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LAFFNVEGAS'S First LIVE From a Princess Ship The Crown


LAFFNVEGAS

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Lisa - really glad you are impressed with the Crown. We loved our cruise on her and we are really looking forward to our Sapphire Princess cruise in May. We have a mini-suite for that one and have reached the Platinum level (finally;)). Have a wonderful time.

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Thank you so much for your live report Lisa. My wife and I had learned so much from you before we went on our first HAL cruise, and now that we are going to be on the Ruby in November, I can wait to see what your insight will provide for us. Thank you for taking the time during your cruise to provide this invaluable information for us, we truly appreciate it.

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Hi Lisa,

 

I'm following your thread..thanks!..and we will be checking into E730 when you get off. We can't wait! We've sailed several times on various ships in those prime aft minis, but not yet on the Crown. We won't sail unless we can get an Emerald deck mini, and the two last ones are icing on the cake.

 

I hope you enjoy Princess as much as we do. It's always a toss up for us between Holland and Princess, our two favorite lines after 27 cruises on most of the majors.

 

Enjoy!!

 

Judy

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Hey Lisa, glad to hear that you made it. I'm enjoying reading your "live from" reports. It sounds like you're loving it so far. I am a big fan of Princess so I'm happy to hear that you're impressed. I'll be following your very entertaining report. Thanks for posting. See you when you get back.

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Saturday January 16, 2010

Good Evening from the Crown Princess sailing on a southerly course thru the Strait of Florida.

Like I said before WOW!!!

I will start from when we took off from the hotel this morning. It was about 10:30, we were going to hire a van to take the 4 of us but between Frank calling around and the Front Desk of the hotel we could not find one so the hotel just called two taxis. We probably could have waited till the shuttle started but even Frank and Michelle wanted to get there early. They took the Yellow first taxi and we took the 2nd. From that point we did not see them till about 10 minutes after we boarded the ship first. The taxi ride over was quick and the cost was just $6.25 but I gave him a $10.00. I guess we were at pier terminal 2 with the MSC Poesia docked next to us. I had out our boarding pass and our passports. Because of my job I am fortunate to be Elite Status with a Preferred (Green top) Boarding status. Tom's was just blue but I held mine on top. With our having to say a work we were guided to the Preferred Boarding area. This area is for Elite, Suites and I believe Platinum. In this area we did wait for a while but I have to admit I totally forgot to look at my watch to clock the time of all this. Everything was so new and we were people watching that I just lost track of time but it did not seem like it took long. When we were allowed to go to check in it was for Elite passengers first which I am. So we headed in, we were one of the first and we checked in quickly. I was given my Black card and Tom his blue. We were then sent upstairs where we waited for about 10 minutes when they starting boarding our section. We were number 8 and 9 to cross the gangway. At that point Tom and I were asking "When do they take you picture"? Then we had our picture taken as we entered the ship. One thing really nice with Princess is that as so as you board you can go to your cabins but we stopped first at the Purser's Desk to sign up for the Ultimate Ship Tour. We were number one and two on the list. We waited a few minutes and Frank and Michelle were actually not that far behind us probably about 15 minutes. They then went to the Purser's Desk to also sign up. They were number 2 and 3 so I would guess we got on lol.

OK first impressions of the Piazza, it is very beautiful but strangely much smaller than I thought it would be. From the photos I have seen I expected the area to be much larger, but musicians were playing and Michelle wanted to Tango.:D The coloring of everything is light and bright, yet very classy feeling.

We then headed to our cabin to drop off the carry on. We have cabin E730 Mini Suite and based on size I knew it was about the size of the mini suite we had on the NCL Star and just a bit larger than a HAL Balcony yet much smaller than HAL's Superior Verandah Suites. Surprisingly my first impression was it felt larger than the NCL Mini Suite with far better use of space and definitely better than a regular balcony on HAL but not nearly as nice as the Superior Verandah's on HAL. But for most sailings they are much cheaper than HAL's Superior Verandahs. We of course had to check out our verandah and we were impressed and very glad we were fortunate enough to get the great location with the almost double balcony. We then headed to the Horizon Court. This is equivalent to the Lido. I had read on cruise critic that the lay out of this is not great but I have to admit that I did not mind the lay out but felt it was extremely crowded in the food area but not crowded where the tables are. Actually the seating area was far less crowded than HAL's Lido.Very easy to get a table. While the food was good, I felt the selection was extremely limited especially desserts compared to HAL. I was actually a bit disappointed. The Beverage team was working full force to sell beverages especially the Wine Tasting. At lunch alone we were asked at least 12 times and at dinner tonight another 5 or 6 times :D

After lunch we headed to the Lotus Spa, my initial impression is that it is not nearly as pretty as the Green House Spa on HAL but it is much larger or at least it appears larger. The Thermal Suite has the heated loungers but they do not look out to the Ocean like on HAL but they were very comfortable and I actually like the steam rooms much better than on HAL's The aromatherapy steam room actually works and has a much better scent than on HAL. But then half the time on HAL it is not working lol:rolleyes:. The price is also much less than on HAL. On HAL you can buy it by the day for $40.00 or by the week which right off hand I do not remember but it seems it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $150.00. This you must purchase for the whole week and it is limited to only 30 passengers and is a cost of $89.00 or $139.00 for a couple. Definitely much less than on HAL. Frank and Michelle bought the couples one and I bought a single. Unfortunately Tom is not a Spa kind of guy. But he humors us to take the Spa tour lol. Our Spa Tour guide was this cute little gal form South Africa that I cannot remember the name of the country but she looked sounded like a little Irish Lass. She will be doing my Spa treatment tomorrow morning at 8 AM and Michelle's a bit later in the morning.

After the Spa Tour and signing up for the important things we did some more walking around on our way back to the cabins. When we got to our cabin we saw that the luggage had arrived so we brought in our luggage and started to unpack. I was surprised that they did not bring your luggage into your cabin and that it appears you have to bring your own luggage into your cabin, where on HAL they do it for you. We started to unpack but we only had about 10 hangers at best, a few minutes earlier Phantavit our cabin Steward had introduced himself and told us to call him Phan (pronounced Pan) so I checked out in the hallway and sure enough Phan was there so I asked him to bring us a lot more hangers of which he did quite quickly. We were about done unpacking when Phan returned with our glass of Ice Cold Champagne. This really is a nice touch and we enjoyed it.

About this time it was close to Muster Drill or in HAL words Life Boat Drill. Our Muster station was in Club Fusions, their Life Boat Drill is quite long but thankfully you are sitting in a chair inside and not standing out in the heat wearing a Life jacket. But to HAL's defense I hear you no longer need to bring your life jacket to Life Boat Drill.

After the Muster Drill it was back up to the cabin to put away the Life Jackets, it was almost 5 and it appeared Sail Away was going to be right on time. The Carnival ship I believe left before us, then we left still behind was the Oasis, Eurodam, Costa and MSC. we wanted to be up on top for Sail Away so heard outside. We ended up toward the front on the upper deck over looking the Sanctuary. We were able to see both sides of the ship for taking some good pictures and it was fun that the ships horning was blowing. She really sounded a lot louder than any HAL ship we have been on.

It was about 5:30 and we were heading out to see with the Florida Coast behind us and we headed back to the cabins. Giveing us about 30 minutes to freshen up for our 6:00 dinner in the Botticelli Dining Room. Our waiter is Eduardo I have unfortunately already forgotten his Assistant's name. Service was very good and the selection was OK, there is a lot but seemed a bit boring to me. The mushroom soup I had was fantastic, the Hawaiian Pork was good but not fantastic. Frank and I both had the Pork Michelle had the fish and was not overly impressed and said it was dry. Tom had the Prime Rib and was very disappointed, he said it was much better at Outback last night. But the dessert menu and desserts was where the dinner really redeemed itself. I had the Vanilla Float with Caramel sauce. Oh my gosh that was good and Tom really liked the cheesecake. The coffee is actually very drinkable in the main dining room.

We decided to pass on the show for the evening and instead decided to go shopping. I have learned from HAL that if there is cosmetics you want to purchase you do it the first night or what you want may be gone. So that was the first thing I looked at because I use Estate Lauder and Lancome', Other than the estate Lauder foundation I like they had everything else. I was actually quite shocked the selection was large and extensive. Far better tahn I have ever seen on HAL. The prices were the same as on HAL but the good thing I have never seen HAL do everything was 10% off for tonight and tomorrow. Plus I got another 10% off for having an Elite card. What a deal!!!!! :-D I was actually very impressed, the selection in all the shops was far better than we have ever seen on a HAL ship. In recent years the selection of merchandise HAL carries was pathetic. The selection here on the Crown was good and the Logo clothing very nice and great quality. Tom bought a couple of shirts and I bought a cute lady's Crown Princess t shirt with rhinestones on it. I have a feeling we are not done shopping here on board ;-)

There was a time in our early days of cruising on HAL that we would say that the total cost of our shopping bill for our on board account was a direct reflection of how good of time we had. Well, in recent years our on board account was small. Somehow I do not think that will be the case this cruise, it appears we will be having a Very Good Time.

After shopping we check out Vines and the International Cafe. Both of these areas were also much smaller than I envisioned. Not sure what I had in mind but it was not what I thought they would be.

Tom and I were both tired plus Tom wanted to watch the Football games so we headed back to the cabin so I could write this and Tom could watch his games. But of course he ran up to the Pizzeria to gab a slice of Pizza and a beer and brought it back to the cabin. I declined anything more but did have to have one bite of his pizza and thought it was really good.

Well, I think that about brings us up to date on what all happened today. Over all it was a very good day. Tom and I both agree that we are very impressed over all with Princess. The check in process was far better than HAL's the Horizon Court had it's plusses and minuses but over all maybe a point or two below HAL. The cabin is really nice and I almost consider it a bit better than HAL over all. Service so far is equal to HAL. Dinner was also about equal to HAL, I cannot comment on the Entertainment yet but the shopping is Hands down better. The Shops really puts HAL to shame.

It is now 11:00 PM and Tom is a bit upset, it appears the ship just lost it's signal for the football game. But we were warned that the game would be shown as long as we had a signal.

Think I will sign off so I can post this on the internet.

Stay tuned for the next installment of How to Relax and Spend your Day in the Spa ;)

Signing off from the Beautiful Crown Princess.

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Thanks so much Lisa for a great narrative of your day onboard the Crown Princess. You are doing a fantastic job of doing a comparison of Princess and HAL. So glad that you have Elite status. You get a lot of perks that a suite would get anyway...

 

Princess, hands down, has the best pizza at sea.. But we feel there should be a warning on it saying that the pizza is very addicting and could cause wait gain during cruise!!:eek:

 

Enjoy yourselves...

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Loving your reports. Once you figure out a "system" for the buffet area, you have it made! We always choose a table first, leave a sweater or book or something there, and then go to the buffet. If the line is long for one station, we go to another - sometimes taking salad, rolls, drinks, etc. back to the table and then making another trip for the hot stuff, dessert, or whatever. We've become very fond of eating up there even at dinner 'cause we eat early and enjoy the beautiful views and it seems quieter and less hectic sometimes than the main dining rooms. We usually check the main dining room menu during the day, and then decide where we'll have dinner. Most often we have found that with not too many exceptions (lobster would be one) the buffet had most of the same items, and they have a carving station each evening - the prime rib might be better up there. Do you have Anytime Dining or Traditional?

 

Thanks again. We're really enjoying your comparison comments.

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