Back from Caribbean Princess 3/25-4/1/06

[arabrab]

We had a lovely week on our first trip to the Caribbean aboard the Caribbean Princess, eastern itinerary. I was helped a lot by the reviews and comments of others, so here's my contribution:

 

Cabin: We were in Emerald 730, the very last mini-suite on the port side. This is the one with the extra long, fully covered balcony, and it was already supplied with two full loungers and two small tables as well as the regular chairs and table. The mini-suite was a surprise for my husband and 15 y.o. daughter & we all loved it. My daughter chose to use the pullman bed, which allowed us all to have use of the couch even in the morning or late evening -- particularly helpful when room service brought breakfast. The bathroom was the nicest I've ever had on a cruise ship -- I loved having enough room to turn around and a good amount of counter space. The cabin was very clean, and the only minor problem is that some of the small floor tiles are lifting off -- two came off during the week we were there. I imagine if they don't get on this within the next few months that it will be unpleasant and sharp, but right now only a half-dozen or so are gone. I carefully left the ones I found for the stewardess. The bathroom deserves one other note -- perhaps it was because we were at the end of the line for water, but the shower temperature changed continuously, though never to either extreme. The visual suggestion that you could set it for a certain temperature mix and have it hold was not right.

 

And then there's the bed. I'm convinced that whoever chose these beds must be someone who sleeps flat on his back, because any other position was painful. I like firm beds, but this was like a rock. I sleep on my side, and after the first night I thought my shoulder was going to fall off. Fortunately I remembered the egg crate suggestion, asked for one, and life got much better for the succeeding nights. We also found that the duvet, while very nice, was very hot. (You don't have a top sheet with the duvet as it serves as both top sheet and comforter.) We asked for a sheet, and while it took a little explanation, our stewardess was agreeable and provided one and most nights we slept under it. There may be a pillow menu, but we never saw one. I asked for a soft pillow, but the softest one provided was still mighty thick and bouncy. Then I figured out that there were really two thin pillows stuffed into one case to make it bigger and thicker. Pulled one out, and voila, I'm left with a skinny soft pillow, just right for crunching up. Aaah.

 

Our tablemates at dinner didn't have it so well. They were a mom with two adult daughters, in a balcony cabin. One of their mattresses had a spring poking through, and the steward apparently told them that there was nothing he could do. To boot, they all had long hair, and when they asked for three extra bath towels to dry their hair, he told them no, and then explained that they were three people, they get three towels, three glasses, and that's that. They'd cruised before on other lines, and were firmly of the opinion that they wouldn't be cruising Princess again. I'm fairly firmly of the opinion that the day the steward told me that I'd have been visiting with his supervisor, and then higher up if needed.

 

Formal Dining

We had late traditional dining, which we enjoyed very much. I do think that traditional seating may be going the way of the dodo, unfortunately. Except for the two formal nights (Sunday and Thursday) there were many gaps at tables; I'd estimate about a third of the guests weren't there on any given evening. We were at a table for 9, and one party of three at our table was only there for two nights. Also, the method used to assign groups to tables wasn't very useful. While we could see other tables with a teenager or two around the room, there didn't seem to be any attempt made to put two families with teenagers at the same table. My daughter did fine, but I thought that the table assignments had been done more carefully on other cruises. Our waiter, Fernando, was from Portugal, and will be finishing his 25th year on ships this spring, at which time he'll be retiring. He was an excellent waiter -- figured out by the second night that my daughter likes sauces on the side, good about gently suggesting what we might enjoy (and sticking to his recommendations generally ensured very nice food) and provided attentive service.

 

Now, a peeve: The dining rooms (and I visited all three of them for various meals) are very poorly designed acoustically. It is very hard to hear anyone across the table, whether you're seated at a table for six or one for eight or nine. And it wasn't just me... others also commented about this. I haven't had this problem to this degree on any other ship, so I think that it is a design issue.

 

The food was mixed, as we've found with all of the lines. Dinner entrees ranged from good to excellent, with the fish (particularly the turbot served on the last night) being excellent. The rack of lamb was excellent, the tournedos of beef were excellent the night they were a main entree, and tough and relatively flavorless the night they were ordered from the "always available" side of the menu. I heard complaints that the steaks were tough, but I didn't order one myself. The french onion soup had big flavor without a heavy salt overload and nice cheese, and the cream of asparagus soup was delighful. The broth-based (chicken or beef) soups were less successful. The smoked salmon was amazing. Salads were lovely, and the low-fat dressings were excellent. I wish I could buy them here, because they are flavorful, don't taste of artificial sweeteners or guar gum, and changed every night. I usually stuck to the fruit appetizer, which was usually labeled as being macerated or otherwise served with some kind of liqueur. If it was, it was by waving the bottle over the fruit, because I couldn't ever tell. If I put Grand Marnier on strawberries, you'd know it. Deserts were largely ok but not great. Fillings tended to be a bit extended -- pasty cream tasted like it had a significant amount of gelatin in it, and it shouldn't have any at all. The ice creams were if anything, too rich. They were very nicely flavored, however. Pastry generally wasn't great, but the basket of breads and rolls were very good. Baked Alaska, served on the last night, had meringue that was strongly flavored of sterno, perhaps from the extended parade. Bar service was prompt and they made a good Manhattan.

 

Breakfast in the formal dining room:

Unlike my Holland America cruise, where it seemed that you couldn't get a waiter's attention for a coffee refill at breakfast without tapping someone on the shoulder, the Princess crew was very attentive. I wish the coffee had been as good as Holland America's. Breakfast pastries were incredibly dry, and that went even for croissants. They weren't stale, but they were really dry, and I used jam even where I wouldn't normally use any. There were very few breakfast specials on the menu, and the eggs were ok but not great. Bacon was greasy, thin and lacked good flavor. I missed having nice eggs benedict or eggs florentine - perhaps they were offered on days I didn't eat there. The fruit plates were excellent, though the quantity of fruit was very small -- two very small slices of melon on the melon plate.

 

Horizon Court/Cafe Caribe

We flat out didn't enjoy Horizon Court. There is no flow pattern, so people are constanly bumping into one another, the food was generally not good and often not warm enough (for hot food.) Two particular problems really were unpleasant: one morning my breakfast sausage had soft pink uncooked meat in the middle, and that lunchtime my strawberries turned out to have clumps of mud still on them. Dry pastries were even more of a problem up here. All the plates in Horizon Court seemed to be hot all the time, which is ok if you're putting lukewarm "hot" food on them, but not so good for jello or other foods intended to be eaten cold. Lunches were particularly indifferent, and none of the pasta's Princess used to be known for seemed to make an appearance. (There were pastas, but they weren't very flavorful.)

 

The cut fresh fruit was (other than the mud) excellent -- I wish we could get watermelon and canteloupe that tased that good at this time of year. The whole fresh fruit was a different story -- they had out large trays of rock hard pears, peaches and nectarines. I took a peach and a nectarine back to our cabin to see if it would ripen in a day or two, but the peach rotted before ripening, and the nectarine was fibrous.

 

The hand sanitizer dispensers were out of sanitizer on two or three different days, and broken on one, so I'm not sure that they're doing much good. But the worst sanitation faux pas I saw was from a fellow passenger, who dropped a pair of tongs on the floor, then reached down, picked them up, and started to put them back into the food. :eek: I said, "I'll take them" in a bright voice, got them away from her, and gave them to one of the staff members who put them in the too be cleaned tray. I really don't know what she was thinking, but I don't think I ever want to eat at her house.

 

One last kvetch -- until the last two days, I never saw anyone at breakfast come around and serve coffee refills. I don't know why it suddenly started, but we appreciated that.

 

Cafe Caribe often had better food, and definitely has a much clearer flow pattern, but it was closed a good deal of the time.

 

Pizza

I enjoyed the pizza (especially when nothing at Horizon Court quite did it for lunch) except for one day in St. Thomas: the lunch pickings had been particularly unprepossing in Horizon Court, and the whole family had decided instead on pizza. I walked over and got two slices of pepperoni (for them) and one slice of cheese pizza (for me.) We sat down, and began eating. They're happily eating away, and I'm going for all the water I can find. The pizza is salty -- really, really, really salty. After my daughter explains that cheese has a lot of salt (glad she took that health class) I offer them each a bite, and they recoil. My husband walked back over and got a new slice -- the pizza guy said that the salt probably hadn't gotten stirred into the tomato sauce well enough, and I probably got most of it. Much better the second time.

 

Room Service

Delivered on time, but if the coffee in the carafes was so cool that adding any cream at all left you with a lukewarm at best cup of coffee.

Ultimate Balcony Dinner

This was amazing. We were celebrating our 25th anniversary, and this dinner was far and away better than I ever expected. Two guys (Jun & Ralph) from room service showed up to set up the table and bring a gorgeous tropical flower arrangement. Then the meal began: hor's d'ouevres with a split of nice champagne, a delicious crab puff that would have been fine as a luncheon entree, beautiful salad, two huge lobster tails (I can't believe I didn't finish mine, but it was too much), and then the desserts: a quartet of mousses, followed by a really excellent chocolate torte (the only excellent pastry we had all week) and then a plate of cookies, served with coffee. We couldn't eat half of it. One waiter served us, while the other ran back and forth to bring the food up. They both ended up singing to us out on the balcony ( I wonder what the neighbors thought?) and it was a wonderful evening. We won't forget it.

 

Entertainment

We didn't go to any of the production shows. Dinner tablemates who did go thought that they were quite a bit less professional than Royal Caribbean's.

 

We did enjoy Bert Stratton's show one night in Crooner's, though as my husband said, it would be nice if he occassionally just played and sang without trying to bring the audience into it. He's got a great voice. Our waiter said that Bert did a show for the crew and they really liked it.

 

The library (and for me, books are entertainment) had an excellent fiction selection, and was open enough to enjoy it. They had a lot of books in hardcover that I've been waiting to read until they came out in paperback, so I had some very enjoyable balcony time with a cold drink and a good book.

 

Movies Under the Stars: I'm not a movie person, but my daughter enjoyed the movies she saw. However, deck chair hogs are a particular problem in the MUTS pool and balcony areas, and Princess really needs to do something about it. They have a table for "abandoned" belongings; now they need to put some folks to work filling it up.

 

Teen/Kid Program: There were about a thousand kids on board, but I never saw any problems other than one toddler having a little meltdown one afternoon. There were a large group of "youth security" staff around; at one point I was in an elevator with about ten of them and we had a nice laugh about the very high security of that particular elevator at that moment. My daughter said that the music playing in the "Off Limits" teen area was so loud as to preclude effective conversation, but that was about it.

 

Tendering:

I was impressed. I had been concerned about how bad tendering would be with that many people on board, but Princess has really figured this out and it was a non-problem. We showed up about 9:10 to tender to Princess Cays and waited about fifteen minutes before loading into a tender.

Announcements:

Thankfully the cruise director and staff didn't pollute the air with too many announcements throughout the day, and I really appreciated that.

 

Shore Activities & Excursions:

St. Thomas/St. John: We independently went over to St. John (Trunk Bay) for snorkeling and swimming, and I'd have to say that the taxi/jitney rides were like the Indianna Jones adventure at Disneyland -- never any great danger, but lots of excitement and thrills. Not the thing to bring your elderly mom on. The weather had been a bit mixed before we arrived, so the visibility underwater was poor in Trunk Bay, but we had a very fine time anyway. Took the ferry straight back to Charlotte Amelie, and it turned out that since a whole bunch of cruise passengers were on board too that after dropping off whoever wanted to get off downtown they dropped the rest of us right at the cruise ship port. A very nice day, but we ended up needing a bit more cash than I'd planned -- probably $130 for the three of us. We had enough, but one of the other couples in the taxi had to stop at a bank in St. John to use an ATM to get more cash out.

 

St. Martin: I got out and wandered about town very early before any of the shops opened up (and before it got hot.) Husband and daughter did the mountain bike adventure (ships tour). We're from Colorado, we bike, and their comments were that the track was often too rough for anyone to ride, so there was some fair pushing of bikes, and that it was hard to find a bike to fit my 5'3" daughter and my husband's bike didn't fit him that well either. Their report was that the bikes (and the biking) had been better on the Alaska shore excursion. The swimming at the end, however, was fabulous, as was the drink at the beach bar according to my husband. They liked the French capital quite a lot; I'm sorry that I didn't make it over there.

 

Princess Cays: If Disney had designed a private island, this is what we think it would look like. We all had a very nice day here. I was able to find good amounts of shade, the water was clear if a bit cool, and lots of fun was had with the kayak.

 

And on the fire: One of the officers mentioned that the pictures from inside the vessel staterooms show very little damage compared to outside, and that there is a real issue with instablity when having a lot of water weight high up on the ship which makes regular sprinklers problematic. He thought that officers from throughout the fleet would be eager to read the final investigative reports and that there would be a lot of discussion about what burned, fire suppression outside the superstructure, and smoking on ships. On our flight to Florida we had one family sitting nearby that was going to Disneyworld in lieu of their cancelled Star Princess cruise, and there were no empty berths on our ship.

 

We had a lovely time on board the Caribbean Princess. I was worried about the sheer number of people, but that wasn't really a problem (except for the deck chairs around the MUTS.) There is a LOT of walking on board; I'm not sure I'd find it that great a ship for someone with mobility impairments. The staff was always very polite and helpful, and they are cleaning and painting all of the time. One night after midnight we saw them laying new carpet in either one side of Horizon or Caribe, and in St. Thomas we saw several hundred blue and white striped chair cushions being offloaded for cleaning or replacement. It isn't as personal an experience as on the smaller ships, and I hope that some of the food and dining issues can be improved, but we still enjoyed ourselves very, very much.

 

Cheers,

Barb

[CrusinAgain]

Thank you Barb for the detailed review. We are going on her in a few weeks. Do you remember what movies were being played? I am definitely going to remember to ask for that bed topper. Maybe they will replace them soon with beds like some of the Carnival ships have with the newer bedding - those were wonderful!

[Hornet]

Thanks for the review - lots of excellent details.

[Iamthesea]

Thank you for the review...well balanced!

 

The cabin was very clean, and the only minor problem is that some of the small floor tiles are lifting off -- two came off during the week we were there. I imagine if they don't get on this within the next few months that it will be unpleasant and sharp, but right now only a half-dozen or so are gone.

This worries me because we may be in E730 or 731. Is this a tripping hazard?

 

Could you tell me more about your location and noise? Did you hear anything from Club Fusion? How would you get from your cabin to other parts of the ship? Can you take the aft elevator everywhere?

 

I'm surprised that you mentioned a hearing problem in the dining rooms. When we were on the Coral last year, we thought the acoustics was the best ever because of the low ceiling. I was hoping for the same on the CB.

[arabrab]

I should have remembered to note that E730 did have a fair amount of bass coming through from Club Fusion, but not every night. It usually ended by around 1, and wasn't bothersome enough to keep us awake, but we're good sleepers.

 

The missing tiles could be a stub-toe-issue if several adjacent tiles came off, but right now that's not a problem. (A bigger question is why tiles are lifting off after only two years in service --I'm not sure if this problem is limited to E730 or is happening more systematically.)

 

As far as getting around the ship, we walked and used stairs a lot. We used the aft elevators to get to Horizon & Lido decks, and used the midships stairs to get down to our dining room or the central atrium area. You couldn't get to our dining room from the aft elevators. I don't think we ever used the forward elevators or stairs.

 

Barb

[Iamthesea]

Could you take the aft elevators down and go to the Wheelhouse Lounge and then go from the Wheelhouse to the atrium and then down from the atrium to the dining room? I assume you are speaking of the Island since I understand that is the traditional dining. We enjoy going for a pre dinner drink and listen to music in the Wheelhouse. We will also like to try going up to the Skywalkers Lounge. Can you go straight up from the aft and is it open before dinner?

[arabrab]

Could you take the aft elevators down and go to the Wheelhouse Lounge and then go from the Wheelhouse to the atrium and then down from the atrium to the dining room? I assume you are speaking of the Island since I understand that is the traditional dining. We enjoy going for a pre dinner drink and listen to music in the Wheelhouse. We will also like to try going up to the Skywalkers Lounge. Can you go straight up from the aft and is it open before dinner?

 

That sounds logical, but we never did that so I'm not sure. I think we tried to take the aft elevator down to Island's level and found that we couldn't get there without climbing back up to a higher level. We tended to use Promenade (deck 7) as our foot transportation deck since you could get to anywhere on the ship from it. The first two days we kept hitting "you can't get there from here" problems, but once we found our route we pretty much stuck with it. (Plus, when travelling with a teenage girl, you learn that it takes right up until the time you HAVE to leave for dinner to get the hair brushed just right. ;))

[arabrab]

Thank you Barb for the detailed review. We are going on her in a few weeks. Do you remember what movies were being played? I am definitely going to remember to ask for that bed topper. Maybe they will replace them soon with beds like some of the Carnival ships have with the newer bedding - those were wonderful!

 

Movies played during the week:

Walk the Line, The Incredibles, Proof, Grease, Goodnight and Goodbye, and at least one R rated film (but I'm not sure if it was adjusted like they do for R rated films shown on airplanes). There were lots of kid-friendly films shown during the daytime. There were some other adult-oriented films, but this is all we remember. They also show a lot of "in-concert" music videos. The dumbest use of the big screen was for the Play Station 2 contest, and I heard some fair grumbling about that.

[Iamthesea]

That sounds logical, but we never did that so I'm not sure. I think we tried to take the aft elevator down to Island's level and found that we couldn't get there without climbing back up to a higher level. We tended to use Promenade (deck 7) as our foot transportation deck since you could get to anywhere on the ship from it. The first two days we kept hitting "you can't get there from here" problems, but once we found our route we pretty much stuck with it. (Plus, when travelling with a teenage girl, you learn that it takes right up until the time you HAVE to leave for dinner to get the hair brushed just right. ;))

Our plan would work then, because the Wheelhouse is on the Promenade. Thanks!

[luvocean9]

arabrab - If you had to do it again, would you still book E730? Do you think the noise is less in E731?

[tbag124]

Thanks for your review!

Could you get filet and lobster for your Ultimate Balcony Dinner? Or did you just have a choice of one or the other?

[arabrab]

I wouldn't let the noise from Club Fusion cause me to not book E730, though if E731 was available I'd probably take that one instead. However, I've decided that we're probably not booking any more aft or close to aft cabins if my daughter is travelling with us, since she seems to be affected by the motion, which we actually enjoy. She did a lot better in the Island Dining Room, which is lower and midships.

[arabrab]

Thanks for your review!

 

Could you get filet and lobster for your Ultimate Balcony Dinner? Or did you just have a choice of one or the other?

 

I originally asked for one beef and one lobster, and that was fine, but I changed it that morning for two lobsters since my husband had just ordered a beef dish for dinner the night before. (The balcony dinner was a surprise for him.)

 

They were very accomodating about anything we requested, and had no problem with the late change.

[tbag124]

I originally asked for one beef and one lobster, and that was fine, but I changed it that morning for two lobsters since my husband had just ordered a beef dish for dinner the night before. (The balcony dinner was a surprise for him.)

 

They were very accomodating about anything we requested, and had no problem with the late change.

 

Thanks! I was actually wondering if one person could get both, like surf & turf...my Fiancee would love this! Thanks!! :)

[marvelous M]

My husband son and I were in E731 the week of March 18. We heard no noise but felt every thing and when the seas were rough especially the last day of our cruise I had to get out of the cabin and go to another deck mid ship and sit for awhile. It was really bad and you could hear the engine noises all the time. We also will never get an aft cabin again eventhough they were really great .

[selltile]

for the really great and balanced review.