Crown Princess Review

Crown Princess - Southern Caribbean

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Crown Princess

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Embarkation
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Sail Date: Dec 2006
Traveled with children

Our family of 4 has cruised on three lines so far, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and Princess. On Dec 23 2006 we sailed on the new Crown Princess out of San Juan on the southern Caribbean itinerary. For the first time my wife and I booked a suite, our 17 yr old and 20 yr old shared an adjacent balcony cabin on the Caribe deck facing aft. The suite was everything we had hoped for! Large and comfortable with a huge bathroom and tub/shower area that was smartly divided off from each other with three sets of doors. Spent lots of time before dinner lounging and gazing off the balcony we had. Our cabin steward was Raymond from the Philippines and he was outstanding. As for the ship, it was beautiful and logically laid out. The dining was great, no complaints except surprisingly we didn't care for the special charge Sabatinis at all. On other cruises we have tried the specialty restaurants and loved the service and dinners. Here, the room was less than about half filled at 730pm and we waited around 30 minutes between each course for our food...even though our waiter was constantly racing around the dining room on various frenzied distracting missions. Now I know this was supposed to be fine dining, but families with children (we ate with another family with kids) shouldn't have to sit for over three hours for dinner with dirty plates laying on a railing next to the table for lengthy periods without being cleared away. Overall a negative experience, one of only a few on the trip. I think surprisingly that they were understaffed in that dining room. The pools and movie screen were wonderful, especially fun to watch NFL football on the first weekend on a huge clear screen while relaxing in a lounge chair in the sun! I could not believe the great picture quality even in bright sunlight. I did spend one afternoon out of the sun sleeping in the adult only Sanctuary area. Well worth the 10 dollars per half day charge with free fruits and iced towels and iced waters with great thick mattresses on the recliner lounge chairs. There was a youth security team on board to help keep the teens orderly, but unlike our cruise over xmas time two years ago on the Adventure of the Seas on RCCL, this ship had no large groups of unruly kids roaming the ship at all hours. The casino and drinking age was 21 on board which probably helped, and my kids both enjoyed the teen club at the top of the ship which played great music till late and encouraged dancing among the teens. That club and all the lounges were well supervised and IDs checked. As for the dining overall, I gave the food an A-. Dinners in our Botticelli Dining room at the late seating were very good, much better than RCCL on our last cruise and just a shade under the Celebrity Infinity we sailed on several years ago. Our waiter and assistant were outstanding,which is a big part of the whole ship experience. We travelled with friends of our family so we had a table of 9 each nite that we reserved in the Botticelli room for late seating and they loved the experience too. The lunches buffets and grill food and pizza station were very good, our kids ate both places as we did.....plenty of drink waiters around but my only criticism was that the only free drinks were water, coffee and ice tea. Some ships have had free lemonade spigots at meals which would have been a nice touch. Our suite came with free bar set up of liquor and sodas at the start of the trip and fresh fruit and canapes whenever we wanted which was great. We ate all of our breakfasts in the Davinci dining room where you got served off a nice menu of items rather than the buffet room at pool level, this was always good and a great way to start the day. As for the itinerary, we liked St Thomas and the beaches and shopping. Grenada and St Kitts were not really worth exploring at all. I did check out the Marriott St Kitts to see how it compared to the Aruba Marriott property and was disappointed. Not as upscale and in an area with adjacent vacant old hotels and abandoned buildings. Definitely not a destination island in my opinion and that was the nicest hotel area! Anyway, we loved Aruba and Palm Beach it was too short a stop there though. Heres a tip. There is an area between the Marriott and the Holiday inn where there is a public strip of the beach not considered hotel property, its where the Moomba Grill is. They rent beach chairs there and very cheap...20 dollars for 8 chairs and there is food service there. Bonaire was a nice surprise, nice shopping and restaurant area and we found a public beach with nice amenities like outdoor showers, chairs and food and a bar. The last day was an at sea day and you need to get out early on deck to get chairs as everyone wants to be up there then at the pool levels. This was the only day it was really crowded up there though. All in all the bingo and comedian shows were great, we had Sarge the comedian twice on the cruise and he was well worth the time , very very talented and funny. The production shows were not worth the time however. One remark about the fitness center. It was very warm in the treadmill and machines areas! Would have been nice if the workouts had fans or better airconditioning blowing. Our family liked the ease of the embarkation and disembarkation, we stayed the nite before the cruise at the old san juan Sheraton right across the street from the ship at pier 4. We rolled our luggage right there 100 yards away! No cab needed. We would definitely cruise this ship again, it was luxurious with an upscale crowd and overall very good service and food.Thank you Princess. Jim Gutglass

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