Island Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,228 reviews

Great Cruise, Nightmare Shore Excursion!

Review for the Panama Canal & Central America Cruise on Island Princess
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tbcollector
10+ Cruises • Age 70s

Rating by category

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Value for Money
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Additional details

Sail Date: Jan 2016
Cabin: Premium Suite with Balcony

The ship was very nice and clean. Embarkation was smooth and we were on the ship quickly. Our suite was beautiful, clean, great location, wonderful room steward, and quiet (D420). The public areas were very nice, but extremely limited sitting areas other than the Wheelhouse bar that had no views.

Dining room (traditional) was great. The service was wonderful. The food was excellent, however we have had better on other cruises, but we had no complaints. Sabatini's was delicious with great service and friendly wait staff.

Ports of call were interesting, but very rushed if you took a shore excursion. After the tour there usually was no time to browse the port or do any shopping. The shore excursion of Panama Canal & Locks Transit by Boat (PC1-615) was the tour from Hell! In the description of the tour given on Princess website it stated that there would be a bus ride to Gamboa to board the ferry to go thru the remaining locks, ending in Panama City with a bus ride to meet up with the ship in Colon (a ride of 1 hr 15 mins) THAT WAS NOT THE TOUR THAT WE WERE GIVEN! It started with a drive by bus (an old one at that) to Panama City (1 hr 15 mins) with a stop at a ghetto shopping center for 30 mins, which most people used to stand in line for a pay bathroom. Then another 45 min bus ride back toward the ship and stopping at Gamboa (where we were suppose to go first) to board our ferry boat. Once there we sat in the bus for 1 hr 30 mins, other buses waited over 2 hours with no bathroom facilities. Many passengers went off the bus to relieve themselves in the weeds! (not what one expects to happen on a Princess tour!)

Cabin Review

Premium Suite with Balcony

Cabin S5

Clean, beautiful, great balcony, wonderful service and quiet

Port Reviews

Aruba

Loved feeding the ostriches! The light house was being renovated-but it was still very interesting. NO time was given for shopping as advertised in tour description

Cartagena (Colombia)

Fun ride, but no shopping as advertised other than the two stores that the tour guide wanted to take us to!

Colon (Cristobal)

Took the Panamas Canal and Locks Transit by boat (PC!-615). My advice-DO NOT TAKE THIS TOUR!

Puerto Limon

Rain Forest is beautiful-loved the tram ride, lunch was delicious! But it was very rushed because the ship was over 2 hours late arriving at this port because of the terrible tour in Panama

Grand Cayman (Georgetown)

Too short a time (about 15 mins)

Grand Cayman (Georgetown)

Only given about 15 minutes at each stop Felt very rushed!

Grand Cayman (Georgetown)

Too short a time at each stop

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