Island Princess Review

Ten Glorious Days on the Island Princess

Review for the Panama Canal & Central America Cruise on Island Princess
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pklein9747
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Value for Money
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Additional details

Sail Date: Mar 2009
Cabin: Balcony

This was our fourth cruise and our third with Princess.  We cruised RCCL in May to Bermuda.  We are 53 and 62 and believe that vacations are for relaxing, learning about other cultures, and meeting other people.  We are not connoisseurs but just enjoy being served and not having to cook the food that we are eating.  Overall, this was a marvelous cruise with a few glitches that bothered us but certainly didn't ruin our trip for us.  The best part of our cruise:  the wonderful people we met from Cruise Critic!We left the day before and stayed overnight at the Hampton Inn in Plantation. Very nice hotel with a free shuttle from the airport and also to the Port Everglades. The hotel allowed us to check in early and were happy to assist us in any and all requests for information about the area. There is a mall across the street and a Target about a 10 minute walk away. Quite a few restaurants are within a 10-15 minute walk including Red Lobster, Applebees, Olive Garden and other local spots. There is a Crown Liquor store about 1 mile from the hotel and is a welcome walk after a big dinner. The pool area is small but lovely, surrounded by palm trees and other tropical plants. We were able to sign up for their first shuttle which is at 11 AM and it took about 20 minutes to get to the cruiseport. We made stops to drop off others before we got to the Island Princess but each stop took less than 5 minutes.

EMBARKATION Princess truly excels in embarkation. We arrived at the terminal at about 11:30 am and we were in our room by 11:50! The longest we had to wait was in the security line when we entered the terminal. After dropping off our carry-on's, we spent some time exploring the ship. We've been on the Grand and Caribbean Princess and the dEcor on the Island was very similar. To our untrained eye, the Island looked to be in very good condition.

Next we headed to the Horizon buffet for lunch. Designed by a blind man seems to be the only way to describe the buffet area. The area seems to be much smaller than on the Grand or Caribbean and the placement of food islands in the middle just makes for confusion and and jam-ups in the flow of people through the area. The food was OK, but certainly not as good as what we had on our welcome buffet on RCCL.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BA

Typical cabin with queen bed. Sufficient storage and closet space for all clothes, and storage of luggage under bed. Bathroom shower is exceptionally small but is typical of all Princess rooms that are not minisuites or suites. Balcony on Caribe deck is twice as large as on other decks; easily fits four chairs and a table large enough to eat breakfast on. The balcony is half covered and half open to the decks above. Great midship location, close to midship stairs and elevators.

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