CB Review 4/01/07 - 3rd Time The Charm?

[CRLess]

We just got back from our third voyage on the CB. For us, the third time was not necessarily the charm, but we still had a great time. We found several areas lacking, where on our previous voyages we found to be excellent. This cruise was quite different for us in that we brought all four of our kids, so we knew that it would be a completely different cruising experience than traveling by ourselves.

 

Embarkation – Smooth as ever! We arrived at the Port around 11:45 AM and took our place in the long line that wrapped around the outside of the building. From the time we got in line, to the time we stepped foot on the ship was no more than 25 minutes. I have said it previous reviews and it still applies…Princess has this process down to a science, at least at Port Everglades.

 

Ship – The inside of the ship remains in great condition for its age (3 years now) and not having been through any major dry/wet dock. There are signs of wear in some places, such as varnished railings and some carpeting, but for the most part the ship is in great shape. Since our last visit in 6/06, the balcony sprinkler systems have been completed. However, the system is rusting in many areas, making the ship look older than it is. Other than some minor blemishes on hallway and cabin walls, the rusty sprinkler system was the only truly noticeable appearance issue.

 

Entertainment – Tim Donovan was our Cruise Director and was present and approachable throughout the ship. I have cruised with Tim before, so I knew what to expect in him. His senior deputy was Martin, who is new (5 weeks) to the cruise business. By the end of the week, Martin would meet us after a show for a beer or two, and we enjoyed his conversation. As for the shows, we are not production show people and did not attend either Piano Man or Caribbean Caliente. Looking back on old Patters, both of these shows have been on the ship since at least 2005, and maybe even longer. Steve Moris was funny, but his show has not changed much since last cruise. Fernandez’ first show was excellent, although it is hard to believe sometimes that some of the people under hypnosis are not pretending. The gentleman that was the Chinese Laugh Policeman and the Chinese Rap Star in the show was hilarious. Fernandez’ second show, the adults only show was, was funny, but nothing like the first show. Jean Boucher’s comedy/magic show was funny and had people in stitches. The best comedian on board was Adam Ace, by far. His show was completely off the wall, and you never knew what to expect from him. Our group actually befriended him and he hung out with us on the ship. He has a website (http://www.adamace.com) where you can watch some of his antics. I was also surprised to see the return of London Pub Night, which has been one of my favorite shows from long ago on Princess. The balloon relay always has me in tears. I asked Tim why we haven’t seen Pub Night in so long, and he told me it was up to the individual Cruise Directors, and he chose to have it. I am glad he did! Bert Stratton, as always, drew a SRO crowd in Crooners, but we never stayed to listen for more than a song or two.

 

Dining – This was our biggest disappointment of the whole week. My Love/Hate relationship with Anytime Dining continues. When you are with a large group as we were (12 people), it is impossible to eat in the dining room without a reservation. When you call for a reservation (which defeats the purpose of Anytime Dining), the best we could do every night, was 8:30 PM. Even if we asked for two tables, the answer was the same 8:30 PM only. The first night we ate in the Palm dining room and had great service. It was all downhill from there. On the first formal night, we were able to get a table of 12 (8:30 PM only). My BIL and I both brought wine aboard the ship to bring to dinner each night. On this particular night, we were charged the corkage, but never served our wine. The waiter opened the bottle, put it on the table and walked away. We had to pour our own wine. Our orders were not taken until close to 9PM. At one point my BIL got so frustrated that he made a comment to a waiter passing by. Before we knew it, we had four people working our table. At least they recognized a problem and fixed it. We also ate at Sterling’s and Sabatini’s, but rated the experience as just OK. On our last trip we ate at Sterling’s twice and Sabaitin’s once and loved them each time. We also ate at Café Caribe on two nights, which we enjoyed, if nothing else, for the ability to dress down. Food quality throughout the ship was good, but nothing stood out as great which is a first for us. Service at the breakfast/lunch buffets, as well as the Trident Grill and pizza area was great. Did our experiences in the dining venues ruin our cruise? Absolutely not, but the service was well below what we have come to expect from Princess.

 

Cabin – Our group had five adjoining cabins on the Riviera deck and we opened all the dividers on the balconies. Our steward, Augustino from Portugal did a good job and I especially enjoyed the daily banter with him. He was on the last week of his contract, so he was flying home the day we got off the ship. This kept him in an upbeat mood all week, bringing us many laughs.

 

Positives – The amount of activities available during the week are great. If you cannot find something to do, it is your own fault; The cruise staff (Tim and Martin) were great, although I did not care for Georgie; The comedian entertainers as a whole were great; Having a priest aboard for Holy Week and Easter service; Bringing Pub Night Back from a long hiatus! Future Cruise Credits….we are already booked for next April on the Crown out of San Juan; our Roll Call group…thanks Diane for putting it all together!

 

Negatives – Service in the dining areas (dinner only); Chair hogs….my sister got in a verbal spat with a lady that was saving 17 chairs…NO LIE. She accused my sister of taking her 17 towels that she put out early in the morning, even though it rained briefly and the deck attendants moved them; Teen activity start times….many of the activities did not start until 11:30 PM or later, meaning we had to stay up late to make sure our kids came home safe and sound; Coke Cards….you spend over $30 per kid for each card for the week, yet they are not accepted on Princess Cays; the 5 AM shipwide wake-up call on Friday night due to a PA malfunction (or as Capt Kent put it “Gremlins taking over the system). It was enough to scare you (think Star Princess) until they finally made an announcement some 7 minutes after the alarms sounded; The internet…this was the first voyage with the new internet policy and new vendor. I have never experienced such slow speed (think slower than dial up). I tried to post a “Live” thread, but could not take the long delays. Being platinum, I had around 120 minutes of free time, the bulk of which was used waiting for sites to load or to log off….VERY poor. Don’t expect to see too many “Live From” threads until they fix this problem.

 

Bottom Line – We have been and will continue to be Princess fans (some might accuse us of being cheerleaders). The fact that we continue to sail Princess year after year says it all. We always find more positives than negatives. This particular trip was great, just not exceptional.

 

I will be happy to answer any specific questions about the week

 

Next up….Crown Princess, April ’08 in the premier balcony cabin C-752!

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Thanks for taking the time to post a review. Sorry it wasn't as good as your previous 2.

 

Just wondering if you minded if I added your review to my website?

 

Bill

[Vanilla]

We are booked in R625 in June - is this close to the cabins you had? How was it? Noise? Just curious....thanks for the review-

[Livin4Real]

It was great getting to meet you guys onboard and Chris had me laughing on Caribbean night during the party. We had the best vacation ever onboard, I'll put up a review shortly as well, were looking to book again before our buddy Luigi leaves the ship :)

[CRLess]

Just wondering if you minded if I added your review to my website?

 

Bill

 

Feel free to add it Bill

[CRLess]

We are booked in R625 in June - is this close to the cabins you had? How was it? Noise? Just curious....thanks for the review-

 

I guess I should add that we did experience noise from foot traffic and moving lounge chairs from above us on the Lido deck. Our room, R333, was about 8 or 9 rooms aft from being below other cabins on the Lido deck, so we were actually below the area surrounding Trident Grill.

[kendon]

We'll be going on our third CB cruise this summer. I attribute both your negatives (and mine) to the size of the ship as compared to the other Princess cruises I've been on (total 11). Thanks for your review.

[jhnsnfamily]

My family and I were also on this cruise, and I wholeheartedly agree with Chris. The Anytime Dining experience left a lot to be desired. The first formal night dinner experience was awful. Our waiter had five tables, and we sat there for 20 minutes with just water and bread before he even addressed us. Then halfway through the meal, all his other tables were getting very impatient because the service was so terrible, and he shouted at all of us and said, "Everyone just needs to be patient! I am very busy!" HMMM... We did not enjoy that dinner at all; we felt like we were an inconvenience to him. Anyway, we tried a different dining room and a different waiter on other nights, and finally found a wonderful waiter named Gritsana in the Coral Dining room. We made standing reservations for 6 p.m. the rest of the cruise and requested his table, so the last three dinners we had were fantastic, which again, I agree with Chris--having to make reservations for Anytime Dining kind of defeats the purpose. I'm not sure I would choose Anytime Dining again. As an aside, my kids ordered off the adult menu every night. My philosophy is we paid just as much for them to go on this cruise and we pay the same per person per day charge, so they weren't going to each chicken fingers and fries every night. Nobody seemed to have a problem with this, and my kids are good eaters, and they enjoyed trying to new things. They especially enjoyed the twin lobster tails, the crab legs, and the shrimp dishes. I especially enjoyed the cheesecake--to DIE for! It's on the "always available" list, and I must say it was the best dessert I had all week. Also, the fettuccine alfredo is also on the "always available" list, and it was excellent as well.

 

My boys--6 and 9--thoroughly enjoyed the Kids program. They didn't attend all activities, mostly just afternoon activities and a few evening ones. They especially enjoyed dissecting squid and the Junior Chefs at Sea--out of 950 kids aboard our cruise, only 10 got to do this, and mine were the only boys. They got to decorate cakes with the head pastry chef in the galley kitchen, and then the cakes were delivered to our cabins that evening. Very cool. Also, they say they are very strict on the age groups, but on the first day, we asked if our 6 year old could be with the 8-10 year olds instead of the 3-7 year olds, and they hesitated, but agreed. The rest of the week, we just signed him in with his 9 year old brother and they never questioned it again. They even let my 6 year old sign in for the 8-10 age group when his brother wasn't participating in that particular activity. :cool:

 

Regarding the chair hogs, I also found this to be somewhat irritating, especially at one of the comedy shows. Two teenagers saved front row seats for about 10 people, who didn't show up until halfway through the show and then only 4 people came. GRRRR .... :mad: Regarding deck chairs to lay in the sun, if you find an empty area that could accommodate several chairs, just ask the deck attendant to find you some chairs, and he will go find them and bring them to you. We did this twice successfully. Of course, the only area we could find with space was along the side of the ship between the two pools on the upper deck, but hey, we had chairs and we were in the sun! :)

 

I agree, Embarkation was a breeze ... only about 20-25 minutes from bus to ship to cabin. Very nice. Deembarkation was also smooth for us, we got off last because our flight didn't leave until 3:15 p.m.

 

Norovirus--we had an outbreak on our cruise--I think a total of 51 passengers, which according to one of the Kid Zone workers, is a lot according to their standards. But I have to say, what I refer to as the "germ patrol" did an excellent job continually sanitizing EVERYTHING ... and I mean everything! Handrails, chairs, tables, walls, EVERYTHING! Unfortunately, the sick people were confined to their cabins, which you could identify which cabins they were in because there was tape covering the vent on their door and the staff who cleaned their cabins wore masks and gloves, and all their linens were put into red biohazard bags. They were not messing around.

 

Regarding the cabins, I especially loved how much space they provide you for hanging up clothes, all the hangers, and the shelving unit where the safe is located. We had plenty of room for everything. Also, the laundry room was just a few doors down from us (we were in C233 and C237), so it was convenient to iron our formal night clothes and I even did two loads of laundry ($1 to wash, $1 to dry, $1 for soap, and I brought my own dryer sheets).

 

Movies Under the Stars (MUTS)--We watched a few movies, but noticed on the lower deck, that sometimes the sound was WAY TOO LOUD. Didn't notice that during the day on the upper decks, just at night on the lower deck around the pool. A plus was the Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Florida Gators BBall game shown on MUTS. Very cool, even though OSU lost and the majority of those present were Florida fans. :(

 

We all enjoyed Steve Moris' comedy show and the magic show (sorry, can't remember his name)--very kid friendly. For obvious reasons (two young kids), we didn't attend the over 18 shows or go to Skywalkers to dance late at night. We passed through the SRO act of Bert Stratton a couple of times, and listened to a few songs each time. He couldn't keep my kids' attention, but from what I saw, he seemed to be very entertaining.

 

Overall, it's impossible to do everything they offer, and a cruise is what you make it. It can be jam packed or relaxing. And of course, if you bring your kids, your experience will be different than those couples cruising solo.

 

We haven't cruised in 10 years, and I think my expectations and hopes were set too high. A few disappointments but overall, we had a good time. My mom and dad went with us, and they are Royal Caribbean fans (10 cruises under their belts), and I'm not sure this cruise changed their minds to become Princess fans.

 

Would I try Princess again ... probably.

[FloridaLaura]

Thanks for taking time to write an excellent reveiw. Glad you enjoyed your cruise, and glad to hear you were not affected by noro!

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Feel free to add it Bill

 

Thanks Chris. It has been added at the link below.

 

http://www.cruisingthecaribbeanprincess.com/review34Aws.html

 

Bill

[caribbean2000]

Chris - are you going to be on the 4/19/08 sailing on the Crown? If so, jump in on the roll call we already have going! We were on the CB over last Christmas with a family group of six and concur with your observations about so-called Anytime Dining, by the way! But we still had a great time and we too are big boosters of Princess (the Crown cruise will be our 8th with Princess).

Gene and Kathy from Cape Cod

[CRLess]

Chris - are you going to be on the 4/19/08 sailing on the Crown? If so, jump in on the roll call we already have going! We were on the CB over last Christmas with a family group of six and concur with your observations about so-called Anytime Dining, by the way! But we still had a great time and we too are big boosters of Princess (the Crown cruise will be our 8th with Princess).

Gene and Kathy from Cape Cod

 

We are booked two weeks prior to you, April 5th. It should be the same itinerary though since the ship alternates intineraries each week. My Crown cruise will be the 9th on Princess and 2nd on a ship named Crown Princess....I was on the twin sister to the Regal on my original Princess cruise.

[roe2ship]

 

Dining – This was our biggest disappointment of the whole week. My Love/Hate relationship with Anytime Dining continues. When you are with a large group as we were (12 people), it is impossible to eat in the dining room without a reservation. When you call for a reservation (which defeats the purpose of Anytime Dining), the best we could do every night, was 8:30 PM. Even if we asked for two tables, the answer was the same 8:30 PM only. quote]

 

I'm curious, did you ask every day for a reservation and were told 8:30 or just once in the beginning of the week? I have a group of 21 sailing this summer and from reading the boards over the years, anytime dining is usually a problem with a large group if a reservation is not made on the first day without speaking with the maitri'd. This is my plan and I do hope we don't have a problem.

[CRLess]

We called for reservations each night. If you get a standing reservation for each night at the beginning of the week, you stand a better chance of seating the large group. However, this totally defeats the purpose of anytime dining. If I wanted a fixed seating time every night of the cruise, I would have opted for traditional second seating. This is the MAJOR flaw of anytime dining. Princess needs to re-examine this whole program and make some major changes. With three dining rooms on the ship, and one dedicated to traditional dining (6 PM and 8:30), they should have a second dining room have a intermediate seating, say 7 or 7:30 PM (reservations only), and the third dining room be open seating with NO reservations. Just one possible solution.