HONEYMOONERS09 Posted March 25, 2009 #1 Share Posted March 25, 2009 I know I can't possibly match the other great reviews from the same sailing, but I wanted to give a first-timer's perspective on the Crown. I'm going to try to keep this brief and only cover the highlights for us regarding the ship and the ports. The Crown - our favorites: 1. B748 - our room....a corner aft facing room on the Baja deck was absolutely fabulous!! We had a balcony that was HUGE... it had six chairs and a table on it; two of the chairs reclined. We spent a LOT of time on the balcony in the mornings, the afternoons, and before bed. We kept the door open at night to hear the wake and slept great. By the way, the door locks open by pushing the handle down so you don't need to do anything to keep it open at night, but do lock it because if the ship is rocking, it will close and open on its own. We watched a space shuttle launch from our balcony the first night and enjoyed several beautiful sunsets. As far as the size of the room, I had read several discussions on this and was picturing something much smaller. I was very pleasantly surprised by the size of the room and the bathroom. The closet and shelving areas had plenty of room for all our belongings; in fact, I don't think you could possibly bring enough clothes to fill that closet! And there were plenty of hangers. We have a house boat on the Mississippi River and I must say that although I am used to the motion on that boat, I was nervous upon hearing about the motion and rocking of the Crown. I brought several kinds of motion sickness remedies although I have never experienced motion sickness. Now, granted, we had very calm seas the majority of the time, but the rocking was very minimal and barely noticeable. True, the motion was slightly higher in our room, and we could feel a slight vibration, but we both felt it lulled us to sleep at night along with the sound of the wake. Oh, and I have to mention Ismael, our steward....he was fabulous! A little quiet, but very friendly and anxious to please. He was very good at sneaking in while we were gone to straighten up our room. After the first day he realized we had a tendency to go through a lot of ice and made it a point to keep a full ice bucket in the room for us. 2. Botticelli dining room: The food was excellent! We had traditional, late seating. Our head waitress was Nela from Romania, and her assistant was Samuel from Portugal. Both were a perfect match, as Nela was a little more serious and Samuel was hilarious! Nela was very knowledgeable about the selections and always steered us in the right direction, telling us what was good that night and what was not. We didn't listen to her on one occasion and quickly learned our lesson! 3. Crown Grill: Again, excellent food! We both had lobster and my DH paid I think $9 more to get what was supposed to be bigger and better, but according to him I actually got more lobster than he did, so he ended up eating about 1/2 of mine! The service was great here and all the courses were fabulous. I will say though, somehow our reservation did not get recorded, but it worked out okay because they had us sit at the bar for a drink and seated us shortly after the drinks were made. They were also very apologetic. 4. Crooners: Our favorite bar.....Ray Cousins was the piano player and he was by far the best entertainer on the ship. He worked with several famous singers including Frank Sinatra, and in between songs he told wonderful stories about his experiences. Definitely worth checking out! We spent some time there every night. 5. Kevin Jordan: Our favorite comedian....very funny!! The only problem was he was performing in the Explorer's Lounge and with our late seating for dinner we had trouble finding a seat by the time we got there, so if you are going to see him, get there early! The other comedian was good too (sorry, can't remember his name)....a few people left during his show though, so some may not like his frankness or his views. 6. The aft facing pool: Our favorite pool on the ship. Never crowded, areas of shade as well as sun, great place to get a drink, and the pool was very warm! Also it was close to our room which was a huge bonus! 7. The Sanctuary: Spent our last day on the ship here...it was perfect!! By then we had enough of the sun and just wanted a peaceful relaxing day. We had a double lounger in the shade and spent the time reading and sleeping. It was very quiet and relaxing. The smoothies were great as well as the chips and salsa (we had to pay a little extra). I would not probably want to spend time here every day, but definitely would do it if you want one relaxing day/morning/or afternoon. 8. The upstairs jogging track: Spent time in the mornings running up here....not a whole lot of room and you have to go around 16 times for a mile, but I still enjoyed it very much, as I would always prefer to run outside. On sea days, sometimes running was a bit more difficult. I saw some people also running on the promenade deck, only walked around it so can't say much about that. The gym was also nice and I did run on the treadmill one day which I think would have been better without the tv in my face (they all have tv's on them)...... I would prefer to stare out at the ocean than at a television! 9. Pizza and burgers: Gotta have em!! I had a burger and fries for lunch at least 2-3 days, and DH had pizza probably every day...both were excellent!! The pizza was a shorter wait than the burgers, but they do have quite a system down and are very good at keeping the lines moving. Okay, this is definitely longer than I thought it would be.....am going to post another thread about the ports of call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northender Posted March 25, 2009 #2 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Thanks for the review. So glad you enjoyed the Crown. She is a beautful ship. Also, thanks for the tip on your cabin. Sounds wonderful:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinchem Posted March 25, 2009 #3 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Awesome review! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HONEYMOONERS09 Posted March 25, 2009 Author #4 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Ports of Call 1. Princess Cays : We traveled with my sister and brother-in-law and decided to reserve a bungalow for this day. We were very unsure about what we would get with this because of prior posts. We received our priority tender passes on the first day along with tickets for our only Princess-booked excursion (Ultimate snorkeling, Grand Turk). When we met up at about 10:00 a.m. there was a long line for tender tickets. We looked at our tickets, which said to go on down to the tenders and show them our tickets. We walked right downstairs and right on to the tenders with no wait :D Once off the tender, there was supposed to be a golf cart, but we didn't see it and just walked down to a stand close to the bungalows....someone walked us down to ours (the Sunflower). We had waiters walking by constantly to take our drink orders and were not far from the bar, so we utilized both :p We did have our own waitress who brought us our lunch, which was a mixture of chicken, burgers, hot dogs, barbecued ribs, coleslaw, fruit, and dessert (brownies and cookies). We were also very close to the snorkeling area which was very convenient, as we had brought our own snorkeling gear. We thought with the four of us, it was definitely worth the money (only $50 per person) and would do it again with four people, probably not if it was just the two of us though. The area of the beach we were on was uncrowded and we did not feel we were very far away from anything. 2. St. Martin: Thanks to Chris (Lawtyger) from our roll call, we rented an ATV from NASACAR rental for the day. We paid $108 for the entire day and were provided with a map and allowed to tour the island on our own. I have to say this was our favorite day on the entire cruise. We had a great time and were able to go around the entire island, stopping whenever we wanted to. We checked out several beaches including Orient Beach, where we had a couple of drinks at a couple of different bars and of course quickly checked out the nude beach :eek:. We also got to see the last large plane of the day landing at Sunset Beach (US Air) and got a great picture. Also checked out the flea market in Marigot. Overall, just an absolutely fabulous day! My DH is now looking up a land trip to St. Martin because he enjoyed it so much! 3. St. Thomas: My sister and brother-in-law had been to St. Thomas several times, and we rented an open-air jeep from Budget rentals and spent the day touring the island. We went to Mountain Top and took several great pictures. We also went to a resort at Sapphire Beach (I think it was Sapphire Beach Resort?) We rented chairs here and spent time snorkeling. Although we did not see any live coral here, we did see several fish and I got to see two sea turtles, which I had been hoping to see! 4. Grand Turk: We went on the Ultimate Snorkeling excursion through Princess. My BIL went as well. We got to see a lot of live coral and a lot of fish. Between the three of us, we saw some large barracudas, some large sting rays, and a small sea turtle. My advice is to go in the opposite direction of everyone else, as when we did this, we seemed to see the most sea life (I got to spend several minutes of "alone time" with a sea turtle because of this!) When we got back, we went to Margaritaville and had a $10 drink each :eek: and some nachos. Overall, another great day! Oh, one thing I forgot to mention in my prior post - Sheryl from Crooners is a great waitress, so go see her! She is so cute and shy and friendly! It was her 3rd wedding anniversary during our cruise (which Ray Cousins told everyone about). I just have to say during this cruise, I read the book Cruise Confidential and now understand just how hard the staff members work on these cruises! Our room steward Ismael seemed to be around from morning until late at night, and we saw our head waitress Nela in the dining rooms in the early morning and she was obviously still working hard for our late seating! We made sure to give Ismael, Samuel, Nela, and Sheryl each envelopes with an additional tip and filled out the You Made The Difference cards for them. I would suggest others do the same, as we were told these evaluations can help them earn raises. Anyway, we are now hooked on cruising and did purchase FCC's for our next trip! Thanks Crown Princess for making our first cruise one of our favorite trips! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host CJSKIDS Posted March 25, 2009 #5 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Thanks for the wonderful, very detailed review. Sounds like you had a wonderful cruise. I'm glad to hear about the tender tickets and service at the bungalows on Princess Cay because we have one reserved for our 4/5 sailing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mii Posted March 25, 2009 #6 Share Posted March 25, 2009 What a great and thorough review. Glad you had a good time on your first cruise. Cruising is very addicting.;) Marilyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhxPhin Posted March 25, 2009 #7 Share Posted March 25, 2009 i wish i had your organizational typing ability :D sounds like you had a great time - agree about the sanctuary and ray cousins also agree about the staff - amazing how long the days are they put in - we saw our steward up real early one morning brining up a tray or glasses, looking about exhausted - but also knowing that we would see him later that night cheeful as ever making his rounds one thing I forgot to mention in my review was the cookies & milk that they walked around with daily at the international cafe ...... a nice treat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colo Cruiser Posted March 25, 2009 #8 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Great review, thanks. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huppe Posted March 25, 2009 #9 Share Posted March 25, 2009 Great review!!!! You just gave us(my family) a great idea for St Maartens. Where was Nasa Car located??? Were they close to the pier???? Looks like we might want to rent a Jeep for the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HONEYMOONERS09 Posted March 26, 2009 Author #10 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Huppe, I don't think they rented jeeps at NASACAR.....the jeep we rented in St. Thomas at Budget, and they picked us up and dropped us off at the pier (although they are located close, the neighborhood you have to go through to get there looks to be a little questionable). At St. Maarten we rented an ATV (four wheeler) for the day, each one held two people easily with room to strap stuff on the back. These were $108 per four wheeler (includes tax and insurance). I believe NASACAR only rents out ATVs and scooters. You can drive the ATVs anywhere on the island, we had no problem riding them on the main roads. If you want to look up NASACAR, go to http://www.stmartin.com, also their e-mail address is nasacarrental@stmaarten.com or nasacarrental@stmartin.com. Their phone number is 599-526-6117. They are located a short walk away, but if you make arrangements ahead of time they will meet you at the end of the pier (or you can call them) and they will come pick you up. They will also drop you off at the end of the day. This was the favorite day of our entire trip and well worth the money if this was what you are looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdsqrl Posted March 26, 2009 #11 Share Posted March 26, 2009 Thanks for the detailed and entertaining review. So glad you enjoyed your first cruise so much! Welcome to the addiction. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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