Review: Star Princess 12/28/05 - 11-day Southern Caribbean Medley

[LoneStar72]

This is going to be quite long, so I'm splitting it up into several posts.

 

Cruise Line: Princess

Ship: Star

Itinerary: Southern Caribbean Medley (7 ports, 3 sea days)

Dates: December 28, 2005 – January 8, 2006 (11 nights)

Submitted by: LoneStar72 (and wife, both mid-50’s)

 

This cruise was an experiment for us, in seven ways. We’d cruised before once each with Royal Caribbean, Holland America, Carnival, and Celebrity, but this was our first experience with Princess. It was our first time in the Southern/Eastern Caribbean. It was an 11-night cruise, and all our previous cruises were 7-nighters. It was the first cruise for us over a major holiday (New Year’s.) It was our first time in an inside cabin (which made the price virtually the same as our shorter cruises in balcony cabins). It was the largest ship we’d cruised on (our previous cruises had been on ships with 2,000 passengers or less, and the Star sailed full with 2,700.) And it was the first time we’d signed up for early (traditional) seating (which we did this time based on the port itinerary) – on all our other cruises we’d had late traditional seating.

 

The bottom line: the experiment turned out quite well for us. Given the right itinerary and price, we’ll cruise with Princess again (we bought an open booking for a future cruise while we were onboard.) We certainly enjoyed the ports in the Southern/Eastern Caribbean, so we plan to come back, but more likely on a 7-night cruise (to get a little younger crowd onboard.) We enjoyed the holiday festivities, but sailing over New Year’s won’t be something that we either seek out or avoid. The inside cabin, at least the one we picked on this ship, was quite nice, and we won’t hesitate to book another one on a cruise where there isn’t a lot of interesting scenery while under way, and where price is a significant consideration. We’ll still gravitate towards ships with 2,000 or fewer passengers, but would gladly sail again on Princess’s Grand-class ships (see below.) And, given a cruise longer than 7 days, featuring early departures from most ports (4-6pm), we’d sign up for early traditional seating again. The major reason we’d have for avoiding early traditional seating is that on shorter cruises, there are more young children aboard, and their families tend to want to feed them earlier, which makes for a much noisier dining experience then.

 

A lot of things about this cruise turned out well, based on the things I’ve learned from the experiences of others on Cruise Critic. For example, we each packed half our clothes in each other’s suitcases, and we planned to fly into our departure port a day early, so when American Airlines succeeded in losing one of our 4 checked bags on a direct flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Fort Lauderdale, we were concerned but not panicked. American finally got our missing bag to us around 8pm – if that had been our departure day, there’s no telling how long it would have been before we saw that bag again, since our first port was on day three, in Aruba. Digression – there was apparently something seriously amiss with American’s baggage handling that day, because there were 4 or 5 other people on our flight with missing luggage, and more than that on the next flight (which we waited for in vain to see if our missing bag would show up.)

 

[end of post 1]

[LoneStar72]

Day 1 – Sailaway. We arrived at the pier area a little after 11am. Digression – we’d heard from CC posters that tipping of the shore-side baggage handlers wasn’t necessary, but we only saw one sign to that effect, and it wasn’t visible until after we’d tipped the handler, and walked almost inside the embarkation building. Embarkation began right at noon. After a bit of initial confusion, the process went very smoothly, and we were onboard by 12:30pm. Second digression – I continue to be amazed by the *all* the cruise lines’ lack of communication during embarkation. Just a little bit of information, given using any kind of loudspeaker or other wide-area sound system, would resolve so many problems. For example, when the Princess personnel opened the doors to the processing area, they started calling out (and not very loudly) for passengers with “number one”. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the very first few people at the pier were handed a plastic tag with a number (1, 2, or 3). The rest of us got nothing, and had no idea whether we were supposed to have been given a number or not. And, of course, the people farthest from the door hadn’t heard anything – they just saw that the doors were open, and started crowding forward, making it impossible for anyone who had a plastic numbered tag to get through. As I said, this problem (lack of useful communication during embarkation) seems to be common to all the cruise lines we’ve sailed with. Third digression (since there are so many questions about this on CC) – we had two bottles of wine in our carryon luggage, saw others carrying on wine by the case, and we had more wine in our checked bags. There were no problems or even questions.

We immediately headed for the Purser’s desk to get our Cruise/Key cards punched for the lanyards we’d brought (again, thanks to info I’d gotten from CC). We then headed for our cabin to drop off our carry-on bags (unassisted – other cruise lines have staff to escort passengers). We met our cabin steward, Marco from Mexico, and requested robes and an egg-crate foam pad for the bed (again, thanks to info from CC.) One disappointment – I had pre-ordered a bottle of champagne to be in the room at embarkation so we could toast the beginning of our cruise, and it was there, but it was at room temperature, with no ice bucket, and no glasses. Those didn’t show up until after dinner, which defeated the whole purpose of the gift.

Then it was up to the Horizon Court for lunch. The selection was good, and the quality acceptable. Just to verify the prevailing opinion on CC, we tasted the coffee – it was, as reported, horrible. But we were prepared with our own coffee maker, and we had good coffee for breakfast all week, brewed right in our cabin! We’d also seen CC reviews of the Star that said that the buffet layout was confusing, but we didn’t think so.

The Star Princess is very much as described on CC – although it has a large passenger capacity, its design is such that you really don’t feel crowded. It is in good repair – we didn’t notice any wear and tear, or anything that was unavailable or inoperable for any length of time. There were problems with the elevators the whole cruise, with almost always one or two out of service. The ship is tastefully (to us) decorated, and there are lots of directional aids to help you find your way around (e.g., color-coded carpets, “you are here” ship diagrams on the walls, and lists of significant areas on signs near each elevator.) The staff and crew we encountered were quite friendly, capable, and efficient. To the point of several other CC threads – as non-smokers, we were bothered by cigarette smoke only in the casino and in Skywalker’s Disco, and we didn’t spend any time in Shooter’s Bar, which welcomed cigar smokers. The other lounges have non-smoking areas, but, I guess because of the demographics of the cruise (see below), we didn’t see very many people smoking, no butts strewn about, nor did we smell fresh or stale smoke.

[end of post 2]

[LoneStar72]

We noticed that our dinner seating wasn’t printed on our Cruise/Key cards, so we went to the dining room where the Maitre D’ Hotel was stationed. Since the cruise was sold out, and the Maitre D’ told us there were over 300 on the waiting list for Traditional Dining, it wasn’t surprising that there was a large number of people in line to beg, wheedle, whine, and argue for Traditional Dining. It was also not surprising that only people like us (who had confirmed Traditional Dining clearly annotated on our cruise documents) were satisfied with the Maitre’ D’s decisions. In our case, it turned out that we had actually been on his list for Traditional Dining, but for some reason our Cruise/Key cards didn’t get imprinted with our dining info. There’s probably some good reason that with that number of people wanting Traditional Dining, and the relatively small size of the Star’s dining rooms, they didn’t convert one of the two Alternative Dining rooms to Traditional for the cruise, but I have no idea what that reason would be. Also unfortunately for those on the waiting list, we noticed that a couple of 6- and 8-person tables in early seating were empty from the third night onwards.

After a quick tour of the ship, at 3pm we headed for Explorers’ Lounge, to meet up with several people from our CC Roll Call. It was nice to put faces to the screen names we use online! We’d planned to go from the CC meeting to the Muster Drill, so we already had our life vests with us. Thankfully, the Star Princess is one of those ships that musters passengers in lounge areas, and doesn’t call roll, versus standing on deck outside, having a staff member go down the list of people who are supposed to be present at that station.

Next up was the tour of the Spa, which qualified us for a later prize drawing. Then it was back to the cabin, where we found 2 of our 4 bags had arrived. The other 2 bags arrived while we were unpacking.

The cabin was surprisingly well laid-out, with plenty of storage space. Even though we were packed for an 11-night cruise with 7 port stops, there was ample storage for all our clothes and gear (of course, due to CC info, we’d brought extra hangers with us.) The plug strip we take on cruises made it very easy to connect all the electronic gadgets we travel with (laptop computer; chargers for phones, walkie-talkies, iPods, and cameras; curling iron; the aforementioned coffee maker, etc.) I was also prepared, thanks to CC, with a night light, and a small electric fan, and both were in constant use. Digression – the electric outlet in the bathroom was “hot” only when the light was on, so the night light wouldn’t work in there. We were in the port-side aft-most inside cabin on Aloha deck (A744, Category I), where we found the ship’s side-to-side motion noticeable, but not uncomfortable (neither of us has ever had motion sickness, despite some bad weather on cruises and small airplanes.) We picked the cabin for its easy access to the adults-only Terrace pool & bar; one stairway’s walk from the Horizon Court; its proximity to an elevator which takes you to both the Traditional Dining Room (Amalfi) and the Skywalker’s Disco (most of the elevators don’t go all the way down to deck 5, or all the way up to deck 17); the short distance down the hall to a laundry; and the lack of noise-generating spaces above, below, or to either side. Thanks to CC, the cabin was exactly as we expected.

After unpacking, we went back to the Spa for the drawing, and we won one of the prizes! We sailed during this time, which we could see through the Spa’s windows – as is usual for modern cruise ships, we couldn’t feel any motion at all.

We were told by the Maitre D’ that, contrary to our experiences with other lines, and also contrary to information published in the Princess Patter, that we could sit at our assigned table that night for dinner, so we did. We’d asked for as large a table as was available, but almost all of the 8- and 10-seat tables were occupied by family or other groups, so we were assigned to a 6-seat table, but in a quiet area next to a window. We met our waiter, Nicasio from the Philippines, his assistant, Srinuan from Thailand, and the other two couples, who were quite pleasant, and much more experienced cruisers than we.

After dinner, we did a little more touring, dropped into the show to check out the comedian, and ended up in the Atrium bar listening to Adam James on the piano – outstanding! After such a day, it wasn’t surprising that we slept almost 9 hours that night (not including a one-hour ship’s time change which lost us an hour!)

[end of post 3]

[LoneStar72]

Day 2 – at sea. We slept late, and decided to check out the Port & Shopping talk to see if we could score some freebies. It was he usual paid commercial, and, disappointingly, only two items were given away – one was a Frisbee, one was a pair of earrings. There was one piece of worrisome news – the lecturer says that it is imperative to take a tour at Isla Margarita, because there’s “nothing within walking distance of the pier, and a cab to the shopping area is $50 each way.” That’s not what I’d learned from CC – reports from several recent visitors, as well as posts by a lady who sells at a booth at the pier (klouised – see the Ports of Call/Caribbean Other forum) say that there’s plenty of shopping there, as well as a nice beach. We haven’t booked a tour there – we’ll just have to see who was correct, CC or the Princess Port/Shopping lecturer.

We checked out the Morning Trivia Challenge – pretty normal questions (for the cruises we’ve been on), and the usual lame prizes (I won a Princess luggage tag). The rest of the morning was spent checking out the on-board shops and boutiques. Again, nothing out of the ordinary (good or bad) based on our experiences. Then it was up to the Horizon Court for lunch. The Food & Beverage Manager stopped by our table to chat, and he agreed with our assessment of the coffee, but he said he was powerless to change it.

We had noticed in the daily Princess Patter that there was to be a “Cruisecritic.com Get-Together” in the Wheelhouse Bar at 12:15pm, so we walked down there. We encountered the Senior Assistant Cruise Director, and asked him if anyone from our Roll Call had requested the gathering. He said that wasn’t the case, but that he always scheduled a get-together for CC members on one of the first few days. That was surprising to us, because you get the impression from reading CC that only Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines pay any un-requested attention to Cruise Critics. Perhaps it’s just something that this Cruise Director’s staff does on this ship. I was, however, quite disappointed that only 4 from our Roll Call showed up. Luckily, the Senior Assistant Cruise Director had left after introducing himself to us – thus he didn’t get to see that no one else showed up, and that his effort on behalf of Cruise Critics was quite wasted.

After that, we participated in “Hoopla”, which turned out to be tossing rope rings at bottles of Champagne sitting on the floor of one of the lounges. Mrs. LoneStar and I each won a bottle! Mrs. LoneStar headed for the afternoon art auction, where, mercifully, she didn’t buy anything <grin>, while I grabbed my Christmas present book (Kristoffer A. Garin’s Devils on the Deep Blue Sea – the Dreams, Schemes, and Showdowns that Built America’s Cruise-Ship Empires) and lounged out by the Terrace Pool. Digression – this is starting to be a tradition with me; last cruise I was reading Cruise Ship Blues, and the cruise before that I was reading If I Were Not Upon the Seas (by CC contributor Joyce Gleason-Adamidis).

I haven’t mentioned one large surprise about the cruise itinerary – the Patter indicated that there were *four* formal nights scheduled! The first was on the second night (tonight), and others to be on the fourth night (New Year’s Eve), the seventh night, and the tenth night. (But see below for what really happened.)

I also haven’t mentioned the demographics of the cruise, at least from our vantage point. Although there was a smattering of families with kids, and an occasional infant in a stroller, we saw few people younger than we were. Perhaps that was because this was a little longer cruise than usual, or perhaps it was because it was over New Year’s, but we weren’t expecting such a large proportion of the “well past retirement” set. We’ve cruised with Holland America, which has the reputation of an older clientele, but we had a much more lively late-night experience with HAL than we did on this Princess cruise.

At least with this demographic, formal nights were really formal – we saw very few people that weren’t in at least “Sunday go-to-meeting” clothes, with a predominance of tuxes and evening gowns. Even when we went through the Horizon Court on formal night, we saw more suits and ties than we did shorts and sandals. And it wasn’t uncommon to see coats and ties on the men on “Smart Casual” nights.

I guess I also ought to give our assessment of the dining-room food. Overall, it was below average for the cruise-line fare we’ve experienced. The steaks and prime rib were quite good, but the rest of the dishes were rather bland to our tastes. After the second night, we started bringing a bottle of our favorite hot sauce to dinner to put some taste in the food (which was greatly appreciated by our table-mates as well.) Our table-mates, who each had had many cruises on Princess, including several on the Star, also commented that the food was below their expectations. People who saw me carrying my hot sauce almost unanimously volunteered that the food certainly needed more seasoning. I’d rate this cruise’s food quality as fourth out of our five cruises – HAL’s Ryndam (Alaska) and Celebrity’s Summit (Alaska) a very close first and second, Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas (Western Caribbean) third, and Carnival’s Inspiration (Western Caribbean) dead last. We’ve never sent any food back as being unacceptable on any other line than Carnival. There was no sommelier in the room, nor bar staff – the waiters took the drink orders and served them. The service was adequate, although both the Maitre D’Hotel and his assistant stopped by our table separately each evening – on each of our previous cruises, we only saw these managers once. The wait-staff never learned our names, nor took note of our dining preferences. After the 6th night, however, they did succeed in providing the orange sherbet that one of our diners had been pestering them for. We didn’t try the extra-fee specialty restaurants, but we noticed that Tequila’s Sterling Steakhouse had empty tables each evening.

After dinner, we attended the early show, which featured “Live Wire”, a couple who played Celtic-type music on electric guitar and electric violin. They also did some Simon & Garfunkel, and even some Charlie Daniels. Overall quite good! Later, we listened to Adam James in the atrium piano bar (again, excellent!), and then searched out all the rest of the bars and lounges looking for some life and dancing. Finding virtually none, we hit the bed before midnight.

[end of post 4]

[LoneStar72]

Day 3 – at sea. Only one of the morning activities interested us (a graphology lecture), so we just lounged around and enjoyed our vacation. I went in search of something I’d gotten on three of our last four cruises – a daily excerpt of the New York Times, which included the crossword puzzle. But I was out of luck – I just hope the neighbor who’s picking up our newspapers has them all waiting for me when we get home. After lunch in the Horizon Court, the afternoon was pretty much the same as the morning (what interested us was another art auction, and a putting contest) so it was lounge around and relaxation time again. After dinner, we watched Philadelphia the Comedian, then spent the rest of the evening in Explorer’s Lounge, first with a Rock & Roll Dance Party, then with the “Majority Rules” game.

Day 4 – Aruba. We were up early to make coffee, get ready, eat breakfast in the Horizon Court, and make it onto the pier for an 8:30 tour. The Star was the only cruise ship in port today. The tour dropped us off after noon in a shopping area, and we headed for Iguana Joe’s for lunch (sorry, no iguana on the menu.) Then Mrs. Lonestar went about stimulating the local retail economy, and cashing in the coupons from the Savvy Traveler book she’d bought onboard. We were back on the ship well in advance of the 4:30pm deadline, and used the rest of time getting ready for our second formal night, New Year’s Eve. After dinner was the first time we noticed that there were a lot of other people on board, because the lines to get formal photographs were long, and the chair space in the lounges were scarce. But it was a great party evening, and we even had time to take in a show by yet another comedian.

Day 5 – Curaçao. We were up again early, due to an 8:45am tour that also dropped us off in a shopping area a little after noon. One stop on the tour was the distillery for the original Curaçao liqueur, where there was unlimited tasting. There I also found a marvelous locally-produced product, “Alcolada Glacial”, which is known as “The Air Conditioner in a Bottle.” It consists of mostly alcohol and menthol, costs $5 for 500ml, and really does cool your skin! Unfortunately for the local economy (but fortunately for my wallet), it not only was New Year’s Day, but also Sunday, and most of the locally-owned stores and restaurants were closed. Again, the Star was the only ship in port that day. Digression – when we checked back into the ship, the staff said nothing about the 750ml bottle of Curaçao chocolate liqueur in my backpack. After dinner we took in a show by a newly-boarded comic, and spent the rest of the evening country dancing in the Explorers’ Lounge.

Day 6 – Isla Margarita. Based on info from CC, we didn’t book a tour for today, instead opting to visit the local handicraft bazaar right at the pier. As we suspected, the info we got from CC was much more accurate than that we got from the onboard shopping guide! We found the best hand-made jewelry, clothing, and curios of the entire cruise there. In addition, there’s a bar, a restaurant, two areas with live music, and a nice little beach within a short walk of the ship. As an extra bonus, we found the booth belonging to CC member klouised, and Mrs. LoneStar proclaimed that the beaded and braided silver jewelry there was the best quality at the most attractive price in the whole bazaar. Unfortunately, Kristina herself (klouised) was home with a migraine, so we didn’t get to meet her in person – maybe next time. Again, the Star was the only ship in port. We shopped all morning, had a late lunch, and relaxed during the afternoon. After dinner it was the Tropical Island Night Deck Party, which took place at the Terrace Pool and Bar right above our cabin, so we had no choice but to join them! But, as we had come to expect on this cruise, the action stopped right before midnight.

Day 7 – Barbados. It was a three-ship day here – the Star Princess, NCL Spirit, and an Ocean Cruises liner. We were up early to get breakfast in the Horizon Court, pack up, then to get down to the pier for some shopping ahead of what was supposed to be a 10am tour. Unfortunately, the tour agent said there’d been a scheduling mix-up, and the tour wouldn’t start until 12:30pm. Since it was a 4.5-hour tour which didn’t drop us off in town, and the “all aboard” time was 5:30pm, that killed our opportunity to shop anywhere but in the craft mall about 2 blocks from the pier. But the tour made up for all that! We took a short bus ride to another pier, where we loaded onto a large catamaran, and were taken out to an area where there were several sunken ships in about 20 feet of water. There we snorkeled for about an hour – it was like being in an aquarium with thousand and thousands of all kinds of fish! We re-boarded the catamaran, where they offered all the rum drinks you cared to consume while we were taken to a local beach. About half the folks went ashore to frolic, while the rest remained onboard to imbibe and chat. After about an hour, the ashore folks re-boarded, and we were taken to the pier for the busses back to the ship. Exhausted and pleasantly pickled, we opted for a quick bite in the Horizon Court, then straight to bed. The good news is that, contrary to the info we’d originally gotten, tonight was *not* formal.

[end of post 5]

[LoneStar72]

Day 8 – Dominica. Another “early riser” day to meet an 8:45am tour, which took us all over the island in gaily-painted 1960’s-vintage British military 10-person open-top Land-Rovers (the “Wacky Rollers”.) We stopped at botanical gardens, scenic overlooks, one hiking trail which led to a pair of stunning waterfalls, and then to another river area where we swam up through a narrow canyon to the base of another waterfall. After the obligatory, complimentary rum punch, we were taken back to the ship about 12:30pm. There is a large craft mall at the pier, so we spent about an hour exploring it before boarding the Star, cleaning up, and lunching in the Horizon Court. We weren’t interested in shopping in town, so we relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Again, we were the only ship in port. That evening after supper, I visited with the Future Cruise Consultant, and signed up for an open booking (see my thread on this topic.) They had the Rose Bowl both in the Vista Lounge on large screen, and on the in-cabin TV, so we watched football until well after midnight.

Day 9 – St. Thomas. As a result of info we got from CC, we had booked a tour with an independent operator, Godfrey Renal (godfreytoursvi.com). He met us at the dock at 9am, and took us into town for shopping. It was a little congested, with 4 ships in port, but not like it gets when there are 10 there! I found some spectacularly good deals on liquor and golf shirts, and at a couple of places we found a diamond necklace/pendant we had been looking for – unfortunately, even after haggling/bargaining, the prices were higher than we considered reasonable. Digression – before every cruise, I visit my local liquor discounter, and write down the prices of bottles that I’d consider buying; I found the St. Thomas prices beat the on-board store’s in all but two items I wanted, and one of those I could buy cheapest at home (even after paying tax.) The St. Thomas liquor supermarket even packed up the bottles, and had them delivered to the ship for free (to be held until the last night.) Godfrey picked us back up after noon, and took us for a tour of the island, and, after looking at the crowds on Magen’s and Coki beaches, we stopped at Sapphire beach for a couple of hours of water fun. Then he collected us, and finished the island tour on the way back to the pier. Overall, an outstanding value (see my thread in “Ports of Call”)! After dinner, we purchased the last of our duty-free liquor allowance at the on-board store, then tried diligently to find some dance or other “action”, but pretty much failed. There was a “Dance” show in the main theater, but we wanted to be participants, not spectators. There was a violinist in the Vista Lounge, but, after sitting through several selections, we noticed a large portion of the audience around us sleeping! We stopped into the Explorers’ Lounge, but the house band was playing pop music about half speed. We did succeed in getting Adam James to crank it up, and we danced near his piano for awhile. We went back to the Explorers’ Lounge for the 10pm “70’s Dance Party”, but, unless you wanted to be part of the contests, there wasn’t much participatory dancing, and even that stopped at 10:45pm when the “Princess Pop Star” Karaoke tryouts began. We went back to the Promenade Lounge and Adam James, but he packed it in at 11:15pm. We stopped by the Wheelhouse Bar, but the Tito Cruz Quartet was also playing pop music about half speed, and Skywalker’s Disco was running Rap at ear-splitting volume, so we called it a night.

Day 10 – at sea. Got up late, breakfasted at Horizon Court, then attended the 10am “Culinary Demonstration” in the main lounge – it was hilarious! We then took the galley tour, and checked out the boutique “fire sale” (20-70% discounts on overstock.) Then it was time for lunch, followed by the “Hole-in-One” contest, a seminar on hypnosis, the final art auction, the movie Bewitched, and reading and relaxing by the Terrace Pool. Tonight was our third (and final) formal night, so after dinner we posed for portraits in several background/settings. Once again, in search of decent (to us) dancing music, we ended up in the Promenade Lounge with keyboardist Adam James. At 10pm, he had a “Name That Tune” contest, in which we took the top prize of a bottle of champagne. As that ended, the dining room Maitre’ D’s were constructing the midnight champagne waterfall. The good news was that this night we re-gained the hour we’d lost in the time change on the first night, so we had an extra hour to party!

Day 11 – Princess Cays. We were up early and headed to breakfast in the Horizon Court when the Captain announced that, due to high winds and waves, and rising tide, that the tenders couldn’t operate in the PC harbor, so the “port call” was cancelled. After a leisurely breakfast, we went to the Purser’s Desk to turn in our cruise evaluation and get a copy of our on-board account, to the Shore Excursion Desk to arrange refunds for our PC rentals (cabana and banana-boat rides) and turn in our shore excursion evaluation form, to the Captain’s Circle Desk to get the passport which was missing from our packet, and to the Photo Gallery to purchase the best of our portrait sittings (they were quite good, and we bought more portraits on this cruise than all our other cruises combined.) As the Cruise Director was busily re-planning for a day at sea, Mrs. LoneStar tried the Adult Ping-Pong Tourney, and I filled out all the disembarkation/immigration paperwork, and then started arranging things in the cabin so we could start packing (all the liquor purchased ashore and on-board was delivered before 10am.) The disembarkation instructions said to place as much checked luggage as possible out in the hall, starting at 5pm! Then it was time for lunch, and the movie Monster-in-Law. Before dinner, we mostly got packed up, which is our next-to-least favorite activity on a cruise (our least favorite activity, of course, is stepping off that gangway for the last time!) Since we had a 2pm flight out of Fort Lauderdale, I attached the luggage tags that indicated a “geographic” disembarkation order (suites first, then cabins starting from the highest deck, from bow to stern on each deck.) At dinner, we bid adieu to the friends who had only been table-mates just 10 short days ago. We then finished packing, put our checked bags in the passageway, and headed for the Explorers’ Lounge for some dancing. When the band quit for a trivia contest, we moved to the Atrium Bar and listened and danced to Adam James (there was no-one in the Wheelhouse Bar except the staff and the trio which was playing elevator music.) Digression – as on several other nights in this bar, we noticed tables of well-underage kids being served beer, wine, and mixed drinks. Finally we just had to get to bed <sigh>.

Day 12 – disembarkation and flight home. We were up for breakfast in the Horizon Court at 7:45am, and at about 8:15am they called our group. We hustled back to the cabin, grabbed our carry-ons, did a final sweep, and headed for the mid-ships elevators. Here the problems we’d had all week got really bad – since the elevators were running full, frequently a car would stop on our floor, open the door, no-one could get on, the door would close, and the “we want an elevator” lights would be cleared. So we had to keep pushing the “Down” buttons to get a car to stop. We finally gave up, pushed the “Up” button, and got on for the ride. At least when the car stopped back on our floor on the way down, jam-packed by now, we were onboard. We finally made it to the gangway, disembarked the ship at 9am, and proceeded to the bag claim area. It took us awhile to find all our bags, but the porters were plentiful with large carts, and we breezed through US Immigration and Customs without so much as stopping. Based on info from CC, we opted to take a taxi from the pier to FLL, rather than a Princess transfer. We were on the curb in the short taxi line by about 9:15, and at the airport by about 9:30am!

Now all that remained was to fly to Dallas, collect the bags, drive home, unload the bags, and start dealing with the life we have outside of cruising…

[end of post 6, and the review/log]

John

[imacruizer]

John,

 

Great review!! Thanks for ALL the details. Loved reading everything.

 

Beth

[mollyanne]

Thanks for writing such an in-depth review - I'm sure it was very time consuming. Although I have no plans to sail on this ship any time soon I sure enjoyed reading about it.

 

mollyanne

[mpdahmer]

My parents were on this same sailing with a group of friends. It was good to read a different point of view of this trip. We are booked on an April sailing of the CB and hope that there will be more to do once we put the kids to bed.

 

Happy Sailing...

[sunshine426]

Did you ever make it up to Skywalkers? We are traveling with two "twentysomethings" who are definently looking for some dancing and night life. The atrium guy sounds good to me.

[maryr65]

John,

 

Thanks for the very informative review. It was the next best thing to being there.

[sherman931]

John:

 

Great review, very thorough and detailed. Sounds like you had a great time:)

[mii]

John what a great and informative review. I would like to ask you what you did in Aruba. We will be there this coming May. Thanks

 

Marilyn

[hansi]

Great review, looking forward to 22 Jan cruise out of FLL

[spongerob]

Great review! Thanks.

[LisaH]

Thanks for the great review...it was mucho enjoyable. We are in Plano, where are you?

[LoneStar72]

Did you ever make it up to Skywalkers? We are traveling with two "twentysomethings" who are definently looking for some dancing and night life. The atrium guy sounds good to me.

Yep, we tried it a couple of times. It was pretty smoky, but we could handle that. But the times we were up there (usually before midnight), there were few people there, and the DJ was playing rap at ear-bleed volume. I think you'll have better luck for "dancing and night life" on a 7-day cruise -- we always have (even on Holland America!).

 

John

[LoneStar72]

John what a great and informative review. I would like to ask you what you did in Aruba. We will be there this coming May.

We took the "Aruba Sea and See" morning tour (Princess tour #AUA-C -- more info at princess.com under Shore Excursions.) We weren't interested in the Aloe Factory, the Ostrich Farm, the Butterfly Farm, Horseback riding, hiking, or biking, but we wanted an overall tour (since this was our first trip to the island.) We were quite satisfied with this tour, and thought the price ($59/adult) was reasonable.

 

John

[LoneStar72]

Thanks for the great review...it was mucho enjoyable. We are in Plano, where are you?

We live on the south shore of Lake Lewisville, just west of the I-35E bridge. Drop in to the CC Floataway Lounge and find the DFW Meet & Mingle thread (it's usually on the first or second page) -- there's quite a few of us DFW (and even beyond!) cruisers that get together 3 or 4 times a year.

 

John

[LoneStar72]

We did use the laundry onboard on our deck (12) one evening. There were 2 people ironing when I started washing about 7:30pm (and no machines in use), and nobody in there (and no machines in use) when I finished drying at about 9:45pm. Of course, thanks to CC info, I had my own small bottle of Tide, a baggie with dryer sheets, and a film cannister full of quarters, so it was pretty painless.

 

I talked to Marco, our room steward, on disembarkation day -- it was the first time all cruise that I'd seen him standing still! He said that he was assigned 17 cabins, had no assistant except for embarkation/disembarkation day, and that on this cruise, 4 cabins (representing 13 people) had removed the auto-tipping, thus stiffing him. We certainly left our auto-tipping on, and in fact I gave him a sizable cash tip about mid-way through the cruise (I hope he didn't have to share it.) I didn't give anything extra (beyond the auto-tip) to the wait staff in the dining room -- the service was adequate, but not outstanding (for example, on the next-to-last night, the waiter brought out a birthday cake, but none of us was celebrating that day -- he had to bring out a list of names to see who the cake was for, and didn't even recognize that the name on the list wasn't one of our names; in fact, he never called any of us by name. Several times he'd also failed to bring one of us the entree' that we'd ordered, and we had to continually request that our water glasses get refilled. Like I said, adequate, but not outstanding.)

 

In the baggage claim hall on disembarkation day, I tipped the porter that helped me find my bags, and who jetted us through Immigration and Customs, right to the cab line. He dropped us off there, and another porter showed up right as the cab arrived -- he loaded our bags into the cab, then started saying, "Tip tip" to me. That hit me the wrong way, so I just said that I'd read the sign that said that porters were salaried and tipping wasn't necessary, and got into the cab. I did tip the cabbie, as well as the American Airlines skycap who unloaded the bags from the cab and got them checked in.

 

John

[aclay]

Great review John, thanks for taking the time to go into so much detail.

As you know we were on the cruise as well and we met at the cc get together..

Sorry you found the food under par, in contrast we found the food to be some of the best we have experienced in seven Princess cruises and two times on the Star - no seasoning required for us ;-)) Beef Wellington/ Lamb Chop / Lobster nights were great as usual, a special chicken curry dish ordered especially for our table of four 24 hours ahead (yummy), English Bacon and even steak for breakfast on request. Also the Pepperoni pizzas next to the pool were delicious with tabasco and hot peppers.. Sorry again that we missed the cc meeting, would definitely have come along..

Thanks again for sharing your info

Alex

[cruiseapril]

Thanks for your great review. We did the Southern Caribbean Medley on the Dawn Princess in April and enjoyed it very much. (Same ports as you visited, except for Aruba.) We really liked all of the ports- they are so varied.

 

We enjoyed Princess so much that we plan to take two more of their cruises in the next few years.

[dayatsea]

Thanks so much for the great review. We were also on that particular sailing. We have always sailed on Celebrity and wanted to try Princess. We were disappointed with the overall level of service and quality of food. Perhaps we were spoiled with the quality of the food on Celebrity, but we found both the buffet and dining room food to be very average at best.However the ship is beautiful and well maintained, rooms of good size, and the entertainment was top rate.Would try Princess again if price is right.

[LoneStar72]

Thanks so much for the great review. We were also on that particular sailing. We have always sailed on Celebrity and wanted to try Princess. We were disappointed with the overall level of service and quality of food. Perhaps we were spoiled with the quality of the food on Celebrity, but we found both the buffet and dining room food to be very average at best.However the ship is beautiful and well maintained, rooms of good size, and the entertainment was top rate.Would try Princess again if price is right.

You know, someday I'm going to have to learn how to summarize things as succinctly as you did -- nice overall assessment! Our immediate predecessor cruise was also on Celebrity, and I agree with almost everything you said -- we wouldn't rate the entertainment on the Princess cruise as "top rate". But that's a very subjective topic and, like the old man said after he kissed the cow, "Everybody to their own taste!" :D And we'll be looking for the next time the itenerary and the price are right, and we'll use the Princess open booking we bought onboard.

 

John

[rolando]

Great review John. I was on the same sailing and could not have summarized better myself. As for dining, I have to agree with Alex. It could be though that Pietro (dining room Maitre d') always had special dishes for us (not on the menu) and they were to dye for! I also spend a fair amount of hours in Skywalkers. It did not get really hopping until around 1am

 

Alex, I'm surprised I never saw you on this cruise.....I was at the gym EVERY day between 5 and 6:30pm or so. Perhaps next time