REVIEW: Grand Princess, Dec 18-28, 2004

[PhilipNTx]

Grand Princess 12/18 – 28/2004

 

I posted a “Live” thread while onboard Grand Princess, and that thread also has some good points that I may forget to re-post here.

 

A snapshot:

SHIP: very good

ITINERARY: fair

FOOD: good

SERVICE: good

PUBLIC AREAS: fair

ENTERTAINMENT: good

 

We stayed at Harbor House in Galveston. Very nice hotel, although it was lacking something that I can’t put my finger on. There is no pool at the hotel. They do have a continental breakfast. We had a view of the ship, but because of a building next door we couldn’t see most of the ship. A room at the end of the hotel might afford a better view. We ate at The Fisherman’s Wharf next door. It was ok. Apparently Landry’s owns that restaurant as well as most in the area. Two entrees, two appetizers, and a couple of beers cost almost $75.

 

For breakfast we ate at Phoenix Bakery, which was about two blocks away. It was good. Harbor House has a menu of most of the food places in the area, and it was the only breakfast place nearby.

 

Parking at Harbor House is a major bonus. While they did charge us $8 for parking for the one night we stayed, it was only $20 for the time the car was there while we were on the cruise. The major benefit, of course, is location. We were able to walk over to the pier with our luggage, and when we returned we walked back to the car.

 

Embarkation was crazy, due to the fact that there were 3 ships in port that day: Carnival Ecstasy, Celebrity Galaxy, and Grand Princess. We got there way too early. Unlike Florida cruise terminals there was nowhere they could take in early arrivers. So we had to stand outside and wait for an hour while the ship finished unloading. When we were allowed in, that was also a mess. Again because there were 3 ships, Princess had to use a temporary area as their check-in location. While there were line markers to keep lines separated, no one was monitoring them, and people just rushed the check-in counter. After we checked in we could barely get out of the area, as the people in the lines behind us were standing right behind us and not standing back to give any room for those leaving the area. We were onboard by about 12:45pm.

 

We got to explore the ship without any crowds for quite awhile. One must-see place is Skywalker’s. It sits at the top of the rear of the ship. There is a moving sidewalk that takes you up from the elevators to Skywalker’s. Skywalker’s overlooks what became my favorite area of the ship: the aft pool and surrounding area. This was an adults-only pool with deck chairs along the rail overlooking the ship’s wake. Beautiful location. It was almost always quiet – except for the sound of the wake – and one could easily find a lounge chair in the area even as late as noon.

 

Being a holiday cruise we knew there’s be children. We were told there were approximately 600 under the age of 18, and about 200 between 18 and 21. Unfortunately many of them were allowed to run rampant around the ship ignoring authority and doing the usual kid things like push all the buttons in the elevators or crowd the adults-only pools. I never saw Princess crew enforce any rules related to this.

 

Movies Under the Stars is definitely something to witness. It’s amazing. Most of the time the picture was clear and sharp, and the sound was equally impressive. When it wasn’t showing movies, they constantly showed video of underwater scenes or other nature scenes accompanied by music. This was even done on port days, and you could see some people in port who weren’t on Grand Princess staring at the amazing screen. It was even clearly visible when the ship was anchored offshore in Grand Cayman. It served as an incredible advertisement for Princess.

 

Ports were ok. Unless you do an excursion in Belize, Costa Maya, and Panama, there’s not a whole lot to do. Panama has most of the three, but we were warned by a crew member that it’s not the safest place. Costa Maya does have a nice beach area right at the pier, but the food and drink there were not cheap. A co-worker who went on the week-long cruise a few weeks ago said to try the Costa Maya Beach Break excursion: free booze and at least a nice beach.

 

The Puerta Maya pier in Cozumel has been built up since we were last there 21 months ago. It’s the usual shops, including 30 versions of Diamonds International. We took a cab into town, walked through the stores, and then returned to the pier and drank the rest of the afternoon at Fat Tuesday. Because it was Sunday when we were there, Carlos ‘n’ Charlie’s wasn’t open until 5:00pm. That was too late for anyone to go there.

 

In Panama we did get to see Coral Princess emerge from the locks and dock next to us. While we couldn’t actually see the locks from Grand Princess, we could see Coral Princess in the distance as she approached the pier.

 

The layout of our cabin was nice. We were in E708, an outside on Emerald deck with a partially obstructed view. It must have been the creakiest cabin onboard. It was so loud we originally thought someone was knocking on the door and running away until we figured out the creaking. A couple of days were rough, and the creaking was even worse then. Just beyond our cabin were cabins that were above the Vista lounge. One night when there was a band in the lounge, I went back down the hall further, and I could hear the music back there. It was pretty loud, and I imagine it could be heard in those cabins above the lounge, too.

 

The layout of the cabin is good. The bathroom and closet are separated from the rest of the cabin, so if someone uses the restroom in the middle of the night there’s no bright light that shines into the room. The closet is small, and there’s only one. Storage is lacking a bit. Otherwise, though, a nice cabin.

 

I am aware that the ship was created to be a big ship with a small ship feel, but I think that’s been taken to the extreme. There are no large, public areas. Even the atrium is only three decks high. The ship does, though, have a reasonably nice flow.

 

We had Personal Choice dining. I didn’t like it. I prefer to go to the dining room at a time that I know I’ll actually be seated. Our group usually went at the same time – around 8:00pm – but each time we had to take a pager and wait up to 20 minutes. I know that we could have made reservations at the beginning of the cruise for a table at the same time each night, but some in our group didn’t want to do that. Even the one night we did have reservations, we still had to wait about 10 minutes for our table.

 

We had dinner in both alternative dining restaurants. Sterling Steakhouse was very good. Great steak selection. Sabatini’s was a gorge-fest. It is a seven course meal served – in our case – over 3 hours’ time. It was good, but the seafood selections were not good except one. One friend had the Chilean seabass that came out dry and chewy. I had the sea scallops, and they were unseasoned and bland. The shrimp, however, were good. And I’m glad I ordered the veal chop along with my scallops. It’s a scallop-crusted chop that was just perfect.

 

I think that because there were so many families, Skywalker’s was deserted almost every night. One thing I was glad to see was that they were carding everyone at the door. Minimum age was 18. By the third night they even had a passenger manifest, including birthdates, to confirm if some passengers were 18.

 

Internet usage in the café was 35 cents a minute. Wireless access was available in the bottom level of the atrium for the same price. You bought a 30-minute block of time ($10.50) for that and were given a logon number and password.

 

The Coke card on this trip was $22.50, which meant unlimited Coke and Coke products for the cruise. You also got a Coke mug, which was a soft drink version of an insulated coffee mug. Beer was about $3.50 a bottle. There were ongoing specials for a bucket of Dos Equis or Beck’s Light. The Dos Equis bucket was 5 for the price of 4. Beck’s was 5 for the price of 3. This was the better deal, as Beck’s was only $2.95 a bottle. There was a sort of bar hop contest where if you ordered a Dos Equis or mixed drink at a bar you got your bar hop card stamped for that bar. Collect all 14 and you get a free t-shirt that says “I completed the Princess bar hop.”

 

The daily Princess Patter was good, but a very visually busy publication. I wish they would do what Royal Caribbean does, which is have a tear-off daily card that lists all activities by time only. Once nice touch, however, that Royal Caribbean should try in return is the Princess “Log of the Cruise.” It is a recap of the entire cruise, start to finish, briefly detailing the times we were in port, the time we docked and the time we left, the weather conditions, and the route traveled that day.

 

I have a price list of the liquor that was sold onboard if anyone is interested. The selection seemed limited, but there were still quite a few varieties.

 

Debarkation went quickly and efficiently, mainly due to the lack of any other ship that day. We were in an early debarkation group. That and our close parking at Harbor House meant we were on the road by 9:15am. We were back in Austin by 12:30pm.

 

All in all this was a very nice cruise. Having read so many great things about Grand Princess online, I expected more, though. Even so it was still a nice time, and I’m glad we went.

 

Philip

[danuber]

Was it a rough cruise?

I've heard it can get that way and i'm trying to figure out if it's just the weather or the area?

[Coral]

Thanks for the review. It does sound like the cruise had tons of kids!

 

I also prefer Traditional dining.

[PhilipNTx]

Danuber,

There were 2 days when it was actually quite rough. I was bouncing around in the bed one night. And as I mentioned in the review, because the cabin creaked with movment, it was so loud that night. It did calm down, though, and eventually it just rocks you to sleep. During the day it was noticeable, but not too bad. The pools were sloshing around quite a bit.

 

Philip