New To Princess....

[Cruiser1976]

I hate posting mutliple questions at once, however, I will be new to Princess after having to cancel my RCCL cruise in August and replace it with the Caribbean Princess on Aug 26th. If anyone can provide some feedback on the following it would be appreciated:

 

1. Is the age range on Princess similar to RCCL? I have heard that it is an older crowd (we are in our late 20's) and that there is basically no nightlife on the ship past 10pm (night club was dead, etc)

2. I know I saw a post about ice cream sold on the ship, however, does the CB have the free soft serve ice cream like RCCL?

3. We are currently booked in a guarantee BG balcony category so therefore do not have pre-assigned cabins (we are getting 2 cabins). Reservations advised us that we may not have room assignements until the day of the cruise, however, she also mentioned that upgrades (i.e. mini suite) were very common. Has anyone had any really good or bad luck with this? Does the cruise line try to keep linked reservations in a close proximity to eachother? I hate doing the guaranteed cabin thing but did not want to spend a fortune.

4. Does the CB have iced tea readily available throughout the day?

5. I saw that reservations are preferred for the alternate choice dining. How far in advance do they need to be made for each night?

6. Is there any other deck besides the Doplphin that we have to worry about an uncovered balcony?

7. Does the CB have comedians on board at times and do they offer the adult shows as well? I had read that Princess did not do much of the comedian thing.

 

I think that's all for now. I did try to find some of the anwers on the board, however, after researching the RCCL ship that we were originially going to take for 6 months, I'm kinda worn out! Thanks for the help!

[S.S.Oceanlover]

I hate posting mutliple questions at once, however, I will be new to Princess after having to cancel my RCCL cruise in August and replace it with the Caribbean Princess on Aug 26th. If anyone can provide some feedback on the following it would be appreciated:

 

1. Is the age range on Princess similar to RCCL? I have heard that it is an older crowd (we are in our late 20's) and that there is basically no nightlife on the ship past 10pm (night club was dead, etc)

2. I know I saw a post about ice cream sold on the ship, however, does the CB have the free soft serve ice cream like RCCL?

3. We are currently booked in a guarantee BG balcony category so therefore do not have pre-assigned cabins (we are getting 2 cabins). Reservations advised us that we may not have room assignements until the day of the cruise, however, she also mentioned that upgrades (i.e. mini suite) were very common. Has anyone had any really good or bad luck with this? Does the cruise line try to keep linked reservations in a close proximity to eachother? I hate doing the guaranteed cabin thing but did not want to spend a fortune.

4. Does the CB have iced tea readily available throughout the day?

5. I saw that reservations are preferred for the alternate choice dining. How far in advance do they need to be made for each night?

6. Is there any other deck besides the Doplphin that we have to worry about an uncovered balcony?

7. Does the CB have comedians on board at times and do they offer the adult shows as well? I had read that Princess did not do much of the comedian thing.

 

I think that's all for now. I did try to find some of the anwers on the board, however, after researching the RCCL ship that we were originially going to take for 6 months, I'm kinda worn out! Thanks for the help!

 

 

The CB in August while school is out will have a wide range of people and plenty to do at night. Maybe other Princess ships have different demographics but the summer Caribbean sailings have all ages.

 

For the alternate restaurants book as soon as you board. They are usually booked solid for the whole week by the next morning.

 

Others will be along to answer your other concerns I'm sure.

 

You can also check out my website and look at the Patters (daily activities list) to see what other CB sailings have had as far as entertainment.

 

The link is in my signature below.

 

Bill

[sunshine426]

I'l try answering some of your questions. However, I have not been on the CB but have been on the Island and Star Princess. Star Princess was a western carribbean sailing in March (yes that Star).

We booked gty cabins, balcony for Mr. Sunshine and myself, inside (cheap as we could fine)gty for daughters. We were upgraded to BA balcony on Lido Deck and Inside Lido for the girls. Our cabins were not on the same corridor, but still were close. I have no idea if Princess did that on purpose or if it was random.

 

Plenty of night life for my two twentysomething daughters. In fact they were at Skywalkers with their Dad until 2am the night of the fire.

 

Iced tea available in Horizon Court 24/7.

Caribe Deck is 1/2 covered and 1/2 uncovered and big balcony, so if you get upgraded to one of those cabins you are really lucky. Lido Balcony was covered and abt 1/2 the size of the Caribe.

 

Ice cream seems to be a hot topic. I know what you are talking about with the soft serve always available ice cream.... nope Princess doesn't have it. For us that is not a deal breaker, but we aren't huge ice cream fans. Now if I can't have my pina colada I might be pretty unhappy!

Ice cream is available with meals in the diningroom, in the Horizon Court mid afternoon, and premium for sale during the day.

 

I prefer Princess hands down to Carnival, but have not been on a RCCL cruise ship.

[gooch47]

1. Is the age range on Princess similar to RCCL? I have heard that it is an older crowd (we are in our late 20's) and that there is basically no nightlife on the ship past 10pm (night club was dead, etc)

 

:o I wouldn't know ... we go to bed by 10:00 p.m. On 7-day cruises, the crowd would be younger. On longer cruises, there seems to be more older people.

 

2. I know I saw a post about ice cream sold on the ship, however, does the CB have the free soft serve ice cream like RCCL?

 

No free soft serve. They have ice cream for sale, but there is also free ice cream in the afternoon at the Horizon Court.

 

3. We are currently booked in a guarantee BG balcony category so therefore do not have pre-assigned cabins (we are getting 2 cabins). Reservations advised us that we may not have room assignements until the day of the cruise, however, she also mentioned that upgrades (i.e. mini suite) were very common. Has anyone had any really good or bad luck with this? Does the cruise line try to keep linked reservations in a close proximity to eachother? I hate doing the guaranteed cabin thing but did not want to spend a fortune.

 

Upgrades are a mystery. We have cruised 18 times with Princess and only got mediocre upgrades. We cruised only a couple of times on Carnaval and were upgraded to a full suite once. It seems to be just luck. Can't tell you anything about linked reservations.

 

4. Does the CB have iced tea readily available throughout the day?

 

I think so. It is available at the buffet area. However, I don't like it very much.

 

5. I saw that reservations are preferred for the alternate choice dining. How far in advance do they need to be made for each night?

 

Depends. On the last few cruises it looked like you could just "walk in" at the steak house. There were never very many people there.

 

6. Is there any other deck besides the Doplphin that we have to worry about an uncovered balcony?

 

Don't think so.

 

7. Does the CB have comedians on board at times and do they offer the adult shows as well? I had read that Princess did not do much of the comedian thing.

 

Seems to me that they do. I'm not much into comedians, but I know there have been many nights that we elected to not go to the show because of it.

[LonghornKJK]

Just one cruise under my belt and it was the Grand Princess but after reading these boards for awhile, it appears that the policies are very similar from ship to ship.

 

2. I know I saw a post about ice cream sold on the ship, however, does the CB have the free soft serve ice cream like RCCL? Ice cream was free for about an hour a day in the afternoons at the ice cream stand near the Horizon Court.

 

4. Does the CB have iced tea readily available throughout the day? At the Horizon Court, 24/7. I don't know about other locations.

 

5. I saw that reservations are preferred for the alternate choice dining. How far in advance do they need to be made for each night? If you mean the anytime dining rooms, we were able to get a same-day reservation for a party of 14. From what I've read here, you can get a reservation for anytime dining if you prefer to have the same table and/or wait staff but reservations are not required. However, if you are referring to the alternative restaurants (the ones for which you have to pay extra,) I've read here that you should make reservations as soon as you board.

 

Have a great cruise!

[Quilting_Cruiser]

3. We are currently booked in a guarantee BG balcony category so therefore do not have pre-assigned cabins (we are getting 2 cabins). Reservations advised us that we may not have room assignements until the day of the cruise, however, she also mentioned that upgrades (i.e. mini suite) were very common. Has anyone had any really good or bad luck with this? Does the cruise line try to keep linked reservations in a close proximity to eachother? I hate doing the guaranteed cabin thing but did not want to spend a fortune.

 

 

 

Our first Princess cruise is coming up (just a month before yours) so I can't comment on most of your questions, but we also booked GTY cabins for us and our girls. I was also warned by my TA that we might not get assigned until day of sailing, but we got our assignments after about 10 days--so three months before sailing.

 

It was a 5-category upgrade (from BG to BB) and we ended up on the Riviera deck. Both cabins are on the same deck, though our kids are on the other side of the ship (not that far from us though). I learned on these boards that after you're assigned you can change cabins within the same category. So, if your two cabins are assigned in the same category, you can see what's available and request a change (within the category you were assigned) if you're not happy with your assignment.

 

I can't speak from experience about being upgraded from a balcony GTY to a mini suite, though from reading the boards, it doesn't look likes it's COMMON, but it DOES happen now and then. You don't have to move from a balcony GTY to a mini-suite for it to be considered an upgrade--ours was considered a 5-category upgrade as we moved from BG balcony to BB balcony.

 

Good luck!!

 

Jayne

[Cruisin' Chick]

all sorts of shows on the Princess ships. We didn't go to too many on our last cruise (just one of the production shows and a performance by a comedian-guitarist) but there was some other comedians performing.

 

On our previous cruise we did go see a comedian. Don't remember his name but the first part of his show was weak but the second half was incredibly funny to us. He did a slide show comparing being on Princess as opposed to some defunct cruiseline he had performed in the past. He showed a lot of creativity.