Just off Empress - Long Review

I give the 11 Night Exotic Southern Caribbean Cruise 4 out of 5 stars. Sorry this is so long, but if you don’t want to read it all, you don’t have to. I’ll give a brief review first and more details below.

 

 

 

Entertainment: Uneven, some good shows and some mediocre shows.

 

Staff: Wonderful, friendly and courteous.

 

Games: Generally pretty fun.

 

Appearance: Excellent. A nice, neat, clean ship all decorated for Christmas.

 

Food: Good but not great.

 

Ports of Call: Excellent. Reviewed in post two below.

 

Spa: Good service and nice people, but expensive.

 

Other: Overall, quite good. See post three below.

 

Entertainment:

 

Uneven. I missed the first two shows because they were at 10 and 10:45 for the late seating guests and I was too exhausted to stay up (plus trying unsuccessfully to fight off a cold). After that, the show for the late seating was at 7:15 and I saw each and every one of them. A couple of the shows were excellent. Marty Allen was onboard with his wife, Karon Kate Blackwell (a singer) and they put on a great show. Jay J. Downs was a comedian and saxophone player (mainly a sax player) and he was very good and very funny. I bought the CD’s that these entertainers were selling after the show but haven’t listened to them yet. The Empress’ singers and dancers were quite good, and did a Tango show and a “Jump Jivin’ Swing” show that were both very entertaining. Eddie Holman (Hey There Lonely Girl) was also very good. The comic, Rich Ceisler was just so-so, and the final show of the cruise, the farewell show was pretty much terrible. At the last show we saw the Cruise in Review video, and then Guillermo Fernandez sang. He won the international “star search” competition (in 1986) and had a decent voice, but sang every song in Spanish and was really playing to the Puerto Ricans in the audience. He would have been a better choice for the three day cruise that’s going on now with 98% of the passengers being Puerto Rican. Don’t get me wrong, I like Spanish music, but he wasn’t that entertaining in any language and should not have been the headliner for the final show.

 

 

 

Staff:

 

Overall, they were great. All were polite, friendly, and generally had smiles on their faces whenever they said hello. Some of the guest services people didn’t have answers to questions I think they should know, such as how to dial a call to the U.S. on a cell phone from the different ports (FYI, from most you dial 001-area code and number, but from St. Lucia you don’t dial the 00).

 

Games:

 

I went to Trivia, and also watched a couple of the “game shows” the cruise director’s staff put on in the evenings. Trivia was a fun time. The Love and Marriage game show was fun to watch, and of course, the Quest is not to be missed, but it was kind of short and that was disappointing.

 

Food:

 

I ate breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer every day and both were quite good, a lot of variety but it did start to get boring after 11 days. Lines could get a little long at peak times, but the wait was never more than a few minutes. Stay away from the cereal, it’s stale. I ate dinner in the dining room and that was usually very good. The chateaubriand was excellent but that was the only meal I ate that would get 5 stars. The wait staff will sing to you on several occasions. I did not try Portofino’s so I can’t comment on that.

 

 

 

Spa:

 

I had my hair done for formal night, had a full body massage, and got a pedicure. I’d never been to a spa before so I figured I would try it. My hair looked awful, but I guess I just don’t look good with my hair up so I don’t blame the hairdresser. Richard gives a nice massage, but for $99 I think I’ll stick with the free ones from my boyfriend. :D The pedicure was very good, but again, for $55 I can do just as good a job on my own, now that I know how it’s done. I did not try anything else and unfortunately, did not keep the price list.

Ports of Call:

 

First of all, be aware that the tours do leave ON TIME. If your ticket says the tour leaves at 9:00, do not show up at 9:02 or you will miss your tour. This did not happen to me because I was always early, but some people I spoke with on the ship did miss their tours because they were a couple minutes late. Too bad, so sad.

 

St. Maarten: Damaging to my bank account :eek: I went shopping shopping shopping for jewelry so cannot comment on the rest of the island. I did find that the jewelry was slightly cheaper here than in Aruba. I bought some tanzanite earrings and a pendant to match a ring I’ve had for years and think I got a good deal. If I didn’t – I don’t want to know.

 

 

St. Barts: Expensive. Even postcards were overpriced. I did not do a ship’s tour here, just went to Shell beach which was fairly nice, lots of shells down by the crystal clear blue water. The beach was a bit crowded with people from the cruise but overall it wasn’t too bad. I heard from a fellow passenger that Saline beach was nicer. Shell beach is the only one you can walk to from the ship – it takes about 10=15 minutes.

 

St. Kitts: Disappointing. I did the Brimstone Hill Fortress tour. The fortress is very interesting and you get a great view from up top. The tour also stops at some gardens where you can buy batik items (I found them to be the same price as in town). However, the van we were in (9 passenger) was hot and cramped, and it took a long time to get to the fortress. The shops in the town of Basseterre were OK, but the town looked dirty and there were people just hanging out on the streets, making rude comments as you walk by. If I went back, I would try to find a beach or snorkel and avoid the town altogether.

 

St. Lucia: Lush, green, beautiful. I did the Land and Sea to Soufriere tour. We took a small bus through villages to a volcano, had a buffet lunch at a restaurant, and then boarded a catamaran to sail back to the ship. The bus made a few “kodak moment” stops where there were usually people selling souvenirs. There was one stop where you can sample rum, and ketchup. This was the one day where we had rain in the morning, so our view of the Piton’s wasn’t the best, but it cleared up in time for the catamaran sail which was wonderful, and very relaxing. We stopped at a beach for swimming which was nice – the water feels cold at first but you warm up quickly.

 

Barbados: Beautiful. I did the catamaran sail and snorkel so I did not get a chance to see the rest of the island, but I would recommend the sail/snorkel tour. The catamaran was just like the one in St. Lucia, very big, with plenty of room in front (on nets) to lay out and soak up the sun, or you can sit inside and drink rum punch. The snorkel site was good with quite a few interesting looking fish. The guides on the catamaran were very friendly and fun.

 

Margarita Island: Lots of vendors selling things right as you get off the ship. I did the Coche Island tour which involved a nice catamaran sail for about an hour to get to the island, a tour of the island, more than an hour at a beach and an hour sail back to the ship. I didn’t care for the island tour part of it. We were loaded into the backs of pickup trucks with benches (the ship calls them “local rustic open air vehicles”) and taken for a bumpy ride to a few semi-interesting sites. The beach was beautiful but people were always coming up to you to sell you something and this went on for the entire time. The best part was being on the catamaran but remember to use plenty of sunscreen.

 

Curacao: Wonderful. The town is very cute and has lots of shops. This is where I found an internet café called “Time Out” which charged me $2 for 20 minutes and had high speed connections. It was such a welcome change from the awful internet connection on the ship. In the afternoon I did the snorkeling tour and it was incredible. The water was so clear and there were hundreds and hundreds of fish around a sunken boat. I can’t wait to see how my underwater pictures turned out. If I went back I would do the same tour again.

 

Aruba: Interesting. I did the “Sea and See Island” tour. The “see island” portion was great, but the sea part of it was not worth it. The water was way too cloudy to see much of anything underwater. I also went to the “Let’s go Latin” show which was very good and does end in plenty of time to walk back to the ship before 10:30.

No Grenada due to hurricane damage.

Other:

 

Embarking/Disembarking both were very smooth. I was very impressed considering I’ve read some not so nice comments about boarding in San Juan.

 

I did not use ship’s transportation. I arrived a day early and took a cab to the Radisson Ambassador Hotel for $13. A cab to the ship from there cost $10, and a cab from the ship back to the airport was $17. They do sell the bus transfers back to the airport on the ship for $13 per person, but I figured the extra few dollars was worth it to have my own cab and not have the hassle of a crowded bus. By the way, these prices are for one person with two pieces of luggage.

 

The casino is nice, I went in there a couple times but they took my money so I didn’t stick around too long.

 

I went to a couple of the art auctions just to see what they were all about. The free champagne would peel paint off my car, it was awful. I didn’t buy any art, but quite a few people were spending thousands, so perhaps they were getting good deals – I don’t know that much about art.

 

The photographers were good. This being my first cruise in 7 years, I bought quite a few pictures. The photo gallery was open late afternoon through about 11 pm on port days. Most of the pictures were up for the entire cruise, but the dinner (pirate) pics from the second night were taken away after a few days to make room for more, but were available again at the end of the cruise (if you wanted to look through a six inch high stack of photos). They took photos while you were getting off the ship at every port but one (I can’t remember which one).

 

Internet: Awful, frustrating, made me want to hurl that *#@(*$ computer into the sea. At 50 cents a minute, you will be lucky if you can send two e-mails in 10 minutes. Try to find internet cafés on shore, there is a good one in Curacao called Time Out.

 

The “Cruise Compass” had quite a few misprints throughout the cruise, including wrong times for a couple of the activities, and an incorrect description for one of the shows.

 

I did not go dancing late, did not play bingo, did not hang out in any of the bars so don’t ask questions about those things.

 

The cabin was very cold and adjusting the thermostat didn’t seem to help. Take a sweater to wear in your cabin during the day and put an extra blanket on the bed at night.

 

Deck chairs seemed to be plentiful on this cruise, even by the pool there were usually a few empty, even on the sea days, and there were always chairs available on the top deck.

 

The order of dress for dinner on this cruise was casual, formal, casual/Caribbean, smart casual, casual/70’s, casual/western, formal, smart casual, formal, casual, and casual. I think having “formal, smart casual, formal” all in a row was not a good idea, and most people were not dressed very formal on the third formal night. This was probably because our cruise booklet said there were only two formal nights.

Let me be the first to say "Thanks" for the wonderful review.

 

I'm reading it having awaken from a virus induced coma so its my first feeble pass at inteligent thought. I'll re-read it later (maybe tomorrow). Then perhaps I'll have a question or two, but again, THANKS!!!

Do you happen to remember who the Loyality Ambasador is???? I'm looking for Rosemarie and hoping she is on the Empress when we sail the repositioning in April!

Sorry, I never visited the Loyalty Ambassador's desk, so I didn't meet him/her.

 

A couple other comments I forgot to include earlier:

 

There were only 16 children on board, which I think made for a more peaceful cruise. The ones who were on the ship were generally well behaved and I only saw a couple of them acting up once in 11 days (running through the centrum during the formal photo taking). I certainly can't guarantee this peace and quiet for future cruises. I think the length/cost of the cruise, plus the timing of this cruise between Thanksgiving and Christmas when kids are in school contributed to the lack of kids on board. The majority of the cruisers seemed to be over 50 but there were also a fair amount of honeymooners, and couples in their 30's & 40's.

 

There are of course TV's in all the staterooms. If the next cruise has the same movies, be prepared to see Spiderman 2 night after night after night... Other channels available were CNNI(nternational), Headline News or CNNfn, a comedy/family channel which showed Friends, Scrubs, and The West Wing among other things.

Thanks for the review it was great to see the pros and some cons of the cruise. We had been looking for one from the first 11 day but never found one. What type of cabin did you have? Just wondered if a balcony would help with the cold situation? We're booked in a JS but unfortunately not until March 06.

Oh! Thank you, thank you for the wonderful review. This is just what I was looking for. We sail on March 14th. It will be our fourth time on the Empress, so there will be no surprises there. We were so curious about a few of the ports. We have been to most of them but not some. Hopefully others who went will have even more comments to help us.

What a great review. I've been waiting for one. Just have a few questions.

What time could you start boarding?

Do you know where the Loyalty Ambassador is located?

Is St. Martin still torn up or have they finished their beautification project?

What category room were you in and how was it?

Now a stupid question. Under "order of dress" you said the first night was casual. First night as in San Juan or St. Martin, first port?

Thanks.

Cathy

I did not have a balcony. I was in an obstructed view outside cabin. I suppose having a balcony door open may have helped a bit since it was so warm outside.

 

My cabin was just the right size for one. If my boyfriend had been able to come his clothes would have had to stay in the suitcase 'cause I filled up all the drawers and closet with my stuff. Two people would be tripping over each other, but really, how much time do you spend in your cabin? I had the beds split into two twin beds and used one to pile my suitcases and other stuff on, so I didn't have things all over the floor.

 

The night of boarding was casual. The St. Maarten night was formal.

 

I arrived at the ship at 12:15 and people had already started boarding. I spoke with one person who arrived at 11:30 and was allowed on before noon.

 

The loyalty ambassador's desk is on deck 8 (centrum).

 

St. Maarten is still very torn up, but the shops are open :D

Curacao: Wonderful. The town is very cute and has lots of shops. This is where I found an internet café called “Time Out” which charged me $2 for 20 minutes and had high speed connections. It was such a welcome change from the awful internet connection on the ship. In the afternoon I did the snorkeling tour and it was incredible. The water was so clear and there were hundreds and hundreds of fish around a sunken boat. I can’t wait to see how my underwater pictures turned out. If I went back I would do the same tour again.

 

I loved Curacao! I hardly ever hear anyone say anything positive about it. I thought it was so colorful, quaint, etc. But of all the places I have been, it's still my favorite port. That and St. Maarten.

 

As far as Grenada goes, I was there after all the conflict,(in the 80's) so it was rather depressing. There were bombed out shells of houses, with toilets still standing, burned trees, etc.(you can read about it here;http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande07.html)

 

All I did there was go to a private beach. I'm sure it has changed a lot since then, and other than the distruction, it was a beautiful island.

LindaO - There was a Rosemarie on the Jewel last week as the loyalty person. Best description is fairly big blonde and very businesslike but very helpful. I think she was from Australia, but can't really swear to that.

Thank you very much for taking the time to put your review together for us. The concise information you provided will be very helpful to us as we sail on he Empress in two weeks. Thanks again.

Snackdaddy, I hope you enjoy your cruise.

 

I am in the process of sorting through my 500+ photos and will be posting them on the web as soon as I am done, perhaps by tomorrow.

What a great review. You have it all there. I can't wait to see your pictures when you get them posted. Please let us all know where and when.

Meeting you all over the ship was wonderful. Spending the final hours at the airport while we were both waiting to leave made for a very pleasent 3+ hours. Stay in touch on the Roll Call.;) Wally says "Hi" too.

"Alexis" aka Pat

Karen, first of all thank you for answering all my questions. We are staying at the Wyndham Condado and was wondering if anyone knew of an inexpensive place for breakfast. Another poster recommended the Hacienda but didn't indicate where it's located. I tried looking in the Yellow Pages but couldn't find them. Does anyone know where the Hacienda is or any other cheap restaurant for breakfast. Thanks.

Cathy

Sorry I can't answer the breakfast question - I just waited and had a big lunch on the ship :D

I posted 158 (out of 463) photos from the Empress cruise on the web at http://photos.yahoo.com/cruzinkaren

Karen - what great pictures. You're going to get tired of all my questions but I have more. The Chocolate Buffet - do they allow a certain period of time to take pictures (like the Gala Buffet) before you can eat? Do you recall what they served on the formal nights? Lobster is one, isn't it? Thanks again.

Cathy

Demetria is the name of the Loyalty Ambassador. She is very helpful and booked another cruise for us to Alaska in May.

Great Review Karen

 

We were two people in an inside stateroom and found storage in our room no problem. I took one set of drawers and he the other. Our bathroom had plenty of storage and over the vanity many cubicles. We had three closets. Joel hung all his clothes. I used the shelf as I didn't take any thing that needed to hang.

we stored the suit cases under the bed.

 

Room Temperature.

Sometimes it was cooler than normal. I took a pair of socks to wear. we had extra beds in our room so I used the extra blankets on my side.

 

Food We ate in the Windjammers all the time. Liked the variety and being on our own time.

 

Deck and chairs. Never had to hunt one down. Shade was a little tough if you wanted it.

 

Excursion. Book at home or you may find that they are full on the ship.

We did some different things than Karen.

 

St Maarten Walked to town shopped.....

Some friends rented a car and enjoyed that.

 

St Kitts. We did the senic railway. Nice and relaxing, got to see alot of the island. Lots of sugar cane fields but nice history.

 

St Barts. Walked to shell beach, then taxied to Seline Beach. We spent 4 hours at Seline. There is NO SHADE. but water wonderful and the beach impressive. Note there is some nudity. Rather those that shouldn't of been naked were and those who could of weren't...... We survived without shade because the water was so nice we spent most of the time bobbin up and down in the waves. Wouldn't recommend town. Some friends rented a car for $80 and saw all the beaches (Jean and the Cul de Sac ones) they had a better time.

 

Barbados. We did a snorkle and 4X4 You can see the beach from the pier.

take a taxi to it. beautiful and warm. Ammenities available. the snorkeling

was very nice here, two sunken boats with lots of fish, we saw a sea turtle here. The 4X4 had induvual seats. Sit in the front so you can see out over the cab. We went to the Atlantic side and watched the huge surf pound the beach. it was so beautiful. Can't remember if we made it to town.

 

Grenada Closed Nice to have a catch up time at sea.

 

Curacao Loved this place. We got to park inside the town. Little Ship.

Just a short walk over a really old bridge to town. Neat town and very friendly. We found a beach on the internet. Sea Aquarium (Mambo) beach.

$4 per person taxi. $3 to enter beach $3 for a chair. $4 back to ship.

This was a coral beach with a man made levy so it was calm. Take snoreling gear as it was good. Warm water, nice sand and ammenities. Walk down to sea aquarium and look over the bridge and you can see the sea lion, and dolphins playing. The shops here at this resort were lets say geared for the french. A different style of bathing suit and a little more for price. We saw a see thru cover up pant for $210 US. Ouch. The food was good and with your beach pass you can use the bathrooms.......

 

Margarita Island. We did the virgin side. No development. trash everywhere on the roads. Went to a fishing village and spent time at the local beach. learned to say No Gracis alot. Didn't bug us though, we had a good group and made our own fun playing in the waves. The 4X4 and the guides were the best. We stood up whenever we could to take in the island, Try to get in firrst. Better view. I understand the island is like night and day. One end developed and beaufitul, we were in Arizona, the desert, Nevada. Awesome for us. We liked the ruggedness.

 

Aruba Didn't care for this to much, Westward wind so snorkeling a bust due to cloudy sea. Water freezing. Windy (I have enough here at home)

Our friends that rented a car went all over and stopped at baby beach. The snorkeling was great there. Find the calm side and hit those beaches. I know some people had a blast. Town was okay. get the map by the exit door of the pier building or you'll miss some awesome shops. We found that if you want to buy jewely, do it in St Maarten. they will help you. We couldn't get the time of day from the ship recommended stores. If I would of been thinking I would of laid down twenty $100 bills and said, guess we won't be spending these here. Talked with others who said they didn't get any help either.

 

Be adventurous. Car rental with another couple was cheaper than scooters.

The maps seemed to be decent. Taxi's were great when you think about dividing with someone else. I wouldn't do a motorcoach tour. Crowed and limited visibility.

 

Back on ship. We had no complaints except for once in awhile we had to chase down the beach towels. Rooms service for us was 5 min (but we were on three down the hall from the kitchen.) We had a quiet hallway, didn't hear the occupants next door very much. Never late. We didn't mind the all day movies. Caught some here and there.

Day one Spider Man 2.

Next days. Princess Diaries 2

Cinderella Story

Elf

Can't remember them all.

 

SEA Sickness Had everything. Patch, prescription pills, bands, bonine.

The first 3 days used the patch till I got sea legs. Nothing the rest of the cruise. I did take something on the last night cause the ship was really heaving and moving. VERY Much.... Even on 3 we noticed it. I did the prescription one and I have been off the ship two days now and still have a drug hangover. USE the Bonine and use only 1/2 if that works.

 

Packing. If you go for no time restraints and like the Windjammer, we ditched the formal wear and dress clothes and ate on our own time. We tipped those kids and we had a blast in the evening with them. Sometimes we would spend to much time watching departure of the dolphins play along the ship and miss the early show so we would eat then hit the show or vise versa. We did not conform to a schedule. I would say lay out your clothes. Take half if you don't do the dining room.

 

Debarkation thingy. We concur that it is wiser to spend the $17 for the taxi from the ship to the airport. Quite a few people lost their luggage from the truck to the curb at the airport. 4 people on our bus. They saw it get on the truck, but it wasn't at the curb when they arrived. You can check your luggage 6 hours before takeoff. FIND Something to do. It was alwful sitting in that airport for 4 hours. Get A Cab and drive downtown or something. Security was a pain also, allow enough time as they do check everythng on a person.

 

He had to really work to get me back on a boat. I hate to admit it. but I liked the ports and I really liked the small ship. It fit us well.

 

Have a great trip:p

There is time to take pictures of both buffets. They have it set up nicely.

 

EAt and enjoy.

WOW, great pics.

Thanks for the great review! And I love your pics!

 

Also, thanks to denise, for adding comments!

 

Both appreciated!

Hi

 

Great reviews thanks to both of you. We are going on the Empress on Jan 31st so these are lots of help.

 

One problem - can't get the pictures to show up.

 

anyone have any advice?

 

Thanks

jku2