We sailed on the Crown Princess 5/12/07 out of Brooklyn NY and returned 5/21/07. Here is a little of our cruising background. This was our fifth cruise, and the second that we have included our children (now 3 and 5). Our first two cruises were on Carnival, then on Royal Caribbean, next on Norwegian, and lastly on Princess. The Crown Princess is a beautiful ship! She is very well laid out. The majority of the public areas are located on decks 4,5,6, and 15,16,17,18,19. Decks 4,5,6 have the shops, Lounges, dining rooms, Crown Theater, etc. The upper decks include the buffets, pools, gym, saloons, basketball court, bars, pay restaurant, golf simulator & mini golf course, etc. I would describe the ship dEcor as elegant but not glitzy.
I want to discuss something important before I get too far into this review. Whenever you cruise with small children you must insure that there is a good children's program. Trust me when I say, "If your kids aren't happy, you won't be happy". The program for children 3 to 7 years old on the Crown Princess (Princess Pelicans) is NOT a good program. The program is understaffed and is little more than a baby-sitting service. We were paged almost every time they were there. Some of reasons we were paged were: She is tired, she is bored, she is not participating, and my favorite she has a sour puss on her face. The same person who was always sitting at the desk always paged us. We were always worried about being paged, which restricted our activities. The kids seemed to watch a lot of movies while they were there. To maintain the appropriate adult child ratio other (untrained) crewmembers were brought in. Keep in mind that this cruise was sold out weeks in advance, so Princess had a real good idea of how many children were going to be on the ship. By the way, you will pay full fare and gratuity for children. Anyway, I would not recommend the Crown Princess if you have children between 3 and 7 years old. I would recommend the Norwegian Dawn if you are looking for a good kids program. (Feel free to e-mail me with any questions)
The port of Brooklyn is a great place to embark from. We drove from Eastern Pennsylvania to the port. It is pretty straight forward, but be prepared for lots of traffic.... The parking lot is just a stones throw from the ship, and there seemed to be plenty of parking. Parking will cost about $18 a day. You drop off you luggage in front of the terminal and drive around and park. You pay for parking at a machine when you return from the cruise. The machines are at the exit of the terminal and at the entrance to the parking lot. Be sure to remember where you put your parking ticket! The machine takes cash or credit cards!