An OCD review of Golden/Hawaii-Pictures!!

[PrincessNancy]

Thanks for writing a great review---love your writing style!

 

We'll be on the Golden for our upcoming Alaska cruise---really appreciate all the great pictures. Can't wait to read the next installment...

[hermajestylanie]

Feeling hungry, we headed to the buffet for breakfast, second breakfast for husband. I don’t know what everyone is complaining about. I thought the food was hot and pretty good. But, the French toast, pancakes, and waffles were a bit soggy if they had been sitting out for any length of time. They had some good non fat plain yogurt (with Splenda) and the All Bran original cereal too for the fiber die hards like me (I have seen people posting that they only offer the flakes, but that was not the case here). They had a nice selection of pancakes, waffles, eggs, French toast, egg muffins, American bacon, English bacon, sausage, fresh fruit, various prepared potatoes, oatmeal, muesli, and a selection of muffins/pastries. There was wait staff that brought you drinks and complimentary OJ and coffee. Silverware is laid out on the table for you already.

 

Our usual fare. husband loved the eggs and I was partial to the super fresh pineapple:

 

 

 

 

After showering and getting ready, we took some drinks and headed to the Ukulele class at 11AM.

 

This is seriously what he looked like most of the time. Hard core liquid consumption. I was getting tired of waiting for him outside the bathroom 12 times a day! At least all of these are virgin drinks, or else he would have been comatose:

 

The class was taught by Dave the CD and was a very fun time! They provided instruments and little music books for everyone to use and taught us 4 chords and a song. We then signed up for the series of classes (every sea day until the end of the cruise). And it is all free! They were selling instruments after the practice, but I have heard you can get a cheaper one once you get to Hawaii. I have a bit of a musical background, so it came a bit easier for me (they do offer one intermediate class for those with a substantial guitar background). Husband has zero musical background, but was able to catch on quickly. I think it is something that everyone can learn and they go at a nice and slow pace, so it should be comfortable for those with no training.

 

 

 

[hermajestylanie]

It's too late now but there are jacks for headphones on the Golden's cardio machines. They're hard to find but are under the display...you kind of have to find it by touch or bend down to locate it. It's been the same on every Princess ship we've sailed & hopefully you can locate it on your next cruise. How's that for another reason to cruise??? You need to research it & to confirm that I'm not as they say in Hawaiian...LOLO! :p

 

I'm really enjoying your detailed experiences...it makes me ready for another cruise...in May. :D

 

 

Oooh, thanks! I thought I looked pretty good, but obviously I didn't. I usually just listen to music and read on my kindle anyways, but it will be good to know for the next one! Totally a good reason for another one!!

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you get that cruise in May!

[hermajestylanie]

Op;

 

Thanks so much for your review. I very much enjoy reading it. We did this cruise last month and absolutely loved it. So much so, that we're doing it again in March of 2013 on the Sapphire.....:):):)

 

Bob

 

 

Oooh, lucky duck! That will be nice to compare the 2 ships- I have read many debates on them! Happy cruising!

[Astro Flyer]

Oooh, thanks! I thought I looked pretty good, but obviously I didn't. I usually just listen to music and read on my kindle anyways, but it will be good to know for the next one! Totally a good reason for another one!!

 

Thanks for reading and I hope you get that cruise in May! We're sailing the Sapphire from LA to Vancouver in May...only have to fly one-way! :D

One quick question...was the Dave teaching ukelele from the singing duo Elua or was it CD David Cole? We sailed in December to Hawaii on the Golden & CD Dave was on vacation and it was Elua's Dave who taught the class. :confused:

 

Looking forward to more of your adventures...

Edited April 1, 2011 by Astro Flyer

[hermajestylanie]

And we headed for lunch to the buffet. The sheer amount of esting we do on these cruises! I try to go heavy on the veggies to fill myself up, but I am always tempted by those desserts. There was a stir-fry station featured today in the covered pool area. These special stations are usually pretty popular. I went to the normal buffet and had adobo chicken (really good!), cole slaw, potato gnocchi, green beans, carrots, and this yummy fried mozzarella bread.

They always have an array of pre- made sandwichs in the buffet and a carving station, as well as a section for breads and fruits. There are usually 2 kinds of soups for lunch as well. It is difficult to get cooked veggies without loads of butter and oil on them in the buffet, but if you like that you will be pleased! i am sure you can ask...

To finish we split a strawberry shortcake dessert (husband said he didn’t like his flan because it was drizzled with coffee flavor. It seemed to be a frequent problem for us on this cruise!). I briefly stopped by the Godiva chocolate shop for a free sample of drinking chocolate which was very good, then we headed to the ballroom dance class. I finally talked him into it! It was only 30 minutes, but Toby the instructor went over the basics of the cha cha and we got to practice a bit. There were a group of husbands who wouldn’t participate and made their wives dance with each other. Not cool! Husband only danced with me because I had wanted to do it on the past 2 cruises, and I never made him take dance classes for our wedding. But it was fun and they will have a new style every sea day. Waltz is tomorrow because it is a formal night.

We stopped by to see what the scavenger hunt was about, but decided not to do it because it looked to hard and would take up a lot of time… Then, up to Skywalkers for our CC meeting. The view was great- I felt so high up! However, we could feel the rolling motion from the ship even more up here. It gets going pretty good sometimes.

View from Skywalker's of the ship's wake:

Husband has almost fallen over multiple times on the stairs. There was a ship’s officer there who answered questions about radiation, high costs of excursions with Princess, and some other things. There was a good turnout and it was fun! Lots of people were wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day and fun things like clover leis and headbands. Princess did decorate the ship for the holiday and seem to be offering a green colored drink. It is really cold outside, about 56 degrees and pretty windy. They closed down the pools because of the splashing and waves caused by the rolling of the ship. We went back to the room and watched a bit of Night at the Museum 2 on TV. The movies for MUTS today are 127 hours, Morning Glory, and Inception.

Pool under Skywalkers at the back of the ship. Accessible from Deck 12 or 14, there are a couple hot tubs at the back on Deck 16, but the water tended to be cool and there was a lot of wind:

 

[hermajestylanie]

One quick question...was the Dave teaching ukelele from the singing duo Elua or was it CD David Cole? We sailed in December to Hawaii on the Golden & CD Dave was on vacation and it was Elua's Dave who taught the class. :confused:

 

Looking forward to more of your adventures...

 

Good question! I forgot there were 2 Daves. It was mainly the Cruise Director Dave that taught the class. Dave from the duo was the sub for one of the classes, which was really nice. He showed the class some different techniques that we could use. So, I guess it was both! It sounded as if they switch off frequently.

[lyds911]

Keep the reviews coming! I'm excited to read if you did any excursions or what you did while in port! =)

[hermajestylanie]

Whoops!

Edited April 1, 2011 by hermajestylanie

[hermajestylanie]

We plan to go to dinner a bit early so that we can catch the comedy hypnotist show at 8:30PM tonight. American Dinner is featured on the menu tonight. Doesn’t look spectacular if you don’t like sea food like me, but we will try it! We are hoping to go to the Crown Grill at least once during the trip. Today would have been a good day for me, but husband wants the seafood and scallops I guess.

We hit up some trivia in the Explorer’s lounge and we both sucked, we didn’t join a team, just did it on our own. I only got 9/20 right and husband only got 2. Some woman got 16 right. Props to her. Husband had 2 more pina coladas and a couple strawberry daiquiris the rest of the night, and like 3 more cokes. I think he is taking it as a personal challenge to see how much he can drink with that ultimate kids drink package. We listened to a band in the piazza for a while and had a snack of chicken salad and a mozzarella Panini with prosciutto from the International Café. I may get stoned for this, but the chicken salad was gross- so covered in mayo, hardly any apples to give it any flavor. Yuck. I like it sweeter. Everyone keeps saying it is wonderful, but not to my taste. The Panini was good, but they didn’t grill it enough and it was cold inside- this seemed to be the norm. We then walked around a bit and filled out the morning’s trivia sheets for fun (you can pick them up by the library every morning).

We went to dinner at about 6:15. If we wanted a 2 top, the wait would have be 20-30 minutes so we opted for a shared table for 8. We were with 3 other nice couples. The menu was ho hum in my opinion.

 

I got the lettuce wedge with egg, bacon, and ranch on the side. Main course was sirloin, but I tend to have bad luck and get a gross cut of meat. I asked for medium and it was more well done and so many parts were inedible with gristle. It came with glazed carrots and potato wedges, both were good. I got a side of steamed veggies, done perfectly.

Husband got corn and sausage chowder, but it was not chowder, clear broth instead. He also got mac and cheese with bacon. The sauce was wonderful! But pasta was too undercooked. He got the scallops and said they were good. For dessert we both had a brownie sundae. It was soooooo good! Like Carnival’s WCMC, all squishy in the center. I topped mine off with brownie ice cream and it was in a pool of chocolate sauce. I could have consumed 2 more! Yum! Best dessert! After dinner we went to the comedy hypnotist. He asked for participants and there ended up being a couple of real characters. He put people under and had one man, who said he was an anesthesiologist talk in “alien” and count his fingers after the hypnotist had erased the number 6 from his memory. It was pretty funny. We hit up the interactive movie trivia next and our team dominated, even though we personally had not seen many of the movies that were involved (the game was on a DVD and everyone divided up into 2 teams). They had a St. Patty’s day celebration planned next, but we left as they started passing out Irish songs to sing and a paper for a limerick competition. Didn’t sound too fun.

[hermajestylanie]

Sirloin:

 

 

Veggies:

 

 

Bisque:

 

 

Mac & cheese with bacon:

 

 

 

Scallops:

 

[hermajestylanie]

Keep the reviews coming! I'm excited to read if you did any excursions or what you did while in port! =)

 

 

We did some excurions in port and had a great time! I will get around to posting those probably in a couple days. I hope to have everything up here by next week.

[hermajestylanie]

Brownie sundae with scoop of brownie ice cream. Mine was super fudgy!:

 

 

 

 

Husband's brownie sundae:

 

 

Husband also got the dulce de leche ice cream:

 

 

 

The show was in the Vista lounge, which is much smaller than the theatre and some seats kind of face aa\way from the stage. But, they seem to have all the good shows in this venue. It doesn't make sense! We laways got there early enough for a good seat, but you have to wait a while.

 

Vista lounge:

 

After the show I was hungry (again!) so we grabbed some quick snacks from the buffet, and a big chocolate cookie.

Cheese tartlet, veggies, grilled tomato, steak all from the dinner buffet:

Chocolate mousse cake, not very good. Soggy cake:

We saw a couple people in the hot tub as we passed, but the pools were still closed. Back at the room our chocolates were waiting on our bed with the next day’s Patter. Tomorrow we will have formal night and another time change. I am super tired for some reason…. The rocking today was not as bad as yesterday, but we can still really feel it. I saw some ladies today having to hang onto chairs to walk thru the public rooms.

 

Overall, the ship had been relatively sedate. No running screaming kids like Carnival has. There also seems to be a lot fewer people so far…. We are really enjoying the atmosphere of the cruise crowd on Princess so far, but would like some better weather! I want to sunbathe in the warmth!

[hermajestylanie]

3/18/11

 

Another time change tonight. This morning I woke up at 6:20AM. So, I headed to the gym. I was there by 7 am and it was practically empty. Success! People are giving up, leaving more time for me! It did fill up a bit when 730 came around, but attendance was less than the day before. After a workout, I headed back for a shower and husband was still sleeping of course. He faked like he had planned to go to the gym with me and was mock offended I went without him. Ha! Please!

We went up to the buffet for breakfast. Same ole fair, but they also had some fresh papaya and plums and a different assortment of Danishes. 9am is a really popular time for breakfast. We are finding it hard to get a table at all, even outside in the covered area by the pool. I am not the biggest fan of having the waiters bring drinks and set silverware up for passengers. It takes a long time to get a drink and when we have to sit outside the dining area, it is hard to get utensils. When I got get it myself I feel like I am being given dirty looks! I am probably just being paranoid though.

It is still a bit windy outside and overcast, but it is steadily warming up. As you can see, it is a bit overcast still, but it is around 9AM. This picture is off the back of the ship.

After eating we headed to morning trivia where we paired up with a nice English couple. We almost won! We were tied with 2 other groups at a score of 18/20, and I actually knew a bunch of them! Husband adopted a strategy of listening to my quiet knee jerk answers to the question, then blurting out what I said. So, our partners were fooled into thinking he knew a lot of the answers! But, we ended up in second after tie breaking question about China’s number of time zones (apparently 1). We swore redemption after this narrow defeat!

A brief stop at the junk for sale in the Bernini dining area revealed no useful items for me, just ugly watches and the same boring clutches (I bought one last cruise, so I didn't need another). We had time to catch most of the Hula demonstration, where husband video recorded me without my knowledge! He wouldn't participate. It was fun though, they did the traditional hula and the woman from Eula taught it. She had a great voice, singing the song we danced to. None of the husbands participated, in fact. You can see one in the picture below in the left bottom corner, trying to catch a nap on the couch!

We rushed to Ukulele class and it was really crowded today, as most people decided to continue on. We learned the major chords, had a review and learned the song Tiny Bubbles. It makes my fingers hurt because I press down too hard on the strings and I have lost all my calluses from having played the viola yeas ago. It is a bit distracting having 50 people playing at once, but it works out in the end. I guess there is a mini concert at the end of the cruise, but I hate bring up on stage… we will skip it!

 

 

 

Lunch was in the Donatello MDR today. (I forgot to snap the menu picture).I had marinated grilled veggies, which were flavorful and good, with cured meats (blah, didn’t eat them).

Main course was Mediterranean salad with feta cheese. Veggies were super fresh and crisp! I wasn’t excited about it until I saw it.

Dessert was fudge cake- it was a monster of a piece and some of the best chocolate cake I have had. I longed for it the rest of the cruise! The icing was literally like fudge. Can you tell I am a chocolate addict?

[hermajestylanie]

Husband had clam chowder and Leg of lamb which he proclaimed as good when dipped in the gravy.

 

 

 

There was a lot of lamb offered on this cruise.

 

Husband had some blueberry type cake with whipped cream in it. Princess had had some wonderful desserts- all our desserts today were delicious. Of course he got a side of pistachio ice cream.

 

 

 

Service was relatively quick today. We had time to catch a street act in the piazza. A man spun a cube object around above his head and did some acrobatic moves. It was only about 5 minutes and was ok.

 

 

 

 

[hermajestylanie]

Husband had clam chowder and Leg of lamb which he proclaimed as good when dipped in the gravy.

 

 

 

There was a lot of lamb offered on this cruise.

 

Husband had some blueberry type cake with whipped cream in it. Princess had had some wonderful desserts- all our desserts today were delicious. Of course he got a side of pistachio ice cream.

 

 

 

Service was relatively quick today. We had time to catch a street act in the piazza. A man spun a cube object around above his head and did some acrobatic moves. It was only about 5 minutes and was ok.

 

[GOcanucksGO]

this is one of the best reviews ive seen glad you had a blast....i was wondering if you could email me please for some more info on some excusions and shopping...i will be on this cruise with my parents in 363 days lolll

my email is sagarlal7@gmail.com

and please keep the pics comming it....i cant wait till next march

[hermajestylanie]

Today was our orchid lei making class.

 

 

The orchids were beautiful, but everyone’s sting kept breaking. I had to re- string mine, as it bunched up at the end and came apart. The leis turned out fantastically- I would recommend doing this activity as it is quick and you then have a beautiful fresh lei to wear about the ship. Everyone who saw them commented how lovely they were.

 

 

We did the Waltz in ballroom today and husband seemed to have fun. These seem to be well attended and some couples are more fun to watch than others! There were men pushing their partners instead of leading, everyone bumping into each other! Husband got all goofy because he saw some of the older couples watching us (we were the youngest there) and he likes to play to the crowd, but we did pretty well in the end! I did have to lead for part of the time…

We did the ship trivia while lounging in the piazza, good place to sit. Karaoke was finishing as we went to go to trivia, which was much harder today. We only got 11/20 this time. We suck. Our partners were the same couple from this morning and they recruited us to help them with the scrapheap challenge where you build a boat to hold a six pack of beer. Should be a fun time. We ran back to the room to get ready for formal night. We got dressed and decided to do some formal pictures. If you go to 3 or more photo sessions, you can enter to win 8 pictures I think. So, we made the rounds. Some of the background are pretty scary… the formal pictures are $24.95 to purchase. There is a coupon for pictures- if you buy 4, you get the 5th one free.

Husband never want to take real pictures with me, so i was suprised when he wanted to do these formal pictures.

Dinner was at 615 in the Bernini. The wait for a 2 top was 20 minutes so we shared a table. Service was terrible! It was past 7 and we still had not been able to order, but we finally did because the waiter overheard me complaining. After that service seemed to be quicker.

[hermajestylanie]

I got the chicken wonton soup, which was really good!

My entree was the Cornish game hen, which was fantastic- it is one of my favorite things. I split the beef entrée with husband, which was finally cooked right!

Husband got the asparagus soup with salmon and roasted duck breast for the appetizer.

His main course was shrimp.

Really good dinner overall.

Dessert was bananas foster (I apologize for the suggestive nature of the picture! Hehe, I didn’t intend it when I snapped the picture, but we had a good laugh over it just now. I promise it was delicious though!) and he also got raspberry ice cream.

[hermajestylanie]

 

Raspberry ice cream- yum! Hurray for full fat ice cream! (But only on cruises, otherwise I have frozen yogurt or Artic Zero!)

 

 

 

We hit up the comedy show of Steve Carte after dinner- he did juggling, jokes, had people on stage… I think he tried too hard to be funny and it seemed really overly scripted like he was just reciting lines. He also totally violated one girl by tricking her into kissing him on the mouth! He was entertaining at points, but I have seen much better. We also went to the comedy show of Don Ware. He was pretty funny and had a lot of race related humor, but all in good fun. Of course there were lots of cruise ship jokes too. Everyone makes jokes about how the toilets violate you if you sit on them and flush at the same time... but it is still amusing. He spent a lot of time having all the veterans, policemen, firemen, and teachers stand up so he could talk to them in the audience. It was 30 minutes where he was not really telling jokes. So, he was good, but wasted a lot of time. The consensus among passengers was they thought he was trying to fill his time because he didn’t have enough material. Oh, man, I am really tired now! I have been getting up so early with the time changes that I can’t keep my eyes open past midnight! Of course since husband sleeps in, he wants to stay up a little later... The movies today were True Grit, Black Swan, Oceans, Knight and Day, and From Here to Eternity. On TV was Bedtime Stories and Shrek Forever After.

[RickEk]

Thanks for the review... I'm looking forward to the rest of it...

 

I find it interesting that y'all had a fabulous time and then read another review from March which was totally different... :p

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=80921

[hermajestylanie]

this is one of the best reviews ive seen glad you had a blast....i was wondering if you could email me please for some more info on some excusions and shopping...i will be on this cruise with my parents in 363 days lolll

my email is sagarlal7@gmail.com

and please keep the pics comming it....i cant wait till next march

 

 

No problem- I will send you an email shortly. And thanks for the compliment! That seems like a long time to wait- I found it hard when I booked this cruise in mid January to wait until mid March for it! It will come though, and I am sure you will have a wonderful time! It was amazing!

[partymaker]

I am enjoying your posts as well...we leave on April 13th....getting excited.

[hermajestylanie]

Thanks for the review... I'm looking forward to the rest of it...

 

I find it interesting that y'all had a fabulous time and then read another review from March which was totally different... :p

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=80921

 

Well, to each his own, right? I just read that review, and I agree with most of the points, but those things just didn't ruin the cruise for me. I agree that they did a lot of work on the ship while we were at sea- things like re-varnishing and painting and the like. I also saw them scrub the sides of the ship to remove rust stains while we were in Ensenada. But these things did not bug me. They make me appreciate that the crew is keeping up the ship. I did not notice much wear, so that must be why. It seems as if they do a great job keeping it up. There were some stairs outside that we closed so the varnish could dry... As for elevators, I am a firm believer in walking up stairs if one is able because it is great exercise and it allows me to eat more desserts (there were many people with canes and whelchairs on the ship and I figured they needed the elevators, so I wasn't going to add to their wait) and I used the elevator twice during the whole cruise- once to take our large scrapheap boat up a few floors and once when I had a headache. So, I did not notice if they were closed.

 

Children being noisy- yes, a little bit. But, kids are going to do that. I compare it to Carnival and found this cruise to be soooo much more quiet! There were some teenagers splashing in the spa once when I wanted to go in, so I just went to another spa. I saw some teenagers running up and down the stairs one day and overheard a girl say "why are we running up and down the stairs?" Well, it seems as if they are becoming more self aware. Good for them! But with only 98 children aboard during my sailing, it was pretty great! To tell the truth, I was more upset by the adults hogging all the good chairs in the sun, especially when they were sitting elsewhere in the shade. It rained a couple times and people left the open area in a hurry and in droves. But, the funny thing was seeing all the adults coming out from UNDER the covered area to run out to their hogged chairs to grab their stuff out of the rain!

 

 

Cruises are not going to give you the best cuts of meat- they are serving to the masses afterall. I had quite a few pieces with lots of gristle, but I just ate around it. They are also more than happy to bring you a new piece. The waiters are great. Food quality was a couple steps above Chili's or Applebee's.

 

 

I think that you have to do your research and know what to expect when going on a cruise, otherwise you may be disappointed. I had a really great time. But, everyone has different opinions! Sure, there are some things that I would change, or things that I might complain about, but overall I think Princess did a great job with this cruise and I was very happy with the outcome. In fact, I did not want to get off the ship. I planned to live in that tiny tiny stateroom until the end of time! Also, you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

 

But, it is interesting to hear other perspectives and expereinces as well. Thanks for sharing that link!

[hermajestylanie]

I just looked on the main review page again and there were 5 review for March for Golden Princess. Only one was bad (2 stars), the others were 5 or more stars!

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/getreviews.cfm?action=ship&ShipID=174