Royal Princess Review 10/21-10/31

[lel5344]

Please note: the following is pretty much all opinion. Please feel free to disagree, but please don't say "You're wrong!" It's opinion, not fact. And I'm not going to review ports and excursions.

 

Pluses:

 

Embarkation was a breeze once we got inside the terminal. We were onboard shortly before noon and we were delighted that our stateroom (R507) was ready. Our stateroom attendant, Denys, introduced himself immediately and he was outstanding!

 

At the other end, debarkation was even easier. We got to our assigned area 5 minutes before scheduled meeting time and we were brought to the gangway within 3 minutes after that meeting time. Again, it could not have been better.

 

Ship seems to be in excellent condition.

 

Annoucements were unobtrusive, with the exception of a couple of emergency situations...

 

Sabatini's (our only specialty dining) was terrific. Our server, Carlos, took proper notice of my wife's soy sensitivity and came up with terrific alternatives.

 

International Cafe was great and coffee elsewhere on the ship seems to have improved significantly.

 

We didn't see any of the production shows, but the lounge entertainment (particularly Perry Grant and Steve Moris) were lots of fun.

 

MUTS screen and sound are excellent.

 

Food portions seemed just right.

 

Trident Grill hot dogs are very good.

 

Minuses:

 

No wraparound promenade deck.

 

No fresh berries.

 

Atrium seems garish to us. And Piazza entertainment ranged from boring to pretty good.

 

Anytime dining room service was inconsistent. The menu is imaginative, but the food does not come up to the same standard. Taste was average and presentation was bland.

 

Buffet area stations are not well marked.

 

Theater has terrible sight lines from the back (no real balcony) and there are no aisles along the walls. People stood in fire exit areas and other places where they blocked the view of others. And, please, please, please, stop pointing those #$%@ lights out into the audience. I can only imagine what those flashing lights might do to someone with PTSD or a seizure disorder.

 

Trident Grill hamburgers not very good.

 

MUTS should be geared more to the demographics of the Princess cruiser.

 

I couls go on, of course. Both positive and negative. All in all, this struck us as a good, but not memorable cruise. I don't think Princess has a really good grasp of how to do things on a ship this big. Next time we cruise on Princess, we'll probably go back to the Ruby/Emerald/Star, etc. size.

[srpilo]

Good stuff

 

 

Thanks for your honest take

Srpilo

[floridalover5623]

 

Atrium seems garish to us.

 

And very loud almost all times of day. It became impossible to order coffee except for early morning with all the noise. It was even difficult to talk to the Capt circle host on the 7th deck during the day without shouting. :(

[CrowCaw]

I agree about movies under the stars needing to their passengers better. Pitch Perfect 2 and Avengers weren't the best choices.

[tailspintom]

Thanks for the review and your perceptions. We too were on this cruise and enjoyed it overall. We noticed some changes on Royal from the last time we sailed her in May.

 

The Internet service was improved. It looks like they got more bandwidth with downloads being much faster. Likwise, the user interface from the WiFi to Internet was very much easier to navigate.

 

We, like another person on this thread, found the Piazza entertainment to be very loud with the exception of the string quartet. As a matter of fact, all of the entertainment seemed to be amped up excessively. We ended up walking off the pool deck several times with the very loud music and announcements.

 

The dress code in the AD room was generally maintained by the dining room management.

 

We found that the Horizon and main dining room fare were pretty consistent with our previous experience.

 

The crew, as usual, were upbeat as we're the passengers. The Captain was a very good communicator, even during his early wake up announcements.

[IECalCruiser]

And very loud almost all times of day. It became impossible to order coffee except for early morning with all the noise. It was even difficult to talk to the Capt circle host on the 7th deck during the day without shouting. :(

...We, like another person on this thread, found the Piazza entertainment to be very loud with the exception of the string quartet. As a matter of fact, all of the entertainment seemed to be amped up excessively...

We had the same complaint about the noise level in the Piazza on the Regal. The music playing in the Piazza was so loud in the Calypso Cove shop on the Promenade deck above the Casino the DW canceled her retail therapy that night. I can't imagine what the volume was like in the Piazza [emoji33][emoji33]

[hcat]

We have booked on Princess to see if we can escape the noise on Celebrity...may not be possible! Noise at the outdoor pool and atrium on X are at times intolerable...

Edited November 5, 2015 by hcat

[KruzPrincess]

I was just on the Royal for 20 nights. Sometimes there was loud music, but it wasn't all the time. I never really found the MUTS pool area too loud except when they had the deck parties. They play music during the water fountain show, but I never found it too loud. At times there is loud music in the Piazza. They had a lot of dancing there. There was only a couple times I thought it was annoying and, frankly, there are other quiet places to go. Wheelhouse was never that loud when I was there. Perry Grant plays late night in the Piazza every night except one and he just sings and plays piano. It was never loud after 9pm. I was there at midnight a couple nights and people were sitting around reading books or chatting.