Golden Princess 12/19-12/26/04

[cruiser77]

We have been only on Celebrity before so I like to comparethis cruise to them since there is alawys somebody who is curious about the differences between them. And remember, these are our opinions and observations, so please no flaming...:o

The good and the bad...

 

First the good::)

I love that you can see the weather, sea conditions, and other information from TV. Celebrity should learn from this!

 

Crew were mostly very friendly and approachable (sp?), especially the cruise director and his assistants.

 

The ship was beautiful, especially the pool areas! Pool areas are much more beautiful then the ones on Celebrity.

 

Lots of fun activities, the cruise director and his staff was just awesome and made you want to participate in all the activities. Better director than on Celebrity.

 

Food selection on buffet was great, even though I missed the gravlax that I saw on breakfast only 2 times.

 

Once I saw father spending time in the pool and the jaguzzi with his child who was still in diapers, when I pointed this out to the crew they quickly took care of it. (Though later I saw they had moved to another pool are, again using the pool and the jaguzzi...:rolleyes: )

 

We had wonderful cabin attendant, very polite!

[cruiser77]

The bad::(

 

The only show we went to see in the theatre was so bad that it made me think that some of the elementary school productions I have seen were actually pretty good. I have heard some negative comments about Celebrity's shows before, but the shows I have seen on Celebrity were fantastic compared to the one we saw. But this had no affect on our cruise experience.

 

Food, well it was once great, mostly good and once just OK. Most of the time the meat did not seem very high quality, few times the food on the plate looked like it was just thrown on it. Never happened on Celebrity...

 

On Pursers desk the crew always had a frown face when ever we had something to ask or needed help. Most of the time they did not know answers to common questions (for example where to meet the Maitre D') or made us run around the ship to look for answers until we were leaded back to the Pursers desk by some other crew member. So we kept on doing circles...

 

Oh, and there were the chairhogs and the crew did nothing about it. One morning I was taking pictures of the sunrise around 6 o'clock in the morning and saw a lady come with 4 towels a reserving 4 chairs, 6 AM! I saw them coming to their chairs around 10 AM...:rolleyes:

 

Oh, and I just have to comment...The dress codes, lets just put it this way, I saw people in their jogging gear, shorts, with baseball caps, sneakers ect in the dining room, especially on the first evening (though this may be if they did not get their luggage in time for the dinner). On formal nights I have never seen on so many "underdressed" people walking around as we saw on Princess. Rather odd seeing people in their tank tops and shorts among people that have tuxedos and evening gowns on...:rolleyes: But I suppose this happens on all ships, though I did not notice it so much on Celebrity.

 

We did not use the spa or the casino, so no comments about those.

 

So, these are our observations and opinions, we had great cruise because we liked the ship and the itinerary, and the great cruise directors staff!

We will return to Celebrity because we love the little extras they have, but if there is itinerary that we just love and only Princess has we would with out a doubt cruise Princess again.:)

[crisp1]

The bad::(

 

 

Oh, and there were the chairhogs and the crew did nothing about it. One morning I was taking pictures of the sunrise around 6 o'clock in the morning and saw a lady come with 4 towels a reserving 4 chairs, 6 AM! I saw them coming to their chairs around 10 AM...:rolleyes:

 

Oh, and I just have to comment...The dress codes, lets just put it this way, I saw people in their jogging gear, shorts, with baseball caps, sneakers ect in the dining room, especially on the first evening (though this may be if they did not get their luggage in time for the dinner). On formal nights I have never seen on so many "underdressed" people walking around as we saw on Princess. Rather odd seeing people in their tank tops and shorts among people that have tuxedos and evening gowns on...:rolleyes: But I suppose this happens on all ships, though I did not notice it so much on Celebrity.

 

 

I thought this stuff only went on on Carnival ships! LOL. I'm glad you didn't hate your cruise. I would hate to think that my cruise will be the same or worse than those on CCL.

[Coral]

Chair hogging - I have yet to be on a line where this didn't take place and have yet to see any line which actually does something about it. It has happened on my Celebrity, RCCL, Carnival and Princess cruises.

 

I was trying to find 2 chairs on my recent Princess cruise and there were more chairs unoccupied with towels on them then chairs with people in then. Unbelievable. I hope someone does something about this soon!

[cruiser77]

Just quick note, Sorry about the several spelling mistakes...:o

[cruiser77]

I just remembered that I forgot to mention about the Ultimate Balcony Dinner we did... It was fantastic!!!

It was much more special in my opinion than I had thought it might be, we had perfect weather, wonderfull waitresses and food was the best we had during the whole cruise! WELL WORTH THE EXTRA MONEY! I highly recommend doing it once.

[yogibear]

Could you explain to me about the Ultimate Balcony Dinner, please. My hubby and I are booked on the Golden Princess April 2006 when she sails from San Juan,PR to New York City. I went out on a limb and booked the Grand Suite:D for the trip.......Karen

[cruiser77]

Hi Karen

rob_n_tam had a great review about the balcony dinner, you should read it! They also had some pictures about their balcony dinner.

There is also others who have done reviews about it and you can find them through 'search the forum'.

I am feeling lazy about writing a review myself:o but if you have questions, I would be happy to try to answer them!:)