Crown Princess Review 12/9-16/06 Southern Caribbean

[kruzejunkies]

Embarkation- very smooth. we had eticket princess transfers from the san juan airport. it was a smaller bus which was nice. they put the luggage into a truck curbside. we tipped them $5.

 

Ship- we loved the ship. very beautiful, easy to get around. lots of great bars. the elevators were slow so we ended up walking a lot of stairs which was probably for the better considering we never made it to the gym the entire cruise. would have preferred the all-night international cafe on deck 5 was on a top deck so you could sit outside like the seaview cafe on the serenade. allthough, the pizza place was on the pool deck and it was open late. the pool/sun deck was great, and thats where we hung out most of the time. we never did the movies under the stars (MUTS) but when we walked by on the way to skywalkers it looked nice!

 

Entertainment- we never made it to a single show because we were just having too much fun on the ship. the reggae band poolside was great. we did a lot of dancing to them (allthough most of the time we were the only ones dancing on the sun deck!) our favorite place to hang was the crooners piano bar. brett cave the piano player was fantastic and we met a lot of fun folks in there. my only complaint is that late night options were very limited. most nights after the crooner bar shut down when we went to the skywalkers disco is was dead. on the last night when we showed up at only 1:30 AM it was shut down. when we were on the explorer on our last night, the disco was still hopping at 3:30 AM when we finally packed it in.

 

Service- i've read with surprise some of the negative comments about service on this cruise. we thought the service was fantastic all around. every member of the ships staff was very friendly and pleasant.

 

Food- we were in the second seating in the botticelli dining room where we ate every night except the last. we were cruising as a couple and were seated with 2 couples who were cruising together. they were a riot and we had a lot of fun meeting them. (hey vito, if you read this, be careful with that ether next time!) although the food was great, i actually think the food on carnival is a little better. there was no problem ordering extra items at dinner. the pizza was fantastic (although i needed 2 pieces of pizza at midnight every night like i needed a hole in the head!). we did eat in the crown grill on our last night with some folks we met in the crooner bar. it was very good, but my rack of lamb was pretty tasteless for some reason. everyone elses meal was fantastic and the service was outstanding.

 

Fellow passengers- very few school age children on board which made for a very nice cruise. mostly middle age and older couples.

 

Ports

 

St Thomas- we just took a bus into town for $4/head. we saw several people walking into town and wondered why they would do that. its a long walk through a not very nice area to get to the shopping. last time we were in st thomas, we were stupid and rented a scooter. although i am a very experienced motorcycle rider we were almost killed twice by dangerous drivers. i know its fun, however, DONT RENT A SCOOTER!

 

St Kitts- beautiful and interesting island. we hired a cab for an island tour which is what we usually do in the caribbean however, after that experience we may not do that again and just stick with walking or doing ship excursions only. while we we on the far end of the island on the atlantic side, i noticed the driver was driving a bit erratic, as we veered off the road straight for a telephone pole at 80 kph, i looked over at him and he was asleep! i was in the front with him and grabbed the wheel at the last minute. i told him if he didnt wake up i would drive. the trip was 3.5 hours for $80 for the 2 of us. i tipped him $20 just because i was thankful we made it back to the ship alive! if you are going to st kitts for the first time, dont miss the old fort at brimstone hill.

 

Grenada- very gorgeous island. i took my chances and did another cab ride. before we got in i asked the driver if he had a good nights sleep! we didnt have much time, so we only went up to the waterfall whch was nice but no big deal. it was a real zoo up there with people trying to sell stuff. theres some rasta men on the falls who jump off. if you take a picture of them you better pay them. we tried to book a river tubing excursion on board but it was sold out. we had done a tubing trip in ocho rios earlier and it was a blast.

 

Bonaire- we loved bonaire, but only toured around the town there and got back on the ship. nobody trying to sell you stuff there. supposedly great snorkeling/diving if you are into that.

 

Aruba- our favorite. very clean and friendly. very little poverty like on st kitts and grenada. we toured around the island and did some sightseeing there. the beaches were amazing. dont miss the california lighthouse.

 

Debarkation- we had a flight out of san juan at 11 AM so were were in the first group leaving the ship which went fine. only problem was that we couldnt find one of the 4 bags, and the princess people there were no help whatsoever. fortunately our porter knew where to look and came up with it. turned out the tag fell off and they stash all bags without tags in a separate place. if we hadn't hired a porter we never would have found it or possibly missed our flight looking for it. he got an extra tip for sure! we ended up getting into our gate around 9:30 AM which surprised us because i wasnt sure if our flights were too early. even the people with 10 AM flights who were really anxious made them.

 

Bottom line- this is a great ship with a great itinerary, especially if you want to minimize sea days. we kind of like more sea days though since we enjoy the pool/sun deck so much. we thought the ship was a bit stuffy for us though. not much going on late, and nobody (except us) seemed to be dancing when the reggae band was playing. (how can you sit still when you hear that steel drum???????) we will probably stick with carnival and rccl from now on.

 

please check out our photos of the trip. we enjoy emailed/added comments:

 

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/kruzejunkies/album/576460762380512284

[Clutterlady]

Thank you for your great well balanced review and beautiful photos!! :)

[sun&sea]

Thanks for your review. I really enjoyed your pictures! We will be there in just a few weeks.

Thanks again!

 

Janet

[willysgrandma]

Nice review and I have to chuckle about the porter finding the bag. We had a similar thing - our porter found a missing bag in two minutes that we had been searching 10 minutes for. Those porters are amazing.

[makeup face]

Thank you so much for the review:) This is the itinerary I'll be doing as well.

Your pictures are beautiful....thanks for sharing:D

[Colo Cruiser]

Great review, thanks. :)