Emerald Princess Review
Greece, Turkey & Italy Medley - Emerald Princess Cruise May 2015
Rating by category
Additional details
Overall – Very Good cruise.
• High marks for itinerary, room comfort and steward’s service, specialty restaurants. The weather was great.
• Low marks for several of the tours, dining room service, too much emphasis on shopping, slow Wi-Fi
Cabin Review
Our room was a mini suite. These were blocked off for travel agents, which has advantages, including cost savings and ease of coordination, and disadvantages. The main one for us is that you do not know your room at the time of booking nor early enough to change room assignments. We specifically asked for a room away from the stairs and elevators, but in the free upgrade process we were assigned a room right near the stairs in the middle of the ship rather than mid-aft or mid-forward. Luckily, it turned out not to be too noisy. The only noticeable noise occurred one or two evenings before midnight due to people talking loudly in the halls and in nearly every morning around 6 o’clock when they would bring the cleaning carts to an area near our room. Most mornings, we were getting up for tours anyway
The room was spacious, well equipped and quite livable. We felt that the mini-suite is the ideal room arrangement as it provides adequate space to stretch out and rest, a large bathroom with plenty of counter-space, and a sliding door for fresh air and private balcony access. There were some signs of needed maintenance such as wear on the furniture and carpet and rust on the balcony, but overall was in nice condition. Another negative was the ineffective hair dryer provided in the room.
Port Reviews
Athens (Piraeus)
We arrived early and toured Athens on our own. Stayed in the King George hotel on Syntagma square. The hotel is a lovely older hotel very upscale part of the luxury collection from Starwood and well located for sightseeing and shopping. Probably the best feature about this location was that it was at the beginning of the hop-on hop-off bus I route. I purchased in advance two days of sightseeing by the hop on hop off bus, which turned out to be a very good a very good idea, as we use the bus for transportation within the city as well as sightseeing.
Highlights of three top sites: The Acropolis museum is in stunning new multi-story building and has numerous beautiful arranged displays of artifacts from the Acropolis, including sculptures, statues and several of the frieze panels from the buildings. Outside the museum, one can view the excavations of an ancient Athenian neighborhood and an early Christian settlement.
It was a fairly long climb up from the bus stop to the Acropolis, but well worth the effort. In addition to the Parthenon there are several other noteworthy temples and structures that are in various degrees of completeness. It is easy to see why this is a World Heritage site.
National Archaeological Museum is in older, classical styled facility and houses a comprehensive collection of ancient vases, bronze statues, Mycenaean gold, marble reliefs of gods and goddesses, and frescoes from Akrotiri.