Crown 11-3-07

[East Coaster]

I also have a question, did the Crown dock in Tortola or did you have to tender?

 

Thanks!

[East Coaster]

I also have a question, did the Crown dock in Tortola or did you have to tender?

 

Thanks!

[willysgrandma]

All I can say is it appears that boarding in San Juan can be a crapshoot.

 

We sailed the Crown a year ago from the Pan Am pier and the lines were out to the street in the heat. There was a problem with Customs on the previous cruise. If you read my Crown review froma year ago, you can read about the problems.

 

I would have thought those problems would have been corrected - but they are still having them a year later?

[willysgrandma]

All I can say is it appears that boarding in San Juan can be a crapshoot.

 

We sailed the Crown a year ago from the Pan Am pier and the lines were out to the street in the heat. There was a problem with Customs on the previous cruise. If you read my Crown review from a year ago, you can read about the problems.

 

I would have thought those problems would have been corrected - but they are still having them a year later?

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

I also have a question, did the Crown dock in Tortola or did you have to tender?

 

Thanks!

 

We were supposed to tender in Tortolla on Thursday (what a mouthful) but we were pleasantly suprised to see we were actually docked - we had booked a ship excursion due to the impending tender and would have booked on our own for half the cost had we known we would be at the dock. I heard this is a new port for Princess so that may have been the reason - also we were the only ship in Port which also may be a factor as the pier was very small.

 

I strongly recomend going to the Baths on Virgin Gorda - ferry is available right next to the dock with a short taxi ride on the other end - cost is $30 per person for ferry/taxi and $3 to get into the Baths - we paid over $65 /pp booking from the ship and that gave us a tour guide through the caves :-)

 

Have a great time!

[Doug R.]

I also have a question, did the Crown dock in Tortola or did you have to tender?

 

Thanks!

 

Docked.

[Kerry&LuAnn]

For those of you who recently sailed on the Crown Princess, who was the cruise director?

[Tools R Us]

I also have a question, did the Crown dock in Tortola or did you have to tender?

 

Thanks!

 

We docked at Tortola, didn't tender at any port.

[Newsdoc]

The cruise director was Kelvin.

 

Disembarkation went smoothly for us as we were among the first off the ship, but there are two areas where the embarkation definitely could have been improved.

 

First, there weren't enough porters when we got there at 12:30 so my 73-year old mother-in-law had to schlep her own bags to the dropoff point. My wife & I helped as much as we could, but all of our hands were already full with our own bags.

 

Second, although we'd booked two of the suites and were eligible for VIP boarding, the on-site staff didn't seem to know that even existed. Instead, after looking at our boarding passes (which were color-coded differently and indicated Priority Boarding at the top), they directed us to the regular lines. After standing there for 15 minutes and estimating that it would have taken at least another half-hour to make our way up front, I finally decided to scope things out on our own and eventually spotted the VIP entrance at the very end of the hall. Five minutes later, we were on the ship.

 

Bottom line: it sure would have been nice if Princess had put a bit more effort into better training their staff to keep an eye out for Platinum Circle & others who've paid extra for services like expedited embarkation.

[LALAFRANCE]

We were on the B2B the middle week being the 10-27. It was terrible even for us...a simple walk off and return to ship (custom reasons) turned into a 3 hour fiasco. We were taken off together 1 1/2 hours late and were left out there watching new cruisers get on the ship this while telling us they were unable to make us new cards so we must wait for that. By the time I got onboard my blood sugar was 50 and I was in tears!!:eek:

 

I was told that San Juan port is the worst port that Princess dealt with.

I hope that the next B2B receive their card the night before as should have happened with us. They just kept telling us to come back later, and that it would be delivered to our room later, funny some people were able to get them:confused: . So we had all our belongings in our new cabin and no access to the cabin!

 

We at least had a week to try to wipe out the memory as well as a nice bottle of wine and a letter of apology from James Deering Passenger Service Director.

 

I'll think twice about embarking in San Juan in the future. No problems disembarking though.

[figmentdj]

We didn't have much of a problem with either embarking or disembarking but I could see how it could have turned bad.

 

We rented a car in SJ so we drove to the pier, found a porter dropped off our bags then took the car back. At the time we were dropping the bags it was pretty crowded. By the time we dropped the car off and took a taxi back to the pier it was less crowded. The lines moved pretty quickly but security is always a backlog. Plus, the line for security backed up into the liquor tasting kiosks so it got crowded in a very small space.

 

Disembarking was a breeze until the last part. There are very few folks at the exit of the pier to tell people where to go. The transfer crowd overlapped into the taxi crowd. This could be better. Other than that it was smooth. For us anyways.

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

Our cruise director Kelvin was great and will we ever forget his performance of "If I were not at sea" - oh my!

[East Coaster]

Thanks Cinbol, Doug R & Tools R Us! I hope we dock in Tortola, too!

[Luv Cruising Land or Sea]

Parisbully

 

Our flight arrived at 1:30 and we grabbed a cab to the dock - the line was out on the sidewalk but moved fairly quickly and the line inside went very quickly and smoothly - overall we were less than 45 minutes sidewalk to cabin. No issues to report other than people not having the correct documents ready for inspection which slowed the line down considerably - what? we need an id and boarding pass? What a surrprise - duh! And there were staff members going down the line to tell people what to have ready....oh well - human nature prevails!

[Stevesan]

We were on the B2B the middle week being the 10-27. It was terrible even for us...a simple walk off and return to ship (custom reasons) turned into a 3 hour fiasco. We were taken off together 1 1/2 hours late and were left out there watching new cruisers get on the ship this while telling us they were unable to make us new cards so we must wait for that. By the time I got onboard my blood sugar was 50 and I was in tears!!:eek:

 

I was told that San Juan port is the worst port that Princess dealt with.

I hope that the next B2B receive their card the night before as should have happened with us. They just kept telling us to come back later, and that it would be delivered to our room later, funny some people were able to get them:confused: . So we had all our belongings in our new cabin and no access to the cabin!

 

We at least had a week to try to wipe out the memory as well as a nice bottle of wine and a letter of apology from James Deering Passenger Service Director.

 

I'll think twice about embarking in San Juan in the future. No problems disembarking though.

 

That's extremely dangerous. I, too, am hypoglycemic and once had a similar episode (Too many pancakes for breakfast:o ). My doctor told me that blood sugar levels below 50 frequently preclude a COMA state.

You certainly must have suffered early symptoms. If this ever happens again tell a ship's representative that you need immediate medical attention.

 

Please tell me: I've booked Crown's two week cruises as a single cruise. Since you changed cabins I presume you booked as two cruises B2B?

I ask because I thought my sail card would be good for both weeks, but maybe not.

[NicoLee]

What is the earliest time to get off the ship? Could we make a 10:30 flight home?

[LALAFRANCE]

HI,

No your bill gets settled and you are supposed to get your new cruise card the night prior at dinnertime. Something wasn't working they say and we had to keep running and calling back . They kept saying try in an hour. They were very good about moving our clothes for us but once we left the new cabin we had no card to reenter. hopefully the kinks will be worked out and it was a one time occurance. It probably would have been better to walk off the ship and come back late afternoon but who knows!:o

[Doug R.]

What is the earliest time to get off the ship? Could we make a 10:30 flight home?

 

You have a very good chance of not making it. With the increased security inspections at the airports you have to allow extra time. We were in the second group off the boat and that was at about 8:45 am. With the scrum for luggage and clearing customs we did not get to the airport until shortly after 10 am. Good rule of thumb for disembarking is not to schedule a flight before noon.

[sghetrick]

While reading the posts I saw that everyone says the line for embarkation is so long it's around the corner. Is there a separate line for those in suites or would we have to wait in this line and then get into the priority line. Thanks!!

[cruisegal40]

Hye, we weren't told about the express check-out? We have done that on the last two or three sailings! Guess some of you were in the know? :cool: We got there and turned around and went to the Sheraton for lunch, came back and there were still lines down the whole terminal. A bus from the airport had just arrived. Went back out and walked around some more and came back about 4:00 and got on w/ in about 20 min. The luggage got to our cabin before us!