Any recent Caribbean Princess cruises with positive review.

[suzyed]

On 6/4/2023 at 11:56 AM, KKB said:

Been a year--sailed last July for 2 weeks & it was great. 

 

Reading the reviews...

--several complaints were about changes in Elite perks (not a Caribbean Princess issue).

--mildew in shower? not uncommon to see in hotel rooms 

--insult comedy? OH NO

--smallest room every--HUH? GURRRL, try NCL interior....

--poor ship layout? Other than going down a flight to one MDR, I don't have ANY idea what they are talking about.

--missed ports due to safety issues? HAPPENS ALL THE TIME

--but other ships docked? may be WHEN they docked, size of ship, etc.

--shows not to your taste? Yep, it happens

--not enough activities to your taste? Yep, has happened to me, too. Maybe Princess isn't the line for you, or maybe cruising isn't for you (one reason I'm over MSC)

 

Complainers are gonna complain. I read those & see little consistency to the complaints which says to me that it isn't a Caribbean Princess issue, but the complainers issue.

 

 

 

 

Completely agree.

 

[suekel]

I'm boarding her today.  I'll let you know. 

[tml1230]

14 minutes ago, suekel said:

I'm boarding her today.  I'll let you know. 

we board next month from port everglades  to Quebec city....

very much looking forward to your thoughts and comments! 

safe journey!

[suekel]

So far so good.  Sitting at a bar stool at Crooners by 10:58, bartenders and servers are great.  Lunch in the MDR  was the usual stuff and pretty quick. Had my luggage by 2. Met my steward,  got an ice bucket,  a welcome glass of champagne.  Got chocolates from the casino. Just a minute ago the hotel manager checked in at my door to make sure everything was good.  AC works, toilet flushes... just about time to go to the VIP cocktail party. Then I'll check out the elite lounge since I'll probably skip dinner. Ship is crowded but I expected that.  

[Redwing55]

12 hours ago, tml1230 said:

we board next month from port everglades  to Quebec city....

very much looking forward to your thoughts and comments! 

safe journey!

Enjoy.. We did that itinerary last July... same ship..  Lucked out on weather.  NO issues with ship.  Crew was great and we didn't notice much differences from pre-covid to 2022.  

[tml1230]

32 minutes ago, Redwing55 said:

Enjoy.. We did that itinerary last July... same ship..  Lucked out on weather.  NO issues with ship.  Crew was great and we didn't notice much differences from pre-covid to 2022.  

thanks for the kind word and feedback! it sounds like Suekel is off to a great start!

 

Not for nuthin but 43 years ago ....an underachiever living in Florida (me ) met a girl born in Grand Rapids

Michigan.....she took pity on me as I could not grasp that whole " where you from  on the "hand " map of Michigan.....married her 42 years ago!

[suekel]

I do have to say the room service is terrible.  Last night I ordered a glass of wine. They called 45 minutes later to tell me they didn't have what I ordered.  Today I needed a snack.  I ordered a quesadilla. They called to tell me it would be an hour. I asked why,  wondering if they were short staffed or what is the issue. He apologized and said it would be right up.  We'll see.  Other than that everything is fine. 

[suekel]

15 hours ago, suekel said:

I do have to say the room service is terrible.  Last night I ordered a glass of wine. They called 45 minutes later to tell me they didn't have what I ordered.  Today I needed a snack.  I ordered a quesadilla. They called to tell me it would be an hour. I asked why,  wondering if they were short staffed or what is the issue. He apologized and said it would be right up.  We'll see.  Other than that everything is fine. 

Update. I got my quesadilla. 5 minutes later another one showed up.  Later I went to dinner at Sabatinis which was excellent.  Hit up a bar after then went back to my room.  There was a third quesadilla on my desk.  I ordered a glass of wine,  they called me and said they didn't have it.  This was a different wine than the night before. I asked what they had and she said canyon road. I asked what they had that was included in the premier package,  she said none.  I asked them why did I pay more if they can't provide what I paid for? I canceled and contacted guest services who escalated to the room service manager. It's a small thing but it'll be interesting to see what happens. 

[Buckeye10640]

12 minutes ago, suekel said:

Update. I got my quesadilla. 5 minutes later another one showed up.  Later I went to dinner at Sabatinis which was excellent.  Hit up a bar after then went back to my room.  There was a third quesadilla on my desk.  I ordered a glass of wine,  they called me and said they didn't have it.  This was a different wine than the night before. I asked what they had and she said canyon road. I asked what they had that was included in the premier package,  she said none.  I asked them why did I pay more if they can't provide what I paid for? I canceled and contacted guest services who escalated to the room service manager. It's a small thing but it'll be interesting to see what happens. 

Room Service issues are not limited to this ship for sure. Last month we ordered room service for a late lunch. After 2 hours of  waiting, we went to Alfredos for pizza. While waiting for our pizza,  our room service items ordered 2+ hoursr earlier were delivered....to our table at Alfredos! The staff member handling delivery apologized, as he could see the order was placed almost 2.5 hrs earlier.  They sent us chocolate covered strawberries later that day along with an apology note. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Buckeye10640

[suekel]

Just now, Buckeye10640 said:

Room Service issues are not limited to this ship for sure. Last month we ordered room service for a late lunch. After 2 hours of  waiting, we went to Alfredos for pizza. While waiting for our pizza,  our room service items ordered 2+ hoursr earlier were delivered....to our table at Alfredos! The staff member handling delivery apologized, as he could see the order was placed almost 2.5 hrs earlier.  They sent us chocolate covered strawberries later that day along with an apology note. 

I was in the Sapphire for 18 days in March/April.  It was the fastest that I've ever experienced.  There are a lot of kids on this cruise and I know that has an impact. 

[capriccio]

We had excellent room service during our 28 days on the Coral Princess with one exception:  after about 30 minutes our lunch order was noted as 'delivered' on the app and the TV version.  When it wasn't delivered within another 10 minutes my DH called RS and was told "Oops it must have been delivered to the wrong cabin."  Order #2 was delivered about 15 minutes later.

[paradiselivin1]

On 6/5/2023 at 1:09 PM, Meekos7 said:

Entertainment-Jodi is a wonderful Cruise and Entertainment Director.

Love her and hope she is still there for our cruise in August. She was on our 20 day Enchanted b2b. That young lady rocks ~ love her energy! Have only been on CB once six years ago ~ no issues then and hope we're just as lucky this summer.

[suekel]

I said I would update after this cruise.  Unfortunately, it was not a great cruise.  Besides the aforementioned room service issues...I had the Premier package.  I was able to book one specialty dining but not the second.  Seems that they should work on this for shorter cruises.  I will never get this package again as I didn't use the majority of it...Though I did like the wines provided you didn't try to order them through room service.  They neglected to bring me the information about EZ Check where they take your luggage to the airport for you.  After a few words with guest services, it worked out but they lied when they said they didn't have my flight information.  He looked it up and it was there.  

We had an engine issue that delayed our arrival into Roatan by 2.5 hours.  We had a shipwide black out which did not last long but took the A/C awhile to catch back up.  I was eating in the Crown Grill that that night and they couldn't cook for awhile.  They brought out what they could and I imagine it backed up reservations for a bit.  Food in the CG and Sabatinis was excellent.  International Cafe was good but where are the salads?  Food up on the Lido was good as usual, I did not use the Buffet.  Looked like Planks and the BBQ place have reopened. 

Various people had issues with A/C.  One couple could not get their room below 80.  I was on Dolphin and it was fine. One woman had a pipe burst in her closet soaking everything.  They did her laundry for free and then switched her to a cabin with no AC.  They had moved the previous occupants for this reason.  

The fitness center was really good.  

The staff was great.  Lunch was slow in the MDR but dinner was good.  The Caribbean Princess needs a dry dock.  Broken tiles on the hot tubs, a place in the casino where it felt that the floor was going to give way, walking down the hallways where the wear and tear were really noticable.  I have a lot of good memories on this ship (8 cruises on her) but won't book her again until they dry dock her again.  

[tml1230]

Suekel, thanks for the update! Sorry to hear about the issues.  Just told my wife I'm glad we aren't doing a transatlantic crossing on her! safe journey home.

[MissP22]

14 hours ago, suekel said:

I said I would update after this cruise.  Unfortunately, it was not a great cruise.  Besides the aforementioned room service issues...I had the Premier package.  I was able to book one specialty dining but not the second.  Seems that they should work on this for shorter cruises.  I will never get this package again as I didn't use the majority of it...Though I did like the wines provided you didn't try to order them through room service.  They neglected to bring me the information about EZ Check where they take your luggage to the airport for you.  After a few words with guest services, it worked out but they lied when they said they didn't have my flight information.  He looked it up and it was there.  

We had an engine issue that delayed our arrival into Roatan by 2.5 hours.  We had a shipwide black out which did not last long but took the A/C awhile to catch back up.  I was eating in the Crown Grill that that night and they couldn't cook for awhile.  They brought out what they could and I imagine it backed up reservations for a bit.  Food in the CG and Sabatinis was excellent.  International Cafe was good but where are the salads?  Food up on the Lido was good as usual, I did not use the Buffet.  Looked like Planks and the BBQ place have reopened. 

Various people had issues with A/C.  One couple could not get their room below 80.  I was on Dolphin and it was fine. One woman had a pipe burst in her closet soaking everything.  They did her laundry for free and then switched her to a cabin with no AC.  They had moved the previous occupants for this reason.  

The fitness center was really good.  

The staff was great.  Lunch was slow in the MDR but dinner was good.  The Caribbean Princess needs a dry dock.  Broken tiles on the hot tubs, a place in the casino where it felt that the floor was going to give way, walking down the hallways where the wear and tear were really noticable.  I have a lot of good memories on this ship (8 cruises on her) but won't book her again until they dry dock her again.  

This sounds somewhat like our experience x10. 

I think we'll stick with the newer ships after all. 

[BamaVol]

3 hours ago, MissP22 said:

This sounds somewhat like our experience x10. 

I think we'll stick with the newer ships after all. 

We were fortunate then.  Did not encounter any of these issues in March.  But wouldn’t have experienced most of them.  We don’t use room service, don’t purchase the premier package, don’t use the hot tubs, drove to the port.

 

The ones that would concern me would be engine, a/c and electricity outages.  These are ship-specific and probably indicative of past due maintenance. I still think she’s a wonderful ship.  But I might hold off booking again until she’s had some work done.

Edited June 19, 2023 by BamaVol

[Little Sister]

20 hours ago, suekel said:

I said I would update after this cruise.  Unfortunately, it was not a great cruise.  Besides the aforementioned room service issues...I had the Premier package.  I was able to book one specialty dining but not the second.  Seems that they should work on this for shorter cruises.  I will never get this package again as I didn't use the majority of it...Though I did like the wines provided you didn't try to order them through room service.  They neglected to bring me the information about EZ Check where they take your luggage to the airport for you.  After a few words with guest services, it worked out but they lied when they said they didn't have my flight information.  He looked it up and it was there.  

We had an engine issue that delayed our arrival into Roatan by 2.5 hours.  We had a shipwide black out which did not last long but took the A/C awhile to catch back up.  I was eating in the Crown Grill that that night and they couldn't cook for awhile.  They brought out what they could and I imagine it backed up reservations for a bit.  Food in the CG and Sabatinis was excellent.  International Cafe was good but where are the salads?  Food up on the Lido was good as usual, I did not use the Buffet.  Looked like Planks and the BBQ place have reopened. 

Various people had issues with A/C.  One couple could not get their room below 80.  I was on Dolphin and it was fine. One woman had a pipe burst in her closet soaking everything.  They did her laundry for free and then switched her to a cabin with no AC.  They had moved the previous occupants for this reason.  

The fitness center was really good.  

The staff was great.  Lunch was slow in the MDR but dinner was good.  The Caribbean Princess needs a dry dock.  Broken tiles on the hot tubs, a place in the casino where it felt that the floor was going to give way, walking down the hallways where the wear and tear were really noticable.  I have a lot of good memories on this ship (8 cruises on her) but won't book her again until they dry dock her again.  

I was on this cruise as well, and have a new “least favorite cruise” now. Crown Grill quality has declined, luckily we were on dessert when the power went out. I also had no information in my stateroom regarding EZ check, so went to guest services to have that completed. Roatan was ludicrous, in hindsight I should have canceled my excursion but really wanted to do it, so I did. 
Saggy spots in floors inside and bulging spots on floors by pools were concerning. Couple of bathroom fixture issues in the stateroom bathroom. Didn’t affect usability but just tacky. Had one evening where toilet was inop, guessing maybe that was due to the pipe breakage in the stateroom you mentioned. Minor inconvenience as it was back in order when we returned to stateroom later in the evening. 
Never ate in MDR. Couldn’t get a reservation for any night for private table until 8 or later. I don’t eat that late. Ordered pizza on the app to be delivered to stateroom, took 80 minutes, and was room temp. Not good flavor either. Mocha drinks were “off” for the entirety of the trip, just something missing and I noticed there were no more shakers of cinnamon nutmeg or chocolate powder to spruce them up. Ordering drinks through the app was hit or miss. 
I am not sure an extensive dry dock or wet dock can bring this old gal back to her former glory. Princess will not (imo) invest the time and money needed, I suspect she will leave the fleet in the next couple of years.
 

[MissP22]

26 minutes ago, Little Sister said:

Never ate in MDR. Couldn’t get a reservation for any night for private table until 8 or later.

That's sad. 

Did you try talking to any head waiter about the situation?

What about showing up early when the DR first opened? Surely there must have been room at that time??

 

[Little Sister]

On 6/19/2023 at 12:11 PM, MissP22 said:

That's sad. 

Did you try talking to any head waiter about the situation?

What about showing up early when the DR first opened? Surely there must have been room at that time??

 

Told to try another dining room. They were turning multiples away all evening every evening.

[MissP22]

2 minutes ago, Little Sister said:

Told to try another dining room. They were turning multiples away all evening every evening.

At all the DR's?

Seems strange.

[Little Sister]

25 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

At all the DR's?

Seems strange.

Sure does. 

[dad2my3]

On 6/8/2023 at 9:53 AM, u2harmony said:

We were on the 5/6/23 cruise in the St. Thomas Suite. It was wonderful. No issues with AC or food at all. Everything was clean and though it was crowded, it never felt that way. Very nice time. 

This is good to hear!  My main concern is the AC, and we will be in the same suite this weekend.  Glad to hear that you didn’t have any issues.

[catwoman6226]

We were on the June 17th 2023 sailing, in one of the handicapped accessible balcony cabins on deck 11.  (we need that type cabin as we both use an electric scooter).  Cabin was in good shape - bathroom tiles a little dated but no cracks or bulging.  A/C worked very well. Our steward Suya was wonderful.  Despite booking a private table for each night (or so I thought), I realized that we were booked for sharing a table for nights 2-7 but a quick chat with the head waiter on night 1 fixed that and he reserved a lovely private table for us for the rest of the cruise, provided we were willing to eat at 5pm.  That's a bit early, but that gave us plenty of time to hit up the evening activities.  Production shows were ok - nothing spectacular.  The game shows/trivia etc. with Cruise Director Jody and her staff were highlights.  Guido was our favorite - Felipe is funny in small doses, and Conrad will make a good cruise director one day (but needs to lighten up a little).  The 80s party was a lot of fun.

 

Food in the MDR was usually good but some dishes (soups and meatloaf) were too salty to eat.  Pizza from Slice on deck 15 and the chicken tacos from Salty Dog were good.  Always a long line for ice cream - we never tried any, nor did we attempt room service or delivery of anything to our location.  Definitely some bulging of tiles/flooring around the pools but nothing horrible.  I thought the ship looked great for her age - there were always people cleaning and polishing.  We got new deck furniture on one of our port days. 

 

Ship was full but we never had a hard time finding a table at the buffet.  Tons of kids onboard but they were mostly well behaved.

 

Only really negative issue was that they decided to give everyone $100 OBC the last night to make up for the propulsion issues and for having to miss Amber Cove.  That was very poorly handled - by waiting so late to announce it, the shops were a total zoo.  The poor guy manning the 'gold by the inch' table told us at 10pm that he hadn't had a break since 11am.  A passenger brought him a plate with some sandwiches which I thought was a nice gesture.  This was a Princess issue, not about the ship itself but they could have handled it better. 

 

Overall we had a good time and look forward to the next cruise.