Bound for Liberty

Excellent, sounds like you had a great time! Was the steam room warmer than the sauna?

I can't wait.

Thanks for the info on Explorer of the Seas, BillyBeachBoy!! I'm also a fan of this class of ships' facilities and, from what I've gathered, the facilities of the Freedom/Liberty/Independence-of-the-Seas are QUITE similar to the Explorer/Navigator/Voyager (etc), even though the Freedom & such are a tad larger.

 

I'm sailing on the Navigator-of-the-Seas during the first week of February and very much looking forward to a lot of time relaxing at the spa. ;)

 

Now to report on my recent (first) Princess cruise...

 

Sailed aboard the CROWN Princess the week after Thanksgiving '09. Having never sailed Princess before, I tried to keep a very open mind as to the onboard experience. I've posted my general opinions on Princess in other threads, so won't re-hash here; I'll just focus on the Men's spa facilities (I presume the women's facilities are identical, for those who are interested).

 

The locker room entry door is right-off a main hallway leading to the rest of the public spa area, with no turn or partition to shield the view into the locker room. Not a very good design, from a privacy perspective (attendants kept giving me locker keys for lockers just inside this door and gave me attitude when I tried to explain these lockers were in full-view of the hallway [not a prude here, but do have some level of modesty/privacy, lol]).

 

The locker/changing area was very cramped, but seemed to have an adequate number of lockers for the number of people on our cruise. The locks on the lockers, however, were QUITE EASY to release, so not very safe.

 

There were two toilet rooms and a sink just off the changing area. Opposite the toilet area was the entry into the shower/sauna/steam room area. There were 3 showers, with only one having any semblance of adequated water pressure. Temperature control on all the showers was shotty at-best & impossible at-worst. There was also one water fountain in this area, also with dismal water pressure.

 

The sauna room temperature was very good & consistant throughout the cruise. My best guess is that it could seat 6 rather comfortably and up to 8 very tightly. Guests are able to pour water over the sauna stones to increase heat/humidity in the sauna.

 

The steam room temperature and conditions were also very good & consistent throughout the cruise. My best guess is that it could seat 7 rather comfortably (with one seat right over the steam entry point [REAL HOT SEAT :o] ) and perhaps two more very tightly. The steam room was one of those pre-fabbed, plastic-walled steam rooms (not like the nice tiled rooms on the Voyager, Freedom and Radiance class ships in RCI's fleet).

 

Generally, these facilities were occupied throughout the day with anywhere from 2 to 12 people, with the busiest time being in the afternoon on sea-days. The locker room attendants were polite & attentive and visited the area often throughout the day to replenish towels.

 

IMPORTANT: The spa staff (likely Steiner employees, or whatever) were generally impatient & borderline discourteous. Seems like none of them like to man the spa desk. Also, they have signs in the locker room indicating that lockers are for the sole use of guests with scheduled spa treatments. However, if one asks nicely enough (geez, who's supposed to be nice to who, lol), they will provide locker keys to non-spa guests once you provide your boarding pass (pass is returned when you return with the locker key). Finally, access to these facilities was free-of-charge (but not free of spa desk attitude, ha).

 

Hope folks find this review helpful. Please let me know if there's something about these facilities you'd like to know, but which I may have excluded from my report.

 

I still look forward to reading everyone else's reviews on men's spa facilities for vessels which have not been already described.

 

Bon voyage to ALL,

Gigglewolf-of-the-Seas

:p

Giggleworth - please be sure to give us a review of the Navigator spa. We're going on March 13, 2010.