We had a great time on the Crown for the Mexican Riviera cruise. Embarkation was terrible though and not a great start to our vacation. Supposedly the computers went down (does that not seem the excuse used when things are slow) on one side. They had only 7 people checking in on the one side, everyone lumped together no matter what your status. We finally changed lines after standing in a virtually non-moving line for about 45 minutes and got checked in right away. After that fiasco our cruise was good.
This was the largest ship we have been on but did not feel crowded. Crooners was our pre-dinner drink meeting spot and Jorge and Rodrigo made a mean green apple martini. The entertainment was varied and not bad. Steve Morris, whom we have seen before on a Princess cruise, was just hilarious and we caught him again in the Explorers lounge. Why they would put him in there and not the theatre again was questionable. They debuted "Magic To Do" and I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was all new music written for this show by Steven Schwartz and there were some old songs in it like Colour of the Wind. Of the 6 of us who watched this, 2 fell asleep and left before the end, and the remaining 4 stayed out of courtesy. I did not find a flow to it and the magic was very simple according to 1 who knows magic. I know this is subjective so please don't flame me! The singers and dancers were wonderful though.
Our room was R746, the last room in the hall and was ideal. Out the back door, up a couple of stairs and there was the aft pool and up 1 flight of stairs and there was the buffet. How great was that! Staff were all very friendly and we certainly had no complaints. Anytime Dining was a major problem if you went from 7:00-7:45p.m. They took reservations in the morning for about 30% of the seating. Is that not an Oxymoron....taking reservations for anytime dining!!! We did not want to tie ourselves in to a set time, that is why we chose anytime dining. We finally had to wait until 7:45 so that there was no line-up.
Great room and wonderful balcony. We were the last cabin in the hallway and our balcony sort of wrapped around the back a bit so it was larger than most.