CB 8/31 review - comparison to Freedom OTS

[DaveT65]

If you can stand yet another review of Caribbean Princess, 8/31/2008-9/7/2008, read on. I will try not to repeat all that has been already stated by others. And will present my opinions in the context of comparison to my most recent cruise - RCI's Freedom of the Seas.

 

This was my first cruise on Princess after 6 RCI, 1 Celebrity and 1 Holland America. So I will acknowledge right up front that my familiarity with RCI cruising likely biased my reactions. Nevertheless, these are my opinions regarding this cruise. Read only the first line of each topic for the "Executive Summary".

 

Embarkation: Very easy and fast. Advantage: Neither

Arrived after Noon and was in the cabin by 1:00. Redhook, driving to the port from upstate NY, and parking within 100 yards of the terminal is a real advantage. Yes, the car was still there at the end of the cruise! Getting to the port was easy, with excellent directions from a smeyer418, a 'local' on these boards.

 

Cabin: Just OK. Advantage: Freedom

My Aloha balcony cabin, A311, was smaller than Freedom. Bed was fine, but I had requested egg crate tops ahead and they were there. I missed the sitting area with couch that I had on Freedom. Storage and bathroom similar. Balcony much smaller. First night I experienced strange banging noises. Turns out that the balcony divider door canNOT be secured in the open position, and my next door cabin had opened theirs since they were traveling with the passengers on the other side. So the door banged through the night as the ship rolled mildly! Next morning, the cabin steward offered only to ask them to jam a chair to hold the door open. They also tried jamming in a beach towel at the hinges to hold it open. It is an inexcusable design flaw that those doors cannot be secured in the open position. Fortunately, my appeal to my cabin neighbor was honored, and they had the door closed & secured. I missed interactive TV. And towel animals.

 

Food: Just fine to my/our taste. Advantage: CB

My wife and I are not gourmet, so are perhaps easy to please, but we found the menu and food quality just fine. We enjoyed most everything. I would describe CB's menu as more varied, with more non-beef choices; Freedom is more meat-and-potatoes as I recall.

 

Dining Choices: Anytime Dining is good in theory, but needs work in execution. Advantage: Freedom

I booked relatively late, so were offered only Anytime. Have always done Early Traditional, so wanted to try Anytime anyway. We did not experience the lines mentioned so often on CB, but certainly saw them often when we exited. We quickly learned that going to dinner at the Palm around 5:45 enabled us [party of 4] to be seated without waiting every time except one. Once, on the first Formal night, we attempted to go to the Coral, found a long line, went to Palm, walked right up to the desk, but were given a beeper and told 'about an hour'; in less than 10 minutes, we were beeped and seated. I agree with those who say to eliminate the reservations for Anytime and require those booking Traditional to use it [or go to the buffet]. I didn't try to reserve.

 

Horizon Court and Caribe Cafe fare was typical buffet, but I found the selection quite good. I like the concept of a dinner theme in Caribe, but only went to the German dinner; I heard that the Seafood Buffet was very good, but just don't care for seafood. I always managed to find a table. However, the food area design is poor. "Congested" is the word that comes to mind. It is not so much too many people, though that is an issue; it is the traffic pattern. My analysis is that the walkways between islands in the Horizon are too small, especially when the flow appears totally random with regard to food placement. In Caribe, two sides feed to one central main entrée area, but the two sides are different. So passengers are constantly moving against each other. And the aisles are too narrow there, also. Like the doors on the balcony, poor design. Even with more passengers, the Windjammer buffet on Freedom had a much smoother, much less congested traffic flow. [see also comments about the Ship following.]

 

I would want Traditional Dining next time.

 

Service Personnel: Typical. Advantage: Neither

Cabin Steward Dante was fine. Not real outgoing, but competent and prompt; learned our schedule and took care of the room accordingly; it was always done when we returned. He earned an extra gratuity from us. We experienced varied Dining Room service. Some waiters/assistants paid special attention to ladies first, pulled out chairs, placed napkins, cleaned up crumbs, etc., while others did only some of those things. I have to believe it was because of Anytime Dining and lack of dedicated servers. Still, it was fine overall.

 

Entertainment/Social Staff: Typical. Advantage: Neither

The entertainment was more varied on CB, but the overall quality was mediocre. About what I have become accustomed to on cruises. Wife is a dancing fan, and generally finds the production shows quite lacking. We went only to the first night; that was enough. Other acts, in theatre and other venues, were not memorable with one exception. "Spank", an a cappella doo wop group from NYC, were brought in at the last minute when we ended up overnight in NYC [avoiding being at sea during Tropical Storm Hanna - the RIGHT decision, in my opinion]. Apparently they are Princess regulars, but were not scheduled on CB. That is 'my music', so I just loved it, but the audience as a whole was quite enthusiastic. Because of the crowd in the theatre at their early show, I ended up in the front row, and, to my delight, got to interact with the group. That was the highlight of the entertainment for me!

 

The other activities were typical, but in general a notch below Freedom in my opinion. The CD, Dan Styne, was personable and funny when hosting an event, but seemed generally uninterested otherwise. The staff was pretty good and enthusiastic, but some of the assignments just didn't click. The classic Newlywed/Marriage Game, which the CD usually hosts but not this time, was flat. The DJ showed little personality and certainly needs a better selection of danceable 50's music [yes, that's my era!].

 

MUTS is neat, and the execution good, but no movies were attractive to me, so I didn't do MUTS just for the sake of doing it.

 

Ports: Very Good. Advantage: Neither

We had done Canada/New England before on RCI Grandeur, so only Newport, which we skipped, was new. So I just walked around the port area and went back to the ship. So no comment on shore excursions, ship-sponsored or otherwise.

 

I do enjoy the Canada/New England itinerary since it is different from the Caribbean. People at the ports, particularly Canada, were very welcoming.

 

Ship: Disappointment. Advantage: Freedom [clearly!]

This is very subjective, and others will certainly disagree, but I just did not like the Caribbean Princess. As I said earlier, I am likely biased by experience with RCI ships. I thought the people flow on the ship as a whole was congested, the word I used for the buffets. I think it was designed to be "intimate", but compared to Freedom, I found it "not logical". I prefer logical! Things were often not where I expected them to be, or I "could not get there from here". I just much preferred the layout of Freedom and its Promenade, and also prefer Radiance Class RCI ships like the Jewel, to Caribbean Princess.

 

I think that the added deck, with +500 passengers, likely contributes to the congestion. But there are design features that do also. Having a 700+ seat theatre on a ship with 3200+ capacity is unforgivable; talk about congestion. The Anytime Dining lines also contribute.

 

I did not experience the lack of AC problems reported, and saw no effect from the broken generator. It is possible that factored in to the decision to skip Newport and not have to deal with high seas, but things seemed normal. In fact, my AC gripe is that the thermostat in my cabin could not be adjusted warm enough. Even all the way up, it got to 73F - I keep our house at 76F during the summer, so we were cool! Adjusting it didn't seem to do much.

 

The ship rode well; not a hint of queasiness. The seas were good to us, even when Hanna went by as we were already in NYC harbor. There can be significant vibration aft, particularly when the thrusters are in use. It was noticeable in the Palm, and even up in the Caribe, but except for the brief thrusters, was not objectionable.

 

The Fitness Center was adequate, but hopefully will benefit from the upcoming dry-dock; equipment is dated.

 

The multi-level dining rooms on RCI are more impressive, but are also much louder, so I agree with CB's design decision in this regard.

 

I am not a pool person, but the pools seemed plentiful and varied. Lounges did not appear to be a problem on this cruise.

 

I like a ship with a wrap around Promenade deck, so liked having that on CB, even though it was a bit narrow.

 

I did like Skywalkers Lounge, and its entry. I sat there throughout our docking in NYC. That was quite an adventure. Raining cats and dogs, high winds, fog - I couldn't see the Manhattan skyline at times. We had 2 or 3 tugs helping, actually went backwards up the river to the dock after turning 180, and had 2 tugs pushing us into the dock [the wind was pushing us away] for 8 hours until the wind died down around midnight.

 

Many of you will likely think this is just trivial, but I suggest that it shows a bit of lack of attention to detail. There were numerous mis-spellings and grammatical errors in the Patter and other printed matter distributed during the cruise. And I'm not talking about "English" English!

 

Disembarkation: Similar. Advantage: Neither

We elected Walk Off as we wanted to get an early start on a 7-hour drive home. We arrived in the Coral Dining Room as directed before 7:15; we didn't start disembarking until after 8:00; that was blamed on NYC port officials. The Coral was chaos. There were CB personnel there, but they were standing around. People and luggage were blocking the Coral aisles, resulting in people struggling to get to the many vacant tables in the back. People also were lined up in the Atrium area. One doorway was designated an entrance to Coral and the other the exit, but no one was directing passengers to go around and fill in from the exit door area going back towards the entrance. As a result, the whole process was very inefficient, but didn't need to be. I don't think we would choose Walk Off again, particularly if we have a private departure lounge for frequent cruisers available [like we would on RCI]. I think the best idea is on Holland America; they let us stay in our stateroom until our color was called. I wonder if they still do that.

 

I don't know how the rest of the disembarkation went, but much luggage was still to be unloaded at 8:30 when we went through the luggage retrieval area.

 

Overall: 3+ of 5 for CB; 4+ of 5 for Freedom. Advantage: Freedom

I would cruise Princess again, but not CB. But the itinerary and price/value would have to be there. If those are relatively equal, I would choose RCI, particularly the Freedom Class [and Oasis], and if those are too big for the route, a Radiance Class ship. The 3,600 passenger Freedom was soooo much less crowded and congested than CB. And the Promenade as a center of social life is just neat!

 

 

So, just my reactions and opinions; you may or may not be in agreement. That's why there are so many cruising choices.

[Clutterlady]

Thank you for the comparison.

[Woodmnky]

Thank you for providing a fair review. I am glad that you enjoyed your cruise. :)

[Jimjam]

I enjoy reading most cruise reviews and am greatful to those who take the time to write them. Your review was extremely well written and is very much appreciated..THANK YOU !

[dforeigner]

Thank you for taking time to write a review.

[BruceMuzz]

Considering that you were trying to compare a brand new and much larger ship to a medium-sized older ship that has never seen a dry dock, Caribbean Princess scored pretty well.

[DonnaK]

Thanks for your review. I was on the CB the week before you were, and wrote a revew comparing the CB to the Voyager-class ships that I usually sail. I agree with most everything you wrote here. There were some things I liked better on Princess, and some things that RCI does better, and it sort of balanced out to an equivalent cruising experience. However, things that are important to us, like a more favorable passenger to ship ratio thereby reducing the crowded feeling, and guaranteed traditional dining for everyone who wants it, to name a few, tip the balance towards RCI. We'd cruise Princess again, but we prefer RCI's ships and overall product.

[Diane Rose]

Thanks for the great comparison. I also agree with most of what you wrote.

 

We did have a minisuite on the CB for a much lower cost than a balcony cabin we had on the Explorer. The minisuite layout was great and the best for a cabin of that size that we have ever had, IMHO. I loved the closet layout and dressing area. Our room looked very clean and not cluttered at all, like it did on some ships that we have been on.

[sultan_sfo]

I enjoyed your review. What I especially liked that as a cruiser you really make use of most of the amenities on the ship and that you were "all over" the ship.

 

A question about Windjammer: Is the Windjammer buffet also laid out as "stations" or is it a sequential line layout? Sometime in the future when you have time I would also love to see a picture of Windjammer buffet.

 

Thanks.

 

...

Horizon Court and Caribe Cafe fare was typical buffet,

 

However, the food area design is poor. "Congested" is the word that comes to mind. It is not so much too many people, though that is an issue; it is the traffic pattern. My analysis is that the walkways between islands in the Horizon are too small, especially when the flow appears totally random with regard to food placement. In Caribe, two sides feed to one central main entrée area, but the two sides are different. So passengers are constantly moving against each other. And the aisles are too narrow there, also. Like the doors on the balcony, poor design. Even with more passengers, the Windjammer buffet on Freedom had a much smoother, much less congested traffic flow. [see also comments about the Ship following.]

...

[DaveT65]

Here is a pic of the Windjammer on Freedom.

 

It obviously has stations/islands as well as [as I recall] the line shown for main courses, but the access is much better than Horizon Court.

 

Thanks for your comments on my review, as well as how I enjoy the whole ship - I do!

[DaveT65]

DonnaK:

I had read your review and do recall that your comments were right in line with my experience. I just said it in my own words.

 

Diane Rose:

I could certainly tolerate CB in a minisuite if it were "much lower cost" than a balcony aboard Freedom or similar!

 

And I didn't mention and should have:

One reason for taking the CB cruise was that Princess emailed me a good price offer that I took advantage of to give Princess a try, which I had been intending to do. I had registered online with Princess and had a zero-cruises Captains Circle number assigned, so their marketing people must have targeted people like me. It worked - though perhaps not quite as well as they hoped. But I DID enjoy the cruise. First-time-cruiser friends who accompanied us thought it was just wonderful.

[sultan_sfo]

Thanks for posting the Windjammer picture so quickly. I can see now why the Windjammer buffet would be easier to navigate than the Princess buffet.

 

Here is a pic of the Windjammer on Freedom.

...

[Ontario Traveller]

We are primarily Princess cruisers, but went on our first RCL cruise, the Freedom of the Seas, last year. It was a very impressive layout, with the inner 4-story Promenade. We've booked Oasis of the Seas (the huge one) for 2010. I think we still favour Princess in general though. RCL definitely caters more to families with children -- there were 500 children on the cruise we were on, even though it was not a school holiday week. We have not found Princess ships crowded, and don't think there was any difference we noticed in crowdedness between new Princess ships and the Freedom. What has generally stopped us from trying RCL is that the prices are consistently higher than Princess, eg, for a balcony cabin. Anyway, both are great and I wouldn't have any hesitation in going on either!

[rdsqrl]

Thanks for your review, it was both well-written and thoughtful. I hope you indeed do give Princess another try on a different ship; I don't think the CB is the pick of the litter from all I've read about her. I have to agree with you about Spank -- they're really terrific! And also agree totally about the grammatical and spelling errors in the Patters -- that drives me bananas. Absolutely no excuse for some of the egregious errors like apostophes in plurals (my particular bete noirs: it's "balconies" not "balcony's"; "menus" not "menu's") -- it's basic elementary grade grammar and they're totally flunking . . .

[Coral]

While I prefer Princess to RCCL - I have to agree with you on many points. I think the Grand Class design is poor. It is difficult to navigate compared to other designs Princess has (which is becoming fewer and fewer). I also think RCCL does a better job with labeling "how to get from here to there".

 

I also agree that Windjammer has a better design and that the dining room on RCCL is stunning but also louder due to the design.

 

If you try Princess again, I would recommend the Coral or Island Princess.

 

I haven't sailed on a ship "with the extra deck" - so I can only go on what others have told me that it does appear more congested. I can add that cooler climates also make the ship seem more crowded. I was on the Radiance of the Seas when it was pouring all week - I swear that was the most crowded ship I have ever been on because no one was ever on deck.

 

Thanks for your comments.

[cacy6893076]

Lido deck bothers me too, on all the grand class ships, I do not like having the buffet congestion next to the pool area and do not like having two separate pools, one large pool with lido open all the way without the traffic getting around the areas between the pool is what I would prefer.

I prefer open, not closed and hard to navigate. I wonder why princess doesnt just have one large pool and more deck space, there is not enough deck space around the pools and it feels closed in and not open to the seas. JMO. I still love Princess.

[spingal]

Please don't anyone flame me........I have a personal observation and maybe I don't get it because I have only sailed Princess and know the ships so well...........so here goes......

 

I don't understand why the ships are so difficult to navigate. Promenade (Deck 7) will get you to anywhere on the lower part of the ship.........go forward for the casinos, atrium, theatre. Go to the back for the dining room at the back of the ship, photo gallery, Explorers Lounge and Vista Lounge/Club Fusion. Take elevators on any deck to get to the top decks from where you can walk from the aft pool area to the front of the ship. Is there something I am missing?? I find the Princess ships to be easy to navigate. Maybe part of the challenge is the fact that there are many smaller areas on the ship? Personally I like this because I get an intimate feeling even though there can be 2600-3000+ people on board with me.

 

I agree that Horizon Court can be a zoo and difficult to manuver. The trick to finding a seat is to go to the back of the ship. Normally the back part of the seating area has tables. In my experience, the only really difficult time to find a table is boarding day.

 

JMHO..........thanks! :D

[sophiegirl6]

We highly agree in every area, but we will not go on a Princess cruise again the whole dining thing was bad,will stick with RC ,We just loved the Freedom ,and looking forward to going on the Oasis in 2010. We are going on the Vision of The seas in November ,and we know it cant compeat with the Freedom .Happy Sailing to you all

[Coral]

Please don't anyone flame me........I have a personal observation and maybe I don't get it because I have only sailed Princess and know the ships so well...........so here goes......

 

 

JMHO..........thanks! :D

 

It is funny - my friends who only sail the Grand class think the same as you do. They thought the Dawn and Sun Princess was difficult to navigate around. I guess since I have been on other lines and other ships, I see where people are coming from (saying the layout is poor). And I agree with them.

 

I personally don't like the design but I can find my way around it with out a problem. And I obviously continue to sail them because Princess has so many of them.

[spingal]

It is funny - my friends who only sail the Grand class think the same as you do. They thought the Dawn and Sun Princess was difficult to navigate around. I guess since I have been on other lines and other ships, I see where people are coming from (saying the layout is poor). And I agree with them.

 

I personally don't like the design but I can find my way around it with out a problem. And I obviously continue to sail them because Princess has so many of them.

 

Coral,

 

Glad to hear I am not alone!! LOL! :D :D My first cruises on Princess were the Sun and Dawn so I am familiar with them too.

 

I have never found any Princess ship hard to navigate. But I think it is because I have done so many cruises on them.

[cleavesteam]

Please don't anyone flame me........I have a personal observation and maybe I don't get it because I have only sailed Princess and know the ships so well...........so here goes......

 

I don't understand why the ships are so difficult to navigate. Promenade (Deck 7) will get you to anywhere on the lower part of the ship.........go forward for the casinos, atrium, theatre. Go to the back for the dining room at the back of the ship, photo gallery, Explorers Lounge and Vista Lounge/Club Fusion. Take elevators on any deck to get to the top decks from where you can walk from the aft pool area to the front of the ship. Is there something I am missing?? I find the Princess ships to be easy to navigate. Maybe part of the challenge is the fact that there are many smaller areas on the ship? Personally I like this because I get an intimate feeling even though there can be 2600-3000+ people on board with me.

 

I agree that Horizon Court can be a zoo and difficult to manuver. The trick to finding a seat is to go to the back of the ship. Normally the back part of the seating area has tables. In my experience, the only really difficult time to find a table is boarding day.

 

JMHO..........thanks! :D

Because some people are directionally challenged. My wife is like that. I always have to show her where to go and would never think about letting her out on her own.

[uglybutgoodbakery]

The Fitness Center was adequate, but hopefully will benefit from the upcoming dry-dock; equipment is dated.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you on this one point. Being able to work out on vacation is very important to me, and part of my fun.

 

I thought the fitness center was significantly more than adequate.

 

 

 

[spingal]

Because some people are directionally challenged. My wife is like that. I always have to show her where to go and would never think about letting her out on her own.

 

Got it!! Actually my folks are that way too. :D :D