Grand Princess 11/26/05 review

We arrived at the EZ Cruise parking at 10:00 (which we reserved online for 45.00). Lot #1 was full so we followed the bus driver (Captain Mike) to lot #2. It was raining & Captain Mike transferred the luggage from our car to the bus. There was 4 of us & we had 8 pieces of luggage. We then left for the pier with only the 4 of us. Captain Mike unloaded our luggage, we tipped him & proceeded to look for a porter. They were still busy with the passangers getting off the boat. We waited for about 20 minutes before we could get a porter. He loaded our luggage on a cart, we tipped him & told him to make sure our bags made it on the ship. We then went up stairs to check in. There was a wedding taking place before we left Galveston, so they were checking them in & their guest that were there for the wedding only. They started checking us in at 11:30. When we got on the boat, we went to our room to drop off our carry on bags & headed for the buffett to eat lunch. We were eating lunch at about 12:15. We then exlpored the inside of the ship because it was still raining. After exploring, we watched the bags being loaded on the ship. They left alot of bags out in the rain for about 15 minutes before they were loaded. It appeared they did not know which bags to load in the front & which ones to load in the back. They loaded some in the back, then unloaded them & loaded them in the front. It finally stopped raining so we went to the lido deck. We did not sail until about 6:30 which was 2 1/2 hours late. We received most of our luggage before we left, but my DB did not receive his until after dinner (we had late traditional dining). We were in the Botticelli dining roon table #243. Our waiter was Lazslo & our jr. waiter was Mariceio. They were great & we had alot of fun with them. One thing we did notice is that there were no bar waiters in the dining room. There we alot of people in jeans & some in shorts. After dinner we went to the Princess theater & saw the show which we thought was good.

Day 1 at sea we explored some more of the ship, laid by the pool, watched the pool games & went to the gym to work out. We went to the buffet at 3:30 for free ice cream. They serve it from 3:30-4:30. It was good but I wish they also had yogurt. Tonight was the Captain's Gala Cocktail party & formal night. We got dressed & went to the cocktail party where the drinks were flowing. We had some formal pictures taken & then went to dinner. After dinner we went to the show in the Princess theater which we thought was good. For formal nights, my DH & DB wore black wrangler jeans with their tuxedo shirt, western tuxedo jacket & tie & black cowboy boots. They looked great & had no problem getting in the dining room. My DB also wore his black cowboy hat for the pictures. We did notice some men sitting at the table across from us that were in docker style pants & polo shirts. These men looked like they were in their late 50's to early 60's. I guess they didn't have a problem getting in the dining room like this on formal night. This did not bother us at all, we still had a great time with our table mates which consisted of 1 man & his 3 wives (this is what they told us when they sat down). It was really 1 man his wife & 2 of their female friends. We had a blast with them every night they came to the dining room.

I will post more later. Let me know if you have any questions.

Glad you had a great time! We saw yall leave that night from Galveston!

On monday we were in Costa Maya. We were suppose to get there at 10:00 but we did not dock until about 12:00. There was no one from Princess taking pictures when we got off the boat & we were one of the first one off. We always buy these pictures so we were disappointed. We were to meet at 12:20 for our excursion. We booked the dune buggy excursion through the ship (on the internet about 3 weeks before we sailed). This was alot of fun but not as good as the one we did last year in Cozumel. Last year we booked it through Carnival, but it was the same company. The guide was great, but the food was not that good. After the excursion, we did alittle shopping & got back on the ship. We left Costa Maya at around 7:00. We got ready & went to dinner. My DB did wear starched jeans, nice button up shirt & his boots to dinner. Our table mates did not show up today. so we finished up early. After dinner we went to the Country & Western Hoe Down Party & had a blast. After the Hoe Down we went to the lido deck & watched Miss Congeniality 2 on MUTS. This was nice but DH & DB slept through some of the movie. DH & I went to bed but DB & SIL went to Skywalkers.

On Tuesday we were in Belize. We arrived about 6:30 in the morning. We did not have any excurions planned, so we did not get off the boat until around 9:30. There was no one from Princess taking picture when we got off in Belize. We just did alittle shopping & got back on the boat. We left Belize around 1:30. There was not really anything going on around the ship so we spent most of the afternoon on our balcony. We went back to our cabin & got ready to go to the Shake, Rattle & Roll performance before dinner. We really enjoyed this show. Tonight was formal night again. Originally, 2nd formal night was going to be Thursday, but they changed it to tonight. We went to dinner & 2 of our table mates went to Sterling Steakhouse. We had fun with the other 2 table mates & our waiters. Four of our table mates went to Sabatini's on Monday & they said the food was great & there was alot of it. After dinner we went to the Comedy show with Carey Long & he was very funny. He did the usual cruise ship jokes. We then went to the exployers lounge to catch the end of the Princess pop star round 1 try outs. Then DH & I went to bed, DB & SIL went to skywalkers again.

On Wednesday we were in Grand Cayman. When we arrived at 11:00, there were alreay 6 ships anchored off shore. We were on the 3rd tender off the ship, but we had to wait about 30 minutes before we could get off the tender. It got pretty hot while waiting in the tender. Princess only had one spot to drop off passangers & the Star princess was also in port so we had to share that spot with them. There was no one from Princess taking pictures when we got off the boat. When we got off the tender we booked a tour for 20.00 per person to take us to Hell, the rum cake factory & the turtle farm. We only had 15 minutes at Hell & the rum cake factory & 20 minutes at the turtle farm. When we got back we did a little shopping, but the stores were packed. We did have to stand in line for about 20 minutes to get the tender back to the boat. We left Grand Cayman around 5:45. We spent time on our balcony then got ready for dinner. DH & DB wore starched jeans to dinner tonight. We had a full table tonight. As always we had a blast at dinner. Two table mates went to Sterling steak house the night before & they said the steak was great. Tonight was the Island Deck Party. We went & had a good time. Had a few drinks then were off to bed.

Will continue later.

Thursday we arrived in Cozumel around 10:00. We had problems tendering in because the water was rough. We got on the tender around 12:00. We were planning on meeting some people that were on the Elation that was also in Cozumel today. We met them on CC last year while on the Conquest. They booked an all inclusive at the Palm Beach Club. We paid 12:00 for a taxi to take us to Palm Beach. He kept saying Paradise beach & I kept telling him Palm beach. When we got to Palm beach it was closed. Right nesxt door was San Francisco beach & next to that was Paradise beach. We walked to Paradise beach to see if our freiends were there but they weren't. Paradise beach was crowded with alot of kids. We walked back to San Francisco beach and grabbed a couple of chairs. A waiter came by & took our drink order. We stayed there for about 1 1/2 hours. We saw 3 of our table mates at this beach. It was nice & quite & we enjoyed ourselves. It started getting pretty cloudy so we headed back to the pier. While we were walking around the stores at the pier, we spotted our friends from the Elation. They said they found out on Saturday their excursion had beed cancelled. They e-mailed us but we had already left for the ship. We were glad to run into them & we talked for about 45 minutes. We made plans to cruise together next year. After they got on the tender back to their ship we did alittle shopping. We were disappointed that there is no liquor store at the pier. If you want to buy liquor, you have to go downtown. We caught a tender back to the boat. We left Cozumel around 7:00. Tonight they had the Captains Circle cocktail party. We went to the party then we went to dinner. Tonight was steak & lobster night. Our table mates were suppose to go to Sterling steak house tonight, but they changed their minds because they found out we were having lobster. They were alittle late for dinner but that was fine with us. DH & DB wore jeans to dinner again with no problem. One of our female table mates ate 7 lobsters. When we were ordering dessert, she ordered another lobster for dessert. We had a great time with our table mates. This was the last night we were going to see them because they were going to Sterling steak house on friday. We took pictures with them. After dinner we went to the Princess theater & saw Cinematastic. We enjoyed the show. Then we went to the final try outs of Princess pop star. While the try outs were going on they had the Champagne waterfall party,so we missed it. We then went to skywalkers & met up with Kristi & her group (we met her on CC). We stayed until about 1:30 then went to bed.

Friday was a sea day & last day on the boat. We had arranged a CC meeting at the wheelhouse at 10:00. Only about 16 people showed up. We exchaned gifts from our home towns. Some people got some interesting gifts. After the meeting we went to the lido deck & spent most of the rest of the day. We hung out with Kristi & her group. We watched the pool games which were funny. Around 4:00 we got cleaned up & went to the wheelhoue for some trivia. We then went back to our cabin to pack & get ready for our last dinner. We saw our room steward Alfonso & gave him an extra tip for the great job he did. We took some pictures with him and went to dinner. After dinner we said our good byes to our waiters & gave them an extra tip for the great service. Then we went to the Princess pop star finals. Afterwards we went to skywalkers for one last time. We left around 1:45 to go to bed.

On Saturday we got up around 6:45, got dressed & went to breakfast. After breakfast we went back to our cabin & got our carry ons & went down to the Vista lounge to wait for our color to be called. We got off the ship around 12:00. Went to get our luggage & had to wait for a porter. After we found a porter, we waited in line to go through immagration. Then we got out to find the EZ Cruise bus. The porter deopped our luggage off by the EZ Cruise sign. We tipped the porter & we only had to wait for about 5 minutes. Our driver was Captain Mike again. When we got to the parking lot, he unloaded all the luggage & told us to get the car & pick it up. We tipped Captain Mike & left from home.

Here are some observations we made:

No chocolate milk in the buffet. You had to go to the bar & pay 2.00.

You could get chocolate milk in the dining room at breakfast but it was warm.

If you ordered chocolate milk from room service for breakfast, it was hot chocolate.

You could order a hot breakfast from room service. All you had to do was write in your selection. We ordered eggs, bacon, toast & french toast.

I requested green beans or lima beans every night for dinner & I got them.

The steak in the dining room was tough sometimes.

There was no karakoe on the ship except at the Princess pop star try outs.

We did not feel there was enough to keep us busy during the day.

We miss the bar waiters in the dining room.

The only day we got our picture taken when we got off the boat in port was Cozumel.

No frozen yogurt during the hour ice cream is served in the buffet (3:30-4:30).

We did buy the coke card for 31.80. We got our money's worth. Sometimes the coke tasted alittle flat, but most of the time it was good. We never had a problem getting a soda. They have different sizes. We always asked for a large & got it.

There were too any changes while on board (ex: 2nd formal night changed from thursday to tuesday, port times changed while on board).

When our port time in Costa Maya was changed, we went to the pursers desk to see what time we were to meet for our excursion & they did not know the port time was changed.

We did not get our invitation to the Captain's Circle reception.

They did not push the drinks on the lido deck & in the theater. It was hard to get a drink in the theater.

Overall we had a good cruise, but it was not the best we've had. We did not think the cruise director Trevor was that good, but his staff was great. We had great service through out the ship. It appears what ever you wanted all you had to do is ask. We will still sail Princess again. We did do an open booking with the future consultant.

If you have any question please ask.

hey!. thats so much for the review. im going on the same cruise in january. did you keep any patters? any chance you would scan and email them to me? i would love to see them.

Hi ..

Just Curious why it took till 12:00 noon to get off the ship .. We're you guys one of the last groups ??

What time did they start the debarking process?

Once again thanks for a solid review.

Srpilo

Here are a couple of things I forgot to mention.

The size of the formal pictures is 8x6 but you can get them made into 8x10 for the same price of 21.95.

There was nothing to do after midnight except go to the disco.

You went back to Hell? Living dangerously! Well, I guess you had a round-trip ticket this time.;)

Great news about the jeans!

The casino wasn't an after midnight choice?

Lima beans? Yuck. But green beans are good and a hot room service breakfast outstanding!

Any pizza? Did you try?

The ship sure doesn't sound like it gets anywhere on time. :(

Only 19 more days for meeeee...

The casino was open and willing to take all "donations" - which is all we ever do. Philip ate the pizza and said it was ok. The pizza was not 24 hour as we were accustomed to. My biggest problem was with the pictures - they use digital technology yet the majority of my pictures came back with my eyes closed or looking like I was "out there". They could have looked at the picture and deleted and tried again. This would save cost - they print bad pics and we don't buy. They also need to make a better attempt at getting the "port" pictures taken for ALL who go to the port. We had short stays in the majority of ports and it would have been nice to have a picture at least. I guess if that's the worst we still are doing great. Eileen has enough pictures for our memories - Thanks Eileen!

Bill, you know the casino was open but I don't like loosing my money. I did have 1 piece of pizza & it was ok, I've had better. Alan & Philip didn't want to go back to hell, but the only thing we did there last year was try to fiqure out how to get back to the ship so we booked a tour at the pier.

Are you doing traditional or personal choice dining? If you do traditional, try to request Lazslo. We had great service & alot of fun at dinner. Don't forget the ice cream in the buffet from 3:30-4:30 every day. If you order chocolate milk for breakfast in the dining room or from room service make sure you tell them you want it cold. We took about 500 pictures so I am in the process of downloading them all so I can put them on webshots. I hope your cruise is more organized than our was & have a great time. I do expect a review & pictures.

EKELLEY, I noticed that you mentioned you previously cruised Carnival. I've only been on carnival cruises and really enjoyed them. Considering doing the Grand Princess but not for sure how it compares. What do you think?

We too have only sailed with Carnival prior to sailng on the Grand Princess last week. We love Carnival and we liked the Grand. She is a pretty ship and some really good points - a little disorganized at times but overall we had a great time. Give them a try.

Thanks for the informative review.

We sail on the Grand Princess December 10.

Three questions please:

1. In Galveston did you tender to the ship?

2. In Cozumel, which pier did the tenders go to? (And how did you find Cozumel after the Hurricane?)

3. How difficult is it to make reservations at the Speciality restaurants?

Thanks for the info! This is tenth cruise on Princess, but first out of Galveston.

Eileen,

There will be NO shortage of pics, but the wordz may be lacking.

As someone else asked, why were you so late debarking? Was it really that slow or did you just piddle.

We are on the Politically Correct dining plan - thought it might be easier with ages ranging from 19s to 80s and a couple of birthdays.

The casino should make a better refuge from my nieces than the disco.

be3, I have enjoyed all the ships I have sailed on. I think a cruise is what you make it. We have had great service on all the cruises & you really can't comment on food because everyone's taste is different. We did have some problems on this cruise with tendering, ports cut short & we didn't really think there was enough to keep us busy, but we still enjoyed ourselves.

ifiwerenotupontheship, We did not tender in Galveston. In Cozumel we tendered to the Puerta Maya pier. You could still see damage from the hurricane, but the beach is still beautiful. We did not eat in the speciality restaurants, but our table mates did & they didn't say anything about having any problems with reservations.

Bill, Debarking was really slow. While we were waiting, we did hear them announce that due to congestion at the pier debarkation would be slow.

Eileen

Tender to the ship in Galveston? Have you lost your mind, or was this meant as a joke?

Bathrobes... What about bathrobes?

Bill, We asked our room steward or bathrobes the first day & he said he could get them for us by the next morning. When we got back from breakfast on Sunday they were laying on our bed. What cabin are you in? What day are you arriving in Galveston?

Big time splurge. We have junior suites.

Current plans are to arrive in Galveston Fri Dec 23. Won't get to Hobby until near midnight on the 22.