decent trip, and priced not unreasonably. I thought the rafting was reasonable. It's probably not going to excite someone that's done a lot of rafting, but isn't bad for someone that hasn't. That said, you hit the biggest set of rapids right after getting in the rafts before anyone really gets much chance to practice, and unfortunately that ended up being an issue on our trip, with one of the rafts getting dumped. It's quite a reminder that one minute you can be having a lot of fun, and the next leaving the ship early unexpectedly (the medical evacuation that delayed us leaving costa rica was related to this).

 

One thing I noticed in the photo department - they were selling a package of all your photos including the digital copies for $199. I'm not big on the photo department photos myself, so I'm not real sure how they worked that particular deal, but it could be worth it for someone that goes for a lot of the photos, especially with some of the extras taken on the canal day. Oddly, I never saw a single sign that showed the individual photo costs.

 

(Also found it vaguely amusing that while Princess hawks Nikon cameras in the photo department, they were actually using Canon cameras for the filming of the video. Pretty sure they were still using Nikon's for the still photos.)

 

While I probably sound pretty negative in all this, I'll repeat that I still feel this was a great cruise. It's just that even in just the 10 years that I've been cruising, I can see enough changes that I'd consider to be slipping, that I wonder at times how much longer Princess will fit what I'm looking for. For now though, I'm just as happy my next cruise will be on the Pacific, and definitely will be looking forward to that.

[Kingofcool1947]

I was on the same cruise, and while for the most part it was yet another great cruise, I did find that there were some areas where I feel that the Princess experience is starting to show some signs of cracks. Not enough to scare me away yet, but I'm glad that for now my next cruise is back on the Pacific versus the larger ships. (And I've been a fan of the Coral and pre-butchered Island).

 

 

 

This was something that I'll definitely disagree with. I found the food to be the most disappointing of the Princess cruises that I've been on. The Curtis Stone association really needs to be dumped. The Chilean Sea Bass, clams and mussels dish showed up on about 5 of the menus for this cruise. For the main part of the menu, that's pretty disappointing instead of seeing new choices for each day. For some reason, no Chef's dinner menu on this cruise - which means my wife was disappointed in not getting the goat cheese souffle. Not sure if we lost that because of the Christmas menu, but other Christmas cruises we've done haven't lost it. Had a couple of nights where the food was luke-warm at best.

 

I'm also a little surprised that you mentioned the gingerbread souffle especially. My wife and someone eating near us both made comments about the complete lack of flavor for that souffle.

 

I also felt the any-time dining room was somewhat hostile to people looking for tables for 2. Their attitude seemed to be that you were making it hard on them if you asked for a table for two - something I found especially odd considering there's actually a fair number of tables for 2 in the dining room.

 

 

 

Heh, motorcity has basically horrified me since I saw it on my first cruise. I find it criminal abuse of motown music.

 

Encore really had me scratching my head and honestly thinking that maybe Princess needs to think about firing the people in charge of their entertainment and starting from scratch. To me it seemed like a completely random collection of songs that were thrown together with no relationship to each other, with the occasional random dancer thrown in for good measure. For me, the only real redeeming quality to the show was their guest soprano, who to me seemed pretty good - to the point that I felt a little sorry for the two main female vocalists from the ship's company when they had to go out and sing after her. I kinda hoped they'd have a show feature just her, but they never did. But when I look at what some of the other lines have been offering lately (without having actually seen their shows myself), I just can't help believe that Princess is trying to stay a little too old-fashioned with it's entertainment. That said, I'll turn around say I do happen to kinda like the On the Bayou show. It's probably the only production show that I make any effort to see a second time.

 

 

 

For the most part I found him relatively average. Most of his stuff was pretty standard packaged acts. His close-up card work was pretty decent, but somewhat spoiled by a flakey camera being used. The linking of the rings trick was worth the price of admission though. Part of me wants to say I've seen him on a past cruise (the slide-show before the act looked real familiar). I need to start keeping a list of the acts that I've seen before.

 

The Pub night show they did the one night was also an interesting attempt at doing something a little different that I haven't seen too much. I thought the pub games part of it slowed it down a little too much, but I think it's something they could work on to turn into a decent bit of entertainment.

 

 

 

I definitely enjoyed them too.

 

Some of my other thoughts:

Probably my biggest pet peeve on this particular cruise was service in the buffet area. By far, the worst service I've had in the buffet area on any Princess cruise I've taken - at least for breakfast and lunch, the one time we ate there for dinner I found the service to be ok. Getting served a drink was an exercise in futility. And what's up with the absolutely tiny glasses they've gone to for orange juice in the morning? I don't think I had a single glass of lemonade on the cruise that wasn't badly watered down. The waiters were enjoying playing bingo with the omelette delivery, but from what I saw of my wife's experience, what was being delivered frequently seemed not to match up at all to what was being ordered, and seemed more like they'd just grab a random omelette and deliver it.

 

There were a pretty sizable number of kids on the cruise (seemed like everyone on the cruise was either under 20 or over 70). That said, I didn't really feel like the number of kids had much of an impact on the cruise - and I've been on ones where it has. Someone asked whether the Lotus pool was listed for adults only. I never saw any signs up saying that on this cruise (although I didn't often go through there). Quite honestly, in the past when I've been on this ship and they did have the signs up they never enforced it anyways because god forbid they offend someone by making them follow the rules. If they're not going to enforce it, no point in putting up signs for it.

 

We don't often do Princess excursions, but did do two on this cruise: Old City of Cartagena on your own, and the whitewater rafting in costa rica.

 

The Old city on your own tour wasn't bad, and if you want to wander around the old city on your down but don't necessarily want to deal with the taxis in town, it's not a bad choice - you pay more of course for not risking the taxis. The gold museum in town is worth a stop, it's free, has some a/c, and some of the small delicate pieces of gold items that they have that were produced quite some time ago are impressive.

 

The whitewater rafting in costa rica I thought was a decent trip, and priced not unreasonably. I thought the rafting was reasonable. It's probably not going to excite someone that's done a lot of rafting, but isn't bad for someone that hasn't. That said, you hit the biggest set of rapids right after getting in the rafts before anyone really gets much chance to practice, and unfortunately that ended up being an issue on our trip, with one of the rafts getting dumped. It's quite a reminder that one minute you can be having a lot of fun, and the next leaving the ship early unexpectedly (the medical evacuation that delayed us leaving costa rica was related to this).

 

One thing I noticed in the photo department - they were selling a package of all your photos including the digital copies for $199. I'm not big on the photo department photos myself, so I'm not real sure how they worked that particular deal, but it could be worth it for someone that goes for a lot of the photos, especially with some of the extras taken on the canal day. Oddly, I never saw a single sign that showed the individual photo costs.

 

(Also found it vaguely amusing that while Princess hawks Nikon cameras in the photo department, they were actually using Canon cameras for the filming of the video. Pretty sure they were still using Nikon's for the still photos.)

 

While I probably sound pretty negative in all this, I'll repeat that I still feel this was a great cruise. It's just that even in just the 10 years that I've been cruising, I can see enough changes that I'd consider to be slipping, that I wonder at times how much longer Princess will fit what I'm looking for. For now though, I'm just as happy my next cruise will be on the Pacific, and definitely will be looking forward to that.

 

Interesting comments and observations.

 

Sounds like the menu and service in the MDR or in the HC did not appeal to you? Curtis Stone menus were not good? Did you dine at any of the specialty restaurants? Was the food and service better?

 

You also thought most of the entertainment was mediocre?

 

Just curious, how old are you?

 

What did you observe as the majority of ages on the Panama Canal cruise? Majority of older (60's to 70's+)'PAX?

 

We are booked for Ocean to Ocean from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco, October 2017.

 

Thanks. And happy cruising in 2017. :)

Edited December 31, 2016 by Kingofcool1947

[CineGraphic]

Encore really had me scratching my head and honestly thinking that maybe Princess needs to think about firing the people in charge of their entertainment and starting from scratch. To me it seemed like a completely random collection of songs that were thrown together with no relationship to each other, with the occasional random dancer thrown in for good measure..... I kinda hoped they'd have a show feature just her, but they never did.

 

I was on the cruise one week before you and she DID have a solo show, and for many it was the worst show of all.

 

I stood in the back and watched many people walk out as she talked about herself non-stop in between songs.

Her ramblings included things like why she'd never change her name from Barbie, to how she didn't know "Porgy and Bess" was an opera.

When she wasn't talking, she was gulping down a huge bottle of water.

You could actually hear her drinking, as if she was in a cartoon.

People could not stop talking about how bad she was the next day.

Edited December 31, 2016 by CineGraphic

[Cruiserkenn]

OP - thanks for your review. Sorry about the bad experience with the Voice. I agree with you. I used to like the former program, Pop Star, much better. It was more low key, and more fun.

 

With Pop Star, they had three preliminary rounds, in which 3 were chosen by the audience, each night. Then those 9 would compete in the finals, often on the last night. It really was fun!

 

When I saw the Voice, there was a huge group that behaved like gang members. They stood so you couldn't see, and they talked and made noise when someone not in their group (gang) was performing. It was awful!

 

I wish they would bring back Pop Star!

 

Glad the rest of your cruise was good. Thanks again.

[nanatutu]

My husband and I are booked on the Coral for this March. We have been on this cruise before and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Loved the ship, the service, and the food. Loved it so much I talked my husband in to going again. I also talked two other couple to join us.

 

Now after I read some of the negative statements I hope I haven't made a mistake. :( It is the first cruise for one of the couples. First impressions are lasting. I know for every positive reviews there are going to be negative ones. I am pretty easy to please and any time I am cruising I am a winner. That said, I hope our friends are not disappointed with my recommendation.

[Kingofcool1947]

My husband and I are booked on the Coral for this March. We have been on this cruise before and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Loved the ship, the service, and the food. Loved it so much I talked my husband in to going again. I also talked two other couple to join us.

 

Now after I read some of the negative statements I hope I haven't made a mistake. :( It is the first cruise for one of the couples. First impressions are lasting. I know for every positive reviews there are going to be negative ones. I am pretty easy to please and any time I am cruising I am a winner. That said, I hope our friends are not disappointed with my recommendation.

 

 

Interesting thoughts. And unnecessary worry, and handwringing IMHO. Think positive. You're going on a cruise! :)

 

Just curious, so how could you be wondering if you made a mistake booking Coral again, if you thoroughly enjoyed everything about it the first time?

 

Avoid negative subjective comments from persuading you not to go. For every positive, there will be negatives. Just do it, enjoy, and have yourself a good time. :).

 

BTW, be thankful you are financially, and in good health to enjoy cruising.

 

Happy cruising in 2017.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Kingofcool1947

[friend of Eeyore]

Interesting comments and observations.

 

Sounds like the menu and service in the MDR or in the HC did not appeal to you? Curtis Stone menus were not good? Did you dine at any of the specialty restaurants? Was the food and service better?

 

You also thought most of the entertainment was mediocre?

 

Just curious, how old are you?

 

What did you observe as the majority of ages on the Panama Canal cruise? Majority of older (60's to 70's+)'PAX?

 

We are booked for Ocean to Ocean from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco, October 2017.

 

Thanks. And happy cruising in 2017. :)

 

Piper28 and I are early 40s. We commented on the age range one night, and still feel like we are on the younger half of the spectrum there, but in the top of that half. Most are in the older range.

 

Piper does not like the production shows, feeling like they are more like college-level productions, not professional. We did not go to see Motor City this cruise. We made the unfortunate decision to go to that one on our first cruise. I grew up in the Motor City, and sorry, that ain't Motor City. Bad singing, horrible song editing, and songs meant for a guy sung by a girl (or vice versa) - some songs you just don't gender-switch. We skipped the comedian -stood for a minute in the back, and decided there was just too much bad vulgarity - we heard five+ minutes of jokes that involved backsides and privates. (A joke that involved Punta Arenas, if you get my drift). We also stood for a few minutes in the back of the singer that did musical impressions. Sorry, the 5 minutes I saw weren't that good. We skipped the first comedian/illusionist/whatever.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the two Production shows I saw, the magician, and the two variety shows (pub night and Christmas). I'd love to watch the crew show, but it's always so late on that last night. We also loved the violinists, and went out of our way a couple of times to catch them. But, overall, the shows were mediocre on this cruise, to me.

 

We did not try the specialty restaurants. But, the food in the main dining room was so bad, choice wise, that one night it was actually me that suggested we eat in the buffet. I relied on my side dish of fettuccine too many times - sometimes it was the best part of the meal. My prime rib was undercooked and yet cold, my fish was overcooked (sent that one back), a fish that I expected to be sauted was actually breaded (swapped that one out, and later heard the waiter telling a diner that it was breaded), and the souffles had no flavor. Also extremely missed the goat cheese souffle.

 

I did LOVE Rolly, the bartender in the Wheelhouse. Dipak, the elite lounge server, was friendly and did his job very well. Marlyn, our steward, was friendly,and responded to requests well. We were in ATD, so didn't have the same waiter often. But Michael, one who we had for three of the nights, was friendly, and remembered us.

-Cathy

 

Sent from my SM-T813 using Forums mobile app

[friend of Eeyore]

Oh, and happy cruising to you too. We are booked on the Pacific in July/August for our 20th anniversary, and hope that the meals, at leaet, will be better.

 

Sent from my SM-T813 using Forums mobile app

[Kingofcool1947]

Piper28 and I are early 40s. We commented on the age range one night, and still feel like we are on the younger half of the spectrum there, but in the top of that half. Most are in the older range.

 

Piper does not like the production shows, feeling like they are more like college-level productions, not professional. We did not go to see Motor City this cruise. We made the unfortunate decision to go to that one on our first cruise. I grew up in the Motor City, and sorry, that ain't Motor City. Bad singing, horrible song editing, and songs meant for a guy sung by a girl (or vice versa) - some songs you just don't gender-switch. We skipped the comedian -stood for a minute in the back, and decided there was just too much bad vulgarity - we heard five+ minutes of jokes that involved backsides and privates. (A joke that involved Punta Arenas, if you get my drift). We also stood for a few minutes in the back of the singer that did musical impressions. Sorry, the 5 minutes I saw weren't that good. We skipped the first comedian/illusionist/whatever.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the two Production shows I saw, the magician, and the two variety shows (pub night and Christmas). I'd love to watch the crew show, but it's always so late on that last night. We also loved the violinists, and went out of our way a couple of times to catch them. But, overall, the shows were mediocre on this cruise, to me.

 

We did not try the specialty restaurants. But, the food in the main dining room was so bad, choice wise, that one night it was actually me that suggested we eat in the buffet. I relied on my side dish of fettuccine too many times - sometimes it was the best part of the meal. My prime rib was undercooked and yet cold, my fish was overcooked (sent that one back), a fish that I expected to be sauted was actually breaded (swapped that one out, and later heard the waiter telling a diner that it was breaded), and the souffles had no flavor. Also extremely missed the goat cheese souffle.

 

I did LOVE Rolly, the bartender in the Wheelhouse. Dipak, the elite lounge server, was friendly and did his job very well. Marlyn, our steward, was friendly,and responded to requests well. We were in ATD, so didn't have the same waiter often. But Michael, one who we had for three of the nights, was friendly, and remembered us.

-Cathy

 

Sent from my SM-T813 using Forums mobile app

 

Thank you!

I might have to reconsider eating dinner in the HC or a specialty restsursnt on our next cruise. :)

And I'm going to sit in the back of the Princess Theater, so I can make a quick exit if needed.

Happy cruising in 2017.

[nanatutu]

Interesting thoughts. And unnecessary worry, and handwringing IMHO. Think positive. You're going on a cruise! :)

 

Just curious, so how could you be wondering if you made a mistake booking Coral again, if you thoroughly enjoyed everything about it the first time?

 

Avoid negative subjective comments from persuading you not to go. For every positive, there will be negatives. Just do it, enjoy, and have yourself a good time. :).

 

BTW, be thankful you are financially, and in good health to enjoy cruising.

 

Happy cruising in 2017.

 

You are so right. Happy New Year. My 2017 resolution is: My glass is half full, not half empty.

[friend of Eeyore]

Thank you!

I might have to reconsider eating dinner in the HC or a specialty restsursnt on our next cruise. :)

And I'm going to sit in the back of the Princess Theater, so I can make a quick exit if needed.

Happy cruising in 2017.

The night I chose to eat in the buffet, I saw that they always had grilled meat to order -beef, salmon, and calamari, I believe. That was blessed news that night, and what I ended up with. There is no longer always available beef in the dining room; it is now a hamburger, which is not what I want for a fancy dinner.

 

And yes, if you can get it, the back of the theater on an aisle is great! :D

 

Sent from my SM-T813 using Forums mobile app

[skinsmom]

Thank you so very much for your review. We're onboard Feb 16-26 for the same itinerary so always good to hear about it. 🙂

A few questions...

Which nights were the formal nights?

How late in the evening was the stargazing?

Did you get up at 4am to see the canal entry? Where did you view from?

Were the port talks on the morning you were getting into the port?

What activities were great on the 1st two days(sea days)?

 

I will probably think of more later lol. Thanks again for your review and your willingness to field questions.

[Eagle_and_hawk]

Hmmm...yeah I've never quite figured out how to post images on cruisecritic because they always change the link after I post them.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146297657@N03/sets/72157678499370565/

 

^hopefully that works.

 

 

We use Flickr to post pictures here on CC & other WEB sites,

and it works a little different from some other sites.

What I have found, is you can't just copy thr URL from

browser and post the link, as you need to use the "share" button

to get a link that will work. Flickr wants to be sure they get

their little advertisement in the post with the picture if

you want others to see it in the post.

 

Example, here is one of the Coral with the link I get from

the Share button and notice it has their logo at the bottom

to the right of the picture:

 

d18 by Cool Runnings, on Flickr

 

If you want to post a specific picture to be displayed in the post,

when you are looking at the picture, there should be a curved

arrow button point to the right, which is share.

You will have several options and the "Share" option, will give you

a direct link to the picture someone can click on.

 

If you want the picture to show up in the post without someone

having to clink, use the BBCode option, and copy & past the link

it provides. That's what I did above.

 

To share an album, go to the album with all the pictures and you

will see the same, right curved arrow that lets you share the entire album.

If you post that link here, everyone should be able to see it.

 

It's possible the one person who was able to see it, may

have been able too because you were still signed in and the link was

valid for that short period of time.

 

Looking forward to seeing your pictures.

[CineGraphic]

Hmmm...yeah I've never quite figured out how to post images on cruisecritic because they always change the link after I post them.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146297657@N03/sets/72157678499370565/

 

^hopefully that works.

 

When you shorten her URL to see the folder /sets, you'll see that she doesn't have any public sets.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146297657@N03/sets/

And when you try to look at her photostream, you'll see that she hasn't made any photos public yet, so she may have accidentally made her pics "private".

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146297657@N03/

[eric99]

I am booked on the rafting trip in January 2017. What are your thoughts on it considering one of the participants wound up getting hurt and leaving the ship? Sounds like it was pretty serious. Thanks.

[Kingofcool1947]

I am booked on the rafting trip in January 2017. What are your thoughts on it considering one of the participants wound up getting hurt and leaving the ship? Sounds like it was pretty serious. Thanks.

 

Can't speculate, because no one knows the specifics of the PAX. PAX's age, health or extent of the PAX injury.

 

Just curious, are you able bodied enough to do river rafting?

 

Happy cruising in 2017. :)

Edited January 4, 2017 by Kingofcool1947

[ar1950]

Interesting that the OP has not been back for a few days. Every since piper28 hijacked the OP's review and pretty much trashed it with their opposing comments the OP has not been back to comment or answer questions. Also, piper28's apparent partner, friend of Eeyor, hasn't helped with their additional comments. I was looking forward to the OP's photos once they had sorted out their issues with Flickr thanks to some suggestions from others. That may not be likely given that the OP hasn't been back since piper28's hijack. Anyone else notice this? Just sayin'.......:confused:

[Woobstr112G]

OP;

 

Sounds like you had a great cruise. Thanks for taking the time to post your review.....:):):)

 

Bob

[friend of Eeyore]

I am booked on the rafting trip in January 2017. What are your thoughts on it considering one of the participants wound up getting hurt and leaving the ship? Sounds like it was pretty serious. Thanks.

We enjoyed it. That being said, I do think it would have been better marked as a "Class II-IV" repids, instead of just class 2. The first set of rapids we went through, where the passengers got dumped, our guide said was more like a 4. It had a big water hole, and their raft hit it just wrong, and they got dumped. We had a good guide, with some previous experience. However, some of their guides (including ours) were only there for the season, and had very little introduction the the river. I talked with the mother of the group that got dumped, and she said her guide had been on the river for 6 weeks. However, everyone did sign a waiver, and we knew things could be dangerous.

As to the extent of their injuries, and their ages, I'm not them, so I can only speculate. It was a set of sisters, young adults.

 

As to us "hijacking" the thread, we are all adults, and can only present our own opinions. I enjoyed the cruise. Hey, I was at sea, and who can complain about that. However, even a cruise can have downsides, and for us, the entertainment and food were nothing to write home about. And, Piper was asked a question. Since I could answer for him, I did.

 

Happy cruising.

 

Sent from my SM-T813 using Forums mobile app

[piper28]

Every since piper28 hijacked the OP's review and pretty much trashed it with their opposing comments the OP has not been back to comment or answer questions.

 

Interesting, I present what I'd consider an honest opinion - pointing out things I liked and disliked, and I "trashed" their review? As I pointed out in my comments, for the most part, the cruise was pretty good, but there's no question it had a few glaring issues too in my opinion. I've been on enough Princess cruises that I can say that in my opinion, the food in the dining room and the service in the HC did not measure up to my past experiences on Princess.

 

I do tend to not really care for Princess' production shows - with the odd exception of On the Bayou. I tried Encore because it was something I hadn't seen before, but I left just completely puzzled on what they were trying to accomplish. Presumably there's some reason they put together the collection of music they did for the show, but I honestly couldn't tell you what the reason was after watching it. Presumably it made sense to someone. It was interesting to see that the soprano's solo show on the previous cruise wasn't exactly a success.

 

And FWIW, I'd book the Coral again without any qualms. I know things can vary, especially months apart. I really like the size to passenger ratio on this ship (I'm not really in a hurry to book the Island though after the changes there). Course, now that the Canal can be done with larger ships, and after what I'd say they feel is something of a failure with the Island conversion, I wonder how long it'll be before the Coral, Island (and Pacific) are gone and all that remains are larger ships.

 

From some other questions:

 

4AM would probably be a little early to get out to see the canal entry. First, at that time, it's going to be pretty dark. The time you actually enter the canal can vary, but I've never seen one quite that early. I'd say on this trip at around 6am we were passing the footings for the new bridge being built. Turning on the stateroom tv to 41 can give you an idea in the morning whether it's worth getting out of bed yet :). Deck 10 and 11 forwards are good for the approach, but expect them to be busy these days. Once you're closer, I recommend moving around a lot to get different viewpoints.

 

Stargazing I only saw listed on the one night, I think around 9:30 or 10? Was't excessively late.

 

Formal nights were first sea day and the sea day after costa rica. The second formal night no idea if that matches up with the normal route (for us that was christmas day), but I'd suspect it would be the second formal night anyways.

 

I think the rafting trip was a decent excursion. It's just worth keeping in mind that things *can* happen. I think for the most part that it's pretty reasonable for people without experience rafting. People with a lot of experience rafting would probably find the trip a little on the boring side. But it is an activity that does inherently carry *some* risk. Then again, you can get hurt doing almost anything. I'd have no problems doing it again.