Just Back - Grand Princess 12/18

[Velvet446]

I've read posts for the past year in preparation for our trip on the Grand. Now that we're back it's my turn to help others. In a nutshell, it was a perfect trip. The Grand is as beautiful as ever, service is fantastic, and we had the vacation of a lifetime, in part from the help of the Cruise Critic message boards. Thanks a ton to all that have posted.

A lot of you have had questions about embarkation and disembarkation. I will post some information that worked for us on this thread, and will do a more detailed review of the trip and excursions as we get some laundry and other reality chores done.

 

Embarkation:

We live in Idaho so flew into Houston the day before embarkation. I had pre-arranged transportation to Galveston with Galveston Limo. They're on the web and did a great job for us. Nothing fancy, but they got us there and back. I paid up front with our card and they had us on the list both ways. We stayed at the Hilton and took a taxi over to the ship as we didn't want to wait for an available shuttle. We went over to the terminal at 10:00 a.m., and dropped off our luggage with the porters. They are the guys in the hawaiian shirts with the luggage carts. Just grab a guy, give him your luggage and a few bucks. We then spent the morning on the strand shopping and looking at the ship (drooling). The taxi was 26.00, and the driver said that this was a good time to come over as later in the morning the drop-off line is much longer. He said that one group sat in the taxi for quite a while and ended up with a much larger fee of over 50.00.

The terminal was very busy unloading the Grand and another ship that was in port so we didn't hang around there any longer than we had to. The strand was a good time, we got some last minute stuff for the ship and went back to board about 1:30.

The terminal was very busy, but there was a lot of counter help and we signed documents, showed our passports and were in line for customs after about 10 minutes. The customs line took about 20 minutes and we were on the ship. Of course lunch was being served in the Horizon Court and our room was ready (Baja 609), and our luggage was already there. I really recommend dropping the luggage off early, and coming back later to board. The atmosphere of the strand and nearby shopping is a lot of fun with cruisers getting ready for the "big trip" We didn't leave port until almost dark which was a couple of hours later than the advertised departure. We watched them load luggage until the very end. I'm sure some didn't get their luggage until we were well out of port.

 

Disembarkation:

 

We had planned to meet with in the DaVinci dining room at 7:15 for breakfast. Calls for immigration had begun around 6:45 for early flights and excursions. We thought that it would be less of a zoo in the dining room and we were right. It was a very nice breakfast. We ordered ham and cheese omelets, breakfast meats, cereal, and rolls. We finished breakfast and enjoyed visiting over coffee/tea until our tag color (silver 5)was called at about 8:30. The Grand unloads from top decks down to bottom decks, so we were some of the first off. Our documentation noted that the ship would be completely unloaded by 10:00. I'm not sure that happened with the bottleneck at immigration.

We stood in the immigration line for about 30 minutes. The line wound through deck seven from the photo area into the Vista lounge where they split the lines into resident and non-resident lines. I only saw 3 immigration officials for everyone, even though Princess had several more tables set up for more officials. This is obviously not Princess’s fault, but it doesn’t make much sense for three officials to check 2800 passengers. Our tax dollars at work. :confused: We then waited in the Wheelhouse lounge for about 10 minutes until we were called for disembarkation. It took about 10 minutes to get off the ship, collect our luggage and line up for customs. We had marked our luggage with bright yellow duct tape and it was very easy to find in the sea of luggage. All luggage was placed in tag color areas which was quite organized, with lots of help available from the porters in hawaian shirts. The customs line was about 5 minutes long and we were out. We were pretty worried about disembarkation, but it is obvious that Princess has really cleaned up their disembarkation process since the Grand moved to Galveston.

Once we were out, we went to the Galveston Limo stand as we had pre-arranged travel with them back to the airport. They had our names all organized and helped move the luggage to the vans and we were out of there by 9:45 a.m. Galveston Limo is 50.00 round trip from Galveston to the airport. We were told that taxi was 60.00 to 80.00 one way if you can find one. The ship also has transportation at 33.00 one way. It must be pre-arranged as well.

I'll post more as we get settled into our routine, but again, Princess is awesome. We wouldn't even consider going any other way.

Happy New Year everybody!

[calliecat]

We too just returned from the 12/18 Grand 10 day cruise to Panama.

My experience with disembarkation was quite different. We had minimal waiting for immigration. We did not wait until our color tag was called because we came down on the elevators by the Vista Lounge and the Princess employee told us to go on in. This was around 0645. If we had waited until our tag color was called, we would have been standing in line for an hour, luggage and all. My suggestion is to go by the immigration check out early and see if you can get this out of the way.

 

We had Princess transfers to Houston Hobby to fly Southwest. I am in the process of writing a letter to Princess to express my extreme displeasure with this whole procedure. We had a 1245 flight out of Hobby. We SAT IN THE BUS FOR 1&1/2 HOURS in front of the Galveston terminal waiting on "50" other passengers to show up. There were 36 of us on the bus and there were 56 total seats on the bus. They (Princess) told us that these passengers were probably getting something to eat or drink before they boarded. Princess evidently had no freaking clue that a full bus had just pulled out before our bus showed up. We asked the bus driver, the Princess people standing outside the bus what was going on and evidently none of them have ever had to make any decisions or question authority ever in their lifetime.

I finally got off the bus and found some other Princess people to complain to.

At one point, an employee told me that it would be a little while before we left. We were waiting on another bus and couldn't leave until it showed up.

I told him to use his walkie talkie, beep someone of importance, find a clipboard person or do whatever it took because it was absolutely uncalled for to have a bus running and people sitting in this bus. I would not leave his side until I got answers. At one point, the Princess employees next to our bus looked at me and asked " What did he say?" The had absolutely no clue what was going on and were going stand there until goodness knows when waiting on the word "GO".

At 1030 we finally pulled out....mind you, we left the terminal at 0830, boarded the bus at 0845-0900 and sat there with no one else boarding for 1 &1/2 hours! We made it thru baggage and security and were standing in line for our flight at 1150!

We loved the cruise but I will absolutely not go back to Galveston until I get a guarantee that they(Galveston) and Princess have figured out how to work disembarkation. It was a nightmare.

I am going to ask them for either my money back for the transfer (x3 people)or shipboard credit "should" I ever cruise with them again. This was our 3rd Princess cruise. Of course I won't get either one but I am complaining none-the-less.

[BJS]

Disembarkation:We stood in the immigration line for about 30 minutes. The line wound through deck seven from the photo area into the Vista lounge where they split the lines into resident and non-resident lines. I only saw 3 immigration officials for everyone, even though Princess had several more tables set up for more officials. This is obviously not Princess’s fault, but it doesn’t make much sense for three officials to check 2800 passengers. Our tax dollars at work. :confused:

We were one of the first groups called to the Vista Lounge, the 5th group, and there were maybe 20 people ahead of us. We both commented on how many officials there were - 6 or 7 at that time- and how smoothly immigration went. They actually called the first group about 6:20 (25 min. prior to the time they figured immigration would begin). I did notice later on when those that did not have Princess transfers or excursions were called that the line reached the Wheelhouse bar.

[kkorman]

My embarkation was not smooth at all. This is at no fault to Princess, but the port of Galveston. THe mess they had there with three ships on Dec 18th was unacceptable. How they can design a port with only one entrance for unloading and loading passengers for three ships is reason enough for me to avoid this until it is fixed. We had a rentalcar and the agency was told they were not allowed to have agency vans dropping off or picking up passengers to ease the traffic flow, but to instead have the passengers drop their luggage off, head back to the agency and they would be driving over with other passengers. How this made things easier I do not know, this required 3-4 trips based on 3 cars dropping luggage off. Anyway, after waiting over an hour just to enter into the port area, we were told that no luggage could be dropped off until 12:30. It was then about 11:45. So, we went into Galveston to waste time and after the necessary time were able to get into the port without waiting. It is much easier to go several streets over and come up to the port from the opposite direction. When we first arrived there was no policeman patrolling the area to allow people to make a left turn into port. THis caused the major backup.

 

Debarkation was a breeze. We stayed in our room until the color was called for immigration and waited about 5 minutes through the line... it started at Wheelhouse and as soon as we exited our luggage was called to get off the ship.

 

Overall it was an excellent trip. It was very special to me. THere were several negative incidents, that I have not seen before on Princess and I do plan to write a review. So, when I have time, I'll post one.