Golden Princess B2B 5/2-5/16 Review

[Ice Queen]

Cast of Characters: Mom age 74

Me: 52

 

We’ve just gotten back after two weeks on the Golden and I haven’t had a chance to see if other reviews have been posted so apologies if I duplicate things others have said.

 

Let me say at the outset that we are small ship lovers. Our favorites in both size and décor were the Renaissance ships, in particular the R5, (Princess now has a sister ship sailing as the Tahitian Princess), so it was with some trepidation that we booked the Golden. MUCH larger than anything we had been on before.

 

But it was great and I wouldn’t hesitate to book this class of ship again. Princess has done a wonderful job of making a big ship seem small. Intimate lounges and seating areas, human-size dining rooms, virtually no wait to get seated even during the 7-8 prime dining hour, very little back-up getting off the ship in ports and not too much difficulty in finding lounge chairs around the pool.

 

The Good:

 

Food—Food in the dining rooms generally good to very good. Horizon buffet is OK. Food is ample but otherwise typical buffet. Pizza is excellent. Grilled hamburgers and onion rings also very good. I like my burgers medium rare so I had to sign my life away to get them to cook it as ordered. But they will do it once you sign their book acknowledging you know rare meat can make you sick and they’re not responsible. (Interesting that you can get your steaks as rare as you want and carpaccio is one of the appetizers, but you only have to sign for the burgers.) Desserts look better than they taste. The exceptions are the cheesecake and the black forest cake. Both excellent.

 

Caribe cabin—What a great balcony! Our room steward got us two lounge chairs with pads and we still had room for the table and two chairs. Were able to lounge in comfort in both shade and sun as the balcony is half-covered.

 

Room steward—Daniel Gallardo was our cabin steward and he is one of the best we have ever had. Went out of his way to meet every request as quickly as possible and always with a smile. In fact, with only a few exceptions, that was the attitude of all the staff we encountered.

 

Intinerary—We love the Southern Caribbean itinerary. Lots of great ports, most very different from one another. The B2B cruises only duplicated St. Thomas.

 

Best ports—St. Lucia, Grenada, Aruba. We took the catamaran excursion to the Pitons and gardens in St. Lucia (recommend very highly), the Grenada Explorer in Grenada and the swim/snorkel at de Palm Island in Aruba. Also enjoyed the champagne catamaran and snorkel in St. Thomas/St. John.

 

Tour guides—all the tour guides on the ship’s tours were excellent. Very well spoken and fluent and extremely knowledgeable about their respective islands. All genuinely seemed glad we were there.

 

Maitre D Wine Tasting—It costs $25pp but it is an opportunity to try some of the better wines, including the Opus One which costs $148 if purchased in the dining room. They could have been a little more generous with their pours tho. The staff really seemed to enjoy doing this event and they used a lot of humor and played off one another well.

 

Doing a back-to-back. It was great on turn around day to sit there on our balcony relaxing over coffee watching the first week's passengers leaving and the newbies arriving and for a brief 3 hours having the ship mostly to ourselves.

 

The Bad (actually just no-so-good)

 

Coffee—It is some of the worst I’ve ever had, particularly in the Horizon Court. It was so bad that we spent our morning in Barbados trying to shop for a coffee pot. Without success I might add. We were not able to find one until we got to St. Maarten and even that took an effort. It cost twice what it would cost in the US but at that point we’d have paid about anything. Got it back to the ship only to find it had a European plug! Duh! We called for a converter and one of the engineering staff came up and showed us that the outlet behind the bed is actually a European 220v outlet so no converter needed after all.

 

Entertainment—Weak at best. Production shows were average; comedians weren’t particularly funny. Did not see the magician or the game show contests like Princess Idol, etc.

 

Port Information—If you are not a shopper, you are out of luck. Most of the port talks center around shopping and promoting the Princess-approved stores. If you want to learn about the islands, you’ll need to do it on your own.

 

Digital Photography class—This was a waste. It costs $10 and I was hoping to learn some tips on the best use of my new camera (Pentax Optio 555 5megapixal/5X optical zoom) but they didn’t share any information that you couldn’t get by reading your owner’s manual. You do get a small photography book but the lecture basically repeated what was in the book. They ran out of time before any of us could ask questions.

 

Worst ports—Isla de Margarita. We took the “Discover Isla Margarita†tour. It was just OK. Very good guide but nothing about the island appealed to me. We did enjoy a brief stop to watch the fishermen bringing in the catch with their seine nets tho.

 

Desert Rose/Sterling Steakhouse—Not bad exactly. Just average both in service and in food. Not worth a $15pp charge. If you want steak, eat it in the dining room. Also, butter in the main dining rooms and Horizon court is very good. Large chunks of butter. But in Desert Rose they used small wrapped butter pats with a very off, almost fishy, taste.

 

The Ugly

 

Turn around confusion—We were supposed to get new cruise cards automatically along with information about San Juan and tour options. We received almost no information and nothing about tours at all. According to the purser’s desk, there was a computer glitch that caused some cards not to be printed. OK, that happens. But the problem was that no two staff ever gave us the same information. Some said we could get off and on the ship with the old card, others said we had to stay on board until new card was printed. Some security staff said go ahead, others pulled us aside to question us. Just a lot of confusion but no real problem.

 

Overall

 

I would highly recommend both this ship and the itinerary. Great trip. Apologies that this is so long. Please feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to answer.

[raydon]

Thanks for a great review. It's printing as I type. Just very glad I am not overly addicted to coffee

 

Golden Princess

Radiance of the Seas

[bob&karen]

Ice Queen - thanks for the great write-up! The Golden is one of our favorite ships and we've wondered what it would be like doing a b2b on her. Sorry to hear about the confusion half-way through. Still, we're VERY jealous, can't wait til we reach that station in life where we can be doing our own b2bs.

 

Bob & Karen

 

"These moments we’re left with - may you always remember

These moments are shared, by few

And those harbor lights, lord they’re coming into view

We’ll bid our farewells much too soon

So drink it up, this one’s for you -

Honey, it’s been a lovely cruise."

-- James W. Buffett

 

Carnival Triumph, April '02

Carnival Sensation, January '04

Golden Princess, April '04

 

Carnival Sensation, Golden Princess / Caribbean Princess pix at: Cool Cruisin' Pix

 

e-mail: bobandkarenny@yahoo.com

[spongerob]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> I like my burgers medium rare <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

I like mine with lettuce and tomato...(you parrotheads know the rest)

 

Thanks for the comments. When turnaround is in Fort Lauderdale it is much smoother. Taking both southern cruises out of San Juan is under consideration for us, so your review is very timely.

 

Completed:

Sea Princess, Royal Princess, Grand Princess (3X), Caribbean Princess, Golden Princess

Coming up:

Tahitian Princess Oct 14/04

Caribbean Princess redux 6/25/05