Caribbean Princess Review
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We usually cruise in the Fall, but had the opportunity to attend a destination wedding in Rincon, Puerto Rico so we decided to combine that with a Southern Caribbean cruise. We chose the Caribbean Princess Southern Caribbean Explorer itinerary due to the fact that it left on Sunday and, we wanted to try Princess again after several Royal Caribbean cruises. Also, we are avid snorkelers and this itinerary included Bonaire, which is a snorkeler's paradise.
Sunday - San Juan After making the drive back to San Juan from Rincon on Sunday morning, we dropped off the rental car at the Enterprise office at the Conrad Condado Plaza where we stayed the night of our arrival in Puerto Rico. This Enterprise office will give you a ride to the port if you are dropping off a rental car. We arrived at the port around 2:30 pm and encountered light crowds. We did have to wait a few minutes to check our luggage, but we already had our luggage tags stapled on so the porters took our luggage ahead of the others who were waiting to staple their tags. We then walked directly up to a check-in agent and after a short line for security, we were boarding the ship in a matter of minutes. We dropped our carry-ons at our room, and then headed up to the Trident Grill for a slice of pizza, then on to the Horizon Court to sample its offerings. We were impressed with both venues; the pizza is very good and the Horizon Court's choices were plentiful and everything we tried was very tasty.
Our room was an inside on Baja deck 11. We find that an inside cabin is fine for port intensive itineraries like this one, as you really don't spend much time in the room. The room was well laid out, but the bathroom did show some signs of wear such as a few cracked floor tiles. The mattress was very firm, which suited us fine. Our steward introduced himself and let us know that this would be his last sailing before he went on break for three months. After hearing that, we adjusted our expectations of receiving anything beyond bare minimum service, and that's all we got. While the room was still cleaner than most hotel rooms, I did have use my Clorox wipes to clean up a few spots of mildew that were missed around the sink.