Princess Cays

[momthecruisedirector]

I had a hard time finding too much information on Princess Cays. Here is what we did and thought, April 2012 on the Crown:

 

 

Today we visit Princess Cays and we had rented a bungalow. Our receipt and tender tickets were in our room last night. We were on the first passenger tender to the island (I wore my seabands on the tender but it was smooth sailing). You meet under the Brazilian flag and are taken by tractor/tram to the bungalows. Unlike Carnival, Princess doesn’t let you pick your bungalow, we were assigned to Red Hibiscus. It was a nice room with two loungers on the deck area and two outside under an umbrella with a wooden reserved sign. Inside the air-conditioned room is a table with table cloth and four chairs. There is a shower outside. They provide you with a bucket of ice and a pitcher of water. We were located directly across from the opening of the water – a lot of the beach/water entry is roped off – it was nice to be so close for swimming, snorkeling (gear not included) or floating (float mats are included). If you are interested, for $50 more you can have lunch delivered, we chose not too. Would we rent the bungalow again….. I don’t think so. It would be nice if you had children so they had a place to get out of the sun but the Cabana’s at Carnival’s private island are so much better and provide so much more for the same price ($199) that Princess really suffers by comparison. We did, however, have a wonderful day and enjoyed every moment of our bungalow.

 

We snorkeled – there were so many fish of so many colors and sizes and shapes… it was beautiful. We had purchased a water tight cover for our digital camera, similar to this http://www.thewaterproofstore.com/iphone.html - but we got ours on ebay for around $6.00. It worked great. The buffet wasn’t great – jerk chicken, ribs, hamburgers and hot dogs and fruit. I think there may have been some sort of pasta salad and cookies, I believe. If you worked up a hunger with the swimming and exploring it would have filled you up, but…. I didn’t think it was that great.

 

We snorkeled and napped outside in the sun – a wonderful day. We packed up and headed towards the tenders around 2:15, the line was very long so we, along with many others, found loungers in the shade and listened to music and watched the volleyball games.

[lovevacadays]

Sounds like you had a nice day on Princess Cays. I've read some reviews of cruisers who didn't particularly like their beach day there. However, I'm with you, I've always had a really nice day there.

[centralcalicruzer]

Sounds like you had a nice day on Princess Cays. I've read some reviews of cruisers who didn't particularly like their beach day there. However, I'm with you, I've always had a really nice day there.

 

I'm with you, I just don't get what's not to like about a day on a beautiful private island! While Princess Cays may not have the motorized water sports or ziplines that some of the other private islands do, it has beautiful white sand, free loungers and lunch, decent snorkeling and non-motorized equipment for rental. I had read so many posts about people who don't even get off the ship at Princess Cays, so I was totally shocked when we got off the tender and the place was packed! I guess if you've been a bunch of times it might get old, but so would any of the islands, and after all you ARE going on a Caribbean vacation, why not enjoy all that it has to offer?

[momthecruisedirector]

Yes, it is a beautiful place to spend a day. Got some great photos that I can hardly look at without getting depressed that we aren't still there!

[mrsfuzzmo]

We enjoyed it more than we thought we would. We too heard that many people just skip it, but we are port people and were no way staying on the ship when we could be on an island.

 

We rented a cabana as well (Bright Green) that was about four from the end. It ended up being really handy as there were a few rain drizzles in the morning, and it wasn't really all that nice outside until about noon.

 

GREAT: Snorkeling was awesome. Loved the little market that is set behind the Princess area (best prices for souvenirs of the entire cruise, live music, etc), Cabana was a nice place to store our stuff and have a place for the guys to nap, nice having electricity for our iPod player at the cabana and the shower was a huge bonus.

 

SO-SO: The buffet line was enormous when it opened, so we headed to the little market area off property. When we returned, they were already cleaning it up, so we got a couple of cold "hot" dogs and some soggy fries for lunch. The line back to the ship was huge, so we snagged a couple of rocking chairs on the porch in front of the gift shop and watched people in line until it was time to go. While we got to our cabana at around 9 am, the beach bar didn't open until 10:30 am, so we were dry for an hour and a half.

 

Our husbands were lucky, they didn't want to stand in line for a half hour for lunch either, but went back to the cabana to wait for us while we shopped. When we returned full of apologies for the soggy fries and cold dogs we brought back for them, we were pleased to see that the neighboring cabana had ordered the gourmet lunch and some of them weren't feeling well and headed back to the ship early, so they gave our husbands the left-overs (which was basically the whole lunch). Lucky them.....and us. We got the left-over left-overs :)

 

We enjoyed the cabana and Princess Cays very much.

[searanch queen]

I was there last year, booked a cabana for hubby, loved it, so worth the $. Not a lot to do but enjoy the beach and the beautiful island. Loved the quiet time! Just hope not too many ships are in when you go.