Crown Princess Review

4.5 / 5.0
2,240 reviews

Crown Princess - Southern Caribbean

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Crown Princess
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cruzin-jen
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jan 2007
Cabin: Balcony

About us: My husband and I (30-35 in age) were traveling with two other couples (24-30 in age) on the Crown Princess, January 6-13, 2007, sailing the Southern Caribbean Explorer itinerary. We were all from the Illinois and Wisconsin. This was my and my husband's first cruise. One of the couples we were with had been on other cruises before and invited us to join them on this one. I enjoyed this cruise immensely and look forward to taking another cruise in the future. Next time we will probably have our young daughter with us, so that will influence our choice of ship and cruise line, whereas it didn't this time.

San Juan/Embarkation: A note about January 6th in San Juan it is the Epiphany, or 3 Kings Day, which is a big holiday there, like Christmas is in the mainland U.S. What this means is that cheap airfares and hotel room deals are hard to come by during this time, so a lower price on a cruise either embarking or returning at this time is offset by the extra cost to get there or return home. We stayed for 2 nights before the cruise at the Caribe Hilton. It's one of the higher priced hotels in San Juan, but it is a resort with a private beach, nice pools, a spa, fitness room, play areas, game room, organized activities, a bar, several fancy restaurants, Starbucks, etc. Some of the rooms are fully remodeled and some are only partially remodeled. There is not much in the area around it; apparently the night life is in Old San Juan. Embarkation was very smooth. Pier 4 in Old San Juan is relatively new and clean. There was a liquor shop offering free samples of Bailey's and a perfume shop. Apparently you could take your purchases onto the ship without having to surrender them. (Princess was very lax about bringing alcohol on the ship, which we liked.) We arrived around 1:15 pm and waited in line behind about 30 people. The line seemed to move at a reasonable rate. They had different lines depending on which deck your stateroom in on, but they seemed equal in length. A note to future virgin cruisers: Complete your Passenger Immigration Form online at least one week in advance of embarkation. This will save a lot of time, because if you don't, you'll have to wait while someone types all of the information into a computer. We noticed quite a few people in this situation (luckily not ourselves).

Our Stateroom: We were pleased with our room, a balcony stateroom on the Lido deck, port side (L310). We did not regret spending the extra money to get a balcony because it made the room seem bigger and brighter. The balcony we had was fully covered, which was a good thing in my opinion. The man next door played beautiful music on his guitar several times out on his balcony. We enjoyed breakfast on the balcony 3 times, by bringing food back from the buffet, which was on the same deck. We were very happy with our room steward Meralyn, who was very friendly and provided excellent service. We liked the location of our room very much because it was near the pools and food; it was an upgrade from our original room on the floor below. I was worried that it would be a noisy location, since it looked like it was across from the elevators on the website diagram and because it was near the pools. It was not noisy at all and was not across from the elevators. One minor drawback is that smokers congregated near that corner of the pool deck and so I had to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to the doors to the stateroom area. Our room was adequate in size for two people (not more), but we kept bumping into each other in the bathroom/closet area getting ready in the morning or for dinner. In the bathroom we were provided with bars of soap, shampoo, and conditioner, all from the Lotus spa. The shower looked small, but it didn't bother me when I used it. The water pressure in the shower was good, you could adjust the flow pattern of the shower head, and the knob had temperature numbers on it (in Celsius) so you could remember where to set it. The shelves in the bathroom and closet were very handy. The safe worked fine until my husband accidentally pushed a button twice and unwittingly changed the combination. I would have liked there to have been a clock provided and the bedspread looked like something from an old Holiday Inn and didn't match the elegance of the rest of the ship. I did notice a creaking noise coming from the sliding glass door one night, but usually we were pretty tired so we probably slept though it the other nights. The hangers in the closet had to be pushed together to keep them quiet when the seas were choppy and the ship rocked around.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BA
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