Just back: Review of Caribbean Princess 6/17/06 (Western)

[twodudes]

This was our first cruise on Princess, and our second time on the Western Caribbean itinerary. My partner and I are late 20s and are from Australia.

 

 

Arrival Ft Lauderdale/Embarkation

We took a red eye on American from Los Angeles Friday night, arriving Ft Lauderdale 0630 Saturday morning. Flight was late ex LAX due inbound aircraft delay. Bags took one hour to come off the aircraft due to “a technical problem” (they never told us what it was).

 

We rented a car to kill a few hours with the intention of a bit of shopping at Sawgrass Mills. We found the car rental facility quick and easy to navigate (we rented with Hertz), however despite my reservation being back to the Hertz Sunrise depot (which was meant to be closer to Port Everglades), when I checked with the Hertz counter they told me this facility had closed! We instead returned the rental back to Ft Lauderdale airport which worked out OK, as there is now a complimentary shuttle from the car rental facility to the Port every 20 minutes from 12noon onwards.

 

We took the 12:20pm shuttle and arrived at the Port around 12:40pm. Despite arriving later, the line to enter the cruise terminal was just very, very long. After dumping our bags with the porters (who we tipped, and they then threw our bags on the container with force anyway :P) we joined the end of the line in the sun. Surprisingly the line moved fairly well, and we were inside by 1:15pm. The queues for each deck were a bit chaotic and you had to fill out the Bahamas immigration form irrespective of whether you were getting off or not, and they were also asking passengers to fill out health check forms in case of sickness. After declining to provide a credit card (we paid direct with travellers checks – more on that in a minute), we received our shipboard cards and moved forward to the embarkation line. After skipping the welcome aboard photo, we entered on Deck 5 (Plaza) who were trying to direct all passengers through the boutiques or the art collection rather than allowing us to take the most direct route to our cabin. We circumvented this by ascending the atrium stairs to Deck 6, and then took an elevator to our cabin, Aloha A305. By this time, it was 1:45pm.

 

Our cabin was as expected, a balcony cabin close to the forward stairs. It is the first BC category cabin on the right hand side of the ship, apart from the disabled cabin A303. An unexpected challenge however was that this cabin is directly opposite the crew service area. Departure and return meant hours of banging luggage around which either kept us awake or woke us up. Throughout the cruise this would also mean the noise of crew singing, plates being scraped, service elevators all being heard loudly across the hall and into our cabin. Nonetheless, we were surprised at the amount of space for hanging clothes, and storing items. The bathroom was slightly bigger than expected (one of us is 6ft 6in and navigated the shower successfully) and the vanity had lots of storage space and shelving for smaller items. We met our room steward Phantavit from Thailand, who organised at our request the egg foam crate mattress (this made a big difference) and also robes, however these were not available until Day 2 due to being laundered. We then left the cabin for the Purser’s desk to set up our account, and to organise internet time on wireless for our laptop.

 

We managed to escape the first day queues at the desk, and paid US$1,000 in traveller’s checks onto our shipboard account. The reason for doing this? Previously on Carnival, my credit card was pre-authorized for a ridiculous amount which practically left me broke for the remainder of my holiday. And pre-authorizations of excessive amounts happened on this cruise as well. A gentleman next to me in the queue one day was arguing with the desk about his card being pre-authorized for US$5,500 which had drained his spending money for the cruise. If you only travel with limited funds across a few cards like we do, please check how much your card will be pre-authorized for, or do as we do and use traveller’s checks. We then got three 30 minute internet blocks at $10.50 per 30 minute block for our laptop, and went to our designated Cruise Critic gathering which we had initiated.

 

Unfortunately Princess put a spanner in the works by having a private function in the Skywalkers lounge at Sailaway, which meant they would not let us in for a 3pm catch up. This annoyed me somewhat, as I had liaised with Princess onboard services only a week before, who were aware we were meeting as a group at this time and place. Anyway, we took it in our stride, and about 20 of us relocated to Deck 15 aft where the adult’s pool is, and had a few drinks and photos together. It was pleasant and welcoming. We then went to our safety muster (inside at Sterling’s Steakhouse for Aloha Deck) and then we had a quiet drink on our balcony for Sailaway (actually, we fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 11pm :P – we had been travelling for 30 hours at this point!).

 

More to come shortly.

 

Cheers

Ash

[Sierra Fox]

Okay, this info about the preauthorization of credit cards really aggravates me. I haven't heard about this before. I can understand maybe $500 but anything over that seems to be outrageous. Who do you talk to on board to keep this from happening?

 

I'm taking my first cruise on the CB in October and I spent all last week reading old threads about cruise insurance and medical accidents. The recurring theme was that you need to have several thousand dollars available on your credit card for emergency medical care should something happen to you in one of the ports because they demand payment immediately. Then you can get reimbursed once you get home through your insurance.

 

So you could end up being screwed in the event of an emergency if you think you have a large available balance on your credit card only to find out the ship has put a hold on it all. :mad:

 

Thanks for the heads up on this. Any idea how to best handle this? - SF

[nho9504]

We have cruised Princess many times and dont ever recall such being the case. I am not sure if they have a data base to keep track of prior spending habit of Captain's Circle members, and there were a few reported cases that some seniors went to a spending spree then played dumb at the end of cruise - I recall there was such a case being reported in local newspaper last year, police was even involved at the disembarkation.

[Coolmama_1]

I am really surprised at the large amount of preauthorization. We have never had any problems in this area.

[GMoney]

I work for a credit card co. That amount of pre-auth had to be a very isolated case. If it was the norm, a lot of people who have trouble using their credit cards! Not to doubt the OP, but perhaps the trouble was due to an Aussie cc trying to be used out of country.

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Ash, thanks for posting. I'm looking forward to the rest of your review. We're just over a month away from the same ship and itinerary.

 

Thanks!

Jayne

[idssms]

I have been on numerous cruises and the authorization has never exceeded $1,500 initially. And, if your credit gets close the Cruiseline calls and get addl credit. I wouldnt worry about this one case since its probably a unique incident.

 

As a back up you should have another named credit card for emergencies.

 

 

Don

[Iamthesea]

Unfortunately Princess put a spanner in the works by having a private function in the Skywalkers lounge at Sailaway, which meant they would not let us in for a 3pm catch up. This annoyed me somewhat,

This would really annoy me! :mad: One of our favorite activities is to watch sailaway from a top level bar on ships. I don't think it is fair for Princess to reserve the entire area.

[Tak8]

Looking forward to more of your review. I'm interested in what you did on the islands.

[twodudes]

Firstly, thanks to all the posters regarding the concerns over pre-authorizations. I must stress this is an objective post based on what I have experienced in the past, and what I observed a small number of people to be incurring with the credit card issues. In no way should this affect you in choosing to settle with a card onboard, however you should also be aware that there can be occasions where not all is plain sailing (apologies for the pun :)

 

I will post further information as I get settled here in CA for a few weeks. I have all of the Princess Patters and quite a lot of information from the ship, but won't be able to scan this until July 10 earliest.

 

Cheers

Ash

[twodudes]

Here is the next few days from our time on Caribbean Princess...

 

Waking up on Day 2, it was lovely to walk out on our balcony and watch the waves gently lapping against the side of the ship. We headed up to Horizon Court for an early breakfast, and enjoyed fresh fruit, eggs, bacon, pastries and fresh coffee. The views from the Horizon Court buffet are quite spectacular out each side of the ship. For those who are interested as to how the buffet alternates, Cafe Caribe (at the back of Deck 15, loops between the aft and port Horizon Buffet) offers Continental Breakfast only from 0400-1000, whereas Horizon Court offers full buffet from 0600-1130. One thing to note however is that when the ship is cruising at low knots (under about 15 knots), there is a very strong vibration throughout this dining area. I don't know if this same vibration would be felt in aft cabins?

 

After a hearty meal, we walked up to Level 16 and had a personal tour of the Lotus Spa, as we had never had used any spa services at sea before. We were very impressed with this facility, and as such signed up for a special which was use of the Thermal Suite and Couples Mud Room for a total of US$175. This gave us unlimited use of the thermal suite including hot stone beds, aromatic steam room, normal steam room, sauna, and tropical rainforest showers. It is a mixed facility, so proper bathing attire is required; however we met many people relaxing and enjoying themselves in this area. It is limited to 20 people at any one time. The couples mud room was a one off session of one hour, which was a lot of fun, and basically included a private suite including shower, steam room, and changing area. I had visions of buckets of mud! However a small dish of exfoliant, clay mud and face mask is used prior to entering the steam room for about 30 minutes. We were very pleased with how squeaky clean we came out!

 

After such a relaxing start to the day, we elected not to tender out to Princess Cays as it was very hot and we had not been able to book a cabana. Some of our Cruise Critic group came back to the ship rather sunburnt but all reported having a wonderful time and enjoying the snorkelling and the island atmosphere. Sunday night we chose to eat in Cafe Caribe, as they were having a Bier fest Dinner with a range of German food, and supposedly German beers. Being beer connoisseurs, we went to dinner, and whilst the concept was great, the execution was poor. There was actually only Grolsch beer from Holland available in Cafe Caribe, despite Becks from Germany being sold in other bars on the ship? Very odd. However the food was very well presented, and tasty with lots of German fare such as Bratwurst, roast meats, salads, desserts etc. We retired to bed, in readiness for our next day in Jamaica.

 

We awoke at 4am Monday to a tropical storm with heavy rain and lightning. We went back to sleep, and were amazed when we woke at 7am that the weather had completely cleared. After another hearty breakfast in Horizon Court, we walked off the pier into Ocho Rios. Having previously been to Jamaica, we wanted to only have a walk around the town. Whilst there is still a bit of attitude (we were continuously asked if we wanted taxis, and offered all types of drugs!), it was clean and we felt safe. We ended up back at the Island Village where Jimmy Buffets is. We had a quick drink and shop, and then headed back to the ship for lunch. Docked at the pier, the Caribbean Princess makes quite a sight at Ocho Rios!

 

Monday night was our first formal night at Sea. Needless to say, and I am sorry for the readers of this review, we fell asleep in our cabin around 3pm with the faint sound of Caribbean steel drums and melodies breezing in through our balcony door, and woke up at 10pm! We elected for some tasty slices of pizza from Deck 15, and then retired for a quiet drink and some TV watching prior to again drifting off to sleep. I must say I was easily able to sleep for hours on these beds, and always awoke feeling refreshed and relaxed.

 

I will get around to writing the next few days shortly. Please feel free to post with any questions, and hope you all enjoy this next instalment!

 

Cheers,

Ash

[Whimsy]

Great review! I am eager to read about the rest of your trip.