Caribbean Princess Post Dry Dock-Hits and Misses

[cityguy300]

I would also like to know whether you can still access the old Horizon Court (now called Marketplace?) from the aft doors (which now go into Planks and Steamers presumably) in the daytime and the evening? Also, is the area above the Terrace Pool (just outside of Planks and Steamers) still a smoking area?

 

I am trying to decide on an aft Riviera deck cabin for an upcoming cruise and am hoping someone can answer.......

 

Hello to those who have recently sailed since the dry dock and thank you for posting about your experience! Could you please comment on whether the deck chairs have been upgraded from the white plastic framed ones to the metal framed ones?

 

We, too, book Riviera aft and have enjoyed the easy access through the Cafe Caribe doors to traverse Deck 15, so I would hope that is still possible.

 

Just got off the ship a couple of days ago, and stayed on Riviera (deck 14) aft by the Terrace Pool stairs -- a repeat of my first Princess cruise. The sliding doors back there into Planks/Steamers are open 24/7.

 

Never saw anyone use the Terrace Pool area except a few gawkers/photographers during arrival and sailaway, so even though I walked through there all the time, I can't comment on the chairs or smoking status question I noticed in another post. I don't think the pool itself got used once.

[sonomaphil]

On Emerald, Ruby, and Crown my husband could get Jack Daniels at Vines. A couple who didn't "drink" was able to get a virgin drink.

The bartender told us it was any drink they had at the bar.

 

On the Ruby now posting this from Club Fusion. Vines definitely has only wines. No other alcohol, soft drinks etc available. If you got a Jack or a virgin drink it did not come from Vines.

[VaCruzers]

On the Ruby now posting this from Club Fusion. Vines definitely has only wines. No other alcohol, soft drinks etc available. If you got a Jack or a virgin drink it did not come from Vines.

 

I think this totally depends on the bar server. I've had a server from Vines run two flights up to Crooners to get a martini for me and others who have refused to serve anything other than the wines on the Vines menu. Varies each time we sail this class ship. The martini runner got nice tips for the two weeks were were on B2B.

[tartan cruiser]

I'm really disappointed to hear the food, especially in the buffet is not very good. That has always been one of Princess' strong suits. Was really leaning to the Panama Canal cruise on Caribbean Princess. Wanted to cruise through the new locks. I think Regal Princess will win again this year especially since they added the Soda and more package back for Medallion sailings. Not a fan of the Eastern sailing though. Maybe Princess will take note of the bad reviews and improve the buffet food. I have until Nov. to decide. Anyone know if the Regal buffet food has gone downhill also. I especially like the theme nights.

[sonomaphil]

I think this totally depends on the bar server. I've had a server from Vines run two flights up to Crooners to get a martini for me and others who have refused to serve anything other than the wines on the Vines menu. Varies each time we sail this class ship. The martini runner got nice tips for the two weeks were were on B2B.

 

Agreed. Sometimes I think they call over a server from the IC bar to get a drink if it's not too busy.

[MissP22]

We agree with the OP. Many improvements were good, namely the beds were very nice and MUTS is now High Definition. This was our 13th TA and second on the Caribbean Princess so we know what to expect when coming out of dry dock.

 

We seldom eat in the MDR since Curtis Stone took over the menus so we only ate in the MDR once on this TA. It was not good. The Crown Grill was good but not great. The new Market Place buffet was a total failure in our opinion selection was very,very limited.So much space was dedicated to sandwiches that only one meat was offered.Badly prepared brisket most days with some form of chicken sometimes and also pork belly( at least that is what the tag said it was). Very few vegetables offered. Sadly, most days the lunch and dinner were exactly the same. One lady called the manager over and showed him her brisket. She beat it on the table and called it hard as a hockey puck. I ate hamburgers or pizza most of the time.

 

The lay out of the new Market Place buffet was open and looked nice, but much seating was eliminated. They installed to sinks on each end for washing hands......4 sinks for hundreds of people. Most just walked past them. There were no hand sanitizers available.

 

This was our 38th Princess cruise and our 3rd on the Caribbean so it is hard for me to be too critical of Princess. We will continue to sail Princess but never again will we go on the Caribbean Princess.

 

Doug

We were on the Caribbean before the dry dock and it appears that it's become even worse. Although there's nothing that we though was terrible, we weren't all that impressed to draw us back on the ship similar to the Regal or Royal.

Unfortunately for Princess they're offering true 14 day trips but not for us based upon what we experienced in Feb.

[FritzG]

DId they add On Demand to the cabin tv's?

 

Is there a gelato in IC?

[BarbaraP]

"The Princess@Sea app worked pretty well, but there is no option to see what the dinner menus are. Disappointing."

 

I find it crazy Princess keeps starting new things like the @Sea app and never perfects them until they move on to new things like the Ocean Medallion. What ever happened to the fleet wide installation of the On Demand TV's where you could check your onboard charges? And why can't we get the menus on the Princess @ Sea app? Now supposedly we won't be able to get the AIBP with the Medallion cruises.

 

Princess, please finish one thing before you move on to another:confused:

[compozer]

I ordered drinks at Vines several times and one of the guys went to another bar to get it.

I ordered one of the new $5 hamburgers. He said it would be a 20 minute wait and it was. I did not care for it. The burger is too thick and smaller than the bun. It had a deep fried jalapeño pepper on top along with a deep fried onion or something. I usually cut my burgers in half. Big mistake with this one. Everything fell out. The mdr burgers we get for lunch in our cabin are so much better.

[cityguy300]

DId they add On Demand to the cabin tv's?

 

Is there a gelato in IC?

 

No to both (at least, I didn't notice any kind of ice cream at all in the Int Cafe). The TV channels that weren't news or advertising would repeat two, same-genre movies each day, or episodes of several sitcoms or superhero shows.

[bananavan]

This is disappointing .

Am I overly optimistic to think that perhaps, just perhaps, the bad food in both the MDR and the World Market fiasco was because the ship just came out of dry dock and someone screwed up in the provisions department?

We are on the 27 day British Isles/Transatlantic in September.................maybe. I am not sure I want to spend as much as we will be spending to be in a Mini suite and eat poorly.

We were on Caribbean Princess in December and the food was going downhill then.

Will we have to rely on room service and the International Cafe to eat semi OK?

Obviously Anytime Dining will be a fiasco if the World Market area is small and the offerings sparse .

Princess might have to make some adjustments.

[Thrak]

"The Princess@Sea app worked pretty well, but there is no option to see what the dinner menus are. Disappointing."

 

I find it crazy Princess keeps starting new things like the @Sea app and never perfects them until they move on to new things like the Ocean Medallion. What ever happened to the fleet wide installation of the On Demand TV's where you could check your onboard charges? And why can't we get the menus on the Princess @ Sea app? Now supposedly we won't be able to get the AIBP with the Medallion cruises.

 

Princess, please finish one thing before you move on to another:confused:

 

This issue has been rectified. Both the AIBP and the Soda & More packages have been reinstated for Medallion cruises. I'm guessing that CB will be getting all new TVs before the first Medallion cruise next March 18. I have to agree that having the menu either on the app or on the TV would be nice. I think I might actually prefer it on the TV which would be much easier to implement and would make it available to everybody rather than just to those with a tablet or smart phone.

[MGAfhc]

The new Market Place buffet was a total failure in our opinion selection was very,very limited.So much space was dedicated to sandwiches that only one meat was offered.Badly prepared brisket most days with some form of chicken sometimes and also pork belly( at least that is what the tag said it was). Very few vegetables offered. Sadly, most days the lunch and dinner were exactly the same. One lady called the manager over and showed him her brisket. She beat it on the table and called it hard as a hockey puck. I ate hamburgers or pizza most of the time.

 

The lay out of the new Market Place buffet was open and looked nice, but much seating was eliminated. They installed to sinks on each end for washing hands......4 sinks for hundreds of people. Most just walked past them. There were no hand sanitizers available.

 

 

Doug

 

I expect that many of the food prep and service staff from the former buffet have been reassigned to the two new venues leaving a leaner operation in the buffet and Princess hoping to shift the old Horizon Court patrons into revenue producing propositions. I doubt it will work, and fully expect this to be another Princess failed experiment that is only on the CB.

 

What they did with the buffet on the new builds was a great improvement and I hoped they would do something along those lines. I would think they could easily have turned the two back-to-back serveries that they now have into one much larger servery that connects and serves both sides, like the Royal, and would greatly improve the buffet operation.

[riclop]

Thanks for the update.

[erikab411]

Tartan cruiser- we were on the regal last month and the buffet was incredible. Always a ton of options. I do not like buffets in general, but really liked how many servers were behind the buffet constantly refreshing the food. We are in the buffet more than any other one location. Disappointed to hear that the improvements to the CB did not make the buffet at least a little similar to the regal.

 

 

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[Idsardi]

We were on the CB on its recent European Capitals voyage starting and ending in Southhampton. It was our first Princess Cruise but we have sailed on other lines.

 

The Hits:

 

Service in all areas was excellent.

 

 

Entertainment in the Princess Theatre was enjoyable. Sometimes, three shows per evening allowed for greater flexibility with dining time.

 

Shore excursions were worthwhile and well organized.

 

Cabin was clean, well attended and the new beds were quite comfortable.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Idsardi]

Continued:

 

The New MUTS screen was extremely clear and would probably have been more utilized on a warmer cruise.

 

The Misses:

 

The Food: The food was satisfactory but became something we never looked forward to.

 

Buffet .... seemed smaller, more crowded than other ships. Choices were

limited, bland and consistently lukewarm.

 

MDR .... meats were usually tasty and warm but potatoes/ vegetables were , like the buffet, lukewarm. Soups were served appropriately hot.

 

Crown Grill ... steaks and appetizers were excellent but like mentioned before tasteless and lukewarm.

 

We had a good time. We will remember our tours, the shows and the professional crew. We look forward to more memorable food on a future cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Idsardi]

Sorry ... my comment on the Crown Grill referred to the veggies and potatoes as lukewarm.

 

 

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[tartan cruiser]

Erikab411 Thanks for confirming the Regal buffet is still incredible. We've always felt the buffet, especially in the evening was sometimes better than the MDR. I really want to do the panama canal cruise but since it's 10 days the food options are very important. Right now it sounds like a possible deal breaker. Just have to wait and see as it gets closer to final payment. Thanks again.

[srpilo]

Just off the CB , and felt all the chances except the Market Place were improvements and as most of various past Princess dry dock chances on other ships were intended to improve the overall Princess cruise experience.

 

But the Market Place is a absolute joke, and whoever at Princess thought that the Market Place concept chances are a proper alternative dinning experience to the evening meal in the MDR should be fired. As someone who has sailed almost every Princess ship currently in service, and is mostly a Princess defender, I left the Market Place almost every night feeling what can best be described as "angry" at what Princess has done to the only true included alternative to the dining room, and for the first time on any Princess ship I dreaded going to the buffet. So I ended going every night just to take pictures of the insanity of the food offerings.

 

Breakfast At Dinner, sounds great the first night, but breakfast offerings are hardly something that one looks forward to every night 10 or 11 days, and to make it worse it appear to me that after the first couple of nights the Breakfast At Dinner station became a " lets use all the left overs we have in the pantry and call it Breakfast" station.. Absolutely horrible dinner offerings.

 

The rest of the hot food evening selections and pairings were what I felt at the very least strange, and once again felt very "left over - ish" , I found could only take pictures to be sure the I was really seeing what someone in Santa Clarita thought was going to be a successful dinning concept.

 

Lastly.. A entire serving section devoted to Peanut & Jelly sandwiches, and this stand alone section is in addition to the sections offerings of sandwiches and wraps that dominated the entire outside ring of the evening buffet..

REALLY ? peanut & jelly for dinner ?? and who in charge onboard thought that sandwiches and wraps of any kind, which took up at least 20% of the evening offerings are cruise ship dinner"fare ????.

 

Feel sorry for the first time Princess cruisers onboard who came away from this cruise thinking this was a average Princess dinning experience

 

There's much more to the disappointing Market Place story, but you get the drift

Srpilo

[cityguy300]

Agreed on the changes to the buffet, on the same sailing. I had been looking forward to the new look & feel; the recent drydock was a main reason I booked despite some reservations about the age of CB (which I'd been on before, in 2009). My last two Princess cruises were on the newer ships, and I liked that we'd be getting a new buffet without just repeating the Royal-class layout.

 

Unfortunately, the selection was poor on boarding day, and never got much better. It had been years since I was last on a Grand-class, but the buffet itself felt smaller than I remembered (even if the space looked nicer) and the food was definitely worse. It used to be that you'd often see recycled ingredients and meals from the MDR for lunch the next day, but the quality and variety was still there. Then, I would split lunches & dinners evenly between the MDR and buffet; this trip, I ate every night in the MDR and mostly hit the IC and Crown Grill (sea days) for lunch.

 

I also didn't realize there was a new breakfast-for-dinner policy in the buffet until now. So that's why there were still hash browns at night!

[OCruisers]

..........................

Breakfast At Dinner, sounds great the first night, but breakfast offerings are hardly something that one looks forward to every night 10 or 11 days, and to make it worse it appear to me that after the first couple of nights the Breakfast At Dinner station became a " lets use all the left overs we have in the pantry and call it Breakfast" station.. Absolutely horrible dinner offerings.

.................

Srpilo

 

Thanks very much for your complete report back. Just wondering about the "Breakfast at Dinner" ?

Does that mean this "Breakfast Station" is open ALL day long? :confused:

[bananavan]

These reports have me concerned. We have two months to go before final and I am seriously considering canceling the 27 days in September. Food is not the only reason to cruise but the idea that I will have "crazy upside down day" at the buffet leaves me cold and questioning Princess' corp's logic. It sounds more like something a child would be offered at summer camp, than the food choices on a cruise line. My idea of "Come back new" is not the same apparently, although we have not done the breakfast at dinner since the kids were in school 30+years ago.

[MickeyandLV]

Thanks for all the reviews. It makes me feel better that I was not the only one disappointed with the cruise. I was on the European Capitals tour also. My husband and I agree that dining has gone down hill. At least this time we had a good waiter in MDR so we did not have to go to the buffet too often for supper. Very limited selections in the buffet for all meals. Breakfast was boring with serving the same thing every day. Because they took so much seating out of the buffet to make Planks and Steamers, there was no place to eat. We had to walk around with our food from one side of the ship to the other looking for someplace to sit. No theme buffets.

[Mindy43]

We have two cruises booked on the CB and we are considering cancelling because of these reviews. Wish we heard some positives! Just doesn't sound like Princess standards.