Caribbean Princess review Jan 8/05 sailing

[Miralago]

:( I posted this before but I guess it was too big so I'll try it again. This was my 5th cruise, 3 with Princess, 2 with Royal Caribbean. The reason I chose Princess was because of my past experience with it. The first 2 cruises were great & outstanding even. So I chose it again. What a mistake....let me say the good and the bad. For the good, doors opened at 11:30 am was in my room in 20 minutes. Beautiful cabin D734 bacony very big about 10x14. Food in dining rooms and specialty resteraunts were great. (must do Sabatini's) as for the bad.....Buffet was lousy, no taste. The reservations for resteraunts was ridiculous, we waited 1 hour in line to reserve. Anytime dining, forget that, what a fiasco. We were stuck eating at 6pm or 830pm should have taken traditional. The worst complaint I have (and we were 24 in my group with the same complaint) the Entertainment stank !! Lousy, Lousy. What a downslide they took in that department. After 1030pm there is nothing to do. The shows all repeat themselves in the lounges. The comedians were good, that was it !! Anyway, I'll be trying Celebrity next. Carla

[CruiseFever]

Best wishes for a fabulous Celebrity cruise!

[zurmoly]

Sorry you were not happy about your cruise..Party of 24? If you did not reservations via the phone for that many, I am not surprised you had to wait. You certainly can not expect to show up and be seated right away. Happy sailing, next time.

[Coral]

Because the Caribbean Princess has 500 more passengers on their ship - I have read from several that there are longer waits in the dining room for traditional dining. Due to having more passengers on the same size of ship - I am trying to avoid this ship. Many have reported crowds as an issue.

 

I probably would have gone with Traditional also.

[spongerob]

And none of them were just absolutely enchanted with MUTS, either. Philistines! :D

[enymarsh]

I have a general question that maybe anyone can answer if the OP can't...

 

After hearing more than once that there is a long wait to get reservations set up for dinner, (I'm assuming on the first day), and then only getting a choice of before 6 or after 8:30... can't one still just show up and hope to get seated without a reservation??? I thought that was the whole point of personal choice?

 

I've done personal choice 3 times and for the last two, didn't have a standing reservation, we just showed up when we wanted and never really had to wait more than a few minutes. Sometimes we ate with others and sometimes we ate alone... it depended on the length of the wait for a solitary table (or our mood). I was on a Grand class ship and not the Caribbean Princess, but wouldn't it work the same?

 

(sorry if I sound a bit obtuse :rolleyes: )

[spongerob]

It seems to be more of a problem with larger groups who want standing reservations. I think the majority of Anytime users are of the walk-up variety, and tend to show up between 7 PM and 8:30 PM. Naturally, the maitre d's try to plan for this and push the larger groups earlier or later.

 

We've done Anytime once, and never had any major issues with waiting times.

[marly]

I like the buffet :)

Marly

[LARGIN]

Looks like the Caribbean Princess is good for first time cruisers.. :D

[danyelle]

I'll be on the CP in 8.1 months. I'm doing PC dining and am gettin a bit nervous about it.

I hope it works out that I wont have to wait too long to be seated.

[Toto2Kansas]

Although I didn't see any of the shows, DH did but I did not. He said they were OK, which meant nothing special, but after many cruises, they all look pretty much alike to us anyway.

 

I have to admit, I was very worried about the CP and wondered if we had made the wrong decision when we booked it. We were pleasently surprised about the entire ship and what it had to offer. Only real problem we encountered was getting on and off the ship in ports, like a mega line and it seemed to take forever.

 

Other than that, the ship was fabulous and we did have a great time. Would we book it again? If we were looking for a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean, probably. But what would draw us back would be the Cafe Caribe as we never went to the dining room once (which I did hear others complain about). The seafood was just too good to pass up at the Cafe Carive, so that is where we had dinner EVERY night.

[Miralago]

In answer to the question of why we did not reserve by phone, that's exactly it. You're not allowed, specialty resteraunts on this ship must be done in person at the resteraunt itself. So their was a line-up (and it opened for reservations at 1pm) we were their at 1:15 and waited 1 hour. Before the cruise we called Princess on many occassions and all told us that dining would be no problem. Everyone in that line-up were furious. As for the dining room we broke up our group in 6's (24 people) they said we would have no problem eating for 700-730pm forget that ! If you are just 2 or 4 people it might be okay, more than that it's a problem. As for MUTS the screen was gorgeous, the movies lousy once again they played everyday Grease, Shark Tales (cartoon) Bourne Supremecy. Everyday !! Their was alot of disorganization on this ship. I used to love Princess, I've been on the Golden & Crown both great, you could make your reservations by phone for supper. Here if you try it on Anytime dining you will have a hard time getting what you want. Do Traditional, you also get to know your waiters etc, it's more personal. Anytime is like a herd of sheep their trying to get rid of. Also we didn't ge to go to Princess Cays (I know it's not their fault) but SanJuan was so bad we arrived in traffic hour at 5pm we came back to the ship in 1 hour everything was closed for visitors. Should have made a sea day. I love cruising, don't get me wrong it's my favorite vacation, I felt bad because all the other people with us, it was their first, and they said they all liked all inclusive vacations. I don't, some criuses are better than others. That's it !

[cusyl]

We were on this ship last August. We always prefer traditional dining but we made our reservations too late to get it. When we arrived in our cabin we picked up the phone and called and were able to make a reservation for the same time every night. We found this acceptable. We did eat several dinners in Cafe Caribe because of the great seafood.

We liked the ship so much we have reserved it again for Christmas week 2005.

[Rustynail]

I just returned from the CP and couldn't disagree with you more. Anytime dining provided us with so much flexibility and options that I don't think we could ever go back to traditional. Food was exactly the same as the Island dining room and we developed a terrific relationship (as we would have with traditional) with our wait staff. We did make standing reservations at 7:00 each night at the same table (#82) however if we didn't feel like dining then or if we decided we didn't feel like dining at the Palm then we didn't and it was no big deal.

 

 

In regards to waiting to book the speciality restaurants - we waited 45 minutes to book Sterlings - what's the big deal? as it was well worth it. We also waited 1/2 hour to purchase photo's but that again was our choice to wait.

It's funny because even though we booked a table for 2 each night we most often found ourselves chatting with our neighbors. It really amounted to the best of both worlds as we still enjoyed dinner together but had the option to open it up and chat with a bunch of really nice people as well.

 

I'll have much more to say on PC dining sometime next week.

 

Dan

[CruiseFever]

I just returned from the CP and couldn't disagree with you more. Anytime dining provided us with so much flexibility and options that I don't think we could ever go back to traditional. Food was exactly the same as the Island dining room and we developed a terrific relationship (as we would have with traditional) with our wait staff. We did make standing reservations at 7:00 each night at the same table (#82) however if we didn't feel like dining then or if we decided we didn't feel like dining at the Palm then we didn't and it was no big deal.

 

 

In regards to waiting to book the speciality restaurants - we waited 45 minutes to book Sterlings - what's the big deal? as it was well worth it. We also waited 1/2 hour to purchase photo's but that again was our choice to wait.

It's funny because even though we booked a table for 2 each night we most often found ourselves chatting with our neighbors. It really amounted to the best of both worlds as we still enjoyed dinner together but had the option to open it up and chat with a bunch of really nice people as well.

 

I'll have much more to say on PC dining sometime next week.

 

Dan

 

Ready to go again?

[sbb]

We also just returned from the Caribbean Princess. Regarding dining....we had PC dining and it worked out terrific. The first night we (party of 4) went to the Coral Dining room at 8:40 and were seated right away. However, we didn't like our table location or waiters so we tried the Palm Dining room the next night at 7:30. We didn't have any reservations and were seated within 5 minutes. We loved our waiters and table location so much that we didn't even consider any other dining room. After dinner we requested the same table for the rest of the cruise at the same time and it was no problem. I can't say enough about the waiters....they made us feel like royalty. I've dined at many fine restaurants but have never had this high quality of service. After being seated, TWO glasses of soda were brought right away (I had a soda card so wasn't being charged each time) If my glass of soda was down to a quarter of a glass, it was replaced without asking for it. After making our dessert selection, we were given every other dessert to try. The waiters were very personable and friendly and literally ran our food from the kitchen to our table. The were the BEST! btw, the lobster and beef wellington were to die for!

[roe2ship]

In regards to waiting to book the speciality restaurants - we waited 45 minutes to book Sterlings - what's the big deal? as it was well worth it. We also waited 1/2 hour to purchase photo's but that again was our choice to wait.

It's funny because even though we booked a table for 2 each night we most often found ourselves chatting with our neighbors. It really amounted to the best of both worlds as we still enjoyed dinner together but had the option to open it up and chat with a bunch of really nice people as well.

 

 

Same here.......we waited more than one hour to book Sabatini's - frustrating? yes a little, furious? never.... I'm on a cruise.

 

We too always asked for a table for two and found ourselves chatting with our neighbors. I agree, it was the best of both worlds.