Small Ship Cruising: Ocean Princess

[traveling1969]

Just returned from an 18 night transatlantic cruise on the Ocean Princess and thought I would share some of our thoughts and experiences regarding small-ship cruising.

 

This was our first time on a small ship and we were excited about trying something new as the previous smallest ship had been on was the Dawn Princess. As far as small ship preferences are concerned, it seems as if you either love them or hate them. We had researched the small-ship experience and our expectations included superior service, superior dining and superior accommodations. One out of three may be a great average for a baseball player but not for a cruise ship. Let me elaborate.

 

We had booked a mini-suite as a treat to ourselves and we couldn't have been more pleased. The room was HUGE and tastefully appointed. It was the highlight of the cruise experience.

 

As for food and service, they were both a major disappointment. We had recently completed a 28 day cruise on the Crown so comparisons were inevitable. The Crown far and away surpassed the Ocean both in food quality and level of service. The food in the main dining room on the Ocean Princess was a big disappointment. An example: upon boarding, we headed to the dining room as the embarkation lunch is usually superb. Not so on the Ocean. We were presented with a standard lunch menu but since there were abundant choices, we easily found something to our taste. I had the pasta with cream sauce. I have always been a fan of Princess's pastas but this iteration was horrible with the sauce tasting not much different than milk and flour. Really, it was that bad. That theme was to be repeated often during the cruise. The pasta sauces were seldom good and often below average. The meat sauces, particularly the bernaise, were not very good and the bernaise was ORANGE on the three occasions it was offered. There were a few good sauces, particularly the Alfredo sauce but quality was lacking more often than not.

 

Service was spotty in the dining room whether at breakfast lunch or dinner; we had to refill our wine, ask for water refills and fresh pepper was seldom offered. I have come to expect superior service on Princess ships but it was lacking here.

 

The dining room itself was well laid out, bright and airy. Dining rooms on other Princess ships can seem claustrophobic but not so on the Ocean.

 

The main show venue is the Cabaret lounge. Seating is kind of strange; the stage level consisted of rows of individual chairs all at the same level so those in the back were hard pressed to see well. The second level was a bit elevated but once again all seats were on the same level other than a few bar-height chairs.

 

The Tahitian Lounge is the other main venue and it had an abundance of comfortable seating. This was our favorite venue. The Casino is very small and crowded. There was also a bar and lounge there with frequent individuals and duets entertaining.

 

The overall décor is elegant with lots of dark wood and it is very easy on the eye. The library is quite large with a good selection and comfortable seating.

The pool deck is surprisingly spacious for a ship this size.

 

The North Atlantic was very rough; not unusual for this time of year and since we were on a smaller ship, we felt every wave. A phrase comes to mind:

"The tiny ship was tossed." We did fine with our meclizine but there were quite a few green faces evident.

 

Issues of food and service aside, I would have to say that small-ship sailing is not for us. We always felt a bit closed in particularly in the elevators and stairwell areas and we longed for the Promenade deck for people-watching and the Piazza with it's wide-open spaces.

 

No, we don't long for the Behemoth of the Seas but we do enjoy a bit more open space and these ships just don't offer that. We'll be happy to stick to the Crown-class and on occasion the Royal and Regal.

 

Harry

[oskidunker]

Too bad. Boarding in Sangiago feb 13 for 23 days. I hope they let me pour my own wine

 

Since Princess is selling the ship after our Cruise,i would be interested to know if they are running out of some wines and if the wine package was bring offered.

 

Also , do the offer specialty teas. I know there is no cafe.

 

How were the pastries,especially chocolate croissants.

 

How was the Lobster vs Beef Wellington?

 

What were some of the better entrees for dinner?

Edited January 3, 2016 by oskidunker

[partybarbie]

Thank you for your review. We did a 32-day TA on the Crown, and followed it up with a 30-day TA on the Pacific the next year. Both cruises were during the November/December time frame.

 

I have to say that we also preferred the Crown Princess. The food and service on the Pacific were outstanding, but we really missed all of the amenities that the larger ships offer. The Pacific has a lot of motion too, even in nice weather.

 

I would do another port intensive cruise on the Pacific, but probably not one that had a lot of sea days.

[srpilo]

Once again a fair and insightful review, thanks for sharing it.

 

Food and service aside, with so much space dedicated to the outside open upper decks, I've always felt that the little sisters were best suited for warm weather cruising, and certainly with a cold rough TA crossing leaves everyone trapped inside in a smaller space then many are accustomed to.

 

Welcome back

Srpilo

[shredie]

Since the Ocean is sold, I guess it won't be a problem much longer. I am one of the "love" small ships crowd, and if they sell the PP, I will be very upset.

[oskidunker]

Does Princess buy some food locally,or do they still ship everything from the US, as was told to me by a head waiter last April?

[fairsky1984]

Since the Ocean is sold, I guess it won't be a problem much longer. I am one of the "love" small ships crowd, and if they sell the PP, I will be very upset.

 

Us, too. We absolutely loved the Pacific Princess, the 50th anniversary sailing on Dec 3rd, which I know you sailed as well. It was our first experience on one of Princess' small ships. It was wonderful and we are spoiled now. I would not, however, want to sail her TA or TP. Just too small and potentially rocky for our enjoyment.

[srpilo]

I would not, however, want to sail her TA or TP. Just too small and potentially rocky for our enjoyment.

 

Yep ..Back in 2008 on the TP/Ocean we had a rough 2 days crossing from Bora Bora to Raratonga in the south pacific , and it's one of only times in almost 70 cruises that I've been really really sea sick . (still have nightmares about those 2 days :))

 

Beautiful ships.. But feel pretty small in rough seas

Srpilo

[Colo Cruiser]

Sounds terrible. :(

[arctickitty]

Thank you for your review.

[traveling1969]

Too bad. Boarding in Sangiago feb 13 for 23 days. I hope they let me pour my own wine

 

Since Princess is selling the ship after our Cruise,i would be interested to know if they are running out of some wines and if the wine package was bring offered.

The wine package was offered and they had all the wines that we requested

 

Also , do the offer specialty teas. I know there is no cafe.

Don't Know.

 

How were the pastries,especially chocolate croissants.

Poor selection at breakfast in MDR. Better selection at buffet

 

How was the Lobster vs Beef Wellington?

Lobster was one of the better meals. Firm and delicious served with giant prawns which were excellent.

 

What were some of the better entrees for dinner?Lamb and veal were good.

 

Hope those answers help.

 

Harry

[srpilo]

Sounds terrible. :(

 

Funny you should say that.. The only other time I can remember being miserably sea sick was on the Island Princess in May 2006 from LA to Alaska which I believe you were on also on. That sea day after leaving SF was the outside passage and was a terrible stormy rough day as the outside passage can be sometimes, and yep it just hit me big time :(:(:(

 

LOL .. Funny how sometimes you can't remember yesterday, but certain stuff stays with you forever :)

Srpilo

[traveling1969]

Does Princess buy some food locally,or do they still ship everything from the US, as was told to me by a head waiter last April?

I do know that they purchase at least some food locally as evidenced by that dreadful unrefrigerated milk they get in Europe. YUCK!

 

Harry

[Colo Cruiser]

Funny you should say that.. The only other time I can remember being miserably sea sick was on the Island Princess in May 2006 from LA to Alaska which I believe you were on also on. That sea day after leaving SF was the outside passage and was a terrible stormy rough day as the outside passage can be sometimes, and yep it just hit me big time :(:(:(

 

LOL .. Funny how sometimes you can't remember yesterday, but certain stuff stays with you forever :)

Srpilo

 

 

 

Yes I remember. :) As long as it wasn't a scent that brought back that memory. :eek:

[srpilo]

LOL LOL

 

Unfortunately the scent stays with memory too :)

Srpilo

[UpcountryTravelers]

Interesting review. We did Christmas and New Years on Ocean Princess last year and loved it so much we booked the OP for our British Island cruise last August!

 

MDR? Absolutely the BEST we have encountered on any Princess cruise (of 11 different ships). Service and food absolutely over the top! Casino small? Well, yes, but that is not a major consideration for us.

 

The entertainment venues were great for the size ship. Very intimate and up close to the performers.

 

Buffet? Well, that was the least favorite thing on the ship. It was an in-line buffet, which no other Princess ship we have sailed on had that configuration. But the aft deck for enjoying your buffet meal was quite nice.

 

We booked a stateroom on Deck 7 (both times), which made everything easy, as everything was an easy stair walk up 2 decks or down 2 decks.

 

So Ocean Princess remains out absolute FAVORITE of all the ships you see below.

[IECalCruiser]

We experienced small ship cruising for the first time on the Ocean's sister, the Pacific on the recent 50th Anniversary cruise. I hope the OP doesn't mind if I add some of my thoughts. We thoroughly enjoyed the Pacific.

 

CABIN

We had a balcony cabin and for the most part it worked well for us. There was about the same space as in a Grand class ship and the balcony was about the same size as a standard Grand class balcony.

 

There were two U.S. style 120 volt outlets and two European style 220 volt outlets at the desk and, unlike Grand class ships, they were placed far enough apart that you could plug a bulky charger into both outlets [emoji5]️ The TV was probably a 30 inch at best but was fine. With a little manual dexterity I was able to reach behind the TV to a spare plug and plug in our multi port USB charger for all of our electronics. I didn't see any outlet in the bathroom.

 

The shower was a little longer but angled and even narrower at one end than a Grand class shower. It was fairly hard to avoid the "friendly" shower curtain. The shower head was an adjustable hand held style. One problem was the location of the closet doors directly opposite the shower door and it made for some conflicts getting ready in the morning. Not a big deal but we appreciate the Grand class layout even more after this arrangement on the Pacific.

 

FOOD

This is a subjective issue. On this cruise it appeared that many more people had lunch in the DR rather than the buffet. The DR was well over half full the first day and service was excruciatingly slow taking almost as long as dinner. As a result we avoided the DR for lunch on four more sea days. There was a Cruise Critic Roll Call lunch one day with almost 130 in attendance. Service was somewhat better and the special pasta course and fantastic chocolate cake more than made up for any delays that day [emoji2][emoji2]

 

We felt that the food was better than what we have typically had the last few years. A couple of dishes were not as hot as they should have been but on the galley tour we realized that the waitstaff had to walk down stairs to a lower galley, get the food, take an escalator upstairs, then through the upper galley and to your table. Not the best layout IMHO 🤔 When we had a open wine bottle from the day before they could have poured a glass after we were seated but it often took some time. We were at a table for six and our table mates wanted to make the early 7:45 show as did we. We were often done and leaving our table at 7:00 after 90 minutes in the DR.

 

I had several pastas and the sauces were still as good as in the past. I did order a pasta with a curry sauce at one of the lunches. This was spicer than the curry sauce on several dinner dishes but a nice change.

 

The Panorama Buffet is a much smaller venue than the Horizon Court but we felt the selection and quality was very good. Over our 14 day cruise we had all of our breakfasts and all but two of our lunches in the Buffet. There were omelettes, fried eggs and Belgian waffles cooked to order every morning and there was a very good selection of salad bar options and numerous entrees at lunch. We stopped by up there for a late night snack several times and the dinner selections looked good with about half of the DR entrees available. With no ice cream venue on the ship it was nice that ice cream was available in the buffet at lunch until 2:00 PM, from 3:30 to 4:30 and for dinner.

 

There is a drawback with only one section of buffet. Rather than having one half of the Horizon Court open while the other half is changed over to the next meal, the Panorama Buffet closes for change over. Lunch ends at 2:00 PM and by 2:02 all of the lunch trays are empty. The buffet would be closed from 11:00 to 11:30 to switch to lunch, 2:00 to 2:30 to switch to light snacks and 5:00 to 5:30 to switch over to dinner.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

With only the Cabaret and Pacific Lounges there is one fewer option than the Princess Theater, Explorer's Lounge and Vista Lounge/Club Fusion on many of the larger Princess ships. As a result, there was only one show or performer in the Cabaret Lounge and the Pacific Lounge was used like the Explorer's Lounge for game shows and themed parties. There was no Vista Lounge/Club Fusion as a venue for a second entertainment option. The Casino Bar and the

Pacific Lounge were the venues for the music groups on board. We were not at a loss for entertainment. I can't use this cruise to judge entertainment quality because Princess had the last five entertainers of the year and they did not disappoint. We also had very good performances by Donny Most and Jill Whelan.

 

OTHER

I have bad knees and need to avoid the stairs. Although there are only two elevator banks, there was little or no wait for the elevator. Such an improvement over the Regal [emoji15] and even better than the Grand class ships [emoji3] I like the video display in the elevators that show the direction of travel and what floor the elevator will stop at next.

 

There is no wrap around Promenade deck, just a section between the two elevator banks. Those sections were very wide with comfortable and well used lounge chairs.

 

SUMMARY

We thoroughly enjoyed the Pacific and are sorry that the Ocean is being sold. Don't know how much longer the Pacific will be in the fleet. We do have a 12 day Med cruise scheduled on the Pacific next September and we are very much looking forward to that cruise [emoji4] We had some rocking and rolling on our cruise and I wouldn't want to do a TA or TP on a small ship.

Edited January 4, 2016 by IECalCruiser

[sajlm045]

My DW and I were on the Ocean Princess this past August for a British Isles cruise. We had previously cruised on the Star and the Golden. The service and food in the MDR were very good. The ship was fantastic! We really enjoyed small ship cruising.

No crowds, no waits, no problems! Loved the mini suite we were in. The library was so serene. A little rough in the North Sea but I would go back in a flash! Loved it!

[UpcountryTravelers]

....... I like the video display in the elevators that show the direction of travel and what floor the elevator will stop at next.

.......

 

Did you notice that the display will show, when you reach a deck: "Deck 8 - Escape Completely"! Cute.

[IECalCruiser]

Did you notice that the display will show, when you reach a deck: "Deck 8 - Escape Completely"! Cute.

Missed that one.

[tml1230]

many thanks to the OP and others who shared their thoughts….we are booked on the Pacific next december doing the B2B with a transatlantic crossing….we have never done a small ship ….done several crossings ,so i appreciate the perspectives….truth be known….we just couldn't turn down the balcony room and booze package price! Couple that with only flying one way and couldn't turn it down. we are looking forward to the adventure.

[flamomo]

many thanks to the OP and others who shared their thoughts….we are booked on the Pacific next december doing the B2B with a transatlantic crossing….we have never done a small ship ….done several crossings ,so i appreciate the perspectives….truth be known….we just couldn't turn down the balcony room and booze package price! Couple that with only flying one way and couldn't turn it down. we are looking forward to the adventure.

 

Some friends and I are also booked for this T/A from Rome in December 2016 and are very much looking forward to it. We have all done T/As before and love the sea days. One of those friends and I had done a Med & Adriatic on the Pacific a couple of years ago and fell in love with her. Can't wait to sail on her again even if the ocean motion is a bit more pronounced!

[Goodison78]

I was working on the Ocean a few years ago and the two days coming into Cape Town were some of the roughest weather I'd experienced in 7 years at sea. I'm remember just trying to stand upright down in the photo lab on deck 2 forward while you could see and feel every wave hit us.

 

I loved the Ocean to work on, I had just come from the inaugural season on the Royal with a team of almost twenty to four of us on the Ocean and the pace of everything was so much slower than the Royal.

 

With a crew of only around 370 everyone gets to know each other pretty well amongst the crew. Almost every ship has seperate crew,staff and officers mess rooms except the Ocean & Pacific which has no staff mess - the bonus is if you are staff on those ships you get to eat the same food as the passengers in the officers mess.

 

It was so relaxed on board and even though many crew didn't make as much money as on the bigger trips the itineraries are fantastic on the smaller ships which are usually markedly different from the larger ship and most of us felt like we were on vacation. Less passengers meant less time to do the work in some cases, meaning more time off to explore those fantastic ports.

 

I was flown out to Papeete to join the ship, where we did 3 months of Tahitian & French Polynesia cruising, before going over to Australia, a quick jaunt down to Hawaii before heading back to Oz and doing a 3 month trip from Sydney back to England.

 

It was even part of my decision to call it a day at sea because it was such a good well run relaxing ship that I don't think I could face the over complications of the big ships again

[Loreni]

We did a transatlantic (world cruise segment) on the Pacific Princess last year as well as the 28-day Crown and we agree with much of what the OP mentions. There are pluses and minuses.

 

We expected far better food on the Pacific; we received somewhat worse. Less selection, also the vegetables were not as nice and fresh. Maybe provisions were running low. The dining room was lovely, and the service just as good (but not better) than on other Princess ships. The cabin was great, loved the floor to ceiling sliding glass doors and that the balcony had rails rather than plexiglass that can get dirty. Shower was very small. Balcony rooms all have sofas which is great.

 

We also had such bad weather that the promenade was closed for days and I experienced sea sickness for the first time in my life. The promenade was a disappointment even when open. It does not wrap around either the front or back of the ship. Starboard was for smoking and one would have to walk through the tiny but sometimes a bit smokey casino to get to this portion of the promenade. Also this is where an area was set up for the dogs to use as a bathroom (always kept immaculate, but it took up space). Since we are non-smokers, we used the port side promenade, but the crew used that forward portion for smoking and the ship is small..so both sides of the promenade were a bit smokey. Also there is really no unobstructed outdoor forward viewing area.

 

One big selling point for the small ships is the ability to reach smaller ports. We felt lucky to be able to get into the small harbors of Portofino, Hamilton Bermuda, and Nice...unfortunately it only worked out for Nice. Later we learned, that even though Portofino is listed on the itinerary, the Pacific Princess is only able to call there one third of the time (I hear this is true for Easter island, too, but neither is disclosed by Princess at time of booking). Now it was great to be able to quickly get back on the ship after our morning excursion to Eze, use our own bathroom, and quickly leave again to explore Nice. We would never have even considered doing this on a large ship, not worth the lost time.

 

We also loved the open air dining area aft of the buffet. And it was sometimes nice to see the same people over and over again, but some of the "world cruisers" were beyond rude to the "segmenters"; I had heard this could happen, but was still shocked to experience it. Overall, we enjoyed the ship, but I have to admit that we missed the Piazza with or without the International Cafe as we have experienced on other ships. We also missed the ability to take nice walks on a large wrap around promenade. We saw and spoke to the Captain almost every day and many other officers as well. This is a very different feeling than on a large ship. We would sail the Pacific again and any ship in the fleet except maybe the Royal/Regal/Magestic. Haven't tried these behemoths yet, as we like a shady, covered, promenade.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Loreni

[red4lisa]

Thanks for the review. I am a small ship person, but love to be at sea no matter the size of the ship!