Live from the Crown 10/27/06

[Host CJSKIDS]

We've been in San Juan since Thursday and we're now waiting to depart for the Crown. Will see you all onboard!

[nancycara]

Tell me a little about the Nevis Sail Away. Were thinking of doing that, but were never in St. Kitts also.

[Marge106]

Is the Nevis Sail Away considered to be very physically challenging. DH has 2 not so good knees but can still swim. Is there a lot of climbing and is it

easy to get off and on the catamaran. Thanks...

[Twinsmomct]

Regarding the Nevis Sail Away -- do you think two 10 year olds would enjoy it? I wouldn't have them snorkle, but I think the beach/BBQ part would be fun as long as there isn't too much partying going on.

 

CJSKIDS -- Are you going to do a LIVE FROM? I hope so -- I always enjoy your posts.

 

Thanks!

 

Patty

[DNCButler]

Hey it looks like you guys are at the Pan American Pier today is that right? I know they are messing with it for our sailing at the end of the month too. We are supposed to sail out of Pier 4 but back to the PA pier at the end! Either ways have a fantastic trip and report back please!!!

[Colo Cruiser]

Regarding the Nevis Sail Away -- do you think two 10 year olds would enjoy it? I wouldn't have them snorkle, but I think the beach/BBQ part would be fun as long as there isn't too much partying going on.

 

CJSKIDS -- Are you going to do a LIVE FROM? I hope so -- I always enjoy your posts.

 

Thanks!

 

Patty

 

 

Hi everyone we are back home after long flights from San Juan to Houston and then to Denver to Denver.

I was worried about making the 10:40 am flight but had no problem and was at the airport a little less then 2 hours early.

 

Yes we were at the Pan American pier today, and due to the fact that this was the first cruise ending in San Juan the logistics were a nightmare the way they set up the gangway. It was all the way aft at the starboard doors on the Promanade deck next to Club Fusion. There was crew disembarking and crew embarking, passengers yelling to be let off. and every one was clogged up in this tiny space. This one guy in particular that was dressed in a Continental Airlines uniform (at first looked like a flight attendant about 55) but he was yelling at the security people maning the exit as well as the cruise staff that were there helping (Cameron) and at the door with the cruise card machine. He yelled for 45 minutes how all the other cruise lines let you off right away when you are not carring any luggage blah blah blah. Sarge was in line behind us and just glared and laughed at this guy. Lo and behold when I got to the airport this same guy had put his pilot strips on the shoulders of his shirt!!!!!!! What a moran. Obviously he did not want anyone to see a pilot acting like an a$%. I hope this guy never flies any of my flights.

 

We disembarked the ship at 8:40 this morning and got off with Sarge. Sorry all you guys on the 11/04 sailing but he said he would not return until 11/13/06. And I dont know how long he will stay on this next time.

 

Patty, the Nevis sailaway is an excellent choice for 10 year olds...there were 4 or 5 of them on this one and they had a blast.

 

Marge, the Catamaran is really easy to get on and off, they drop down some stairs into the water at the snorkling stop (anchored) then when they get to the beach they put the boat into the sand and you walk down the stairs again and into about 1 foot of water and onto the beach for the BBQ.

 

I can't believe it is over so soon, seems like we just got on. :)

[MaryPoppinz]

Sarge was in line behind us and just glared and laughed at this guy.

 

You KNOW that guy is going to be material in Sarge's next show!

[Colo Cruiser]

You KNOW that guy is going to be material in Sarge's next show!

 

 

I was thinking the same thing!! :eek:

[MaryPoppinz]

He's so funny and talented -- there's no way he's going to let that get handed to him on a silver platter and then pass it by without mocking it! ;)

 

Even *I* could write 15 jokes off the top of my head about the irony and craziness of that situation. Starting with the one about the cruise ship captain who banged on the cockpit door and harangued the flight attendants for 45 minutes about getting off the plane....

[Colo Cruiser]

He's so funny and talented -- there's no way he's going to let that get handed to him on a silver platter and then pass it by without mocking it! ;)

 

Even *I* could write 15 jokes off the top of my head about the irony and craziness of that situation. Starting with the one about the cruise ship captain who banged on the cockpit door and harangued the flight attendants for 45 minutes about getting off the plane....

 

 

I never thought of that angle. :D

[sunprincess]

Welcome to PCD (post cruise depression)

 

Try & ease back to reality - it's rough.

Appreciate your live Crown posts.

Here's to the next one, right?

 

Cathy

[pokecheckuk]

Well, this was our second cruise and second time with Princess (last year we were on the Star as it got chased out of Lauderdale by Hurricane Wilma)

 

Firstly, great ship, fantastic food, lovely staff - brilliant, could not find fault with anything about the Ship/Cruise infrastructure.

 

We had anytime dining but tended to go to the Michealangelo room (deck 5) just after 7, we always asked for the same area (just to the left of the entrance, almost doubling back on yourself) so that we could be served by the same guys (Ricardo and Jose) - they were fantastic, and after the first night new our ways (e.g. that we like to have our coffee after dessert rather than before it). They also rea\lised that we were pretty keen on the Beringer Rose (blush) wine - No.78 ($25) - it was gorgeous, we brought a bottle home with us so that we had a reference to try and source it in the UK.

 

The kids were looked after really well - Matt is 14 and spent time in the teens section and Phoebe was 8 during the Cruise (on Halloween!) and was in the Shockwaves (8-12s) club - they were fantastic, even arranging for a birthday cake to be delivered during a very hectic Halloween evening.

 

We loved our cabin (as I've posted on another thread, we were on Caribe, near the rear). The stateroom is not very big, but the large balcony with its private area more than makes up for it. Our room steward, was Vincente, he was great, very tolerant of out little foibles, and he made an extra special effort with Phoebe's birthday decorations (not just the usual ballons, we had streamers and other stuff) - we hope he manages to make it home in December, he's not had Christmas with his folks for 7 years.

 

Ken, the guy who runs the tooth-whitening bit in the spa was also another star, as were Matt, Daniel and Cameron (of whom much has already been said) of the CD staff. We didn't see much of Omar but he seemed to me to be not quite as 'sincere' in his attitude, as the rest of the CD guys. Lisa was OK, but as Deputy she seemed like she was always trying to 'gee' everyone up a bit too much ("C'mon Ladies and Gentlemen - get down here on the Dancefloor and join us" was heard between almost every song during the Halloween party). Cameron was also with us on the Star (which was his first contract) and he was wonderful there too.

 

Unfortunately, Phoebe got an ear infection for the last couple of days but the Ship's medical staff were really good and had her sorted with antibiotics and pain relief in no-time, they also reassured her that it would be safe to fly although she might feel a little uncomfortable at some times.

 

However, there were some other downsides:

 

(1) The initial weather - nothing that anyone could have done about this, and I think the staff did an excellent job with coping with it. It must have been pretty major, some of the Lido Decks' (safety) glass panels were damaged during the rough weather, some gymn equipment fell over, etc.

 

(2) The dock at Dominica ! It was shabby and dirty, it seemed to be mainly a container port and there was the perceived danger of somebody getting hurt by the constant moving of goods traffic. Also, the map provided by the ship did not have the dock marked on it and the ship had not posted any information about our exact location on the island.

 

(3) Daytime MUTS - having this on during daylight seemed like a waste of effort - the screen could not be seen properly in the glare, the loud parts of movies made it difficult to relax near that pool and most of the rest of the time the background noise of the pool area made the movie dialogue impossible to hear. Also the inappropriate movies during the daytime - on one occasion, at 4pm with young kids still in the pool, they played "The Inside Man" - an R rated film with much bad language and graphic violence !!

 

(4) The fact that, probably due to the initial rough seas, a number of lifts (elevators) were out of action - this meant that they were very busy and people with infirmities oftern struggled - it was sad to see those on crutches or similar having to use the stairs regularly because 'large'/lazy people were filling up those lifts that were actually working. [Disclaimer - I can evangelicise about this becuase I'm one of those sickening people who 99% of the time uses the staircase - not through liftphobia, but because it's an easy and convenient way of improving fitness]

 

(5) Those whingey, picky passengers who always had to complain about something, usually it was the larger people complaining about the elevators not working (hey, if you used the stairs more then maybe your fitness and quality of life would improve). Honestly, I wonder how the pursers' staff manage to face every day knowing that all they're going to hear is complaints. Every time I went past the Passenger Service desk (I now call it the 'Wailing Wall') there was usually a queue of about five people all wanting to b*tch about something trivial - one women spent 15 minutes banging on about how whe should be allowed to pay cash if she wanted to because there was some stuff that she wanted to buy that she didn't want her husband (poor man) to know about and the shipboard accounts were all under his Mastercard - the lass at the desk told her several times that all she had to do was either re-register her cruise card with her own Credit card, or request an occasional invoice and they would try to discretely charge her credit card with them and remove them from the final statement - even this didn't please the haridan and she then said that she didn't like this option because she knew that her family would be double-charged <sigh>

 

(6) The last (for now) disappointment was not to do with the ship, but more to do with how Princess (the company) and US Homeland Security dealt with the UK passengers' journey home...

 

The disembarkation from the ship went quite quickly and smoothly (although I dislike having to have all the main luggage packed by 6pm the previous night, but I can appreciate the necessity) however, once on dry land, things took a nose-dive. For a start, why couldn't the immigation area subscribe to the 'one line and take the first available booth' system? It was frustrating to watch four other queues move faster than the one we were in (although I know that this is a truism in any multi-queing scenario). There were no obvious restrooms in the waiting area and it must have been hell for those elderly or infirm passengers to have to stand in line for more than 40 minutes without a seating area (and, let's face it, there a are a lot of senior citizens amongst a cruise passenger complement, so it's not like they didn't know and couldn't have planned to make the area a bit more 'elderly friendly')

 

After we (eventually) got through imigration we were re-united with our luggage and put on buses to the airport. Although we were expecting something like this, no-one actually knew whether this would happen because no-one I asked had been told what the exact schedule for the day was! This even included the Princess staff who knew what their current task was but were remarkably 'woolly' about the rest of the days events. As passengers, all we knew was that we had a charter flight booked at 17.00 and that we would have some Hotel 'hospitality' until then. Having to drop the luggage off at the airport first came as a surprise to a few people but this situation could have been deduced from the (scant) information that we had been given the day before. However, we were then herded into more buses (ours had non-functioning aircon :( ) and driven for around an hour to the lovely Westin Del Mar (sp?) complex. where we had a couple of hours for feeding and poolside activities however, because of the small amount of info and zero luggage, not many people had their swim stuff with them and a lot were actually dressed for the flight back home and the cold autumnal weather that would await us, rather than Puerto Rico's somewhat more tropical temperatures...

 

Anyway... at 15.30 we were put back on board the same (no aircon for us again) buses an shuttled back to the airport. We were concerned that we were cutting it fine (timewise) but not anxious because a charter flight can hardly leave without its charterees (although it can miss its slot in the airways). We realised that we weren't going to depart at 17.00 when we were still in the security checkpoint line at 17.20. Once through that we had another line to join, this time it was the US Exit 'ATM' machine queue. We were in that line for another 40-50 minutes and it was very frustrating to see aircrew, 8 or 9 at a time, continually jumping to the front - why on earth don't they have a seperate machine for aircrew use only????

 

We then heard, through the passenger queue grapevine that our flight had been rescheduled for a 19.00 departure more that two weeks ago but only a couple of people had been informed previously and no one had been told by Princess staff on the actual day. Not even the check-in staff had let us know that our flight time was different.

 

The next part if this tale of woe comes from the fact that people had been told different Gates to go to (ranging from 20, through 26 to 29) and that the actual gate (26) did not have any flight number information displayed on it - the only thing that gave it away was a sheet of card with a 'Princess Cruises' logo on it perched on the desk.

 

Still we eventually got on board the 767 (after another queue, due to calling all us 'cattle-class' passengers at the same time rather than those with seats at the rear, then the middle, then the front, etc) and sat down and waited. Then the pilot came on the mic and told us we were waiting for some catering supplies. So we waited some more and then some more. Eventually the supplies arrived and we were on our way for quite a quick trip home.

 

Once back at London Gatwick we said our goodbyes to our fellow inmates and caught the train back home. NB if we had taken Princess's 'connecting flights to regional airports' option then we would have faced a 9 hour layover in the airport waiting for a 200 mile connection certainly not worth the effort...

 

Phew, this has rambled on a bit, hope it makes some kind of sense. Apart from the journey home, we loved prety much every minute of it.

[luv2sweat]

Enjoying your posts, thanks for taking the time to keep in touch with all of us envying you from home!! If you get a chance, could you possibly try to find out where James Lay will be assigned ?? We were on the 8/25 cruise and liked him, but I know he got a lot of criticism here on the boards, most of it unfounded, at least in my opinion.

 

We were on the 8/25 sailing also and just booked the 7/5/07. My daughter just loved James. She'll be quite disappointed. Can anyone tell me how Omar compares to James?

 

Thanks,

Wendy

[Colo Cruiser]

Omar is very quiet, and James is just plain crazy. :)

[Host CJSKIDS]

Regarding the Nevis Sail Away -- do you think two 10 year olds would enjoy it? I wouldn't have them snorkle, but I think the beach/BBQ part would be fun as long as there isn't too much partying going on.

 

CJSKIDS -- Are you going to do a LIVE FROM? I hope so -- I always enjoy your posts.

 

Thanks!

 

Patty

 

Patty,

 

I'm so sorry that I didn't see this while on the cruise, your kind words would have made my day!

 

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

[JanMD]

Our room steward, was Vincente, he was great, very tolerant of out little foibles, and he made an extra special effort with Phoebe's birthday decorations (not just the usual ballons, we had streamers and other stuff) - we hope he manages to make it home in December, he's not had Christmas with his folks for 7 years.

 

Needless to say- we had him also- we had the suite in the aft and a BB cabin beside it- the first day- he said he had 20 cabins- and all we heard from him was that he was stressed out.. And complained the whole week. Over the PR teenagers, etc...He was our first cabin stewart that has been such a downer.

Jan