Crown Princess Review

Crown Princess - Eastern Caribbean

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Crown Princess
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1cats1
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jun 2007
Cabin: Balcony

Our group of 6 has many cruises under our belts, my third, brother's 17th, SIL's 15th, Dad's and Christine's 4th, friend's 14th. None of us had been on Princess before and had high expectations. Crown Princess is a beautiful ship, but by a long shot, is the worst laid out ship ever. On day 9, everything still looked the same. Not all elevators went to all floors, so much wasted space by the mazes. Many complaints were overheard onboard, it wasn't just us. The ship had lots of activities. I especially enjoyed live reggae by one of the pools, but IMHO, Movies Under the Stars was annoying. This was especially true when tanning between the two pools, movies all day long in one ear, reggae in the other. I quickly learned where to not be even though most of the chaises were in between the two pools. The special teenage pool and hot tub section was empty because the kids were all in the adult pool. We had some of the finest service ever with Marygay, our cabin steward. She was fabulous. Robinson and Garret in Crooner's, became our new best friends and were always ready for Papa Joe (Dad's new nickname) and the rest of us. Agnieske serving drinks by the pool was an absolute jewel. However, the Purser's staff, (other than Lawrence who fixed messes for us several times, and the Sr. Purser, Bobs, who contacted us to apologize for misunderstanding and sent us chocolate covered strawberries), seemed overly inefficient. Lines were always long to the Purser's desk and anything you needed to report, like A/C problems, wrong disembarkation tickets, required trips to the Purser's desk. In San Juan and St. Thomas we shopped and did no excursions. We swam with the stingrays in the Turks, or stingray as it turned out since there was only one for about 40 people to swim with, disappointing for the price of $80+. The tour guide said there were about 20 stingrays up until a couple of weeks ago when they stopped coming in, perhaps because they fed them little. We took the Crystal Caves tour in Bermuda and saw many of the celebrity houses because he had some extra time. This was very enjoyable. It was a good thing we planned a Bermuda excursion, because we were there on Sunday and no stores were open which Princess failed to warn us. The Lotus Spa was outstanding. I can't say enough about Lori, a great massage and no high pressure sales tactics. We had a balcony room and two junior suites, which compared to Explorer of the Seas equivalent last year, were much smaller. My balcony cabin was on the 14th floor and had almost no A/C. We slept with the balcony door open to catch a breeze. There were other areas of the ship that seemed really hot. Two of our safes only worked part of the time, had repairs multiple times. The bathroom door would slip open also. Dinners were very good. Our waiter never called us by name like on previous cruises. Breakfasts and lunches were good but the chopped up layout made it difficult to find what you were looking for. The dance show was so-so. The biggest conflict was at the Purser’s desk when we explained we had noon flights and would need to get off the ship as early as possible. We told him we did not want to carry our own luggage but were told we couldn't anyway because it was our fault "we couldn't read". Not the type of customer service I am accustomed to, especially when this was not even the question. We never wanted to carry our own luggage. His actions made us very angry. We can read, Tiago can’t listen. Later we went back and spoke with another Jr. Purser who told us we needed aqua tickets and provided us with the appropriate number. Luckily, I packed my last ticket and had to go get another. We had been given one of the last colors to disembark, our luggage had been picked up already and could not be reversed. Again, Lawrence came to the rescue giving us tickets to get off the ship so we could go down and wait for our luggage. This was a pretty serious error. I will give them an A on disembarkation. It was very smooth and fortunately our luggage was there. A rescue at sea with a stranded sailboat was exciting. Overall, I can say Princess did not live up to my expectations and I will probably not cruise Princess again because it is not a notch above, like I thought.

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Balcony

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