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Crown Princess 2/17-2/24 Just returned

pbk917

By pbk917,
in Princess Cruises

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pbk917

pbk917

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This is a mini-review on our experiences sailing for the first time on Princess. We were in cabin A410 on the Aloha deck. We are a family of 3, mom, dad & 14yo daughter. We have sailed on Celebrity 4 times.

 

Ship - This was the most beautiful ship we have ever sailed on! It is very large & at times it did feel a bit over-crowded in the public areas (it was a fully book sailing).

Entertainment - Many choices every night between the Vegas style revues, the comedians, jugglers, bands, there was always something going on. Let's not forget MUTS, we really enjoyed this.

Cabin - Smaller than what we are used to on Celebrity, but very well laid out. The bathroom is functional, however the shower is the size of a phone booth, & I'm being generous. You have to make sure you don't drop the soap! Our veranda was adequate & covered, which we prefer. Our cabin steward (Benson) was very good.

Food - We opted for anytime dining and enjoyed the flexibility this choice allowed us. We ate at the buffet every day for breakfast & lunch & one dinner. The choices were fairly good for each meal. We did like that you were always encouraged to sanitize your hands. Our biggest peeve was that the cold foods were never cold & the hot foods were never hot (with rare exceptions). Sanitizing your hands is only one step in keeping the food area sanitary, the other step is keeping hot & cold foods at their appropriate temperatures. I never once saw anyone checking temperatures. This may seem petty, but I'm a certified food inspector and their practice of not maintaining proper temperatures surprised me. Dining in the Davinci & Michaelangelo (sp?) dining rooms was nice. Again, many of the foods temperatures were way off. The selections were good & for the most part the food was tasty. Service in the dining rooms were average to very good. Sabitini's was a very nice 2 hour dining experience and the Crown Grill was also a very nice dining experience, we would certainly dine there again. Compared to Celebrity the desserts were lacking in all areas.

 

We attended all four art auctions & really enjoyed them very much. There was no pressure to buy & found the auctions to bery informative.

 

St. Thomas - We took the ships tour to snorkle at Trunk Bay in St. John. The beach was beautiful but crowded. We had no time to shop in St. Thomas because stores close on Sunday at 2pm and that's when we returned.

 

St. Kitts - We hired a taxi to go to Turtle Beach (Bay?). The beach was nice, free lounge chairs were provided. The water has a lot of rocks, so you may want to wear water socks there. We fed the Monkeys and took many great photos. Unfortunately there was also a lot of people bothering you for massages & trying to sell you their goods.

 

Grenada - We took the ship tour to 2 waterfalls. We were not happy with this tour at all. There were 7 of us in a minivan & the driver rushed us through the first waterfall so we could get to the second one for swimming. When we got to the second waterfall, the driver told us that we could not get in his van if we were wet. How do you go swimming and dry off all in 20 minutes?

 

Bonaire - We did the Mangrove tour through the ship. It was very nice.

 

Aruba - 4X4 Jeep safari through the ship was fantastic.

 

All in all we had a very good time and are happy to have an alternative to Celebrity.

 

Peter & Meryl

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ck53

ck53

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Thanks for taking the time to write a great review!

 

We are cruising the Crown in August, and we were thinking of switching from Traditional dining to the Anytime dining.Since you had a full ship, did you have much of a wait?

 

Thanks!

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dirubbo

dirubbo

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Thanks for the great review. Leaving this Saturday on the Crown with my DH, in-laws, my sister and brother and law and my two boys 12 and 9. The jeep safari excursion sounds like fun. Any other suggestions would be great. Thanks.:)

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wannaBcruzin

wannaBcruzin

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Glad you had a good time on the ship. My family and I will be on in Aug. We are also traveling with two teen girls 13, and 14:eek: . Would like to know how your child liked the Remix center for teens. My girls are anxious to find out how fun it was or wasn't. Thank you again for your review. Can't wait to be on the ship.

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tech

tech

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We were on the same sailing. The Crown is lovely. We had an inside room on the Lido Deck and loved it. Walk in closet is great.

 

We did have late traditional dining. On our next cruise on the Princess Coral in Nov. we are changing to anytime.

 

We felt that the late dining ( which we have always gotten in the past ) cut us out of all the various entertainment.

 

There was also a huge charter of around 1000 on board and this tended to make things fill up quickly as they moved in packs.

 

They were also taken off first at disembarking....to stay at a resort all day until their late evening charter. This made us get off at 10:45 instead of 8:45...after the charter left..the numbers were not called in order ...we never did find out why...but it was a mess.

 

It just seemed that the crew was overwhelmed at times.

 

They were all polite and lovely but this was also a vacation week for the northeast and made it crowded.

 

We still had a great time but if we had known about some of the above would have opted for a different time frame.

 

We are going to try the personal dining for the ability to eat not so early as 6 or so late as 8:15...maybe we could then see some of the entertainment.

 

I know that some did start very late but since we opt for early shore trips...we don't disco at midnight :)

 

This is one beautiful ship and we found the food to be good for the amount of people served. Our dining room servers were overwhelmed and could not get our courses on the table at the same time...they had a very large table behind us that asked for all sorts of extra attention.

 

Due to this situation and knowing that they were on automatic tips ( so we were not shorting them ) we used the Caribe venue from the third night on...it was not crowded..had nice low lighting, music and attentive waiters.

Plus theme dinners that were quite good.

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pbk917

pbk917

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CK53 - We only had to wait for a table one time & that was only a 10 minute wait. If we were willing to share a table we would have not waited at all.

 

Imasealuvr - Sorry, we did not notice a US Air check in area.

 

WannaBcruzin - Our daughter went to the teen program only 2-3 times in the evening. She was more interested in attending the shows with us. There were over 200 teens on our sailing & the teen center seemed very crowded. It was a nice facility. There were many activities offered for the teens.

 

Regards.

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CMM

CMM

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" for the first time on Princess. We were in cabin A410 on the Aloha deck. "

 

"St. Thomas - We took the ships tour to snorkle at Trunk Bay in St. John. The beach was beautiful but crowded. "

 

 

Thanks for the reviews. What did you think of that area of the Aloha deck? Was the location good. Heard the airconditioning was not cool enough.

 

Were you glad you did the Princess tour to Trunk Bay or would you rather have done it on your own. How was the snorkel gear? Did you have enough time there?

 

Thanks

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pbk917

pbk917

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CMM,

 

The Aloha deck was a fine location & our cabin was fairly mid-ship. All balconies on Aloha are covered by the next level. Aloha is 12 on the Crown Princess, pools are on 15 as well as the buffet (there's no 14) however most of the indoor areas of interest (dining rooms, shop's, theatre) center around deck 7. The room was never "Cool", but it was always comfortable. I would have prefered it to be much cooler, however that was not possible. You must always keep the veranda door closed or you will lose your cool air.

 

We did St. John through the ship, it was very easy. The ferry picked us up right at the pier & returned us to the same spot. The gear was adequate. we had roughly 2 hours there.

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TennisLover

TennisLover

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Can you please tell me about the night time entertainment on this ship? How were the shows? Was there live music (not cocktail music, but maybe a rock band?)? Lively sing along piano bar?

 

Have any of you Crown Princess cruisers sailed with kids? Have they liked it?

 

I am considering this cruise for next year Presidents Week (Feb 17). My kids will be 15 and 12 at that time. Looking for a nice ship with activities for the kids (don't need all the bells and whistles, like rock climbing!) and FUN nightly entertainment for DH and me.

 

The itinerary looks very interesting and I like the option of anytime dining. I agree tht 6 pm is too early for dinner, but 8:30 pm is too late!

 

Thank you for your input!!

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