Grand Princess Review

Grand Princess is grand

Review for Pacific Coastal Cruise on Grand Princess
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paluni
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Oct 2015
Cabin: Balcony

I have a lot to say, so this will be a long review. This was a really good cruise. I have been on seven Princess ships, and the Grand is one of my top two - the other being the Island Princess before its remodel where cabins were added. So I'm not sure about that ship now. The only real fault in the Grand was there was no central stairs - which surprised me, as I thought that was only for modern ships. We like to take the stairs, and our cabin, B334, was in the middle, so we had to hike to the end all the time to get the stairs.

I expected Princess to have downgraded some, since that seems to be the trend on all lines, from reading the boards. I was so pleasantly surprised - I thought Princess had actually upgraded. The first night, I expected the chocolate on the pillow to be gone or to be smaller. It was still there, and the same size! That meant a lot to me. Like, they didn't try and cut a corner there to save 7 cents per cabin. My previous Princess cruise was New Year's in 2015, and I thought things would be downgraded in almost a year. But they weren't. Another wonderful surprise: they had turned down the music volume! Noticeably so, on almost all the shows and venues. On previous ships, especially the Regal, the volume was often so high you could not talk. Decreasing the volume was wonderful. I thought there was no way ships would ever turn down the volume. And another pleasant surprise: there wasn't as much flashing of lights into the eyes of the audience at shows! That is a bad experience for me, and it had been cut back a lot on this cruise. Previous cruises it almost seemed like half the time these bright lights were aimed into the eyes of the audience, and you couldn't even see the performers. Again, I thought this just had to be on Princess ships, but they changed it on the Grand! Yay!

The weather was great - which is often the case in October in California, so that added to the enjoyment of the cruise. Not too hot, but generally warm. Only cold time was going under the Golden Gate with the wind chill factor. Luckily very smooth seas. Of course that is not due to Princess, but it made the cruise even nicer.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BB

A nice cabin. Smaller than usual open closet length, but adequate. Bathroom small but fine. Shower big enough. I've been in smaller. Nice size balcony, unobstructed view. Overlooks the Caribe deck and the Dolphin deck below that, since these are stepped-back balconies, but it is fine. Good lighting. Refrigerator very handy. Has two chairs, not a couch, but that is typical for this category of cabin and not a problem. A couch is always nicer but oh well. A little more ship motion being up higher, but not a problem at all. But we had calm seas too. Temperature was fine at all times in the cabin. We had no problem with the air conditioning in our room or anywhere on the ship.

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