Another Emerald Review from 4/04/08 10-day

[4cats4me]

We just got back from the 10-day Southern Medley cruise aboard the Emerald Princess.

 

Firstly, I would like to say that this was a wonderful cruise, and we wouldn't mind doing this same exact itinerary and ship next year if time provides:D We met so many wonderful people from Cruise Critic, and had a wonderful turnout for the Meet & Greet for sailaway. A big thank you to

Doug&Nadine and Chef Brian for pulling this together. We had another M&G on Day 2, not as well attended, but nevertheless very nice indeed!

 

Gosh, we had such a great time, I don't even know where to begin.

 

My husband and I are 48 and 44 respectively, and this was our 8th Princess cruise, my 11th cruise overall and his 9th.

We've previously cruised on the Star, Golden [twice], Diamond [twice] and

Sapphire [twice].

 

Hotel: Stayed at the Renaissance on 17th Street. Secured a room via

Priceline months ago for around $200. It was nice, but nothing special. I

don't care for bright yellow walls and ceilings, so it hyped me up a little. LOL

The location was right across from the cruiseport, and only cost us

$4.50 to ride to the port. Had a great dinner at Bravo's, right next to

the hotel.

 

Embarkation: We decided to head over to the port around 11:15'ish

and waited in a long line for at least 25-30 minutes before some guy came along and noticed that we and the folks behind us had "preferred Platinum/Elite boarding," so he whisked us out of line around the corner

to a check-in point. Why didn't they have this clearly marked? Why

did we need to waste time in a line we shouldn't have been in? Different

than in L.A. for sure. Once inside, we were called to the check-in desk

within 5 - 10 minutes. We were on board by 12:20 and our luggage

was at our door by 1:45 p.m.

 

Cabin:We had the much coveted C-753 corner aft balcony cabin which flanked a Penthouse suite, and this cabin was everything we'd

hoped for and more. Last year we had a VS [Vista Suite] and this cabin

was just as adequate; in fact, we enjoyed it much more. I'm not sure if it

was because it was less than half the price of a Vista or what, but seriously, we loved it. After having had mini-suites and full suites a few times, we really thought we'd not be so thrilled with this cabin, but the

location more than made up for it. And I personally like the smaller cabins while cruising since it reminds me that I am on a cruise, after all, and having the full cruiser experience. I even relished taking a shower in the

tiny "phone booth" on this cruise.

Once in the room, upon entering the bathroom there was a pretty bad

smell. It smelled like a combo of urine/mildew, so I smelled the shower curtain and that was the culprit. We notified our steward immediately

and he brought us a new shower curtain. I also had brought along Clorox

wipes in a packet, thanks to the advice of other CCers, and sure am glad

that I did, as a good wipe-down of the shower, and the bathroom smelled

sparkling clean!

 

Cabin steward was wonderful. Unfortunately, this was to be his last cruise with Princess after six years. His name was Tamas, and others have elaborated on how wonderful he is. A truly wonderful gentleman.

 

We did have a smoker next door which curtailed our ability to enjoy the balcony at certain times of the day, but unfortunately until Princess goes

no-smoking on balconies, this will continue to occur.

 

Shows: We only attended one show in the Princess theater, a wonderful Irish duo who played the fiddle and some other strange percussion instrument, and she sang beautifully; can't remember their name right now. We caught one game show in the Explorer's Lounge one evening which was quite funny, with some of our very

own CCer's taking part [cruisingirl and PhotoFlo]

 

Pools: Well, we did notice the impact of 400 extra passengers with the pools as we never could find a shady chair, but that was okay; we just traipsed back to our balcony to lay in the shade. I think this was the most we've ever utilized our balcony. I was a little disappointed in the

teak partitions near the center pools. It was odd-looking to us for some reason, and it seemed as if the upper deck was cut away even more than

on the Grand-class ships resulting in less shade for the lower pool deck.

Loved the Lotus pool at the front of the ship.

The rear pool also had less space for chairs since the Caribe Cafe is now

taking up the space inside, which pushes the back bar out further, resulting in less deck space for tables and whatnot. Very cramped feeling back there, but still enjoyed it.

 

Food: We never ate at any specialty restaurants. For that matter, we

only ate in the dining room once since we thought the buffet food was

exceptionally good most of the time.

The first night was the much talked about seafood buffet; they also had

Prime rib.

This was our first experience on a ship with Caribe Cafe, and I was curious

what this would be like. Well, we couldn't figure out why they would shut

down the entire Horizon Court and only keep the Caribe part open for dinner, especially when we had so many more passengers aboard this ship than on other ships, where they do keep enough buffets open to support the flow of passengers.

The only minor disappointment we both had was we love to load up on

nice salads at dinner, and this was not possible with Caribe Cafe since they only had the dinner salads available.

We also are not fans of the "themed" buffet, and Rijstafel [sp] buffet,

Indian buffet and Bavarian buffets are not for everyone; I happened to

like the Rijstafel [indonesian] Buffet, but I don't care for curry at all

and many of the dishes on Indian night were ladened with curry.

Sadly, they must have gotten a good deal on curry last week since there were hints of it even in the shrimp which were served on Continental night.

And on Italian night, I swear it was the same curried-shrimp, only this time

disguised with more hot cayenne pepper. LOL

 

Overall though, I still give the buffet high marks for their creativity and

quality of meats. I thought it was a nice touch to even have the appetizers made up as well!

 

On this cruise what was different for us was the fact that the buffet workers wanted to get our water and tea and coffee for us. We're accustomed to doing this ourselves and prefer the old system. The reason we felt this way was because it got annoying with them constantly

buzzing around us nervously, under the watchful eye of their supervisors,

and we got the distinct impression these poor buffet workers were seriously overworked and not too happy. I've never witnessed such a

hard-working bunch on any of the other Princess cruises we've taken, and

am sad to see that they're making these poor lads and lasses wait on us

hand and foot, especially when they already have enough to do.:(

 

This review is getting a bit verbose so I'm going to shorten it.

 

Ports:

 

Aruba: First time there. Took the Arubus which is right across the street from the port for $2.30 round trip. Went to Palm Beach and had the

driver drop us off in front of the RIU palace where there is a pathway which leads to the beach. Rented umbrellas and chairs for $30 and had a great day. Didn't shop.

 

Bonaire: Ugly island -- sorry, but it is. Here it's all about what's under the water. Took the Princess tour called "Day at the Beach" which was a joke, IMHO. We paid $79 pp for this and others walked there directly

from the ship, rented a chair for $15 pp and had the same day that we had. Ours was supposed to be from 7:30 to 12:30 and we didn't get there [because of a delay getting off the ship due to something] and

we didn't get there until around 8:20 and were told we'd be picked up

at 11:25. Huh? Okay. We were told "lunch" would be served between

10 and 11:30, but lunch was still cooking at 10:45 and we were to leave

at 11:25. when lunch came out, it was merely thin slices of chicken and

beef and fish, with only some accompanying tomatoes. Say WHAT?

LOL -- not a good excursion for the money, and the Plaza resort has

a nice view of the Valero refinery as well.

 

Grenada: Did the "Spices of Grenada" tour and enjoyed this one immensely. Sampled jellies, rums, jams, syrups; went to a spice garden

and learned a lot about nutmeg, cinnamon, et cet; went to a rum distillery and saw a lot of the countryside as well.

Well worth the money.

 

Dominica: Did a private tour with Reyno of reynotours and for $40 pp, the

best bang for the buck. The tour lasted nearly 5 hours and we saw

everything from the emerald pool to Trafalgar falls, to the sulfur spring,

to the little tiny blacksand beach and went to Mr. Nice fruitstand which

rested in the middle of some banana plantations. Beautiful island and beautiful people. Danah was a wonderful tour guide as well.

Very tired out after getting back.

 

St. Thomas: We decided to take a taxi to Redhook [$10 per person] to

catch the ferry from Redhook to St. John [$5 pp] and then caught a taxi

to Trunk Bay [$6 pp] This turned out to be a wonderful day, and

very leisurely, as we weren't under the time constraints which would have

been imposed by taking a ship's tour. We were able to stay at the beach for at least 5 hours. Caught the 2p.m. ferry back. We could have pushed

it and taken the 3p.m. ferry, but we wanted to be of the safe side.

 

Princess Cays: A stellar day as well. What more can I say? We even saw the most amount of fish here than we had at any of the other places we snorkeled.

 

Also, about the age group on board -- we felt it was an equal mixture of people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s with very few 20 and 30 somethings. We had a lot of people from the UK as well as a smattering of Canadians, with mostly Americans. Very few teeny-boppers and just a few school-age children.

 

Well, that about sums up a wonderful week, wonderful cruise. If anyone

has questions I'll be happy to try to answer them.

[JWJs]

Great review. Thanks so much for including what you did on the islands. Sure helps us make plans for our 12/20/08 Emerald cruise. Neat hearing C-753 corner aft balcony was everything you had hoped for and more!!!! We are in B-748...a corner aft balcony 1 deck above and I feel sure we are really going to like it. Do you have any pictures to share? Would love to see them. Was Bonaire (the ugly island) good for snorkeling? Thanks again for posting your review.

[cmalibu1]

Great review! Thanks for sharing all your thoughts!

[dforeigner]

Thank you for taking time to write a review.

[4cats4me]

Great review. Thanks so much for including what you did on the islands. Sure helps us make plans for our 12/20/08 Emerald cruise. Neat hearing C-753 corner aft balcony was everything you had hoped for and more!!!! We are in B-748...a corner aft balcony 1 deck above and I feel sure we are really going to like it. Do you have any pictures to share? Would love to see them. Was Bonaire (the ugly island) good for snorkeling? Thanks again for posting your review.

 

We actually had better snorkeling in Princess Cays! I can see where you

might have better opportunities in Bonaire, however, since it is very much coral. Definitely bring your water socks. That made a huge difference.

One other note about C753: We normally get an aft balcony cabin,

and this particular ship had much more motion than we're accustomed too.

Lots of rattles and creaks and just overall motion compared to the

Golden, Sapphire, Star and Diamond.:eek: But we would still book that

same cabin again if given the opportunity.

 

I also forgot to mention to check your bills carefully. On the last morning

we noticed an unauthorized charge for $71.83 on our bill that we couldn't

reconcile with anything -- and it turns our they erred. Our cruise card

had the number 7148 and they were supposed to charge it to 7140, but

it was inputted incorrectly in the system. Others around us were having

similar issues, but on a smaller scale, so really keep track of your purchases. Princess simply refunded it to our credit card, and they were

very apologetic to us.

 

Platinum internet: We bought the Platinum internet package which was

to be refunded to our credit card, but upon purchasing it, the computer

indicated an error message, so I swiped my card again. Next thing I

know it shows that I've bought two packages, or 500 minutes:eek: so

I went to the purser's desk immediately and they told me not to worry

as this had happened to a few others -- and indeed they did refund that

too.

[jerryr]

>>On this cruise what was different for us was the fact that the buffet workers wanted to get our water and tea and coffee for us. We're accustomed to doing this ourselves and prefer the old system. The reason we felt this way was because it got annoying with them constantly

buzzing around us nervously, under the watchful eye of their supervisors,

and we got the distinct impression these poor buffet workers were seriously overworked and not too happy.

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Dana we felt the same way and included a note on the comment card about it. We much prefer to get our own drinks.

 

Enjoyed your review, thanks for taking the time to write it.

[caribill]

On this cruise what was different for us was the fact that the buffet workers wanted to get our water and tea and coffee for us. We're accustomed to doing this ourselves and prefer the old system.

 

 

I think they did have gone to this for two reasons:

 

a) Less congestion in the buffet since less people trying to get drinks.

b) Less chance of passengers spreading the dreaded norovirus

[PAHORNER]

Thanks for your review, DH and I are doing intinerary similar to the one you had done, made some great notes for us. We had actually planned the "day at the beach" tour at Bonaire, thanks for saving us the money :D .

[LARGIN]

Thanks for the review..

[Colo Cruiser]

Great review. :)

[vickie_bernie]

great review, brought me right back to our wonderful cruise... glad you enjoyed it, thanks again

[4cats4me]

I think they did have gone to this for two reasons:

 

a) Less congestion in the buffet since less people trying to get drinks.

b) Less chance of passengers spreading the dreaded norovirus

 

This had absolutely no effect on the congestion of the buffet, especially

with the Caribe Cafe, which had one single line for its buffet.

The water is nowhere near the buffet, and I've never seen congestion

at the water stations ever.

 

On day one, the line for Horizon court was horrendous, stretching right out

the door to the pools, and the ironic thing is the Caribe Cafe was nearly

empty in the back and none of these poor souls knew a thing about it.

That is where we definitely noticed the 500 extra-passenger impact:eek:

But it did get better as the week wore on --

 

There wasn't any evidence of a noro outbreak on the ship, and the salt

and pepper shakers were also on each and every table; contrast that

with last year's Golden cruise where we had no salt and pepper and

they did have to get our water for the first day only.

[Perky1]

Hi 4cats (Dana). Relived our cruise reading your review. I will add a few comments since we were on the same cruise.

 

This was our first time on a larger ship - sailed Sun class 4 times and I must say we absolutely loved it. We were bored with the smaller ships so we will still have more to explore on the ship next year.

 

Aruba - 4 of us so we took a cab to Eagle Beach. It cost $10 for a cab for 4 of us to get there. They charged us nothing to rent chairs as long as we were buying a drink or two - which we did. Had a great day and also had lunch there as well. It was a great day.

 

Bonaire - We went to the Plaza Resort on our own. We took a cab there $10 for 4 of us -$15 for entry to resort and use of facilities - extra $5 for a chair at the beach which we paid. Had we known it was so close we would have walked there - we walked back to the ship and it took no more than 10 minutes. I felt sorry for the ones from the ship that paid the $79pp thru the ship as I am sure we did not spend more than $110. for 4 of us for the day - drinks incl.

 

Grenada - We had a tour booked with Bentley Skeete. He assigned us to Desmond to be our driver. Great tour. Does NOT include drinks or snacks. Desmond was very knowledgeable and it was a fantastic tour. We went to Anadale Falls, Rum Factory, LaSagasse Beach, shopped for spices and saw alot of the island. If you want refreshments make sure you arrange for that ahead of time.

 

Dominica - we did a tour with Woody Lawrence (former Olympian for Dominica). All I can say is WOW. There was only 4 of us (max of 4) and the personal attention we recieved and places we saw were fantastic. He picked us up at 7:30am and brought us back at 4:00pm. We saw parts of the island that I am sure no cruise passengers see unless you are with him. $90pp and worth every cent - includes drinks and snacks.

 

St. Thomas - As 4cats - we also went to Trunk Bay. This really annoys me that they charge $10pp for the cab and make you wait until they fill the open air cabs. The total cost $10 cab there, $5 for ferry, $6 other cab, $4 get into beach, $7 to rent a sit up chair, $6 cab back, $5 ferry back and then another $10 for cab. Works out to $53pp and that doesn't even include the "expected" tips. When we did this trip 2 years ago it cost us $30pp tips included. We will not do this again - we will just go to Coki Beach or shop and head back to the beach. Trunk Bay is beautiful but not worth the hassle to get there.

 

Princess Cays - Heaven on earth... what else can I say.

 

What a wonderful cruise. Not a drop of rain, hardly a cloud in the sky. We are doing the Eastern route on the Emerald next year and can hardly wait.

[4cats4me]

Hi 4cats (Dana). Relived our cruise reading your review. I will add a few comments since we were on the same cruise.

 

This was our first time on a larger ship - sailed Sun class 4 times and I must say we absolutely loved it. We were bored with the smaller ships so we will still have more to explore on the ship next year.

 

Aruba - 4 of us so we took a cab to Eagle Beach. It cost $10 for a cab for 4 of us to get there. They charged us nothing to rent chairs as long as we were buying a drink or two - which we did. Had a great day and also had lunch there as well. It was a great day.

 

Bonaire - We went to the Plaza Resort on our own. We took a cab there $10 for 4 of us -$15 for entry to resort and use of facilities - extra $5 for a chair at the beach which we paid. Had we known it was so close we would have walked there - we walked back to the ship and it took no more than 10 minutes. I felt sorry for the ones from the ship that paid the $79pp thru the ship as I am sure we did not spend more than $110. for 4 of us for the day - drinks incl.

 

Grenada - We had a tour booked with Bentley Skeete. He assigned us to Desmond to be our driver. Great tour. Does NOT include drinks or snacks. Desmond was very knowledgeable and it was a fantastic tour. We went to Anadale Falls, Rum Factory, LaSagasse Beach, shopped for spices and saw alot of the island. If you want refreshments make sure you arrange for that ahead of time.

 

Dominica - we did a tour with Woody Lawrence (former Olympian for Dominica). All I can say is WOW. There was only 4 of us (max of 4) and the personal attention we recieved and places we saw were fantastic. He picked us up at 7:30am and brought us back at 4:00pm. We saw parts of the island that I am sure no cruise passengers see unless you are with him. $90pp and worth every cent - includes drinks and snacks.

 

St. Thomas - As 4cats - we also went to Trunk Bay. This really annoys me that they charge $10pp for the cab and make you wait until they fill the open air cabs. The total cost $10 cab there, $5 for ferry, $6 other cab, $4 get into beach, $7 to rent a sit up chair, $6 cab back, $5 ferry back and then another $10 for cab. Works out to $53pp and that doesn't even include the "expected" tips. When we did this trip 2 years ago it cost us $30pp tips included. We will not do this again - we will just go to Coki Beach or shop and head back to the beach. Trunk Bay is beautiful but not worth the hassle to get there.

 

Princess Cays - Heaven on earth... what else can I say.

 

What a wonderful cruise. Not a drop of rain, hardly a cloud in the sky. We are doing the Eastern route on the Emerald next year and can hardly wait.

 

Hi Barb!

We too feel the same -- it's a little hectic getting over to Trunk Bay,

and pricey at that, and next time we'll stay on St. Thomas and

try one of their wonderful beaches. Jeeze, I wonder what they'll be

charging for a taxi ride next year, $20 pp???:eek:

[pmcrusta]

It's interesting reading the different reviews on the same cruise. As they say this is what makes the world go round. It was sad we never saw many of our group again. My DH got a horrible cough so we didn't get around much. He didn't feel bad, just coughed. But he didn't want to disturb others at shows etc.. So we only saw a few. We found Martin the Ass. CD to be a hoot and his game shows. And we enjoyed James Lay the CD. He was actually the first CD I'd actually ever felt did his job. Always friendly and seemed to try to do his best to accommodate the majority of the passengers. Even as large as the ship was the kids were never intrusive. We were on the Rivera Deck and had 4 young teen age boys every night that were allowed to amuse themselves without adult supervision on the Starboard side were a little annoying. But such is life.

Enjoyed the islands...not crazy about the size of the Emerald. As it goes in the real world on land. The bigger the ship the more dissociated the passengers are. Sitting waiting to leave the ship I realized we hadn't seen any of the people waiting to disembark. I found it funny one review said they got off right on time. Our group was 45 minutes late just leaving our designated waiting area. And there was just a few groups to disembark before us. It was a relaxing cruise. Glad we got to meet those that we did Rus and Serena (I know your lurking) and Dick and Sandy our table mates at dinner. And the few of our roll call that we got to chat with.

We hope you all have happy sailing...

[johnmik1]

Great Review,We had C753 for 20 nights in Jan and also had Tamas.He was a wonderful room steward.Also agree about the motion but would book this cabin again.We had a cigar smoker next door for the first cruise and it curtailed our balcony use but he was gone for the second 10 days.

[definitelydeb]

Sailing on Emerald Princess in just a few days in the Mediterranean! Thank you for your great review! I am really looking forward to it!