Ocean Princess Question

[ROWSE]

We have sailed Princess many times, but have never been on one of the smaller ships. This January we are on the Ocean Princess.

 

We love the International Cafe on the bigger ships. Is there anything like that on the Ocean? If not, does the buffet have extended hours?

 

What other differences do you consider better or worse than the bigger ships.

 

We are excited to experience all of the it!

[shredie]

We have sailed Princess many times, but have never been on one of the smaller ships. This January we are on the Ocean Princess.

 

We love the International Cafe on the bigger ships. Is there anything like that on the Ocean? If not, does the buffet have extended hours?

 

What other differences do you consider better or worse than the bigger ships.

 

We are excited to experience all of the it!

 

No IC. They have pastries, etc. at the Club Bar near the MDR. There's usually something available in the buffet.

[Jim Avery]

We loved our time on Pacific and liked the smaller feel. The food and service was way better than what we had on Star. No lines. Fantastic aft suite. Staff got to know you quickly. On the down side, we did not find a "favorite bar". Usually one bar and one bartender becomes our local. For some reason, not so on Pacific. Otherwise, one of the best cruises ever.

[waltd]

I remember the buffet closing some what early in the evening. If you had a late night craving they might have cookies and jello and possible salad stuff out but everything else was cleaned up. Kind of remember around 10 pm.

[paul929207]

I think the buffet opens about 5am for a light breakfast and 6am for full breakfast. I think it is closed from about 11 to 11:30am and 5:00 to 5:30pm for converting to the new meal.

 

There are lots of differences between the big ships and the little girls. Some people like the differences others prefer the big ship way. We are definitely in the small ship lover group. We have over 300 days on the R class ships and about 200 on all others.

 

We like meeting new people and running into them again. We like getting to know the staff as well as other passengers. Being smaller you can get anywhere in about 2 minutes. We prefer Anytime Dining but are ok with only having TD. Exiting the ship in port is much quicker on the small ships.

 

We also love the itineraries the small ships sail and how they often can dock in "downtown" rather than an hour away like the big ships.

[ROWSE]

Whooee, no lines sounds really nice.

 

I meant my original post to say we are excited to experience all of it, although this ship may very well have the "it" factor. LOL

 

Due to Tahiti being quite the budget stretcher for us, we have done an inside guarantee. Always hopeful for an upgrade:)

Can anyone compare the insides on the smaller ships to bigger?

 

Does it also seem like the tendering moves faster too on the smaller ships?

[paul929207]

Whooee, no lines sounds really nice.

 

I meant my original post to say we are excited to experience all of it, although this ship may very well have the "it" factor. LOL

 

Due to Tahiti being quite the budget stretcher for us, we have done an inside guarantee. Always hopeful for an upgrade:)

Can anyone compare the insides on the smaller ships to bigger?

 

Does it also seem like the tendering moves faster too on the smaller ships?

We are Elite, so I am not sure how tendering works for others. We just walk to the tendering platform and board the tender. No line. Often there are 2 or 4 other people with us on the first tender

[daydreamer16]

We found the tendering to go rather quick on the Ocean Princess. We were on her August 2013 for the 8 day British Isles cruise. We did however hate the Traditional Dining:(

[rdsqrl]

I was mildly amused by the poster above who couldn't find a bartender/bar they gravitated toward. The only thing I missed on the little girl was Crooner's. The Casino Bar was not quite as comfortable a venue; I can't quite put my finger on why not. Maybe its proximity to the brightly-lit Casino detracted from the ambiance? Although the pianist was very good and the bartender was excellent -- and the martinis were flawless. Which I guess is the most important measure of a bar! Certainly wouldn't dim my enthusiasm for jumping on her again and again for more cruises.

 

I love everything about sailing on the smaller ship -- I even loved the old original Love Boats, too, even with their crazy, dramatic inconveniences we'd never stand for today -- is it possible I'm correctly remembering a black-and-white portable cabin telly?!

[nancycoop1]

We will be on a cruise (Asia and Africa) where many of the tours are requesting getting paid in US dollars. As I would prefer not to take so much money with me is it possible to get US dollars on the ship? Either added to my account and paid with my credit card or with an ATM machine. Thanks Much

[beg3yrs]

We will be on a cruise (Asia and Africa) where many of the tours are requesting getting paid in US dollars. As I would prefer not to take so much money with me is it possible to get US dollars on the ship? Either added to my account and paid with my credit card or with an ATM machine. Thanks Much

 

Since you posted this on an Ocean Princess thread, I'll assume that your sailing on a Princess ship which uses the US dollar as its base currency. There are only a few which do not.

 

Yes, there are ATMs on the ships. However, they are a bit pricey and not reliable.

 

I don't know if Princess will directly provide cash charged to your on-board account. I have heard they will do so if you have already sent yourself some on-board credit (OBC). As I recall, that's been recommended by other Cruise Critic members in the past. Just call Princess and ask how that's done, I think you can do this in advance with a credit card.

 

Another way to get cash is via the casino. Gambling chips can be charged to your on-board account with no added fee. These can be turned in at the casino cage for cash though I believe it would be frowned upon if you didn't play for a while first.

 

You can also get casino cash via the slot machines. The casino maintains a casino account accessed via your cruise card. You can load up your account at any machine by charging to your on-board account (again, no fee). Your can then pull the value of your account (or less) at the cage. Again, it's frowned upon if you don't play and in this case, the computer will lock your account from being used further. You'd then have to see the casino manager to get it released.

[caribill]

We will be on a cruise (Asia and Africa) where many of the tours are requesting getting paid in US dollars. As I would prefer not to take so much money with me is it possible to get US dollars on the ship? Either added to my account and paid with my credit card or with an ATM machine. Thanks Much

 

Two suggestions:

o Gift yourself (by calling Princess) Casino credit. You will receive vouchers in your cabin. Bring the vouchers to the casino when it is open and you can exchange the vouchers for cash. You do not have to use the cash in the casino. This is different than gifting yourself regular OBC which might be difficult to turn into cash.

 

o Get Traveler's checks. Real ones which are harder to find these days, not cash loaded onto a debit card. The traveler's checks can be exchanged (at no cost) for cash at the Purser's desk.

[generichandle]

Who cares about bars? Ocean had the best library of any ship we have sailed! What more could you ask. You could get tea or coffee all night in the buffet, plus usually some snacks. I loved it!

 

I prefer itinerary oriented cruises and smaller ships usually are for that purpose.

 

Doug

[nancycoop1]

Thanks for the suggestions on ways to get cash on board. I feel better knowing there are ways to do this without taking so much cash with me.

Nancy

[Spikesgirl]

We have done all but two of our Princess cruises on the small ships and love them (obviously). They are easy to get around and you get to know people on board, not just the staff but also the other passengers.

 

High marks for the library - it is a real gem in the small ship crown.

 

The buffets aren't open 24/7, but I think room service is. The one sort of downer is that the specialty restaurants aren't open every night - they rotate, so one night it's the steak house, the other night Sabatini's. Still, we've never had a problem finding a night that works for us.

 

Another nice thing about the ships is that they can get closer to ship and that cuts down on the tender time.

 

As for bars, we like the bar just outside the dining room and the Tahitian lounge, but I guess it depends upon what you want in a bar.

 

We never run out of things to do on the smaller ships - we are seriously hooked.