Grand Dec. 4-11 review

[want2know]

PARKING AND CHECKING IN

Got to the EZ Parking lot around 11:00, paid our $45 fee less the $5 coupon from online. They are trying harder to get the passengers loaded asap, its just that passengers are anxious to get on board & in a rush to get off the last day. We minimized the hassle & wait by using a fold up luggage carrier with wheels for our 3 suitcases & our carry-on bag secured with the bungee straps. Most you have to walk is 4 blocks. If the ship is furtherest to the right, turn right from lot (the direction ship is facing), & go 2 blocks. Turn left (toward pier) & go 2 blocks. Cross Harborside Drive, through gate & head for ship terminal. Dropped luggage in the luggage area & through the short lines for security, check in & down to the ramp. The longest wait was to have our ship cards scanned & pictures taken. We have been on the Rhapsody 3 previous years & have never had a smoother check-in. The sail away party is everything that others have posted.

ABOUT THE SHIP

At times, I may compare this ship to the RCL’s Rhapsody. The pool areas are very pretty on the Grand. The kids have their own pool & one pool is designated exclusively for adults, for a total of 5 pools. The lap pool (swim against the current) was operational between 10am-10pm. There were only 100 children on this cruise - no problems with them. Can’t say the same for some of the older folks. Some are dears while others only know how to complain about anything & everything. The interior public areas are more spectacular on the Rhapsody (e.g. dining room, theater, reception area). This ship was designed towards creating smaller, intimate areas. The larger outdoor pool area had fewer loungers around the area, with groups of loungers spaced throughout along side the ship. Good if you want privacy & less noise while sunning, but very hard to find someone if you need them. There was always a place to lay. We were assigned to the Botticelli dining room (located on deck 6). If coming from another area on deck 6, you must first traverse either deck 5 or 7 & then take either the stairs or elevator to 6. The dining room was ho-hum. Unless you were seated in the center area, you could not see across the room; a disadvantage on the last night when they did the march of the Baked Alaska. It was designed for more intimate dining. Our waitstaff, Rueben & Monica were very nice & accommodating. On the lobster night, I kidded with Rueben that I wanted five tails. He brought me two tails & later brought me two more without asking. The center bank of elevators did not provide stairs above deck 7. Frustrating! I felt the Princess Theater was smaller than the one on the Rhapsody. The Grand did not have shows every night like the Rhapsody. Besides a couple shows by the Princess dancers, they had two mediocre comedians & one juggler. Princess cheaped out on the entertainment. GET THERE EARLY for the first show. People would save seats in the theater (one even saved 10 seats!). One night we got there 45 minutes early & still had to sit towards the back if we wanted to sit together. They did a great rock & roll show in the Vista Lounge while showing a movie in the theater - don't know why since they already do the MUTS. This show was packed. The casino had .01, .05, .25, $1, $5 & $25 slots. The golf simulator & motion machine have disappeared from the ship. They still have the paddle tennis & miniature golf. I was pleasantly surprised with MUTS. Family oriented moves ran through the day (Shrek, Shrek 2, Ice Age, etc); some concerts (Beyonce, Tina Turner, etc) early evenings; & current movies in the evening (I, Robot; Superman 2). The evening shows had the popcorn & blankets. Nice touch. They played Rocky Horror Picture Show at 11pm one night (unfortunately missed that); & of course Wizard of Oz. They did show Monday night football on MUTS. Otherwise, between shows they had background music with scenes of tropical fish – very soothing. Rhapsody would always play tropical, carribbean music outdoors, putting you into the cruise mood. Not with Grand; you had to find a band playing in a secluded area for that. The Horizon Court buffet layout is not easy to maneuver. There are two sides to the buffet for lines, but you have to go outside of the dining area & around to get to the other side. Once again this makes it difficult if you are trying to find anyone. On the Rhapsody, the buffet dining crew would have the ice tea & water glasses already filled so you only had to pick up the glass & proceed to a table. On the Grand, the coffee, tea & water was at a separate station where you have to either first find a table & leave your food while you filled your glasses, or try to fill your glass while juggling your plate. They had intermittent problems with the ice tea dispenser. Finally to the staterooms. Ours was an inside on the Aloha deck (A321). The room size is comparable to those on Rhapsody. We did enjoy being at that location because we were located midway between the front & middle banks of elevators, as well as only one deck below the Horizon Court & pool area. All rooms have a refrigerator. We had three people in our room, so we used one of the upper bunks. They automatically put the two lower bunks together to make the queen size bed. If you are not using the upper bunks the ladders are stored under the lower beds, which reduces the storage space if you are planning to keep your suitcases there. Due to limited drawer & shelf space for three people, I did bring some of the department store clasp hangers for my shorts, skirts & pants. The shower was better than the Rhapsody as Grand’s shower is in the corner & the curtain never wanted to cling to my lower back side (if you know what I mean). Our shower water was always hot & could not cool it down.

BELIZE

This stop does have an extra long tender ride to shore. We chose the cave tubing tour through Coral Breeze. Their website lists this tour as including a lunch. Due to the limited time at this port, the rep on shore told us that the lunch will be left out, which was alright with us. We were more interested in seeing the sites instead of feeding our bellies – we could always do that on the ship. The ride was on a nice a/c bus van. The tour guide explained about the country, the people, geography, native plants & wildlife. He answered any question you could throw at him. Note that if you have back problems that the last six miles of the trip is over unpaved roads – lots of bouncing. The tour was wonderful! We walked along a dirt path (could be slippery at times – wear water or tennis shoes) & through the jungle for 20-30 minutes (depending on how fast the slowest person walks). The water temp was about 74 degrees. We had done tubing in the past, but this with the jungle and caves made this a tour not to miss. We got back to dockside by 5:45pm, which allowed for a quick walk through the shops in the tourism village. The last tender back to the ship was at 6:30.

COSTA MAYA – MAJAHAUL

If I could only give you one piece advice, it would be to take the ride to Majahaul & experience the little village life. This was the simplist stop but we enjoyed it the most. It left you feeling like you stumbled upon a remote undeveloped Mexican village. The town is about 200 yards long. Walk the length of the town & do your shopping. Then find a lounger, bar stool, or whatever, plop your back end down, suck down your favorite drink & enjoy the view. It is a sandy beach, but yet you can bring snorkle gear along & go out a little ways to view the coral & fish. Wave runners are also available, but be careful further out so not to hit the coral at the surface as the waverunners will be taken away from you immediately.

GRAND CAYMAN

You can see from the ship the trees that are still standing have been stripped of their leaves or needles. We have been to Grand Cayman several times in the past, so we just walked around the town. My parents took the tour of the town & Hell. Wish we had done that as they showed some of the destruction from the hurricane & told stories about it. At both Costa Maya & Grand Cayman, we arrived earlier than stated on the itenerary; but then the ship left earlier also, which made me feel like they were rushing us through the destinations.

COZUMEL

There were eight or nine ships in port at various times that day. We docked at the furtherest (newest) pier. Catching a cab from this location is a lot smoother than from the middle pier & the price is still the same - $6 per cab. If you tell the cabbie you want to go to town, he will try to drop you at the first available spot. We insisted that he take us just past the town square; sowe only had to walk back towards the ship (actually to Senor Frogs) as we shopped. Our day was shop, drink, shop, drink, dance, drink, shots….back to the ship & LOBSTER!!!! It was the best of days.

TIME TO GO HOME

The ship docked smoothly & did not realize we were at Galveston until they announced the first colored tags at 6:45am. Since we were on one of the upper decks, we had one of the first called color tags (after the people with flights). Once off we whipped out our luggage carrier, plopped the luggage on it & breezed through the customs/security stop. We decided to walk the four blocks back to the EZ parking lot & was gone by 9:15 without ever being in a rush the entire time.

 

If you have any questions I will try to answer, or at least try to tell you third-handedly what I heard from others on the ship. To everyone who has this cruise booked, enjoy when your time comes!!!

[NoNoNanette]

Great review, kiddo!

 

I'm bookmarking this one;)

 

Out of curiosity.... did you attempt to order a FULL meal via room service? (A hot breakfast or dinner?)

[want2know]

Sorry, we did not sample the room service. Every evening the room steward did leave a hang tag on our pillow to fill out if you wished for breakfast; and we would see them delivering the breakfast trays around 7:30 in the morning (on the Aloha deck). Not sure if that is the time they deliver all breakfast meals or if the passengers requested that time.

[Sunrise]

Great review! Now for a few questions:

 

What time did you get a tender to get off the ship in Belize?

 

I heard the cruise cave tubing tour came back late. Did you worry about getting back late from your tour?

 

What kind of weather did you have?

 

You mentioned you left earlier from Grand Cayman b/c you got in early. How did they announce the departure time change?

 

Thanks again for the great review!

[want2know]

The passengers with tours booked through Princess were directed to a different area to disembark than the others. Unlike most of the other ships, Princess would always use two different exits off the ship. For those of us on our own, the crew announced when they were ready to hand out tickets for the tenders at Belize. Of course you must have your entire party with you at the time you pick up your tender tickets. Once we had those it was just a short period before our color ticket was announced. We proceeded down to deck 4 and had to wait only long enough in line for passengers to maneuver the gangway to the tenders. We were on shore shortly after 1:30. Our tour with Coral Breeze was waiting for us. I believe we were the last in our tour group to get ashore. I felt the tour guide had an excellent grasp of time needed to complete the tour as he emphasized that due to Princess being in port for only 6 hours (until 7pm) that we would need to forgo the lunch to allow time for the tour and a brief shopping time afterwards. His driver hauled **&^% to keep us on schedule; as well as the tour guide emphasized to the group that we need to stay on course for the hike - no dawdling around. As I said before, we made it back to the tourism village by 5:45, with the last tender scheduled to leave for the ship at 6:30. We were not the group that got back late - there are multiple tour groups, so it was someone else. I did not notice that we were late leaving Belize as we were eating in Horizon Court and noticed the ship was moving around 7:30, so it couldn't have been too late leaving. Plus remember the next stop is Costa Maya, which is only 110 miles (+/-) up the shore and we had all night to get there.

 

On our drive back from the caves there was a light shower (only enough to wet the windshield); otherwise the weather was pleasant.

 

For the Grand Cayman stop, the scheduled times from the Princess brochure, passenger tickets, and Princess Patters were all the same. So we were mildly surprised to see that we anchored early there. It was then announced over the speakers and on the marquee sign as you left the ship of the earlier departure time. (Always watch for the marquee sign at the exit gangway for the last tender and departure times.)

 

On another note, for those of you who are interested in bringing back liquor this is our story. At Grand Cayman, we ordered our bottle of Appleton Estate Rum. Grand Cayman brings the liquor back to the ship for you and Princess brings it to your room the last evening. It is already packed in box(es) for you. At Cozumel we found Kahlua (1 liter bottles) 2/$20; Cuervo Tequila (635ml [i think]) 2/$19; and a bottle of Contra (sp) (it's the equivalent of Contreau for margaritas) I believe for $11. Security on board never said a word when we hauled 5 bottles back on and brought them back to our room. I kept 2 bottles (maximum allowed for 2 Texas residents) in our carry off bag in case customs wanted to see them. The rest I had securely packed in the large ziploc bags(one to a suitcase) with dirty clothes and cushy flip-flops packed around them. We realized that if customs wished to search our luggage we would lose the booty. Customs never questioned our purchases.

 

Hope this helps!