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Caribbean Princess Review 7/29-8/7 *WARNING - long, detailed and opinionated

DonnaK

By DonnaK,
in Princess Cruises

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DonnaK

DonnaK

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Donna ... great review(s). I will be on the Canada/NE sailing September 11 on the Caribbean Princess, and it will be my first Princess sailing. Your review makes me look forward to it even more.

 

 

Thanks so much!!! Did you read my review of Canada/NE from August 2008? That was an awesome itinerary; great ports! Enjoy your cruise!!!

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janetz

janetz

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Grand Turk 8/4/10: Well, this was the hottest day of our cruise, and the sun was beating down strongly. We docked at 1pm, and quickly walked through the Margaritaville complex to Nathan’s Golf Cart rental, located just outside the gate. We had pre-reserved 3 carts for $70 each. The kids really had a blast driving the carts (on the left side of the street)! Traffic was very light, and the cars/taxis/busses were very patient and courteous about sharing the road with us. We rode all the way up to the lighthouse and back, passing wild horses and donkeys grazing in the field and wild flamingos wading in the ponds. The views from the lighthouse cliffs were spectacular! Otherwise, there's not much else to see on the island. We passed groups of homes still recovering from hurricane damage suffered a few years ago surrounded by lots of new construction. We thought that it would be cool for our kids to return in 20-30 years when the island is all built up and its property costs a fortune, and be able to say that they experienced it back in 2010 when it was undeveloped and unspoiled natural beauty. Our only comment is that we wish we had a more detailed map of the area, which would have helped us navigate our way around more easily. In particular, we would have liked to find some of the more secluded beaches on the island.

 

We returned the golf carts after 2 hours. Although the kids wanted to keep them longer, we were hot and bothered, and ready for a swim. Because of the heat, we didn’t even take the time to browse through the shops in the cruise complex. We had no problems finding empty loungers in the shade. This was a great place for swimming! There was amazing buoyancy and I appreciated that we could stay afloat in water well over our heads exerting minimal effort or energy.

 

While golf carts were a fun way to explore the whole island, and we're glad we took advantage of this opportunity, if we visit Grand Turk again in the near future, we’d probably treat it like the cruiseline's private island. It would be very nice to spend the entire day at the beach and Margaritaville without venturing outside the complex's gate.

 

Disembarkation: We forgot to submit the forms specifying our disembarkation requirement by the Day 5 deadline. As luck would have it, we were given luggage tags that would be the very last ones called at 10:15am. The family traveling with us had a noontime wedding to attend on Long Island, so we pleaded with the Purser’s Desk for an earlier time, and after some hesitation, they found a way to accommodate us.

 

We vacated our cabin before 8am, had breakfast in the buffet, and waited in the assigned lounge until our new color was called promptly at 9am. Upon exiting the ship, an alarm sounded when I inserted my cruise card, and I was directed to customer service to “settle” my account. Now, we had been told by corporate office when the move-over offer was arranged that a check would be mailed to us for the unused portion of our OBC about 4-6 weeks after the cruise. When we checked our accounts onboard during the cruise, the pursers told us that the refund would be issued to our credit card and this was indicated on the final bill that was sent to our cabin. Well, neither of those were the case! We were not permitted to leave the ship until our account was zeroed out with a cash refund. The agent did not have enough cash on hand to give us, so a supervisor had to be called over, and money had to be retrieved from another location in “the back”. Then, the money was counted and recounted several times. The entire process was repeated for my mother’s account. It delayed our disembarkation by about a half-hour. I was a bit uneasy carrying so much money through the terminal and through customs, but it’s nice to have the cash in hand rather than await the refund check in the mail.

 

Our friends went through ahead of us, found our luggage and had it all loaded up onto a cart, with a porter standing by to breeze us through customs and immigration, and escort us to the parking lot. We were on our way home by 9:45am, and arrived at our house by 10:30am.

 

Interesting tidbit: Towards the end of our cruise, we overheard some of the crew discussing the impending visit of Princess CEO Alan Buckelew, who was scheduled to board the ship at the end of our cruise for the following sailing. This created a lot of nervous buzz and frantic preparations!

 

Summary: My observations are meant for informative purposes presented through detailed sharing our experience, and not as criticisms of Princess or of this ship. We truly enjoyed our cruise, and highly recommend it to everyone!!! We would absolutely love to cruise with Princess, and on this ship, again. However, we have already done both itineraries, and sadly, Princess has no other options for the Caribbean during the summer.

 

 

We have cruised the CB twice, a great ship, and always read the reviews. Your review was one of the best I have read. :) Cruising without having to fly to a port is great. You must consider the Celebrity Silhouette 12 day Southern Caribbean from Bayonne, NJ starting November 2011.

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The Big Booper

The Big Booper

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We have cruised the CB twice, a great ship, and always read the reviews. Your review was one of the best I have read. :) Cruising without having to fly to a port is great. You must consider the Celebrity Silhouette 12 day Southern Caribbean from Bayonne, NJ starting November 2011.

 

The Silhouette Bayonne runs starting Fall 2011 look good but are extremely pricey. Bayonne is convenient for us, not so for the Island crowd such as Donna.

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janetz

janetz

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The Silhouette Bayonne runs starting Fall 2011 look good but are extremely pricey. Bayonne is convenient for us, not so for the Island crowd such as Donna.

 

 

For us the cost is not bad at all. No flying, $$$ hotels, etc. We have no problem driving to port and we live in Mass. :D

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DonnaK

DonnaK

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The Silhouette Bayonne runs starting Fall 2011 look good but are extremely pricey. Bayonne is convenient for us, not so for the Island crowd such as Donna.

 

We'd gladly go to Bayonne! It's only slightly less convenient than Red Hook.

 

We have to cruise in the summer, so that rules out Silhouette (for next year, at least). The only reason we haven't cruised on Explorer is that it cost a lot more than the CB for the weeks we've priced out.

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Croooser

Croooser

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I find that most reviews posted are not all that valuable to us. Seems to me that many/most folks tend to either fall into the whiner category or the cheerleader category. Very few have the ability to objectively evaluate. Fewer, yet, have the ability to articulate their opinions and experiences well. Not saying that they have no value to others, just saying that I don't always feel that they provide value to us.

 

Although we are not likely to consider this ship anytime soon, your review was compelling reading for me. I have little doubt that were we to cruise on this ship, we would come away with the same impressions that you did. It is the model for a high value cruise review that identifies the good and the less than good in a constructive fashion.

 

Thanks for the effort to put this together.

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Cruisin'BusyBee

Cruisin'BusyBee

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Hi Donna: GREAT review - could you please let me know what the policy is for Princess and the pool towels? It seems that ea. cruiseline has different rules. Our last cruise on Carnival, we were told to just drop towels on floor in our cabin, replaced by steward. And yet, on RCL, there were towels at pool (had to give your cruise card initally). How does Princess handle this? Thanks :)

 

C/BB

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Colo Cruiser

Colo Cruiser

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JFK to Red Hook - 10-12 miles on The Belt Parkway. Or another 40 minutes from LaGuardia. Continental is strong in Denver? or JetBlue?

 

 

Yeah we take the Jet Blue red eye to JFK everytime.

 

Continental has only a few flights anymore from Den. Nonstops to Houston and Newark. Not much else.

They used to have 400 plus per day until the City of Denver turned down building their maintenance facility here years ago. I think they went to Indy.

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DonnaK

DonnaK

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I find that most reviews posted are not all that valuable to us. Seems to me that many/most folks tend to either fall into the whiner category or the cheerleader category. Very few have the ability to objectively evaluate. Fewer, yet, have the ability to articulate their opinions and experiences well. Not saying that they have no value to others, just saying that I don't always feel that they provide value to us.

 

Although we are not likely to consider this ship anytime soon, your review was compelling reading for me. I have little doubt that were we to cruise on this ship, we would come away with the same impressions that you did. It is the model for a high value cruise review that identifies the good and the less than good in a constructive fashion.

 

Thanks for the effort to put this together.

 

Loved your review Donna--thank you for spending the time to write such a detailed one.

 

Oh wow - thank you for your kind words! Glad you found all the details useful.

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DonnaK

DonnaK

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Hi Donna: GREAT review - could you please let me know what the policy is for Princess and the pool towels? It seems that ea. cruiseline has different rules. Our last cruise on Carnival' date=' we were told to just drop towels on floor in our cabin, replaced by steward. And yet, on RCL, there were towels at pool (had to give your cruise card initally). How does Princess handle this? Thanks :)

 

C/BB[/quote']

 

The towel policy is the same as Carnival. They are issued in your stateroom, and you just leave them on the bathroom floor to be replaced. They aren't very strict about accountability like they are on RCI.

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  • 1 month later...
Walt fan

Walt fan

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Donna: Kudos for a great objective review. A cruise is what you make of it. We were considering the Caribbean Princess for a future cruise, I am now intrigued. Our family and the friends that tag along also have to cruise during the summer months with school/college, etc. This ship will be on my future list. Also, on our June 2011 RCI cruise, I have already e-mailed Victor Balbin, who e-mailed me three times in one day:) He was most informative and polite, and we are looking forward to meeting him in San Juan. Thank you again for taking the time to post!

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