Golden 3 night West Coast - The Good and the Bad (Mr Grumpy, The Micro-Shower)

[Willman]

We were visiting our Daughter in LA so we decided to take a cheap midweek cruise (3-31 to 4-3) while out West. Price was great and had no expectations.

 

 

Embarkation: The Bad - Arrived at San Pedro around 11:30 to a nearly full parking lot. The line to check in was about 50 people and took about 20 minutes. Received cards and found out my cabin had been changed. No email, text or call - A complete surprise. Was handed a boarding group 6 card and went through security.

The waiting area was packed and the first group did not start boarding until 12:45. Waited, no big deal, and our group boarded around 1:30. There was another big line in the gangway to get on the ship.

Never found out why embarkation was late.

 

 

The Good – I guess they handled the crowds well.

 

Room: The Good – We really liked how a small inside is set up with the large closet/dressing area. It was worth sacrificing a chair/couch near the bed. A room that small is only really big enough to get ready to go out and to sleep. Furnishings and fixtures were worn as expected.

 

 

The Bad- The bathroom is small, but Princess must have the smallest showers at sea. What a joke. Constantly banging my elbows on the walls and controls - terrible design. Why not sacrifice a couple square feet somewhere else in the cabin to have a usable shower? Good luck shaving your legs ladies. I am 6’ 1” 200 lbs, how can a truly large person fit in that space? There would be no room for the water! The shower size would really make me think about investing in a longer Princess cruise. Are all the Princess ships like this?

 

 

Good/ Bad – They caused me concern when they surprised me at check-in with an inside to inside upgrade. My new cabin shared a wall with a mid-ship elevator so I was concerned about noise. All turned out well because the cabin was quiet and it is a great location.

It turned out well for us, but changing someone’s cabin at check-in with zero notification could cause someone a lot of stress. Especially the many control freaks on these boards (of which I am one).

 

 

Dining: The Good – First night we got a table for two with little wait by arriving at the deck 6 room when it opened around 7:20. Had a friendly, hard working waiter and he really hustled so we made the 8:30 production show. All three nights we enjoyed the food and found it as good as Celebrity’s.

 

 

The Bad – The 2nd night we were seated at a table for 6. Dinner took 2 ½ HOURS!! The waiter never spoke to us! No hello, only a stressed out frown the entire time. “Mr Grumpy”, and his rarely seen assistant seemed very unhappy and overworked. Fortunately, we had good table mates.

 

Also the ATD line was huge at times. We had no problem but saw others with long wait times in 50+ people lines.

 

 

 

Good / Bad – The 3rd night we made reservations for 3 at 7:15 and were seated quickly. Guess what waiter we get? Mr Grumpy from night 2!! He throws the menus at us and disappears. I tell my wife I am not doing this again. I get up and appeal to the head waiter for a different section. We were moved and ended up with a great waiter/assistant.

Note: We brought out own wine on night 3 and was not charged corkage. The chocolate raspberry mouse on the 50th anv menu was the best dessert that I have had on a cruise.

 

 

Buffet: The Bad – The buffet has to be the worst design of any major cruise line. The food area is a small, cramped, enclosed “corral” with one entrance and one exit. There is simply not enough room in this confined area to handle the crowds. One morning the line was out to the pool deck!

 

 

The Good- We liked the food. The seating area was very spacious and the service was good.

 

 

Shows: Bad – the show “Caribbean Caliente” was the worst production show I have seen on a cruise ship (and we go to all the shows when we cruise). Dancing was fair but the singers were the weakest we have heard. It was also very uninspired. Thought the main theater was drab with almost all dark maroon coloring, low ceiling and strange, dull entrances which have stairs at all entrance points.

 

 

Good – The British Invasion show was better. It still suffered from below average singing but the production value was much higher. The comedian, ventriloquist, and band were good, but nothing special. We had fun at the 70’s dance party.

 

 

Ensenada =Bad. Enough said here. However, if you are in the market for a leather beer can holster, then this is your shopping paradise!

 

 

Other notes: Ship was in good shape for its age. Public bathrooms were very poor compared to Celebrity’s.

I heard warnings about how small and crowded the theaters are on Princess ships. Surprised when the shows were only ½ full.

 

 

The crowd was very mixed with lots of children. I saw no problems with bad behavior. Of course, I made no attempts to get near the pools and hot tubs because they were packed with kids.

 

 

Food, staff and service was good.

 

 

 

2 for 1 drinks at Skywalkers each night from 10 to 11.

 

 

Disembarkation was great. Only 20 minutes from our designated departure time to outside of the terminal.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review. :)

 

Had you checked your personalizer prior to the cruise you would have seen the cabin change. They don't change at the pier, it was already done prior. ;)

 

Hope you contacted someone onboard to express your dissatisfaction with the DR experience.

Also fill out the cruise survey that comes via e-mail.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[Willman]

Thanks for the review. :)

 

Had you checked your personalizer prior to the cruise you would have seen the cabin change. They don't change at the pier, it was already done prior. ;)

 

Hope you contacted someone onboard to express your dissatisfaction with the DR experience.

 

I did not log on to the Princess website several day prior to our cruise. I was too distracted by the perfect SoCal weather. Only complained about the poor dining experience when I explaining why I wanted to be moved to another section

[Colo Cruiser]

I did not log on to the Princess website several day prior to our cruise. I was too distracted by the perfect SoCal weather. Only complained about the poor dining experience when I explaining why I wanted to be moved to another section

 

Its always good to let them know what a bad interactive (or lack of)experience that you had with this wait staff. How else will they know, and I am sure it will continue unchecked. :(

[shredie]

Having sailed on the Golden four times, I feel like an expert. :) The bathrooms in the mini suites and full suites are larger. The tiny showers are somewhat of a running Princess joke. The short cruises have been doing lots of upgrading of rooms, it seems. I think they swap them around until the last minute. I will agree with you that "Caribbean Caliente" needs to be retired. It's an awful mess with no coherent theme and odd songs. The degree of talent on the ships will vary, but I have a suspicion they have been trying out the newer talent on the shorter cruises. There is a waiter in the Traditional dining room who is not a happy camper, and I have seen him waiting at other tables. I've managed to get some good ones on the Golden myself. Anytime dining has lots of problems (at least it seems to to me) so I always do traditional. The buffet is, indeed, a tiny little mess. On some of the other ships, they have remodeled the buffet to give it a little more room, but that hasn't happened on the Golden. I would say some of the issues you had were influenced by the shortness of the cruise. I was on the Golden in January for two weeks and found things much better than the short cruises I have taken on her.

[SadieN]

Princess' ATD is horrible. Best to go at off hours. It's ok that they take reservations but they do not check to see if pax actually are ATD or assigned dining pax who didn't make their assigned time.

[Willman]

Princess' ATD is horrible. Best to go at off hours. It's ok that they take reservations but they do not check to see if pax actually are ATD or assigned dining pax who didn't make their assigned time.

 

Thanks to the info on these boards, I knew when to go to ATD without long waits.

 

They checked my card at the dining room door 1 out of 3 nights.

[joybook]

It's good that you expressed the good as well as the bad. Of course it is only your expectations versus your actual experience. We did 31 days in an inside cabin on the Golden Princess in December/January and had no complaints except maybe with the Cruise Director. Everyone has their opinion of course. We are Platinum so we have had a few cruise experiences.:)

[lovevacadays]

Thank you for your review. You just never know what to expect when cruising these shorter cruises. I cruised the Golden back in November 2014 on a 3 day cruise and it was great. Some of the best food I have had on a Princess cruise. Then in January on the Crown Princess not so good food that was always lukewarm.

[lovevacadays]

It's good that you expressed the good as well as the bad. Of course it is only your expectations versus your actual experience. We did 31 days in an inside cabin on the Golden Princess in December/January and had no complaints except maybe with the Cruise Director. Everyone has their opinion of course. We are Platinum so we have had a few cruise experiences.:)

 

I disagree with you. You can go into a cruise with minimal expectations and not have it be the best cruise. Actual experiences do happen. I do think the majority of people try to make the best of some of the challenges that can arise but things can happen that do affect your cruise.

 

Not sure why your Platinum status would be mentioned in relation to the OP's thread??

[DrivesLikeMario]

The showers in the inside, outside and regular balcony cabins are all basically the same (maybe 1-2" difference, max). They are terrible. The only way I can shave my legs is by sticking my leg out of the shower and putting it on the toilet seat. Water gets everywhere but at least I have a nice, smooth shave. After so many Princess cruises, you get used to it and find ways to cope.

 

Cunard's inside cabin showers are awesome. Also, Celebrity's are really good too. They're pie-shaped and that little extra bit of room makes such a big difference.

 

Make sure you do your online survey that is emailed to you and let them know about the wait staff. Give specific information like table number, name of waiter and country he's from to help them pinpoint who it was.

 

Thanks for the review. For the little cruises, you just can't expect too much IMO. They're a nice little getaway and that's about it.

[Willman]

Overall it was an enjoyable cruise. The shower size and buffet design issues are critiques which come from experiences on other ships. They just were poor in comparison.

 

The ATD waiter problem was just random luck.

 

The cruise director was very forgettable.

[CI66774]

The showers in the inside, outside and regular balcony cabins are all basically the same (maybe 1-2" difference, max). They are terrible. The only way I can shave my legs is by sticking my leg out of the shower and putting it on the toilet seat. Water gets everywhere but at least I have a nice, smooth shave. After so many Princess cruises, you get used to it and find ways to cope.

 

Cunard's inside cabin showers are awesome. Also, Celebrity's are really good too. They're pie-shaped and that little extra bit of room makes such a big difference.

 

Make sure you do your online survey that is emailed to you and let them know about the wait staff. Give specific information like table number, name of waiter and country he's from to help them pinpoint who it was.

 

Thanks for the review. For the little cruises, you just can't expect too much IMO. They're a nice little getaway and that's about it.

 

I beg to differ about the Cunard Showers. I spent 20 days in an inside on the Queen Mary II and never experienced a smaller shower in my life (and I'm not big).

[elliair]

The Bad- The bathroom is small, but Princess must have the smallest showers at sea. What a joke. Constantly banging my elbows on the walls and controls - terrible design. Why not sacrifice a couple square feet somewhere else in the cabin to have a usable shower? Good luck shaving your legs ladies. I am 6’ 1” 200 lbs, how can a truly large person fit in that space? There would be no room for the water! The shower size would really make me think about investing in a longer Princess cruise. Are all the Princess ships like this?

 

I open up the shower curtain, soap my leg up and I put my foot on the toilet seat and shave my leg(s). Easy Peasy. But I know what you mean by the showers being small.

 

We're going to be on the Golden Princess to Alaska next month. Looking forward to being on a new Princess ship for us. We'll be on the Crown Princess Saturday this will be another new ship for us to experience.

 

Enjoyed reading your review.

 

P.S. As for the shows, we quit going to them a long time ago. They all reminded us of high school theatrics. I forget which ship we were on, but the dancers all had cut out cardboard cars around them. I thought that was kindergarten theatrics and that was the last time we ever saw a show. Give us a good comedian and we'll see that. I hate getting up and leaving at a bad performance.

Edited April 17, 2015 by elliair

[Willman]

Enjoyed reading your review.

 

P.S. As for the shows, we quit going to them a long time ago. They all reminded us of high school theatrics. I forget which ship we were on, but the dancers all had cut out cardboard cars around them. I thought that was kindergarten theatrics and that was the last time we ever saw a show. Give us a good comedian and we'll see that. I hate getting up and leaving at a bad performance.

I have enjoyed every production show I have been to. Some are fair and some good - Until I saw "Caribbean Caliente". I now know where your comments come from.

 

Also the theater entrance was really uninspiring. Nothing "grand" like on other ships - just a small sign some stairs.