Discovery Princess Mexico 2/24-3/2

[vcgeno]

My wife and I just got back from a 7-day Mexican cruise on the Discovery Princess. We have done this itinerary several times and our goal for this trip was to enjoy the ship, not the ports. I have been reading comments online for several months and noticed that some folks think that Princess is going to hell in a handbasket and some folks think it is better than ever. I will give you our impression based on what we hoped to achieve on the cruises. We had Princess Premiere and thought it was worth it. 

 

This cruise started in LA and stopped at three ports Cabo, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. As our goal was to enjoy the ship we got off for about 3 hours in Cabo, and stayed on the ship for the rest of the cruise. It was wonderful.

 

Our routine every day was to wake up, grab a cup of the good coffee from the coffee bar (with the occasional almond croissant) , walk at least 5000 steps, and then have breakfast at the Buffet. We would then go to the Enclave, the thermal spa, for 90 minutes or so and chill. We would then have lunch (Pizzaria twice, MDR twice, Buffet 3 times). We reserved chairs in the Sanctuary for 4 of the afternoons. We would go back to our room shower and then go to dinner (MDR 3 times, Crown Grill 1 Time, Sabatini’s 1 Time, The Catch By Rudi 1 time, 360 dinner one time). After dinner we would go to the Princess Theater (2 times), go to a comedy show (3 times), went to a game show (1 Time) or listened to music (most nights). Our casino experience consisted of one $5 slot machine bet, we won $11 and decided to quit while we were ahead.

 

Food: Based on all the complaints about the food online I had low expectations and we were very pleasantly surprised with the quality. In the Main Dining Room on a couple of nights the portion size of the main course was more appetizer size but there was no shortage of food on board so that was not an issue. The specialty restaurants were all fantastic and seemed to be even better than at least our last couple of Princess cruises. Very glad we did the 360 dinner, if you get a chance to do it you should, but it is not something we will need to do again. The pizza at the Pizzeria was great. The Buffet was the buffet, not bad but not outstanding.

 

Drink: My wife and I are wine enthusiasts and were deeply disappointed by the wines in a glass. Except for Sabatinis there were no European wines (other than champagne) offered and the wines there were mass-market wines. Would have liked something a bit more interesting. They have a lot of interesting scotch and other whisky listed in their bar menus but one night I had to ask for 4 of them before I found one they had behind the bar. They seemed to often have things out of stock. All that said, we did not have an issue eventually finding something to drink and the service was outstanding.

 

Entertainment: Saw the illusionist in the theater. I would give him a 4 out of 5. One of the comedians was drop-dead funny, one was ok and the other spent most of his half-hour having a conversation with the ladies at the table in front of the stage. On our last cruise we really enjoyed the game shows not sure why but on this one we thought they were a bit tedious. The highlight for us however was the quality of the lounge musicians. They were all so good and talented we could not pick a favorite. By far they were the best group we have experienced on any cruise.

 

Other: Did not love the elevators.  It was like the Hunger Games they were very often full and the wait to get on was way too long. It became a joke among all the passengers. We used the stairs to go down or up 3 floors or less I feel for older and disabled passengers. We loved The Enclave, and the Sanctuary.  They are our happy places and probably the main reason we keep coming back to Princess. Don’t know why more people don’t take advantage of them but I'm very happy that they don’t.

 

Summary:  Had a great time, and loved it, if you get a chance do it.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

All reactions:

564564

 

[Gator83]

Hi. Can you please talk about your experience at the seafood specialty dining restaurant?  Thank you

[karatemom2]

Thanks for your review. We loved the 360 experience on the Discovery on our New Year’s cruise. Like you, I agree that I wouldn’t necessarily need to do it again, but very worth the investment to do it once. Sounds like you had a great cruise!!

[vcgeno]

6 hours ago, Gator83 said:

Hi. Can you please talk about your experience at the seafood specialty dining restaurant?  Thank you

I had the chapino and my wife had red snapper.  Both were very enjoyable.  Service was great the only issue was that the music from the lobby was so loud we could not carry on a conversation.  I will attach a couple of pictures. 

All reactions:

564564