Anyone on Grand soon-Call Princess!!

[elemon]

All-

I was just recently informed about this website AFTER booking with Princess. I am disappointed with everything I have heard- having never taken a cruise. Specifically the tendering problem. As someone else posted, I think anyone going on the Grand should call Princess to get their attention to fix the problem. No, it might not be fixed by the 28th of January when my cruise is, but its worth the try and it might help those traveling later than us. 1-800-PRINCESS (774-6237) Let them know what everyone has been complaining about!

 

This is a problem for me because I do not want to be on the ship, I want to be on the beach and see some places I might not ever see! this is the benefit of cruising right?

[spongerob]

This is a problem for me because I do not want to be on the ship, I want to be on the beach and see some places I might not ever see! this is the benefit of cruising right?

 

Not necessarily. Cruising is like a smorgasbord where you get a little bit of a lot of things, but not necessarily a lot of any one thing and the menu can change without notice. If you have your heart set on being at a specific place at a precisely scheduled time, you are bound to suffer disappointment. It is always best to have a Plan B, and maybe even a Plan C, if Plan A should happen to fall through. A lot of things can happen, much of it outside the cruise line's control. Sometimes things within their control get fumbled, too. It helps to be flexible and go with the flow. Sometimes that leads you to places and things that you might not otherwise have discovered.

[Pam in CA]

spongerob is correct. At the very least and even at the best of times, tendering is slow and can be frustrating. It's not at all unusual for there to be delays and most of the time, they're beyond the cruiseline's control. Grand Cayman is a stop that is frequently missed completely due to weather and sea conditions so as Rob said, if this is someplace that you absolutely, positively have to visit, you're better off with a land vacation. With Cozumel, the city and country are still recovering from a devasting hurricane. The entire island was flooded and much was destroyed, including all of the piers so that cruise ships must tender rather than be able to dock. I believe only one pier is back in operation for tendering which again, is beyond Princess' control.

 

If you relax and consider the ship your vacation destination with the ports along the way as icing on the cake, you'll have a great time. If you expect a guarantee that everything will go smoothly, then you're bound to be disappointed. You can't fool with Mother Nature and a ship is subject to what she, in her infinite wisdom, puts in its path.

[travellady]

Honestly, we cruise for the ship and consider the ports to be fun, yet secondary. When we want to spend time a lot of time in port or at a beach, we book a land vacation. When we planned this Christmas cruise, I told my sons to pick the ship, not the ports, since we may not even end up at the ports as advertised.

[TNTLAMB]

Enjoy your cruise! The Grand is a wonderful ship. You can glean agreat deal of information from these boards but you can also pick up so much crap you can ruin a cruise. You will be treated like royalty once you walk on the ship Don't like your dinner... order another, Like your dinner order more. As a previous poster said sometimes tendering is a huge problem sometimes its not. No body at Princess or any other cruise line can change the seas, the traffic, the weather or even the local facilities after a major storm. Priorities at GC and Coz are and should be the locals. No matter how important some cruisers think they might be or what color their cruise cards might be, we are all just folks and most of us have a wonderfulk cruise each time as will you. One word of advice however -- don't obsess about doing so much at the ports that you miss your cruise experience and come home exhausted as I have unfortunatly done too many times. I've met folks who have never left the ship and they seem to always have the best time of all!

[Commodore Suzy]

There is no reason for such an alarming post.

 

As I said in my review, and others have mentioned above, if the ports are all you care about, then this might not be a great itinerary for you. However, the ship and service are wonderful, and if you love cruising for the sake of cruising, with the ship are the real destination, the Grand is GRAND.

 

I had a fabulous time when I went 12/3-10, just two weeks ago.

 

Happy Holidays everyone!

[BroncosCruiser]

It is one thing to say “go with the flow”, “don’t stress the small stuff” and “there will always be some changes”. Of course, nothing is perfect, few things go as planned and to expect such is just asking for disappointment.

 

You can’t blame people for things out of anyone’s control, like the weather. You can’t blame people for things they are not responsible for – blaming Princess for local problems. And you generally can’t blame people for the occasional problem – mechanical, scheduling, medical issues, etc.

 

But it is totally different if you know there is going to be a problem a month in the future. If there is a known problem, and everyone can see there is a problem, then you have the right to expect that it will be corrected, addressed, or at least looked at.

 

Maybe to many of the frequent cruisers here, the ship is the key point to cruising – every port looks the same but every ship has its own character. And that may well be true. But many others have the opposite opinion – a ship is a ship, but it is the ports that make the trip. I think that is a totally valid opinion as well.

 

I certainly don’t have the cruising history of the other posters on this topic, but I do think that one of the big advantages of cruising is being able to see a new place one day, enjoy the ship at night, and the next day be some place totally new (without having to pack and unpack!).

 

The big benefit I see to cruising is that there is so much to do that you can decide what fits your idea of fun. Shows aren’t a big deal to me, but they are to a lot of people. I don’t want to spend the day lounging around a pool, but that is what some people love to do on their free time. I want to go to the ports, snorkel and scuba dive and many people couldn’t care less about those things.

 

But if I read that someone thought the shows were bad, I don’t tell them they should have gone to Vegas or New York instead. Or if someone complains about the food, I don’t tell them that if they wanted fine dining they should have stayed on land and gone to nice restaurants. Or that they shouldn’t have cared about those things to begin with.

 

I think it is important for people to have proper expectations and perspective on their vacation. But if someone booked a cruise because they read the brochure and thought it would be a nice, and affordable way, to see places that they could never afford (or want to go) for an entire week, and that may not happen, I think that person has a right to complain – especially if the problem is easily foreseeable.

 

I know everyone is trying to give their best advice and let the OP know that the cruise will be a lot of fun no matter what the tendering situation is. But I don’t think trying to minimize or belittle a person’s priorities is helpful.

 

The OP’s original idea was that if enough people complained, maybe Princess would work a bit harder to fix the problem and come closer to what they advertise. I personally don’t see any problem with that.

 

Of course, that’s just my opinion and I could be wrong :)

[Hlitner]

The tendering problem is almost universal on any of the real large ships. It is difficult to quickly move 3,000 (or almost 4,000 on the soon to come ships) ashore when most tenders only hold 120 - 150. When RCI started their stops at Labadee (many years ago) they stationed some very large tenders at the island to help avoid the typical traffic jams. We have been on Med cruises where tendering was even a bigger nightmare than in the Caribbean (this happens in Villefranche). On the other hand, a few months ago we docked in San Juan (it was an intervening port) on the Jewel of the Seas. This was a short stop 12pm until 7pm. Us immigration had computer problems (or so they said) and didn't get all the passengers off the ship until almost 3:30. The funny thing was that we decided to stay on-board but were forced to get off the ship to clear immigration or they would not let the ship leave the port. The bottom line is book a cruise with no tendering and no US ports (smile).

 

Hank

[srpilo]

BroncoCruiser

Well Put !! Is seems there are those here who have experienced all facets of cruising, and because they've "been there, done that" they fail to see the importance of other people's desire to experience it for the first time..

 

What we need to do here as a group of experienced fellow cruiser's, is to pass on to those who post here with questions and concerns with information about what a good cruise should be, and not continuously be cruiseline apologists, and expect everyone to roll with the punches.

 

 

Srpilo

[spongerob]

No one has said anything I disagree with. Certainly a known problem that has no attempt made at correction is something to be concerned about. However, I think it's also fair to be blunt about some of the realities of cruising. It's always a bit of a crap shoot, and the odds are even worse when tendering is anticipated. I can understand a certain level of disappointment, but when your plans have to change it's a waste of good vacation dollars to let it get you totally down. I don't think stating that makes anyone an apologist or a cheerleader, just a realist.

[Logie]

Hi

 

Go to http://www.cruisecal.com and see how many other ships are in port with you each day. The number of ships can have a large or small impact on how the tendering will go each day.

 

Thankfully you are forewarned. I would also schedule Princess tours in this case, as you will have the advantage of getting off the ship sooner.

 

Have a great cruise!!!

[JimnKaren]

The OP made a statement that indicated that the beach was the destination and the ship just a means of getting to the beach. Not having cruised previously the OP has not had the insight that many of us have, which is that the ship is the destination and that the ports are sometimes mere incidentals. Karen and I have some very close friends who demand a port intensive itinerary; we however, really enjoy those days at sea. To each his own.

 

I sincerely invite "elemon" to come back to the boards AFTER the cruise and let us know what was really important about that first cruise.

 

My first cruise was out of San Juan and my parents had been nagging me for years to try cruising. Since it was my parents, I elected to put it off. Then, I sailed out of San Juan harbor about 11 p.m. and that made me want to spend the rest of my disposable income on cruising.

 

"Elemon", chill out and enjoy the opportunity that you have. Then let us know about it after it happens.

 

Jim

[senatorgirth]

The OP's alarm would appear to be confirmed by the remarks posted in this thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=267972

 

There are far too many complaints about the Grand kin recent day to just chalk this up to griping; the fact that SO many are reporting problems provides convincing evidence that somethings wrong.

[Times Prince]

Grand Cayman has always been a tendering port. Our visit last New Year's had both local tenders and ship tenders working on offloading the Grand Princess. We were on a snorkel (Reef & Wreck) tour and were put on a local tender. We waited while several ship's tenders were loaded at the other docking platform on the ship and I started to get irritated about the delay. Then I learned that the local tenders (double deckers) held over three times the people as the ship's tenders. So my irritation was over nothing. My tour was on time, the snorkeling was FANTASTIC, and we were off the ship in a reasonably timely fashion, being on a Princess tour.

 

What first appeared as a tendering "problem" actually was Princess using the most efficient system available. I wonder how many people in the other thread were irritated because they had the similar experience, but could not shrug it off as another adventure?

 

What was, for us, our best port was for others one of the worst because of cancelled tours with rough seas. The Reef and Wreck tour was in the sheltered bay, and was not affected. So I recommend not pre-judging your cruise based on other's complaints.

"Past performance may not be an indicator of future results" :rolleyes:

[AgVball]

To the OP...

Now that you see there "could" be a problem, just keep in mind plan B for ports. Costa Maya should not be a problem - no tendering. Belize - I can't answer because I got off on a dive boat. Cozumel - no problem because I was on the first boat. Cayman - well - I would watch the boards to see if they resolved the issue. I cruised this exact same boat/date last year and our water sports were canceled (due to weather) but we had no problems tendering. This year - I chalk it up to Princess - not getting your excursion people off the boat is an operational issue. I'm sure there will be some folks to defend Princess - but they really have some issues. Maybe not ALL of the tendering is Princess's fault - but they could do better. :confused:

 

I too enjoy getting off the boat at ports - but I truly hope that the tendering does improve for the upcoming cruises. We still had a good time on our cruise and just made do with what was given us.

[elemon]

I appreciate all of the info! I am concerned because we usually go on land vacations, but are choosing to cruise since we haven't done it yet and well its much cheaper than the AI land vacations we usually do. I just want to spend as much time at the ports, and the ship IS just getting me there. NOt that we won't have a good time on the ship, its a vacation for crying out loud! I just don't want to wait in two hour lines on vacation, that sucks but I will make the best of it for sure. AND the plan is that if I like crusing, me and my girlfriends are going to do a cruise in Oct for the big 30! I will definately post after I get back in Feb!