Crown Observations 3/15/08

[JeannetteC]

I just returned from the Crown Princess cruise on 3/15 to the Southern Caribbean. The cruise was excellent and a tremendous value. There were two shows per night (one in the Princess Theater and one in Explorer's Lounge) and most were good. The food was also better than on my previous six cruises with Princess or other lines.

 

We loved Anytime Dining. We ate when we wanted and that means we could schedule naps or late lunches in port without any concern. Sometimes, we didn't eat in the main dining room but instead had sushi and champagne at Vines where the service was fantastic.

 

The Caribe Cafe looks just like Horizon and is right next door so some people didn't realize that it has different buffet dishes. Be sure to check Caribe for Asian, Mexican or other themed lunches and dinners.

 

One caution: We had the norovirus on the Coral Princess and it was horrible. On the Crown, the hand sanitizers in the buffets were empty 5 of the 7 days. We informed a staff person and an officer but nothing was done to correct the problem. With everyone handling the food ladles, you should bring your own sanitizer just to be safe.

 

My one complaint about the Crown is the pool situation. There are two large pools. One has MUTS (Movies Under The Stars). MUTS plays day and night and the volume is very high. You can't read a book or relax at the MUTS pool unless you happen to be there when a movie isn't playing. I didn't see lots of people paying attention to the movie during the day -- mostly there were teenagers or young adults talking while the movie was background noise. At night, more people came to see the movie and Princess passed out blankets and popcorn.

 

The second pool has a good but very loud band. When the band played, we had to leave. If the band wasn't playing, often the cruise directors would lead volleyball games and such in the pool. The microphone was very loud and it seemed to disrupt everyone when only a handful of people could see or wanted to see the volleyball, golf chipping or other contests.

 

Between MUTS and the loud band, there was no quiet adult pool with shade that we could use. The Spa pool is very small and was always full because there are so few lounge chairs. The adult pool at the rear of the ship has no shade and was not good for us. My husband refused to pay $10 for the Sanctuary -- he really wanted a pool.

 

Embarkation and disembarkation were a breeze. The service was fabulous and we had a wonderful time.

 

Jeannette

[KKB]

We have enjoyed the food on both our Star cruises, but Mom & Dad were not impressed on their Coral cruise. Looking forward to good food!

 

On DCL, we felt the MUTS was too loud, also. Luckily we like the pool games/band at the other, but I can certainly see that this could be an issue. I will be sure to note that on my comment card!

 

Check--hand sanitizer added to my list!

[IWanttocruisenow]

great review!!!!!

 

I personally would not have let $10 per day get in my way of a better lounge experience.

 

Does the Sanctuary have a seperate pool? Or just a seperate lounge area? I think they have a wekly rate for couples, like 115 bucks?

[caribcruiser787]

Thanks for the review.

[Lorey2007]

Could you please explain what the Sanctuary is? We're sailing on Crown next year.

[JeannetteC]

The Sanctuary is a quiet, luxury lounge area at the top of the ship forward. I briefly walked through it the first day when it was closed so I don't have a great memory of details. I recall drapes and screens for shade and a sun area but no pool. It costs $10 for a half day. I don't know about weekly rates and I'm not sure you'd want to pay a weekly rate unless you plan to spend a lot of time lounging rather than seeing the islands. My husband didn't want to pay $20 for a half day for both of us. He wanted to sit around a pool and people watch without really loud music, movies or announcements.

 

One time when we left the pool area, we used our balcony. Another time, I found a dozen or so comfortable, padded chairs on Deck 7 under the lifeboats (all shaded). Deck 7 was relatively quiet (some mechanical noise) and you could watch the sea birds dive for fish. However, there was no one to bring you one of those marvelous pina coladas and the pizza and hot dogs weren't accessible (that was a good thing in my case).

 

Jeannette