Kellyansapansa

Ship Grand Princess

Class Grand

Deck Caribe

Cabin #C753

Category B4

Port/Starboard/Bow/Stern Stern

Connects With Cabin # not applicable

Accessible No

Quiet No

Balcony Size Slightly larger than normal

View Fabulous

Privacy Issues None

Wind Lots - but it was a rough trip in poor weather

Soot None

Problems None

Comments This was the first time we had ever booked an aft balcony, and we probably wouldn't do it again. The view was fabulous, but it was a rough trip in cold, windy weather and we really noticed the movement at the rear of the ship. We also didn't like the narrow configuration of this stateroom as there was very little storage space. It was fine for this very short 2-night trip but would have been annoying on longer trips not to have more closet space.

We disembarked the Grand in Melbourne on the 15th. At that point the Noro outbreak had been declared over, but I caught it on board with symptoms appearing late on the 14th. Their idea of a deep clean is very different to mine - I spent several hours with my head very close to the toilet bowl which had a lovely thick ring of black mould under the rim. 🤢

4 minutes ago, arxcards said:

Curious, where you dine. Buffet, dining room  or other?

We dined in the buffet twice during non-peak periods, at Sabatini's once and at Slice once. 

Hubby and I were on the 2-day segment from Adelaide to Melbourne and disembarked this past Wednesday. Gastro/Noro hit me hard on Tuesday night and I'm still feeling the effects five days later. Hubby picked it up from me with symptoms appearing on Thursday.

We are very hygiene conscious, but we also appreciate that cruise ships are a high-risk environment. Did Princess have protocols in place? Yes. Could they have gone further? Yes. Were we super careful? Yes. Could we have gone further? Yes. Did we get annoyed by other passengers blatantly ignoring the protocols. Also yes. Would we cruise again under the same circumstances? Abso-bloody-lutely!

We're just off a short 2-day itinerary on the Grand.

My usual favourites are the frozen pina colada and the raspberry Baileys martini.

The pina colada was exactly how I remembered it. Yes, it's a mix but that's how I like it.

The raspberry Baileys martini was dreadful. It was icy rather than creamy and I chose not to drink any more after the first one.

We're just off a very short 2 night cruise on the Grand and we were very disappointed with the food.

We've not sailed on the Grand before and we were surprised at how small Horizon Court was, and the lack of variety the buffet offered. It's the first Australian itinerary we've ever sailed, so perhaps that was a factor, but everything was very bland. There weren't many different cuisines available at all and the 'Australian station' with meat pies was cringeworthy.

The desserts and cakes in Horizon Court were also disappointing with minimal variety and we suspect some of the items were at least a day (or more) old.

We sailed on Coral in February and loved the range of items available at the International Cafe. The Grand IC did not seem to rotate the available items and several times when we walked past the display cabinets were almost empty.

We also had the Ultimate Balcony Breakfast and felt the quality was lower than our last experience. The pastries were not fresh at all.

On the other hand, the pizza at Slice was just as good as we remembered it to be. 

We also ate at Sabatini's for the first time and found the quality of the food and service was exceptional.

It wasn't the end of the world for such a short cruise but if we had been sailing for longer we definitely would have been disappointed.

We had the Ultimate Balcony Breakfast on the Grand this morning. We're currently cruising in Australia and we were charged AU$75 in total, not per person. 

We're not coffee drinkers so we had juice and tea plus a small bottle of champagne. They did not open the champagne.

We received one plate of pastries and two each of the other plates shown below.

We also had the Ultimate Balcony on the Coral earlier this year and requested gluten free. They were happy to substitute.

6 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Mine is a Samsung S23+.

To the person in Australia saying their app is working, it's entirely possible the AU and US playstores have different versions. It's also possible the app behaves differently based on user locale. I'm in the US, so it appears to be broken for US users at the very minimum!

I'm in Australia and it's totally borked on my Google Pixel phone.

2 hours ago, nzOdy said:

Warning the latest, as of November 3, 2023, Android version of this app is completely broken. At least on my S23 it is.

 

Looks like they have tried to add voice prompting from the app, perhaps for visually impaired users,  but it has totally broken the app. You can't scroll or click on anything.

 

DO NOT DOWNLOAD VERSION 3.0.108702 (Nov1 release) from the Playstore..

I came here to say the same thing. The app has always been dreadful but since the latest update it is completely unusable on my Google Pixel phone.

You could also try COTA Insurance which caters specifically for Australians over 55. 😊

My husband and I did an 11 day PNG cruise on Coral Princess departing from Brisbane earlier this year. We didn't book a tour in Alotau, we just walked into the main street and visited the small foreshore market, the war memorial and a supermarket. We're visiting again next year and have booked the 'Lik Lik Festival' tour just to see something different. We purchased Kina at Travelex at Brisbane airport. We didn't pre-order, they had it on hand so there was no minimum enforced. There was also a currency exchange offering Kina at the Brisbane cruise terminal on embarkation day.

4 minutes ago, memoak said:

I believe we are referring to passengers removing gratuities, smuggling booze on board and sharing drink packages 

Yes, thank you for clarifying my comments. Of course we all want the best possible deal, but I was referring to those, thankfully in the minority, who boast of these types of tactics, and then complain when Princess makes changes in an attempt to maintain profitability. 

Hey, please don't put all Aussies in the same bucket. The Covid testing requirement is still in place thanks to the eastern and western states. Us in the middle are far more rational. 😂

I find it interesting that some of the people shouting the loudest about Princess not rewarding loyalty any more, are the same people who proudly boast about their tactics to screw down the price and minimise onboard spending. 🤔

Perhaps Princess is nickel and diming more  because it's being nickel and dimed by its customers ? 😜

23 minutes ago, jajohnson said:

Another option is to make make sure you get what you paid for by ordering the maximum number of drinks you paid for, even if you just set them aside without consuming them. 

Please don't do this. It's petty and wasteful and puts extra pressure on crew members who are already overworked.

4 minutes ago, Bedruthen said:

But it’s not that simple in the short term. Yes people can consider alternative cruise lines for future bookings, but what choices do you have if you have already booked and paid. Seems to me that Princess should have applied changes only to new bookings and bookings where passengers could, if they chose, get a refund of their deposit. What sits so badly is changing the goal posts after you have no option but to take the cruise. It’s deception on a corporate scale, because these plans will have been discussed for months. Why do you think they increased the cost of Plus and premier packages? Because they knew these changes were planned. Don't treat your customer base as fools, it always ends badly.

Yes, I do agree that's unfair. I guess they had to draw the line somewhere but they should have honoured existing bookings.

Thank you for sharing your trip with us, it has been a lovely read. 🙏

Ultimately, we all have the choice to accept these changes, or to switch to another cruise line. Personally I don't see it as Princess being greedy or nickel and diming. This is their strategy to recover significant losses incurred in the last few years. Don't like it? Vote with your wallet. 😉

Controversial opinion: I'm okay with these changes if it means that Princess can recover from the devastating impacts of the pandemic shutdown and rebuild with a sustainable business model. I want to be able to keep cruising for many years to come and Princess is my preferred choice. Price is not the primary decision factor for me but I do like that they now have three levels available to suit my budget for each individual cruise. Having said that, I also understand that people don't like change and this is a big one.

3 hours ago, austromyrtus said:

if you like sweet wine, i suggest trying the japanese plum wine if it is available. it was served in the bars when we were on the diamond princess in 2019. 

Yes! Umeshu is delicious. 😊

1 hour ago, compozer said:

 

1 hour ago, compozer said:

I know a year ago I did the same thing and  I came here and somebody told me how to find the individual gift cards. I believe that is where I found the proof that I purchased the 10 cards. On the right side had listed 10 digital gift cards, but there was no number associated with them. My travel agent said I need to give her each cards number or she can’t do anything.  I did 10 searches here to see if I could find that post from a year ago but I had no luck.

Is this the thread you were looking for?

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2926481-how-do-i-get-shipboard-credit-with-princessbarclays-visa/

2 minutes ago, capriccio said:

Two things I was reminded of looking at the Patters posted by @Kellyansapansa

 

• Do not miss On the Bayou - a production show specifically written to be performed in the Universe Lounge of the Coral Princess (and the Island Princess back when it had a Universe Lounge).  Go early to get good seats.  It is my favorite show of all the ones I've seen on Princess in the last 15 years.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree! It's my favourite Princess show so far too. And you definitely need to get there early. We arrived around 40 minutes before showtime and had to sit in seats up on the top level and to the side, which wasn't ideal. Next time I'd get there 90 minutes early just to make sure I nabbed a better seat. 😊

Here's the event listings (formerly known as the Patter) from the 11 night itinerary from Brisbane to Papua New Guinea and return in February 2023. 

Princess Patter Event Listings 26 Jan to 05 Feb 2023.pdf

12 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

And now for the good news we got today. If you remember, we were on the Waitlist for an Osaka excursion that would take us, among other places, to see the Sika deer freely roaming around a temple in Nara. Fast forward to this morning when we went to the Kobe port talk.

 

 

Early on in her presentation, she mentioned a tour that went from Kobe to Nara. That triggered my DW to see if there were any excursions still available that went to the Todaiji Temple with the Sika deer freely roaming around the premises. Lo and behold, there was and it wasn’t sold out yet! 😁 

  

So off we went to the excursion desk to see if we could exchange our current Kobe excursion for this Nara one, hoping the 48-hour rule only applied to cancellations. Turns out they had no issues exchanging the excursions. In fact we saved some $$ and this excursion was 30 minutes longer than the one we originally had. 😁

 

That's great news, Todaiji is a lovely place to visit and meet the gorgeous deer. Make sure you have plenty of small change in local currency to buy approved wafers from the vendors around the temple. This is the only food you are allowed to feed the deer who will bow to you as they ask for food. They can get a bit aggressive when they know you have food for them, so keep the food held high. 😊

We had Dancercise on the Coral earlier this year but it was indoors.