CB review - 9/16-9/23/06

[KP&BP]

My husband and I are in our fifties and have cruised three other times – HAL, RCL and Celebrity. We are trying all the cruise lines, one by one and this time was Princess’ turn. We flew in on Friday and called a cab to take us to the Embassy Suites on 17th St. as they do not have airport pickup. It was roughly a $12.00 cab fare with tip. Because we requested a room facing the port we had to wait to check in as they only had one room and it was still occupied. We stored our luggage so that we could roam around. This is a beautiful hotel with a center atrium. All the rooms face the interior with a large picture window and the outside windows have a small balcony. These are suites with a living room and bedroom, two televisions and recently refurbished. They have an evening reception which is complimentary; you can have wine, chips, then real food. The breakfast is the same – hot and cold food and beverages. The hotel does have a shuttle to the port but there was some confusion about it. The desk clerk told us that you have to buy the port/hotel package to use the shuttle. Since we were using Hilton points and staying for free we didn’t have that package, but she let us on anyway. The shuttle starts running at 11:15 and we were on it. The bus dropped us off and right away a porter approached to handle our luggage and we took our place in line. You wait in the shade so it wasn’t too bad. They didn’t open the doors until noon so we waited about 35 minutes before things started to move. Once inside we got checked in, photo taken and were in the room by 12:30.

 

Cabin: R706-Riviera Deck. This cabin fit our needs perfectly. The door faces the elevator hallway but at no time did we hear any noise. A few steps from our door was the stairway – up one flight to the Lido deck for food. A short jog down the hall way and we were at the aft pool – adults only and it is enforced. We enjoyed the energy at this pool the most. It was quiet and always plenty of loungers as long as you didn’t want to sit directly around the pool. Our room steward left a little to be desired though, he never bussed out our dirty dishes. We always brought something back to the room to eat and after he cleaned the room, the dishes were still there. One day we came back to find the bed made and the platter of dirty dishes on the bed! We never did get the robes we requested on line and asked the steward to follow up, but he didn’t and we didn’t push it by then, we really didn’t need them.

 

Entertainment: We enjoyed each and every night – there were some excellent comedy and juggling acts and the stage productions were good.

 

Food: The buffet food was acceptable. I like my hot food to be hot and cold to be cold – and it isn’t - which is to be expected in a buffet line. There was always a problem finding a place to sit during meal hours. There really isn’t enough seating and you may have to carry your platter some distance to find a place to sit. We did Traditional dining and enjoyed it – we had a table for eight but only four of us used it. Our waiter, Olsen was great!

 

Ports: St. Thomas – used Sonny Liston Tours based on what I learned of him on this board. He lived up to his reputation and gave an outstanding tour. He had everyone singing on the way back into town and people were looking at us – either laughing along or rolling their eyes! Sonny is a card. We went to Sapphire Beach but got rained out and the surf was very rough due to the recent storms.

 

St. Maarten – used a ship sponsored tour and really enjoyed it. Did a tour of the island by bus then transferred to a party boat for the water portion. We were about a half hour late leaving port as one passenger had not returned to the ship on time. They kept paging him. He finally showed up and people from both our ship and the Carnival Glory were cheering him on yelling RUN BOB RUN! It was a hoot.

 

Princess Cays: our favorite day. The water is beautiful. We snorkeled and saw squid! Lots of colorful fish all around the reef areas. We got the first tender over and stayed until 2:00. Last tender goes at 3:00 and the lines to load get quite long in the last hour.

 

Ship: very beautiful but too large for our tastes. No matter what ladies’ room you used, there was always a line and the restrooms are few and far between for that many passengers. If you want to really participate in a specific event, you must be there early to get standing room. For example, the Champagne Waterfall. This is held at 10:30 in the Atrium. The only way to see it is from the balconies going up floor by floor or to be close enough on the main floor. So, we couldn’t see what was going on as we weren’t on the rail first. Go early to everything.

 

Biggest surprise: We had to have our luggage out at 5:00 on Friday! On previous cruises we had until midnight to put the bags in the hall. Our carry on luggage was full when we arrived so we didn’t have room to pack Friday night clothes so we had to wear the same thing the next day. I guess with 3100 passengers and at least two bags each you must allow extra time for collecting it all.

 

We would do Princess again in the future but not a mega ship. We will scale down next time – anyone want to recommend a good smaller Princess ship for us? Thanks to all who leave valuable info on the boards – it helps so much.

[Dan Tanna]

Nice review. Doing the same itinerary in December. First time Princess cruisers. Thanks for sharing..

[gelton]

I enjoyed your honest and straight forward review. Since our cabin is R604 next week we may have the same Steward and we to plan to carry meals back to the room on occassion. On other lines we have traveled the hallways are really too narrow to place trays there but where do you put the trays and dishes if you want them removed (first cruise with Princess). I have noticed in other pictures that each room seems to have an inset, does this have room for the food trays?

And now to the million dollar question. Rumor has it that Princess is slowly replacing the balcony furniture with metal type chairs .vs the plastic chairs. Has this happen yet on the Riveria deck?

[KP&BP]

Hi Gelton - good you should ask. When we were in St. Thomas we saw plastic chairs being loaded off the ship into those shipping containers you see on freighters - tons of old plastic chairs. Unfortunately, the Riviera deck had not yet been changed out as of last week. We can see on the lower decks that the new chairs are being used. Maybe by the time you go they will be finished. Yes, the hallways are narrow but will accomodate the platter - the space in front of the door keeps the dishes out of the traffic area. We really should have complained but we were so flabbergasted that we thought maybe the steward was not supposed to do dishes - anyway, hope you have a better experience.

[CPCruiser4Life]

KP and BP,

 

I noticed you stayed in R706, I have R703 booked...Did you hear any noise from deck above that made sleeping difficult or annoying. Scraping chairs, loud music, etc?

 

Thanks for the wonderful review!

 

Look forward to hearing from you!

 

Scott

[Carolyn R]

"We would do Princess again in the future but not a mega ship. We will scale down next time – anyone want to recommend a good smaller Princess ship for us? Thanks to all who leave valuable info on the boards – it helps so much."

 

Try the Sun Princess, less than 2000 passengers, beautiful condition, 10 day Southern and Exotic Caribbean, great for a 20 day b2b too. Great ship.

[cruisinkitten]

Thanks for the review. I just booked today and will be staying in R706 as well. I was a little concerned about the open space right outside the door between the stairs and the elevator. Was there a lot of foot traffic outside the door? How about noise from above in the cafe caribe? I was also curious if there is a door that leads out to the terrace pool from that hallway.

 

Thanks

Rachel

[Host Caroline]

Haven't had time to do a "review" yet but will try and do one to upload. We were also on the 9/16 sailing.. Instructions on disembark were confusing.. they "preferred" that you have the majority of your luggage out but really anytime in the evening is okay... Most on our deck (Lido) was put out bet. 7-9 it looked like.

We did a new "tour" in St Thomas that we found on board quite by accident.. i.e. OnDeck Ocean Racing.. the weather was sooo hot and not much wind but DH loved it and also America's Cup in St Maarten...

We didn't see the late guy in St Maarten due to the Dolphin uncovered balconies below us (which seemed not to be used at all!) but heard the Glory passengers cheering him on!!!

Didn't really have same problem with buffet seating but we walked back to Cafe Caribe which was always quieter than the main buffet.. it IS a big ship and we prefer the "smaller" ones but do enjoy the Carib Princess.

Sorry about steward issue.. never had that... in fact our sink stopped up at 1:00 am. on Thursday and plumbing was there in less than 1/2 hour.. we were very impressed.. Leo our steward was great. We had plastic deck furniture still -- table, 2 chairs and lounger.

Oh, and thought movie selection on MUTS was lousy.

We went in Explorers a lot and danced to Domino.. pretty good band.. didn't see any production shows but loved Steve Moris and Troy Thredgill the comedians. Spent part of most evenings in Crooners..

Had Anytime Dining and ate in Palm 3 nights with friends, Sabatini one night and Cafe Caribe three nights... only complaint was that seafood buffet lobster and crab was a little salty for me but everyone else loved it.

[KP&BP]

Dear Cruisin Kitten and CP Cruiser4Life - regarding room R706 - while inside the room we rarely heard anything. There was very little foot traffic going towards the pool - I think most people gained access to the Terrace Pool area by coming down from the upper decks. Occassionally you might hear people going by laughing and having fun - but that sounded wonderful. We heard an occasional chair being moved upstairs but it was not enough to disturb. During the day on the balcony you might hear some music coming from the Neptune Pool area but it was very soft - again not disturbing. Once in the hallway it is a short walk to a door at the end that opens on a short stairway that leads right to the pool area. When you open the door of this cabin you are looking at the elevator and stair area, but it was more a convenience for us than a problem. Easy access up one flight to the Lido for morning coffee or lunch. We would do this cabin again. I think you would like it also.

[CPCruiser4Life]

Thank you for the prompt reply...

 

We're still discussing what to do....have R703 right now, the cabin almost directly across....or a Baja aft cabin...

 

Tough decision.

 

What you think if you had the option?

[CPCruiser4Life]

Well...we did it...

 

We got Aft cabin Baja 754

 

No BEAM

No obstruction

No A/C Unit

 

No Scraping chairs above us

 

And I pray no smokers on the aft cabins!

 

No more riviera deck...Little more walking I must do!! No problem for us!