seattlec5

Falklands, 2008 on the Star Princess.

We've been fortunate enough to travel to a lot of fun places on a Princess cruise in the last 25 years. Out of 20+ trips I would say our trip on the Tahitian Princess in about 2004 was best. This was shortly after Princess purchased several of the R-class ships and they renamed one the Tahitian and based her out of Papeete. The combination of amazing locations (Society and Cook Islands), the smaller size of the ship, pricing (at the time they were trying to get this cruise up and running and had amazing deals), and service were winners all the way around.

Regarding pricing, when we were having lunch at Bloody Mary's in Bora Bora, we met a young couple who were on their honeymoon and were staying in one of the nice over the water bungalows in the lagoon. The told us what the cost for their bungalow was per night and it was about what we paid per person for the whole cruise! Definitely a great value. I wish Princess had kept all of the R ships and still had these itineraries.

That's exactly what I meant when I said we should have an access to a "no upgrade" box in the cruise personalizer.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

A few years ago the general public booking page did have the check box option for no upgrade. This appears to have been removed. I recently booked a Norway fjords cruise on the Sapphire for this summer and snagged an aft cabin that I didn't want to lose. I had to call Princess reservations to have them input it behind the scenes. Only takes a few minutes on the phone to get this done and it is time well spent if you don't want to lose a great cabin location. I wish they would have kept this accessible to all on the webpage, but calling is no big deal.

Having done this UK cruise itinerary twice on Princess, I would be hesitant to miss Edinburgh. The two ports that we really liked were Guernsey and Edinburgh, both of which you would miss on RCI. Guernsey is very quaint and relaxing, but it is a tender port, so bad weather would mean skipping it. We were lucky and had good weather both trips. Edinburgh is a very historic and attractive city which would be a shame to miss on any UK itinerary.

I guess in the end it may come down to your desire to include Amsterdam as part of this cruise. Either trip will likely be a lot of fun.

Absolutely. As soon as Princess can fill their ships with first time cruisers, the Captains Circle program will cease to exist. Thankfully, I don't believe that's as imminent as Princess might like. But every so often one of the officers will 'get real' and admit that they don't make money on Elite cruisers, and one openly said "especially Elite cruisers from Florida". :eek:

I find it interesting how often this subject comes up. My opinion is that if one is looking for a higher level or service, amenities, product quality etc. sometimes you have to switch to a brand that offers what you now want, not what you used to want.

For example, if I am a long term Chevrolet car buyer, and over time as my taste has evolved and income level has gone up I have purchased their higher priced products with more options that I want, but currently am looking for something that has even more (luxury, performance, etc.) than their product line offers, I don't think writing to GM/Chevy to ask them to build a more expensive or more feature laden car than they currently have is going to work. So, I have to make a decision about what I really now want and see what is available in the market. If I now want Mercedes or Bentley quality products, I am unlikely to get that from Chevy, so I will likely need to shift brands to get what I want.

So, same with the cruise experience, maybe those that want more need to look at what best matches their needs. Maybe Seabourn or Regent or Crystal is what you need.

Just my opinion.

While some of the menu items sound interesting, the images of the venue itself look truly awful to me. The chairs look uncomfortable and lots of uncarpeted floor means the noise level may be bad. We enjoyed Sabatinis on the Emerald and her sisters and thought it was a lovely place to have an intimate dinner with good views sometimes (we loved dining there when we went through the Strait of Messina). This concept looks uninviting to me, but that's just my opinion.

These are good points and I agree the seating looks really uncomfortable. But from a revenue standpoint, if you are not comfortable you will leave sooner, opening up the table for another revenue generating customer. The noise level is also an issue. Sabatinis and Crown Grill to me are not very noisy due to the carpet and furnishings absorbing sound. Our recent voyage on the Royal was overall ok, did like the food at Alfredo's, but the noise level (mostly from Piazza entertainment) was a negative for us. Guess I still like the idea of a quite romantic meal with my wife when we are relaxing on holiday.

No it started with the CB. ;)

Indeed, right you are. I always seem to forget about her, even though I've cruised on her multiple times. She was kind of a transitional design and a bit unique, but still a fine ship, even with the extra deck.

Gem class ships are basically Grand Class with the extra Riviera passenger deck added and a few other changes.

 

Diamond & Sapphire are named for "gems".

 

Many people include Crown, Emerald, and Ruby but I "think" that Princess actually classes those all as Crown Class.

 

Either way it's just a distinction for the evolution from the original Grand Class ships

The Diamond and Sapphire do not have the extra deck. They have the same number of passenger decks as the original Grand ships (Grand, Golden, Star). The extra deck started with the Crown Princess modified design.

Well nice to hear stories of getting a cruise for free. I've never had that happen, but on a cruise during the inaugural season for the Grand we had a standard balcony reserved and at the last minute were upgraded to a penthouse suite! What made it even better was the presence of a butler in those days for suite passengers. Made for a pretty special week.

hi,sorry i forgot there are 2 punta arenas,my one is in chile,cheers brian.

Actually there is only one Punta Arenas (two words) which is in southern Chile. There is a town called Puntarenas (one word) in Costa Rica. The pronunciation is very different when you consider the one word vs. two name. Which place are you asking about?

We've done one on this ship and really liked it. Wish there were more of these throughout the fleet. Never smelled cigarette smoke or heard noise from people. Only down side is noise from the stabilizers in choppy sea, but if you're not a light sleeper this isn't an issue. Great cabin for cooler weather port intensive cruises where your not likely to use a balcony much.

Yup, we were on this cruise as well and witnessed some pretty bad behavior. Young ones (like 3 to 5 years) up until 11:00 in crooners and other entertainment spots with parents seemingly unconcerned about screaming/shrieking. The worst were the unruly groups of pre-teens and teens just turned loose to run rampant. There was a whole lot of bad parenting going on.

Doesn't sound very relaxing. Precisely the reason we don't do 7 day cruises in the spring time any more. Maybe I'm getting grumpy but one of the big reasons the wife and I cruise is to relax. So we've pretty much gone down the path of longer cruises that have far fewer kids. Good luck on your next one!

We were on this cruise - we had a great time and did not get ill. Our understanding is Princess is participating in a program with the CDC working on the norovirus problem. When more than 1% of the passengers get ill from noro, they report it. Not all cruise lines are participating in this program.

 

A ship is a great rumor mill and rumors abounded while on board. I was more curious about the ambulance and elderly man who was taken off in Ensenada with his wife and what happened to them. No stories in the paper/news about that.

 

Our understanding is the voyage before ours also had noro and that was the delay in boarding. We were not allowed to board until after 4 pm. Instead of standing in line and complaining, we toured the destroyer. Princess arranged with the tour company for 1/2 price tickets. We then walked down to a restaurant and had lunch. Beautiful weather and sort of like an extra port day. Once the line to board got moving, we've never gotten on board a ship quicker. No sitting and waiting, just move, move move.

 

Daily announcements were made about the virus status and "wash your hands" was the chant. We were also given several flyers and a survey to complete at the end of the trip to help Princess/the CDC.

 

Getting off the ship was the fastest ever - we went to the lounge where we were supposed to meet a few minutes early and were actually off the ship before we were even supposed to start waiting. We were in our car by 8:10 am. Never sat down or stood in getting off, even in a customs line.

 

It was a great trip.

I agree. We were on the same April 5 cruise and indeed there were all of the measures involved with managing the norovirus for the entire cruise, but other than needing a slight bit more patience in the buffet, there really was not an impact to us versus any none-noro cruise. We obviously felt bad for anyone who was ill and had their week significantly impacted, but for the 97% of the passengers who were not ill, I do not think the impact was significant enough to say it was a horrible week.

I was however a bit perturbed by some of the passengers who, despite numerous updates from the captain, the printed notices that were given to everyone upon boarding and during the cruise, and the efforts of the crew, nevertheless maintained a "me first" attitude, continuing to reach in and grab food from the Horizon Court rather than wait 10 seconds to be served, etc. Our thoughts were, "thanks for potentially recontaminating that area"... When we saw that behavior we did not have any food from that area during that session.

Most people seemed to be complying with the requirements and making the best of the cruise and indeed seemed to have a pretty good time. I certainly was not hampered from doing or eating anything I wanted all week, which included Vines, the IC, main dining room, Crown Grill, Sabatini's and Horizon Court. We chose to enjoy our week, others who seemed to be in the minority, chose to be unpleasant and miserable even though they were not ill. Their choice.

Sail away was only an hour late, and after that the ship made all of the ports on schedule. Weather was pretty good overall with sunshine in every port, with the exception of some morning fog at Santa Barbara. No rain, mild to warm temps, no complaints.:)