Emerald Princess review

[Brisbane41]

My Emerald Princess review has been published - http://www.cruisecritic.com.au/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=565127

 

My verdict is that I prefer ships like the Diamond Princess, Golden Princess and Sapphire Princess that I have been on over this ship due to its excessive crowding.

 

I found the children on this cruise to be few but feral and out of control. In comparison I have done a cruise on Diamond Princess in Japan during their school holidays and have seen how disciplined well behaved children can be. It must be an Australian thing. That being said I will be taking a 10 year old with me when Diamond Princess comes back to Australia.

 

The review covers most of my thoughts. I have left out that the bar service was the only way to get a drink with drink waiters not being around much on the open decks and in public rooms.

 

The Entertainment was same as usual but schedules were poor. The food was great on the upper decks and buffet with excellent quality. I was only not impressed with the Australian version of the menu. Not seeing the baked New York Cheesecake on the menu for dessert was a let down considering it was a Princes favourite. Replacing it with a rather crappy pavlova because they think Australians like that crap is rather disappointing. I would rather see a uniform standard on Princess with foods like that staying on the menu.

 

Emerald Princess would always be my last choice to cruise on along with Crown, Ruby and Caribbean. What even makes the ships sound crowded is the fact that Celebrity Solstice is larger than these ships and has less passengers.

 

The majority of the cruise was very good with the same Princess standard maintained. There were a few things that they could have done better and I will always be returning to the cruise line in the future. At this stage I have 3 more cruises with Princess booked this year and they are all on the Diamond Princess and Golden Princess.

[ozmonkeyboy]

HI Brisbane41,

 

I think I was on the same cruise as you in January over to New Caledonia and Vanuatu on the Emerald.

I do agree with some of your comments and others have a different opinion. I travelled with my family on this one (including my children of 11 & 9). I also add my thoughts (if I may);

 

 

The Diamond Princess does feel more spacious over the Emerald (& Ruby which I have been on) due to the lower passenger ratio. However, overall we were not too bothered by "excessive crowds". We just got used to picking times and places that avoided peak traffic, and that helped. We avoided the buffet at peak times, it was just too crowded to get a table and also the buffet itself needs the newer polished designs that Princess now have on some of their other ships. The theatre filled up quickly most nights, the piazza was always a busy hub but we were able to find a seat on most occasions we wanted one (this was not the case on a recent Golden Princess Cruise) and as long as you didn't turn up at events at the last minute there was always a space to be had.

 

Some children were out of control and rude, but I have seen this more and more lately on cruises (and in everyday life). I was told by staff at the kids club that there were over 500 kids on this particular cruise (large number for Princess, but it was in the holidays), but for this number, the vast majority were no problem. Thankfully my children were given a few positive comments by others about their politeness and behaviour

 

The food (as subjective to each reviewer as it is) we found to be good, not great, not bad. We ate in the dining room most nights, service was good, but agreed the lack of Princess Favourite Meals was disappointing. Being on other recent Princess cruises, this seems to be the common theme now. We also ate in the Crown Grill, steaks and ambience were not as good as on the Golden Princess (which we last were on), but accompaniments to the steak were much better. Didn't try Share, and when visiting the great Adagio Bar nearby, Share rarely looked busy.

 

The tenders on the Emerald Princess are certainly influenced for the worst by passenger numbers. Because some of the island stop required tenders, there were very long wait times. Being Elite helped us, but I did feel sorry for others after hearing some horror stories at Champagne Bay.

 

My kids enjoyed Kid Clubs for the times that they were there. They have been on a number of cruises now with Princess, and were happy to see some different activities being done on this ship, over the Sun class ships which tend to offer up the same program of activities each time.

 

The Magic to Do show was on this trip in the Theatre, and my opinion was that it was the best Princess Show I have seen. You could tell the vast difference between that production and the standard "Princess Singers & Dancers" show. Just my opinion, others may disagree.

 

I do agree with the lack of waiters roaming around offering service. First time I have encountered that missing on a Princess Cruise.

 

I have more thoughts, but my time is limited.

We enjoyed the cruise and like the Grand Class Ships of Princess, and the additional facilities that they offer (over the smaller ships). Vines is great if you enjoy wine (they serve the Wine perfectly), the international Cafe is a great concept ( both missing on the Diamond if memory serves correctly) and there were a few other small areas they one could great away from the masses if needed. All the ships offer something different, none are fully perfect, but any cruise is better than no cruise, that's why we all continue to enjoy cruising.....

[MicCanberra]

Thanks for both lots of thoughts/reviews.

[Womble99]

Did you find the entertainment program was lacking due to the ships layout? We thought there seemed to be a shortage of evening shows as there was only one real theater layout. Club fusion just didn't seem to be well laid out to host shows like the Vista lounges on other ships, so on the cruise we had it seemed there was only the the single 7 & 9pm shows which was disappointing considering the larger volume of passengers.

[SY7DNEY CRUISER]

Yes the ship was full and crowded. 3600 passengers on board !!!

Particually the pools, the horizon court and plaza were crowded

There was no effort made to stop the children diving or bombing into the pools. However apart from this they were pretty well-behaved .

It was possible to find quite spots such as the spa pool when it was open and the aft terace pool.

The food on the whole was good, especially the crown grill.

The six course dinner in the share was average and I don't think I would go back again. No trouble in getting a table in any time dinning.

The entertainment was excellent particularly the magic show and the voice at sea

 

The entertainment director was very energetic seen all around the ship and also will put together a good wake show.

 

There were problems with tendering at Champagne Bay By ten o'clock there were 500 people waiting and a two hour wait to tender.

There were six tender boats in operation however only one jetty

If they are going to continue to send large ships to Champagne Bay they need to build a another jetty

On the whole I'm very enjoyable cruise

 

Princess has a good product.

[ozmonkeyboy]

Did you find the entertainment program was lacking due to the ships layout? We thought there seemed to be a shortage of evening shows as there was only one real theater layout. Club fusion just didn't seem to be well laid out to host shows like the Vista lounges on other ships, so on the cruise we had it seemed there was only the the single 7 & 9pm shows which was disappointing considering the larger volume of passengers.

 

Yes, I do agree with your statement.

Club fusion very under-utilised and surely more could be done there.

For me personally, we didn't go to a lot of the shows in the theatre/explorers as had seen them before, but I could understand others saying the entertainment was lacking.

[ozmonkeyboy]

Yes the ship was full and crowded. 3600 passengers on board !!!

Particually the pools, the horizon court and plaza were crowded

There was no effort made to stop the children diving or bombing into the pools. However apart from this they were pretty well-behaved .

It was possible to find quite spots such as the spa pool when it was open and the aft terace pool.

The food on the whole was good, especially the crown grill.

The six course dinner in the share was average and I don't think I would go back again. No trouble in getting a table in any time dinning.

The entertainment was excellent particularly the magic show and the voice at sea

 

The entertainment director was very energetic seen all around the ship and also will put together a good wake show.

 

There were problems with tendering at Champagne Bay By ten o'clock there were 500 people waiting and a two hour wait to tender.

There were six tender boats in operation however only one jetty

If they are going to continue to send large ships to Champagne Bay they need to build a another jetty

On the whole I'm very enjoyable cruise

 

Princess has a good product.

 

Yes the two main pools were out of control with no staff supervision that I saw. I think when I was on the Golden Princess late last year, that did have staff watching over the pools all the time, which was a new concept that I had not seen before - that was much better.

 

Yes agree, if the bigger ships are going to be calling into smaller islands, then they do need bigger jetties to accommodate at least two tenders at a time. Champagne Bay tender which is normally a 10min trip turned into over 30mins in the tender, and that's on top of the long wait to get on one.

 

And yes, still happy with the Princess Product also :)

[Brisbane41]

My main gripe with the entertainment was that the shows were pushed forward instead of their usual time like 8pm and 9:45pm. I stated this in the review in the link above. That said I enjoyed the shows. Having shows at 7pm and 9pm was just too early and conflicted with dining times.

 

As for children, I think Princess could have made announcements. Particularly when you do not have a choice and the Lotus pool is roped off and closed and the two main pools are flooded with children being disruptive even after sunset was the issue. In the summer I am currently driving school buses. Children both primary and high school can be well behaved. If you give them instructions about rules they will generally follow them. The fact that Princess did not lay down the law was the big problem here. I deal with over 100 different children per day. Once they get to know me they become friendly and know the rules and behave. They will talk to me, they like to play around, be noisy and have their fun but they know how to behave on a bus. I would have appreciated Princess laying down the law or making one of the larger pools adult only.

 

I quickly learnt to get up at the crack of dawn. I could swim in the pools with no one else until about 10am instead of my usual evening swim before and around sunset. I had no issue with the tenders because I was off the ship first in every port being used to waking up early. I did not go to the late night discos as that is not my sort of thing and I do not get wasted drinking all night. I enjoy a more quiet night filled with the structured entertainment.

 

I really liked the vines wine bar with complimentary sushi with every drink. That was my favourite place. I had a few bars I used around the ship. I purchased about 4 bottles of wine from various bars and made my way around the ship each night enjoying some drinks knowing that the was a bottle of wine for me around the places I am used to going.