Crown Princess - March 10 to 17 - Loooong Review!

[CanadaBunny]

DH and I were on the Crown Princess March 10 to March 17, 2012. The Crown was on a Southern Caribbean itinerary (Princess Cays – Bahamas; Curacao; Aruba with 3 sea days). We had a wonderful time on our first cruise with Princess, except for couple episodes of drama!

 

Saturday - Embarkation Day

 

We got to the Fort Lauderdale terminal early – just after 10:30 a.m. There were rows of chairs so we took a seat. We were called up by row, and even without any preferred boarding, we were on the ship just before noon.

 

We dropped our carry-on bags in our cabin, then had lunch in the main dining room – I believe it was DaVinci. The doors of the dining room were closed and there was someone standing outside who asked us if he could help us. When I told him that I was looking for lunch in the dining room, he opened the door and let us in. I definitely got the impression that if we had said something less direct, he might have referred us to the buffet. Once inside, there were only a few passengers in the dining room. Lunch was delicious – DH had filet mignon and I had salmon.

 

After lunch, we wandered the ship to learn where things were. By the time we got back to our stateroom, our bags had already arrived. So while people were still boarding, we had enjoyed a delicious lunch, wandered the ship, received our luggage, and partially unpacked our stuff, including three bottles of wine (the limit is supposed to be two, but obviously they didn’t mind the third.)

 

Muster drill was at 3:30. Ours was in the casino and our cruise cards were swiped as we entered. When we returned to our room, there was a yellow “clear” tag on the door.

 

The Room

 

We had a mini-suite mid-ship on Dolphin deck. We both liked the open feel of the balcony, so we didn’t care that others could see us from above. We just hoped that we didn’t get spit on, and we didn’t so that was good!

 

The balcony had a good size round table (big enough to eat on), two reclining chairs and two foot rests. There was a blue mat on the floor, but it wasn’t too comfy on bare feet, so I wore my sandals when I was out there.

 

Dining

 

We selected Traditional Dining. Our dinner time was 5:30 in the DaVinci Dining Room. We had table 505, which was a table for two, one table away from a window. We never did find out who had the window table – the first few nights it was empty, and the last few nights, there was a different couple every night.

 

The tables for two in our area actually consist of one long bench, with tables spaced out along its length. There isn’t a lot of room between the tables so we quickly made friends with the couple at the next table. We later decided to join our tables together so we could alternate which couple got to sit on the bench.

 

Our waiters were Edwin and Petar, and the head waiter for our section was Joseph. I have a special diet, so every night after the main course Joseph would bring the menu for the next night. I would then pre-order from the next night’s menu. For those with wheat-restrictions, there is gluten-free bread available in the dining room, and also from room service. The dessert chef also made me a surprise dessert every night! :D

 

Lobster night was Thursday. Wednesday was Caribbean night, and featured yummy jerk chicken, although it didn’t taste like any jerk chicken I’ve ever had.

 

We asked about the wine package that I’d read about on CC. We were told that it was no longer available, but that it might be back. They were waiting to hear from head office. No worries, wine was available both by the bottle and the glass in the dining room.

 

Quick note about timing for dining in the dining room: calculate 2 hours for dinner, more than 1 hour for lunch. If you want to be in and out quicker, you might be better off going to the buffet.

 

We did go to the Horizon Court and Cafe Caribe buffets a few times, mostly for lunch. They’re not huge buffets, but they had a good variety of food, so we always found something to eat. Mmmm, yummy smoked salmon! One lunch was an “international” buffet.

 

A few times, we ordered room service breakfast. It’s a continental breakfast, although there is a breakfast sandwich which has egg, bacon and cheese on an English muffin. It was always delivered on time, except for one time when it was half hour early – DH had to scramble to answer the door! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the room service menu, but it was mostly sandwiches and such. We ordered fries a couple of times. Room service is available 24 hours for no extra charge.

 

The International Cafe off the main Piazza has yummy chicken salad. It’s open 24 hours.

 

Sunday - Princess Cays

 

Our first port was Princess Cays, Bahamas. After tendering, we took a bus tour of Eleuthera Island which we had booked via Princess. Our tour guide was entertaining, and we enjoyed the stop at Ocean Hole, and a walkabout at Rock Sound. There was a stop at a souvenir shop, but we thought the prices were ridiculous so I only bought a bottle of hot sauce (love getting hot sauce from different islands!). Lunch was included at a restaurant on the beach: chicken wings, fritters and such. I got excited when I heard that lunch would include fried plantain, but it turned out to be only one piece per person :( We did get a sample of conch salad. There was a masquerade parade at the end of lunch and DH was one of our group that got picked to go dance with the performers.

 

Where the bus dropped us off outside the Princess compound, there are several vendors. The prices here are reasonable, and most vendors will negotiate.

 

After dinner, we discovered Crooners and the piano entertainer, Kory Simon. This became one of our favourite spots so we returned here several times during the week.

 

This was also the night the sea was a little rough - just enough to make us walk like drunks, but not enough to make us seasick. If you are prone to seasickness though, I could see someone having trouble on this night. The rest of the time was fairly smooth sailing, er, cruising. :p

 

Monday – Sea Day

 

Our first sea day! We slept in a bit, then went to the Cruise Critic meet n greet. Thanks again to Rolloman for organizing!

 

We had the British pub lunch in the Wheelhouse Bar. DH had the fish and chips while I had the chicken curry. DH says my curry was better.

 

We went to the first of two wine tastings in the afternoon. Fee was $25 and included appetizers (smoked salmon, caviar, cheese, etc). The sommelier for Princess happened to be on board, so he lead the wine tasting.

 

This was also the first of two formal nights. The professional photographers were set up for portraits, but we didn’t bother with them this night. The champagne waterfall was also this night.

 

Tuesday – Curacao

 

We had booked an excursion to the Hato Caves and the Curacao Liqueur Distillery. We were mostly underwhelmed with this excursion. These limestone caves were somewhat interesting – we saw stalactites and stalagmites, but nowhere near as many as I was expecting. There was a colony of long nose fruit bats and we also saw some of those. To get into the caves, there are about 50 steps to walk up (and down on the way out). The steps are narrow, but there is a handrail and there are spots to take a break if you needed to. The distillery was a 20 minute stop so just enough time to drink some samples and buy some bottles – not enough time to look around. Tour also stopped at the national museum.

 

After the tour, we wandered around the port for a bit. We did a bit of souvenir shopping from the stores in the Fort, and from the vendors outside the Fort. The floating bridge was open, so we took the free ferry to the other side too.

 

Wednesday – Aruba

 

We had booked a submarine excursion that took us 130 feet underwater. I really enjoyed this as I don’t snorkel, so this was my only way to see the reefs, fish, and sunken boats. A half hour boat ride took us to where the submarine was, then about an hour on the sub, then the return trip to the pier.

 

After that tour, we returned to the ship for lunch, then wandered around the port in the afternoon.

 

Wednesday evening – the balloons

 

Wednesday evening brought the most bizarre episode of the cruise. After dinner, we went to the Princess Theatre for the Kory Simon show. That was fun and included yodelling by Kory and the audience.

 

After the show, we decided to stay for the next show which was the International Crew Show. DH went to get us new drinks, and when he returned entertainment staff were handing out balloons to the audience. At first I thought it would be just a few to toss around and entertain ourselves before the show. But more and more balloons were handed out. Within a few minutes, DH and I were trying to fend off balloons from spilling our drinks. In the process, DH popped a couple of balloons. The couple behind us didn’t like that so they started aiming balloons directly at DH (I turned around and saw them doing this). :eek: A woman in front of me then accused me of hitting her with a balloon. In the end, DH and I left in disgust. My impression of Princess until this point had been a classy, elegant cruise, and this experience was completely contradictory to that impression.

 

I don’t know whether part of the reason for this incident was a different demographic than usual because it was a spring break cruise. The couple behind us and the woman in front of us looked to be in their 50’s. DH and I are mid-30’s and early 40’s. The other passengers looked like a wide variety of ages: very few infants, some kids, few in their 20’s, some in their 30’s, more in their 40’s and 50’s, lots in their 60’s and up.

 

I later heard that the balloons were part of the show. Maybe Princess could hand out the balloons just before that part of the show, or change the show altogether. Or at least warn people when they’re entering the theatre with drinks that the balloon madness is about to begin. That was the one negative in an otherwise awesome experience.

 

Thursday and Friday – Sea Days

 

We went to the second wine tasting on Thursday. This one was priced at $9.50 and had fewer appetizers and one less wine. We still enjoyed it, and we received a Princess Cruise logo’d shot glass.

 

We both absolutely loved walking on the wrap-around Promenade Deck so we did several laps, always pausing at the tip of the bow to watch the calm undisturbed sea. We saw several flying fish jumping out in front of the ship. Some stayed in flight for a good 20 seconds!

 

Thursday was the second formal night and we got our portraits done this night (pictures are priced at $25 each so we didn’t get too many!). Also enjoyed a wine flight at Vines.

 

Friday - The Medi-vac

 

On Friday at lunchtime, the captain announced that he was turning the ship around. At first, I thought he was joking: DH and I were enjoying our cruise and really didn’t want to go home! But of course, he was serious. A passenger was ill and needed to be medi-vac’ed out. The captain was turning the ship around in order to meet the US Coast Guard at a designated spot. He was great at keeping us informed (“the helicopter will be here in 30 minutes”, “the helicopter will be here in 10 minutes”). One pool deck and some of the forward cabins were cleared. No flash photography was permitted. The helicopter circled a few times, then hovered while a paramedic was lowered. Then the passenger was sent up, followed by the paramedic, and away they went.

 

Noro

 

As far as I know, there was no Noro on the ship. An attendant was always present at the entrance to the buffet to make sure you used the hand sanitizer and hand you your plate and cutlery. Salt and pepper packets were available, but salt and pepper shakers were not on the tables. You served yourself in the buffet.

 

In the dining room, bread was on the table. If you asked for ketchup, they served you some, rather than leaving a bottle or a dish.

 

The only hint I got that something may have been awry was that DH and I signed up for the Ultimate Ship Tour. This cost extra, but would have taken us in a small group (12 people) on a tour of all the operational areas of the ship, including the bridge, galley, engine room, laundry room. It was originally scheduled for Thursday, then rescheduled for Friday, then cancelled altogether. When they phoned to cancel, they told DH that the reason was that it was “direct orders from the captain because the sanitation level has gone from green to yellow and the crew needs to be protected”. Your guess is as good as mine on what prompted the change in sanitation level. :confused:

 

Staff

 

I can’t conclude my review without mentioning our cabin steward, Ionuts. He was simply awesome and paid great attention to detail. For example, I asked for wine glasses once, and never had to ask again: we always had clean wine glasses. We mentioned that a light bulb had burned out and it was fixed later that day.

 

In fact, every staff member was professional and helpful. The only time I heard anything other than “how can I help you” was when we went to the tour desk. DH and I received a phone call in our cabin that there was a local fire alarm affecting the cabins in our area so we were to go to our muster station. Our muster station was the casino, but when we got down there, there was no sign of a muster staff person, or a group of people doing anything out of the ordinary. Since there was a small line up at passenger services, I stopped at the tour desk which is directly outside the casino. I thought that since there was no line up there, the staff person would be able to make a phone call or find out for us, given that it was a fire alarm – I didn’t just have a routine question. She simply directed us to passenger services and reiterated that this was the tour desk – I knew that, I just thought that if there had been a fire, she could have been more accommodating. In the end, passenger services advised that it was a glitch in the system and we returned to our cabin.

 

The Safe

 

K, this is about me being a ditz. :o The instructions on the safe said to lock the safe, enter a 4 digit code. It didn’t say anything about writing down the 4 digit code. The instructions for unlocking the safe then said to enter the same 4 digit code. But since I was interested in locking the safe, not unlocking the safe, I didn’t read that part yet. You know where this is going, right? I locked us out of the safe. We had to get a night manager to come and unlock it for us. I think it was around 11 pm, but he came within a few minutes and unlocked it in less than a minute. The whole process was painless, for which I am immensely grateful – I never would have heard the end of it!

 

Entertainment

 

There was always something to do. We went to Crooners several nights. We saw a band in the Explorer’s Lounge one night and a hypnotist another night. DH enjoyed the hypnotist show, while I thought it was just OK. We both enjoyed the ballroom dance lessons – we did the cha cha and the waltz.

 

We had hoped to go to MUTS, but never made it. The one night we were thinking of going, they were playing Cars 2 for Kids Movie Night and you had to be registered with the Kids Program to go.

 

The comedians Alfred and Seymour were great, but don’t get there late!

 

Saturday - Disembarking

 

The ship was about an hour late getting into Fort Lauderdale. We had to be out of our cabin by 8 a.m. and had booked our disembarkation for 8:40 a.m. as we had a noon flight to Canada. The disembarkation was delayed so we were told to meet our departure group at 9:30 instead. We left our room at 8, by which time the elevators were packed. We took the stairs to the buffet (5 flights!) and had breakfast. The buffet of course was busy so we had trouble finding a table, but did eventually. (Room service is not available on disembarkation day)

 

We went to our departure group at 9:15, were off the ship by 9:40. We had to walk down some stairs to get from our departure lounge to the gangway. We managed with our carry ons and one backpack, but if you have mobility troubles, could be an issue.

 

We quickly found our bags, and cleared US immigration quickly.

 

There was a line up for taxis: took about half hour to get a taxi to the airport. We still made our flight with time to spare though.

 

Conclusion

 

DH and I loved the cruise. Next time, I might book a later flight and take an excursion in the port before the flight.

[Pam in CA]

Thanks for the review. Detailed and well-balanced.

[JimmyVWine]

Thank you. Well done. Sounds like a great vacation.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult they make it to have lunch in the MDR on departure day. The whole "secret password and club handshake" thing is really inane. If they don't want to serve lunch in the MDR, then fine. That is their choice. But as long as it is offered (and advertised on the website and in their literature), they shouldn't make it so hard to enjoy. All it does is set themselves up for leaving a bad taste in people's mouths during the very first hour that they are on the ship. You would think that they would go out of their way to be gracious and make a good first impression in the first hours of the cruise.:confused:

[VikingRob]

Thanks so much for your review!

 

Kim

[cruzinchris]

Thanks for the informative, well-written review. It's a pleasure to finally read Crown reviews that aren't focused on Noro. DH and I were onboard the last week in January when the illness broke out on the last day of the voyage. Things went downhill for the next couple of cruises, but it seems that all is well now.

 

I enjoyed reading about the Princess tour of Eleuthra. I haven't seen another review of the island tour, and it sounds like something that DH and I would consider on a future visit to Princess Cays.

 

If you have time, please consider posting your review on the Review Board here at Cruise Critic. Many folks who don't participate on the Message Boards visit the site to read reviews.

 

Bon Voyage!

Chris

[Terry in NJ]

Great job!

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Can I please ask, since it was a spring break week...

How were the chair hogs handled?

Did you take advantage of the adult pool areas and if so, did they keep the kids out?

Thanks again!

[CaribbeanLVR]

VERY nice review!

 

May I ask where on Dolphin deck you were located? We too are on dolphin deck FWD in the 220's. Would louve to have the same person!

 

Tim

[JimmyVWine]

VERY nice review!

 

May I ask where on Dolphin deck you were located? We too are on dolphin deck FWD in the 220's. Would louve to have the same person!

 

Tim

 

Under the heading "The Room" you will find that the cabin was mid-ship.

[AttilaTheFun]

Thanks for posting! We never did find the magical dining room open for lunch on embarkation day (even after asking several crew members who just directed us to the buffet) - I don't know why Princess guards this like they're handing out gold bars!

 

How did your husband pop balloons? It takes a lot to pop them by accident - I might be annoyed if people were popping them in the theater too, but sounds like a mess!

[Liz54]

Thank you. Well done. Sounds like a great vacation.

 

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult they make it to have lunch in the MDR on departure day. The whole "secret password and club handshake" thing is really inane. If they don't want to serve lunch in the MDR, then fine. That is their choice. But as long as it is offered (and advertised on the website and in their literature), they shouldn't make it so hard to enjoy. All it does is set themselves up for leaving a bad taste in people's mouths during the very first hour that they are on the ship. You would think that they would go out of their way to be gracious and make a good first impression in the first hours of the cruise.:confused:

 

So Well Said!

If Princess ever reads these boards I hope they see your post.

Its been mentioned here and in reviews and many of us have commented on it directly to Princess. Why would they allow passengers to kick off the cruise by arguing with staff???

[Orangefan]

CanadaBunny, Thanks for the great review. I will be on the Crown April 21st !

I have read some patters but couldn't find any zumba classes listed. In November I was on the Emerald and they had zumba 4 days. Supposedly , all Princess ships have zumba classes on it. Did you have zumba on your cruise ?

Sali

[Coolmama_1]

Great review. Thanks for sharing.

[VikingRob]

CanadaBunny, Thanks for the great review. I will be on the Crown April 21st !

I have read some patters but couldn't find any zumba classes listed. In November I was on the Emerald and they had zumba 4 days. Supposedly , all Princess ships have zumba classes on it. Did you have zumba on your cruise ?

Sali

 

I have read somewhere on here, that the Zumba instructor on The Crown, was no longer there. So unless they hire a new one, there may not be Zumba!:(

 

Kim

[highheel girl]

Great review!

Lonuts? Thats funny! :D

On disembarkation morning we avoid the buffet like the plague! We head to the main dining room for a nice quiet breakfast. ;)

[CanadaBunny]

Great job!

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Can I please ask, since it was a spring break week...

How were the chair hogs handled?

Did you take advantage of the adult pool areas and if so, did they keep the kids out?

Thanks again!

 

I don't swim so I spent most of my outside time on my balcony. When I was on deck, it was right after the deck had been cleared out for the medivac, so no chair hogs.

[CanadaBunny]

I have read somewhere on here, that the Zumba instructor on The Crown, was no longer there. So unless they hire a new one, there may not be Zumba!:(

 

Kim

 

I looked through the patters and I don't see any zumba classes listed.

[srpilo]

Thanks for your Crown update and report.. Good Stuff :)

 

 

 

Srpilo

[JustinPlusLauren]

Thanks for the review! We were on the Crown a couple of months ago and did some similar activities! Sorry to hear you were disappointed about the balloons at the International Crew Show - we thought that this was pretty funny and hilarious as everyone was hitting balloons around! It isn't very nice that some people were targeting you and your drinks, as I wouldn't want to spill my drink on myself either (although I had a latte in hand and still managed to hit balloons around, LOL!). We had a blast hitting the balloons all around, and I even got into a little balloon "war" with one of the ushers in the theatre, who I kept hitting balloons towards, but he kept hitting them back at my fiance (guess he didn't want to hit them at a woman!) :) I think it was just meant to be a bit of fun before the show and sorry that it put a damper on your evening!

[Inneedofvacation]

I looked through the patters and I don't see any zumba classes listed.

 

We just got off the Crown this morning and they had Zumba classes at 9:00 every morning on deck by the pool. Very popular! Must have gotten a new instructor.

[TheHeed]

Great review. I'll be on the crown on 4/28...cant wait!

 

I loved the ballons part of my ast cruise. You should have seen the older 50+ year olds. They were giggling having a great time and I think it made them feel young again when most of them werent. Except one old turd diagonal from us. He would pop them with a key or something and never cracked a smile even when his wife would try to have fun with him. Therefore if you are trying to ruin everyones fun you will be targeted. All my ballons went his way as did my wife's. I never tried to hit his drink just get it above his head. If you cant have fun like everyone around you and you're trying to bring everyone down, get out of my theatre and bring your grump face elsewhere.

 

As for disembarkation in FLL, if you want a secret fast airport shuttle....take the rental car shuttle. I was out of there in no time and it was free. I was never checked for a car reservation (althought i did have one) and it filled and left quickly. So save yourself a couple bucks next time and take that shuttle