Grand 2/24 review, soon to be posted to review section too

[happy cruzer]

7 Night Cruise on the Grand Princess from Galveston 2/24/07

Perspective: We are ages 55 and 47 semi-retired. We selected this cruise to get to experience a Princess cruise (it had been about 10 years since we had cruised Princess); only 1 port was new to us – Roatan. This trip was about trying all the Princess unique features.

Disclaimer: We LOVED our cruise. Ship was very clean and well maintained. We thought it a great value and very premium. I tend to mention a lot of details some of which sound negative but they are just factual observations. Please keep the details in perspective and understand that Princess did all the big things excellently. Thanks!

Embarcation: The slowest we have experienced. Over 1 hour from when we first arrived at the port terminal til we were on the ship. Only two xray machines but that was not the bottleneck. The bottleneck was at the checkin. Seemed like there were about 16 staff to check in the 2400+ passengers. The checkin lines were backed up even though each person seemed to only spend about 5 minutes checking in. We arrived at 1:30, others reported arriving at 12:30 and only taking about 15 minutes.

Princess did have staff in the hallways to direct you to your cabin. We were too late for the dining room lunch so we visited the Horizon Court.

Cabin: We had an obstructed view on Emerald. Our window was only obstructed across the bottom half. We had excellent views through the top of the window. We liked the design of the cabin. The desk area is on the width of the cabin forming a doorway between the closet/bath area and the sleeping area. There are two chairs and a table provided, no sofa. The hanging closet was a bit small. The drawer space was very good. Bathroom was nice with a good size shower with traditional shower curtain. Beds had matresses and nice linens; no cots as some have reported on the Grand. The comforter was too hot for my hubby so we requested a sheet and blanket instead. Our beds were in the twin configuration and could not be changed because our cabin had the third and forth berth. If you move the beds together, then you run into the upper berths when you walk to side the “queen” bed. Just an FYI to anyone who gets one of the cabins that can sleep 4.

Could not get the wakeup call to work on the phone. Kept getting an error message. No clock in cabin so bring an alarm clock.

Cabin was serviced at least twice daily. It was very clean with very little wear noticeable. No towel animals.

Food:

Room service menu was very limited. Very few hot offerings. Continental Breakfast only.

Horizon Court Buffet is crowded. Plenty of seating however sometimes it is quite a walk to an empty table and your food gets cold especially since you need a second trip to get a beverage. Princess uses large plates instead of trays for the buffet. There is a waiter stationed on both sides of the buffet to make sure you sanitize your hands and to provide your plate and silverware. The selecitions on the buffet seemed standard. There are no covers provided for the plates so that with need for a second trip for a beverage meant I never had hot food at the buffet. Coffee was syrup based and not very good.

Pizza was good, 3 different kinds, and hot by the pool. Hamburger and Hotdogs were also available but I did not try those.

Dining Room service and food were excellent. The dining rooms are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We had anytime dining which was one of the Princess unique things that I really was interested to experience. We found the 5th level dining room easiest to get a table for two. However we found a great service team in the 6th level dining room, Da Vinci that we requested almost everynight. For lunch we had tables for two and sometimes joined larger tables. All servers were very good and most were perfect. Our dinner servers and Head Waiter were from Mexico and we enjoyed excellent conversation and service from them. The waiter handles the wine service. We brought on a few bottles of wine and we were charged a corkage fee for each of them. The actual wine glasses were too small for our red wines we thought so we had the waiters serve them in water glasses which worked well for us. They did have champagne glasses for our sparkling wine. We also had inexpensive onboard gift bottles of wine that were of acceptable quality; Princess seems to select very nice “house” wines. Most nights we spent about 1½ hours in the dining room because we like a leisurely meal.

Food at dinner was excellent. Our waiter always had a recommendation which we appreciated. Next I will list some of our favorites. We never ordered anything that was not acceptable but these items really stand out as excellent. Saturday night (the night we boarded) was the sailaway dinner, we especially enjoyed the spring rolls and prime rib. Portions of all courses were on the large size, plenty to eat. Next night; Captain’s welcome dinner; we especially enjoyed the cornish hen. We were each served a full hen with mushrooms and lima beans – EXCELLENT as was the hazelnut souffle (the first of 4 souffles that were served). Italian night; enjoyed eggplant parmigiana, pork marsala, and tiramisu. I also tried the Love Boat Dream dessert for the first time (I had it two other nights too). My opinion of the Love Boat Dream is that it is very rich tasting but not overly sweet – just perfect. Caribbean night; enjoyed the empanditas and lamb shank. Captain’s Gala Dinner; pate and escargots (I had two orders) were great appetizers, then the lobster for me and pheasant for DH. Chef’s Dinner; smoked salmon, crab legs, rack of lamb, mocha souffle. Landfall dinner; vol-au-vent, steak, and tournedos.

Lunch and breakfast in the dining room when at a table for two was served pretty quickly. About the same amount of time as the buffet except you got to relax and the waiter made the trips for food and beverages. Ice cream in the dining room was wonderful; very creamy; and many flavors to choose from.

Anytime dining and dining room get a big thumbs up for excellence. If you have any requests, problems or questions be sure to discuss them with the Head Waiter. At first I thought we were not going to be able to get our favorite wait staff and table for 2 in Da Vinci without waiting each night. We discussed this with head waiter and he explained that since the dining room opened at 6, we would have good luck showing up at 6 or at 8:15/8:30. A simple thing but it made our dining experience very good. If we needed another time, we could take what was available without waiting.

Entertainment: We did not make a single show. We did go to the lounges and danced. We enjoyed all the music venus. Muscians were very talented and sound level was perfect. Bar service was very good; often just bringing us water with lemon.

Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party and Repeat Cruisers Cocktail Party were nice. Free drinks and hordouvors. No lines to get in and no obligatory photos. Very nicely organized and well attended.

Pools, Etc: The four fresh water pools with hot tubs were very nice. We used the adult areas a lot. They were a bit crowded but very quiet and relaxing. Conservatory was hardly ever crowded. Enjoyed the gym, Princess links, ping pong, and paddle tennis. Fantastic that on ship with thousands of people we were still able to enjoy all the amenitites without crowding.

We definitely made it a point to try MUTS. We attended two movies. We saw My Super Exgirlfriend at the 10:00pm showing and The Illusionist at the 7:00 showing. Both were well attended but seats were available. We did not really enjoy MUTS during the day time and sometimes it was under maintenance. One early evening right after sailaway , they showed pictures from the Hubble telescope which was really nice with evening getting cooler and the sun setting. So another big thumbs up.

Library and Internet café: The library is small but was adequate for the amount of people using it. They do have a jigsaw puzzle set out that anyone can spend time working on and many did. The internet area is large for classes and there are also a few computers in the library. Cost is $4 to get account then .75 per minute and .50 for each (multi-page) print job. There are other rates for 100 minutes, 200, etc. The system is very easy to use; we did not need any assistance.

Casino: Had a variety of slots and a slot tournament. Blackjack (with only continuous shuffling machines), Fun 21 (like Spanish 21 with less favorable rules), roulette, craps, and poker were available. They have a nice poker area but seemed to have trouble keeping ring games open. They advertise their single table poker tournament a lot.

Ports of Call: As I stated earlier, we were along for the ship not really the ports. So here’s a brief overview.

Costa Maya we docked along with a Carnival ship. This is when you know you are on a large ship. The dock was covered with passengers and they are backed up going into the shopping area. We watched from deck since we had previously visited Chacobean with Ivan and David.

Roatan we also docked. The sea and the mountains are quite beautiful from the ship. After lunch we walked off the ship and did a tiny bit of shopping. The people were friendly and I will do a tour next time to enjoy more of the island’s beauty.

Belize we tendered in. We took a Princess excursion to Altun Ha. The bus we were assigned was a bit old and the seats were saggy. The roads are in very bad repair. The tour operator called it a free massage but I think people with back problems would have been in trouble on that very bumpy 1 hour ride. The ruins are well reconstructed. The site is very compact but it still requires about 1 mile of walking on uneven surfaces in the heat and humidity. You also can climb to the top of the ruins for a view across the site and across the tree tops. We enjoyed this tour but had previously taken the boat/Lamanai tour which is a better choice for the smooth boat ride and the bigger site (it does cost more).

Cozumel, we docked. We walked into the shopping area. We did a bit of shopping which we really enjoyed. The shopping area is very big with many stores. This is the shopping stop for this itenarary.

Disembarcation went fine. We did self disemb but waited until about 8:30 to leave (after a nice breakfast in the dining room) and it was a breeze.

A few nit picks:

I like hot breakfast with healthy protein. Princess does not provide that on the room service menu. At the buffet I could get a few choices but they were usually cold by the time I got to sit down to eat. I only did one breakfast in the dining room and it was good (but I don’t really enjoy the dining room environement first thing each morning).

Only weakness in the dining room menu at night was the cold soups. Missed the berry and cherry types.

Promenade deck is not wide enough for loungers. This could be a nice quiet area to read a book and listen to the wind and the sea vs. the other public areas which tend to have music at all times.

Summary: We will always look at the Princess offerings when we are making a decision on our next cruise. We really enjoyed this cruise and all the positive Princess touches.

[landofozcruiser]

Thank you for the great review. We are looking forward to our sailing on the Grand next week.

[VegasGreen]

Great review! A couple of quick questions....

 

... how does the "quad" configuration work for balcony cabins, does anyone know? We were upgraded to a BA on Caribe Deck, and it's in a great spot, but has the "red dot" of 3/4 occupancy.. how will this be configured? Will it affect our bedding situation?

 

Also, why does Princess suggest to get there after 1pm on the cruise personalizer? good grief. :)

[margord]

Great review, thanks so much.

[TorontoTL]

Good detailed review, thanks for writing and posting it.

[gomomgo]

Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing.

 

What room did you have? We have E605, listed as obstructed view. It looks like we are in between 2 lifeboats. Hopefully we'll be able to see sunlight and the ocean.

[happy cruzer]

We had E509. It was right over a lifeboat. I asked about it before the cruise and someone on CC told me you can see over the lifeboats but not the tenders. So I sure hope you have a good view.

 

Thanks for all the good comments. Anyone know the answer to Vegas's question about the quad balcony room? I wonder if they have the same problem puttng the beds together or if they have a sleeper sofa?

 

Have Fun!

[VegasGreen]

Yeah, when I click the diagram on princess.com, it doesn't show a sleeper sofa. But that could just be the stock "balcony cabin" diagram. Princess DID allow me to request beds together (which I see on the personalizer), but again, that might not mean anything either...

[jwave]

mini suites have the sofas. Even then in the quad configuration I don't know how they handle it. We are always a triple and when we arrive the beds are in twin, and then switched. My daughter sleeps on the sofa bed.

[VegasGreen]

so does anyone know about balconies on Caribe that can hold 4???

[shops54]

Wonderful review - Thanks so much! We hope to go on the sister ship soon so this was very nice.