Crown Princess Review Feb. 9-16 Cabin E701

[sadiea]

I don't post on this forum very often, but I must say that all of the tips and advice I have read on here truly made my cruise the best one I've ever taken! This was our 5th cruise, and the 4th with Princess. We were blown away by the great service and the outstanding food in the dining room. I'm not an expert cruiser by any means, but hopefully my review will help somebody else out there.

 

Embarkation: We arrived the day before and spent the night at the Comfort Inn. We took a taxi to the pier at 11:15am. About 30 people were ahead of us in line and by 11:45am they were letting people on. No problems whatsoever! We dumped out bags, got some lunch at the Horizon Court Buffet, and then headed out to see San Juan. I had heard that one of the dining rooms would be open on embarkation day, but after checking out all of them, they were all closed...and this was at 12:15pm. Perhaps it is other ships and other ports that offer dining room service at lunch on embarkation day.

 

Cabins: Our cabin E701 was booked as an obstructed view cabin, but let me just say that this cabin was not obstructed at all! We had a clear view looking from top, bottom and to each side. No lifeboats, no ramps, no balconies, no ropes, ladders or anything of the sort obstructed any part of our view. I was thrilled! I should mention that the cabins on either side of this one E703 and E633 also had the great view with no obstructions. Our room was quiet and fairly close to the elevator lobby. We never heard any noise from the promenade deck below. I would book this cabin again in a heartbeat! Our friends had the awesome aft balcony cabin C753 on the caribe deck that has the huge half covered half open balcony that is twice the size of most other balconies. Plus, they practically had their own private hallway to their room. This cabin was incredibly private and almost had wrap around views being that it was on the very side of the aft portion of the ship. There were two chaise loungers plus a table and two chairs on the balcony and there was still room for more! This was not a suite and this cabin did not have the dreaded beam in the middle of the balcony that I have read so much about.

 

Food: We had early traditional dining in the Botticelli dining room. I thought that the food on this ship was superb. The food on this ship was a notch above any other princess ship I'e been on. My husband and I are in our mid 30s and while we don't consider ourselves food connoiseurs, we do appreciate fine dining and we certainly weren't disappointed. All the seafood dishes were great. We know this because we traveled with two other couples and we always made sure to order everything on the menu at night so we could sample it all. There wasn't a single seafood dish that disappointed me or anybody else in our group. There were a few strudel dishes (apple strudel with cream sauce and a mango strudel with lime cream sauce) that I am still thinking about theywere so good! Plus, I was truly amazed at how great the pasta dishes were! The pasta always came out perfect--never mushy, soggy, greasy, or anything disagreeable at all. Pasta is sometimes hard to get right and they seem to know what they're doing! We ordered the fettuccini alfredo every night and I will probably die an early death because of it! :rolleyes:

 

Casino/Bars: My husband and I don't drink or gamble so I'm afraid that I can't comment on this with firsthand knowledge. It looked like people were enjoying the casino and some people had HUGE bar tabs, so it must be good, right?

 

Entertainment: We thought that the comedians on board were great. The princess shows were good, too. We did not enjoy Kamika. This was a singing duo (man and woman) from the U.K who tried to be funny but weren't and couldn't sing either. We left after about 20 minutes. Maybe it got better, I don't know. We went to the Passenger Feud game show, the heats for Princess Idol and also the Marriage game show. All were entertaining and the Princess staff did a good job of being hosting the events. We did not watch any MUTS. My husband has a home theater at home and we watch way too many movies at home already. Some of the people I talked to really enjoyed MUTS along with the popcorn that came with it at night.

 

Ports of call: I will post a lengthier review of each port on the ports of call board on this site. So this will be the condensed version. We signed up with Thriller Ocean Tours to swim with the sea turtles and snorkel in Barbados. We thoroughly enjoyed this. In St. Lucia, we signed up with Cosol for an island tour and trip to the Jalousie Resort beach situated between the Pitons. This tour was amazing. Cosol was great fun, he provided excellent tasty local food to sample (we seriously stuffed ourselves in true cruise style and there was still leftovers!) and I left this island feeling like I had a real cultural experience. Plus, the beach was so beautiful my friend told me she kept expecting Jesus to walk out and say that we had arrived in Heaven! :) In Antigua, we booked with Eli's Eco-tour and this was also fun. We had some wind and rain problems that day, but it didn't detract from the tour at all. The lunch provided was delicious and the trip to Hell's Gate was the highlight of the day. The next day was St. Thomas and after 3 previous visits to this island I finally figured out where to find the $1/$2 taxis! Instead of costing $40 for my husband and I to go to Sapphire Beach it only cost us $8! We rented a $7 beach chair and basked in the sun, sea and sand for most of the day. Last stop was Tortola. We previously had visited Smuggler's Cove and this time we took the 9am ferry to Virgin Gorda. We made it to Devil's Bay beach at the Baths about an hour before all the hordes of cruise ship tours arrived. We staked out an awesome spot on the beach and spent about 3 hours there. The first and last hour with no cruise ships tours were the best! No problems with the ferries or taxis.

 

Disembarkation: We did the express self disembarkation. We walked off the ship by 8:10am and this was after eating in the dining room for breakfast. We got to the airport by 8:45 am and had no problems catching a 10am flight home. I was a little worried about this early flight, but it was super easy. Some friends of ours did this cruise 2 weeks ago and came home on a 9:30am flight with no problems. With such an early flight home, the potential for disaster is truly there, but luck was on our side, I guess! :)

 

Thanks again to all of you for your insight and comments. My vacation wouldn't have been as great as it was had I not had the "insiders" scoop on cruise critic!

[dcsam]

Welcome home! Sounds like you had a fantastic time!

We are leaving (Tuesday) for San Juan for a back-to-back aboard the Crown, and we're getting excited. I saw you've been to Smugglers Cove on Tortola before. We're looking at either going there or to Brewers. How did you like Smugglers? Was it difficult to get to? How was the snorkeling there?

My brother and my husband are doing Eli's Eco tour (we took the last 2 spots). My mother and I may try to catch the local bus to a nice beach. We're all doing Cosol on St. Lucia.

Thanks for posting your review!

Caroline

[bigredcrusier]

We are also flying in the day before and were trying to decide if we should go early to check in or wait until 1:00pm.

 

I hope to also have great things to say about the Crown.

[Colo Cruiser]

Great review, thanks. :)

[SmokinActuary]

Thanks for the review!

 

sadie - when did you find out about the switch between Tortola and St. Thomas?

[Sierra Fox]

We're leaving Friday for this same intinerary so I am really glad to hear you enjoyed it.

 

What time did you catch the ferry back from Virgin Gorda? The ship leaves at 5 and I'm wondering if the 3:15 ferry is too late? - SF

[cruisinbuddy]

I was on the same cruise and will echo everything you said about the ship, we did different excursions. Same diningroom and the food was really good. The Beef Tenderloin was our favourite.

[jennifers490]

thanks for the review, any idea of what time the first people were allowed off of the ship in tortola?

[serene56]

Thanks for the review--especially about C753.

We have that cabin booked for Next February

[serene56]

Thanks for the review--especially about C753.

We have that cabin booked for Next February

[sadiea]

Welcome home! Sounds like you had a fantastic time!

We are leaving (Tuesday) for San Juan for a back-to-back aboard the Crown, and we're getting excited. I saw you've been to Smugglers Cove on Tortola before. We're looking at either going there or to Brewers. How did you like Smugglers? Was it difficult to get to? How was the snorkeling there?

My brother and my husband are doing Eli's Eco tour (we took the last 2 spots). My mother and I may try to catch the local bus to a nice beach. We're all doing Cosol on St. Lucia.

Thanks for posting your review!

Caroline

We visited Smuggler's Cove about 4 years ago. We took about a 20 minute taxi ride there and had to navigate a bumpy gravel road (in the taxi) to get there. We went with another couple and I want to say that it was $60 roundtrip for both couples. We told the taxi driver when we wanted to get picked up and he showed up 3 hours later with no problem. We didn't pay him until he picked us back up, though! We negotiated all of this before we got in the taxi. We had to ask a few different taxis if he would take us there, though, because some of them don't want to drive that far and some of them don't want to drive on the dirt road--although the dirt road was only like the last 5 minutes of the drive. It was totally worth the drive! Pristine, deserted beach, no tours, no cruise crowds, not a single soul on the beach the entire time we were there! There were no services, though, either. No bathrooms, no lounge chairs and no beach bars. The snorkeling was phenomenal! The water was super clear and calm and we saw lots of fish and sea life we hadn't seen before at other places. We saw lots of little octopus and other fish that were beautiful. My husband took a picture of that beach and he uses it as a screen saver at work. His co-workers were amazed that a beach so beautiful could remain as deserted as it was and that we actually spent half a day there. We'd love to go back, but I had never been to the Baths, so we did that this time and thought it was great, too, but in a different way. I had heard that there was the possibility of some hotel construction on that beach now, but I could never get it verified. I didn't want to drive all that way only to find out that the beach was inaccessible because it was under construction. Good luck and if you do go to Smuggler's Cove, be sure to post something about it. It's been 4 years since I've been there and a lot can change in that time!

[sadiea]

Thanks for the review!

 

sadie - when did you find out about the switch between Tortola and St. Thomas?

I found out about the port switch only about a week before I left. I'm sure that it was posted earlier than that but I hadn't checked my princess cruise personalizer before then. I was OK with the switch. As a result of the switch we didn't have to tender in Tortola and there was only 1 other boat in St. Thomas the day we were there. It seems that there are usually at least 4 or 5 boats in St. Thomas. It was nice to not have all the crowds that usually come with St. Thomas.

[sadiea]

We are also flying in the day before and were trying to decide if we should go early to check in or wait until 1:00pm.

 

I hope to also have great things to say about the Crown.

Friends of ours went on this same cruise a few weeks ago and they also were told to board at 1pm, but they went at 11:30am and walked right on. I think Princess says 1pm because they can be sure that they will be letting passengers on at that time. Any earlier and it may be 11:30 or 12pm or later. We figured we'd show up just to see, and it worked well for us. We had already purchased a soda card, checked out our room and were eating in the Horizon Court Buffet by 12:30pm. I'm glad that we didn't show up at 1pm...that seemed to be the time the lines got really long.

[sadiea]

We're leaving Friday for this same intinerary so I am really glad to hear you enjoyed it.

 

What time did you catch the ferry back from Virgin Gorda? The ship leaves at 5 and I'm wondering if the 3:15 ferry is too late? - SF

We took a 2pm ferry back to Tortola from Virgin Gorda. I like to do my own thing and travel independently from the ship tours, but I also like to leave myself some "slush" in case a problem arises. I didn't want to take the 3:30 ferry back because if a problem arose, then there wouldn't be a cheap option for me back to the ship. I imagine for the right price I could have found somebody with a boat to drag me and my friends back to Tortola, but I didn't want to find out, so that's why I took the 2pm ferry back. Assuming no problems, you'd make it back to the ship by 4:15 or 4:30 at the latest. I like to have "room to spare". But if you like to live semi-dangerously, then go for it!

[sadiea]

thanks for the review, any idea of what time the first people were allowed off of the ship in tortola?

If I remember correctly, the first people were getting off the boat by about 7:45 or 8:00am. I was walking towards Speedy's Ferry at 8:30am and there weren't a ton of people getting off. I think most of the people were getting off between 9am and 10am to catch ship tours.

[johnmik1]

Hi Sadiea,I have to disagree with you about the balcony on C753 as being half covered and half open.We just had C753 on Emerald and it is fully covered as are all the Caribe cabins on the stern of Grand Class ships.We have booked these cabins in the past because of the privacy from above.

[hi2mari]

I don't post on this forum very often, but I must say that all of the tips and advice I have read on here truly made my cruise the best one I've ever taken! This was our 5th cruise, and the 4th with Princess. We were blown away by the great service and the outstanding food in the dining room. I'm not an expert cruiser by any means, but hopefully my review will help somebody else out there.

 

Embarkation: We arrived the day before and spent the night at the Comfort Inn. We took a taxi to the pier at 11:15am. About 30 people were ahead of us in line and by 11:45am they were letting people on. No problems whatsoever! We dumped out bags, got some lunch at the Horizon Court Buffet, and then headed out to see San Juan. I had heard that one of the dining rooms would be open on embarkation day, but after checking out all of them, they were all closed...and this was at 12:15pm. Perhaps it is other ships and other ports that offer dining room service at lunch on embarkation day.

 

Cabins: Our cabin E701 was booked as an obstructed view cabin, but let me just say that this cabin was not obstructed at all! We had a clear view looking from top, bottom and to each side. No lifeboats, no ramps, no balconies, no ropes, ladders or anything of the sort obstructed any part of our view. I was thrilled! I should mention that the cabins on either side of this one E703 and E633 also had the great view with no obstructions. Our room was quiet and fairly close to the elevator lobby. We never heard any noise from the promenade deck below. I would book this cabin again in a heartbeat! Our friends had the awesome aft balcony cabin C753 on the caribe deck that has the huge half covered half open balcony that is twice the size of most other balconies. Plus, they practically had their own private hallway to their room. This cabin was incredibly private and almost had wrap around views being that it was on the very side of the aft portion of the ship. There were two chaise loungers plus a table and two chairs on the balcony and there was still room for more! This was not a suite and this cabin did not have the dreaded beam in the middle of the balcony that I have read so much about.

 

Food: We had early traditional dining in the Botticelli dining room. I thought that the food on this ship was superb. The food on this ship was a notch above any other princess ship I'e been on. My husband and I are in our mid 30s and while we don't consider ourselves food connoiseurs, we do appreciate fine dining and we certainly weren't disappointed. All the seafood dishes were great. We know this because we traveled with two other couples and we always made sure to order everything on the menu at night so we could sample it all. There wasn't a single seafood dish that disappointed me or anybody else in our group. There were a few strudel dishes (apple strudel with cream sauce and a mango strudel with lime cream sauce) that I am still thinking about theywere so good! Plus, I was truly amazed at how great the pasta dishes were! The pasta always came out perfect--never mushy, soggy, greasy, or anything disagreeable at all. Pasta is sometimes hard to get right and they seem to know what they're doing! We ordered the fettuccini alfredo every night and I will probably die an early death because of it! :rolleyes:

 

Casino/Bars: My husband and I don't drink or gamble so I'm afraid that I can't comment on this with firsthand knowledge. It looked like people were enjoying the casino and some people had HUGE bar tabs, so it must be good, right?

 

Entertainment: We thought that the comedians on board were great. The princess shows were good, too. We did not enjoy Kamika. This was a singing duo (man and woman) from the U.K who tried to be funny but weren't and couldn't sing either. We left after about 20 minutes. Maybe it got better, I don't know. We went to the Passenger Feud game show, the heats for Princess Idol and also the Marriage game show. All were entertaining and the Princess staff did a good job of being hosting the events. We did not watch any MUTS. My husband has a home theater at home and we watch way too many movies at home already. Some of the people I talked to really enjoyed MUTS along with the popcorn that came with it at night.

 

Ports of call: I will post a lengthier review of each port on the ports of call board on this site. So this will be the condensed version. We signed up with Thriller Ocean Tours to swim with the sea turtles and snorkel in Barbados. We thoroughly enjoyed this. In St. Lucia, we signed up with Cosol for an island tour and trip to the Jalousie Resort beach situated between the Pitons. This tour was amazing. Cosol was great fun, he provided excellent tasty local food to sample (we seriously stuffed ourselves in true cruise style and there was still leftovers!) and I left this island feeling like I had a real cultural experience. Plus, the beach was so beautiful my friend told me she kept expecting Jesus to walk out and say that we had arrived in Heaven! :) In Antigua, we booked with Eli's Eco-tour and this was also fun. We had some wind and rain problems that day, but it didn't detract from the tour at all. The lunch provided was delicious and the trip to Hell's Gate was the highlight of the day. The next day was St. Thomas and after 3 previous visits to this island I finally figured out where to find the $1/$2 taxis! Instead of costing $40 for my husband and I to go to Sapphire Beach it only cost us $8! We rented a $7 beach chair and basked in the sun, sea and sand for most of the day. Last stop was Tortola. We previously had visited Smuggler's Cove and this time we took the 9am ferry to Virgin Gorda. We made it to Devil's Bay beach at the Baths about an hour before all the hordes of cruise ship tours arrived. We staked out an awesome spot on the beach and spent about 3 hours there. The first and last hour with no cruise ships tours were the best! No problems with the ferries or taxis.

 

Disembarkation: We did the express self disembarkation. We walked off the ship by 8:10am and this was after eating in the dining room for breakfast. We got to the airport by 8:45 am and had no problems catching a 10am flight home. I was a little worried about this early flight, but it was super easy. Some friends of ours did this cruise 2 weeks ago and came home on a 9:30am flight with no problems. With such an early flight home, the potential for disaster is truly there, but luck was on our side, I guess! :)

 

Thanks again to all of you for your insight and comments. My vacation wouldn't have been as great as it was had I not had the "insiders" scoop on cruise critic!

Sadie:

 

Great review, thanks! Just wondering...I am booked on the same cruise for March 8. Did your itinerary change from what was originally listed. My itinerary has the same ports as yours, but we are in Tortola on the first day; then Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, and St. Thomas last. I have booked a private tour on Tortola and am worried that we won't be there on the day we expect!:eek:

[sadiea]

Hi Sadiea,I have to disagree with you about the balcony on C753 as being half covered and half open.We just had C753 on Emerald and it is fully covered as are all the Caribe cabins on the stern of Grand Class ships.We have booked these cabins in the past because of the privacy from above.

Sorry, you're right. Cabin C753 was completely covered.

[sadiea]

Sadie:

 

Great review, thanks! Just wondering...I am booked on the same cruise for March 8. Did your itinerary change from what was originally listed. My itinerary has the same ports as yours, but we are in Tortola on the first day; then Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, and St. Thomas last. I have booked a private tour on Tortola and am worried that we won't be there on the day we expect!:eek:

Yes, this itinerary did change from when I first booked it months ago. The first I learned about the change was a week before we sailed. It came up as an emergency notice in my cruise personalizer. The change probably occurred a few weeks before, but I didn't check my cruise personalizer before then. The change didn't affect me because I only booked excursions in Barbados, St. Lucia and Antigua. Tortola and Virgina Gorda I did on my own. I would have been really annoyed if I had to change any of the excursions I booked months in advance. However, because of the route the Crown Princess takes, I don't think that the first 3 stops can possibly be moved. Barbados, St. Lucia and Antigua are miles from each other. Tortola and St. Thomas are really close to each other making switches possible.

[newmarketcruiser]

Thanks for the review. I enjoyed reading about your friends cabin C753. We are staying in cabin C750 sailing on March 8th. Can't wait, been a long winter with lots of snow. We have stayed in a suite before but never at the stern of the ship. Does anyone have any comments about the noise or movement of the ship. My family loves it when the ship rocks you to sleep. More movement, more fun.

[CashMcCall]

Thanks Sadie for that positive review. We're on the 3/1/08 sailing and after reading the last few reviews of the Crown in the Review section, well I was getting a little worried.

Sounds like we're going to be just fine....

[minnesota pam]

Can you tell me if you were able to leave your luggage in the cabin when you ate breakfast, or did you have to bring it to the dining room with you. I am thinking of doing the self disembarkment too as one year someone had taken our luggage by mistake and we found it out on the streets of San Juan.

Thanks for the good review.

[minnesota pam]

I'm going to try this again. I tried to post this but it got lost in thin air.

Thanks for the great review.

When you did the self-disembarkment were you able to leave all your luggage in the cabin to eat breakfast and then go get it, or did you have to bring it to the dining room with you? I'm thinking of doing this as on one cruise one of my suitcases got taken by someone else and when they figured out it wasn't theirs, it got left on the curb on the San Juan streets.

[sadiea]

I'm going to try this again. I tried to post this but it got lost in thin air.

Thanks for the great review.

When you did the self-disembarkment were you able to leave all your luggage in the cabin to eat breakfast and then go get it, or did you have to bring it to the dining room with you? I'm thinking of doing this as on one cruise one of my suitcases got taken by someone else and when they figured out it wasn't theirs, it got left on the curb on the San Juan streets.

We left our luggage in our room when we went to breakfast. Our self disembarkment tags said that we should meet at Club Fusion at 7am. We didn't do this...we went to breakfast instead. Despite what the disembark cards say, you can get off whenever you want as long as you are carrying your own bags. Our friends also did self-disembark and they got off around 9:30am. They left their bags in their room when they went to breakfast at 8:30am and also had no problems getting off at the later time.

[Cruizn2008]

"The next day was St. Thomas and after 3 previous visits to this island I finally figured out where to find the $1/$2 taxis! Instead of costing $40 for my husband and I to go to Sapphire Beach it only cost us $8!"

 

Please share the secret to the lower priced taxis! Where might they be located?