Mixed Thoughts about Caribbean Princess Repo (Review w/ Pictures) May 1 - May 8, 2011

[CruiseAdict218]

Quick Background: I have never been to the caribbean and with one way airfare this was perfect. Since my dad doesn't fly it was just me, mom and aunt.

 

Embarkation Day: We drove to my aunts saturday evening and spent..well some of the night at her house. Up by 3am, we had a private driver take us to JFK arport to catch a 7am flight to San Juan. Everything went smooth and before we knew it we were in San Juan, PR.

 

 

 

The drive to the pier went good until we were right there and traffic was pretty bad. Bumper to Bumper it took a good 10 minutes or so to finally get to the pier. We were in the terminal building not even 20 minutes before we board. (my aunt is elite so all three of us had priority check-in)

 

 

 

We were on board, around 2pm can't really remember but anyway, mom got her soda card and we went to lunch at the Horizon Court. After lunch we went down to our first room which was on Plaza Deck P-305. Well the room was in a terrible shape, very dusty, many things missing, like the little table with fruit wasn't there, carpet stains, dents in the wall(but hey can't complain about it) and so on an so forth. We met our room stuert but he, couln't do much, and it's not his fault for most of it. After muster drill, we went to the Palm Dinning Room for dinner, we had second seating. Our waiters were Marco & Fernando and they were the best, I tell more later.

 

 

 

We were docked in port with the Adventure of the Seas, Carnival Victory & Carnival Miracle unfortunately, but with clouds and rain we decided to stay on the ship, and by 11pm our ship departed for St. Thomas, USVI! :D

[CruiseAdict218]

St. Thomas: This is the port I have been waiting to see, and this is deffinatly my favorite; read on to see why.

 

By 7:30am - 8am we were up and got ready for breakfast at the Horizon Court. After breakfast, we got off the ship and did a little shopping before our snokling tour.

 

 

 

Since we only had a hour, we didn't go to Havenport shopping area just some small tent shops. By 10:30am or so we went back towards Crown Bay to meet our Tour Guide. We book a four hour snokling tour on a catamaran. The Cat, had the best crew, they really knew had to make you laugh and make you feel welcome.

 

 

 

They took us to a small un-inhabited called Buck Island. After small safety lesson we were able to snokle! Me & my mom snokled and my aunt just stayed on the boat. WOW! the water was beautiful, I loved it bu very salty, lol. We were able to snokle for about an hour or so before they took us back to the port.

 

 

After the tour we got back on board, I went with my mom to watch sail away while my aunt. Today was formal night so we had to get ready for that.

 

 

 

 

 

We had dinner in the Palm again went really good, I decided to go for a walk to explore, lol and I come back to the room and some how the shower flooded, no one came to fix it and my mom had to clean it up. Mom & Aunt talk to several people to try and get a new room and it wasn't until the next when we would change rooms.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we would be sailing for Antigua. Where I really get to see the beach and water.

[CruiseAdict218]

Antigua: This was a pretty easy going day since our tour was at the beach.

 

We were up at our usual time, had breakfast the Horizon Court. After breakfast we got off the ship to get on line for our tour. We were in line for quite some time, but finally they took us to a taxi where they took us to a beach.

 

 

 

 

 

This beach was beautiful, the sand felt like velvet and the water amazing of course. We were here for about 3 - 3 1/2 hour until 1:30pm or so and the taxi took us back to port ad we did some looking around the shops.

 

 

 

 

 

I got some Eastern Caribbean Dollars thanks to a very nice woman in a shop. By 3:30 - 4pm we were back on board. We were docked with two other ships the Sereande of the Seas (Beautiful ship) and the Silver Whisper.

 

We had dinner in the Palm, and since we had two sea days ahead we did some extra activites. I watched the P!NK concert at MUTS and today was also Island Night! This is one of the things that made me love Princess, I watching on the upper deck and everything they did really made you laugh. We also changed rooms to E-109 which was much cleaner and everything was there even the chocolates!, lol

Tomorrow we had a sea day, followed by another which gave us time to relax :)

[CruiseAdict218]

Day at Sea #1: Today we had breakfast in the Island Dinning Room, and since my aunt is elite she took me too the elite private lunch. :D Around 12:30pm, my aunt & I went to the Elite Lunch, and this was very classy, and the custom menus, was a very nice thing. We sat with the ship's doctor, very nice woman. They served lobster or fruit dishes for an appitizer followed fish or broiled beef dish and for dessert was a lemon type of sponge cake which was very good. :D After that we went to the pool for the rest of the day. For dinner we ate at the Caribe Cafe since everything on the Caribbean Menu didn't sound good. After that we just hung around and did whatever, lol.

Day at Sea #2: Back to the Horizon Court for breakfast, after which wjust went to the pool, nothing special happened, weather after Puerto Rico became very good, very sunny few clouds here and there but other than that, perfect weather. :cool: We did have dinner in the dinning room since it was Italian night. Tomorrow we would arrive to Bermuda our last port of call. :( But still we had a great time.

[CruiseAdict218]

Bermuda: Our last port of call, but we deffinaty made the best of it!

 

We were off the ship after breakfast and in line for our tour, which was a Glass-Bottom boat tour. The boat was nice and it had a friendly crew. The boat itself didn't have a big glass bottom and the glass itself was hidden by doors. They took us out a small distance and it was actually near the point of the Bermuda Triangle (Spooky :rolleyes:).

 

 

 

 

 

After the tour, we walk around, did some shopping, I got my Bermudian Dollars & Sand :D and we were back on board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I watched sail away, the only ship docked with us was the Celebrity Summit, the Veendam left at 2pm from a different port. Both ships blew horns at each other and I must say the Summit has one loud horn! After that we had dinner in the Palm and the ship sailed to NYC along with the Celebrity Summit

[windsorcruiser]

Thanks for the pictures and comments... Glad you had a good time.

[CruiseAdict218]

Thanks for the pictures and comments... Glad you had a good time.

 

Np, I still have a few more things to type up

[CruiseAdict218]

Day at Sea #3: Our last day on board, boooo! :(, lol it was a good one though. We had breakfast in the horizon as usual. I went walking around the ship one last time and I came back to the room later in the day and discovered we started to pack, lol the worst part of the whole vacation, but since the stores were having a sale, my aunt got my two Princess Cruise ship models the Tahitian Princess & Royal Princess. :D The day went by too quick and before we knew it, it was dinner then bed, I meet some teens on board and we decided to stay up until 3am, we had fun but it's not so fun when you have to get up in three hours, lol. Also almost forgot to mention the Celebirty Summit followed us the whole day parallel at a distance.

Brooklyn, New York (Disembarkation Day): We were up by 6:30am or so and by then the ship was just entering the harbor, I quickly got dressed, to us pull in and three other ships were pulling in as well, Celebrity Summit in front of us and Veendam as well as Norwegian Gem behind us. We didn't get breakfast, since I get car sick, we decided to do any last minute packing before disembark. Now that was semi-bad since we had to wait in line just to get to the area we were suppose to go. Ours was the Coral Dinning Room, and it was hot, I thought mom was going to pass out(has a heart condition) but when the time came, she got a seat and felt better. After that we waited about 10 mins or so before our group was called and we were off the ship. Customs was a breeze, and we got our driver and we were on our way home.

 

I also received a menu every night, which I will scan & post at a later time

[CruiseAdict218]

Overall: I had the best time on board, if we could take out the whole room problem it would have been a perfect cruise, regardless I loved it. The ship itself needs maintaince, I know shes getting a dry dock but, alot of things need to be fixed. Princess is deffinatly my favorite cruise line, well over Carnival that is but that doesnt mean I hate them. But after this cruise in a way I wanna venture out and try other cruise lines as well both Royal Caribbean & NCL have my eye in the future but Princess is one line I will deffinatly come back too, Pacific & Ocean Princess are two ship I really wanna sail on next. My aunt is actually looking to book another Canada/New England cruise, hopefully its the 9-Day but until then can't hurt to dream :D:D:D, hope you enjoyed my review & pictures :) :cool:

I'm happy to say Caribbean is my favorite destination and St. Thomas is my favorite port of call