Caribbean Princess Review
Ports were great, ship is old
Rating by category
Additional details
We planned this cruise about 9 months ahead of time to celebrate my mom's 80th birthday. A Panama Canal cruise was on her bucket list. We traveled with my mom, my brother and his wife, and my sister and her husband, and my husband also. We decided on this ship and itinerary based on the amount of time we had to take off of work and also, some of us had sailed with Princess before and were happy with that cruise. My husband and I had not cruised for 10 years and our last cruise was with Disney, so we probably were the least prepared as far as what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised with the overall level of service by the crew. They were happy to be there and offered to help with anything multiple times throughout the cruise. We were not satisfied with the night manager. We had a ton of noise during the night from the "galley" that was above our cabin. We called to complain on the 3rd night and were told that they would get back to us, but 2 more nights went by when we had to call again (we were woken from sleep by the noise on probably 6 out of the 9 nights) and they had not followed up with us. Although they did offer us another room, we couldn't justify spending 3-4 hours of our vacation with packing, moving and unpacking again, without any compensation. They repeatedly told us that was our only option and that no compensation would be given. We did not understand why there would be a cabin below a work area that was noisy and where people were working all night. Our room was A625. Never book that room or the ones surrounding it.
I do want want to recommend two private excursion companies that we used and they were fantastic. The first was Dora De Explorer in Cartagena. We had a private van for the 6 of us (plus the guide and driver) and the guide (Veronica) was super knowledgeable and really looked out for us. She adapted the tour to our interests and just really helped us get to see as much as we could. The other was Eduardo Humphreys with "Your Lucky Tour" in Limon, Costa Rica. We had a large van with just 9 people plus Eduardo and the driver. We saw so much more than we had anticipated because of the knowledge of our guide. We were able to go on the canal boats, see the handmade Chocolate of the Bribri and go to a nature reserve/beach. It was wonderful.
Cabin Review
We had an inside cabin. Our steward was fantastic, however the room is dated with not enough outlets to charge your devices.
Port Reviews
Cartagena (Colombia)
This was the port that I was least excited for but was pleasantly surprised! I did not know much about this city before arriving but our guide, Veronica, was super knowledgeable and answered all our questions. We had terrible weather and it was a holiday so many areas were closed. However, we were still able to get a good feeling of the city and it's history. I would go back! We loved seeing the old town and church. We were able to do a little shopping in old town and then went to the emerald store and museum. We found that interesting but weren't prepared to spend hundreds of dollars on emeralds. We spoke to another passenger who did buy emeralds there and said that they were very reasonably priced compared to other places. We just aren't into fine jewels I guess. LOL
Falmouth
We did a tour through Princess that took us to Mystic Mountain and then to Dunn's River Falls. We rode the Bobsled Mountain Coaster and the Ragamuffin. Both were fun. We weren't aware that we were going to be asked for tips at every stop so we didn't bring enough cash. We really enjoyed the hike of the Falls also. This tour was fun but obviously very "touristy". We felt that everything we did was sort of a "show" to entertain us and didn't really give us an idea of what normal life in Jamaica was like. While it was a good time, I don't think we would do this tour again.
We loved Limon so much. It is a really small town and they had a band at the port to greet us with live music. That was so fun. We hired a private tour through "Your Lucky Tour" with Eduardo. It was fantastic! We were able to see so much because it was just a small group of people. We also ate in a local restaurant near the port at the end of the tour called the Park Hotel. The food was very good and reasonably priced. We were tired of cruise ship food at this point. Eduardo answered all our questions and really tailored our tour to the interests of the group. We had a fantastic day!
We observed the cruise ship going through the new locks in the morning. That was really interesting and of course, the reason we came. We left the cruise ship to transfer to a ferry boat and go through the old locks all the way to Panama City. It was so interesting! We were really glad we did this tour, it really helped us appreciate the engineering that was done to create the original canals and locks in 1914. Just amazing. If you like history or mechanical type things it was well worth it. However, the bus ride to get on the ferry took 2.5 hours (we were told it was 90 minutes). So be aware that you will spend a lot of the day on a bus. Also, Panama City was just huge. We had no idea.
Grand Cayman (Georgetown)
We didn't have any advance plans for this port. The beach was just wonderful. We grabbed a cab (they have vans that just pick people up on the main road) and went straight to a nice beach at the southern part of 7 mile beach, just past the big hotels. We rented chairs and umbrellas there. The water was warm and beautiful. I did get stung by a jelly fish but it was a minor inconvenience. I just took some ibuprofen and within 2 hours I couldn't even feel it. Georgetown seemed very expensive. We ate at a local restaurant and paid over $20 per person for our meals. There were food trucks and other vendors at the beach but this was our last port and we were out of cash. So we had to find a place that took a credit card.