Just back from the Diamond Princess 3/24 Mexican Riviera sailing . . .

[junglejane]

[Here are my comments on our recent trip on the Diamond Princess. I plan to post this in the Member Reviews area, but thought I'd also post here in case anyone has any questions or comments.]

 

DH and I sailed on 3/24 on the Diamond Princess to the Mexican Riviera, along with our two daughters, ages 6 and 10. This was our kids’ third cruise, and our fourth. For us, the ship was the destination, not the ports, so you won’t find much about the ports in this review. We picked this cruise because we could drive to San Pedro from Phoenix, and the price was very attractive.

 

EMBARKATION/DISEMBARKATION: We drove up to the cruise terminal at noon and dropped off our luggage. I handed our bags over to a porter while DH parked the car. We waited in a short line for check-in and then waited for our boarding group to be called. The whole process from the time we drove through the terminal gate until we were on the ship took 2 hours, which I found completely acceptable. At cruise’s end we signed up for “Walk Off” disembarkation. We were anxious to hit the road early for our drive back to Phoenix. The handout said to be ready by 7:45 am, and our group (Group B) was actually called a few minutes early. We were in our car and on the road by 8:05. Just be sure you have wheeled luggage and not too much to handle. We saw some people struggling with too many bags, but for us it was a breeze.

 

CRUISING DURING SPRING BREAK: We need to cruise when our kids are out of school, so Spring Break was a good time for us. We were told there were 700 kids (under 18) on this sailing. Obviously we’re somewhat biased since we have kids, but we didn’t have any major complaints about the Spring Break crowd. I was awakened a few times by loud, probably drunk, people staggering down the hallways at 2 or 3 in the morning, but they sounded like young adults, not kids.

 

When we arrived at our rooms, we found a paper entitled “Important Notice.” It was a single-spaced page with a long list of expectations of parents and children, with headings such as “Conduct and Dress” “Gymnasium and Hot Tubs” “Swimming Pools Warnings” and “Evening Shows.” For the most part I think people adhered to these, at least to the same extent that the adults adhered to their guidelines! (See below re Dress Code.) The Youth Security forces were very visible at the pools, and cut short any running or jumping.

 

SHIP FACILITIES AND STATEROOM: We like to book two rooms for our family of four. Ideally we would like interconnecting rooms, since our kids are not old enough to be in a room by themselves. But as interconnecting rooms are hard to come by on Princess, we opted for two balcony rooms. We could go back and forth via the door the steward opened for us on the balcony. DH and I split up so that neither kid was alone, but we had easy access back and forth on the balcony. Thanks to our research on Cruise Critic, we knew to book our balcony rooms on Caribe deck. These were our first balcony cabins and now I’m afraid we’re hooked. Our room steward, Melwyn, couldn’t have been more thorough and helpful. I really like the floorplan of these rooms compared to our rooms on Celebrity, where the closet was right next to the doorway. (Although I did prefer the interior interconnecting door on Celebrity.) Our single complaint about the stateroom was the bedding—hard beds and (worse) thin unfluffy pillows. Like two sweatshirts stuffed in a pillowcase. We picked rooms near the aft elevators because we knew we’d be going back and forth to the Fun Zone a lot. The aft elevators are also convenient for the Horizon Court buffet and the International Dining Room where we ate breakfast and lunch. We thought the ship looked great, and several times we saw workers touching up paint and varnish.

 

ANYTIME DINING: After reading many threads about Anytime Dining, we had braced ourselves for problems. We were pleasantly surprised instead. We like to dine early and that’s clearly an advantage. We made reservations for our family of four, usually opting for 5:30 pm in the Savoy. After the first night we requested the same table for four by a window every night (except when we went to Sabatini’s and Sterling Steakhouse) and the staff was happy to accommodate us. We were usually done by 7:00 or 7:15. When we left, we expected to see lines of people waiting to be seated, but usually we saw no one waiting. We did see one couple with a beeper (or “bleeper” as they call them on the ship). On formal night at precisely 7 we overheard one party told they would have a 30 minute wait. One night after dinner we wandered over to the other three Anytime Dining rooms just to see what was happening around 7:15. Still, we didn’t observe any lines. Maybe people with beepers were hanging out in the bars, but they weren’t obvious. At the Captain’s Circle Reception we asked the Cruise Director, Richard Joseph, about this. He told us that usually the only problem is when people come around 7:30-7:45 without a reservation, and need to wait for the early diners to finish. In sum, our impression was that the “problem” posed by Anytime Dining was largely self-imposed by people who showed up at peak times without a reservation and with the expectation of being seated immediately.

 

FOOD SERVICE/QUALITY: We thought the food service was excellent and the presentation was very well done. On the other hand, the food quality was adequate, not great. Mostly we would compare it to good banquet food at a nice resort. We don’t expect cruise food to be of the same quality as a made to order dinner at a fine dining restaurant on land. So we were not really disappointed. We were a little disappointed by the pizzas and burgers by the pool, which could’ve been a lot better. We’re also not big fans of buffet dining, so we only ate in Horizon Court a few times. We had great service in the International Dining Room, where we ate breakfast and lunch, and in the Savoy, Sabatini’s and Sterling Steakhouse. We were surprised that both Sabatini’s and Sterling were less than full, even at peak times. Both specialty restaurants offered food that was “above” the dining room. We paid particular attention to the steaks at Sterlings, given the lively debate on these boards as to whether they are (1) better than the dining room steaks and (2) more like Morton’s or more like Outback Steakhouse. Our verdict was (1) better than the dining rooms, and (2) about two-thirds of the way up the spectrum from Outback to Morton’s.

 

ENTERTAINMENT/ACTIVITIES: We had already seen Piano Man on the Caribbean Princess and so we didn’t go this time, especially since it conflicted with our Sterling Steakhouse dinner. We enjoyed Undercover, and the hypnotist and magician were entertaining. We were also regulars at trivia and afternoon tea. There were certainly plenty of options to choose from, much more so than our trip on Celebrity.

 

FUN ZONE: Our 6 year old totally loved the Fun Zone and had to be pried away for meals and family activities. I was worried that with so many kids on board the kids program would be overloaded, but this was not a problem. They split the kids into four groups: 3-6, 7-9, 10-12 and 13-17, and seemed to have plenty of staff to handle the number of kids who came to the program. The 3-6 group colored T-shirts, had lots of arts and crafts activities, played outside on a small playground, played video games, had story time, went to get ice cream in the Horizon Court, made maracas, had a mini-Olympics, had a Lego building competition, story time, cartoon time, clown face painting, musical chairs, pirate face painting, etc. Our 10 year old didn’t hang out in the Fun Zone quite as much, but she did enjoy foosball, video games (especially one with a guitar called “Guitar Hero”) and karaoke.

 

MISCELLANEOUS: We bought the Coffee Card after reading about it on the boards. The card cost about $27.90 with gratuity. It has 15 “crowns” that are punched when you order a coffee drink such as a cappuccino or espresso. These normally cost $2 so you need to use the card up to get your money’s worth. We bought it at the Lobby Bar on Deck 5, and were told we could also use it at the Internet Café and the Calypso Bar. We were also told we could use it for unlimited free brewed coffee. The problem seemed to be that half the time the person staffing the Lobby Bar would refuse to give us the free coffee and send us to the Calypso Bar on Deck 14. Other times we were told that it was good at the Lobby Bar too and that some staff were just “misinformed.” It was a minor annoyance.

 

DRESS CODE: So much has been written about the dress code that this review would not be complete without reporting our observations. One issue I’ve seen discussed is whether kids need to follow the dress code. The “Important Notice” flier we received on the first day stated the following: “We encourage all children to conform to the suggested dress code of the day. Children must wear cover-ups over swimwear in interior public areas.” Well, kids followed this about as much as the adults followed their dress code. We saw plenty of kids running around the hallways and elevators in swimsuits with no cover-ups. This was not nearly as annoying as the sweaty, hairy-chested, big-bellied men who routinely rode the elevators without shirts on. The kids seemed to dress as well as the adults in the dining room. We saw plenty of adults wearing jeans in the dining room at dinner, and also several baseball caps at lunch in the International Dining Room and even at afternoon tea in the Pacific Moon. On formal night, DH was in a very small minority in his tuxedo. In fact, lots of men didn’t even wear suits. It seemed to me that for most people, formal night was the time to get out their “smart casual” attire, and the rest of the time they wore any old thing. This didn’t bother me (except the baseball caps) and I only mention it because it’s discussed so much on these boards.

 

SUMMARY: We had a great time on this cruise. Our complaints all involve pretty trivial issues, like the pillows and coffee card. We think Princess offers a great value and we put our deposits down for a “future cruise credit.” We’ll happily cruise on Princess again – hopefully in the near future!:D

--Junglejane (and Junglejim)

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Great review, we too love the Diamond and Princess.

Glad you had a great cruise:D

[chrismch]

As we are cruising the Diamond next month, I was happy to see a favorable review. However, I am surprised you had a 2 hr time frame for boarding. I have never had to wait more than 1 hour and usually more like 15 -30 minutes. So I guess it depends on when you board.

 

Regarding the bedding - do they have the foam egg crate pads? I certainly hope so as I like a soft comfy bed. Maybe if we asked for 2 pillows it wouldn't seem so bad.

 

Also regarding kids - 700 wow! We had 200 on our Christmas cruise and I thought that was a lot!

[southwestgal]

We were on the same cruise and had a wonderful time. We agree that the pillows that are in the stateroom aren't great. Princess does have a supply of feather pillows on hand. We asked the Steward to bring us two feather pillows and they were wonderful on top of the standard pillows. They made a huge difference. We didn't have an eggcrate and really don't know what the fuss is all about regarding the mattresses that we've read on numerous threads. We thought it was very comfortable.

 

Regarding embarkation...We arrrived at the pier around 12:30 p.m. We are platinum so were able to get in the platinum line and were able to get on the ship immediately. Total time to check in and get on the ship was 15 minutes - and the room was ready so we were able to drop off our bags. We also had the walk-off program and it was fabulous. We were in the A group but didn't leave until B was called at 8am. Again, it took only a few minutes to leave the ship - there was no crowding and it was easy to use the elevators with the luggage. This is a great program and we plan on using it again.

[junglejane]

Chrismch: The "Log of the Cruise" we received at the end of the cruise stated that embarkation commenced at 12:52 pm. We arrived at noon and were in Boarding Group 19. We were no doubt behind a backlog of early arrivers. I'm sure we would've gotten on faster if we had arrived later. And two hours was from the time we drove on the property until we were in our rooms. I thought it wasn't bad.

--Junglejane

[junglejane]

Feather pillows! Wish I'd known about that one. I should've complained to the room steward because he was super helpful, but I just suffered in silence. We didn't ask for egg crates either. Maybe we'll try that next time. Again though, these were minor complaints and we loved our cruise and the Diamond Princess. --Junglejane

[southwestgal]

We learned about the feather pillows on another thread awhile ago. The things you learn reading old threads!

 

We also had a wonderful time on the cruise and only had one observation/suggestion. They didn't have the hand sanitizers readily available at the International Dining Room at Dinner. You had to hunt someone down or check behind the Maitre'D stand. We thought this was odd since the sanitizers were everywhere else on the ship. We finally just started to bring our own Purell down to dinner. I thought it was odd and bit gross that it wasn't available, but it certainly didn't put a damper on anything.

[Lynda90]

Thanks so much for a great review. I love the Diamond and have been on the ship several times. I am another one who asks for the eggcrate and feather pillows as soon as I meet my steward. Most are very accommodating.

[farmerjohn]

Thanks for the great review. The Diamond/Sapphire ships are my favorite ships and I love the cruise down the Pacific Coast of Mexico. We are organizing a group of friends for a January '08 cruise and are trying to decide between the Carribean and doing this crusie again.

[junglejane]

Southwestgal: We too noticed that hand sanitizers were not readily available at the Savoy dining room. We saw them at the buffet but not at the Savoy. For for that matter, I don't remember them at Sabatini's or Sterling. When we were on the Infinity last August, they were prominently displayed at the entrance to dining room. Maybe it depends on how recently they've had an outbreak of norovirus?

--Junglejane

[CrusinAgain]

Junglejane, that was a great review and you hit points that mine didn't. It was strange than the hand sanitizers were at the buffet but not the dining rooms. Now we know to ask for those feather pillows in the future.

 

Is it normally that smoggy down in Mexico?

[junglejane]

Thanks for your kind words! I'm definitely asking for feather pillows next time. I don't know about the smog question though.

 

--Junglejane