Some observations from the Caribbean Princess

[Australia08]

5 hours ago, startedwithamouse said:

How long has it been since you sailed Princess?  The game shows and nightly trivia always draw huge crowds and most are family friendly. 

 

There is dancing in Skywalkers as the DJ spins up there well into the night.

 

You can also bring snacks from Elite Lounge anywhere on the ship.  We brought them up to Outriggers to enjoy last week. 

We last sailed Princess in Feb 2020 for 28 days to French Polynesia. In 2019, we sailed in the Mediterranean with Princess for 14 days. In 2018, we sailed Singapore to Rome for 28 days. Those are the most recent experiences. We love trivia and we also realize the game shows are big draws for Princess. We understand but we can still be sad about the disappearance of ballroom and Latin dance. Skywalkers has always been rock and pop music. Don’t think there will ever be a cha cha or waltz there. Princess makes their decisions asked on what most people want. We’re just sad that something that made cruising fun for us appears to be in the rear view mirror. I’m just reporting our experiences and preferences and we’re not trying to make others feel our way. 

[Australia08]

Just a shout out to some of the exceptional crew that served us this cruise. Joe and Mahmut in the E/P lounge were so personable. We are headed to Türkiye in less than two weeks from now for a month long vacation and Mahmut gave us some Turkish language lessons in addition to suggestions on foods to try. 
 

Our waiter, Renato, and our junior waiter, Kriti were so efficient and kind (in Palm Restaurant). The restaurant manager who handled seating made sure we got a table that was quiet and allowed us the have that table on a permanent basis. His name was Xavier. 
 

Loved Bo and Junella at Crooners who made sure our final nightcap was exactly to our liking. They also scored 4 bottles of Pellegrino for us last night. 
 

As I mentioned before, we loved the location of our stateroom and our stateroom attendant, Michelle, was great. She seemed to always have our stateroom cleaned by the time we returned, no matter how irregular our schedule was. 
 

The crew is wonderful and really try to please. Of course, we find this is true of all the cruise lines we’ve used through the years. Now if only the head corporate leaders had the same ability to make customers happy. 
 

There are many types of cruisers and I’m sure a cruise line that fits every cruiser’s needs. 

[startedwithamouse]

1 hour ago, Australia08 said:

The restaurant manager who handled seating made sure we got a table that was quiet and allowed us the have that table on a permanent basis. His name was Xavier. 

 

Xavier in Palm took very good care of us also. One of the best, and he made the top 5 to be mentioned on our survey.

[Grego]

On 8/8/2023 at 1:48 PM, memoak said:

The use of plastic glasses in the buffet is that people drink a half glass with a meal and then walk straight out to the pool deck with the glass 

Just what we said when we saw her complaint.

[Australia08]

1 hour ago, Grego said:

Just what we said when we saw her complaint.

Again, my primary complaint was being served wine in a water tumbler. Yes, I do prefer glass so we did not go to the buffet again. We found it more relaxing to go to the dining room or even pick up a glass of wine at one of the bars and then choose a sandwich or quiche at the IC. There was always room to sit in Vines during the day (even when the IC dining areas were crowded). 
 

The number of passengers (and the fact they are all adults) is probably why other cruise lines (Viking Ocean in our experience) is able to provide glass in the buffet and plastic by the pools even though they are steps from each other just like Princess. 

[eltigre]

I always get one of those 4" ships on a string from each sailing to hang on my Christmas tree. Some lines seem to have stopped carrying them. Any idea if this ship still has them? 

[voljeep]

18 hours ago, Host CJSKIDS said:

Yes she is!. I'll reach out to her and see what I can find out. I know she has been on board since April. 
 

Just May see you on board your sailing. 

we'll meet in Crooners and enjoy Junela shaking that Martini like no other 😉

[sonoma03]

I'm also very sad to hear about the lack of live music for ballroom/Latin dancing.  Dancing to the band in the Wheelhouse or in Explorer Lounge was one of my favorite evening activities on past Princess cruises.  It really is becoming much more difficult to find good opportunities for ballroom/Latin dancing on cruise ships; Royal Caribbean and Celebrity are no better.  I still hope to try Cunard sometime, but the cruise I had booked in 2020 got cancelled due to COVID and I have not found a good itinerary at a good price so far.

[brucedodge]

On 8/13/2023 at 8:47 AM, Australia08 said:

 One complaint I have regards the ship running out of specific drink items.  One wine we ordered (minor issue since there were reasonable substitutes). Of more concern was the ship running out of sparkling water.  We have this every night at dinner instead of still water.  We also often order it when having a drink at the bar in order to slow down our alcohol consumption. Two nights ago, our dining room waiter apologized that the ship had run out of Pelligrino (or any other sparkling water). Sure enough, later at the bar we asked and they confirmed that the ship had none.  We realized that Bar Harbor was a small port and resupplying there would be a problem.  But we assumed they would be able to stock more in Boston.  No, we were told, they would not restock until NYC (when we leave the ship).  I realize that Boston might not be their regular restocking point, but surely, whoever was responsible for miscalculating the supply needed could have picked up the extra cost for this item.  We would have been fine with any sparkling water brand.  This is just an annoyance, but it is a negative to us.  It’s ironic since we had just received a comment card from Princess, soliciting comments about the cruise so far and it as entitled “Attention to Detail.”  We chuckled and thought that someone who ordered sparkling water had definitely not been trained in attention to detail since a third of the cruise days would be without this beverage we drink daily.

 

I think I mentioned this before, but we had missed having a bar snack when having a cocktail.  Princess used to have these and I’m sure that it disappeared due to Covid, but other cruise lines have developed ways to provide a small bowl of nuts or crunchy snacks for couples to share or use individually.  While we have access to the P/E cocktail snacks from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, sometimes we want to have a drink at one of the regular bars.  When walking in Boston yesterday, I saw a Trader Joe’s and we popped in to buy some cashews so we have our own bar snack. I put some of the nuts in a snack size baggie and when we got to Vines last night, I divided them discretely onto two small cocktail napkins and our problem was solved.  Shouldn’t have to do this, but it worked.

 

Again, a problem we encountered that may impact very few cruisers is the lack of a variety of live dance music. Princess used to excel at this.  Club Fusion, Wheel House Bar, and Explorers all have nice hardwood dance floors.  While there was one evening that the Party Band was in Explorers, that venue had been used most evenings for game shows.  Wheel House has had a nice jazz ensemble, but no dance music.  They have pre-recorded music in Club Fusion some nights, but that is truly uninspiring.  On our last pre-Covid cruise on Princess to the South Pacific, they had a stellar duo in Wheel House Bar every evening (on the Emerald).  They played a variety of music - swing, rumba, salsa, waltz, cha-cha …. The dance floor was packed every evening.  They also had a party band that played almost nightly in Explorers.  We miss that type of entertainment so much.  We are sad that Princess has left that model.  We were excited because the Party Band was going to play for the Piazza Party.  The Piazza is not a good place to dance because it is small and does not have a wood floor, but we were ready.  We danced two or three numbers, them the cruise director took over and it became a game show for the next half hour.  After that the band only had time for one last dance.  We were disappointed.  Now to be fair, we haven’t found another cruise line that provides a lot of dancing opportunities.  Viking only has one dance floor and they tend to just have pop music for dancing, but I guess that is the best we can expect.  The era of cruise dancing seems to have reached an end.  Princess drew us back because they had it, but this is just another reason that this is probably our last Princess cruise since they seem to also have directed their interest to all huge ships (the newest one having all the Royal Caribbean toys that we know we don’t want). We will be looking for cruises of 1000 passengers or less with traditional promenades. I know that Princess has a market that wants what they are selling now.  It just isn’t for us any longer.

this paragraph certainly hits home.  I suspect we're very similar in our cruising tastes.  We've cruised many lines, but Princess has been our "go to" line for 20+ years because of the dancing venues and variety of music/bands.  We were Elite+ on Celebrity but gave them up 15 years ago as they got rid of their Century Class ships and went huge.  We gave up Azamara many years ago when they stopped having duos/trios play live music and went guitarist.  Oceania screwed up the nice wooden dance floors on their "R" ships.  We find the small, dark interior dance floor on Viking Ocean very inadequate. We loved the Princess's R ships with the wooden dance floors (despite the 2 poles), but alas, they're gone.    We love the large dance floors on Crystal, but they've been out of service for a few years now, though they're coming back.  If you haven't been on Coral Princess, I'd recommend it for dancing, and its sister Island Princess (though it's been chopped up a bit).  We have a couple of Corals lined up and we're going to test drive the Sapphire next month.  Most Grand Class and Royal Class ships just don't cut it for us.  

Thanks for the post.

Bruce

 

 

[Sun Queen II]

22 hours ago, abbydancer said:

I looked at the departure schedule for the Brooklyn port and saw Caribbean was departing on September 19th, so presumably that's where we'll be.

Also on the flip side, we are trying to determine where in Quebec City we do embarkation. There appears to be various ‘sectors’ where ships dock in Old Quebec and were not sure where we should be heading. Are we in the Estuary Sector or the Pointe A Carcy Sector, or one of the others?  If it’s any help the port website indicates dock 30 on Bermuda Pavilion, but doesn’t say where that is. Anyone who has been there before who knows the answer?  Thanks in advance. 25 days to go!!

[sonoma03]

3 hours ago, Sun Queen II said:

Also on the flip side, we are trying to determine where in Quebec City we do embarkation. There appears to be various ‘sectors’ where ships dock in Old Quebec and were not sure where we should be heading. Are we in the Estuary Sector or the Pointe A Carcy Sector, or one of the others?  If it’s any help the port website indicates dock 30 on Bermuda Pavilion, but doesn’t say where that is. Anyone who has been there before who knows the answer?  Thanks in advance. 25 days to go!!

 

You can find the cruise ship dock assignments for Quebec City here:  https://www.portquebec.ca/en/cruises/vessel-schedules/seasonal-schedule  Dock 30 is at 300 Rue de l'Estuaire so that's likely what you're calling the Estuary Sector.  Go to Google Maps and search for "Quai 30 Quebec City" and it will show you the location.  

[HotRoot]

Our documents say Pier 22.  I assume the taxi driver will know where that is.

[Sun Queen II]

33 minutes ago, HotRoot said:

Our documents say Pier 22.  I assume the taxi driver will know where that is.

What documents are you referring to?  We looked at all of ours and can’t find any reference to location. 

[HotRoot]

On-line.- Check in - Print travel summary - Port information - Embarkation Port.

We sail September 29.  Maybe this information is posted at the 60 day mark?

Saw it when I printed our luggage tags.

[Sun Queen II]

1 minute ago, HotRoot said:

On-line.- Check in - Print travel summary - Port information - Embarkation Port.

We sail September 29.  Maybe this information is posted at the 60 day mark?

Saw it when I printed our luggage tags.

Strange. We’re at 24 day mark and there is no similar info on our cruise summary. Guess I will call to find out. Thanks

[Australia08]

1 hour ago, HotRoot said:

Our documents say Pier 22.  I assume the taxi driver will know where that is.

Our docs said Pier 22 but the ship was at Pier 30. You will see the ship pretty easily from anywhere in the Old Town.