Golden Princess Review Nov24-Dec1 2007

[fisherguy]

Returned from my one week Mexican Riveria Cruise last Saturday. Cruised with my wife, daughter and mother in law.

 

Background:

 

This was our sixth cruise with Princess and first as Platinum members. Also had 2 cruises with RCCL.

 

Review:

 

After a flight to Vegas with a three night stay over the Thanksgiving holiday, we rented a car and drove about 4 hours from Vegas to Long Beach and then took a taxi to the terminal.

 

Embarkation and Disembarkation:

 

Very smooth for both. Being allowed through the Preferred line up saved us a bit of time but not much as the line ups were not too long. Got on to the ship in less than 20 minutes and we were up to the buffet shortly after. Our bags were in the cabin after we finished lunch.

 

 

Food:

 

Overall the food was not too different from the other cruises with Princess that we have had in the past. Buffet was pretty standard. Not much complaint from me for the food quality except that the steaks came a little more cooked than requested i.e. if you ordered medium rare, it came more medium. Did not have that problem the one night we ate at the Desert Rose. I really enjoyed the Rib Eye and the waiter asked us to cut into the meat first to ensure it was done to our liking. I feel it was well worth the 15 bucks and if I had wanted to eat steak every night I wouldn't have minded paying for it.

 

 

Service:

 

Our room steward, Mario was great. He amused my young daughter with the towel folded animals every day. Room was clean and we had no issues whatsoever.

 

The dinner service in the main dining room was another story. While our waiter and assistant waiter generally seemed to work hard and were quite nice, they had to serve a table of 12 next to us that were extremely demanding. The table of 12 almost always finished dinner before we did despite the fact that our group arrived at our table right when the doors to the restaurant opened. Consequently, we missed a few of the shows that we wanted to see. We did manage to finish earlier on one night but the next night, the waiter apparently received some threat from the other table because our dinner took well over two hours while the other table was finished way earlier so that they could make the show. Supposedly, a few of them had relatives working for Princess so they felt that they deserved special treatment at the expense of other tables. You know something is wrong when you are the first into the restaurant and one of the last to leave. That was the only downer of the cruise.

 

 

Ports:

 

Cabo was my favorite port but it was way too short! We took the Tequila and city tour in PV and that was interesting. Felt much better after the Tequila part. Went to the Golden Zone in Mazatland to walk around and do some shopping. Only bought souveniers and other small stuff (we weren't in the market for jewellery).

 

 

Other:

 

The funzone took care of my daughter for a big part of the cruise. She loved it as always and took home her 6th pelicans t-shirt. The staff was terrific as always and we tipped them for it.

 

I did get a spa treatment for the first time on any cruise and while it was enjoyable, it was just a bit pricey. Did not really appreciate the sales pitch afterwards on products (it seems like according to them everybody has damaged skin and muscles) Who wants to pay $600 for more products? If I wanted to pay $600, I'd use it on more massages!

 

Shows? the only one we could make was the magician (Gaetano) and he was good.

 

 

 

 

Overall we thought the cruise was good but not great.

 

We will still remain loyal to Princess but would like to try a cruise or two with another line just to see how things are.

[Jayjoans]

More Tatiana, less Gaetano :)

[fisherguy]

More Tatiana, less Gaetano :)

 

Agreed! My wife was sitting next to me so I had to keep my drooling at a minimum.