Crown Princess Review Dec12th sailing

[wdblake]

Crown Princess... A mixed bag.

 

We started our trip by heading from South Carolina to Fort Lauderdale where we booked a room at Springhill suites. We paid $140 for two queen beds and a pull out sofa bed. This was a tremendous deal since we were allowed to park our car there for the entire week in a gated in parking lot. The hotel offers a free shuttle to the pier which was very prompt. If you want for $8 a person you can prebook a shuttle pickup to take you from the pier to the hotel. These shuttles were very prompt and one showed up at the pier every five minutes.Try Carciones's pizza while staying there. We got two large one topping pizzas with 12 garlic rolls and a two liter for about $20.

We arrived at the port around 11am. We were issued a color ticket which they would call out when it was time to check in. We got on the boat around noon.

My wife and I rushed to a phone so we could book the Chef's Table for my eldest son and his wife. At first they told me I had to meet with the Maitre D' to book it but I believe the person I talked to did not know what they were talking about. I called again and got through to better informed person who put my name on the list for this option. If you are a foodie or a gourmand you should try this option but book as soon as you hit the boat since spaces are limited and they fill fast. I heard they had twenty people on the waiting list.

We thought the dining room would be open but that was not the case so we hit the buffet. It was fair, nothing outstanding. Usual carving stations with a mix of food choices. The wings were good.

My Eldest booked the Sanctuary for the entire week which I would not recommend anyone doing mainly because it was pretty much empty the week we cruised so really you can book day by day without worrying about not getting a space. They did enjoy the sanctuary so if you are looking for a quiet escape on the cruise it's not a bad deal.

He also booked the spa for the week which included steam room, sauna , and thermal chairs for the week. On the downside the thermal chairs didn't have a nice view to enjoy like most ships and there was no piped in music or aromatherapy. There was also a general lack of privacy. One day in the obviously two person steam bath a cruiser barged in on my son and his wife making them squish in together.

We got a good deal on a balcony cabin on the Aloha deck. The cabin was ok. They had a walk in closet layout was good for space. The room had the usual ammenities such as a flat screen tv and a safe for valuables.

There was however a problem with the plumbing on the Aloha deck grid which affected alot of passengers. We got up to take a shower our first day out and we had a choice of two temperatures. Hot or scalding hot. I called to the front desk to get the shower fixed. A maintenace guy came out to try to fix the shower. The next day we had a choice of two temperatures. Ice cold to slightly cool. Called again. Next day all cold. Called again (now pretty ticked off.) We were asked "What, do you want it hot again?'. We replyed no we just want a shower that works. You could never adjust the temperature the entire cruise. There were a large numbers of complaints about this. All in all I have never seen a more inept maintenance staff and have never dealt with such a discourtious front desk staff.

You may not want to pay extra for a balcony since your balcony is everyone elses balcony. There is absolutely no sound baffling on the balconies. If anyone in a ten balcony radius is on their balcony talking it's like they are right next to you. The problem stems from the fact that the dividers do not go floor to ceiling so sound tends to drift in from other's balconies. This makes it hard to just relax and enjoy the sounds of the ocean.

The Ship.

The ship was laid out nicely and was one of the more beautifully adorned ships we had been on. Nice marble and brass fixtures. Italian art in all the public areas. Nice looking bars with dark hard wood. A pretty ship through and through.

The pool was laid out nicely and there never seemed a shortage of chairs. We purchased two "lounge hats" a product profiled by cruise critic. It slides over the top of your lounge chair and holds your towel in place. They all basically say "reserved" which is kind of humorous. It was really nice to not have to fight with my towel to keep it on the chair. It held the towel snuggly to the lounge and was well worth the $8 we paid for it. I would highly recommend checking out this product.

The hot tubs were Ok but could have been a bit hotter and with more powerful jets. If you want a little privacy try the hot tub in the Sanctuary at night. There was hardly anyone there.

Movies under the stars was cool. We saw "Night at the Museum 2". There were blankets available and staff brought around pizza and popcorn. We tried to watch "Star Trek" another night but the weather did not cooperate.

The food.

We ate most meals in the dining room. The food was good over all. Some stuff was really good other items only fair. We went with anytime dining which was never a problem. One note is you can't make a reservation for 7pm-8pm since this is when everything is changing over in the dining rooms. You can go to the dining room and wait if you want to eat around that time. We ate at 6:30 most nights and never had an issue getting a table.

The international cafe cannot be missed. You will be in love with it once you discover it's bounty.They do a signature quiche every day which my wife said were yummy. There are always a wide variety or pastries in the morning (try the raspberrry filled donut...yum) and great desserts as well (try the "cup of joy" a rich chocolate pudding...also yum). They always have fresh cookies and a soup of the day. I had two premieum coffees, a latte and a mocha, both were well made and can be ordered to drink there or to go.

My youngest and his friend tried Vines sushi (which is free) several times and said it was very good. They do a different sushi selection each day. We never tried the Tapas which are also free but I heard they were not all that.

Poolside grill has good burgers and fries but the brats were a bit dissappointing. The big thing is the pizza. I have been on twelve cruises and this was the best pizza I have ever had on cruise ship bar none. I would pay for this pizza at a restaurant. They give you big New York style slices with yummy cheese, a tasty sauce and perfect crust. It is melt in your mouth! They always have cheese and pepperoni and a third pizza of the day. You will be missing out if you don't try this place immediately.

The Crown grill should not be missed either. We booked it two nights since my eldest was doing the chef's table one night. The first night we sat in front of the kitchen to watch them cook. My youngest and his friend are big Food Network fans and enjoyed watching all the kitchen action going on. The only problem is the live lobsters were staring right at us. Sorry about your friends fellas. I would recommend the lobster cake starter. I have had a lot of crab cakes but this lobster cake beat them hands down. It has just the right level of crispiness with a little bit of spice to give it a kick. You have to get the Black and Blue soup. I am an onion soup nut and this was by far the best onion soup I have every had. I helped my wife and son finish theirs after I finished mine. I could live on this stuff. The Roquefort cheese on the top was perfectly chewy and the favor of the soup was rich and savory. I got the filet both nights and it was cooked to perfection both nights. They ask you to cut your steak just to make sure it is they way you want it. It comes with a delicious sauce for dipping. They will also bring you as many 4 oz lobster tails as you can handle so I don't understand the need to pay for lobster. They anticipate the need for a lot of lobster tails as we noticed them delivering plates filled with them from the kitchen. No room for dessert night one, went to room and slipped into a food coma right after.

The next night we ate with both boys and got a normal table. The waiter decided to serve us our sides family style with a sampling of each on in it's own dish. I really like the garlic fries and the scalloped potatoes. The loaded baked potatoes were just so so. We made it to dessert this night and I tried the sampler which gave a good little taste of everything. The chocolate sensation was a favorite as was the seven layer smores. It was my eldest's birthday and they brought him a chocolate mousse and sung him happy birthday which was very nice. All in all it was a perfect dining experience. Delicious food, attentive friendly staff in a great atmosphere.

Entertainment

Missed most of the shows and acts. The pool band "the temperature" were good a provided the usual sea day fare. They piped in music otherwise which was nice. The had a few groups perfrom in the atrium but we didn't hang around for these.

Grand Cayman

Stayed on the boat and enjoyed the pool to ourselves. I heard that tendering went well since we were the only ship anchored there. If you are in Grand Cayman for the first time I recommend going to Stingray city. You don't need to book through the boat since there are tons of tours available online and right off the boat.

Roatan Honduras

We went with the Victor Bodden beach bus to West Bay beach and stayed at the Mayan Princess resort. The tour was $20 per person there and back and well worth the price. We had an excellent driver from Bodden tours named Hanno Ebanks. He was friendly, knowledgable, and willing to help out in any way he could. We arrived at the Mayan Princess resort which uses the term resort loosely. First, to get to the resort you drive down a pot hole infested dirt road through a not very picturesque part of town. You pay $10 a head to get in which included use of the facilities and use of the resort lounge chairs. There are no pool floats or towels available. The beach is overrun with hawkers. Now I have dealt with hawkers in the past and for the most part a simple "no thanks" is enough to suffice. This place is loaded with hawkers both children and adults. " No I do not want a necklace, no I do not want a watch, no I do not want sunglasses, no I do not want some maghogony pottery, no i do not want a necklace, Hey didn't I just talk to you 3 minutes ago?" They will walk back and forth and repeatedly approach you as if you changed your mind from the time you talked to them two minutes ago. The beach was small and crowded and loaded with sand fleas. If you do decided to do the Mayan princess here is what you do.

1) Get there early, they will run out of chairs fast.

2) Drag your chair from the beach area to the fresh water pool. The pool area is very nice and no hawkers are allowed there. There are no chairs set up by the pool so go to the beach and grab you a lounger and bring it back.

3) Order a nice cold beer. The beer prices are very good and the waitstaff was very friendly. We paid less than $2 a beer (11 beers were $18).

4) Relax.

Hanno was johnny on the spot to pick us up and even stopped at a local store so we could pick up some booze on the way back. He even escorted us into the store to insure our safety. If you go Victor Bodden go with Hanno, he is a good man and he will not disappoint you.

Cozumel

My boys went to Tullum for a shore excursion. They enjoyed the ruins, the iguanas, and the spectacular views. They said it was hot but they had a good time. My wife and I stayed onboard and decided to do a little Christmas shopping. Here I learned a valuable lesson. If you are travelling outisde the country contact your bank to let them know! We tried to make several purchases only to have both our credit and debit cards declined. We were freaked out. We went back to the boat and called the bank to find out what was going on. They had put a lock on our account since it was accessed in Mexico.We had to give them permission to so we could use our cards accordingly. So if you ever go out of the U.S. contact your bank.! The problem was cleared up quickly and we went back to finish our shopping.

Debarkation

We chose to walk off ourselves and were issued a 7:30 am meeting time. First we removed the auto tipping since we believe this is a bad practice and we chose to tip with cash ourselves. We had some issues trying to pay for our son's Chef's table. What should have been a simple transfer from one account to another turned into standing in long lines and having to charge the amount to our credit card. We gathered in the Michaelangelo dining room with hundreds of others waiting to debark. There was no real order to this chaos as people squeezed themselves while toting their luggage through lots of table and chairs. They called all the self debarkers at the same time which created a huge throng of people all moving to the same exit. They told us if we did not have the appropriate debarking color card we would be "dealt with accordingly" which I am still trying to figure out what "dealt with accordingly" means. Would we have to walk the plank? Maybe receive 30 lashes? We got off the boat about 8am and met with our transfer back which was right on time.

Overall

All cruises have their ups and downs.This is a beautiful ship. We really had high hopes for this ship but all in all the negative aspects of this cruise really have turned us off Princess. The horizon court was very overcrowded and never offered anything worth while. No dedicated food stations such as a sandwich station or pasta station. The food was subpar and the milk was served luke warm. The hotel staff were inhospitable and rude. The maintenance staff were inept and incompetent. Nonworking showers and no ability to adjust the room temperature. Poor selection on the stateroom TVs . Room service with horrible food and orders screwed up repeatedly. If Princess wants repeat cruisers they need to step it up a notch.

[Pam in CA]

Sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise as much as you expected. A suggestion is that you write to Princess to let them know about your shower situation; explain exactly what happened, what you did to try to correct it, and the result. They need to know this and who knows? You might be pleasantly surprised by the response.

[wdblake]

Over all we did enjoy our cruise. Just felt I should convey both the ups and downs. A bad day cruising is still way better than a good day working

[flac4vert]

Thanks for the well written review. We are going in about 6 days.

 

I just read another thread were it said that they were tendering into Roatan? I thought they were going to be docked in Roatan, at least that's what it said.

[wdblake]

We tendered because they they said they were dredging at the new terminal. The week before us they docked at the new terminal.

[quincytoo]

Over all we did enjoy our cruise. Just felt I should convey both the ups and downs. A bad day cruising is still way better than a good day working

 

I really enjoyed your review :)

Thanks for being so through and giving the good and the not so good, looks like you handled it very well but I would do as Pam suggests and write a letter.

[bec funky]

Thanks for the review. I was also on this sailing. Every time I was in the thermal suite little steam room there we're 3-4 people in it not two. Very cozy for sure!

[JustinPlusLauren]

Thanks for the review, it was a great read!

[geoherb]

Thanks for posting the review and the Patters. We just booked this cruise for March. Prices of inside cabins and obstructed view cabins were unbelievable--and then went down another $20 pp over Christmas.

[vizgal]

We are considering getting this package for out 1/16 sailing. Two questions-

 

(1) are there other (free) steam rooms for us to use if we don't buy the package?

 

(2) Does the OP think these were worth the price tag?

 

Thanks~

[wdblake]

1) You have to buy the package to use the steam rooms.

 

2) My son said due to the lack of ambiance (no music, no views, no aromatherapy) it was not worth the money in comparison with other cruise thermal suites.

[mycruz]

Not sure about the Crown, just off the Ruby and in the Women's dressing/restroom there was a sauna and steam room as well as showers for anyone to use.

 

I purchased a Thermal Suite pass for the 3 day cruise I was just on, it's hit and miss, on this cruise I felt that there were more passes sold than should have been. It was crowded both times I used the suite and was not very relaxing considering the number of people. On the first trip in the alarm kept going off due to so many people going in and out of the sauna and tripping the alarm. Not sure I'll spend my money on a pass next time.

[Marmarjudy]

Thanks for taking the time to write your impression of the cruise.

 

I was enjoying it, both positive and negative, until I saw that you are one of "those" that remove the auto tip.

 

All credibility of your review was then out the window.

 

Just my opinion, of course.

 

Judy

[wilsonqbc]

Kind of have to agree, no matter how bad it can get,

removing the auto tips is not the best idea, imo

you are just kind of punishing everyone for a few bad experiences.

[Coolmama_1]

Thanks for the review.

[jdavid]

We didn't experience the many negatives that you had on this cruise. Often times these annoyances become bigger than they are because they take up so much precious time in trying to get them solved (i.e - shower problem) and every minute is to be savoured on a cruise. This was our second time on they Crown and it was every bit as special as the first. We found this time we put more emphasis on the food aspects (chef's table, Crown Grill and International Cafe) than we doid on the entertainment. I posted a review as well.

[geoherb]

Removing the autotip is not punishing everyone if the OP tipped in cash as he stated. My understanding is that the workers who receive cash tips when the autotip has been removed have to report them. Those tips go into the tip pool and get split up just like the autotips do. Workers who receive cash tips in addition to the autotip get to keep the extra money.

[Colo Cruiser]

Great review. Thanks.

[wdblake]

Thanks for taking the time to write your impression of the cruise.

 

I was enjoying it, both positive and negative, until I saw that you are one of "those" that remove the auto tip.

 

All credibility of your review was then out the window.

 

Just my opinion, of course.

 

Judy

 

I fail tosee how not autotipping lends to credibility. We always cash tip with envelopes because we believe an industry mandated "tip" is not a tip at all but a fee. cruise employees should not have to have their wages supplimented in such a fashion. This practice will never change if people don't stand up and voice their disapproval over the practice. Even though we know it goes into a pool at least it demonstrates our disapproval over mandated tipping. Just my opinion, not credible as it is.

[billet]

We are considering getting this package for out 1/16 sailing. Two questions-

 

(1) are there other (free) steam rooms for us to use if we don't buy the package?

 

 

 

Thanks~

Yes there is a free steam room and sauna in the mens and ladies changing rooms near the spa entrance. You can access these at any time the spa is open. If you hand in your room key at reception they will provide you with a locker key.