Grand Princess Review Dec. 3-10

[houstoncruisers2001]

Is there an adult-only pool on Grand?

 

There are actually two adult pools, the Spa Pool and the Terrace Pool, although the Spa Pool lets kids use it from like 12pm-3pm. Never saw any kids in it though. The Neptune Pool & Calypso Pool are where all the kids are at.

 

Did you know that the Rhapsody's pools are salt water, but the Grand's pools are fresh water?

 

Also, I really liked the Egyptian themed pool on Rhapsody. Hung out there alot.

[cruisinqt]

I'm back! Sorry it took so long, but this is a really busy time of year for me. Wow, I can't believe there are so many people on this thread that are right down the road from me - Hi guys! There is self debarkation on the Grand, they send a form to everyone's room early in the week. We didn't do it, but I wish we had. Just let me say that I really enjoyed this cruise and would do it again, I'm not trying to give a negative review, just an honest one. I really enjoyed Princess, it's just different than Carnival or Royal Caribbean, but not in a bad way. I think all of the other questions got answered so I'll just go ahead with the rest of my review.

 

 

Our next day on the cruise was a stop in Grand Cayman. The tendering in this port was better than the others. We got a tendering ticket and were headed into port in no time. Since we had already done the stingray thing on our last cruise which was awesome, we decided to do something totally different this time. We rented a car from Avis and drove on the left hand side of the road!:eek: Actually, it wasn't so bad. Avis only charged us $45 for an all-inclusive deal that included your driving permit, insurance, and gas. It was a compact car with room for 5 people. Driving around town was easier than we expected. The people at Avis gave us a map and told us how to get where we wanted to go. We just followed the flow of traffic and never had a problem. We went to Hell for our first stop which is really just an outcropping of hellish looking rocks. But the fun thing about Hell is being able to purchase postcards that say "I've been to Hell" or "I'm in Hell and it ain't so bad" and getting them postmarked from Hell and sending them to all of your friends. You can send them from the stores there in Hell, they sell postage stamps and mail them off for you. Or you can walk next door to the Hell post office and mail them yourself. The t-shirts are pretty neat too. They had sayings like "I'd rather be in Hell than at work" or "I've been to Hell and back." I got one that said "I drove on the left side of the road in Hell and survived" which got lots of comments when I wore it on the ship the next day.

 

Next, we went to the turtle farm which shows turtles in every stage of life from conception to adulthood. The huge concrete ponds full of turtles was a sight to see but getting to hold them was the best part. Our kids got a real kick out of that, and it made for really neat pictures too. We drove around and did some shopping and then went back to the ship. Overall, this was a really nice port and we really enjoyed doing our own thing. We weren't crammed into tour buses full of people and we got to do whatever we wanted to whenever we wanted to. I think renting a car was a great choice and you can't beat the price at $45. Most excursions were that much or more and they were priced per person. My only complaint about this port was that the Grand changed our times on us. We were supposed to be there from 12:00 - 7:00 but on the Princess Patters the day before we arrived it said the last tender would be leaving at 4:45. It didn't say when we would arrive, but we hoped we would arrive earlier too and not lose precious time in this port as it is one of our favorites. We did arrive earlier than scheduled, around 11:00. We were on the first tender which left around 11:25, but we were still upset that our time in Grand Cayman had been cut short. I felt a little short changed, but what can you do? We did get to go everywhere we wanted to, so I guess it all worked out.

 

The worst tendering I've ever seen was the next day in Cozumel, but it wasn't really the fault of Princess or Cozumel. Due to the hurricane damage the piers were all gone except the ferry pier which is what we used. The problem with the ferry pier was that it wasn't compatible with the ships tenders so we couldn't use our tenders, only theirs. And they could only afford to give us 2 tenders since there were numerous ships there that day. These tenders hold over 400 people which was one of the problems because it took forever to fill up the tender, plus the ocean was really choppy which made boarding the tender even more difficult. It took us an hour and a half to get on land and we were only on the second tender.:(

Cozumel looked like Grand Cayman did after they got hit last year, or like gulfport or biloxi. All of the trees were barren and the homes were demolished. The surprising thing was how many shops were open at the pier. I think every single shop was open and when we shopped there it took a good hour and a half to hit the stores there. And we didn't go into every store. So if you can't find something to buy there, then somethings wrong with you, because there's plenty of shops open. Even the pharmacy and Los Cinco Soles was open.

 

We got a taxi and headed straight out to Paradise beach which is our favorite place to go in Cozumel. They had planted 100 new palm trees, had built a new kitchen (the food was great), and expanded the shaded bar and eating area. There were twice as many lounge chairs and umbrella tables on the beach. Unfortunately, there were twice as many people too! But service was good, we never wanted for food or drink, and the price is right since this place is free to enter. The loungers and umbrellas are free to use but if you want to use the water toys there's a one time fee of $8. They now have 2 water trampolines along with the usual stuff like kayaks, snorkel gear, the floating iceberg you climb up, the floatie mats, etc. which is all included in the $8 deal. This place looks untouched by the hurricane, though I know they were hit hard because I saw the pictures. They just worked 24/7 to get things up and running quickly. They even brought in a bathroom trailer since the bathrooms were demolished by the hurricane. The bathroom trailer is a trailer with several bathroom stalls, mirrors, and sinks with running water. It's clean and air conditioned. The only thing I really miss is the freshwater showers, but they did a lot in a short period of time, so I'm not complaining. The food and drinks were great and reasonably priced. This place was my husband's overall favorite. Mine was of course, Majahual, but Cozumel came in a close second!

 

The cost for a taxi for all four of us was $14, but we negotiated the price ahead of time which is a must while in Mexico. Our taxi driver even waited for us there for a whole 4 hours and then took us back to the pier. All of the taxi drivers waited there at Paradise beach for their passengers. My six year old who is normally a big daredevil and very brave climbed to the top of the floating iceberg and got stuck!:eek: Once she got to the top and looked down she freaked. She didn't realize how high up it would be. My husband tried climbing up to get her, but at 6'6", his height and weight made it difficult to climb up. I tried and failed too. We aren't much into rock climbing. After being stuck up there for 30 minutes, a crowd formed. Finally, a 14 year old boy climbed up to the top and helped her down. I don't know what we would have done without him. At the time it was upsetting, but now we can laugh about it. Just be forewarned that it's hard for adults to climb up there but little kids can climb right up but get stuck. After a lazy beach day we shopped at the pier and then took a tender back to the ship. The tendering back was quick and easy. It took less than 15 minutes.

 

On Friday they had a huge sale in one of the dining rooms from 9-1. The prices are all 50-70% off. There's a ton of stuff in there, go to it! On deck 7 in the open atrium area outside of the dining rooms, they also had tons of t-shirts on sale. Most of the t-shirts were marked down from $16-$18 to $11-$13. They were all princess t-shirts depicting the different ports we went to, so wait until then to buy the t-shirts. We went to the big bingo blow out, saw the princess idol show which was great, and enjoyed some more pool time.

 

Saturday was sad as we really enjoyed ourselves and didn't want to leave. Debarkation took forever. After waiting for well over an hour, we decided to take a chance and try to get off of the ship before they called our luggage tag color. It worked, no one asked for proof of our luggage tag color. The process of leaving the ship wasn't that bad, it was waiting for your color to be called that took forever! If I did it all over again I would definitely do the self debarkation as they are the very first ones to be called. Once we stepped outside with our bags we saw the E-Z cruise parking sign at the very end of the building. We went there and hopped into a shuttle immediately. They dropped us right off at our car and helped us unload our bags. They were great, I'll definitely be using them again.

 

Where some of the other cruise lines are busy, busy, busy, go, go, go, with tons of activities going on well into the night, Princess is just the opposite. It is more laid back and refined. There are lots of acitivities scheduled throughout the day, but things aren't as crowded or loud. And people go to bed at a reasonable hour, so there aren't lots of noises waking you up late at night. I also like that when they make announcements over the loudspeaker it doesn't come through in your room. On our last cruise many a loudspeaker announcement woke me up from naps. Getting up at the crack of dawn for an excursion and running around in a port all day long can be exhausting. And there's nothing worse than being woke up in your cabin by announcements from your cruise director about some shopping talk he's giving in 5 minutes.:rolleyes: I like Princess, it was much more refined and upscale than our previous cruises. But I also like the parties and excitement of some of the other cruise lines I've been on. I couldn't say I like one cruise line over the other. They each have certain things about them that I really like. But overall I would say this was a good cruise and I would do it again.:)

[Snoozeman]

Great review crusinqt!!

 

Thanks

[cruisinqt]

The one thing I forgot to review was the kids program. And that's pretty important to people like me who likes to bring the kids along, so here goes!:)

 

The kids area was small but had some neat stuff like a playhouse, pint sized restrooms, and a nice big screen theatre area to watch movies. That was where the 3-7 year olds stayed. The 8-12 year olds used a large conference room, which at first disappointed me. But my 8 year old loved it better than all of the other cruises because they had tons of stuff in there. They had stuff to make hemp friendship bracelets, glittery beaded jewelry, foam that dried to any shape you made it and you could paint it too, and lots of other neat stuff. Plus they had races, played candy bingo, painted Princess logo t-shirts, and had paper airplane flying contests. She made some really close friends there and really enjoyed the kids center. My 6 year old said the kids center was fun, but she thought the one on our last cruise was better. I think the problem was that most of the kids were a lot younger than her and she also missed her sister a lot. But they did neat things there like paint Princess logo t-shirts, make photo frames, create things out of paper mache, and play candy bingo. Overall, I would say the kids center got the stamp of approval from my two girls. But comparing it to our previous cruises, the kids center was quite a bit smaller and the 3-7 year olds were at the very front of the ship while the 8-12 year olds were at the very rear of the ship. So every time we went to get our kids it was a real workout with lots of walking back and forth. They really need to arrange things to where all of the kids are in the same area. That's a huge ship and walking from one end to the other several times a day is a bit much. That combined with the small kids area is the only reason I would give it a lower mark than our previous cruises. But keep in mind that the kids did enjoy it and went every day.:D