Grand Princess The Good, Bad And The Ugly

[TEXASMUNK]

Just back from the Dec 3-10, 2005 sailing of the Grand Princess.

Will do a review, but thought I would throw out a few thoughts....

The Good (not Good, GREAT)....the quality of the meals, the level of service in Da Vinci, and theambiance of the Dining. Princess did great in this area!

 

The BAD, not really bad, but not up to par....Celebrity of RCI....The "Princess Patter" but used to line the bottom of a bird cage. Layout is poor, you spend too much time searching for information. AND, it lacks a ton of information: For example....Brakfast and Lunch Dining Room Service....not included in the Patter...either the restaurant or the times. Now those who think they neeed defend Princess need to take chill pill...Every cruise line from the bottom rung to the top rung, include this information. Princess does not. Poor decision, even poorer is their stubborn attitude and refusla to improve this saily information source.

 

Another BAD? No where is a time published for putting luggage outside your cabin door. Every VERBAL announcement says "Before you retire." It seems Princess thinks everyone goes to bed before 11pm...that was the deadline for putting luggage out.

 

One more? The first week back in Galveston, disembarkation was a nightmare, people still on the ship at 11:45pm. To fix this, the carry off your own luggage passengers needed to be off at 6:30am. If they missed their time, then they were stuck till later. Surprise, since lots of folks never were given a time of 6:30am to disembark....they missed and had to wait.

 

The UGLY? Ask anyone trying to go ashore in Grand Cayman. Literally hundreds of missed tours since the ship decided to save money and use their own tenders and not contract with locals (read this MUCH larger craft) to move passengers. Belize was basically the same thing. Princess needs to either drop a port which would allow them to spend more time in a port and arrive earlier and stay later, or re-think their tender methodology.

 

The ship? Awesome. The staff? Decent. Cabin Steward? Knew how to say "Good Morning" and "Yes" never responded to a simple request...ice, fruit, restock the soft drinks, but did say yes every time we asked....WHich was nice, but not very effective.

 

Other than that, Princess does a great job...I know I harped ont he down side, but believe me, if given the opportunity to hop on the Grand Princess again, We would....After a few weeks of near mutiny by passengers over the tendering problem, they might begin listening.

[Cruise Gopher]

The UGLY? Ask anyone trying to go ashore in Grand Cayman. Literally hundreds of missed tours since the ship decided to save money and use their own tenders and not contract with locals (read this MUCH larger craft) to move passengers.

 

I have heard a lot about this lately with the Grand, in Grand Cayman. Makes me want to book our excursion through the ship so we don't miss the excursion cause we couldn't get off the ship in time.

 

The savings on booking through the local company is so much though. I think I will e-mail them and ask them.

 

When we cruised on carnival conquest in Jan we were off the ship with no waiting in line, like that! Carnival used the local tender boats though, not the ship ones.

[Live_2_cruise05]

Jim Munkittrick,

 

Great review! I noticed that you have sailed the Galaxy, and I was wondering how the Grand Princess and Galaxy compare? We are thinking about the Grand for next year. We are leaving on the Galaxy next Saturday for a panama cruise for 12 nights! Cant wait!!

 

Thanks for you help!

[Live_2_cruise05]

Sorry..double post!

[sueandkent]

Interesting statement about Grand Cayman. We were on the Star in November and we did get use of the local tender (ie. much larger boats) as well as Princess used their own. We had no problems getting off or on.

[Coral]

Princess Patter - I think it is all in what you are used to. I prefer Princess's Patter, probably because that is what I am used to. I found Celebrity's and RCCL's difficult to follow. It must just be a personal preference. I am not sure if you noticed but there usually is a green card in your cabin with the times of all restaurants for the entire week for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

As far as the ports and tenders - my guess is that there were problems because the Grand is just returning to the Caribbean and it takes several weeks to get the wrinkles ironed out in reference to the ports. I have been on the first ship to Alaska a few times and there has been some organizational chaos because of this.

 

I have been on the Grand several times in stopping in Grand Caymen and each time we only used Princess's tenders and had no problems getting off the ship in a timely fashion. Hopefully this will be working efficiently in the next couple of weeks.

 

Glad you had a good cruise!

[Dolphins]

We will be visiting Grand Cayman on January 26th when there will be no less than TEN cruise ships in port, all tendering. We won't even bother getting off the ship. The Caribbean has become "Too many ships, too few islands."

[spongerob]

The Caribbean has become "Too many ships, too few islands."

 

You are right. Not only is it more ships, it's bigger ships. The islands want the docking fees and cram as many people on shore as they can.

 

Jim, thanks for your comments. We'll be on Grand Princess in five weeks. We have no plans for tours except in Belize, so I appreciate the updates about the problems at the different ports. We'll plan accordingly.

 

About the dining times and locations: There should be a card in your cabin listing what is open and when. That's why it's not in the patter.

[japester]

I was on the same sailing, Jim. I also felt it was an overall good experience but definitely had its rough spots.

 

Coral is correct. Like you, I was distressed for the first day or so because I couldn't find the dining information in the Patter. Then I cracked that giant leather book/binder on the desk (you know us guys---we can never look at the directions first! LOL) that had all the "Welcome to the Grand" info. The inside cover of the book had a lovely little card listing every dining option and their hours of operation. Invaluable.

 

We also felt the ports were poorly handled. Took us 2.5 hours to disembark at Cozumel (and we got our tender tickets before the scheduled time to queue for them!). We didn't book any excursions through the ship, but those who did told us that when the Grand tendered them in late, they still ran the tours but rushed them and cut them short. So even those that got to go were largely unhappy. (This wasn't limited to Cozumel.)

 

Funny story: Last day of the cruise. GF and I are in an elevator with 3 other couples. One of the assistant cruise directors, Wil, comes in and gives everyone a "HI! How is everyone?!" Uncomfortable silence. "How are you enjoying your cruise?" Someone behind us says, "It took us...2 hours...to get off the ship yesterday." Wil says, "Well, we're doing the best we can." The passenger says, "Well, your best hasn't been good enough." It was then a long, uncomforable ride in silence for Wil until his floor.

 

Jape

[Coolmama_1]

Thanks for the review! We are looking at the Grand for next year!:)

[jdm]

Thank you for your review. We will be on the Grand in a few weeks. We have been on the Grand several times before and are always interested in hearing how she is doing. I am just so happy getting on the ship and away from our cold, snowy weather. If we miss a port, that is okay. If it seems to be too crowded to try to tender in to a port, that is okay. If people complain consistantly, that is not okay. I guess I see the ship as my destination, with the ports being a bonus. Glad to hear the ship is doing well. I'll adapt to the other problems. Again, thank you for your post.

[mr green]

I came off the Sea Princess a couple of weeks ago. Yes Grand Caymen is a mess, far too many ships in port, on my first visit they had a new dock, and one ship, the dock must have been lost in a hurricane. Yes the Princess patter is poorly layed out, and it comes out a little later on each cruise, it is not highlited very much, so it is easy to miss some items. Also we got fooled, we did not check the date on one event, so we 'attended ' a day too early. Luggage? We had to have ours out BEFORE dinner, fat chance, we pretended that we were on second seating! On the plus side there were far less announcements over the P.A. system. Docking? I believe that the fault lies with the port, not enough docks to handle the tenders! This happended to us in G.C., we were on a large port tender, and there was not enough docking space to take it, we had to wait and wait. Not as bad as in Hawaii one time, too many ships, and we were stuck in a tender for 1 1/2 hours! Some were sea sick, others sun burned. Houever we have learned to take the good with the bad, and for us at least, the good stays with us longer! Happy cruising, john

[Lady Vidora]

Hey, I just wanted you guys to know that maybe princess has already fixed the problem. I'm not going until Nov. 2006, but by then they will have dropped Grand Cayman for Roatan (actually even the order of the stops is different so you get there in the morning and leave in the early evening.

 

So, hopefully all the bugs will be out by the time we have our first cruise!

[kovalcik]

Hi Jim. John and Sheryl here. We cruised with you on the Rhapsody in January of this year. Hope all is well with you. Thanks for the review. We are going on the Grand on 1/28. Hope they have gotten a lot of the 'bugs' out of the tender issue, etc. fixed by then.

[Pandaman]

Posted in error --- moved!

[Cptnkirky]

Thanks Jim for the great information.

 

Lady Vidora, my family and I will be on the same cruise as you in November. And actually, my parents will be celebrating their 19th anniversary too. I am hoping that the change to Costa Maya will make a difference. However, I do hear that Cozumel has big issues with this as well. Do you know?

 

I hope you have a great cruise...its coming soon.:)

[castroville cruiser]

Much perfr Pincess Patters layout over the RCI Cruise Compass.

Personal Preference..

Looking forward to the Grand 3/10/07:)