Discovery Princess Thanksgiving Week - Princess Newbie

[ScottsSweetie]

After many cruises finally found the right opportunity to try Princess! Here you'll find my impressions and thoughts as an experienced cruiser but a Princess newbie!

 

We booked this cruise less than a month out. I booked an inside guaranty - we were assigned (48 hours before the cruise) E110, which is an obstructed balcony room. Score!! Embark seemed to go smoothly - arrived at 1:00pm and on the ship in no time at all. Checked in at muster station and watched safety video on cabin television - easy peasy. DH receives a phone call while in our room from Anita at San Pedro Port Security (please be sure you have luggage tags with phone numbers attached!). Our bags have been left "unattended" and are just sitting on the sidewalk. WTH?? We checked our two bags with a porter and gave him $5.00 for said bags but apparently he never put them on a cart. She said she would speak to the head porter to "see if he could get our bags on board". DH decided to get off the ship and he found her right outside - she told us our bags had been handled. Obviously we were on edge until they actually showed up, which they did in a timely fashion. Crisis averted!

 

Medallion App - we tried ordering drinks from our chairs on embark day - worked like a charm! We tried it the second day and our drinks showed as delivered but were not delivered to us. That was the last time we used that service - if we have to go to the bar to complain that we didn't get out drinks we'd rather just go there to start with.

 

Food / Drink - Everything we ordered in the Dining Room for dinner was very good. Hot food was all served hot. The buffet food, quite frankly, was terrible. We rarely eat at the buffet on Carnival because there are so many other options, but we both got several buffet items that we did not finish eating - I refuse to use calories on food that is just not good. The burger from the grill was also not cooked well. The pizza, both from Slice and GiGi's was extremely good. We were quite disappointed that there is no draft beer to speak of on the ship. The Salty Dog bar had 4 taps - three of which had no beer the week we were on, the 4th was a cider. When comparing this ship to the Panorama, which is our other option for this route, Carnival has a brewery on board with lots of draft options. This is a biggie for DH, as he does love a good draft beer. Then, the biggest issue in dining is the reservation system. I made reservations for the entire week before we left home, so that was handled. However, I have no idea what they are doing in seating people. On Monday night, our reservations were for 7:20. We got to the DR and got in the back of the very looooong line - we were seated at 8:06. On Wednesday, reservation at 7:40 - we entered the DR at 8:00. This was consistent every night but the first. 

 

Entertainment - Both production shows we saw were stellar - the best we have ever seen on a cruise! We also saw a Michael Buble tribute and an illusionist - all were entertaining. No problem finding seats when arriving 10-15 mins before showtime.

 

Ports - In your room you will find a slip of paper notifying you that the Medallion App can be used for payment at certain restaurants and establishments in both Puerto Vallarta and Cabo (and the charges simply added to your onboard account). Don't believe it. We tried to use it at several places in PV - they will say "the device doesn't work". Don't even bother. This would have been great if it worked as advertised. We did not try it in Cabo. On Cabo day, just as an FYI, we received tender ticket numbers 702/703 around 8:30. Our numbers were called before 9:00am.

 

Don't be This Person - On Thanksgiving night (which also was Dress to Impress night for us), we observed the waiter visiting the table next to us advising an elderly gentleman that they had no dark meat to serve him (menu read "turkey breast"). This man begins to verbally abuse the wait staff. The manager is called - he advises that he will send someone to the buffet to see if dark meat is available there. Also asks what he would like if no dark meat available - he advises nothing at all. The man continues to talk to his table mates about how ridiculous that they ran out of dark meat, so anyone dining after 8:00pm was not able to have dark meat. If the captain wanted dark meat would they tell him no? And just on and on. The DR Manager returns and reports that there is no dark meat to be had on the ship - only breasts were ordered so they never had any dark meat. The man gets out of his seat and storms off yelling, "you have lost a customer, this is ridiculous". Turns out that the man cruises all of the time, the DR Manager has known him for years, and the couple who had been sitting with him had apparently just met him that day somewhere in the exclusive suite areas. The couple was very upset on his behalf, but the DR Manager said he'll get over it. We saw him at dinner the next night and, if I heard correctly, he told someone that it was his 17th cruise this year. 

 

General Thoughts - On Cabo day (Thursday) it was announced that the ship was experiencing an outbreak of a "gastrointestinal virus". On Friday it was announced that the numbers were increasing. Welcome back, Norovirus! I visited several public restrooms on the ship and they are much roomier than the same on Carnival. The ship was beautiful and we enjoyed our upgraded balcony. Lots of families on this cruise (including multi-generations). I kept looking around for all the old people that are supposed to be on Princess - DH said if I couldn't find any then we must be them, lol. We were told around 3900 passengers on board for the week.

 

We will definitely sail Princess again, but will be picky about the route. We felt like there were not a lot of activities after the production show ended (and we always attended the last one). Carnival has much more options and is a more lively ship after 9:00pm and we enjoy it a lot more. I would definitely sail Princess on a port intensive route, and am planning on Princess for my 10 day cruise/land Alaska trip, but I don't think they are our new cruise line just yet.

 

Happy to answer any questions.

 

 

 

 

[iamaqt2]

Thanks for the review!  We're boarding Discovery for New Years!

Edited December 5, 2022 by iamaqt2