Caribbean Princess mini review

[travelgenie]

Having been on many cruises with HAL, RCCL, Celebrity and NCL, this was our first Princess cruise. We pick our trips by the itinerary and have no particular loyalty to any one cruise line. I was expecting a more upscale experience, similar to HAL and Celebrity, but feel like this cruise compared more to NCL and RCCL, not that it impacted the fact that we had a great time. Here are some of my observations and comparisons:

Ship: Embarkation and Debarkation was easy and organized, our cabin was available right away (12:30 ish). The ship does not have the wow factor as the RCCL lines have, the Piazza area is nice but tends to get crowded quickly. Slight wear and tear, but what can you expect with 3100 + passengers every week. Public restrooms were always a mess, some with out of service toilet stalls the entire cruise, you will never find paper towels on HAL or Celebrity, not a big deal but every time I used the public restrooms the trash can was full and paper towels all over the floor. I was surprised to see plastic Walmart style table and chairs around the pools, did not use the lounge chairs but they looked like they had nice covers. Promenade Deck is narrow and cannot accommodate lounge chairs (regular ones only), have never seen that on any previous cruise as this is my favorite spot on any ship. Although I did not use MUTS, thought it was a good idea, but it does make that area loud.

Cabin: Great layout, really liked the closet area, however, it makes the bathroom small and shower ridiculously tiny. Air conditioning could never get as cold as I like it. Beds are a little hard, but luckily for me the motion of the ship, helps me sleep well.

Staff: Friendly, attentive, helpful, our cabin steward, Roy, was great.

Entertainment: Not so good, no live orchestra or music, mediocre singers and dancers, one good comedian out of 2. Crew talent show and entertainment in the Piazza was much better. Did not like the seating in the Theater, prefer lounge type seating with tables.

Food: Typical cruise food, some nights better than others, lobster night was the best and a great meal in the Crown Grille.

Ports: Great, why we choose this itinerary, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. No tenders, just walk off.

Overall a great time, would cruise Princess again if the itinerary appealed to me. I will put some other observations about Anytime Dining, formal nights and the coffee, in another thread.

[bwellen]

Looks like we were on the same cruise (Feb. 12-19)!

 

This was our seventh cruise, first on Princess. Other lines have been NCL, Carnival and Disney. We had our 8 and 6 year old daughters with us, this was their third cruise. We also book our cruises almost entirely based on the ports of calls.

 

Overall view of the cruise from our end was that it was enjoyable but certainly nothing that leaves us with the feeling that we must cruise only with Princess from now on.

 

Food was ok, nothing really seemed to stick out to us as memorable.

 

We really enjoyed the entertainment in the Theatre and really like that style of seating. Can't decide if we like the 30 minute shows or not, they seemed to go quickly. There was almost always plenty of room to sit. We never really saw any of the entertainment in the Piazza, it is very difficult for more than about 100 people to really get a good view of what is going on.

 

We had an inside stateroom with two top bunks and we actually liked it even with four people in it. It seems to be laid out well and we really liked the huge closet.

 

MUTS seems like it is not being utilized very well. They have an odd mix of programming and they only seem to offer the popcorn for about 1 hour each night and they run out quickly.

 

We had anytime dining and had to wait about half of the nights for a table. The key appears to arrive before 7:30 to 7:45. The first formal night we arrived at 8:00 PM and waited in line about 20 minutes just to get the pager and then waited another 20 minutes to be seated. Had to rush the meal to make it to the 10:15 show. The other times we waited the line for a pager was much shorter and wait time after receiving the pager was around 5-15 minutes.

 

There were only 27 children between the ages of 3 and 12 on this cruise so the Kids Club area was run differently than normal and they combined the two younger groups together since there were not many kids using the clubs. Our girls did enjoy their time there however and were always eager to go back.

 

Embarktion was very smooth. We waited outside for the doors to open at Noon and were on the ship quickly. Our debarkation time was supposed to be 10:00 AM which ended up being closer to 10:30 and then we had a HUGE line for customs; one of the longest waits we have had to clear customs.

 

We had great weather all week and very calm seas. This was by far the smoothest cruise we have been on for sense of movement of the ship. Almost forgot we were on a cruise.

 

That is all I can think of right now, have to get going on some errands.

[Loucat]

Having been on many cruises with HAL, RCCL, Celebrity and NCL, this was our first Princess cruise. We pick our trips by the itinerary and have no particular loyalty to any one cruise line. I was expecting a more upscale experience, similar to HAL and Celebrity, but feel like this cruise compared more to NCL and RCCL, not that it impacted the fact that we had a great time. Here are some of my observations and comparisons:

Ship: Embarkation and Debarkation was easy and organized, our cabin was available right away (12:30 ish). The ship does not have the wow factor as the RCCL lines have, the Piazza area is nice but tends to get crowded quickly. Slight wear and tear, but what can you expect with 3100 + passengers every week. Public restrooms were always a mess, some with out of service toilet stalls the entire cruise, you will never find paper towels on HAL or Celebrity, not a big deal but every time I used the public restrooms the trash can was full and paper towels all over the floor. I was surprised to see plastic Walmart style table and chairs around the pools, did not use the lounge chairs but they looked like they had nice covers. Promenade Deck is narrow and cannot accommodate lounge chairs (regular ones only), have never seen that on any previous cruise as this is my favorite spot on any ship. Although I did not use MUTS, thought it was a good idea, but it does make that area loud.

Cabin: Great layout, really liked the closet area, however, it makes the bathroom small and shower ridiculously tiny. Air conditioning could never get as cold as I like it. Beds are a little hard, but luckily for me the motion of the ship, helps me sleep well.

Staff: Friendly, attentive, helpful, our cabin steward, Roy, was great.

Entertainment: Not so good, no live orchestra or music, mediocre singers and dancers, one good comedian out of 2. Crew talent show and entertainment in the Piazza was much better. Did not like the seating in the Theater, prefer lounge type seating with tables.

Food: Typical cruise food, some nights better than others, lobster night was the best and a great meal in the Crown Grille.

Ports: Great, why we choose this itinerary, St. Maarten, St. Lucia, Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. No tenders, just walk off.

Overall a great time, would cruise Princess again if the itinerary appealed to me. I will put some other observations about Anytime Dining, formal nights and the coffee, in another thread.

It is always of interest how opinions differ. I sailed the CB on 2/5 and had different observations. We waited one hour to even get into security; once in the building it went quickly.

We were upgraded so of course, that was WONDERFUL:)

Having sailed on so many RCC ships, DH and I loved the CB. So many lovely areas such as the Explorer's Lounge. I did not miss the "wow" of any RCC ship. I agree the food was just OK and lobster night was very good. We did eat in Sabatini's and had service problems and retuned the appetizer and salad and cancelled our reservations for another night.

The ship seemed so well kept. Worn out? Try so many RCC ships; that is why we are trying other lines. We liked CB enough to book another Princess cruise! Hope you enjoyed the islands!