Review - Star Princess

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I will do my best to touch base on what I thought was a great trip. But what is important to me, isn't necessarily important to others, so if you have questions, I would be more than happy to answer them for you.

 

Fort Lauderdale:

 

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on Friday evening. It was a relatively uneventful flight down. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott which was a nice enough hotel. We ended up eating at a seafood restaurant that was situated behind the hotel that they directed us too.

Unfortunately, I say skip this if you stay at the Courtyard. The wait time was more than an hour (we were told 15 minutes), the service was not that good and the food was just average. We didn't have a car or we would have gone some place else. It is convenient, but really not worth the money.

 

The ship:

Was full to the brink! Booked to capacity, but it was kept incredibly clean and we never felt like there were over 2600 people on board. Which was fabulous.

 

Embarkation:

 

Utterly smooth! Courtyard has a shuttle that brought us over to the port. We arrived at around 12:30. We were in our room a little before 1pm. I thought we would have to wait a very long time, but it was unexpectedly speedy. Our luggage arrived around 4pm that afternoon.

 

The Cabin:

 

The room was very similar to the Grand Princess. We were on the Aloha deck, cabin A625. Sort of near the back of the ship. The new bedding everyone raves about is wonderful. This particular level does have covered balconies which we really did enjoy. I sat out there often relaxing and reading a book. We also had a nice breakfast on the deck as well as we were celebrating my birthday and our one year anniversary. Closet space is great on the ships.

 

Our Stewart was simply ok. He didn't go above and beyond, but he did keep the room exceptionally clean.

 

The Service:

 

I have been on Princess twice now. We took Princess last year to the Southern Caribbean after reading tons of reviews on it and how she was thought of as one of the top of the line for a middle class sort of ship. I suppose I do sort of set the bar kind of high, but I was a bit disappointed, in truth.

 

I never once felt "special" on Princess and I really wanted to. My husband on the evening of my birthday called ahead to the dining room to make reservations (we had anytime dining, which I totally LOVE this flexibility) for our dinner and asked them for a cake since it was my bday. Well when dinner was finished, our waitress practically dumped a small little dessert with a candle on our table and didn't even sing to me. Boo hoo. Now, I will say on the night of our anniversary, they made a big deal about it...singing, congratulating us etc. I honestly think it is luck of the draw on who you get for a server and I don't think that "luck of the draw" is what Princess should be striving for. We didn't let this small issue impact our cruise in anyway, but I think everyone will agree, that sometimes it does leave a bad taste in your mouth.

 

The food:

 

I have read mixed reviews about the food and deterioration of the food on Princess. I am a foodie and I though on almost all of the nights the food was great! I ate lamb twice and it was superb...the veal was spectacular. The souffles (as mentioned by other reviewers) are WONDERFUL. I was not impressed with the Love Boat Dream, but my husband ate it every night practically.

 

We did eat at both specialty restaurants and thought the service at both were fantastic. One of the best meals I ate the entire trip was at Tequila's (the Steakhouse), the Ribeye is to die for!

Sabitin's was just average. But we had the best service there and a ton of fun.

 

There is a lot said about the coffee. I thought it was decent enough to drink every day and I also ordered espresso which I didn't have any complaints about either.

 

Oh, the Bloody Mary's are PHENOMENAL!

 

The Spa:

 

This was THE best thing we did on the cruise. We ended up getting a pass to their Sanctuary and it was HEAVEN. My only criticism would be a logistics complaint to Princess. The build this right beneath the basketball court and I think forgot about sound proofing because any time they were playing basketball you could hear everything. I highly recommend their spa services.

 

The Ports:

 

This was my first time taking a cruise to the Western Caribbean although I have been to a few of the islands. I totally prefer Eastern and Southern. I knew that might happen, but I love to shop and I thought it was terrible! We did love Grand Caymen and are considering spending a week there later this year.

 

Excursions:

 

We tubed down the White River in Jamaica. This was a blast. Not as many rapids as I would have liked, but fun! Would do this again.

 

Went snorkeling with the stingrays. Totally amazing. We wanted to SNUBA, but had to cancel because they have some medical waiver that they didn't tell us about (I have ulcers) so we couldn't do that. I wish we knew that ahead of time so at least I could have had more time and better choices to decide on.

 

We also went to the Mayan Ruins. This was the tour someone extensively complained about. I thought it was ok...it was hot, but I didn't think we excessively walked or it was too strenuous. I did think it to be a little boring and a bit commercialized. We had gone to another ruins in Cancun a few years ago and it was much nicer. They let you touch and feel etc whereas we weren't able to do that here. The view is spectacular and you are able to swim in the gorgeous waters!!!!

 

Princess Cays is lovely. The beach is very rocky (I didn't listen) and you really need to have shoes on when going in the water. But it was a very relaxing day with very attentive waiters to bring me pina coladas.

 

Disembarkation:

 

So, they have this new Walk-off with your own luggage disembarkation process. I thought this was fantastic! We were off the ship in a taxi in about 10 minutes.

 

A few random thoughts:

 

Tendering-Princess is very disorganized with tendering. If they knew what was going on, they did a very poor job of sharing the information with the cruisers.

 

Entertainment-I really enjoyed the shows. However, the Cinematastic is the same show as last year. I was a little surprised. The comedians were very funny. I enjoyed Billy London. Yes, as people say, he isn't around much, but he is a hoot when he is!!

 

Internet Access- oh what a pain! Totally expensive and always disrupted.

 

Overall, we had a great time. This cruise was incredibly inexpensive, so I thought totally worth it. A vacation is all what you make it, so we enjoyed ourselves greatly.

 

I would recommend Princess if someone asked, but I think we will certainly keep our options open to other cruise lines. I like feeling special and while I did see it happen for some people, I never got that feeling I have had with other cruise lines.

 

I am sure I missed tons...if you have any questions, feel free to ask!