Island Princess Feb 8-18,2011

[liquid assets]

Island Princess- Feb 8- Feb 18- We had a group of 12 people on the cruise. Our big disappointment was only being in Aruba from 7:30am to 12:30. Stores open at 10. If you go on an excursion (SUBMARINE), YOU GET BACK AT 12:30.

Princess completely skipped stopping in Limon. All of our stops were short. Our rooms were great, Crooners martini bar is fun with wonderful bartenders. The Casino personal can't wait for you to leave. They actually tell you that they are closing in 15 minutes. This was before 12. One comedian was great , the other was horrible. In the defense of Princess, long time cruisers of princess were very disappointed in this Island Princess cruises. They said not to judge Princess by this cruise. Embarking and disembarking was great, very fast. Luggage was placed in our rooms very quick. The pool had excellent hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza and ice cream. The breakfast buffet was good, lunch was horrible after the second day. Dinner was either great or horrible, no in between. All in all The Island Princess is beautiful, the passengers are great and but the ship closed up at 11pm. Going up for movies night was an experience of seeing how many people were sleeping with there mouth open. I only saw 4 childern but there was alot of animated movies. all 12 of us are in our 60's and we thought there was no night life.

[itzmered]

Thanks for your review. Things sure changed in the week since we got off. We were on the 1/19 - 1/29 cruise on the Island and we never went to bed before 1 am and things were still going strong.

[RickEk]

Thanks for the review... why was the stop in Limon canceled? How was the Panama Canal? And, btw, animated films are just for children...

[loliola]

I see you were cat BD balcony cabin. What deck were you on? We booked on Dolphin BD - did you like your location and balcony?

[liquid assets]

WE WERE ON ALOHA (12). iT WAS GREAT

[liquid assets]

Sure wish we were on your cruise week. What luck..

[liquid assets]

They didn't announce it. Other cruisers questioned it and were told there was no room in the harbor for IP. There were quite a few ships. In Jamica the IP was docked in the commerical area( a Dump). We were told what we didn't get there first.

[1 HappyCruiser]

That's one thing I don't understand on Princess's MUTS, when that only have a few children on board why do they bother showing the kiddie movies when there's a big selection to choose from? It seems that there just to lazy to adjust the movie schedule to accommodate the audience.

[Loonbeam]

Most likely the movies are pre-contracted over a number of trips. In most situations like these Princess will pay a per viewing fee based on a pre-set number of showings in a given time period.

That's one thing I don't understand on Princess's MUTS, when that only have a few children on board why do they bother showing the kiddie movies when there's a big selection to choose from? It seems that there just to lazy to adjust the movie schedule to accommodate the audience.

[1 HappyCruiser]

Most likely the movies are pre-contracted over a number of trips. In most situations like these Princess will pay a per viewing fee based on a pre-set number of showings in a given time period.

 

That still doesn't explain why they choose kid movies when the average age of the audience might be better than 67 years old. On one of my cruises they were playing the latest transformer movie on MUTS during the day & there wasn't a kid in sight. Surely they must have had some other movie in their inventory that would have been of more interest for the older generation.

[Loonbeam]

Depends. If they bought X showings of Transformers and Y showings of something more adult oriented, showing film Y instead of film X leaves them with an empty block later, unless they show Transformers then.

 

In short, based on the agreement, there may not be any 'spare' movie selections on a given cruise (I have no idea how much discretion the CD has but I will try to find out)

 

That still doesn't explain why they choose kid movies when the average age of the audience might be better than 67 years old. On one of my cruises they were playing the latest transformer movie on MUTS during the day & there wasn't a kid in sight. Surely they must have had some other movie in their inventory that would have been of more interest for the older generation.

[cra-z-2cruise]

Was also on the same sailing. 2nd trip on Princess, but was a little disappointed. Several activities were cancelled due to lack of participation. We are in our mid 40's and def the babies of the trip. Very much enjoyed the MUTS, even the animated ones, at least there was something to do. Port visits were Very short, with exception of costa rica. We knew prior to booking about the missed port in Panama.

The only reason we went with this trip was we have very restricted time frame and the partial transit through the canal. It did make the whole trip worth it. After it started raining midway though the transit and all the people scattered, we had the whole open deck to ourselves. The food was not spectaclar, but we did not go hungry. Both specialty venues were worth the trip. While the service was spot on as usual, SEVERAL different crew members in different areas voiced that they were happy with Princess, but would like to be on a different ship/itenerary. That in itself speaks volumes.

[1 HappyCruiser]

Depends. If they bought X showings of Transformers and Y showings of something more adult oriented, showing film Y instead of film X leaves them with an empty block later, unless they show Transformers then.

 

In short, based on the agreement, there may not be any 'spare' movie selections on a given cruise (I have no idea how much discretion the CD has but I will try to find out)

 

I didn't realize they purchased the movies based on the number of showings.

It makes $cents now.

[Richie2pies]

I was also on this cruise. I have cruised Princess 8 times and this was the worst. Nothing I can pinpoint, but it just didn't have the "feel" of a Princess cruise. It was also my second partial of the canal.