Caribbean Princess 10-day partial Panama Canal transit review

[Mac Daddy]

While I use CC obsessively when I am researchingcruises (ports/excursions, ships, cruise lines), I will admit that I am only arare contributor. That said, I wanted toprovide a review of our recent 10-day Caribbean Princess partial canal transitcruise, hoping to help others looking to book a similar cruise and to give myviews of topics I have read about frequently on CC. I write this from FLL as I have time betweenthe cruise and our flight. First, let me say these are just my opinions, andwell, opinions are like rear-ends… we all have them. That said…

Background: This is the 6th cruise for DWand I, so we’re not ‘regular’ cruisers but we tend to take one every fewyears. Our experience is 2 cruises eachon Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival. We were taking this cruise mainly as a way to see the Panama Canal as abucket-list item.

Arrival/Embarkation: We had a red-eye flight arrivingat FLL at 6am, but sleep was not plentiful on the flight. After taking our time at the airport, we madeour way to the Harbor Shops near the port to get breakfast at Joe’s Café (verygood short-order breakfasts) and pick up sodas from Publix to fill the dufflebag we packed (thanks for the cruise critic tip on the duffle bag forsodas). After the breakfast and shoppingwe walked across the parking lot to Embassy Suites to relax in theircomfortable lobby until we could go to the port. We took Uber to the port at around 10:30am,and embarkation was a breeze. While our‘suggested’ boarding time was close to 2pm, we were able to board in the 5thgeneral boarding group, being onboard by about 11:15am with our room alreadymade up and we were asleep by 11:45am.

Stateroom: We stayed in B748 which was a corneraft-view balcony. We’ve had all type ofcabins in the past and seem to find booking balconies the best choice forus. I’ve always wanted to try anaft-view balcony, and because we were going through the canal I figured thiswas the right time to splurge a little for it, especially with a corner cabinavailable. The cabin itself is standardsize, but the balcony is quite large at maybe 10’x10’ and fully covered. Theaft-view was great, especially in the canal, and I highly recommend the roomfor canal transits. Regarding the newbeds, we did find them very comfortable and conducive to good sleep (andfrequent naps).

Propulsion: I had read so many concerns about theongoing propulsion issues on the Caribbean Princess, but honestly, other thanthe shorter port times (which were already adjusted before we booked thecruise), we really didn’t notice anything too unusual. Ship seemed to move at a good clip. Our cabin did have some vibration whenarriving and departing ports, but nothing really out of the ordinary. In a pleasant surprise, we actually arrivedin Jamaica about 3 hours ahead of schedule. We did have two medical emergencies which had a minor impact on the itinerary. First we had to return to Panama afteralready leaving, which caused us to be 2 hours late to Costa Rica the nextmorning, but they also adjusted the departure from Costa Rica by 2 hours, sonet-net no issue. The other emergencywas leaving Costa Rica which caused us to leave a further couple of hours laterthan planned, but again no impact to the arrival time at the next port (GrandCayman) after a sea day in between.

[Mac Daddy]

Ports / Excursions:

Jamaica – While we arrived a few hours early, which was nice to have abit of time to explore the port area before our planned excursion at 1pm, itwould have been nice if we could have moved up our excursion time but fullyunderstand that’s not always possible with large groups. We simplywanted to relax on a beach so we booked the Beach Day excursion directly fromPrincess (or in this case more like beach ‘afternoon’ rather than‘day’). I had thought the beach was relatively close to the port, sowas a little surprised it was about a 30-45 minute drive each way to MontegoBay (right near the airport). The beach club was very relaxing, witha great sandy beach and beautiful warm and clear water. The onlydownside for some people was that the actual time on the beach was only about 2hours. While I maybe would have liked an extra hour at the beach, itwas still a very nice couple of hours. If you just want a relaxing afternoonwithout trekking to Dunn’s River Falls and dealing with all the tourists there,then I’d recommend this cost-effective excursion through Princess.

 

Cartagena, Colombia– Our port call was fromabout 6am – 12pm, so a bit limiting of a day to fully explore thearea. Our plan was to ‘do it ourselves’ wanting to see the fort andthe old walled city area. We ended up hiring a driver outside theport gates who stayed with us throughout our time together and giving us apersonal tour of the old city. With it being very hot and humid (atleast for us), the short port day was fine with us allowing us to start outearly before it got too hot and by 11am we were pretty much ready to call it aday. The fort was interesting and the old walled city has a lot ofcolonial charm.

 

Panama Canal – We chose to stay on the ship rather than do anexcursion from Princess which would make for a very long day. I cancompletely understand wanting to take a smaller boat through the remaininglocks to the Pacific, but for us it was enjoyable to relax and watch the locksboth ways. Again, the aft-view balcony was great for enjoying thelocks as we could watch for a while, then go inside to the room to enjoy theair conditioning. Our one complaint was that the person doing thetransit commentary on the loud speaker was simply not good, as she seemed to haveno grasp of the facts or even providing any real insight other than justreading facts from a card.

 

Costa Rica – We had pre-booked the day with Oscar Brown toursbased on CC feedback. We wanted to see the Jaguar Rescue Center andalso take the Tortuguero Canal tour. Oscar’s nephew Roger met usoutside the port terminal, and was basically our private tour guide for theday. Roger was great, and it was nice to spend the day with alocal. The Jaguar Rescue Center was very good for seeing animals(lots of sloths, but no jaguars), and the work they do is good. Thedrive to the center is almost an hour, so you get to see a lot of the localscenes. The Tortuguero Canal was on the other side of town, soanother long-ish drive to get there. The Canal tour is essentially areal-life version of the Disneyland Jungle Cruise. Very relaxing andnice sights to see, including some wildlife (cayman, monkeys, sloth,lizards). These two tours took most of the day, but provided a goodopportunity to see the jungle and wildlife of Costa Rica.

 

Grand Cayman – We had been to Grand Cayman before and decidedto take the same tour we took last time to Stingray City. This isthe 2nd time we’ve used Nativeway tours, and I highly recommendthem. They are reliable and professional, yet provide more of an‘intimate’ tour than one booked directly through the cruise line (plus is lessexpensive). Our tour visited Stingray City, a coral garden forsnorkeling, and then a stop at starfish point to wade in the shallow water and inspectthe starfish there. Again, a good excursion with variety for peopleduring their first visit to Grand Cayman.

 

Food: We admittedly have plain palates, plus we prefer not todress up for dinner out of shorts, so we tend to eat most of our meals in thebuffet. We found the buffet to be good for breakfast, not veryimpressive for lunch, and hit-or-miss for dinner. Sometimes wereally liked the dinner selection in the buffet, but some nights we struggledto find anything appealing. We did have lunch in the dining room andenjoyed that, and other times we seemed to grab pizza or burgers, or just havea big late breakfast and skipped lunch. I was pleasantly surprisedwith the pizza after reading the numerous comments about poorquality. I also enjoyed the stromboli offered. Overall,we’ve had better buffets on other cruises (namely on Royal Caribbean), butoverall we thought the food was pretty good. We did eat at Planksone night and enjoyed it. Planks seems to always be empty fordinner, but the food was pretty good and the quantity is huge. Weboth struggled to finish much more than half our plate at Planks, but did enjoythe choices and found the desserts offered really tasty. Overall,Planks is a decent choice to try once or twice, even with the $12/pp cover.

 

Other ship comments: We found the ship to be in very good shape, and the crew tobe friendly and helpful. We enjoyed the movies under the stars (withpopcorn) on multiple nights, and we especially liked the on-demand movies onthe new in-room flat screen tv’s. While we kept an eye for EscapeRoom signups, there didn’t seem to be any for our cruise.

[Thrak]

Nice review. I have to ask though, since you were on CB and weren't overly pleased with the buffet: Did you continue on through the World Fresh Market Place (sheesh... HC was so much easier to type!) and on into Planks and Steamers? The breakfast offerings were much nicer there and the lunch offerings were totally different than what was in the main buffet. Many people on our recent sailing had no clue they could continue on through the main buffet to these areas where breakfast and lunch are complimentary. We enjoyed the made-to-order omelets and fried eggs much more than the pre-made (tasteless) "omelets" and pre-cooked fried eggs that were just sitting out getting nasty. The lunch options were completely different from anything in the main buffet.

[OCruisers]

Thanks for your time for the review.

Glad it was mostly a good cruise for you!

We also very much enjoyed the stromboli at the pizza station. :D

[Mac Daddy]

Nice review. I have to ask though, since you were on CB and weren't overly pleased with the buffet: Did you continue on through the World Fresh Market Place (sheesh... HC was so much easier to type!) and on into Planks and Steamers? The breakfast offerings were much nicer there and the lunch offerings were totally different than what was in the main buffet. Many people on our recent sailing had no clue they could continue on through the main buffet to these areas where breakfast and lunch are complimentary. We enjoyed the made-to-order omelets and fried eggs much more than the pre-made (tasteless) "omelets" and pre-cooked fried eggs that were just sitting out getting nasty. The lunch options were completely different from anything in the main buffet.

 

That's a really good question. We did use the buffet in Planks/Steamers for breakfast when we couldn't find seating in the main buffet area, and did notice some different offerings. We never thought of trying that area for lunch offerings. Good suggestion we'll have to keep in mind for future trips. Thanks!

[fxcarden]

Thank you. Very informative for me.

[helencruising]

Thank you for the nice review.

[geoherb]

Thanks for posting your thoughts. We enjoyed the reconfigured buffet on the CB last summer as well for breakfast and lunch a few times. We ate all of our dinners in the dining room.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the well-written, informative review.

[Lucky TGO]

Thanks for your review very nice.

Tony

[donswife]

Thank you for your review. Did you go to any shows, and were there any guest lectures about the canal?

[BillyBoat]

Mac Daddy: I enjoyed your very helpful CB review. DW and I will be on the CB in August for 2 weeks in the EXACT SAME cabin that you guys were in ! It is our first time in an aft, so we were glad to hear you enjoyed the location. Thanks again for the review.

Billy

[JimAOk1945]

Thanks for your review. We took a partial transit cruise on the Island Princess and then a full transit on the Holland America Westerdam. We enjoyed both cruises very much. If anyone is interested in seeing pictures, a link to my wife's website is below in my signature. Cruising is a fantastic way to travel and see the world. Happy Travels wherever you go next.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Forums mobile app

[moki'smommy]

Thank you for your review. Did you go to any shows, and were there any guest lectures about the canal?

I did this cruise on April 1. There were 3 lectures, one about the canal. The canal guide was totally boring--monotone, seemed to be reading from notes with no inflection, no interest. I didn't go to anything else as this was so bad.

 

Hope future cruises have a better speaker!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[jefa]

Thanks for the review. I was on this cruise, and the one beforehand.

 

I have to agree with moki'smommy, that the woman doing the "enrichment" lectures, was absolutely awful. Her commentary through the new locks was dreadful, and one of the lectures I attended in the Princess Theatre put me off attending any of the others. I took the trip from Gatun Lake through the rest of the locks and the commentator on the ferry was excellent.

[KevintheIrishDJ]

We were on the same cruise (second leg of a 20 day B2B). I would add:

- We used the Crown Grill BOGO coupon on Embarkation night. Wonderful.

- Really liked the omelets in the "back of the buffet".

- Wait staff and Room Stewart were absolutely great.

- The duo in the Wheelhouse were not very good. The did play "How Much if that Doggie in the Window" which was a fast 3/4 time. We were able to do "our" waltz to it. - The wait staff during the first cruise (table of 8) was VERY BAD. We tried not to complain. Next to last night, we waited 45 minutes to get our appetizer, while their only other table were already on their entrée. We finally complained. Me wife always gets decafe with dinner. She had trouble getting to sleep. The entire table were treated to dinner and drinks at the Crown Grill the next night. Also, we were switched to another table for the second cruise. The service was like night and day.

- Another issue I had was the sound level in the theater. I have been an entertainer for over 30 years and consequently have hearing loss. The sound was so high I had to cover my ears several times. I tried to talk to the CD about it. He basically said I was wrong and they were "required" not to play too loud. I asked what the db level was and he could not answer me.

- We rented a car from Enterprise for about half of what Uber would charge. Dropped it off at the Hyatt Marina and walked to the ship. Very convenient.

[floridalover5623]

- Another issue I had was the sound level in the theater. I have been an entertainer for over 30 years and consequently have hearing loss. The sound was so high I had to cover my ears several times. I tried to talk to the CD about it. He basically said I was wrong and they were "required" not to play too loud. I asked what the db level was and he could not answer me.

Many people have complained about the same thing for years without any results.

There's no hope. :(

Bring ear plugs.

[moki'smommy]

In the US, venues are required to comply with max db levels. Interestingly, they are not required to monitor them unless complaints are made (or so I was told). But, when I made a complaint in a private establishment, you wouldn't believe the excuses I heard!

 

I don't think Princess has any intention of changing this issue. I have covered my ears in the theatre at times.

[KevintheIrishDJ]

In the US' date=' venues are required to comply with max db levels. Interestingly, they are not required to monitor them unless complaints are made (or so I was told). But, when I made a complaint in a private establishment, you wouldn't believe the excuses I heard!

 

I don't think Princess has any intention of changing this issue. I have covered my ears in the theatre at times.[/quote']

 

When I complained to the CD he told me some BS about Princess being required to comply with max db levels. After 30 years performing, I know better.

[caribill]

When I complained to the CD he told me some BS about Princess being required to comply with max db levels. After 30 years performing, I know better.

 

It may not be BS.

 

The sound levels while much too loud for most people may still be below the maximum allowed. The CD was probably saying this level was not violated.

 

 

Just because there is a maximum level does not mean the sound level needs to be set near or at the max allowed.

[floridalover5623]

It may not be BS.

 

The sound levels while much too loud for most people may still be below the maximum allowed. The CD was probably saying this level was not violated.

 

 

Just because there is a maximum level does not mean the sound level needs to be set near or at the max allowed.

Just curious, but has there even been just one person who's posted it wasn't loud enough and they couldn't hear any performance? :confused:

[rafinmd]

Hope this thread isn't too old to get attention, but does the Caribbean Princess use the new locks or the old?

 

 

Roy

[Retired_Army]

Hope this thread isn't too old to get attention, but does the Caribbean Princess use the new locks or the old?

 

 

Roy

The Caribbean Princess will have to use the new locks. The only Princess Ships that can use the old/original locks are the Coral and the Island, and of course the smaller Pacific.

[Host CJSKIDS]

Thank you for taking the time to write the review!