danacline

I don't drink coffee, but I think it was open by noon, until maybe 10 at night.

Interesting, good! Not sure why I couldn't find info about this...guess I need to attend remedial searching class. Thanks!

Harmony was built in 2016. It's moving to Galveston, but any chance of a dry dock before then? She's apparently not had one, even though many ships did during the pandemic. I was hoping for some refurbishment before coming to Galveston, but it doesn't look like the schedule allows that. I see her returning to Miami on October 29, then her first cruise from Galveston on November 1. So two days to get the ship there, no passengers, maybe some improvements?

Yes, this ship is too wide for the old locks. It goes through the new locks pretty early, like by 7 or earlier. Takes about 1 1/2 hours to go through all three and into the lake. Then the ship parks between the old and new locks and offloads for shore excursions. We debated doing one, but the good ones involved tendering ashore, getting in a bus, going across the new locks to get to the highway, then an hour or more to Panama City, where you get on a boat to go through old locks there, old locks on the Caribbean side, and finally meet the ship in Colon. Reviews seemed to be either you had a great time, or a terrible time. So we decided to pass, given the cost was around $200 each. You can watch from deck 15 forward over the bridge (crowded), Skywalkers nightclub (comfortable, air conditioned, close to food and drink), or from the Promenade on deck 7. All are good places. If you have a balcony, then you should have a great view too.

I did wonder about that. Too bad they can't find a way to fix that, as that "marine" TP certainly does a poor job at its intended purpose.

Cool, you should have a great time. If you see Suat at the Crooner's bar, tell her she's awesome. She might remember me as the blood orange margarita guy. She made the best drinks on the ship.

There was one problem probably worth mentioning. Princess, like so many other companies, has standardized on industrial single-ply toilet paper. I don't know if this was a decision by a junior accountant (who would get a bonus based on the savings), or a ship's systems engineer (who would, of course, get no bonus). I suspect the former. So, if it matters, you might bring a role of whatever you are used to and hope the ship's systems can handle it.

Yes, both of our excursions were booked through Princess. We actually waited until onboard as we had a bunch of cabin credit we wanted to use, and if you booked in advance, it went on your credit card. We have occasionally (mostly in Europe) booked independent tours, after good feedback from various forums here.

Yes, Regal is doing the Isles in 2024. Caribbean does two there, longer but not as good an itinerary. The Antarctica one is on the Emerald.

Shopping The shops on this ship were more upscale than on other lines. Very few "Princess" branded items, but plenty of expensive watches, jewelery, and perfumes. I did find a deal in the liquor store - a 1-liter Ron Zacapa 23 rum from Guatamala. Prices in the duty free stores averaged over $100, but they had it for $67. Miscellaneous There are always the two questions - what did you forget to bring, and what did you bring that you didn't use? In the first category, there was one thing I forgot but apparently it wasn't important enough to remember. Maybe a spare battery or something? We've been cruising enough to have a fairly accurate packing list. Just enough clothes, toiletries, shoes. We had two spinners and one hanging bag, and managed to keep them all under 50 pounds each despite the 4+ liters of rum. We did bring enough bubble wrap and tape that the rum bottles all survived. We brought sunscreen and bug spray and didn't need either. I brought my small pocket Canon camera and charger, and ended up taking all pictures with my phone. I did use my binoculars so was glad I brought them. When doing the initial signup with Princess, at one point I was asked if we wanted robes in our cabin. I selected yes for both of us, then promptly forgot about them. I was only reminded late in the cruise when I saw another couple with their robes on. By then, there was no point in asking about it. Next time I'll try to remember better. Summary My wife likes Princess more than I do, probably as she's spent much more time on them than I have. We liked it enough to visit the future cruise office and buy deposits for future cruises. Right now it's a toss-up between their 16-day Antarctica and their 12-day British Isles. It would be interesting to see some of their newer ships. Unfortunately, the two cruises we're considering use older ships. I still like Princess, but I think I like Royal's ships better due to more innovation. Royal also throws better parties. Carnival has more to do, but is more of a frat-party atmosphere. Holland America has a great product, small ships, but tend to be pretty dead after 8 at night. So we would still recommend Princess, with caveats depending on what style you like.

Food I had heard the food on Princess had gone downhill since the pandemic. We found it somewhat mixed, but generally good. We did not go to any specialty restaurants. We had dinner in one of the main dining rooms (Island dining room, no appointed time), and usually breakfast and lunch in the buffet. The ship plans showed two small restaurants behind the buffet - Planks BBQ and Seafood Steamers. However, despite assurances that the ship was "fully staffed", these restaurants were never opened. Fortunately, the areas acted as overflow seating for the buffet and were usually where we ate. We did visit the Slice for pizza, and the Salty Dog Grill where my wife found the chili on the chili dog was not great. The International Cafe, open 24 hours a day, had small things to nosh on, specialty coffees, soup, and hot chocolate. I was able to find a bar with Peppermint Schnapps, which I added to my hot chocolate. We used the Islands restaurant on deck 5, and always asked for a table for two. We quickly found our favorite waiter, Virgilio, and assistant Ma Christa. We made a point from then on to ask to be seated in their section, and since we usually ate around 5, were always able to sit there. The main dining room fare was quite good, at least as good as on other lines and as good as I remember from previous Princess cruises. The escargot was excellent, the surf and turf also great. The Beef Wellington portion was huge, far more than we could finish. We had no complaints about main dining, or, really, any of the food. If I had to rate it on a scale of 10, I'd probably give it at least a 9. The last at-sea day had a cooking demonstration in the main theater, followed by a galley tour. We didn't do the tour, having done it before on several other ships. I was surprised that this tour was free, as most other lines charge for it if offered at all. We have to call them out on one thing - BBQ. There were several things with BBQ in the name - ribs, brisket. However, they were not BBQ at all. Meat, yes, but the seasoning could hardly be called BBQ. The so-called brisket BBQ actually looked and tasted like corned beef brisket. So, Princess, if you want to know how to make BBQ, please visit us in Kansas City. We can hook you up with the best. One feature of the Medallion App is called Ocean Now, and it allows you to order various food and drinks, to be delivered to wherever you (well, your medallion) is. I ordered chips & guacamole, and a slice of chocolate cake, while we were in our room. It showed up within about 15 minutes. I kept planning to order other stuff (like the cheese quesadilla or the club sandwich) but never did as there was always something available if we walked. We averaged between 10 and 20 thousand steps per day, but even then I managed to gain about 2 pounds over 10 days.

Drinks They say you can't drink all day unless you start in the morning. This was the first time we'd ever had a drink package, usually limiting ourselves to one drink a day before dinner. They had trivia starting at 10 am, so when we attended trivia, we would always get a drink. Each bar on the ship specializes in certain drinks and has its own drink menu. We made it a point to attempt to try numerous drinks we'd never heard of. My rule was no coffee drinks, my wife's rule was no gin. We probably tried at least 20 different drinks. Most of the trivia games, all of the art auctions, and our drinks there, were in the Explorer's lounge. Our favorite bartender, however, was Suat in the Crooner's bar. She prepared the most amazing (and huge) strawberry margaritas, and was willing to modify a standard margarita after I discovered she had Blood Orange syrup. We did get drinks in other bars, usually either one we just happened to wander by, or if we wanted to try a drink that was available at just one bar. For each bar, the tables had a QR code that sent your phone's browser to the drink menu. Sadly, these menus all seemed to be located on the Princess web site rather than an on-ship server. That's good, in a way, as it means you may be able to see the menus from your browser at home, but bad because that was just a waste of off-ship bandwidth and much slower. As mentioned above, I purchased rum in the ports. When returning to the ship, at no time were we ever told to "check our liquor", to be returned at the end of the voyage. There was a table with a guy to do this, but it seemed voluntary so I didn't volunteer. This was good as it allowed us to package our liquor well enough that the airline baggage apes did not break any of them. On a similar note, US Customs didn't seem to care - we looked for a form to fill out with our purchases listed, never found one. They had our faces in their database, took all of 10 seconds to pass through customs. This was a far cry from the old days where everyone had to show up with form and passport in hand somewhere on the ship at 6 AM of the last day. Most ships charge for bottled water. We may have gotten them free as part of the drink package, but they were handing out water bottles for all passengers getting off the ship with no care as to drink package. I commend them for that, as it's all too common to get dehydrated ashore and not feel good as a result. I am still undecided as to whether single-use plastic bottles are a good thing in general. I hope the ship has good recycling contracts for the plastic.

Ports The first port was Falmouth. Since we've been to Jamaica many times and done the various excursions, we did none on this trip. We did wander around the port area, bought a few small bottles of specialty rum, and had a Jamaican beef patty. We did find a new variety of Tortuga rum cakes - a Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee flavor. Cartagena was next. We originally booked a tour that included the fort, then found out that tour involved more walking than we really wanted. So, we cancelled and booked a walking tour of the old walled town. Yes, still walking, but all flat. The fort required a long walk up and down ramps. This was a fun tour, and I found some local rums at a grocery store. I did not find a liquor store per se. It rained heavily the day before we arrived. According to our tour guide, it was the first January rain there in his life. I have no idea about the validity of that statement. There was one surprise - I didn't see a single fly or mosquito there. We had read mixed reviews of the Panama Canal tours. About half the reviews were glowing, with the other half pretty bad. Seemed like a hit or miss thing, so we just stayed on the ship. The itinerary was a bit messed up - we were supposed to go through the locks, let off people on shore tours, then go into the lake and hang out for hours. What we actually did was go through the locks, park between the old and new locks, and stayed there only long enough to let off passengers. Then back through the locks and into dock in Colon. They had originally said that we could not get off the ship, then I guess some returning tours were late so we were allowed to visit the local duty free shops. Found some Panamanian rum. We heard the kayaking tour did not return until after 10 pm. The best place to watch the locks was either deck 15 forward (over the bridge), Skywalkers nightclub, or actually on the promenade walkway around deck 7. I was a bit surprised that after all the hoopla about how the locks are heavily scheduled, no ship followed us in, and only two went out before we did. In Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, we booked a tour that was kind of a cultural city tour, followed by a beach break with dance presentation, followed by a cooking show. The cooking show was definitely the best part. We learned how to make beef patties, plantain patties (kinda weird but tasty), rice and beans, ackee, and fried plantain. This was followed by samples of all of the foods. Very tasty, and the presenter gave us his card with email address and invited us to ask for the recipes. This tour seemed to involve more tipping than other tours. We ended up tipping the guide, the driver, the dancers, and the chef. Strangely, this didn't bother us as much as it might have before the pandemic. We were happy to support the local economy. I did manage to find a small bottle of local rum. Our final ground stop was in Grand Cayman. Again, have been there many times, and every time I get a bottle of 7 Fathoms rum (the best in the world, in my opinion). However, due to the heavy waves, we did not anchor off of town but rather at Spotts Bay around the island quite a ways. This resulted in us needing to utilize the $6 shuttle to town, and same to return. When we got to town, we realized that...hey, it's Sunday. Nothing was open. I guess they seldom get ships there on the weekend. Things finally started to open, but we could not buy rum until 1 PM. So we basically had to hang out for several hours. Having come that far, I wasn't going to let a little boredom stop me from my quest.

This review will be posted as several messages in this thread. With any luck, I may be able to get my wife to add her thoughts too. Princess was our first cruise, but we do not necessarily have any major brand loyalty. Our cruise choices are based more on itinerary, prices, and timing than the brand. So, that's why it's been over a decade since we last sailed Princess. So, I think the first part of this review will be more of a comparison to other brands. Then we'll get into the details. This cruise was what is called a "partial transit" - we entered and exited the canal on the Caribbean side, using the new locks. Since we had to fly from Kansas City, we probably could have just as easily done a full transit - I'm not sure why we didn't consider it. Since our last Princess, we've done Carnival, Holland America, NCL, Royal, and I did Celebrity. Princess is certainly more elegant than Carnival, NCL, and maybe Royal, and seemed more on a level with HAL and Celebrity. There were the usual theater shows, art auctions, plenty of shopping venues, and a fair number of trivia games. We attended most of these, ignoring the casino, pool parties, and bingo. I saw no ping pong tables, or even shuffleboard layouts on the deck. The only physical activity available was a pickleball court, but it was closed about half of the cruise for maintenance. The spa included the usual workout machines, but I never found a scale. On the plus side, the spa included access to both sauna and steam room at no additional cost. Most other lines charge extra to access the steam room. Princess uses a Medallion in place of your standard room key (it's a small round emblem coded to you). It is also used to identify you for any purchases or when you leave the ship. There is also a phone app (of course), called the Medallion App. This app gives you access to your cabin bill, menus for all the restaurants and bars, and has a feature that allows you to locate your friends and family on the ship. As a software QA guy, I certainly found some issues with the app, but very few actual bugs. I will write the Medallion App issues up separately to send to the Princess Brand Ambassador, who hopefully can send it to the relevant people. We had an inside cabin, figuring we'd seldom be there. We also booked the Princess Plus, which included wifi for each of us, the drink package, and tips. In addition to the prepaid tips, we also tipped our favorite crew members. The wifi was for one device each, but it was easy to switch between the phone and the laptop. The ship, Caribbean Princess, is a sister ship to the Grand Princess, which had the Skywalkers nightclub at the back, much like a sports car spoiler. Some of the ships that had this have had it removed, so Caribbean may be the only one remaining. This venue was a great place to watch while transiting the canal locks. The smoking areas have been reduced, to about 1/4th of the casino, and one small part outside by one bar on deck 16. Even then, I doubt I saw more than about 50 different smokers. Maybe the fact that the average age was probably over 60 had something to do with that. This ship's last drydock was in 2016, and her age is really showing. I'm surprised she wasn't refurbished during the pandemic. We were in an inside cabin, middle decks, midship, and were centrally located to everything. The cabin was fine, although the layout did not allow a loveseat like some lines inside cabins do. There were two AC plugs, too close together. We could plug in both laptops, but the little USB chargers overlapped the plug just enough so we could not plug both in at once. There were no USB charging ports, and the nightstand lights had no plugs either. Very few people wore masks on the ship. I heard very few coughs even, so presumably we didn't have any covid issues. We took covid tests as soon as we returned home, and they were negative. All buffet entrances had a double-sink nearby, and usually an attendant asking you to wash hands. There were certainly plenty of the hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere. You were allowed to serve yourself in the buffet. All in all, Princess still has a quality product. The ship needs some refurbishment, but the staff are mostly competent (there were a few newbies that they needed to break in). The music trivia was done by persons who were not American or British, and their music background was mostly skewed to those songs that were played or covered in their home country. It made for challenging trivia.

I had seen somewhere that Colon was mentioned as having the best duty free shopping in the Caribbean, then looked on Google maps and found the cruise dock, and dozens of duty free stores within blocks. So not that great, eh? That's OK, I don't really need anything anyhow. But I will discuss the excursion further with my better half and see what we decide. Thanks!

We will be doing the partial transit on Caribbean Princess in January. While going to the Pacific side would be interesting, I'm tempted to just stay on the ship for the duration. This ship has the nightclub where the "spoiler" would be on a car, which may be an awesome place to watch the transit from. Plus we have the drink package, so it could be a fine day on the ship. Plus it sounds like the dock in Colon has plenty of duty free shops. Can't think of anything I need but might be nice to wander and look.