12 Night British IslesCruise, 17 to 29 August 2017

This was our first cruise with Princess after sailing on Celebrity (Elite Level) and NCL (Silver Level)

The Good:

- Embarkation, they started on time and it only took appox 20 mins and they did not give it in 10 or more languages like Celebrity.

- The World Fresh Market (WFM) and Coral Dining Room staff were great.

- Our stateroom attendant Pedro was fantastic.

- Our luggage was delivered when we went to our stateroom at 1:30PM.

- The closet space is great and we had more than enough room for our clothes.

- Disembarkation was on time and very well done.

The not so good:

- I realize that food is a very subjective topic but I have to comment about the quality of food on the Caribbean Princess. The food in the WFM is very bland, variety is lacking and it is much of the same items daily. What ever happened to having cheese slices? I do not know who dreams up the ingredients that they use to make their sandwiches but there are some crazy combination. They did not seem to be a hit with the passengers.

- We ate our evening meals in the Coral Dining room and while there was a varied menu each night the menu did not always clearly describe what you received. i.e the menu had escargot in garlic but when it arrived the escargot was in a garlic butter curry/salsa sauce. if you were a meat lover then this was not the cruise for you. They only offered steak on one night of the cruise.

- The hamburgers at the Salty Dog are precooked and kept in water until you order one and then they are quickly heated up on the grill.

The food on the Caribbean Princess was by far the worst we have encountered and I would only consider it as adequate.

- The Terrace Aft Pool is supposed to be an adults only pool but there were constantly kids in it with their parents and the staff did not say anything to them.

- The Caribbean Princess required all passengers to take their life jacket to the musters drill. This is the first time we have had to do this on a cruise. I do not know if it is a Princess policy or if they just do it on the Caribbean Princess. You are not required to take them with you on Celebrity or NCL.

Misc:

- The show times were constantly changing. Most nights there were 2 shows but some nights it was 3 or 1. The entertainment was ok but there was nothing special.

- There was no announcement telling us when the staterooms were available. I'm not sure if Princess doesn't make announcements like they do on Celebrity & NCL or if they forgot to make the announcement.

- Princess has staggered boarding times but like us it seemed that no one paid attention to it. If we would have gone with the boarding time they assigned we wouldn't board until 3PM. We showed up at 11:30 and we were checked in and on board in 45 mins.

- The formal dining dress code was not enforced in the Coral Dining Room. By that I mean that men did not have to wear a jacket and tie. You were allowed in if you were wearing a collared shirt and dress pants. We did see some passengers try to come in on formal night wearing t-shirts and jeans but they were turned away. Personally, I was very happy that I could go to formal night and not have to wear a jacket and tie.

- The two new specialty restaurants, Planks BBQ and Steamers Seafood were very rarely used. I walked through them on most nights and at the most I saw 10 people in Planks BBQ one night. On at least 2 nights Steamers was closed as they did not have any guests. I cannot see these 2 restaurants lasting as they take up a lot of the ships dining space and they are paying staff to stand around with no guests to serve.

- The Caribbean Princess is starting to show its age as the stateroom and some of the public areas look dated. The ship was kept very clean.

Summary:

All in all it was a good cruise and we really liked the ports that we visited. We have a cruise booked on the Regal Princess in January and we are interested to see if there are any differences with the different class of ships.

It is a standard size balcony on deck 14. The shower is smaller that we have had in the past but it did not pose any problems. The closet is very large and it had mroe than enough room for all of our clothes. They recovered the two chairs in the stateroom during the crusie so they look like new.