Grand Princess Review
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Overview My wife and I have been on about 18 cruises. Since we are from Houston, we chose the Grand Princess out of Galveston since it was an extremely easy port for us to embark and the ports visited included some that we had not previously visited. The lines to embark were long but moved quickly. We could have avoided the entire wait since we had provided all the information with our on line registration thru Princess which we would totally endorse. I had asked someone from Princess, about the Preferred On Line Registration but she did not totally understand what I wanted.
We left Galveston on December 16 and the ship was full to capacity. The ship is huge with several pools, a casino an athletic facility, bars, several dining rooms with all of the amenities of modern day ships. My wife was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the fresh water pools that she took advantage of every morning. This was the first ship we were on that had fresh water pools. The theater was large enough to cater to a large number of guests. The times we went to the Early show, the theater was packed. It was less than capacity for the Late show. There are a number of smaller bars and lounges to watch various types of entertainment. The MUTS (Movie Under the Stars) was a good way to spend some down time. I would highly recommend it, at least once.
Dining On the Grand Princess you can choose either early or late seating at the Botticelli dining room or the Personal Choice restaurants, Da Vinci and Michelangelo. We had chosen the Personal Choice for its flexibility. The first night was horrendous. We went to the Da Vinci and then the Michelangelo and there were 45-minute waits. We decided to go to the buffet at Horizon Court, which was fine but not as glamorous. Thereafter on other nights we had no more than 5 minute waits. The food was good and varied and generally the service was excellent. The one and only time we ate lunch at the Da Vinci, we were almost totally ignored and the service was far from good. The one thing that was somewhat lacking were very few sugar free desserts. On the buffet they were few and far between and a couple of times we had to ask for them since they were not out. The food was presented attractively in the dining rooms but we almost expect that.