Golden Princess Review

4.0 / 5.0
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Warm tropical breezes or gale force tradewinds?

Review for Hawaii Cruise on Golden Princess
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DrJohn
First Time Cruiser • Age 80s

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Sail Date: Apr 2009

We thought we would be cruising to Hawaii for eight wonderful days of sun at sea, with romantic strolls around the deck watching the sunset. The reality was cold gale force winds with the ship bouncing around more than we thought modern ships could! That is the major message of this review - weather can be terrible not only going and returning but also during port stops in Hawaii. So make sure you can put up with 8 sea days that might not be too pleasant in order to see Hawaii by sea. That said - our cruise on the Golden departing April 1, 2009 had its wonderful moments as well. The Golden and Grand and Star are just the right size for us and we like them all - and the Golden will be even better after the improvements planned during the dry-dock.

The cruise director David Cole was fantastic. He also did the port talks and his knowledge of Hawaii was impressive. Also superb as a guest lecturer was Randy Ashley - we didn't miss any of his sessions. And if you wanted to learn the hula or play the ukulele, there were sessions on those as well - and a special presentation by the newly created hula and ukulele masters onstage on the last night. So there were things to keep everyone busy during those cold days at sea. The production shows were better than usual, but the other entertainers were not as good as we have usually seen on Princess. But as usual there was something for everyone so what we didn't like someone else loved and visa versa.

The food was standard Princess - dining room food was very good most of the time with menus that had at least two items that could be appealing every evening. The Horizon Court buffet was as usual -basic buffet food that was edible but not memorable either for flavor or originality. And if you like sunny side up eggs that are slimy, or like low fat versions of salad dressing - the Golden is right up your alley (a couple pet peeves there). Dining room service in the anytime dining rooms varied from superb to basic. The Golden does not honor table requests if you make reservations so you typically can't ask for the waiters and tables you really like - you go where the head waiter wants to put you - a practice we have only experienced on the Golden. Typically on Princess we eventually find a table and waiters we really like and we request that table when we make a reservation. And yes, we make reservations (the time varies as well as who we dine with) because we have had the experience of being turned away or wait for too very long with anytime dining. What was really interesting was that waiters we really enjoyed would see us across the room and come over to say hi - one evening we had waiters from four different tables standing around chatting with us! Hopefully someday soon the Golden will adopt the practices of other Princess ships that can make anytime dining the best thing since cruising started!

Cabin Review

Cabin D

very convenient cabin but "slamming" crew door almost directly below us meant no nap time!

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