Anyone just back from the MR on the Golden?

[robinru11]

Just wondering if anyone is just back from the Mexican Riviera on the Golden in the last couple of weeks. There have not been many recent reviews on the boards. Just wondered about the weather -we leave in two weeks - the condition of the ship - the ports - food - any other information you can provide to help a rather NEW cruiser! (2nd cruise)

 

Thanks for your help! :D

[larie]

Myself (larie) and another cruiser posted our reviews on the week of 2/23. I will "attempt" to copy the link here. If you have any other questions you can ask and I will give you my opinion.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=727214

[larie]

Re: the weather - we had beautiful days in all 3 ports. I would say hight 70's - Cabo may have been low 80's. The first day at sea was cool. The 2nd day at sea was warm enough to sun at the pool but not hot. The last day at sea was cold. We are sun worhippers and we stayed inside that day.

[Mary Leslie]

We were on the February 9th sailing. Our weather was very nice.........in the 80's in LA for sail-away and in the mid to upper 70's in the ports. Our first and last days at sea were cool........not pool weather IMHO.

 

We had a balcony cabin on Lido and felt that the ship was in overall very good condition. We chose to do excursions in all of the ports since we're not shoppers and have done this itinerrary before. We especially enjoyed the safari in Cabo............a wealth of knowledge and some of the best Mexican food we've ever tasted......well worth the $109.

 

Enjoy:D ...............Mary

[ChrissyM_Cruiser]

I’m bad at reviews, but here’s my quick take on our recent trip:

 

We did the MR on the Golden the week of 2/16-23. I would describe the weather as very comfortable on every day except the last sea day, when it was windy and chilly. Our port days were beautiful and warm without too much humidity, the perfect winter getaway!

 

I thought the ship was in fine shape overall. Our room was a little shabby – I don’t think the Lido deck cabins have been refurbed like we’ve heard about other sections of the ship from recent reviews – but it was by no means bad. I’m not sure if we had the new mattresses or not, but the bedding sheets and comforter/duvet sets seemed to be, and were very comfortable (the mattress not so much).

 

Service tended to be very good in our opinion. Bartenders were friendly and our stateroom attendant was silent but deadly (she was fast and good! but we hardly ever saw her). We had PC dining and only had a short wait on the first formal night, but found that service was better the later we went. The dealers in the casino were fun and friendly and the asst maitre’d who did the 2nd half of the wine tasting was a hoot!

 

The food was usually good to very good. I love Princess’ pizza on the Lido deck, but I didn’t care much for the hockey puck hamburger station. The buffet was typical fare, but I only had a few meals there, preferring the dining room or pizza station.

 

Oooh! Let me solve the Mystery of the Omelet Station. It exists! And it’s fabulous. When someone previously had said that it’s out by the pool, I kept looking for someone at the pizza or burger grills, but it’s actually in the retractable-domed pool section, right outside the Horizon Court entrance on the Starboard side. This is also where they set up the sushi bar for lunch on the last sea day. On the first day, before we found the station, a wonderful attendant at the egg section of the HC was nice enough to make one for us though, so fear not omelet lovers! Man, I love starting out the day on a cruise with a good omelet. All that protein, but I digress…:o

 

I’m rambling as usual so I’ll wrap it up with disembarkation, which went really well and by the end, was about 15-30 minutes ahead of schedule. I actually saved the schedule, if anyone is interested. I have the patters too.

 

Sorry for the not-so-quick take, I’d be happy to answer any additional questions.

[xyankee]

ChrissM Cruiser, I'm booked for the 4/26 MR cruise on the Golden and would love to see the disembarkation schedule and patters. I have a 12:30 pm flight out of LAX but can change to an 11:30 am flight. Was affraid the earlier flight would cause too much of a rush. Thanks.

[ChrissyM_Cruiser]

Please excuse the crookedness of the pdf, but here's the schedule. By about halfway through, they were 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and by the end, almost 30. We were the only ship in port that day though.

 

The patters will take me a while. Shall I email them to you when I have finished?

 

Edited to add: Oops, the file is too big, let me try again in a few minutes.

[bhopal21]

ChrissM Cruiser, I'm booked for the 4/26 MR cruise on the Golden and would love to see the disembarkation schedule and patters. I have a 12:30 pm flight out of LAX but can change to an 11:30 am flight. Was affraid the earlier flight would cause too much of a rush. Thanks.

 

You will have no problem making the 1130. We had a 1020 flight 3 weeks ago and were in the first disembarkation group off at 0725. You must be able to carry all of your luggage though to do self-disembarkation.

 

Mike:)

[SC_Sam]

We were on in January. My review is linked below.

 

Enjoy!

[gertz]

Don"t do reviews, but here is our evaluation of the Golden from last weeks cruise.

 

Just returned March 1 from the MR on the Golden. Weather was good except for Sat departure in LA and it was raining. Shorts every day. The ship is in great condition as is every Princess ship we have been on. Covered MS on emerald deck port side everything fine.

 

Bought some high priced tequila in Pt Vallarta on the tequila factory tour. Might do a review on that when we open it. Good tour.

 

Son and wife joined us on this cruise, wonderful experience.

 

Food: Steak house as good as Morton's, Sabatini's is very good but we would not do it every cruise. Dining room, hamburgers, pizza, caffiteria all good to excellent.

 

Entertainment very, very good.

 

Disembarkation: Wow what an improvement, we didn't try to get off first or even fast as we didn't have an early flight we just went with the flow. We were at LAX at 10am. Could have caught the 10:30 to Denver if we had rushed a little, instead we hung around until 3:30 in the afternoon.

 

Great cruise to get out of the snow and cold.

 

Next TP Vancouver to Honolulu .

[bhopal21]

Bought some high priced tequila in Pt Vallarta on the tequila factory tour.

 

 

Ain't that the truth? I almost had a stoke when they said that stuff was $58 a bottle.:D :D

 

Mike:)

[dpomes]

Hey Robinru11!! Hope to see you onboard!! :D

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

Hey ChrissyM, it was great hanging out you guys at the meet and greet!!! Wish we had had more time to hang out.

 

I found our cruise to be quite chilly. We had not brought a sweatshirt or jeans and the first sea day was pretty cold. The last sea was so cold that no one was out on the deck. We had to buy a sweathshirt in port for the week.

 

And the water was VERY cold. Almost no one went in the water at our snorkel excursion in Cabo. Even the snorkeling in PV was really cold.

 

But it was 27 degrees in Boston, so I didn't really mind! :D

[robinru11]

Hey Robinru11!! Hope to see you onboard!! :D

Looking forward to meeting you as well. I enjoyed reading the Roll Call thread between yourself and the other two ladies. I feel like I know all of you already! Can't wait for the 22nd! We fly to LA, two weeks from today!

[dpomes]

Looking forward to meeting you as well. I enjoyed reading the Roll Call thread between yourself and the other two ladies. I feel like I know all of you already! Can't wait for the 22nd! We fly to LA, two weeks from today!

 

LOL! We were thinking we scared everyone off with our massive thread! :)

[dog]

Returned on March 1st cruise, as well. Have been on the Golden before and she's in fairly good shape...but a bit rusty on balcony and the Horizon chairs/seating need some cleaning IMO.

 

Traditional dining service was good. Buffet okay. Pizza and burgers great. Also noticed food served outside Horizon by pool...sushi, desserts on occasion.

 

Selling pop, coffee stickers...not pushing these but felt that the wine tasting was really being pushed...showed up at our table every night prior to tasting to sell it to us.

 

Spa- DH got haircut...okay and not bothering us with selling products.

 

Photographers were around but did not bother us to buy.

 

LOTS of wasted paper in mailslot every day. Some repeats like the Art Auction and they also advertise all of this on tv. My suggestion-save the trees. Promote on the tv instead or even in the Patters.

 

We have had same cabin category on our 5 Princess sailings on Grand Class ships and were surprised to find "mini" sized plastic chairs and table on our balcony. I took photos. I first asked cabin steward to get us the proper table and 2 chairs for balcony...we like to have breakfast on the balcony. He said he knew there would be a problem when we saw these.

A few hours later 2 guys brought up a lounge chair. We told them we asked for a table and 2 chairs to eat breakfast on. Then a few hours later the cabin steward's boss came for a look. He tried to tell us this mini size plastic stuff was the STANDARD furniture and I told him what we had on our other 4 cruises in this type of cabin.

Nothing happened.

Just before dinner I called the Purser and she followed up with a couple of calls. It took from 12:30 to 10:30pm for the proper balcony furniture to be sitting on our balcony. Very aggravating.

 

Otherwise, cruise was great. Ports...had nice weather and a couple of good excursions with them....theatre, shopping, hotel/beach in Mazatlan and Boat and scenic tour in Cabo. Walked in town in P.V. and had giant shrimp at Bubba Gumps.

First 2 sea days in high 60s and last sea day in 70's. Nice for us Canadians.

Days in ports low 80's.

 

The hotel pool in Mazatlan was very hot. I did not see too many people in ocean at any port.

 

We took self disembarkation and it was the best ever. Off in less than 5 minutes. Had to wait an hour for Enterprise shuttle to pick us up.

[pvmkmyer]

We took this cruise just before Christmas. We thought the ship was in very good shape. The crew is constantly painting, cleaning, polishing and varnishing. It was very clean. I think the Golden had the nicest, cheeriest crew of any ship I've been on, either on Princess or other lines, and I've cruised with Princess 7 times. Service is obviously emphasized on this ship and it must start from the top and works down to the lowest pay grades.

 

Your weather should be good. On the first and last days at sea you will have whatever the weather is in LA. At the moment it is absolutely gorgeous here, but of course that can change at any moment. You should have beautiful weather in Mexico.

 

We were so pleased with the Golden that we are taking the LA-Hawaii 14 day roundtrip sailing on Oct.29th on this ship. Can't wait!

[Glenrie]

We're going to be on the Golden in Dec to Hawaii. Yea! Does anyone know what type of furniture is on the balcony of the mini-suites?

[tradingspaces]

I just thought this was rather funny as I was reading the last two post on this thread. We will be on the Golden on April 11 for the Mexican Riveria and we have also booked the Hawaiian cruise on the Golden in November.

[ladypalmtree]

Hi again Dawn..keep bumping into you on these....;) Everyone...make sure you take jeans and sweatshirts...I concur that the first and last days can be quite windy and chilly. This will be our fourth year in a row going to Mexico with Princess..first time on this ship...less than two weeks to go...Happy sailings everyone!lpt

[vplsh]

Those of you who have sailed since 2/23- was there a Chef's table on the Golden? I've read in a few spots that this was the date they were going to start and am so hoping it will be in place for our 3/29 cruise!

[Wa Cruiser]

Those of you who have sailed since 2/23- was there a Chef's table on the Golden? I've read in a few spots that this was the date they were going to start and am so hoping it will be in place for our 3/29 cruise!

Just got back from the 3/1 sailing, the Chef's Table was on the 2nd night (also the formal night). Cost was $75 per person including wine pairing.

 

On this cruise, Princess Culinary Ambassador Master Chef Alfredo Marzi was on board. He did a Culinary Cooking show on the last sea day, which we attended, followed by the Galley tour. The most interesting part is the write-up of the ship's food preparation process and statistics, such as there are 160 chefs and cooks on board, and prepare 2100 lbs of beef per day, for example.

[vplsh]

Excellent! Thanks so much. Now I know I need to bring closed-toe shoes!

[Cruisin' Chick]

The weather in March in LA can be changeable. So it's best to keep checking the conditions here the week before your cruise (if you're staying near the coast, make sure you're plugging in Santa Monica, San pedro, Long Beach, not just LA as that could give you the weather for downtown or LAX). And during your cruise, the weather can change again so if you're staying here after the cruise, make sure you're prepared for rain or temps between 60s and 80s.

 

Earlier this week in the Valley, we were in the 80s, but this weekend we're supposed to get rain and be in the 60s.