Crown Princess Review
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Got home yesterday from our 10 day cruise to the California coast on the Crown. This was my second cruise with Princess. After the first one, I wasn't sure I would cruise with them again as I found the ship, the Emerald Princess that time, extremely crowded. However, I have to say this cruise was much more pleasant. We had a great time, lots of fun and met the most wonderful people.
It was quite a trip however, with two people taken off for medical reasons by helicopter in the dark of night, a flood that left several rooms with inches of floating water, two small fires, one in the kitchen and one in the laundry and a three hour delay in arriving back in Vancouver. We were told the delay was due to strong headwinds, a fierce current and an encounter with a pod of whales.
The Crown has apparently gone into dry dock and hopefully will come out ship-shape. However, there are things that I doubt can be fixed. The showers are still cramped little corners with fabric curtains. There were only two electrical plugs in the room and it's doubtful they could both be used at the same time as they are very narrow. I brought a small extension cord (no surge protectors allowed) which gave us three plugs and we charged one phone in the bathroom. The air conditioning was non existent. We called to have it repaired but they could not improve it so we kept the balcony door open at night. I raise these minor issues in the hope that they are corrected in new ships.
Cabin Review
Our cabin was on deck 10. It was a balcony cabin on the port side. I liked the location of the room. The balcony was quite large with two chairs, two footrests and a table. The cabin was roomy and we stored my walker easily in the closet area. I also ordered an oxygen concentrator and received 2 ( one for backup) so we stored the spare in the closet area as well. It did not have a sofa. It was close to the elevators and was quiet. There were only two plug ins and they were beside the desk. It was not possible to use them both at once. Fortunately, I brought a small power bar (without surge protection) and that gave us enough outlets to run my concentrator and charge the small portable concentrator at night. In the morning I charged my cell phone. We charged the other phone in the bathroom. The shower was a tiny corner with a cloth curtain. Hopefully they are putting better showers in their new ships like the ones on Norwegian and Holland America. The door wasn't wide enough for my walker to go through unless it was folded up but that was easy to do. The "air conditioning" was not capable of cooling the room so we kept the balcony door open at night. The bed, linens and pillows were okay. There was no cover to put on the bed when unloading your suitcase.