LMADAMS91

Oh, I doubt we will be limiting our snorkeling time, unless the water is just too cold. Both my husband and I are pretty cold-natured and I hate getting in cold water, even with a wet suit. Our son and future daughter-in-law did a Galapagos cruise in January and loved the snorkeling. They had sea lions and penguins swimming close enough to touch. Said they saw tons of turtles and several sharks.

Thank you for your responses! We are in the very early stages of planning for an early 2026 trip and so far, Celebrity ticks most of the boxes I'm looking for. So it sounds like there were at least two excursions per day, more if you snorkeled. Perfect! Do they give you any idea on which sites are more likely to have better snorkeling or is it pretty much just luck?

Thank you for such a detailed review; it is very helpful! On a couple of the slides detailing the following day's activities, deep water snorkeling was listed but there was nothing else (except maybe watching a documentary on the Galapagos?) Is that really all that was offered during that time? Thanks again!

Tuesday: We sailed around 6 this morning for a day at sea on our way to Belize. As far as I could tell, nothing had been added to the days activities to make up for the lost port so it was a pretty low key day at sea. I had given my husband an early Valentine’s Day gift of the Ultimate Balcony Dinner….we scheduled it for this evening. The two wait staff arrived a little before 6 (when it was scheduled) to set up our balcony. They brought in one table, using our balcony table to help with serving. They provided the full dining room experience-table linens, china, drinkware plus tea lights and flowers. The dinner included two cocktails and is supposed to include champagne but I requested a bottle of wine instead. The photographer arrived for photos (included) but we opted to skip the pictures. All this started around sunset, so we had a beautiful view from our balcony as dinner was served. We first had canapes, followed by apps (crab cake for my husband, shrimp cocktail for me,) salad, and main course of a large filet and lobster tail, followed by a beautiful dessert and chocolates. By far, the best food we have had on Princess. The servers were attentive but non-obtrusive. They would pop in and out of our room with the next course when needed, refill any glasses and disappear again until the next course. They even took our desserts back to the kitchen and sent them up later for us. The only issue regarding the dinner was due to someone in a balcony above ours trying to clean the glass on the balcony with water…….absolutely no awareness that there were balconies below them and their attempt at cleaning was showering down on us. This was the second time it had happened….our waiter yelled at them and may have reported the problem….we had no further problems the rest of the cruise. Wednesday, we were at Belize City. Either the wind had died down or the bay is sheltered, as the water was pretty quiet. We had a ship’s excursion scheduled to visit Lamanai Ruins. This involved the tender to shore, 70 minutes on a bus followed by another 20 on a (sort of) highspeed boat across a lake. The ruins themselves are located in the jungle, so the location is very pretty. We were able to climb a pyramid and see several structures. We also saw several howler monkeys, including babies, along the way. We could hear several more, somewhere in the jungle around us……that was a first for us. We’ve seen howlers before but never heard them like that….it was a bit creepy! Our guide told us they had used the howler sounds as the sound for some of the dinosaurs in one of the Jurassic Park movies. After our (too short) tour, we returned across the lake to a Mayan lunch, consisting of stewed chicken, rice, beans, fried plantains, potato salad and punch. After that, it was back on the bus to return to the port. Thursday, we visited Costa Maya. We were visiting the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich near the Belizean border (we lost the non-ruins stuff due to the lost port and cancelled excursion in Cozumel. Usually, we wouldn’t do this many ruins….) While the ruins were great, I would not recommend this trip unless you have more time in port than we had (all aboard was 3:30 pm) and have a smaller group. What was supposed to have been an hour and fifty minute ride to the ruins from the port turned into between 2 ½ -3 hours each way due to heavy road construction on the last half of the trip. En route to the site, our guide informed us that the only facilities at the site were port-o-lets that weren’t tended very well….and set in the hot Mexican sun. He recommended we use the bathroom onboard our bus…the only issue was the road was pretty bumpy, making using that bathroom……a challenge for some. It was not pleasant on the trip over and the return trip was just plain nauseating. My husband and I were wishing we had brought masks to put on…we ended up putting hand sanitizer on our hands and putting them under our noses to mask the stench. The ruins themselves were great…but again, we had an hour on site; not nearly enough to see what was there. It was extremely rushed. We survived the return trip to the pier and were onboard about 20 minutes before we sailed away. Our final day at sea was uneventful. All the usual day at sea activities were on the schedule. We retuned to Port Everglades without a problem, departed the ship and flew home. We had the plus package and did take advantage of several of the inclusions. We ordered room service using the app numerous times and for the most part, everything was delivered accurately and in a timely manner (usually 10-30 minutes.) We had a couple of orders placed that included both food and alcohol that arrived sans alcohol. The booze never arrived but was re-ordered and arrived quickly. We ate at Alfredo’s once-it was fine. I like their pizza better than the pool deck pizza but both were fine. My husband has a sweet tooth and is especially fond of ice cream/gelato, so he thoroughly enjoyed the premium desserts at the gelato shop. He only managed one a day but was very happy with what he sampled. I tried it on our last sea day and thought it was good. We ate in Estrella four nights of our cruise and were happy with the food/service. We had reservations and were seated immediately without an issue. I know food is very subjective but we thought, in general, the selections and quality of the food had improved over our last couple of cruises. Even the lobster on lobster night was much better. I usually skip the MDR lobster but had it this time and was pleasantly surprised. Service, in general, was good to excellent. Our room steward always seemed to be struggling to get the work load completed, I assume due to the number of rooms she had to clean. She was more than willing to grant any special requests we had (which weren’t many…just ice and an extra towel.) Entertainment, again, subjective, was not bad. We saw the production show, Spotlight Bar and thought it was good. We had three comedians on board on this cruise, which was a nice addition. We skipped the tribute band, the second production show and the welcome aboard/goodbye shows. We were onboard with a large Irish music group, which was a little concerning after reading some of the issues on a previous cruise. We didn’t run into any issues of venues being closed but that might have been because we weren’t planning on visiting those venues any way. The only time I saw anything closed was the main theatre once, in the afternoon. Internet worked well for us. Orders through the app worked well. I used Crew Chat once to report a problem with the TV and the issue was address and fixed before we returned from dinner. All in all, it was a good cruise. However, this is the first cruise with Princess where I have not purchased a Future Cruise Deposit. Our next cruise is not on Princess and the next cruise after that (not booked yet) will very likely not be on Princess. I won’t say never, but I don’t like some of the decisions the company has been making lately and feel like it is time to try some other lines. Princess has been a good fit for us, so we will see. Happy Cruising!

My husband and I just returned from this cruise last Saturday and thought I would give a mini review. We arrived in FLL the day prior to departure. We left the hotel (Hyatt Place) at 10 am on the shuttle. We had to stand in line outside the terminal for maybe 10 minutes after dropping our luggage…two lines, one for blue lane and one for green. These two lines merged immediately inside the terminal doors, then re-divided once through security. We did a very fast check-in and stepped on the ship at 10:32. For reference, we are from the US, were green lane and platinum so that helped speed things along a little. I’ll give credit where credit is due…..Princess did a great job with embarkation! Once onboard, we dropped one piece of carry-on luggage at the Soleil dining room and headed to the Lido deck with our backpacks. We grabbed a table, had a cocktail (plus package) and enjoyed the Florida sunshine. While on the Lido, we pulled up the muster video and got that out of the way. At noon, we headed to the Estrella dining room for lunch. Before lunch was over, rooms were ready, so we grabbed the one bag from Soleil, checked in at our muster station and made our way to our room (D203) where our luggage was waiting for us. Side note: when I booked this cruise months in advance, I tried to select my stateroom but could only do a guarantee. This has happened every time I have looked at a cruise over the last few years. I took the guarantee, as it supposedly guarantees a general location (in our case, decks 10-14 forward, deluxe balcony.) We were initially assigned A107 a couple of weeks prior to sailing. I bid on a premium deluxe balcony ($50 pp) and won the upgrade. Our stateroom has the same layout as a deluxe balcony (with the small sofa) but a much larger balcony. The balcony was only partially covered, which was a concern, but for the most part, was a great addition to the cruise. We sailed from FLL around 3:30, after numerous announcements regarding the folks who had yet to do the muster drill. Apparently, they finally corralled everyone and we sailed without a problem. We had reservations for 6:10 @ Estrella and had no problems being seated right away. We had a beautiful sunset and a quiet evening. We awoke Sunday morning to a storm……lots of wind, thunder and lightning. At one point, I noticed it was difficult to walk across the room (and I hadn’t even taken advantage of the drinks package yet!!) I had items falling from the shelf above the fridge. My husband was in the buffet grabbing breakfast for us when the captain announced the ship was listing to the port side…..dishes were sliding off and crashing to the floor in the buffet! (We later heard the dishes were also falling in the International Café.) Captain said it was all normal, they were making adjustments with the ballast, everything was fine. Problem was soon corrected, we made it through the worst of the storm and went on our way. Unfortunately, as per the captain, the low pressure system that generated the storm would be causing issues with the weather over the next few days…there would be a lot of wind. We were going to Cozumel on Monday (as planned) but would be docking there overnight to miss the worst of the wind. All aboard was changed to 1:00 am. We would be sailing early in the morning and sailing directly to Belize, skipping Roatan all together. We arrived in Cozumel without incident. Unfortunately, our excursion, which involved the ferry to the mainland, was cancelled due to the wind. I don’t know if the ferries were even running for ship passengers…..?? Didn’t see them but that may have been due to where we were docked. Our excursion was cancelled, so we grabbed an excursion to the San Gervasio ruins with a stop at the Mayan Cocao Company and a brief stop at a beach for drinks and a little tequila tasting. The excursion was booked through the ship. We had about an hour at the ruins with a guide. We hadn’t been to these ruins before, so it was new for us. There were several structures to see; the ruin site is much larger than I expected. There are no tall pyramids here, so nothing to climb. The beach stop was more a bathroom/snack break. It was a beautiful view. We sampled a couple of local tequila flavors and went on our way to the Cocao Company. There we saw a brief demonstration of how the Mayans made chocolate, had a sample and a quick chance to shop. They have a bar on site that makes frozen cocktails using the chocolate-I recommend the chocolate margarita! We returned to the pier. The wind had really picked up-waves were coming over the pier onto the dock area-there was a nice splash zone to cool off for anyone interested. We were back on board early and stayed there for the night.

I booked directly with Daniel Johnson's a few years ago for an island tour and the hangout. The island tour was fine; we'd been to Roatan before and had seen the island so most of what we saw was repeat stuff. The highlights were the sloth and monkeys.

The app has been screwy the last few days for me (and I am using the new one.) We leave Saturday and everything was great on the app until a few days ago......I had been signed out and when I tried to sign in with email/password, it said my info was wrong (it wasn't.) When I tried to sign in with booking number, it said the name didn't match. I reset the password on my laptop (which wasn't having an issue) and when I tried to sign in on the app with the new password, it told me I needed parental consent. My birth date on my account (accessed through my laptop) was correct and I am also the lead passenger on the booking. I gave up and tried again a couple of days later. I was able to access my booking on the app using my booking number but if I tried just using my email, I got the same parental consent notification. This morning, I opened the app to check what day we were where, and Roatan is gone from the ship itinerary. I know we had been moved to Coxen Hole but I thought it was on the app correctly before. I tried to go through my laptop and the site is telling me my sign in information is incorrect. When I try to use booking number, it tells me I don't have access to that booking. I think the gremlins are alive and well with Princess IT.

We got ours yesterday and sail on Feb. 3.

Thank you!

Just curious....where did you find this?

We're on our first Azamara cruise in December (have cruised several times on other lines.) Where in Cozumel does Azamara dock? If I remember correctly, there are at least two docks for cruise ships. Thanks!

No, we are on a 9 night Panama Canal cruise leaving on 12/13.

We have our first Azamara cruise booked for December '24 on Journey. We have three side by side staterooms on deck 8. Do the balconies open up so they can be connecting? I know some of the Princess ships have doors between balconies that can be opened by request for groups sailing together. Thanks!

No, not going to cancel over one $15/$5 charge. But I will cancel when the company that promises something via their advertising and then pulls it after they have my money, tries to charge more for what I already purchased. I don't know of any land based retail company that can sell something for one price, collect your money and then refuse to give you what you purchased unless you pay them more money. If Princess is willing to do that to the number of people sailing in the next few weeks, just because they can, what's to prevent them from deciding to charge for the MDR? Want to see the shows in the theater? It's another $25/per person. Oh...you agreed to the terms and conditions so we can do what we like. When I make a purchase, I expect to get what was advertised at the time I purchased it. When a company doesn't honor what they advertised, it's a red flag.

Same thing happened to us when I booked our last cruise. My FCD came up, but not my husband's.

Exactly. I love cruising and loved cruising on Princess but their business practices recently (taking things away after people have paid for their cruise in full) make me nervous. Yes, it is in the terms and conditions that they can make changes whenever they want, but does that make it right? Where does it end? We're not affected...our next cruise is next February and we're not at final payment so we can cancel, but there are many that cannot without losing out on a lot of cash. Grandfathering them in should not be a big issue, especially with the medallion and the technology available. Falling back on "terms and conditions" in this instance is unethical. It's not so much what they are now charging for, but the blatant disregard for the paying customers. I hear "we're going to screw you over just a little.... this time." Truly....what is next?

We're new to Azamara but not cruising and are interested in a Panama Canal Cruise in December of 2024. I haven't been able to find information regarding which locks are used. I found a couple of You Tube videos of Azamara Panama Canal cruises that are the old locks but nothing on the website (which I could be missing.) Does anyone know which locks are used and/or where to get the information on the website? Thanks!

I've looked at numerous cruise options on Princess and on almost every cruise, the only option available is a guarantee cabin, regardless of how early I am booking. That is the case regardless of whether I select choose my own or let Princess choose the cabin. It makes Princess much less appealing to book if I can't select my own room, especially when I opt to pay more to select my own room...I'm a retired travel agent and really don't need a TA to book for me. I don't want nor need an agent to snag a cabin for me....I should be able to do it on my own. I've started looking at other cruise options because of this (as in other cruise lines.)

We were on Sky in Feb in a balcony and ordered the last night. No charge. Thought maybe it was because it was the last night of the cruise.

Not really sure on walking Puerto Plata. I don't have much of an idea of size. You do need a taxi from the port to get there and back. We walked around in the vicinity of the park where we were dropped but that's all.

There was no additional charge for the enrichment talks. There were a couple of them with different subjects.

Grand Turk wasn't either of those. It was an air conditioned tourist van/bus (smaller than the regular sized buses.) I think it was Island Vibes and Beach Break. We stopped at the beach but opted to go back to the ship and not hang out on the beach. Amber Cove was the Mountain View & City Sights Tour. I think you are right about a pool near the port but I don't remember seeing it. Grand Turk has a beach on either side of the pier.

Miscellaneous: Entertainment: We’ve seen the production shows and had no desire to see them again. Comedian was good; we saw his Princess Theater show and his second show in Vista Lounge. We also enjoyed RJ Cantu (I think) magician and comedian and saw his Princess Theater show and again in the Vista Lounge later in the week. It was enjoyable….husband is a big magic fan so he was happy. We took advantage of a couple of port talks and I one of the wine enrichment talks. We tried out several trivia challenges throughout the week. I love the fruit carving demos as well as towel folding etc (we had towel animals for the first time ever on a Princess cruise!) Sadly, there were a couple of things on our final sea day that I went to but there were several people who decided their viewing pleasure outweighed that of the people behind them and stood directly in front of the demos, blocking views of others. My patience was gone at this point, so I spent the last day on our balcony and in our stateroom. Internet: as others have said, it sucked. We could use our phones but laptops were useless for anything but basic browsing. Overall, this was a good trip for us. Not the best cruise we’ve done, but not the worst. We enjoyed it and I would repeat this itinerary in the future. We enjoyed the ship and thought the staff was fantastic.

Ports Our first port was supposed to be Princess Cay, but weather prevented us from going ashore. If we had to lose a port, this was the one I would prefer to miss. We aren’t big fans of sea days, so missing the port gave us two sea days in a row, which was a little tedious for us even though we tried to take advantage of things around the ship. San Juan was our second port. We’ve been to San Juan several times and love the city. We opted to do an independent excursion here; we are both recently certified in open water scuba diving so booked a trip with Adventure Mermaid for a dive at the Escambron Marine Park. It was okay; not a lot to see. It was a dive, which we enjoyed but it isn’t a dive I would repeat. My husband wandered around San Juan on his own after our dive while I stayed on the ship. Amber Cove, DR was the next stop. We had been waitlisted for City Sights tour and were notified that we were on the tour. The day we arrived, rain/fog shrouded the top of the mountain where the Christ the Redeemer statue miniature version resides. Our tour arrived with rain coming down and virtually no visibility. We had a few minutes where the fog lifted, allowing some views but not a lot. We didn’t spend much time here and headed down to Puerta Plata to a city park. We had an hour to visit the gift shop and wander around. Then back on the bus to do a drive-by of the fort before heading back to the ship. I wouldn’t repeat this excursion in the future. Too much time in the city park with not a lot to see/do for us. We would have preferred more time at the fort. This was our first time visiting Amber Cove so we stuck with ship excursions but probably won’t for any future visits. The Dominican Republic, from what little we saw, looked beautiful and Princess didn’t really offer any excursions that we saw that would allow a little more exposure to the island. Final port was Grand Turks, Turks & Caicos, another first visit for us. We had booked a whale watching tour through Princess but it had been cancelled due to wind/rough seas. By the time we checked in with the excursion desk, there were only two options available….so we did an island tour on a small tourist bus. It was okay; we saw the island. Grand Turks has some beautiful views….We stopped at a couple of points to admire the view and take pictures. We fed the donkeys and took pictures of them. Again, next visit, we will book an independent excursion. Probably my biggest complaint with Princess is the lack of options with excursions (or actually excursions that appeal to us-again, very subjective.) We usually book independently and will make sure to look elsewhere in the future. We did book an excursion in Fort Lauderdale post cruise to kill time before our flight back. Holiday Park/airboat ride in the Everglades and a stop at Flamingo Gardens. We enjoyed both stops-I could spend days at both of these sites, so was happy with these. We were dropped at the airport in plenty of time for our return flight.

Food/dining Food is very subjective….neither of us are foodies and it doesn’t take much to make us happy. The options available on the MDR menu were not always that appealing to me but there was always something I could order (I’m not a fan of fish or seafood other than shrimp and occasionally GOOD lobster.) There seemed to be more fish/seafood options this trip than before but I may not remember previous menus that well. We ate in the MDR five out of seven nights and were happy with the food and service. My only comment is if you want more than one glass of wine, I would suggest bringing one in and ordering the second immediately. We had reservations in Estrella dining room every evening. From what we could tell, reservations mean nothing. We only waited a few minutes on a couple of occasions for a private table for two but there were several people in larger parties with reservations that had to wait some time for a table. There were people without reservations that were seated quickly…it really didn’t seem to make much difference. This isn’t a dig at the staff-they were working hard to get people in and out; all hands were on deck to get tables turned over. They were efficient and surprising polite considering how hard they worked. We ate at Alfredo’s a couple of times for lunch and were very happy with the pizza and the veal ravioli. Veal ravioli is very rich! Buffet was fine. No complaints. We had the Plus Package. My husband generally doesn’t drink alcohol but I do and I took full advantage of it.. I tried as many cocktails as possible. I tried the fru-fru coffees….I like the iced varieties! I enjoyed sodas throughout the cruise as well as gathering several bottles of water. My husband enjoyed soda and mocktails, juice and the bottled water. It was definitely worth the price for me; not so sure for my husband but since we both had to have it, I still think we were better off with it than without. I surprised my husband with an early Valentine’s gift and scheduled an Ultimate Balcony Dinner. It was amazing all the way around. We had two dedicated waiters for the evening. They set up the balcony with a table/tablecloth and flowers, then proceeded to serve an amazing meal, beginning with canapes. Several were seafoody so I skipped those, but what I sampled were very good and my husband liked most of them. Appetizer on the menu was a crab cake, which my husband enjoyed. I asked for shrimp cocktail and was served a platter of shrimp cocktail. Fifteen shrimp-my husband also enjoyed some of these! Next was a salad, followed by the main entrée. Surf and turf (lobster tail and filet) for DH and filet for me. The filet I was served was massive….neither of us could finish the entrées despite our best efforts. The filet was served with a peppercorn sauce and horseradish; lobster tail with garlic butter. I sampled the lobster tail and if/when we repeat the UBD, I will go with the surf and turf. The lobster was much better than what is served in the main dining room. Dessert was an amazing chocolate/mousse/raspberry concoction that was beautifully designed…..but we asked if it could be put in the fridge for later; we couldn’t possibly eat any additional food. They obliged and we sampled it later-it was as delicious as it was beautiful. Our final addition to the meal was some cookies and chocolates. The two waiters were in and out of our stateroom quickly and efficiently, unobtrusively allowing us a lovely, private dinner on the balcony. This is something we will be doing again! Overall, service was exceptional throughout our cruise. The staff was without exception, very pleasant and went above and beyond to make us happy.