Crown Princess Review

Crown Princess - Eastern Caribbean

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Crown Princess
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scooterzidel
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jul 2007
Traveled with children

This is a review for families considering the Crown Princess - it is absolutely fabulous - we had the best vacation of our lives (mom, dad, son aged 6 and daughter aged 9). Embarkation was easy, we were in our room fairly quickly and the luggage arrived well before supper time. We had the early seating in the Botacelli dining room and I would highly recommend you request that when booking. We found that eating at 6 meant that you were free by 7:30 to either swim or enjoy a show or MUTS (movies under the stars). Our waiters were wonderful and were extremely helpful and chatty, and very tolerant of our kids. Breakfast at the Horizon Buffet on the Lido deck was great because you could eat outside and there were many food options - be it hot or cold. My son especially loved the sugar doughnuts each morning. You were able to reserve your chair by the pool with a few towels - eat at a nearby outside table and then start off your suntanning day by the MUTS pool. We often had lunch by the pool as well, as you could once again have the Horizon Court lunch buffet or get a hot dog at the hot dog cart, have some pizza from the pizzeria, or have a grilled lunch from the grill. The kids loved being able to go up to the bar with their room card and

order a "Princess Smoothie". The ice cream bar was located nearby as well, and was well worth it, as for $1.50 you received a generous portion of really good ice cream. Considering all the money that people were dropping at the bar, $1.50 for a good ice cream was entirely tolerable. We never made it to afternoon tea, as we were never hungry at 3:30. At poolside in the mid afternoon some crew members came by with milk & cookies which was always a treat. Our inside room on the Riviera Deck was lovely. I would not pay extra for a balcony. Many nights we only went to bed at midnight, but were able to sleep in until 9 as no light filtered into the room. The closet is great, with lots of room and many coat hangers were provided. There were always many bath towels and beach towels in the room and the toiletries were always replenished. The beds were comfortable with lovely duvets. The kid's 2 beds folded down from the wall and they were very happy to climb their ladders to their own little space. The bathroom and shower were small, but we were expecting that and found we became used to the miniscule space very quickly. Our cabin steward was very nice and polite and did a great job without being intrusive. The TV had a few cartoon channels for the kids so they enjoyed some down time throughout the cruise relaxing in the room watching cartoons. We were on a cruise with over 500 kids aged 21 and under so our 2 kids always had other kids to play with at the MUTS pool. As Princess offers many different types of pools (adults only, teenagers, kiddie...) I found that the MUTS pool seemed to have many kids aged about 5 - 12 which was just perfect for our family. The kids had a blast at the pool and enjoyed the freedom of roaming around the ship without a parent trailing after them. There were many Princess kids security staff walking around with yellow shirts making sure that the kids were always behaving. Our room was on the Riviera deck - I would highly recommend staying as close as you can to the pool as it was nice not having to traipse through half the ship when you had to go back to the room for something. We had registered for the kids club but they never made it there. They managed to keep busy throughout the cruise with all their new friends. The sea days were fantastic as there was never a rush to do anything as there was no set schedule. We really enjoyed the MUTS - finding it was a nice diversion at the pool - it was one of my favorite features of the ship.

The ports of call were fun, the best time was had in Margaritaville - we spent 3 hours in that lovely pool, the kids playing with all their friends and we were enjoying our drinks. In St-Thomas we took a $10 taxi ride to the local K-Mart and picked up some things that we needed - the kids bought some toys there as it was just like a U.S. K-Mart. After our experience cruising with our 2 kids I would say that if you're on a big beautiful boat with lots of kids on board it doesn't matter what your ports of call are, as the kids will have the most fun just being on the boat, and will not even want to go ashore on port days. Being in the summer, it is so hot at these ports that the kids would always rather be swimming somewhere rather than sitting in a hot car or van touring around some island. All in all, this cruise was absolutely fantastic, we all had a fabulous time and met many wonderful North Easterners. The crew was certainly much happier and more friendly than I had previously read about, and the boat was lovely. We found our way around the ship without any problem and the kids were very comfortable with their route from the pool to our room. The food was plentiful and maybe not "gourmet cuisine" was perfectly acceptable - there was always something good to eat. One tip I have if you are travelling with kids is to bring lots of bathing suits - as with the room and bathroom being so small there is really not much place for them to dry. We each had 4 bathing suits and I did laundry every few days ($1 detergent/$1 washer/$1 dryer) in the lovely big laundry room on our floor so that ensured the we usually always had a dry clean suit. CruiseCritic was extremely helpful - I would tell all future cruisers to join the boards and monitor all the postings - I felt at home on the ship right away as I had read so much about it before leaving. Don't hesitate to cruise on this ship if you have a family - it is the greatest!!!

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