west coast cruiser

I agree. We were on the same April 5 cruise and indeed there were all of the measures involved with managing the norovirus for the entire cruise, but other than needing a slight bit more patience in the buffet, there really was not an impact to us versus any none-noro cruise. We obviously felt bad for anyone who was ill and had their week significantly impacted, but for the 97% of the passengers who were not ill, I do not think the impact was significant enough to say it was a horrible week.

 

I was however a bit perturbed by some of the passengers who, despite numerous updates from the captain, the printed notices that were given to everyone upon boarding and during the cruise, and the efforts of the crew, nevertheless maintained a "me first" attitude, continuing to reach in and grab food from the Horizon Court rather than wait 10 seconds to be served, etc. Our thoughts were, "thanks for potentially recontaminating that area"... When we saw that behavior we did not have any food from that area during that session.

 

Most people seemed to be complying with the requirements and making the best of the cruise and indeed seemed to have a pretty good time. I certainly was not hampered from doing or eating anything I wanted all week, which included Vines, the IC, main dining room, Crown Grill, Sabatini's and Horizon Court. We chose to enjoy our week, others who seemed to be in the minority, chose to be unpleasant and miserable even though they were not ill. Their choice.

 

Sail away was only an hour late, and after that the ship made all of the ports on schedule. Weather was pretty good overall with sunshine in every port, with the exception of some morning fog at Santa Barbara. No rain, mild to warm temps, no complaints.:)

Thank you for your positive comments. I got off the Crown on the 5th. We had a wonderful cruise. As you said, sorry for those who were sick. But the complainers comments got the media all stirred up and gave the Crown some publicity that in imho she did not need.

We did the same itinerary on the Sapphire a few years ago. It was a great cruise and I would do it again. The 8 sea days got to be bit much for me after the 5th day but as Flamomo said the CD was not the best.

I totally disagree with the person who said not to do it because of one person's issues.

WCC

huh? The previous cruise had about 1% reportable cases, and the present cruise appears (from last night's west coast news reports) to still be under 5%, so this is not a major outbreak. There are still over 2800 passengers onboard that are not sick. There was a deep cleaning between cruises, and there are protocols in place during this cruise, and according to those same news broadcasts (someone posted a link over on carnival forum, not that the tv station got it all right), the numbers are dropping. If the numbers weren't dropping by the end of the voyage, the usph/cdc would have an investigation team board the ship at the next turnaround (today?) to check on all protocols being used. As soon as the reportable cases reaches 2% of passengers and crew, there must be a special report made to the usph, with 24 hour updates, another report when cases reaches 3%, again with 24 hour updates. So the usph is tracking this every day, and can weigh in at any time if they feel that the ship is not doing enough.

 

Multiple cruise outbreaks are usually caused by b2b cruisers or infected crew, both of which were on the crown. All it takes is for one infected person, who has not shown symptoms yet, or who may never show symptoms, not using good hygiene to touch something after it is sanitized, and the cycle repeats all over again.

 

Preventing noro is all about personal hygiene, whether passenger or crew, and the crew are trained and drilled in hygiene, while the passengers are not. Once it is onboard, or in the college dorm or nursing home, it is very difficult to contain.

amen!!!!!

We're on the ship and were told yesterday the numbers affected have stabilized. We have never been told how many people are sick but we expect Code Red restrictions to be in the effect for the entire cruise. Even the drop box for disembarkation forms was taken away.

 

The various media reports are very interesting, especially what Princess has told the media. Wish they would actually tell us the same thing...

 

Oh well. Almost over now and we're not sick yet, thankfully. Not the cruise we were hoping for.

I got off the Crown last Saturday. I think they kept us very well informed and took every precaution.

The media loves to get their hands on stuff like this, especially when the Cruise Lines are concerned. I think I would tend to put more faith in the reports from the ship. Just Saying.

WCC

I got off the Crown Saturday after spending 16 days on her. The Captain and the crew had things pretty much under control as well as they could.They were taking every precaution.

Cruise ships get a bum rap as far as I am concerned. You have 3000 people living in close quarters, something will happen. It was a great cruise. You should not cancel your cruise.

We got off of the Crown on Saturday. Disembarkation was a breeze. No problems.

I feel that the Captain and the ship did a great job keeping things under control.

It was good that they thoroughly cleaned the ship before the new passengers boarded. I expected that their boarding would be late because of that.

WCC

LOL, this thread is six years old ;) But since we brought it up again, does anyone have a current menu for Chef's table on the Crown? :D

It's $95 or $100 now. Worth doing at least once. I have done it 3 times and probably won't do it again. But one never says never.

I can see it now... Folks who have taken a bunch of 3 and 4 day booze-cruise trips on Carnival will suddenly be Elite on Princess and want to give it a try. Masses of "young adults" boozing it up and taking over the ship.

 

I'll pass. I like Princess the way it is.

Ditto!!!!!

My cruise buddy and I did the 10 day r/t Papeete cruise a few years ago on the Tahitian (now Ocean) Princess and LOVED it!! We flew over a couple of days early and stayed at the Intercontinental. Pricey ... yes!, but worth every penny. The resort is gorgeous, the accomodations are first class, and the service impeccable. Food is pricey there too, but excellent, and again, outstanding service. We felt it was definitely worth the splurge, because we figured that would be the only time we would ever be there. However, we were lucky enough to be able to visit 3 of the islands again a couple of years later on the 28 day LA-HI-Samoa-Tahiti-LA itinerary on the Sapphire Princess.

 

The flight is a long one. from LA to Papeete, but we flew Air Tahiti Nui, and everything was very well done ..... even in "steerage", the service was excellent. Good food, included wine or other adult beverages, a "comfort pack" with eye mask, soft socks, ear plugs.

 

If you do decide to go, try to do the motu picnic/snorkeling excursion with Patrick on Bora Bora .... even if you don't snorkel! Local foods served traditionally on banana leaves! Awesome grilled fresh lobster! Champagne! Picnic tables set up in the shallow water on a gorgeous tiny motu (island)! It's one of the best tours ever!!

I am Flamomo's cruising buddy and she is absolutely right. Both trips were wonderful and I want to go back again. French Polynesia is a beautiful, peaceful place. The Tahitian Princess was a smaller ship and we met many wonderful people.

Mike, glad your reactions was the same as ours. We couldn't believe she was doing this for all of her friends in different cabins and bragging about it. :(

 

LuLu

~~~

Abusing her privilege and that could result in all the rest of losing ours. The same as abusing the internet privileges and I have seen that done also.

I have made this trip four times and will do it again.The last time we were on the Star. It is a great cruise. It will be cool the first couple of days. I wouldn't book the Sanctuary for the whole cruise.

Enjoy!!!

WCC

Hi! My husband and I were also on the Jan. 19 cruise being discussed here. The first thing I'll say is that everyone has such different perceptions of a cruise! While waiting for our ride home at the end, I was talking to a nice woman with whom we had dined with once in our Anytime Dining. She was saying that she enjoyed the cruise, but the food in the main dining room wasn't very good. I basically replied, "You're kidding! We loved it." And I mentioned the last evening's complete "Thanksgiving" turkey meal and how delicious it was and she agreed, yes, it had been good. And I told her the lobster meals on two evenings were great, and she again agreed that they had been excellent. I asked her what she thought about the desserts since we thought they were fabulous and again, she agreed with me. But still, her first general statement was that the MDR wasn't very good. All I can say is that we enjoyed every meal, a couple not our favorites but in all, we felt very satisfied with quantity, quality, taste, and presentation. Our complaint was with Anytime dining where it seemed like 75% of the passengers were like us, wanting to dine between 5:30-6:00, and lines were extremely long although they did move pretty quickly (maybe an average of about ten minute wait per night.) We didn't like the reservation system that could get you into a faster line for dinner because it was very hard to get through to that dining phone number in the morning and I wasted about 15 minutes twice trying unsuccessfully to get reservations. And we just didn't think that Anytime dining should allow/require reservations......But....David Cole, cruise director, was one of the best that we've ever had, endless energy and enthusiasm plus having such a knowledge of everything having to do with theatre. Our backstage tour, with him providing a lot of insider information/showing new aspects, made it the most interesting one we've attended. The naturalist gave interesting talks/powerpoints every sea day that I can remember. There were four different lecturers, each giving daily or at least several talks on sea days which is pretty amazing for a two week tour. With the exception of a couple commedians we didn't particularly care for, all other entertainment was excellent, including the Princess singers and dancers, and we were able to attend either one or two performances every night, still making it to bed before 11:00. I loved the daily line dancing and there was also zumba each morning, plus lots of Hawaiian type activities always available like hula, ukaleli (sp?) lessons, lei making, and other crafts. Of course, Princess can't be responsible for the fact that the weather was cooler than usual (we have been on two previous January Hawaiian cruises with Princess and one had great weather and the other was stormy and made us miss two ports.) The water was rocky but having taken my daily Bonine, I was able to thoroughly enjoy the beauty and feel of those rocking waves. My husband and I were disappointed to miss Maui but accept the captain's decision since we had learned to really respect him, with his chatty messages and information given throughout the cruise. We did feel that Princess handled their $200 down to $2 accounting error very badly, especially waiting two days before sending a note saying that there had been an accounting error and that each person would be given $2 (no mention of the previous $200). It would have been nice had they offered a bit of future cruise credit to everyone to compensate. We found the crew to be wonderful, always friendly and helpful and SO hard working! We can't imagine anyone not thinking that the crew deserves the gratuities that are added on to each day's bill. They do everything in their power to make sure we passengers are happy and we have seen them having to deal with such demanding, rude people, although happily, most of the people that we saw were friendly and appreciative of the wonderful service. I do think that some people think that cruise time is their chance to be powerful and demanding to staff who have to always be polite in return--really sad. So, to anyone going on the Star Princess in the future. We loved the cruise! I would recommend it to my friends. The Star is not my favorite Princess ship but it was fine, showing some signs of age, but constantly being cleaned up everywhere by crew members. While we were there, our main chair was taken out and replaced with a just cleaned one although ours looked perfectly fine to me. Nothing is ever perfect in every aspect, but when I think of all the effort made for about eighteen hours a day when passengers are up and about, just to keep us happy and smiling, I think it's just amazing! There are few places one could be having so many people trying to satisfy people who are basically wanting happiness every moment. I apologize for my rambling but I do want future Star passengers to know that my husband and I loved this just completed cruise and I hope that they do also!

It is so nice to read your positive review. We sailed the RT La to Hawaii on the Star in 2012 and enjoyed it very much. It was our 4th RT to Hawaii. There is always going to be something that goes wrong but there are always so many good things as well. I don't expect the food to be as good as many of the fine dining restaurants here at home, but is very good. I think the food in the Crown Grill is great.

I just love being on a ship period, and am looking forward to a cruise on the Crown next month.

WCC.

Getting very excited about our first princess cruise! We have a mini suite! Has anyone ever stayed in one??

 

 

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We have stayed in them a couple of times. It is nice to have a little extra room. We have gone back to a standard balcony room though.

We trade ours for water.

Great review and super pictures.

Thank you.

Thanks for your review and the pictures. We spent 28 days on the Sapphire a couple of years ago on a Southern Pacific cruise and loved the ship.

Loving these pictures.

If you are planning to go on Princess Excursions you really should book them online before leaving home. Often they are sold out by the time you are on board the ship.

WCC

Great pictures. Thanks for doing this review.

I have taken this cruise 4 times and loved all of them.

It is usually chilly the first couple of days.

Yes, the tender takes you right to Lahaina

Yes, Boarding begins around noon.

Have a wonderful cruise.

Thank you for this great review and all of the pictures. I am looking forward to reading this the remainder of your cruise. We will be boarding the Crown in March.

We prefer anytime dining. Had many fine dinners in the "old days" before they had anytime but I enjoy the flexibility of time and it is fun to meet different people.

It is so nice to hear all of the positive comments. We will be boarding the Crown in March.

I sometimes think that people new to Cruise Critic are misled by our name. We had someone come to a meet and greet once with nothing but complaints. He thought that was what cruise critic was for.

Nancy

If you have a dietary issue, let Princess know and they will accommodate you.

I think it would be a nightmare for Princess if everyone asked them to send menus pre-cruise.