Review of Emerald Princess Trans-Atlantic (April 14 thru April 30, 2008) - Long

[UT-Volsfan]

This was our eighth cruise with Princess, but our first Trans-Atlantic. Overall, we were very pleased with the Emerald Princess and really enjoyed the itinerary.

 

Embarkation

 

We flew in to Ft. Lauderdale on the morning of the cruise. We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale a little after 10 am and quickly claimed our luggage. Grabbed a taxi for the two of us, and headed to the port. Stopped at Total Wine and More to pick up our order (3 magnum bottles of wine) which only took a couple of minutes - order was placed a week earlier and was boxed and waiting when we got there.

 

Got to the port about 11:10, unloaded our bags and got in the Platinum check-in line. They started letting us in the bldg to have a seat about 11:30. A few minutes later we were allowed to check in - we grabbed our cruise cards and were on board before noon. Absolutely no hassle at all carrying our wine order on board from Princess - carried the box on instead of checking it in with our suitcases.

 

Lunch on board was at the Horizon Court - food was good and was not crowded. Did try to eat in one of the dining rooms - however, we were told that none of the dining rooms were open. When I asked the Matre D’ at one dining room about the Princess press release a few months ago that said one of the dining rooms would be open for lunch, he said that they did not have any dining rooms open and that the press release was referring to the Horizon Court. The recommendations to try insisting did not work - so that was a disappointment, but the food in the buffet was good.

 

Overall Ship Impressions

 

This ship is definitely big, however, we never felt like it was too big or had too many people on board. We had previously sailed on the Crown, Diamond, and the Caribbean Princess so we were used to the size.

 

There were only a couple of times the ship had a more crowded feel . One was in the Piazza around the shops when the stores had tables set up taking up much of the walkways. The other was in the Princess Theater before the 8:30 pm shows many nights. I’ll discuss that area later.

 

Our cabin was Caribe 409, a category BA balcony cabin. This cabin is in a good location - you’re only a few doors from the elevators going to the Piazza, and the laundromat was about six doors down the hall in case you need to do laundry (which is needed on a 16 day cruise). The cabins definitely have great balconies - they are about 9 foot deep, and are half-covered and half-open. It was nice to sit on the balcony on some of the sea days and when in port.

 

Activities

 

With the week of sea days to start the cruise, it seemed like Princess had planned more on-board activities than we have seen on previous cruises. Some of the activities we enjoyed were:

 

Trivia - we played the Cruise Long trivia tournament. It was at 1 pm on all sea days. We play trivia at home so we enjoy trivia while on vacation. Our team on board was the Southerners with four other people we met the first day. It was fairly popular and had a good person running in - her name was Rebecca. A lot of questions that required knowledge of areas outside of the U.S. She even had a couple of pages of questions to work on before the final day that were included in our scores. The last day of the tournament all of the teams received a bottle of champagne for competing and the final results were compiled. We got third place (missed second by one point) and all of our team got Princess tote bags.

 

Art Auction - definitely a big part of this cruise. This was an Art Connoisseur cruise - Princess had five artists on board doing painting demonstrations and selling many of their original works to people. Fourteen couples got free cruises because they had bought a good amount (over $20,000 each) of art on a previous cruise. The artists were Howard Behrens, Pierre Matisse, Allison Lefcort, Noel Suarez, and John Kelly. They paint a variety of styles. Behrens and Kelly were our favorites. Sales were well over a half million during the auctions. One nice touch was having a wine and cheese reception each night for the first week to meet the artists and see their work in the art gallery that was open to everybody on the ship. As for the Art Director, Wayne was the main person on the Emerald. He had an assistant, Billy, during the first week of the cruise. Wayne is not the best we have seen - he had more trouble keeping the prices straight than we are used to and a couple of times would lower the price instead of increasing the next bid. Wayne seemed more polished - unfortunately he had to get to another Princess ship.

 

Lectures - Princess had some good lecturers on board. One was a writer, Gerald Labriola, who discussed forensics and criminal case stories.

 

Casino - we didn’t use the casino, but some people we knew did. They enjoyed the no smoking nights there.

 

Princess Idol - another area we didn’t try.

 

Game/card room - the Emerald does not have a dedicated room like some of their older and smaller ships. Games are available in the library on Deck 7 and are also available in the Crown Grille before 4 pm each day. The Crown Grille was used as a substitute game room.

 

Library - another area where Princess has gotten smaller. They also are only open for book check out about 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. One staff member commented that smaller Princess ships have a full time staff member in the library, but the bigger ships use staff members who have other job duties and don’t offer as many service hours.

 

Pools - pool areas were nice. Did seem like people would reserve chairs, but we never had trouble finding a lounger.

 

MUTS - Movies Under the Stars was enjoyable. They had popcorn for the 8 pm movie, and had blankets available (they were needed the night we were there).

 

Entertainment

 

Princess has a good cruise director and staff here. James Lay is the cruise director and his assistant is Martin. Both of them are enjoyable and funny at the events they host and on the morning show.

 

Princess Theater - as we said earlier, the 8:30 pm show is the most popular. We went about 8:00 and read books for the half hour until show time. About a third of the ship can attend one show, so it can get crowded. Some of the acts we saw were:

 

Princess Singers and Dancers - they did four full shows. Two of the shows we saw last summer on the Crown Princess. We do wonder when they change the shows. The dancers and singers were very entertaining in the productions. And the Emerald had an encore show the next day for people that could not get in the night before (a good idea that we did not see on the Crown Princess last summer).

 

Sean O’Shea does a very good show. He imitates the style and voice of several well known singers. We saw him in the Princess theater and in Explorer’s Lounge.

 

Spectrum - do a fantastic Motown tribute show. Do not miss them if they are on board.

 

Greg Scott - an incredible violinist. His Danny Boy rendition is not to be missed.

 

Explorer’s Lounge also had several good acts. We would usually catch the 10:30 pm show there.

 

Ports and Excursions

 

Madeira - a nice town to tour and visit. Especially after a week of sea days. We did the EZ Madeira tour. Good way to see the town for a low price without too much walking.

 

Cadiz - we got off the ship and did our own walking/shopping in the port. There were tours you could pick up after you were off ship.

 

Gibraltar - we booked the “Rock and Shopping” tour. We don’t recommend this tour. Didn’t know until the tour that you are paying way too much for Princess to drive you to the cable car station to go see the Barbary Apes and for your cable car ticket. You are responsible for your own way back to the ship - it’s about an hour walk back or you can grab a cab if you can get one when you come down from seeing the apes. Not a good tour to book if you have trouble walking - there were some people on our bus there that had walkers (they had to wait for taxis because they could not cover the distance back to the ship). The Barbary Apes are fun to see - they are not scared of people or cars at all.

 

Cagliari (Sardinia) - first stop in Italy. Good chance to relax in the Italian port. We didn’t book any shore excursions, but toured the town on our own.

 

Rome - did Rome: the Eternal City tour. A good tour of Vatican Square, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Coliseum, and the catacombs for people that have never been to Rome before. We did the catacombs because the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum was closed for some service that day. The driving thru Rome is also very informative.

 

Florence/Pisa - did the Florence and Pisa tour. Nice walking tour of Florence. Not for people that have mobility problems. Pisa is only about a one hour stop - get pictures of the Leaning Tower and do some street shopping (good buys on purses from Italy and other souvenirs). Only problem was two ladies who did not return on time - they decided to spend an extra half hour shopping while the rest of us waited. The tour guide was about ready to leave to get us back to the ship when they finally showed up. Needless to say, we got back to the ship late.

 

Marseille - took the shuttle from the ship ($10 round trip per person). In town there is a little tram that looks like a train that does tours of the city. There are two tours: one panoramic and one historic. Each is 5 euros/person and are worth taking. They are each about 1 hour long. The panoramic goes up to the Notre-Dame de la Garde (a basilica) overlooking the city where you can get off. Definitely take a good camera - it is worth seeing.

 

Dining

 

We had anytime dining. However, the first night we ate in Michelangelo’s on Deck 5, we had a very good waiter (Radu) and his assistant who we decided we liked. We asked to be seated at their table for the rest of the cruise at 6 pm. It was a table for six (table 312) that sat by a window so our 4 dinner companions changed from day to day. Food was about as good as what we have seen on previous Princess cruises.

 

One area we were disappointed in was that unlike previous cruises, the Head Waiter was invisible except one night for a minute when a lady at our table broke a veneer off of her front tooth when she bit one of the cookies they served. Definitely need to stop by and see people in the dining room more.

 

Horizon Court/Café Caribe - ate breakfast there most days. Good selection and thought the staff was more attentive on bringing drinks and silverware than we have seen on previous cruises.

 

Disembarkation

 

Had Princess transfers to the airport. Loaded our luggage without problems on the bus. At the airport, they directed us into the terminal to get our bags. Unfortunately, half our bags went to the other terminal. Took 20 minutes to get them to run it down and bring them to the right terminal. One couple never did get some of their bags - they told us that Princess could not find it even though they had seen it placed on the bus. And they had over 3 hours at the Barcelona airport before their plane left for Philadelphia.

 

Other items

 

On board news - Another thing that was missing from previous cruises was the daily newspaper on board with a few pages of news and sports from the US and England. These were not available a single day of the cruise. Had to use the internet to get this information.

 

Internet Café - as Platinum members, we got the $100 credit so we each had 250 minutes free access. This turned out to be plenty of time to check the news and email our family members and children at college. Princess says you can email pictures from your camera’s memory card - however, the readers do not accept all memory cards (my Olympus SP-510 camera’s card would not go in the reader at all). Also people that did send pictures had them corrupted - they compress the files and shrink the file down to about 500K, so they do not look that good to those who get them. They do have part time support to assist with the computers, but they still have differences in the setups. Our email would work on only half the computers, the others would say that cookies were not enabled and could not load our email directories. Took a few days to learn which ones we could use.

 

Finally, we would like to say we enjoyed spending time with the other people from Cruise Critic that we met on board (including those that dined with us at Michelangelo's, table 312). We had a meet and greet the first day and got a directory of CC people on board and their cabins. Unfortunately, unlike some other meet and greets, we did not have a good turnout from the ship's staff.

[Fuzzyape]

Thanks for the information UT-Volsfan. Someday I may get to do a transatlantic.

 

I did enjoy the Emerald for our 10 day Caribbean. I'm glad you had a good time. It's nice to see others who enjoy their cruise, even when some things aren't as good as other ships (I also look to get back to one of the smaller ships one day).

[FritzG]

Thanks for the review--the longer the better! Welcome back home. We are anxiously waiting our TA on the Ruby next spring. How were the seas and weather.

[UT-Volsfan]

The seas were fine - definitely one of the smoothest we've been on. Only one night during the crossing where we noticed them, and even then, they were not very high.

 

Weather was also great. Didn't open an umbrella on any of the days we were ashore. Temperatures ranged from the mid-60's to the low-70's for the highs. I took some long sleeve shirts on the chance there might be some cool days, but I never even had to unfold them.

[UT-Volsfan]

One correction: when I was discussing the art auctions, I meant to say that Billy seemed more polished (not Wayne).

[EviesCruisin]

Hi, we are taking a TA cruise on Emerald going the other way (Venice-Ft Lauderdale).

 

Do you recall if Euro Travelers cheques were able to be cashed by the purser's desk and if so, if there was a fee?

 

Were the ATMs on the ship generally working? Those who went last year in October said the ATMs were down quite a bit.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide! We're looking forward to our trip.

[49er]

Thanks so much for your review. We are going to be boarding the Emerald on May 24 in Barcelona for the 12 day Med cruise and your review was very helpful. Glad to see you had such a nice voyage.

49er

[dforeigner]

Thank you for taking time to write a review.

[sunsetbeachgal]

Good review..thanks...

 

Question..were the seas calem for your crossing? We have never done a transatlantic, and are curious

[sunsetbeachgal]

Good review..thanks...

 

Question..were the seas calm for your crossing? We have never done a transatlantic, and are curious

[BJS]

Thanks for the review.

 

We board the Crown on Sunday for our TA. Looking forward to the smooth seas you experienced.

 

.

[UT-Volsfan]

Hi, we are taking a TA cruise on Emerald going the other way (Venice-Ft Lauderdale).

 

Do you recall if Euro Travelers cheques were able to be cashed by the purser's desk and if so, if there was a fee?

 

Were the ATMs on the ship generally working? Those who went last year in October said the ATMs were down quite a bit.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide! We're looking forward to our trip.

 

Afraid I can't help you with the Travelers cheques. Maybe some of the other people on the cruise will know and post an answer.

 

We didn't use the ATMs on board - but I don't remember hearing any complaints from people. There were some currency exchange machines on board (Piazza, decks 5 and 6) where we exchanged US currency for euros and pounds - those machines charged $3.50 per transaction. Purser's desk no longer will issue foreign currency and charge it to your account on board.

[UT-Volsfan]

Good review..thanks...

 

Question..were the seas calem for your crossing? We have never done a transatlantic, and are curious

 

Seas were very calm. Only noticed them one night, but even then it wasn't much swell at all. Even people that had been on other trans-Atlantic crossings were commenting that they thought it had been very smooth.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review. :)

[Dorset Cruiser]

Hi, we are taking a TA cruise on Emerald going the other way (Venice-Ft Lauderdale).

 

Do you recall if Euro Travelers cheques were able to be cashed by the purser's desk and if so, if there was a fee?

 

Were the ATMs on the ship generally working? Those who went last year in October said the ATMs were down quite a bit.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide! We're looking forward to our trip.

 

 

We've just come off the Sea Princess T/A.

 

Will you be changing your cheques for dollars or euros?? When we asked for some euros at Ponta Delgado in the Azores the ship had none. They said that there had been some in the ATMs but they had run out:( You will have a lot more passengers on your ship so be warned. They will, of course, have dollars. Have found before that the ATMs are more often than not out of order on the Princess ships.

[crusdiva]

UT-Volsfan

DH were onboard with you, sorry we didn't meet.

We had a fabulous time as well.

I've just started uploading photos for anyone who is interested.

Our Emerald TA Photos

Keep checking back as it's a slow process.;)

[jfgdbg]

Thanks UT-VOLSTAN for the very informative review. We are looking forward to bringing the Emerald back to FT>Lauderdale this fall.

 

When we were on the Royal Princess last October you could got to the Pursers desk after 9:am and they had printed a "newspaper" out both an US versiion and a British version. But you had to go to the desk and ask for them

[DeepWaterMariner]

The daily paper wasn't available on our last two Princess cruises, the Grand last fall and the Emerald this spring. They sell that service now so forget getting a free newspaper even if you ask at the purser's desk.

 

Thanks for the review. We are also big trivia players and enjoyed the trivia on our Emerald cruise. We've sailed with Rebecca twice.

[retiring soon]

UT Volsfan - Thanks for the review ~ makes me even more excited for our TA in Oct! On the Rome tour did you go into the Colisseum & if so for how long? Florence sounds very interesting too. Thank you.

~Jo~ :)

[JWJs]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. Sounds like you had a good time on the Emerald. I'm looking forward to our 12/20/08 cruise on the Emerald.:)

[AliceS]

Thank you for the review. It makes me more excited for our fall transatlantic. Did anyone use the ATM on shore anywhere? That's what we did in the past. What's the latest on that way to get Euros?

[UT-Volsfan]

UT Volsfan - Thanks for the review ~ makes me even more excited for our TA in Oct! On the Rome tour did you go into the Colisseum & if so for how long? Florence sounds very interesting too. Thank you.

~Jo~ :)

 

Yes, we definitely got to go into the Colosseum. Took probably 20 minutes in line to get thru the metal detectors. We then went in and had about 30 minutes to walk around on our own - plenty of time for pictures of the interior and to look thru the museum area on the upper level above the entrance. We then met back up with our tour guide and walked down to the main level before exiting. There are a lot of souvenir vendors just outside - one of the best deals is a pack of 20 Rome post cards for 1 euro.

[UT-Volsfan]

Thank you for the review. It makes me more excited for our fall transatlantic. Did anyone use the ATM on shore anywhere? That's what we did in the past. What's the latest on that way to get Euros?

 

Definitely have plenty of ATMs available in the ports to obtain money - those were used by people on our cruise as well. And it seems you usually get better exchange rates that way than if you go to a currency exchange business or use the money changer machines on the ship.

[pog27]

Thanks for the review. Do you remember if any laundry specials were offered onboard? Like an unlimited laundry package or fill a bag for a set price? I'm leaving on the Crown TA on Monday and am wondering how much I need to pack. I was on a 16 day HAL cruise last year and the unlimited laundry package they offered was awesome...never had dirty clothes!

[UT-Volsfan]

Thanks for the review. Do you remember if any laundry specials were offered onboard? Like an unlimited laundry package or fill a bag for a set price? I'm leaving on the Crown TA on Monday and am wondering how much I need to pack. I was on a 16 day HAL cruise last year and the unlimited laundry package they offered was awesome...never had dirty clothes!

 

I believe they offered one day during the 2nd week a special to do one bag stuffed with as much as you can get in it for $20. You can also use the coin laundry service on board - I believe it was $1.50 per load for the washer or dryer (we took a couple of small containers of detergent and dryer sheets with us - you can get a 2 load bottle at Target in the travel size section).