Just off Royal 12/20-12/30

[Juliayn]

Third year in a row on 10 day Royal Princess cruise. Overall a great time and still a beautiful ship. Definitely some changes though...

 

No gelato for coffee card punches. That was a bummer.

 

Pizza by pool deck definitely not as good as used to be. Still better than most other cruise lines.

 

Junior Chef a disappointment for my kids this year. Chef didn’t let kids do ANYTHING but put sprinkles on and instead Chef did mostly everything himself. Kinda silly.

 

Ports all great. Got a pool cabana in Amber Cove, ziplining in Antigua, great snorkeling in Martinique, train ride in St. Kitts, rented some jet skiis in St. Thomas and a catamaran in Barbados.

 

Only 1 day of pub lunch now instead of every sea day. That stunk.

 

I would say biggest disappointment overall was the entertainment. Past 2 years was GREAT and this year was just BAD. Really bad with exception of great trio in the Wheelhouse Bar. No magicians or fun acts in the Piazza like previous years. Same band Topaz all cruise that played same playlist multiple times! Production shows were average. Voice of the Ocean is old. Usually for this cruise there is just a ton to choose from and there just was nothing. Could not get over the huge and very noticeable drop in the entertainment...

 

Still had a great time, after all its vacation and the weather was gorgeous!! But having done this cruise twice before you could definitely see the changes. Next year no 10 day options on either Regal or Royal over holidays, only 7 days. So guess we will look at other options.

 

 

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[pa247]

We're going on this one in Feb. If you're from the USA can you tell me if you needed any kind of documents beside your passport for these islands? Actually we only have passport cards so you may know if they're acceptable?

Thanks

 

 

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[easyboy]

Did they have production shows at the Princess Theater? It must really be disappointing to not have good entertainment on a holiday cruise. Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

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[riclop]

Lot of the entertainers were on vacation.

[Goldenpaw]

We were on the Royal for 20 glorious (warm) days last December, arriving home a year ago today. We’re currently freezing in Missouri!

 

Loved the ship, our waiter and head waiter. Last year the band Rhapsody played in the piazza and other venues. They were great. We enjoyed most of the guest entertainment as well. Was very impressed by how Princess made Christmas Day special by having Santa show up with gifts for all the kids.

 

 

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[floridalover5623]

Next year no 10 day options on either Regal or Royal over holidays, only 7 days. So guess we will look at other options.

 

 

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That's definitely going to cost them.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the report, sorry to hear that you felt things went downhill a bit. Unfirtunately, it seems to be happening on other mass market cruise lines too.

[geoherb]

Thanks for posting your review. We were on the cruise before yours. I also noticed the lack of acts in the piazza.

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your report.

 

Keith

[CI66774]

Just off this cruise, too. Had a good time. Agree that entertainment was lacking but loved the ports and daughter had a blast with junior chef (just didn't have time to eat that HUGE cake). Overall good cruise (although I'm now in bed with a throat virus). Happy New Year everyone!

[Host CJSKIDS]

Third year in a row on 10 day Royal Princess cruise. Overall a great time and still a beautiful ship. Definitely some changes though...

 

No gelato for coffee card punches. That was a bummer.

 

Pizza by pool deck definitely not as good as used to be. Still better than most other cruise lines.

 

Junior Chef a disappointment for my kids this year. Chef didn’t let kids do ANYTHING but put sprinkles on and instead Chef did mostly everything himself. Kinda silly.

 

Ports all great. Got a pool cabana in Amber Cove, ziplining in Antigua, great snorkeling in Martinique, train ride in St. Kitts, rented some jet skiis in St. Thomas and a catamaran in Barbados.

 

Only 1 day of pub lunch now instead of every sea day. That stunk.

 

I would say biggest disappointment overall was the entertainment. Past 2 years was GREAT and this year was just BAD. Really bad with exception of great trio in the Wheelhouse Bar. No magicians or fun acts in the Piazza like previous years. Same band Topaz all cruise that played same playlist multiple times! Production shows were average. Voice of the Ocean is old. Usually for this cruise there is just a ton to choose from and there just was nothing. Could not get over the huge and very noticeable drop in the entertainment...

 

Still had a great time, after all its vacation and the weather was gorgeous!! But having done this cruise twice before you could definitely see the changes. Next year no 10 day options on either Regal or Royal over holidays, only 7 days. So guess we will look at other options.

 

 

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Glad you still enjoyed your cruise!

 

You just made me realize what was missing. All of those acts in the Piazza were gone from our 12/3 Regal sailing as well. Used to love the excitement that used to add. We agree with you over the huge lack of entertainment.

[Mud_Shark]

We were on the Emerald in November and also noticed a lack of novelty acts in the Piazza completely. No hand balancers, no jugglers, no goofy golf putt competitions, not even any science and nature "games" (like guess the number of shark teeth in this bowl). Nothing but piano music. We always enjoyed the short novelty acts that would occur in the piazza each evening.

 

We will still cruise for now, but hope this is not the future.

 

Don

[reedprincess]

We're going on this one in Feb. If you're from the USA can you tell me if you needed any kind of documents beside your passport for these islands? Actually we only have passport cards so you may know if they're acceptable?

Thanks

 

 

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As a US citizen, you can cruise this itinerary, and most any other Caribbean itinerary, with just a birth certificate and photo ID. A passport card is just fine also. The islands themselves don't ask for documents in arrival - do be prepared with a photo ID for returning to the ship through port security, particularly St Thomas. Any government photo ID works, ie driver's license, passport card, etc.

Enjoy.

[ChrisInMo]

Just back from this cruise as well. It was our first time on Princess so interesting that your observations about things that were missing were things that we just assumed were normal for Princess.

[pa247]

As a US citizen, you can cruise this itinerary, and most any other Caribbean itinerary, with just a birth certificate and photo ID. A passport card is just fine also. The islands themselves don't ask for documents in arrival - do be prepared with a photo ID for returning to the ship through port security, particularly St Thomas. Any government photo ID works, ie driver's license, passport card, etc.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

 

Thank you for info!

 

 

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[Woobstr112G]

OP;

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts on your recent cruise.....:):):)

 

Bob

[Makebirdies]

Off the same cruise too, 100% agree on sub-par princess entertainment, last year the entertainment was outstanding...so that may have set our expectations higher.. but kudos to party band Topaz, they did not disappoint..agree on pizza downgrade, embark/disembark smooth as silk, ship in good condition overall...DW caught sinus infection on last evening of cruise, noticed a lot of coughing that evening wherever I went, noted the CD came down with it too and Ron Goodman stepped in a pinch...Spa at the Enclave was a crowded more than normal and in need of some TLC. Movies under the stars is a great venue, enrichment talks can improve and actually I’d like to see that program increased.

 

 

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[Redwing55]

Nice summary... thanks. Here's hoping that the entertainment was a bit down due to the holidays. I wonder if that's typical..entertainers would prefer to stay home vs on a ship?

[geoherb]

We were on the Emerald in November and also noticed a lack of novelty acts in the Piazza completely. No hand balancers, no jugglers, no goofy golf putt competitions, not even any science and nature "games" (like guess the number of shark teeth in this bowl). Nothing but piano music. We always enjoyed the short novelty acts that would occur in the piazza each evening.

They did have guess the number of shark teeth on our cruise, but I never heard about the winner. The putting competitions were held on the lawn court. We did them a couple of times along with lawn bowling (similar to bocce ball). They had the champagne ring toss up there a couple of times and in the piazza a couple of other times. (I won once.) They had the paper airplane competition in the piazza as well.

[vickie_bernie]

 

Junior Chef a disappointment for my kids this year. Chef didn’t let kids do ANYTHING but put sprinkles on and instead Chef did mostly everything himself. Kinda silly.

 

 

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apparently the Junior Chef program has changed because of Health inspectors. They had issues with food outside of the kitchen that people were touching. They shut it down in Alaska and no longer can do it fleet wide.

[love2ceuise2]

We're going on this one in Feb. If you're from the USA can you tell me if you needed any kind of documents beside your passport for these islands? Actually we only have passport cards so you may know if they're acceptable?

Thanks

 

 

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check with your booking agent I thought I read some where that passport cards were not acceptable that you need an actual passport so please check it out

[Lucky TGO]

Thanks for sharing.

Tony

[Northumberland]

Thank you for sharing your experience on your recent cruise. We are going on this cruise in March. It will be the first Princess cruise we've done since our very first cruise in Feb. 2000.

We've done 4 RCCL cruises and 1 with MSC recently. It will be interesting to compare each of these cruise lines.

[floridalover5623]

Thank you for sharing your experience on your recent cruise. We are going on this cruise in March. It will be the first Princess cruise we've done since our very first cruise in Feb. 2000.

We've done 4 RCCL cruises and 1 with MSC recently. It will be interesting to compare each of these cruise lines.

It should prove interesting to see how you compare Princess to MSC.

[Northumberland]

It should prove interesting to see how you compare Princess to MSC.

 

We were on the MSC Divina in September. Beautiful ship, wonderful crew, great entertainment. Except for the Pizza we did not like the food and was very annoyed at the tendering process in Grand Cayman.

To be clear, it wasn't that the food was terrible as much as it was designed more for a european palette. Many guests were from europe and they loved the food. The very first Princess cruise we did back in 2000 was great. It was on the Ocean Princess (P&O Oceana) which was a brand new ship at the time. I can't recall one thing we disliked. All the RCCL cruises have been wonderful. Although, our favourite ship too date is Navigator of the Seas. We were on the Oasis of the Seas a year ago and found it a very beautiful ship, but too big for us. If the Royal Princess is even close to Navigator, we will be very happy.