A Grand Adventure! Grand Princess California Coastal Complete Photo Review 9/18-9/25

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

You took Mom! What a great son you are. :)

 

:D Yeah. We try to cruise together at least a few times a year as long as we can both afford it and can get our schedules synced up. Family time is great and you should always spend it together whenever you can as life is uncertain.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Following

 

 

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Thanks! Hope you enjoy the journey!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to your review. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

Marie

 

Glad you are looking forward to it. I will not disappoint. You will find out tons and tons about this ship and itinerary in this review. Any questions about the ship or what we saw or did or what I would recommend based on my experiences would surely be welcome. Thanks for reading and I will be getting to Day 2, our day in San Francisco later tonight hopefully.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to reading more of your review.....:):):)

 

Bob

 

Awesome, I should be getting to the next part of it later this evening. Wanted to do it this afternoon but am going to be busy and will have more time to sit down and compile my thoughts later tonight when it quiets down some. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Great review and photos! Looking forward to the rest!!!

 

Thanks, that was just the beginning. I really like to talk all about the entire experience, in addition to just the usual ship was this, crew was that, etc, make it a story and help people experience it through my perspective. I have probably 50 pics and a ton of stuff to talk about from what we did on Saturday before the cruise (including a view of the ship that left that day parked at the dock), before I even get to the cruise itself. Looking really forward to sharing it all and I am glad you are following along.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I enjoy reading reviews and yours is sounding very interesting and the pictures are an added bonus. I am looking forward to the next installment

 

Reviews are one of the great things about cruise critic. I love reading them also and have learned so much about cruising (and I thought I knew a lot before) and it is my pleasure to share my cruise adventures and opinions with others. I know how beneficial they can be for people getting ready to cruise or deciding on a ship or cruise itinerary so I try to be detailed as possible and include as much as I can about everything I see and do onboard. I do love including my pics as well, they just bring the review to life that much more. I have over 300 more pics to share as well, hope you love them. I should be getting to the next part of it later this evening.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Great start to your review. Love the pics. I love flying and enjoyed your landing pics

 

Thanks, I like flying just as much as cruising in a lot of ways and I love to capture the important moments of the flight parts of my vacations. I mean, how often do you get a bird's eye view of your city's downtown or other city views like that on a normal day? No IFE needed, outside the window entertainment is just fine. That SAN approach is crazy. Read about it a lot over the years, never did it. Quite the terrain on the way in but now I can say I experienced it at least once. Anyway, I am going to talk about our pre-cruise day in San Francisco next, posted sometime tonight, hope you like reading about it.

[FraudBroad]

YEAH!!! Excited to see you here doing a review on a Princess ship! I've followed all of your NCL reviews. Will be interested in seeing a compare/contrast between the two and would love to hear what you think!

 

Regards,

Natalie

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Great pictures and review so far. Looking forward to the rest.

Hubby and I always wanted to see SF. Perhaps in 2018. We are thinking of doing a Panama Canal cruise out of SF. Did it in 2011 out of LA, and want to go again.

 

Thanks for reading so far, hope you continue to enjoy as I go into the pre-cruise day in San Francisco, then the cruise itself. Going under the Golden Gate Bridge was one of the highlights, one of many. San Francisco is nice, but keep in mind hotels there are probably 150 percent to at least double what you will pay pretty much everywhere else so you really have to search to find a good hotel at a good price when you visit. It is also part of why we only went out there 2 days early and not a few more days than that. The hotel would have ended up costing as much as the cruise, lol. But yeah, we got to ride trains, antique trolleys, saw Alcatraz, saw Fisherman's Wharf, saw a baseball game of a team in a playoff race at a nice park. That was just one day, surely more to do than that. I have never cruised the Panama Canal as it is generally smaller ships that do it and they are itineraries that are too long for me (I try to stick with 8 or 9 days or less so I don't burn all my vacation for the year all at once) but I did sail on the tag-on trip from a Panama Canal trip last May to Alaska on NCL. The people who were on back to backs said they loved the trip through the canal and everything to do with that cruise.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I too will be traveling with my Mom for her Birthday on the Grand in a few weeks. Do you remember any photo packages ???? Thanks BLJBLJ:)

 

Nice, have fun with your mom! I passed through the photo gallery (had to in order to get to the Botticelli dining room, but will get into that more later :rolleyes:) but we did not buy any pictures at all so I cannot say. I will say that the photo gallery is laid out exactly like the Pixels galleries on Carnival (guess that is a common thing since Princess is owned by Carnival Corp.) so you can view hard copies of every picture that was taken of you and you can decide that way if you want to buy it. In terms of specific packages offered, they are probably similar to Carnival but I generally do not buy many pictures on cruises so I am sorry that I can't be more specific about that here. Maybe Princess website would be more detailed or maybe someone reading here knows.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Glad to see another aviation and cruise geek here.

 

I've always found it interesting that the flights between northern and southern California are just take off using a SID (Standard Instrument Departure) and a STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route). No real en-route segment!

 

My wife and I took this same cruise in March 2016. We had some friends on this (September 18) cruise who were part of a Shriner group.

 

I found the cruise to be a great cruise, although the seas were a little rough for most of the cruise.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how you felt about the cruise.

 

I do love everything about planes as well as cruising. I figure there are so many flights between the bay area and the LA area that it is probably best to do SIDs because otherwise the delays and all that stuff would get too crazy with congestion but maybe I am wrong. Coming from the ridiculously crowded NE airspace, I know that for example just a short PHL-BOS flight can get delayed on a clear day due to miles in trail or routes being oversaturated or whatever. Guess they have that same problem in California. Maybe a dispatcher or ATC specialist could say more about that if they know. I do know we operated on time on our flight though and it was scenic. :cool:

 

I will say that the seas were generally pretty calm outside of a couple late evenings and days when we were on the open seas and moving pretty quickly. We noticed moderate rocking at dinner a few nights and just moving around the cabin and ship at other times but nothing too serious and I didn't see many people who were feeling seasick or anything. I didn't really see many activities with the Shriner group on this sailing, how did they like it?

 

Anyway, thanks for checking the review out and I will be getting to the next part this evening, so be on the lookout for that. Hope you enjoy it.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

FlyingNJ, will be following along as nothing better than a preview for our cruise 10.22.

 

Nice, bet you are excited for your cruise. Hope this review gives you a good idea of what the ship and ports are like. I will try to get most of it done by the 22nd, lol. Any questions or comments as I move along with it are welcome. Thanks for reading along!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to do this. I'm enjoying all the details and pictures - especially since I have my eye on this itinerary for next year.

 

You are welcome, I love to do these things as it helps me re-live the experiences as I share them with others. I have lots and lots more pictures coming up - I hope they help bring the review to life in addition to what I will write about it and about my adventure. I can't wait to get going on the next part, later tonight. I wanted to do it now but I have too much to do and things will quiet down some later so that would be the perfect time to get to work on it. I think I picked this itinerary because I have never been to SF or seen most of the state outside of Long Beach cruise port and the 405 (lol) and hadn't been on a line like Princess in a while so it just seemed right to change things up a little this time around. Plus from what I see they do not offer this cruise year-round, so it is really a unique type of sailing. I do hope this helps you out in your decision making process. Thanks for following along.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to more of your review and pictures.

 

Got more to come, just getting warmed up. Stay tuned, should be getting to the next part this evening. Thanks for following along with my adventure!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to the rest of your review as we're doing this in the spring :)

 

I am glad you are following along and thanks for reading it. I am going to get to the next part tonight sometime and hopefully it helps get you ready for the cruise in the spring. Also on the Grand? I ask because it is going in for a dry dock later this year and supposedly some stuff might be different by the time you sail on it. Happy cruising!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

This is one of the short "getaway" cruises we have talked about doing. I'm actually hoping for a last minute deal on this cruise early next year. Now that I'm (finally!) retired we could pick up something at the last minute. SF is about a 3 hour drive for us so it's our preferred point of embarkation. Looking forward to your review of the ports.

 

I don't know how good the last minute deals would be on a trip like this as it seemed that it was full going out and sold out a good bit in advance but who knows? Maybe you could get lucky and get a late deal. I know the balcony price almost doubled on us when we booked like 3 or 4 months out so it seemed to be selling well. I know we got a good deal on an unobstructed outside and the insides were still affordable when we booked but I do not know how much those prices went up as departure date got closer. Nice that you are not far from San Francisco so you can probably get to the port day of embarkation. That is how Baltimore and NYC/Bayonne are from where I am near Philly (although Baltimore is probably less travel time when you factor in traffic and all that), although I rarely sail from either one :) as the overall cost to travel from Florida or the gulf coast is usually lower even with travel and hotel costs. Thanks for reading along and be sure to stay tuned for the next installment of the review. I have a whole lot of stuff to share about my pre-cruise tourist day in San Francisco, should be getting to it tonight.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

On the Grand a few weeks ago they had a $199 package for all the photos they took, gangway, formal, dinner, all of them. A person booked in the cabin had to appear in the picture.

 

That was interesting to know, and thanks for that info. If you get your pic taken every chance you get by the staff it could be a decent value for you. For someone like me who does not like getting those staged pics taken at dinner, embarkation, gangway, etc, that wouldn't be. I have no idea on individual photo prices or anything though.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to reading and seeing more of your cruise. I'll be on that itinerary in three weeks and am still trying to decide what to do in the ports. Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences and pictures.

 

Jackie

 

Glad you are looking forward to the review. I will talk about our port excursions as we move along, I will say we booked three through Princess (I don't usually get that many from the cruise company, usually go off on my own) and they were a good value. I will talk more also about why I did that instead of doing independent tours as well, but there is a decent amount of stuff to do everywhere except Long Beach, where I highly recommend booking something through Princess.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Waiting for next segment!

 

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Cool, I won't keep you waiting too much longer, lol. Should get to it tonight - wanted to do it this afternoon but stuff came up and I should have some more free time later on to sit down and focus more on doing it. Thanks for reading along!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

We are headed out on this cruise in three weeks so I'm really interested in reading your take on things. We were on the Grand two years ago Seattle to Alaska and really enjoyed her. Did you have good enough weather to sit outside for MUTS? Do you remember what movies were playing?

 

I will try to get most of this done in the next few weeks for you and the other folks who are leaving soon. :) I had a good time, 99 percent of staff were great, food was decent, weather great, ports good. I did Seattle to Alaska on the Golden many years ago, heard it and the Grand are very similar ships. Have been to Alaska since on NCL, loved it then too. How did you like the ship on the Alaska trip and Alaska itself?

 

It was cool most nights and nights we were moving faster it was breezy and almost cold. Can't remember any rain though. I can't remember the movies other than the fact one had Robert Downey Jr. in it, lol. The sound system and movie screen were nice as I experienced a little of the MUTS as I passed through lido at various times, but I didn't stay and watch any full movies or anything. They do lay towels out on the beach chairs on lido for those who want to sit there and watch the movies. Some nights seemed to be more crowded than others, a few nights had almost nobody on deck watching, a few had maybe a hundred people. I will say that the concerts they played on the fanavision were really cool. Nice variety also. Billy Joel was playing when we got on the ship, they had Bon Jovi, some opera stuff, Pink, and more that I just cannot remember. Something for everyone though I think.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks for the review. I'll be following. I love the pictures and the detail. DW and I are going on a California Coastal in April, but it's round trip from Vancouver. It's on a Grand Class ship, the Star.

 

 

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My pleasure to write it. Thank you for following along. Much more detail and many pics yet to come. I have thought about cruising from Vancouver in the past but at the end of the day it is just too much hassle for me with sailing out of a non-US port when Seattle is right nearby and it is easier to get to from the east coast. Maybe someday in the future though. Hopefully this review will give you a good idea of what to expect at the ports of call and get to see what a Grand class ship is like. Have a great time on your voyage!

[helenb]

Looking forward to reading your review! We will be taking the Grand out of SF in December, so I'm especially interested in your review of the ship and SF as an embarkation/disembarkation port. Also, if you could tell us what the 'always available' items were on the MDR menus at dinner, that would be much appreciated as well.

 

Thank you!

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

YEAH!!! Excited to see you here doing a review on a Princess ship! I've followed all of your NCL reviews. Will be interested in seeing a compare/contrast between the two and would love to hear what you think!

 

Regards,

Natalie

 

Awesome. Glad you found me over here, :D. I do try to sample the various cruise lines and different ships and ports of call. I remember talking to you about NCL in my reviews there, hopefully you enjoy this one as much as you liked those. I had a good time on this ship, the crew was nice, the ship was nice, ports were an interesting change of pace from the usual Caribbean islands stuff. I will surely be contrasting Princess with RCCL, NCL and Carnival as it was different in some ways, the same in others, better in some and not as good in others. That is all upcoming as I move along with the adventure. Thanks for checking this review here out, I have the next part coming right up this evening.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Looking forward to reading your review! We will be taking the Grand out of SF in December, so I'm especially interested in your review of the ship and SF as an embarkation/disembarkation port. Also, if you could tell us what the 'always available' items were on the MDR menus at dinner, that would be much appreciated as well.

 

Thank you!

 

I am glad you are checking it out, I should be continuing with it pretty soon, tonight. San Francisco is a fine port as long as you are getting a ride to and from the ship and since there is only space for one ship (at least that is how it appears), it won't get all that crowded. I say get a ride there because parking seems to be limited, probably not that close to the terminal, and is expensive. The terminal experience was great, and although there is a lot of traffic coming in from the Embarcadero, you get dropped right off and picked up right at the terminal doors. The views of the city are awesome from the ship as well. Overall pretty good experience. I can say for sure that salmon and grilled chicken were everyday items, as well as shrimp cocktail. I cannot remember the others off hand but there were about 6 everyday items and 4 appetizers that were everyday also. I only got the salmon once but I got the shrimp most nights as there was usually something I liked on the nightly featured menu and both were good.

Edited October 3, 2016 by FlyingCruiserNJ

[helenb]

I am glad you are checking it out, I should be continuing with it pretty soon, tonight. San Francisco is a fine port as long as you are getting a ride to and from the ship and since there is only space for one ship (at least that is how it appears), it won't get all that crowded. I say get a ride there because parking seems to be limited, probably not that close to the terminal, and is expensive. The terminal experience was great, and although there is a lot of traffic coming in from the Embarcadero, you get dropped right off and picked up right at the terminal doors. The views of the city are awesome from the ship as well. Overall pretty good experience. I can say for sure that salmon and grilled chicken were everyday items, as well as shrimp cocktail. I cannot remember the others off hand but there were about 6 everyday items and 4 appetizers that were everyday also. I only got the salmon once but I got the shrimp most nights as there was usually something I liked on the nightly featured menu and both were good.

 

Thank you very much for your fast response. Yes, it sounds like the SF port hasn't changed too much. Did you have issues with bag delivery? The one time we sailed out of that port, the dock workers staged a big slowdown.

 

Thanks for the recap of always available items. Do you perchance recall if the fettucine alfredo was available every night, or the Love Boat Dream chocolate dessert?