Emerald Princess Review from a Royal Die Hard!

[ribarfly]

My Princess Cruise Review from a Royal Die Hard!

Emerald Princess sailing April 11, 2010

After sailing 28-times with Royal Caribbean we just returned from our very first Princess cruise enjoying 7-wonderful days in the Eastern Caribbean aboard the Emerald Princess.

Travel Day/Pre-Stay:

 

We flew on Jet Blue from Boston, Ma. 4/10/10 @ 6:00am arriving in Ft Lauderdale around 10:00am, our pre hotel stay was at the Comfort Inn with shuttle service to the hotel, unfortunately check in time was not until 3:00pm so they stored our luggage and we head off to shopping malls located next to the hotel. The hotel was very nice the room was clean and the bed was comfortable, Internet service was complementary and there was a nice pool area with a bar to hangout and they we’re grilling hot dogs & hamburgers. On Saturday night our cruise critic group had a pre-dinner get together @ the Bahia Cabana restaurant we had about 6-couples the food was good and we all had a great time. The hotel talked us into using their shuttle to the restaurant for $50.00 round trip, next time I will use a cab as I am sure that it would have been about $15.00 cheaper. On Sunday morning the hotel served a continental breakfast and I made a reservation for the free shuttle to the pier for 10:00am. I would recommend the Comfort Inn for anyone staying in Ft Lauderdale.

Embarkation Day:

 

We arrived at the pier around 10:30am dropped off our bags with the porters and headed into the terminal, many people had the same idea of arriving early so Princess gave us staging number 1 and sat us down in groups. Boarding started @ 12:00pm calling our group first, check in was very fast but the terminal staff we’re not very friendly just right down to business in fact some were a little rude. I will say Princess’s boarding process was better & faster than RCL. We were on the ship by 12:15pm and to our surprise our cabin was ready, this is another thing Princess does better than RCL, it was nice to go to the buffet without lugging our carryon with us.

Our Stateroom:

 

We had a balcony stateroom on Baja deck-11 cabin-B242 port side forward, the cabin was very nice with plenty of closet space and the bed was very comfortable, the balcony was nice and it was one of the decks that were covered, we had a large fridge to keep the beers cold and a nice flat screen TV basically the same programming as RCL except for the retro show the Love Boat, the only negative was that you could not access your seapass account on the TV. Our room steward was Raual who we did not meet until day-2 when I went to look for him. He was a nice guy but didn’t want to spend time talking with you, the service was ok but nothing spectacular, we even noticed that other housekeeping staff would not talk to you as you passed them in the halls. One afternoon I tried to get some dry pool towels from the room steward and he said very abruptly “They are only delivered at night” and walked away. RCL staff has Princess beat on this one and the main reason is that unlike RCL Princess automatically adds their tips to your seapass so the staff knows what they are getting. On RCL the staff will go out of their way to make sure you are happy with their service and on RCL we have always given more then what they recommend due to outstanding service.

The Ship:

 

The ship is beautiful and I would compare it to the RCL Vision Class, we spent most of the first day exploring the ship and we did find it a bit difficult navigating the ship as some areas were hard to get to but after day-2 we had it down pretty good so finding things were a lot easier. Some of our favorite places were Horizon Terrace, Movies Under the Stars, Crooners for the martinis, Explorers Lounge, Club Fusion, Reef Pool and Horizon Court. The smoking policy was quite strict on this ship; smoking was limited to deck-11 port side fwd. the port side of Horizon Court, 4-nights in the Casino, Speak Easy Cigar Bar & balconies. I found it hard to believe that if you purchased cartons of cigarettes on board they held them until the end of the cruise but if you purchased cigarettes in the ports you could bring them back to your cabin. I want to note that no matter how many signs are posted or announcements Princess makes about not saving seats people seem to be oblivious to the rules CHAIR HOGS were out in force at the pool decks and in the theater.

Entertainment:

 

The theater was a bit small and we found that if you did not get there at least 40 to 30 minutes prior to the show you couldn’t find a seat. We went to 1 of the 3 production shows and it was pretty bad, the singers would have never made it thru American Idol in fact some of the passengers that sang at the Karaoke were a lot better. Without a doubt RCL beats Princess for production shows thank God for the comedy shows they were excellent. Cruise Director Tim Donovan and his staff were excellent and we did enjoy all the game shows and trivia put on by the cruise director staff, they put on a show called London Pub Night that was very funny. We sang Karaoke and they had a great selection of songs, Princess has RCL beat on this one. A big favorite of ours was MUTS or movies under the stars real great to see a late night movie like Sherlock Holmes, Nine, Avatar, Blind Side and Did You Hear About The Morgan’s. The Casino was not as big as what you would find on RCL and we didn’t hear of as many big winners as you do on RCL, there were at least 3-nights smoking was not allowed in the Casino it was nice but I did noticed that the casino was not as busy on those nights.

Dinning & Bars:

 

We found for the most part the food was excellent; we had early seating 6:00pm but only made it to the dinning room one night. For the most part we ate at Horizon Court or Café Caribe, which stayed open until 11:00pm, a big plus over RCL as was the food choices, the International Café for coffee and Escapes Café for quick snacks was located on deck 5. I read so much on the boards that the coffee onboard Princess was just terrible to the contrary we find it quite good compared to RCL. As for the bars we found the drinks to be watered down, I had quite a few Vodka & Cranberries the wife was drinking Martinis and we never got a buzz, never had that problem on RCL. We also found that the bar staff was not as friendly as what we have experienced on RCL.

Ports of Call & Ship Shore Excursions:

 

Princess Cays - This is just a day at the beach with a barbecue lunch on the island operated by Princess, ship was at anchor and the passengers are tendered to the island. Weather was a mostly cloudy 80deg. with intermittent showers and occasional sunshine. We made a quick visit and went back to the pool on the ship.

St Maarten – Arriving at port there were 5-ships docked including the RCL Oasis, Celebrity Solstice, Carnival Dream and a small ship the Sun Shadow so the port was quite busy and crowed. Weather was partly cloudy 80deg. we booked the Orient Bay beach Rendezvous thru Princess having been there many times it was excellent as always and I highly recommend this tour.

St Thomas - The shipped docked at Crown Bay and the Emerald was the only ship in port that day the weather was mostly cloudy 80deg. with showers in the am but cleared later in the day. We booked a ship excursion Kayak, Hike & Snorkel Adventure and had a great time I highly recommend this tour.

Grand Turk – We docked along side the Carnival Glory the weather was partly cloudy 80deg. We booked a ship shore excursion, horse back riding along the beach and had a great time, I highly recommend this tour. We head back to the port and stop at Margaretaville, this is the only bar close to port on the Island and it is a big tourist Rip Off, a small plate of nachos 1-beer and a small margarita $36.00, a bucket of 7-beers $40.00. This will be the one and only time we will go to Grand Turk.

Debarkation:

 

Princess does this very well, you are given your colored luggage tags and told what time and where to meet to get off the ship, no announcements are made if you miss your time then you will wait till the last group gets off. Our meeting place was in the Casino debark time was 9:00am they had coffee and juice and the Speak Easy cigar bar was open so you could have a smoke. We were escorted off at 9:01am caught a cab to the airport $17.00 I gave the driver $20.00, checked in with Jet Blue curb side, flight left on time at 1:40pm arrived at home 6:30pm.

Overall Impression:

 

Like I said we have been on 28-sailings with Royal Caribbean and we are big fans and this was our first Princess cruise, overall I think the two lines are equal, some things RCL does better and some things Princess does better the bottom line is that we will definitely cruise with Princess again. I would also like to note that although Princess does not recognize Cruise Critic like RCL does I contacted Princess prior to our sailing requesting space for our CC group Meet & Greet and to possibly have a ship staff member greet us, they were very helpful and the Cruise Director Tim Donovan took time out of his busy day to stop by and say hello, so a big thanks to Tim & Princess for that. And lastly we are grateful for all the wonderful new friends we have made sailing on the Emerald.

Ron :D

 

[Clutterlady]

Thank you for your fair and honest review! Glad you enjoyed your first Princess cruise:)

[flimflubin]

Thank you for a wonderful review. I will be sailing on emerald for 10 days in september.

 

Faith

[BlueCat1105]

I'm glad to see that a happy RCI person enjoyed Princess. I hope to go the other direction, and to sail RCI in the next year or so, and although I don't have many cruises under my belt, I did enjoy Princess, so it's nice to know that they have similarities.

[cruisingallover]

Your review was refreshing. Thanks.

[Woobstr112G]

Thanks for your review. Glad you enjoyed your first Princess cruise.....:):):)

 

Bob

[regnig]

One of the most unbiased comparative reviews I’ve read. Great job! We’ve sailed RCCL once and I must admit I wasn’t anywhere near so forgiving in my review. I am surprised with your room steward’s behavior. We’ve never encountered anything but friendly staff who always greeted us by name. Wonder if Raual was at the end of his contract? That kind of behavior usually doesn’t sit well with Princess.

[Debbierpof]

Thanks for the quick review. We've gone on RCL three times and have always enjoyed it. This is going to be our first Princess cruise also, so I'm really looking forward to the love boat! Glad to hear that the embarkation process was fairly smooth (that's always a concern).

 

Re: Grand Turk -- that was one of our favorite ports! :eek: Of course, we did not go anywhere near Margaritaville (tourist trap IMHO) -- hey, we paid $28 for 2 regular-sized drinks at Guy Harvey's Bar in Grand Cayman so know that "ouch" feeling. So many other places on the island offer great food and drinks at really good prices. Sorry that you didn't get to experience that. We found cab service simple and reasonably priced (if not cheap). Hope you do go back and try GT again. :)

[Whimsy]

Enjoyed your review. Thanks for sharing.

[sherman931]

Thanks, I enjoyed reading your review, very informative and detailed.

[jagsfan]

your review was enjoyable to read, very honest, and won't raise any hackles. too many

reviews from fans of other cruise lines tend to be all criticism and little complimentary.

I enjoy RCCL and I enjoy Princess for different things, aren't we lucky to be able to!

Mimi

[parTealady]

This was also our first Princess cruise (April 11/10). We have cruised with RCCL and Carnival. We were very impressed with the Emerald Princess. The ship was elegant and well kept. We found the staff very friendly and efficient. We were fortunate to be chosen for the Chef's Table dinner - it was fabulous! We thought the food was excellent for the most part. We had a great aft cabin on the Baja deck B749 - larger than most.

 

We enjoyed each port and especially St. Thomas where we did the Castaway Girl Sail and Snorkel. Disembarkation was quite painless.

 

It's really hard to believe that there can be so many mixed reviews on the same cruise. I hope this was our first of many sailings with Princess.

 

There are photos posted on my blog - www.teaandtalk.blogspot.com

[Clutterlady]

This was also our first Princess cruise (April 11/10). We have cruised with RCCL and Carnival. We were very impressed with the Emerald Princess. The ship was elegant and well kept. We found the staff very friendly and efficient. We were fortunate to be chosen for the Chef's Table dinner - it was fabulous! We thought the food was excellent for the most part. We had a great aft cabin on the Baja deck B749 - larger than most.

 

We enjoyed each port and especially St. Thomas where we did the Castaway Girl Sail and Snorkel. Disembarkation was quite painless.

 

It's really hard to believe that there can be so many mixed reviews on the same cruise. I hope this was our first of many sailings with Princess.

 

There are photos posted on my blog - www.teaandtalk.blogspot.com

 

I checked out your blog....very well done:):)

[parTealady]

Thank you Clutterlady for your kind comment and taking the time to check it out.

[senior lady]

great review!!! what Comfort Inn did you stay at??? How did you book it, direct or on one of the on-line company's

[NicksPhilly]

Thank's for the nice non biased review.

We are NCL people,and wanted to give Princess a shot.

We are counting down the days,lol.;)

[Buffalofirsttimer4]

thanks for the great review, we board her on Sunday and are so excited :D.

I see your going on NCL Spirit-went on her 2 years ago -FL & Bahamas out of NYC-great ship.

[ribarfly]

Hi All,

I am glad that you enjoying my Emerald review, even though we are Die Hard RCL fans it is impossible to bash Princess and the few negative things I commented on have happened on RCL as well, we truly did enjoy the Princess experience and will cruise with them again ;) For those who will cruise with Princess for the first time, trust me your going to love it :) Next up will be a Bermuda cruise on NCL out of Boston, I have heard many negative things about the line but the only way to know for sure is to cruise with them.

Ron :)

[Northender]

Thanks for your nice Emerald Review and comparison to RC:) We will be sailing on the Emerald in March, 2011 and so looking forward to it.

 

The staff review has me wondering why, when we were on the Ruby (just returned a week ago) the staff there were so friendly. I commented to fellow cruisers that when I stepped out of my cabin, I stopped for a quick second and put a smile on my face. That was in preparation for all the good mornings, have a nice day, did you have a nice day, etc. etc. Our cabin steward, Salvadore, was the best we have ever had on any cruise to date.:):)

 

Does the head of staff, Hotel Manager I guess, have anything to do with how the staff acts? Maybe it starts from the top down as all the higher ups, including the Captain were readily available and visable throughout the ship.

 

Hopefully your comments will not fall on deaf ears. If it needs to be said, it should be. Thank you:cool:

[ribarfly]

great review!!! what Comfort Inn did you stay at??? How did you book it, direct or on one of the on-line company's

 

Hi Karen,

I booked the hotel direct thru Choice Hotels; I got a very reasonable rate but probably could have saved a couple of bucks thru Priceline.

Comfort Inn Airport/ Cruise Port South, 2520 Stirling Rd. Hollywood, FL (954) 922-1600

For whatever it’s worth it was a nice hotel for the price and I will stay there again.

Ron :)

[Av8tor]

Debarkation:

 

Princess does this very well, you are given your colored luggage tags and told what time and where to meet to get off the ship, no announcements are made if you miss your time then you will wait till the last group gets off.

 

I've never heard of having to wait until the last group gets off if you miss "your time." In my experience, if you don't go right when they call for your group, you can get off anytime after that. They don't let you off before your group is called because your luggage won't be available for pick-up in the terminal. If you do express walk-off, you can take your own luggage off with you pretty much anytime after disembarkation commences...

[ribarfly]

Thanks for your nice Emerald Review and comparison to RC:) We will be sailing on the Emerald in March, 2011 and so looking forward to it.

 

The staff review has me wondering why, when we were on the Ruby (just returned a week ago) the staff there were so friendly. I commented to fellow cruisers that when I stepped out of my cabin, I stopped for a quick second and put a smile on my face. That was in preparation for all the good mornings, have a nice day, did you have a nice day, etc. etc. Our cabin steward, Salvadore, was the best we have ever had on any cruise to date.:):)

 

Does the head of staff, Hotel Manager I guess, have anything to do with how the staff acts? Maybe it starts from the top down as all the higher ups, including the Captain were readily available and visable throughout the ship.

 

Hopefully your comments will not fall on deaf ears. If it needs to be said, it should be. Thank you:cool:

 

I had an issue with a couple of drink charges I made at one of the bars that I signed for without my glasses on :o totally my fault that I didn’t noticed until latter in the day. I will say that when I spoke with the Guest Relations desk they went out of their way to correct the issue; RCL Guest Relations are not always the easiest people to deal with so Princess beats them on this one.

Ron :)

[Buffalofirsttimer4]

Hi Karen,

I booked the hotel direct thru Choice Hotels; I got a very reasonable rate but probably could have saved a couple of bucks thru Priceline.

Comfort Inn Airport/ Cruise Port South, 2520 Stirling Rd. Hollywood, FL (954) 922-1600

For whatever it’s worth it was a nice hotel for the price and I will stay there again.

Ron :)

 

Ron- thanks for this info we are also booked for this hotel on Sat and I was a little nervous after reading some CC members comments in the departure forum. We don't arrive until late-after midnight. Wondering if you know if the shuttle times fill up quickly, I'm thinking we might not be able to use it to the port-maybe just take a taxi instead-any thoughts?

[ribarfly]

I've never heard of having to wait until the last group gets off if you miss "your time." In my experience, if you don't go right when they call for your group, you can get off anytime after that. They don't let you off before your group is called because your luggage won't be available for pick-up in the terminal. If you do express walk-off, you can take your own luggage off with you pretty much anytime after disembarkation commences...

 

 

You are probably right but that is what was stated on the TV and a couple of crewmembers said the same thing, probably just to scare us newbies off the ship. As for self-debarkation they were told to meet at 7:00am to be escorted off first.

Ron :)

[ribarfly]

Ron- thanks for this info we are also booked for this hotel on Sat and I was a little nervous after reading some CC members comments in the departure forum. We don't arrive until late-after midnight. Wondering if you know if the shuttle times fill up quickly, I'm thinking we might not be able to use it to the port-maybe just take a taxi instead-any thoughts?

 

 

They had quite a few shuttle buses going at different times, the first one started at 10:00am and I am sure they will accommodate you no matter what time it is, our shuttle at 10:00 am wasn't full so they have plenty of room. You could try giving them a call and see if you could set up the shuttle time before you get there.

Ron :)