Crown Princess review 8/28 - 9/6

[kafitty]

okay, it's a little late, but i've hit the ground running since i got home with school/rugby practice/starting a new job. oh, how i wish life was uncomplicated at sea again...

a little background: this was my second cruise, first with Princess, and the boyfriend's first ever cruise. We are 21 and 24, respectively. i was the planner for this vacation, and i chose Princess because i wanted a slightly more upscale experience than i know i'd get with Carnival. Not saying it's a bad product - just saying i wanted a little more elegance and a lot less neon. i wanted to cruise because i had LOVED my first cruise, and i am so indecisive that i could never pick just one port to go too. Plus, it was a great price, and going out of NY meant NO FLYING - i HATE security!!! We were about 4 hours away, so we drove in and left the car.

embarkation: so easy, we got there about 1:30 and were onboard a little after 2. There was a slight detour to the pier, but it was clearly marked and there were policemen directing traffic.

the ship: i thought she was beautiful, and so big!! i never had any real problems navigating her, but i had seen the deck plans plenty of time before actually boarding.

cabin: we had C701 on the Caribe deck. This is right next to the elevators and fire doors, but we rarely had problems with noise - just a few loud people going by a few times.

We actually spent a lot of time in our room, watching movies and just hanging out on our amazing balcony. i'm very happy i upgraded us to the gigantic Caribe 1/2 covered 1/2 open balcony, it was perfect for just sunbathing and reading a book.

Our room steward was Pan, or as we called him, "PanMan", and he was great!! Whoever it was who told me we'd love him, you were absolutely right, and i told him i had heard nice things about him. He was very pleased!

We slept on the regular bed the first night and it was a little hard for me, but we had asked Pan to get us the egg crate mattress and he saved us one. After that got put on, the bed was great.

dining: we always had room service breakfast - we're not big breakfast people. sometimes i'd write in something like "bagels w/cream cheese" but we usually just stuck to cereal, fruit and coffee. The coffee was fine for me, and i'm not a big coffee person!!

for lunch we'd do the buffet or burgers/hot dogs. The buffet was usually pretty crowded, and i really didn't like a lot of the choices offered. And i LOVE buffets, really!! There was usually seating in Cafe Caribe. A few times we went there for dinner, and the buffet was better, but drink service was AWFUL. It would take at least 10 minutes for our waters to get filled, and no one EVER offered us a drink - we didn't have soda cards and we're both drinkers so i don't understand why they weren't all over us to get us drinks!! At least they helped my bar bill...

we liked the burgers and hot dogs, and the french fries were yummy, but i was not fan of the pizza. The cheese gave a really weird aftertaste. Otherwise it was good, but the cheese ruined it. i loove pizza so i was sad about this.

 

the only time i found food heinously salty was on sailaway. i got me a big plate of shrimp, took it to my cabin, and couldn't eat any of it because it was SO salty. i was so disappointed. otherwise, everything was fine.

We did anytime dining, and honestly i think next time i want to do traditional. Not because of the service thing, but because i think it would be nice to have at least one set activity at night to plan everything else around! Our service was usually very good, we normally got tables for two, with a short wait on formal night. One time we shared an 8top, and that was slightly awkward in the beginning, but it was nice company by the end. The food was normally pretty good here, and i could always find something i wanted to eat.

We tried Sabatini's the night we left from St. Thomas, and it was really nice. Our server was Simona (?) and she was absolutely lovely. i'm not really an adventurous eater, but it was nice trying everything; the bf is 100% Italian and he loved it. i couldn't even get to dessert though, and i was disgustingly full at the end, to the point that i was almost sick. But a nice experience!

entertainment: as i said before, we actually spent a lot of time in our cabin. There were plenty of activities, but nothing we were really interested in. Not the cruiselines fault: it's just not our thing. The things we did go to were pretty crowded, which i'll talk more about in a little bit.

We did spend a good amount of time in the casino...the boyfriend's a gambler, i most decidedly am not, but my second time in a casino ever, on the second day, i hit $1,500 on a slot machine!!! OH YEAH!! i'm a broke college kid so this was an absolute God-send for me; it meant i really didn't have to worry about money for this trip and i could really spoil myself. The boyfriend ended up winning $2,500 in all, so we definitely did well. i ended up donating a lot of that $$ back to the Casino gods, but they giveth and they taketh away, ya know??

we did see the crew talent show near the end of the cruise, cause our waiter friend in the casino was in it and asked us to come. We got to the theater pretty early with some drinks, and the seats filled around us. i saw some seat-saving, but nothing outrageous. The show itself was great, some of the crew is REALLY talented, and the cruise director staff did "If I Were Not Upon the Sea." As most of you may know, it was absolutely hysterical, and i'm glad we didn't miss it!

on the subject of the cruise director staff, because we didn't interact with them a whole lot because we didn't go to the activities, but we LOVED Kelvin Joy on his morning show. We watched every morning while eating breakfast and always got a good laugh at his dancing and silly jokes.

spa: in the otherwise worthless passport to value, there was a 10 or 15% coupon to use towards a spa service on a port day. So we used that to get a couples massage on the day we got to Puerto Rico - we didn't dock til 1 p.m. but this still counted as a port day. It was a nice full body massage in one of the cabanas in the Sanctuary. It had actually started to rain a bit, but it was cool to hear the rain and thunder mix with the spa music while getting our massage. i also got a seaweed treatment on the last day because there was a special, and that was very cool. We did get products sold to us, which does kind of ruin the mood, but hey it's their jobs.

ports: this was a great itinerary, except PR.

Puerto Rico: i could definitely do without this port, especially as the first stop. We left from New York, and it felt like we pulled into Boston. Old San Juan was cute, but OH MAN it was hot, humid, and cloudy. i had actually picked up a cold from being in the casino, so all i wanted to do was go to the Coach outlet to spend my winnings, a drug store to get some meds, and right back on the ship. And that's what we did. The coach outlet was a bit of a walk, but it was definitely worth it in the end - i got a bag, a wristlet and a little charm thing for under $200. Oh yeah.

St. Maarten: i LOVE this island, i want to go back NOW!! The cruise terminal is set up VERY well and it's extremely easy to get around the island on your own. We went to the cab stand and waited maybe 10 minutes for another couple to come so we could split the cab fare to Orient Beach. We had a nice conversation with them as we made our way around the twisty roads, and the cab stopped for a bit so i could take pictures.

We LOVED Orient Beach, i could have spent all day there!! We went to the Pirate and got two chairs and an umbrella pretty cheap; i forget how much exactly. We spent most of the time in the warm, gorgeous water, and there was a great surf to bodysurf in. We had arranged for a cab to come pick us up at 1:30 because they recommended making arrangements, but when we went back to the cab area around 1:15 there were plenty of cabs to take us.

We then took a cab to Maho beach to see the planes land at Princess Juliana airport - the cab fare was $25 and we got there about 1:45. We were dropped off at the Sunset Beach Bar, which is a fun little place with a great vantage point of the planes. i'm an aviation geek, my brother is a pilot, so this was very very cool for me. We had some okay food at the bar and met another couple vacationing on the island and had some great conversation. It started raining around 2:30, but it was a nice cooling rain. Our cab driver had come back at that point so we left to got back to the ship around 3:30. GREAT day, i definitely am going back to this island for an extended stay!!

St. Thomas: yes we docked in Crown Bay. We're not big shoppers, so there were plenty of places for us to look in. If your main activity is shopping, however, you will be disappointed. Nick got a good deal on some jewelry, but i didn't see anything i loved so i didn't get anything other than a few souveniers.

We did an excursion booked through the ship here, the Turtle Cove Sail & Snorkle. The ship is the Dancing Dolphin, and she and her crew were great! It was about an hour sail to Block Island (i think that's its name) to see the turtles. We are experienced snorklers, growing up in beach towns, and i'm actually a diver so we were a little miffed when we were required to wear the inflatable vests (at least we didn't have to inflate them). We had about an hour to snorkle. We saw plenty of turtles and some stingrays too, but not a lot of colorful fish or coral. Oh well, the turtles were the stars here!! One got within like 6 inches of my face when he came up for air, no lie. Definitely an amazing experience, but i probably wouldn't do it again just because you can only see so many turtles or stingrays hanging out. On the way back, i got my first experience with Painkillers...all i can say is OH BOY.

Grand Turk: by this point, my cold had transferred to the boyfriend, so he was pretty miserable when we docked. So we stayed in bed until our afternoon excursion, the dune buggy tour, also booked through the ship. This was a really fun tour, but YOU WILL GET WET AND DIRTY. And DON'T bring any valuables with you, because they will get wet and dirty too!! i'm short, 5'1", so i couldn't drive because i couldn't comfortably reach the wheel but i still had fun as a passenger. i'll be getting a video of this tour online soon, but i've been having computer troubles so it won't be for awhile. This was a great way to see the island, which looks a lot different from St. Maarten/St. Thomas because it's comparatively flat. There are lots of horses, cows, and donkeys roaming around too!!

The one bummer about this tour is that we ran out of gas!! Yes, just us - this kind of thing only happens to me, lol. It was a little past halfway through the tour, and the guides were shocked, saying it was "impossible" since all of the buggies were fueled at the same time. They actually left us alone, just us and our unfueled buggy, for about 15 minutes while they got gas. i wasn't particularly thrilled with this, being left in the hot sun on the other side of the island from the boat with no cell phone...but i was glad we were on THIS island, not one of the other ones!!! They eventually got back, got us fueled up, and we finished with the rest of the tour.

i would recommend wearing clothes you don't care about and taking the earliest tour, so you can come back, clean up, and then shop. We went to the beach after the tour was done to wash off, and it was nice enough, but not as nice as St. Maarten.

Debarkation: i watched Kelvin’s debarkation speech on the ship’s channel, which had been playing all day, so I knew they wouldn’t be making announcements over the loud speakers. I believe a dining room was open for breakfast until 8:30 and the buffet til 9:00, but we went straight our assigned waiting area in club fusion. Expected debarkation time was 9:45, I believe we got off sometime around 10:30.

Random other things:

There were a lot of people on this ship, and a lot of kids – which surprised me a little, with school starting and all. There were a lot of crowds and the areas by the pools were always packed. I’m a little antisocial so I wasn’t too fond of this, but I did have some great conversations with the people I met.

I had noted on someone else’s review that there were some rude people around, but I guess it isn’t so much rudeness as just not being aware of the people around you, ya know? Some people just aren’t used to thinking about others, sad but true, and it is kind of hard on vacation. But just smile, be polite, try not to judge others: it helps.

There was a lot of seat saving by the pools, but up on the higher decks you can find a quiet place to hang.

I never got to try the thermal suite :( but it looked amazing! Never went to the Sanctuary, that’s what the balcony is for.

We got room service a few times, it was always fast and yummy. Sandwiches like turkey, club, roast beef and tuna salad, with French fries. They also had a soup of the day, ham/cheeseburgers, hot dogs, etc., and a few desserts, but that’s about it. Did the trick, though. There is pizza service for $3 per pizza, and I’m going to disagree with whoever said it wasn’t from the pizzeria – when we ordered it, kind of late at night, we got it with a bunch of other things. The other stuff came first, and the room service guy called back and said the pizza was coming cause “his guy had to go get it.” I assume it was from the pizzeria – I could be wrong.

DON’T LOSE YOUR PARKING TICKET IF YOU PARK!! Just leave it on the dashboard in the car. ‘twas not a fun way to end the vacation…

i know i had a million other little things i wanted to say, but i forget, so if you have any questions I’ll try to answer. i still have all of my patters so i can answer any of those questions.

We had a great time, I wish I was still onboard, but I think next time I’ll try a smaller ship. I’ll definitely do Princess again, we both purchased future cruise credits, but I’m going to try the other lines too.

happy sailing!!

[Coolmama_1]

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

[BluIDblonde]

Thanks for your review...

 

My husband and I just came back from the 8/19 sailing and he ended up going on the dune buggy excursion in Grand Turk also. I was suppose to go but it was way to hot for me the day we were there! The main reason I am replying to your post is to restate the fact that if you are short, you may not be able to drive the dune buggy. Some of them had adustable seats and some did not. So if you are short, ask the guides which buggy can adjust to shorter leg lengths. Otherwises you may be outta luck! And you are right, wear old clothes!!!!

[gopher's girl]

Great tips Scotty! Thanks!

[kates70]

Scotty - Thanks for the review. It sounds like you had a similar experience to my Crown cruise in August. Lots of time in the cabin ... and on the balcony. I'm not much for crowds either. We even did the same thing in San Juan ... Coach outlet and back to the ship! That store must get a lot of business.

 

I have to agree with your comments about life vests ... i think this should be an optional thing. I found it funny that during our ship-sponsored snorkeling excursion in Grand Turk they insisted that I wear one (even though i explained that I was a competitive swimmer for over 10 years) and they also made me sign a waiver that basically said if something bad happens they are not responsible. So if I have to sign away any liability on their part ... don't make me wear a life vest!

[MikeTheActuary]

okay, it's a little late

 

It's not that late. Heck, I'm just now getting around to scanning in the Patters from the cruise. :)

[Colo Cruiser]

Great review thanks. :)