Just back from Grand Princess - TA

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

I just returned Saturday (two days ago) from my TA on the Grand Princess. Bermuda, Scotalnd, Ireland, France and England.

 

Here is a quick review:

 

1. Food: mediocre at best. If you know what a salt lick is and enjoy salty foods, then you will love their food. EXTREMELY over salted to the point I was spitting food into my napkin. I guess the food was so bland they thought over salting might help. We ended up eating at the specialty restaurants and making special requests.

 

The speciality restaurants:

1. Sabatini's: VERY GOOD. Two words, and take them seriously: Pace Yourself. They fill you with LOTS of food. Great attentive service. Super Atmosphere.
   
2. Painted Desert: Daniel, our server, was excellent. Loved him. The steaks were very good. We did order them rare to get medium rare. the overcook a tad. Side dishes were okay. The Onion Soup was good. Appetizers were so so. The restaurant is very outdated and very dark. Maybe they will update it when it goes into dry dock. The price of $20/pp is DEFINITELY worth it. We enjoyed each visit.
   

BAR SERVICE:

Always good. Attentive and friendly.

 

ROOMS:

 

We chose the BA - C519 (Caribe Deck). The balcony was very big and we enjoyed it. Rooms was EXTREMLY SMALL!!!! The pictures make it look much biger than it really it. Believe me. Hardly any storage space. If you over pack, good luck! Bathrooms are tiny. and here's the bad part: Our beds were like HAMMOCKS!! Not kidding. I took pictures. The center of the bed was 4-6 inches lower than the top of the bed. My brother and I laughed till we were in tears. Every night we had to continually pull ourselves to the top of the bed, as we kept sliding down our beds.

 

SHOPPING: Okay. They are really pushing the Jackie-O stuff right now and they have a pretty good jewelry selection. Their regular stores have pretty much everything you need at a convenience store price. They don't wow you, but then again, I am not on a ship to go shopping for brand name items. :)

 

SHOWS: Very good. There were only three headline performers during our cross over and the comedian was NOT funny, unless you want to hear jokes about aches and pains and prostate problems. I heard enough just standing in the elevator! The opera singer was excellent. The regular dancers were really good. I never expect great enterainment going TA, but I thought they did a very good job with what they had.

 

Cabin Service: Just nice. Nothing that goes above and beyond that you see on Celebrity, RCI, HA or other ships, just nice and cordial. No towel animals! LOL. But they keep it clean and that all I can ask.

 

ADMINISTRATION: What a NIGHTMARE. It's like trying to talk to a wall. All they are trained to say is: "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" like trons. I swore up and down on my Caribbean Princess experience, I would think hard and seriously not to cruise Princess again, here I was dealing with the same issues. They messed up billing so bad and owed me $1500 in credit card credit but would not release THIER mistake until the last day of the cruise and credit back my account. What a joke. They sent me a box of chocolates to say they were sorry. If you need help, don't bother asking them. They are not there to help you, the admin is there to add frustration to your life.

 

COMPUTER COURSES: GREAT!!! Rachel Ichen taught the courses. I took Photoshop and Excel course. Rachel is a great teacher and I really enjoyed taking all the classes. Get the packages, 4 courses for the price of 3. This is one reason I like Princess. If RCI had these courses, Princess wouldn't see my face anymore (promise) :) Great priciing to learn as much as you do. They should have the computer course room seperate from the computer room, as Rachel had to stop repeatidly to give information to people asking how to sign up for computer time. She wasn't repsonsible for this, the computer room manager was, and she (computer room manager) was not always at her desk. But over all, it's well worth it.

 

SHIP: Old and very tired. But it's going into dry dock, so maybe they will gut it and start fresh. If not, try a newer ship. Carpeting had holes and was ripped in several areas. Two elevators in center were down the entrie time. No stairs in center of ship so you had to wait. Things were just old.

 

EXCURSIONS: Our excursions were fantastic!!! They did a great job. (probably becasue Princess wasn't running them! (LOL). All countries were great to visit. Had a super time whenever we got off the ship. Just great.

 

I grade my overall experience with Grand Princess: C (mediocre) I won't be back unless they have an itinerary that I want and no other line is doing it. Princess will now be my 10th choice when choosing a cruise.

 

Cheers

[Toto2Kansas]

Thanks for the detail review of your TA on the Grand.

 

We sailed on her a couple of years ago and we felt at that time she was getting very tired looking (so two years later, I can only imagine since her scheduled dry dock a while back was cancelled and re-scheduled). Would love to book her again for the 14 day Caribbean sailing, but we are waiting to see what happens in Dry Dock first.

 

Sorry to hear you had problems with your account onboard, there seem to be many reports lately of passengers having problems. It is a reminder to me to check my account very closely on my next cruise just to make sure all is correct.

 

Again, appreciate you taking the time to write up a review. ;)

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

Thanks for the detail review of your TA on the Grand.

 

We sailed on her a couple of years ago and we felt at that time she was getting very tired looking (so two years later, I can only imagine since her scheduled dry dock a while back was cancelled and re-scheduled). Would love to book her again for the 14 day Caribbean sailing, but we are waiting to see what happens in Dry Dock first.

 

Sorry to hear you had problems with your account onboard, there seem to be many reports lately of passengers having problems. It is a reminder to me to check my account very closely on my next cruise just to make sure all is correct.

 

Again, appreciate you taking the time to write up a review. ;)

 

 

Thanks! Yes, I agree! You must check your accounts all the time. I checked my account the 4th day and found the problem. They didn't credit my card account until 13 days later. tsk tsk. I guess I was more upset with them making such a huge mistake and not caring nor doing anything to correct it but send me chocolates to say they were sorry..thank goodness those chocolates were delicious, though. :)

[Sauvignon]

Good review, with plenty of detail and examples. However it contained several inconsistencies. So overall a Grade C.:D

[jerbeth]

I just returned Saturday (two days ago) from my TA on the Grand Princess. Bermuda, Scotland, Ireland, France and England.

 

Sorry to hear that your trip was less than you had hoped for but glad to hear tht the excursions were enjoyable. We are booked for the Crown TA next May and are very much looking forward to the Le Havre port call so that we can go to Normandy. Did you by any chance go there and if so did you book through Princess or private. Our thinking is that with the distance and time involved we would be safer with a Princess run excursion.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.

[-Lew-]

So sorry to hear you had less than a fantastic experience cruising the Grand. We have cruised on her three times in the past year or so...twice in the Caribbean and once in the Med...and had nothing but wonderful cruises.

 

I really feel your experience is not the norm. We had experienced surly pursers desk personnel on other Princess Ships, but those on the Grand were alway there to help in any way they could. We felt the crew overall was quite good. Goes to show what can happen when a bunch of contracts come to an end.

 

Wishing you a much better experience on your next cruise...

 

Lew

[BalconyGal]

How disappointing, we love the Grand and have sailed her more than once. However it has been a few years now.

I hope you enjoy sailing on your favorites.

[jerryr]

We are currently considering a Nov 2011 TA on Grand. I wonder if the dry dock will have happened by that time? We sure love the International Café on the newer ships.

 

Jerry

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

So sorry to hear you had less than a fantastic experience cruising the Grand. We have cruised on her three times in the past year or so...twice in the Caribbean and once in the Med...and had nothing but wonderful cruises.

 

I really feel your experience is not the norm. We had experienced surly pursers desk personnel on other Princess Ships, but those on the Grand were alway there to help in any way they could. We felt the crew overall was quite good. Goes to show what can happen when a bunch of contracts come to an end.

 

Wishing you a much better experience on your next cruise...

 

Lew

 

Lew, don't get me wrong. I had a nice cruise. There were a few downs and lots of ups. So it came out as a C rating. Every cruise lines has it's ups and downs, but I just wrote it as it happened or as I saw it. I am glad you like Princess as do many others. Just not me. :)

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

We are currently considering a Nov 2011 TA on Grand. I wonder if the dry dock will have happened by that time? We sure love the International Café on the newer ships.

 

Jerry

 

I wouldn't cruise them until it goes through a rehab. 2 elevators down, old furniture, we talked to several people who had hammock bads (warped severely in the middle) torn carpeting, etc...I think after it goes through dry dock and gets refitted/refurbished it will be much better and you might really enjoy it. Right now it just looked very tired. It needs a rest :)

[seamanfs]

Thanks for the review. Does anyone have a drydock date for the Grand ?? We would like to book but not until it's completed.

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

I just returned Saturday (two days ago) from my TA on the Grand Princess. Bermuda, Scotland, Ireland, France and England.

 

Sorry to hear that your trip was less than you had hoped for but glad to hear tht the excursions were enjoyable. We are booked for the Crown TA next May and are very much looking forward to the Le Havre port call so that we can go to Normandy. Did you by any chance go there and if so did you book through Princess or private. Our thinking is that with the distance and time involved we would be safer with a Princess run excursion.

 

The port workers were on strike at Le havre and were throwing firecrackers at cruisers who walked into town!!! They threw one under the feet of the nice older gentleman we walked to town with. They had smoke bombs and SUPER loud horns blowing...oh, and they blocked ALL excursion buses trying to leave the port. No kidding!! What a warm welcoming committee from France! LOL. Leave it to the French so show their a$$es. hehe. Princess had to refund several excursions including Normandy. That was such a dissappointment, as I know lots of people were looking forward to going. I think just a few buses finally were allowed to leave, but most were refused and were refunded. We just walk around Le Havre and it was a great...we really loved the city. Lots to see and very nice people (besdies the port workers, of course). When I do excursions, I ONLY do cruise excursions. I normally do an excusion at every port, except places I have been several times, like Aruba, St. Thomas, Grand Cayman... I think for the extra money you pay, it's well worth it. The guides are always wonderful and the trips always interesting with lots to see, plus if we break down, the cruiseship will wait for us!

 

I am sure you will enjoy your trip. We did really enjoy this trip, but salty food, old and tired ship, hammock beds for 16 days and a poor admin staff, it took my rating to a C. fix those and I'd give them a B+/A-. But let me throw in that everyone we met were nothing but delightful people and we made lots of new friends :) I just like to be straight forward when it comes to rating things.

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

Good review, with plenty of detail and examples. However it contained several inconsistencies. So overall a Grade C.:D

 

I don't think it was inconsistent, I thought it was fair and reasonable. But thank you, I think.... :) LOL

 

Cheers,

[skf]

Dunno what happened, we had no troubles from March 12 to 26. The Purser's Desk staff were the best I have had on a Princess ship.

Steve

[roe2ship]

From what I read on the boards, the Grand Princess is usually the ship in the fleet with several comments about the ship looking "old". It really is surprising as Princess maintains their ships extremely well.

 

I, too would be upset with the 1,500 error, what exactly was it?

 

You mentioned above and beyond service on other lines, one being Celebrity, but from your signature, you haven't cruised with them.:confused:

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

From what I read on the boards, the Grand Princess is usually the ship in the fleet with several comments about the ship looking "old". It really is surprising as Princess maintains their ships extremely well.

 

I, too would be upset with the 1,500 error, what exactly was it?

 

You mentioned above and beyond service on other lines, one being Celebrity, but from your signature, you haven't cruised with them.:confused:

 

 

Oops, it's not on there, is it!. I did the Soltice. Thanks for bring that to my attention, I will get it posted. It's too long an explanation, but I will tell you that the young man handling it was a "trainee" and messed things up and handled the transactions incorrectly. It was frustrating, but I didn't get upset with him, as people make mistakes and he owned up to it, I was just upset that Princess took 11 or 12 days to correct their mistake and could care less. To some people, that isn't a lot of money, but to me it's a big $$ mistake. :)

[Atlanta_Cruiser]

Dunno what happened, we had no troubles from March 12 to 26. The Purser's Desk staff were the best I have had on a Princess ship.

Steve

 

You must not have had a "trainee" goof up and overcharge your account and then have the admin office staff/manager not follow up with you after several requests to credit back your account. If that didn't happen, I, too would say that the pursers desk did a great job. :)

[cde48]

I just returned Saturday (two days ago) from my TA on the Grand Princess. Bermuda, Scotalnd, Ireland, France and England.

 

Here is a quick review:

 

1. Food: mediocre at best. If you know what a salt lick is and enjoy salty foods, then you will love their food. EXTREMELY over salted to the point I was spitting food into my napkin. I guess the food was so bland they thought over salting might help. We ended up eating at the specialty restaurants and making special requests.

 

 

The speciality restaurants:

1. Sabatini's: VERY GOOD. Two words, and take them seriously: Pace Yourself. They fill you with LOTS of food. Great attentive service. Super Atmosphere.
   
2. Painted Desert: Daniel, our server, was excellent. Loved him. The steaks were very good. We did order them rare to get medium rare. the overcook a tad. Side dishes were okay. The Onion Soup was good. Appetizers were so so. The restaurant is very outdated and very dark. Maybe they will update it when it goes into dry dock. The price of $20/pp is DEFINITELY worth it. We enjoyed each visit.
   

BAR SERVICE:

Always good. Attentive and friendly.

 

ROOMS:

 

We chose the BA - C519 (Caribe Deck). The balcony was very big and we enjoyed it. Rooms was EXTREMLY SMALL!!!! The pictures make it look much biger than it really it. Believe me. Hardly any storage space. If you over pack, good luck! Bathrooms are tiny. and here's the bad part: Our beds were like HAMMOCKS!! Not kidding. I took pictures. The center of the bed was 4-6 inches lower than the top of the bed. My brother and I laughed till we were in tears. Every night we had to continually pull ourselves to the top of the bed, as we kept sliding down our beds.

 

SHOPPING: Okay. They are really pushing the Jackie-O stuff right now and they have a pretty good jewelry selection. Their regular stores have pretty much everything you need at a convenience store price. They don't wow you, but then again, I am not on a ship to go shopping for brand name items. :)

 

SHOWS: Very good. There were only three headline performers during our cross over and the comedian was NOT funny, unless you want to hear jokes about aches and pains and prostate problems. I heard enough just standing in the elevator! The opera singer was excellent. The regular dancers were really good. I never expect great enterainment going TA, but I thought they did a very good job with what they had.

 

Cabin Service: Just nice. Nothing that goes above and beyond that you see on Celebrity, RCI, HA or other ships, just nice and cordial. No towel animals! LOL. But they keep it clean and that all I can ask.

 

ADMINISTRATION: What a NIGHTMARE. It's like trying to talk to a wall. All they are trained to say is: "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" like trons. I swore up and down on my Caribbean Princess experience, I would think hard and seriously not to cruise Princess again, here I was dealing with the same issues. They messed up billing so bad and owed me $1500 in credit card credit but would not release THIER mistake until the last day of the cruise and credit back my account. What a joke. They sent me a box of chocolates to say they were sorry. If you need help, don't bother asking them. They are not there to help you, the admin is there to add frustration to your life.

 

COMPUTER COURSES: GREAT!!! Rachel Ichen taught the courses. I took Photoshop and Excel course. Rachel is a great teacher and I really enjoyed taking all the classes. Get the packages, 4 courses for the price of 3. This is one reason I like Princess. If RCI had these courses, Princess wouldn't see my face anymore (promise) :) Great priciing to learn as much as you do. They should have the computer course room seperate from the computer room, as Rachel had to stop repeatidly to give information to people asking how to sign up for computer time. She wasn't repsonsible for this, the computer room manager was, and she (computer room manager) was not always at her desk. But over all, it's well worth it.

 

SHIP: Old and very tired. But it's going into dry dock, so maybe they will gut it and start fresh. If not, try a newer ship. Carpeting had holes and was ripped in several areas. Two elevators in center were down the entrie time. No stairs in center of ship so you had to wait. Things were just old.

 

EXCURSIONS: Our excursions were fantastic!!! They did a great job. (probably becasue Princess wasn't running them! (LOL). All countries were great to visit. Had a super time whenever we got off the ship. Just great.

 

I grade my overall experience with Grand Princess: C (mediocre) I won't be back unless they have an itinerary that I want and no other line is doing it. Princess will now be my 10th choice when choosing a cruise.

 

Cheers

 

It was just as bad on the Star...Had cruised on Priness prior, but the last time was in 2004. Had great experiences on them, but our last cruise on the Star, was definetly one of the worst, if not the worst that we had. Our family that we went with made it fun though!;)

 

Princess, in my opinion, has suffered since Carnival took them over!

[1 HappyCruiser]

Wow, we were on the Grand in Jan/Feb and didn't have half the problems you experienced but maybe we aren't as critical about the same things.

The ship definitely need some major renovations but nothing like you led on. The food on out trip wasn't bad at all and we didn't feel the need to spend any extra money on Specialty restaurants. Yes, it might have been a little over salted but it's the same on all the Princess ships I've experienced especially noticeable if you don't use salt at home. Why didn't you request a salt free meal?

Our mattresses were hard as rocks & if it weren't for the egg crates I'd also have been unhappy.

[A1A]

Thanks for your quick review of the Grand! We were interested to hear how you spent your sea days and what activities Princess provided.

Ken

[TomCruises]

Yes,we were on the Grand March 12 - 26 2010 and had an excellent experience.We did not see what you saw but then we weren't looking either.Our AFT Suite was wonderful!

 

We too received service from Daniel both in Sterling (Painted Desert) and in Sanctuary and he was very courteous.Salvatore,the assistant Matre'd made every evening meal a true experience serving us specially prepared pasta dishes to sample with our main courses.

 

The Pursers desk was wonderful.All concerns and issues we had were resolved to meet or exceed our expectations!

 

BTW,The Grand goes in for Dry Dock October,2011.;)

 

PS

 

Thats the thing with Celebrity,their new Solstice class has a full interactive system that allows access to billing,wine ordering etc. via beautiful new 32 inch flat screens that look and sound great!The new TV's that Princess has installed,SUCK!CHEAP!CHEAP!CHEAP!

[hospital]

Hey Atlanta Cruiser,

I got off the Grand the day you got on and I have to agree with your review 100%. Now people it is our opinion. I have traveled, Carnival, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, Costa, and Homeric. I found the rooms to be small with no storage space, thankfully my balcony made up for the closed in feeling. The food I felt was okay but nothing to brag about, but I always found something to satisfy my taste so not something that would ruin my cruise. Had a slight problem with the pursers desk, but I just said okay and went back the next day and worked with someone else and got the problem solved and it was all over 32 cents. Still nothing to ruin my cruise by. The beds in my room were hard as rocks. I got an eggcrate for my bed and it was tolerable, so again nothing bad enough to ruin the cruise. Entertainment I thought was great, even better than some of the other cruise lines I have been on, unfortunately I did not care for the Opera singer, but I did stay the whole show. Ship's elevator's were all working when we were on there for our two weeks so I'm wondering if they use the repositioning cruise to do preventative maintenance? Ports of call were great except for Trinidad, don't know why they bother stopping there it's not safe to travel outside the gates unless your on a cruise sponsored tour. Ships appearance was okay. Internet cafe was nice but manager was never there when we were there, but thankfully if you have any computer knowledge it is easy to get on. Slow but easy to get on. Now with all that being said I still had a fantastic cruise. Will I cruise Princess again, probably but as Atlanta Cruiser said the itinerary would have to something I'm interested in. Next years cruise is on Royal Caribbean. I book by itinerary and then cost. To me things would have to be extremely dismal for me not to have a good time. Any day away from work is a vacation for me and doing that vacation on a ship is heavenly. Remember people this is MY opinion only. Happy cruising!!!!

[Toto2Kansas]

hospital, From what we have been told, Trinidad is a fuel stop, cheaper fuel, but not sure how accurate that information was. It used to be only a few hours, but last time it was all day, what a waste. But I agree, probably our least liked (can't even call it a favorite) port of any in the Caribbean. But it always seems to be on those 14 day Caribbean Cruises. We don't even bother going any further than the pier (to watch a little of the entertainment they provide) anymore.

[Coral]

From what I read on the boards, the Grand Princess is usually the ship in the fleet with several comments about the ship looking "old". It really is surprising as Princess maintains their ships extremely well.

 

 

With the exception of my very crowded Crown Princess cruise recently, the Grand is my least favorite ship amongst the fleet. It comes across as "dark" to me. Primarily in the atrium. Some of the (small) changes they made to the Golden and Star seemed to make a huge difference.