First time on Princess - Crown Pacific Coastal with photos

[epaul78]

We originally intended to go wine tasting in Santa Barbara, but I uh got a little carried away at bwise and sort of blew the vino budget (special deliveries arriving at my house this week though!). It was a beautiful day so we decided to just bum around town.

 

The tender thing is always such a pain, but early in the morning it wasn't too crowded and I have to say I was impressed with how sweet and polite the tender crew was to the elderly passengers. They were never rough or hurried or frustrated when dealing with someone who needed assistance and they handled appliances carefully too.

 

We walked to the edge of the dock and spied a whale! Then we wandered around town and made our way to the top of the courthouse. We had a fantastic lunch and poked around in the shops.

 

Sabatini's for dinner as the fog rolled in and we sailed away. Well worth the cover charge (correct stemware was procured by request) and the food and service were fantastic!

[epaul78]

 

 

 

 

 

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[epaul78]

 

 

 

 

lobster 3 ways

 

my kind of "salad"

 

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[epaul78]

San Diego was wet and rainy. We grabbed Hop on Hop off trolley tickets for much less than the Princess excursion price.

 

Spent some time at Balboa Park and had lunch at Filippis in Little Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

hello gorgeous

 

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[epaul78]

Another rainy day in Encinitas, we never even got off the ship. It seemed like a lot of the other passengers had the same idea. I wish Vines was open during the day, sushi/tapas would have been a nice lunch option, even if it cost a couple bucks to eat there.

 

We loved the Crown Grill so much we decided to end our cruise on a high note with dinner there. This time we figured out that we could each order steak and split a lobster entree as well. It was so good!

 

Before dinner we put our luggage out for quiet disembarkation, what a great way to do it! No luggage carts banging around in the middle of the night. I didn't like that we needed to vacate our stateroom so early in the morning though.

 

We did book the Princess transfer to the airport and that worked out well, once again the super organized ladies at the pier kept everything moving along.

 

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[epaul78]

 

 

 

 

 

headed home

 

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[Chelly]

Thank you so much!

Wonderful review

Sensational photos.

Boarding Crown Saturday. Yay!

[epaul78]

Thank you so much!

Wonderful review

Sensational photos.

Boarding Crown Saturday. Yay!

Have a wonderful trip!

 

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[easyboy]

 

Is this RCL?

[epaul78]

Is this RCL?

 

That's a Carnival ship - so glad we had the view of her instead of from her! For all my whining about the little things, this was a nice little cruise and we had a good time and didn't spend a fortune. That is the great thing about cruising- there is a cruise line and ship "personality" for everyone!

 

I just realized my auto correct got the better of me, it rained when we were in Ensenada - no stops in Encinitas (that's what happens when I am writing a cruise critic review on my phone sitting at a baseball game!)

 

Anyway, thanks for reading along. It is fun to go back and remember the fun that we had.

[easyboy]

That's a Carnival ship - so glad we had the view of her instead of from her! For all my whining about the little things, this was a nice little cruise and we had a good time and didn't spend a fortune. That is the great thing about cruising- there is a cruise line and ship "personality" for everyone!

 

I just realized my auto correct got the better of me, it rained when we were in Ensenada - no stops in Encinitas (that's what happens when I am writing a cruise critic review on my phone sitting at a baseball game!)

 

Anyway, thanks for reading along. It is fun to go back and remember the fun that we had.

Thanks again, not just for the nice photos, but your narration as well of your wonderful cruise.

[Lucky TGO]

Great Pictures thanks.

Tony

[emmak8]

Thank you for sharing.

[cuckoo32]

Am impressed at how you can post pics using Tapatalk..... I need to look into this.... will be looking forward to more ship pics.....

me too. I use tapatalk but haven't fathomed out how toad picture:)

[tonit964]

As promised here is my big huge peeve with this cruise:

 

The stemware is completely, horribly, awfully wrong!

 

If you don't drink (good) wine, then you don't care. But if you do drink good wine and especially if you go to the trouble of bringing your own wine onboard and paying someone to serve it to you, the least they can do is not pour it into a water glass.

 

A water goblet! Yes! That is what it is and trying to find anything else is a major undertaking.

 

Let me back up a little first before my rant gets really out of control... We brought two bottles of wine onboard with us at embarkation, knowing that we would be getting some more at San Francisco. So those two were checked in free but with no special sticker or means of tracking if we had paid corkage or were exempt from corkage or what.

 

On Royal they charge everything you bring onboard and limit how many bottles and Norwegian charges when you bring it on the ship and they put a sticker on the bottle indicating that the cover charge has been paid. It was interesting to see it done this way on the Crown.

 

So the first night in the dining room we brought our own wine to dinner and our waiter tried to pour it into the water goblet. I begged him to please not do that to our beautiful wine and ruin it for us.

 

"Please can you find an actual wine glass?"

 

Poor guy, he must have had to go all over the place to come up with the rolled rim chardonnay glasses. (For our Merlot) After all that trouble I couldn't criticize the slightly better glasses so we lived with it. But then I was watching my neighbors when they ordered wine by the glass and the waiter took their water goblet away and then brought back the same glass with wine in it.

 

The second night we went to Vines and ordered some wine by the glass and specifically asked for Ridel glasses (this is apparently the only place on the entire ship that has real wine glasses - but I only saw the burgundy glasses, I don't know what would happen if you want Chardonnay or a Pinot Noir). We casually wandered off with our drinks - absconding with the stemware.

 

Yes, I will admit that we washed the glasses in the sink in our stateroom, opened our own wine, and brought it with us to dinner in the dining room that night!

 

To our waiter's credit, he pays attention and had the previous night's slightly better than water goblet stemware at our table. From then on, he safeguarded the ill-gotten wine glasses and personally locked them up at his station every night so we would have them at dinner (WIN for the service!!!)

 

There's more to come, but first, photos...

 

It always bugs me that the only place on Princess you can get a real red wine glass is in Vines if you order there, they won't give you them to take back to the cabin.

 

If Carnival can have both Red and White wine glasses, surely Princess could do it.

[XBGuy]

I'm going to take this thread in a slightly different direction.

 

We just finished a California Coastal Cruise on the Crown (Apr. 23-30). In walking around the ship on the first sea day I noticed a group sitting at the one "large" table in Vines. I also found a note on the bar that indicated that it was a wine tasting/pairing of "Old World Reds"--$15 pp.

 

A few days later I signed up for a similar event for "New World Reds." These events are limited to 12 participants. So, they are much more intimate than the $25/$9 tastings that they hold in the dining rooms. The event is facilitated by one of the Vines bartenders--in our case a very gregarious fellow named Alan. In addition to the wines (3) that you taste, there is a serving of tapas or sushi (I also attended a white wines event).

 

Most of the information that the facilitator shares is similar to that which you hear at the dining room tastings--smell, swirl, sip, look at the color, look at the legs, blah, blah, blah--but a few things made this a much more enjoyable event.

 

• The group of attendees were definitely more wine knowledgeable than the crowd in the dining room tastings. I found it enjoyable to exchange ideas with people whose enjoyment of wine is similar to mine.
   
  
• The smaller sized group encourages conversation. It is less intimidating to express your opinion.
   
  
• After tasting the various wines, on the two ocassions that we attended, Alan opened up two more bottles for us to drink and enjoy more conversation with each other.
  

 

In fact on both of the ocassions that we attended, my wife and I, and some of the other participants, ordered more glasses and tapas, and continued our conversations.

 

It is not clear to me whether or not these Vines events are offered fleet-wide. I certainly hope that they are.

[easyboy]

I'm going to take this thread in a slightly different direction.

 

We just finished a California Coastal Cruise on the Crown (Apr. 23-30). In walking around the ship on the first sea day I noticed a group sitting at the one "large" table in Vines. I also found a note on the bar that indicated that it was a wine tasting/pairing of "Old World Reds"--$15 pp.

 

A few days later I signed up for a similar event for "New World Reds." These events are limited to 12 participants. So, they are much more intimate than the $25/$9 tastings that they hold in the dining rooms. The event is facilitated by one of the Vines bartenders--in our case a very gregarious fellow named Alan. In addition to the wines (3) that you taste, there is a serving of tapas or sushi (I also attended a white wines event).

 

Most of the information that the facilitator shares is similar to that which you hear at the dining room tastings--smell, swirl, sip, look at the color, look at the legs, blah, blah, blah--but a few things made this a much more enjoyable event.

 

• The group of attendees were definitely more wine knowledgeable than the crowd in the dining room tastings. I found it enjoyable to exchange ideas with people whose enjoyment of wine is similar to mine.
  
• The smaller sized group encourages conversation. It is less intimidating to express your opinion.
  
• After tasting the various wines, on the two ocassions that we attended, Alan opened up two more bottles for us to drink and enjoy more conversation with each other.
  

 

In fact on both of the ocassions that we attended, my wife and I, and some of the other participants, ordered more glasses and tapas, and continued our conversations.

 

It is not clear to me whether or not these Vines events are offered fleet-wide. I certainly hope that they are.

Wine tasting events were offered on all cruises we had. It was often promoted on first day by a designated bar staff.

[XBGuy]

Wine tasting events were offered on all cruises we had. It was often promoted on first day by a designated bar staff.

 

I assume, EasyBoy, that you are referring to the tastings that are offered in the dining rooms to which I alluded in my post. Depending on the length of the cruise one or two of these events will be arranged. They are usually at 3:00 pm and are on "sea days." When Princess had sommeliers, they would facilitate them. Now, headwaters from the various rooms "tag team" the presentaton. Yes, they are well promoted--including the station in one of the elevator lobbies where various wine and drink packages are sold on sailaway day, by the dinner servers on the first evening of the cruise and by entries in the Princess Patter.

 

This is the first time that I have seen gatherings organized by the Princess staff in the Vines wine bar. The only promotion I saw for these was the sheet on the bar. If you have seen these on other ships, then I have reason to cheer.:)

[easyboy]

I assume, EasyBoy, that you are referring to the tastings that are offered in the dining rooms to which I alluded in my post. Depending on the length of the cruise one or two of these events will be arranged. They are usually at 3:00 pm and are on "sea days." When Princess had sommeliers, they would facilitate them. Now, headwaters from the various rooms "tag team" the presentaton. Yes, they are well promoted--including the station in one of the elevator lobbies where various wine and drink packages are sold on sailaway day, by the dinner servers on the first evening of the cruise and by entries in the Princess Patter.

 

This is the first time that I have seen gatherings organized by the Princess staff in the Vines wine bar. The only promotion I saw for these was the sheet on the bar. If you have seen these on other ships, then I have reason to cheer.:)

You are right XBGuy. I have seen these tables at Vines in other ships, latest in Jan at CB, but never thought this could be different from the one being promoted on sailaway days.:)

I will give you a feedback for Emerald when we board this weekend.

[SOLIVITA LADY]

FYI, we had two of these wine tastings in Vines on the Grand going to Hawaii in March 2015. One was a chocolate & wine tasting. There was a group from our roll call who attended and we enjoyed both of these tastings. Our wine staff who organized this was also named Allen so possibly he arranges these when he is on a particular ship.

 

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[capriccio]

There were definitely wine tastings (called "Stammtisch") in Vines on the Royal in October and I'm pretty sure I've seen them on other ships with Vines too.

[Papa Yoda]

When we brought good wine, we received "real" wine glasses in the MDR on the Grand (3/4 - 3/19/2016). And I recall asking for and getting them on the Star last November. But previously, we did have to purloin Reidels from Vines as needed (shamelessly). I also seem to recall an Alan from Vines on Crown (Jan 2015) who was a pretty good host - if I recall, he assisted in the purloining. On these last couple of cruises I never had an issue having good stemware.

[XBGuy]

You are right XBGuy. I have seen these tables at Vines in other ships, latest in Jan at CB, but never thought this could be different from the one being promoted on sailaway days.:)

I will give you a feedback for Emerald when we board this weekend.

 

There were definitely wine tastings (called "Stammtisch") in Vines on the Royal in October and I'm pretty sure I've seen them on other ships with Vines too.

 

Thank you, guys. Capricco, yes it was called Stammtisch. I am quite excited to hear this. It may be that I just missed the note on the Vines bar on previous cruises. In the future, I'll look for the Stammtisch plaque on the larger table. It is great to anticipate participating in these, and meeting fellow wine buffs, on future cruises. :)

[Retiring cajun]

Non smoker seeking info on smoking areas on crown. Thx

 

 

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[JF - retired RRT]

Non smoker seeking info on smoking areas on crown. Thx

 

 

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You're on the wrong thread. ;)

Smoking is limited to: one ashtray mounted on the port (?) side aft of the Promenade deck, one area near the Outrigger bar, one area near the outdoor pool, the sports/cigar bar and the casino except on Formal nights. These may vary by ship, but are fairly consistent.