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Just off the Golden (long review)


junglejane

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We recently returned from the Golden Princess Mexican Riviera cruise (March 8-15, 2008). We are a couple in our late forties traveling with two children ages 7 and 11. This was our 3rd Princess cruise and we’ve also been on Celebrity once. Overall this was a wonderful cruise and we would wholeheartedly recommend Princess, this ship and this itinerary to others. So please realize that any criticisms we mention in this review are areas where we feel Princess could improve, but they were also pretty minor when it came to our overall experience. In fact, while onboard we booked the Crown Princess British Isles cruise for July 2009.

 

Pre-Cruise/Embarkation: We drove out from Phoenix on Friday and stayed at the Crowne Plaza in San Pedro, which we had booked through Priceline for $66 per room. The hotel is quite satisfactory and at that price who can complain anyway? We ate dinner at the Whale & Ale (close to the Crowne Plaza and quite good except for burnt flavor in the sticky toffee pudding). Saturday morning we drove over to the cruise terminal and parked ($84 for the week). Since there really isn’t much to do in San Pedro, we arrived at the cruise terminal at 11:00 am anxious to board. They weren’t quite ready, but still we were onboard in about one hour.

 

Ship & Stateroom Condition: We booked two side by side BA balcony cabins on Caribe deck (love those extra large balconies!). We like to have two cabins for the four of us. Since our kids are too young to be by themselves, DH and I have to split up but we’re willing to do this for the extra space and two bathrooms that come from two cabins, and we went back and forth via the door in the balcony partition. This arrangement worked great for us and we booked the same cabins for next year’s cruise. The overall condition of the Golden was just fine. We saw some minor wear and tear but we also saw the crew constantly out doing maintenance and repairs.

 

Dining Experiences: We had Anytime Dining and ate all our dinners in the Bernini dining room. We were traveling with two other families of four, and our total group of 12 included 4 young children. We always made reservations for a table for eight and a table for four and sort of rotated the seating within our group. We were always willing to eat at 6 pm, so we had no trouble with reservations. We thought the dining room food and service were mostly excellent. We enjoyed a wide variety of meat, fish and pasta dishes. On the first night one of our kids ordered the NY steak off the “always available” menu. The steak was overcooked and tough, but when I notified our waiter it was quickly replaced by a nice prime rib. A minor complaint is that the staff never offered coffee. Consistently, all week, coffee was served only if a diner requested it, and a request by one diner didn’t necessarily prompt coffee for the whole table. At least twice, people at our table “missed” the initial request and received coffee only after they saw that someone else at the table had gotten it. Because we saw this consistently at lunch and dinner (coffee was always offered at breakfast), it seemed like a Princess or at least a Golden Princess policy. With which I disagree. Overall, however, we though the dining room was very enjoyable. We generally don’t like to eat in the buffet, but we did feed the kids there before we went to Sabatini’s and they seemed satisfied.

 

The six adults in our group had dinner together one night at Sabatini’s. We all enjoyed the experience and thought the food and service were well worth the surcharge. Sterling Steakhouse, however, was not a hit. We actually had a better experience last year on the Diamond Princess, even though on the Diamond the steakhouse was located in the Horizon Court buffet. This time, nothing about it was quite right. For starters, the space is odd. It’s a refit into the Desert Rose space (a concept that did not prosper). There are only about 10 tables in maybe 1200 square feet of space, including an unused dance floor in the middle. While this provides greater privacy and intimacy, it also creates an air of imperfect planning and under-utilization. Also, we had a strange experience with reservations. When we boarded, we made a reservation for 4 people at 6:30 pm for Tuesday night, which was our daughter’s birthday. On Monday, our friends tried to make reservations for the same night but were told that the steakhouse was “booked up all week” except for times after 9 pm. Imagine our surprise then when we dined there at 6:30 pm on Tuesday and the restaurant was no more than 2/3 full.

 

Sterling’s food was undistinguished. A Caesar salad that you could get at any Chili’s; creamed spinach that was 2/3 cheesy sauce and only 1/3 spinach; cold steak fries the size of an index finger. Desserts were good but no better than the dining rooms. The centerpiece is of course the steaks. The filets were quite good. Our daughter’s porterhouse was both small (less than ¾ inch thick) and unevenly cooked. The ribeye was tasty but more like Outback Steakhouse than a truly fine steakhouse. We hope the Crown Grill on the Crown Princess is better than this; otherwise we will stick with the dining room and Sabatini’s.

 

Entertainment: We went to most of the shows and enjoyed ourselves. The production shows were the typical glitzy song and dance routines we’ve seen on previous cruises. We also saw a magician, two comedians and a ventriloquist. As others have mentioned, you need to arrive a good 20 minutes early to be sure of a seat. We also enjoyed trivia and bingo, and the “Hilarious Cooking Show.”

 

Dress Code Compliance: We were pleasantly surprised at the level of dress code compliance on formal night. We took this same cruise a year ago on the Diamond Princess and saw lots of casual attire on formal night. Maybe this varies from cruise to cruise, but for whatever the reason we saw very few people who weren’t dressed up on the two formal nights.

 

Annoying Marketing Ploys: We are resigned to the need for cruise lines to find additional revenue streams and thus, with regrets, we accept much of the marketing that goes on. That said, a few new developments deserve comment. We have always felt it was a shame to build a pretty atrium and then ruin it by piling t-shirts, watches, and gold chains onto folding card tables. The new twist is to give over an entire dining room to a sort of “clearance sale” setting. On the last sea day the whole dining room that isn’t used for lunch (Bernini) was stacked with every variety of cheapo merchandise. Much of it seemed random and distressed (Ketchikan t-shirts on a Mexican cruise). This creates the illusion of a genuine fire sale, which is of course the goal. But something tells us that these sales now occur on every cruise, and that our sailing wasn’t the single “lucky” one at which all this stuff was unpacked. Then again, if this sort of marketing is a crime it’s a victimless one. You don’t have to attend the rummage sale if you don’t want to.

 

That’s not the case with the other new marketing push—attempts to sell wine tastings and wine itself. At every meal a card on the table touted an upcoming tasting (for both “the wine connoisseur and the wine curio”). That’s fine, we can ignore a card. But multiple times a wine-steward-type approached our table and interrupted a conversation to pitch tickets to an upcoming tasting. Later in the cruise he went table-to-table with 3-bottle combo boxes for sale. Again, this stuff does not “ruin our cruise” by any means, but it’s an unwelcome development.

 

Ports: At Puerto Vallarta we decided to visit the Krystal Resort. We had researched this on the Mexican Riviera board and printed out a map. We set out to walk there but had to endure being approached every few feet by about forty taxi drivers who wanted to know where we were going. We got to the Krystal and asked if we needed to buy a day pass. We were told no, just buy something to eat or drink. We enjoyed a pleasant afternoon there letting the kids play at the beach and in the swimming pools. Naturally there were lots of beach vendors but mostly they would go away after being politely told “no.” The bathrooms were nice and clean and the restaurant was quite good.

 

At Mazatlan, we had booked the King David tour of Stone Island. Our voucher said to be out at the cruise terminal at 8:45 am. We showed up as scheduled, only to have the tour guide say we needed to wait until 9:30 am for other guests, and that in any case the tour didn’t leave until 10 am. This of course was annoying but we passed the time chatting with Hugo our tour guide. The other party never showed up, apparently because they were on either the Vision of the Seas or the Dawn Princess, both of which were late getting into port. We were driven in the back of a rickety pickup to the pier, then taken by boat to Stone Island. We went for a short horseback ride on the beach, ate lunch at the Molokay Restaurant, drank watered down margaritas and took the kids boogie boarding. We would’ve liked cleaner bathrooms and a non-dirt floor in the restaurant, but all in all it was reasonable fun, especially considering the price charged.

 

By the time we got to Cabo, we felt lazy and didn’t get off the ship. That’s lame, we know. But we did go to Cabo last year and decided to skip the tendering and take advantage of the non-crowded ship facilities.

 

Kids Program – Our kids have been on the Caribbean Princess and the Diamond Princess. By comparison the Fun Zone on the Golden is small – too small. We think they should take the barely-used Voyage of Discovery (huge video arcade) and use it for an expanded Fun Zone. They did the best job they could with the limited space available, mostly by scheduling “field trips” to various places on the ship. There were 325 kids on our cruise, and Youth Security mentioned that they are expecting 700 kids on the next two weeks. Both of our kids found friends through the Fun Zone and had a very good time, despite the small physical space allocated to kids. Youth Security was very visible around the ship, especially at the pools, and wasted no time in stopping even the most minimal running or jumping.

 

Disembarkation – We signed up for Walk Off Disembarkation. Unlike last year, we didn’t need to give any reason or justification. We just signed up and were off the ship by 7:50 am. For some reason we got selected for having our bags searched by US Customs & Agriculture, where they seemed convinced we had illicit produce (???). I would advise people not to take “an orange for the road” off the ship, because the federal agents seemed serious. They initially asked if we had any produce, we said no, and he said “I’m going to ask you again if you have any produce, and please think before you answer because if you do it’s a customs violation.” We again said no, and then they loaded all five of our suitcases into a huge machine. Amusing as this sounds, it turned out that DH’s Metamucil that had somehow set off their high-tech detector of organic stuff. Needless to say they let us go and we were on the road driving back to Phoenix by 8:15 am.

 

In summary we had a great time. There are always things we think could be improved, but we’re already looking forward to our 2 day Pacific Coastal cruise on the Dawn Princess and our British Isles cruise on the Crown Princess.

 

--Junglejane

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junglejane... Thanks for the great review! We will be on the Golden at the end of April & can hardly wait! :D I am glad the kids had fun even with the small space. Were you able to get patters for kids camp? My DGS has been anxiously awaiting the info. :) I will check over on the Family Cruising thread too.

Thanks again!

Diana

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Annoying Marketing Ploys: We are resigned to the need for cruise lines to find additional revenue streams and thus, with regrets, we accept much of the marketing that goes on. That said, a few new developments deserve comment. We have always felt it was a shame to build a pretty atrium and then ruin it by piling t-shirts, watches, and gold chains onto folding card tables. The new twist is to give over an entire dining room to a sort of “clearance sale” setting. On the last sea day the whole dining room that isn’t used for lunch (Bernini) was stacked with every variety of cheapo merchandise. Much of it seemed random and distressed (Ketchikan t-shirts on a Mexican cruise). This creates the illusion of a genuine fire sale, which is of course the goal. But something tells us that these sales now occur on every cruise, and that our sailing wasn’t the single “lucky” one at which all this stuff was unpacked. Then again, if this sort of marketing is a crime it’s a victimless one. You don’t have to attend the rummage sale if you don’t want to.

 

--Junglejane

 

Actually, selling the Ketchikan shirt on the Mexican cruise at a greatly reduced price is a way of getting rid of merchandise from an itinerary the ship no longer is doing.

 

We once bought Antarctica merchandise on a ship that was not going back there and wore it on our Antarctic cruise the following year.

 

However, most of the other stuff in the "pre-inventory sale" is at the same price they were trying to sell it in the shops.

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Actually, selling the Ketchikan shirt on the Mexican cruise at a greatly reduced price is a way of getting rid of merchandise from an itinerary the ship no longer is doing.

 

Caribill, I sure hope that's not the case... I believe the Golden begins Alaska (including Ketchikan) in May. Very strange that they wouldnt hold this inventory for a couple of months. :confused:

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Thanks JungleJane...We leave for our cruise next Saturday on the Golden. 700 kids are expected...yikes....we had nine hundred one year on the Sapphire...:eek: Should be a energetic cruise. We are glad you had a good time. I have been hearing a lot about how they push the wine tasting...they did not do that at all on the Diamond last year...yikes...lpt

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Thanks JungleJane...We leave for our cruise next Saturday on the Golden. 700 kids are expected...yikes....we had nine hundred one year on the Sapphire...:eek: Should be a energetic cruise. We are glad you had a good time. I have been hearing a lot about how they push the wine tasting...they did not do that at all on the Diamond last year...yikes...lpt

 

ladypalmtree - Just curious - how did you find out how many children were expected to be on your cruise?

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She may be referring to what I said in my review above. Youth Security reps onboard told us they expect 700 kids for each of the next two weeks (this week and next). Also, you can call 1-800-PRINCESS and give them your booking number, and they will tell you.

 

--Junglejane

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Caribill, I sure hope that's not the case... I believe the Golden begins Alaska (including Ketchikan) in May. Very strange that they wouldnt hold this inventory for a couple of months. :confused:

 

When they go back to Alaska, the "pre-inventory sale" will probably include shirts from the Mexican ports

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Thanks for the review, junglejane. We're off on the Golden on the 29th. Just called to see about kids booked. Interesting process- they take your booking number and check to make sure it's you by asking the phone number and name on the booking. Then they put me on hold and after a few minutes came back and told me there were about 255 booked. Then she asked me to hold while she made a quick note in my history (anyone know why??). Then I was sent to the "brief survey".

 

Not long now, so excited!

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VPLSH... I think they are just being protective of the kids. :) They want to make sure the people calling are legitimate and not some pervert that is preying on the kids. I am very glad they are being careful! My DGS will be onboard with us & that is the only reason I called... to find out how many in the age group he is in will be on board.

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Balanceok: The Krystal Resort beach was nice and there were chairs and umbrellas. We tipped some resort employee $2 to move some into position for us. I would suggest bringing towels. You can rent towels but you pay $8 per towel and then get $5 back when you return them. There is a place to shower the sand off and a nice patio restaurant area with clean restrooms that looks out onto the beach. The worst part about the beach is the vendors selling stuff, but it's tolerable. The pool area is very nice and large with multiple interconnected pools. I can definitely recommend the Krystal Resort. By contrast, Stone Island in Mazatlan was not nearly as nice, although it was interesting.

 

--Junglejane

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I was very excited to see your trip review on the Golden. Our trip is coming up in a few weeks and I cannot wait! I was thinking about a massage at the Krystal, having lunch and using their pool. I am counting down! Thanks for the review!

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