Just off Royal Princess 4/13-4/20

[GottaLuvCruising]

We sailed the Royal Princess 4/13/14-4/20/14 to the eastern Caribbean. We are 60-ish, married 41 years and this was our 38th cruise.

 

EMBARKATION: This was slower and later than usual with no explanation. We were very crowded in the terminal and seemed really disorganized as compared to our previous Princess cruises. The embarkation photo was the one and only we had taken on this cruise, but we could not find it in the displays.

 

STATEROOM: E438 obstructed balcony was ready when we boarded. Other than a couple Royal Caribbean cruises, it was the smallest room we’ve ever had, but perfectly functional. We thought we’d miss the sofa, but we really didn’t. Buddy loved the bed; I thought it was too hard and not plush enough. I wish they offered a top sheet as the room was always too hot for me (never cooled off enough) so I’d cover with the beach towel or robe instead of the duvet. Closet was typical of others on Princess and perfectly adequate. Bathroom was very small, offering the time-saving opportunity to use the commode, shower and brush teeth all at the same time (we declined!) While I wouldn’t want it in my home, I liked the modern sink design. Having only 3 bathroom shelves was just not enough, so I used some of the desk drawers for vanity supplies. Our bath did not have hand soap or hand towels; I requested both from room steward. I was surprised when he said “I don’t have any, but I’ll get them for you.” Those, along with extra facecloths we requested, were provided every day. We could not get hot water in our shower during the getting-ready-for-dinner hour. We showered in cool water the first day and planned to inquire about it. But we found that we did have hot water late evening and mid-afternoon, so we took showers then most days and just never got around to asking about it. Except for a couple times when rude people walked the passageway talking very loudly, we slept well. Our “obstructed view” just wasn’t obstructed at all when we were sitting down. Guests on the sea walk did have a slight view of our balcony and may have gotten their money’s worth a couple times, but life goes on…

 

ENTERTAINMENT: While apparently not an issue for many other cruisers, this is a big one for us, perhaps the biggest. We have sailed Carnival 17 times, but as they continue to downgrade entertainment, we’ve migrated to Princess. In general, we love that Princess still has a large troupe of talented dancers, 4 lead singers and a wonderful showband. We absolutely loved “Sweet Soul Music” and considered seeing it a second time; this show had wonderful music we adore performed by a band with the full cast of singers & dancers. Comedian Steve Bruner was among the best that we’ve seen on a cruise ship. I chose not to see “Colors of the World” as I thought it was disappointing on another ship. My husband didn’t remember it, so went alone but left after a few minutes. I cannot stand the computer-generated retina-blasting backdrops, terrible theming with no continuity and canned music. “Showtime” was mid-way between the two with full complement of dancers / singers but canned music and computer-generated backdrops. We enjoyed the songs, dances, costumes of it, but it didn’t even come close to the one with live music and less of the horrible bright lights. Princess Theater on this ship offers much tighter seating than the Grand class. Seats were so close together that guests could not move. As a claustrophobe, I hated being crammed into that tiny personal space and my tall husband could not move his legs at all. Adding insult to injury is the fact that you MUST arrive early to get a seat at all, very early if you prefer a “good” seat. The welcome aboard show was lame with just one song & dance routine, a long, boring sales pitch and the magician’s brief presentation. We skipped the magician’s full show (just not something we care about). We love MUTS and enjoyed several good movies during our cruise. We had a hard time hearing one of them, but found another location where the volume was better for the other nights. Some smaller lounges offered a variety of live music which we really enjoyed. There were also some very short presentations in the Piazza. The area is lovely, but given that guests mostly have to stand around the railing, we didn’t go out of our way to catch any of them. We had no problem filling our evenings with the wide variety of options.

 

DINING: We are not “foodies” and we never went hungry. We had main dining, but there was some confusion about our dining time! We confirmed 5:30pm dining upon booking, but waitlisted 6pm. I checked the waitlist almost every day, watching us go from #32 at first, then #27, gradually down to #14 on the waitlist. Then we went to #11, but back up to #13 – at that time I posted a question on Cruise Critic about how do I go “up” on the waitlist. Finally, about 3 days prior to the cruise, we cleared the waitlist and were confirmed for 6pm dining. It’s not the end of the world in either case, but the slightly later time was slightly preferable. Upon boarding our room keys indicate 5:30pm, so I figured they were printed a few days prior. But two different papers in our room also say 5:30pm, so we speak to the Maitre d’ the first afternoon to inquire. We are informed that 6pm dining does not exist. Seriously? Anyway…we enjoy our large table of dinner companions (one couple our age and two younger couples) and our delightful server Nole. Dinners didn’t blow us away, but they were very good. There was a nice variety of options on the menus and generally ordered an appetizer, salad or soup and an entrée. Our favorite was the lobster, even though it was definitely not a Maine lobster. I ordered dessert only one night (the deep dish apple pie) and it was dreadful. My husband is more of a dessert-eater and did seem to enjoy his every night. We had breakfast on the Lido Deck every day. We tried getting coffee from room service the first morning, but were so disappointed when they advised a “30 minute” wait time, that we never tried again. I really missed not having coffee on our balcony, even more so after learning from another guest that it actually was delivered in just a couple minutes. Although we had planned to try the highly recommended “Alfredo’s,” we never made it and had lunch on the Lido Deck every day. Nothing to write home about there, but it was quick and allowed me more reading & relaxing time.

 

LIDO DECK: Our days (3 sea days and Princess Cays) were enjoyed with a repeating pattern of “eat, swim, read, sleep, eat, swim, read, sleep, etc.” We had four different spaces on those days in our quest for shade: lounge in Outrigger, chaise on Deck 17 over looking pool & movie screen, Lido Deck mid port under the roof where it juts out in a semi-circle, and finally, the best spot for the longest shade, first two chaises aft of Horizon Bistro near the Sea Walk. I arrived first each day to set up camp for us while Buddy got us coffee. We took turns hunting & gathering for breakfast and lunch and snacked at our space. We’d take brief swims to cool off a bit. But we mostly read, each finishing two books. I felt so badly for other guests who were looking for a place to sit down only to find towels sunning themselves on chaises by the dozens. Now, lots of folks actually used their chaises like we did. But one woman in particular arrived about 7am each morning and plunked nine towels down onto nine chaises, then didn’t come back for hours. Worst chair hog was the woman who put towels on two chaises right in front of us at 7am, but didn’t come back until almost 2pm. We were so over it the second day we saw her do this that my husband removed the towels about noon and other guests used the chaises. The very first sea day was the only one where we saw Deck Crew remove both towels and personal items from vacant chaises; it was brilliant and they need to do that all the time! There is not nearly enough shade as we weren’t the only folks who wanted to enjoy the Lido Deck, but protect our skin. One easy partial remedy is to replace the screens over the sides of the retreat pool with actual canvas, so guest could enjoy full shade for at least part of the day. We never went into the retreat pool because it was so crowded and never sat there because no shade was available.

 

PORTS: We did not get off the ship at Princess Cays. Weather wasn’t wonderful and we just didn’t have the patience for tendering. In St Thomas we had reserved a sail boat tour with lunch and snorkeling with New Horizons. We arrived a bit early and got fantastic seating space up front with a brilliant view. Gliding through the water on a sail boat was wonderful! They offered us muffins & juice upon boarding, drinks all day and a pleasant lunch of meatballs, delicious green bean salad, cold cuts. Folks that stayed on or near the ship endured heavy rain, but we had none of it! We had two nice, but not great snorkel stops and it was a terrific day. In St Maarten, we took a cab to Maho Beach, rented chairs & umbrella ($20) at Sunset Bar & Grill. Just $15 bought a bucket of beer. We stayed most of the day watching dozens of planes (including an Air France 747) fly in for landing. It was an excellent experience. Again, folks who stayed on or near the ship had rain, but we lucked out.

 

SHIP: So everyone knows about the colossal design fault leaving the Royal Princess with no mid-ship guest stairway. We booked a mid-ship stateroom well aware of this flaw, but figuring we’d plan our comings and goings to use the forward and aft stairwells. I cannot adequately convey the guest frustration with this! We dined on deck 6 just aft of the mid-ship elevator. We can’t get there from the aft stairwell without going aft one deck, walking forward, then walking down. You can wait through a dozen elevator calls before one arrives with space for another guest. Everyone (and I mean everyone) learned that if the crowd is going down, you take the first elevator with space up and then the scenic ride back. During any of the busy times, getting anywhere on the midship elevators was a pain in the you-know-where! It was a constant topic of conversation. There were other issues with the layout of the ship and not being able to easily get from one place to another. I just don’t know how guests with disabilities managed on this ship.

 

DISEMBARKATION: Brilliant! We were very frustrated with our previous Princess experience and feeling like we were being pushed off the ship starting a couple days prior. This time nobody “circled” our stateroom check-out time on the debarkation flyer, the nozzle for our shower gel dispenser was not removed the last evening and we didn’t get any packing reminders! We packed when we were ready, we showered after the last night’s MUTS and we woke up @ 7:30 this morning (out of the room @ 7:40…in plenty of time!) We opted for late disembarkation, so we enjoyed a relaxing breakfast and extra cup of coffee. We walked off the ship at 9:30am and were in our car leaving the garage at 9:45am. So much better than last time!

 

SUMMARY: Not sure if we’d sail the Royal again, but we had a very nice cruise overall. Our vacation was relaxing, a great value and we met a lot of nice people. We had fine service, very good food and some terrific entertainment. We thoroughly enjoyed our two ports-of-call.

[kywildcatfanone]

So glad you had a good time, even with the concerns you expressed. We were on a couple of weeks ago, and had a wonderful time as well.

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review.

[janetz]

Great review! :)

[DrivesLikeMario]

Next time, just ask your cabin steward for a flat sheet under the duvet. We do this ALL the time. Sometimes, I fax the request in ahead of time and it's on the bed when we get there and sometimes I just ask once we're onboard. Couldn't live without it. The duvet is just too hot for the Caribbean!

 

Thanks for the thorough review and welcome home! :)

[GottaLuvCruising]

Next time, just ask your cabin steward for a flat sheet under the duvet. We do this ALL the time. Sometimes, I fax the request in ahead of time and it's on the bed when we get there and sometimes I just ask once we're onboard. Couldn't live without it. The duvet is just too hot for the Caribbean!

 

Thanks for the thorough review and welcome home! :)

 

Thanks! I will absolutely do that!

[rkacruiser]

Enjoyed reading your review. Thank you.

 

What is your opinion as to the size of the veranda in comparison with the veranda sizes of any other staterooms you may have had?

[GottaLuvCruising]

Enjoyed reading your review. Thank you.

 

What is your opinion as to the size of the veranda in comparison with the veranda sizes of any other staterooms you may have had?

 

It was smaller for sure. But I expected the worst, based on feedback I read. It was perfectly comfortable for us. We'd relax in the chairs and just prop our feet on the table. Balcony size would not keep me from sailing the Royal.

[A1A]

Thanks for your well thought out and well written review of the Royal. Sorry you could not find shade, sounds like it was harder on your cruise than ours. Particularly interested in finding out why you all stayed in St. Thomas until 9:30 PM and how many power disruptions your experienced during the cruise. Was any thing said by crew regarding these issues officially?

We may or may not cruise the Royal again, I guess if the price and itinerary are right we would, but thinking of trying another line for a cruise or two.

Welcome back!

Ken

[need2cruisesoon]

We sailed the Royal Princess 4/13/14-4/20/14 to the eastern Caribbean. We are 60-ish, married 41 years and this was our 38th cruise.

 

You've done 38 cruises, wow!:D

Please tell me your most favorite cruise ship and itinerary if you can that you have done in the past 5 years.

Thanks.

[GottaLuvCruising]

Thanks for your well thought out and well written review of the Royal. Sorry you could not find shade, sounds like it was harder on your cruise than ours. Particularly interested in finding out why you all stayed in St. Thomas until 9:30 PM and how many power disruptions your experienced during the cruise. Was any thing said by crew regarding these issues officially?

We may or may not cruise the Royal again, I guess if the price and itinerary are right we would, but thinking of trying another line for a cruise or two.

Welcome back!

Ken

 

Thanks Ken! We were able to find shade for morning and into early afternoon. Given that our shower water was hot at that time, we got into routine of shower & nap once shade ran out! There were some challenges.

 

We were told only that we were staying in St Thomas until 9:30 because it is so close to St Maarten. Made no sense to me as they were certainly aware of that geography when the schedule was planned.

 

I was not aware of any power outage during our cruise.

[GottaLuvCruising]

We sailed the Royal Princess 4/13/14-4/20/14 to the eastern Caribbean. We are 60-ish, married 41 years and this was our 38th cruise.

 

You've done 38 cruises, wow!:D

Please tell me your most favorite cruise ship and itinerary if you can that you have done in the past 5 years.

Thanks.

 

It seems that every cruise / ship / itinerary has something in its favor! Overall, our very best cruise ever was the Carnival Spirit doing Hawaii, but it was more than 5 years ago. Best recent cruise was NCL Pearl sailing Alaska - amazing scenery & excursions, great naturalist on board, but I wouldn't do NCL again because the entertainment was pathetic.

[lovevacadays]

Thank you for your review. :):):)

[Happy2cruise]

Enjoyed your review....thanks.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[kywildcatfanone]

Thanks for your well thought out and well written review of the Royal. Sorry you could not find shade, sounds like it was harder on your cruise than ours. Particularly interested in finding out why you all stayed in St. Thomas until 9:30 PM and how many power disruptions your experienced during the cruise. Was any thing said by crew regarding these issues officially?

We may or may not cruise the Royal again, I guess if the price and itinerary are right we would, but thinking of trying another line for a cruise or two.

Welcome back!

Ken

 

Ken, did you have power issues on your cruise as well? We did on ours a couple of weeks earlier and I had posted about it. We didn't get into St. Thomas until after noon, about a 4 hour delay due to power issues. The staff told us it had not happened before. If you experienced that issue, I'm guessing it's a chronic issue with the Royal.

[caribill]

LIDO DECK: We had four different spaces on those days in our quest for shade: lounge in Outrigger, chaise on Deck 17 over looking pool & movie screen, Lido Deck mid port under the roof where it juts out in a semi-circle, and finally, the best spot for the longest shade, first two chaises aft of Horizon Bistro near the Sea Walk.

 

Forward?

[GottaLuvCruising]

Forward?

 

You're right, it is forward! Walking from Bistro onto Fountain pool area, the first few chaises both port and starboard, stayed shady most of the northbound trip. But on the starboard side (let's see if I get this right!) the Sea Walk area is open so we could usually hear the ocean and get some breeze. We couldn't see the movie, but if we cared to, we could watch from the pool area. It was almost perfect for us. (Perfect would have been chaises in the shade on our balcony.)

[GottaLuvCruising]

I forgot to mention, under entertainment, the Beatlemaniacs show. I was actually a Beatles fan 50 years ago and was pleased to see that tribute band on board. The guys had a lot of personality and great stage presence. The costumes were awesome, but their voices were not (still enjoyable). The retina-burning C-G graphics were less offensive with this show as they did help capture the Beatles time setting. The tribute to John Lennon was touching and brought back both happy & painful memories. They performed a second time in the Piazza, but again I just wasn't a fan of the stand-at-the-railing experience, so I did not go.

[gkny]

I dislike canned music too. On our RCCL cruise every performance had an orchestra. There was no canned music.

[GottaLuvCruising]

I dislike canned music too. On our RCCL cruise every performance had an orchestra. There was no canned music.

 

As it should be IMHO!

[PescadoAmarillo]

Thank you for your review. I am still amazed that they take a band like the Beatle Maniacs, with their huge audience draw, and put them in the Piazza, of all places, where most people have to stand to hear them, and only a fraction of those that fit in the Vista Lounge (non-useable seating aside) or the Princess Theater can even do that. What is the sense in that? If they are worth hearing (and they are), have them do a second show where the most people can hear it. If they only have 5 minutes of entertainment (as most of the Piazza entertainers have), don't spend the money to hire them and fly them to the ship.

 

This kind of silliness about the Piazza entertainment makes me crazy.

Edited April 21, 2014 by PescadoAmarillo

[bluesea321]

Thank you for your review. I am still amazed that they take a band like the Beatle Maniacs, with their huge audience draw, and put them in the Piazza, of all places, where most people have to stand to hear them, and only a fraction of those that fit in the Vista Lounge (non-useable seating aside) or the Princess Theater can even do that. What is the sense in that? If they are worth hearing (and they are), have them do a second show where the most people can hear it. If they only have 5 minutes of entertainment (as most of the Piazza entertainers have), don't spend the money to hire them and fly them to the ship. This kind of silliness about the Piazza entertainment makes me crazy.

 

I agree. On our cruise they had a band "Party Band Good Times Inc." playing in the Piazza between 6 and 9 pm and it was so loud that it was driving people away even from Alfredo's one floor up. This band was pretty good but it would have been far better in a club setting, not the Piazza.

[Woobstr112G]

OP;

 

Thanks for the review.....:):):)

 

Bob

[Mom33]

Thanks for your review of your Royal cruise.

 

We enjoyed both Beatle Maniacs shows. The second one, being at 11:00, had the crowd dancing, everywhere, something they wanted to do ,but couldn't in the theater. :D It is always nice to see people having a good time.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Mom33