Crown Princess Review

Crown Princess - Southern Caribbean

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Crown Princess

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Sail Date: Nov 2006

My cruise...well...the islands were beautiful of course but just about everything Princess did was messed up. Starting with embarkment - 2 hours in line - 90 degrees - no shade - no water - it was very uncomfortable. They were some elderly people that they should have been concerned about but didn't seem to care. For myself, I was worried about getting fried to a crisp before the cruise even began as we had to pack our sunscreen in the stowed luggage so that was unavailable. Half of the elevators were not in use and with 3,000 passengers - ugh. The cabin was on the 7th deck and food was on the 15th which probably explains why I didn't gain but a few pounds - again, too much for the elder folks. The ship is designed in such a way that there were only 2 decks that you could go stem to stern so you had to go up to go down or down to go up - with few working elevators. The ship was poorly marked and as I am usually lost - no surprise I never knew where I was or how to get anywhere but many times I saw other "lost" people or heard "Where the heck are we?" The excursions we booked: the first one in Barbados was the Jolly Roger Pirate trip - that was a blast (which I had experienced on a previous cruise). The next day in St. Lucia was a 2 hour excursion ($82 pp) where you ride horses on the beach and go swimming. We got an hour because Princess told them we all only paid for the 1 hour trip - WRONG! When we complained (others from Princess had the same problem)- they really didn't care. We told them the 2 hour trip was being sold on the shore for $50 - same place and everything. This was Tuesday and it took them until Friday to send us a form letter, giving us a 25% refund which still was more than the shore price for the 2 hours but we only got the 1 hour. So we weren't happy about that so we canceled all other excursions and did them on our own. We did exactly what the excursion offered (chair rentals, drinks - whatever) and in each case ours was cheaper by far. Plus doing it on our own didn't limits us to only 2 hours on the beach - we typically stayed for 4 - 6 hours. The ship had no mid night buffet, no last night fancy buffet where the have the ice sculptures and food carvings, the entertainment was mediocre at best, and the food was barely passable at times. You had to pay for soda, ice cream and food at some places on the ship. To end the perfect cruise, disembarkment took us 3 hours and they never picked us up to take us back to the airport (the transfer we paid for). We called the 2 phone numbers on the transfer ticket - one was "no longer working" and the other just kept on ringing so we paid for a taxi. I'm sure I forgot some stuff but I think you get the idea. My next cruise will be back with Royal Caribbean - where I felt like royalty - not Princess where I sure did not feel like a princess!!!

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