Emerald Princess Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,873 reviews

Good Times–Wonderful Memories Southern Caribbean April 2011

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Emerald Princess
User Avatar
zambonimom
6-10 Cruises • Age 70s

Rating by category

Value for Money
Embarkation
Dining
Public Rooms
Entertainment
Fitness & Recreation
Service
Cabin

Additional details

Sail Date: Apr 2011
Cabin: Balcony

Good Times - Wonderful MemoriesThis review will be speaking for a group of 24 individuals traveling together made of up family and friends. We enjoyed another memorable cruise and will now share our experiences and opinions. We have been on a variety of cruises with all type of cruise lines several times over, lately loyal to Princess, but we could be looking again back to others to compare in the future.Pre Stay: Never again at this location: Comfort Inn Stirling Rd. Hollywood FLHotel is just OK; however, no upgrades or improvements were made since our previous stay two years ago. It has definitely gone down from our last stay. Never informed pool was closed and now a roped off "empty cement pond" surrounded by yellow caution tape in the patio area. Not a way our group (16 individuals) wanted to begin their vacations. Complimentary breakfast was a major issue since the waffle mix was spoiled and all the waffles tasted like vinegar. Took the staff a considerable amount of time to correct, by that time everyone had a terrible taste in their mouth and we were no longer hungry. Rooms were ready on arrival, excellent shuttle transportation from airport/hotel, hotel/pier and then with KSA again pier/airport - KSA was great. We will not book this hotel in the future, no matter what the price or group rate was offered. Staff friendly and helpful for the conditions they had to overcome. Embarkation: Princess does it best!KSA loaded our group and luggage at the hotel promptly at 10:45 AM, departure slightly after 11AM, arrived at the port 15 minutes later, small wait to drop off luggage and we were in the terminal with boarding group 4, shortly after 11:30 AM. Boarding began around Noon, and by 12:30 PM we were on the ship and off for lunch. Ship sailed with 3080 passengers, of which only 50+ were children.Rooms: Everyone Happy! EXCELLENT - Room Steward: Marlon! We had booked a series of connecting rooms/balconies (10) on the Baja Deck, all of which doors could be to everyone else's balcony to create one large open balcony for the group to "meet and greet" during the cruise. We were celebrating 4 birthdays during the cruise. Everyone was happy with the room accommodations. The very best Room Steward - Marlon, top notch, never had one better, he was outstanding and took care of everyone and always had a smile and greeted us each time with pleasant conversation. Found the storage and closet space to be generous. No one complained that the beds were too hard, and no one requested egg crates be added. Small issue with refrigeration, but that was corrected.Cruise Critic - Meet and Greet: One of the BEST very well attended & organized!Cruise Critic Formal Meet and Greet was extremely well attended on the second sea day at Skywalkers. Invitations were extended to the Princess staff and the Cruise staff, however, no one attended. We introduced ourselves along with a small gift exchange. Princess did provide the room, light snacks and a bartender for the event. Organized a slot pull for later in the afternoon. Kay and Bruce if you are reading thanks for all your hard work, you made it special for us to meet many new friends.Dining: OK - Servers were Excellent - Maitre d'hôtel, Nicola Furlan, very helpful!Our group of 24 selected the 6:00 PM early seating and assigned the Botticelli Dining Room, but scattered around 5 different tables with other passengers not with our group. The Maitre d'hôtel, Nicola Furlan, was extremely accommodating to meet our requests. New dining arrangements with confirmed reservations 6:00 PM in the Michelangelo Dining room assigning us three tables of eight for the cruise. Our waiters were the best even with all the tables they had to manage and cover with Anytime Diners, very attentive, picked up our personalities and wishes quickly. Never felt rushed or hurried to leave the dining room, made comfortable to enjoy our dinner time. Also should note that Nick in the Dining Room for breakfast was fantastic. High marks should also be given to our Dining Waiter, Salvio, and Assistant Waiter, Manuel.Food was not to the standard of previous cruises and our past experience on the Emerald. In fact, it was on the disappointing side, but there were selections for everyone. Pasta side dishes were excellent and very tasty. No one left hungry food was good or just OK. We all commented on the noticeable cut backs starting with the appetizers, soups, to the main entrees. Our group did not participate or select to visit any of the Specialty Dining venues. International Cafe - Enjoyed by all. The staff serving the Cafe was the best, well managed venue.Entertainment: Repetitive & Weak with the exception being - Beatle Maniacs, which was outstanding! All venues were overcrowded no matter what the event and/or location. Explorer Lounge is way too small for hosting any entertainment; many people could not find seats at the Lounges and/or Princess Theatre events. We found the entertainment very boring and repetitive from the Emerald Cruise in 2009. Same shows - Cole Porter - dull and boring, Boogie Shoes, little or no change that we noted, Motor City - not the Motown we remembered, possibly we were all too critical since all of our routes are actually from MOTOWN, where we grew up singing their songs. Hypnotist, Tim Triplett, who is excellent, is a definite repeat from 2009, with only very minor changes. Comedians were enjoyable, Al Katz and Rollin Jay Moore, at least they were new shows. We elected to skip Juggler.The best entertainment, were the Beatle Maniacs who really had the crowd rocking! This was presented one evening only, so I sure many of the passengers did not have the opportunity to see this great show. Well done. International Crew show was entertaining, but it was all singing other than the Cruise Staff acting very 'corny' trying to impress each other. Cruise Director (Billy London) of course had to sing for his own ego, should have left it all up to the crew, this seems like an inexpensive, cost cutting move on Princess to let their crew be an Entertainment event.MUTS - variety of selection, enjoyed several during the evening. Some of the movies offered were, The Tourist, Red. Morning Glory, Legacy, Tangled, Little Fockers, Burlesque, and King's Speech. MUTS is still annoying blaring away during the day, when there is little interest in PG films and animation films for children, considering the demographics of the age group cruising with Princess ....turn the volume down or off during the day.Casino and Bingo - Very generous this year to members of our group - a rare statement! We loved the casino on non smoking nights!Pools: Chair hogs seem to be kept to a minimum; no one ever had any issues finding a chair after breakfast either in the sun or shade, but we didn't arrive at the pool during the prime afternoon hours either. It was either early or late.Some of our best entertainment was spent playing Mexican Train dominoes with our group, Princess always found a table and lighting for us to set up for the night.Cruise Director & Staff, Nothing Special, rate Poor when comparing to previous cruise staffs. Everyone needs to work on their interpersonal skills and not their own ego's and attempts to out do each other. They do not come across as a warm and friendly staff, of course, that might be the example set by their director, Billy London's personality. CD, Bill London is definitely not to our standards of previous cruise directors, comes across with a big ego and all attention must be on him or his staff, not to the passengers. Rank him at the bottom of our list, but maybe we have just been lucky to have had excellent ones in the past. Wake Show in the mornings - we would just tune out. Cruise Directors do not make our cruise, but this staff was so weak a comment needed to be made. Stop with the old jokes at Bingo, we all have heard them over and over, just call the numbers, why people laugh over and over again at the same jokes, I will never understand, Heinz 57, I22 Quack Quack - silly.Port of Calls - Just about all were arranged independently and not through Princess.Aruba - 14 of us booked the Jolly Pirate independently for snorkeling (3 stops), open bar, BBQ lunch, rope swing along with the dancing and music while enjoyed the beautiful waters in Aruba. Crew kept us entertained all day long, we would highly recommend the Jolly Pirate and would book them again, and the charge was $50 per person. We would give this trip 5 Star rating for the day and entertainment value.Bonaire - Split group - Wonderful Day and Excursions!- One group to the Woodwind for their amazing snorkeling trip, safe, well organized and very knowledgeable, no matter what the experience level everyone gained new knowledge from this trip. Best snorkeling in the Caribbean, wonderful excursion, well worth the cost. 5 STAR Rating- Second group (non snorkelers) land tour 4x4 with Hans, 2 hours, took 4 people each time, very informative, but the seating was extremely tight with three people in the back of a Ford Ranger, glad it was only for 2 hours, charge was $108.00 total for the two hours, divided by the four passengers. 4 Star rating, not a 5 only due the fact of the back seat accommodations. Grenada - Chris Taxi Tour Highly Recommended! 5 STAR RatingTwenty two of us booked Chris for the day, he came well prepared with a new comfortable bus that fit the group well. Toured the major sights from the Fort, Spice Farms, the Rum Factory and other stops before ending at Grand Anse beach for a break - however, the weather did not cooperate to make a long beach stop. Spoke perfect English, answered all questions, used a microphone when speaking to make sure everyone could hear and understand, excellent driver and tour director - be sure to look for Chris if you are interested in a tour of Grenada. Charge was $35 per person for the full day tour, a great value for the cost!Dominica - Antours River Tubing - BEWARE - OUR FIRST BAD EXPERIENCE!!!! CAUTION - Dishonest - Broken Promises - Lack of communication - NO STARS!Booked on line with Antours a party of 9 for river tubing and since we had 9 we would qualify for a tour of Dominica. Accepted our payments and we were told to meet them for a 9:30 departure from the pier. Everyone was in the van (including four additional passengers, not booked with our tour), by 9:15 AM so the driver, Cedric left the pier. We were then told we had to drop two of the passengers off at the other dock for another tour. The remaining two passengers were not in our group, since they had purchased a tour through Princess and placed into our van by Antours. We went all the way to the other dock and dropped off the first two passengers, then proceeded to return to the same area we left from - at least a ½ hour delay (+), going right by the ship again!The driver was constantly receiving and/or making cell phone calls during the trip up the mountain many times stopping and leaving the vehicle to talk on the phone, never informing us of what is happening. This was an extremely crowded van with 11 passengers, and seating was uncomfortable with weak A/C. We all sensed there was a big stall in the making, since we were just driving around and around never getting to the river. When questioned it was hard for him to explain, but the look on his face said it all, something was wrong. Driver had trouble communicating and explaining, since his English language skills were poor to explain the situation and issues. We asked the manager to meet us at the pier, but he would not since he was working from his home. It took a while to receive an explanation, with several calls to the boss. It was described to us as an "industrial problem" - we would know it as a 'sick out' or 'blue flu etc.' Appears the guides and equipment were not available since they called off sick. Promises were constantly made and broken concerning when and where we would be tubing, frustration from the driver, who had to deal with 11 disappointed customers and no support from his management. Finally at 11:15 AM and two hours of sitting and driving around getting no where we took a vote to call it a day and return to the ship. The manager informed the group would receive a full refund for the tour, however, at this time two weeks (+) later, no refund as been issued, nor has any communication/confirmation been sent to us that they are keeping their promise to refund our cost. Our emails remain unanswered yet, when we booked the tours, their response was instantly. We returned to the ship pier at 11:38AM, very disappointed and frustrated with Antours. To end with a happy ending, we are hopeful that they will stand by their word and issue refunds, but that appears that will not be the ending since they are ignoring our requests and emails. Charge was $40 per person.Our final opinion on Dominica: For many of us we are now three for three with terrible experiences when stopping at Dominica. We would recommend this port be dropped from your itineraries, since the island is filthy and struggling; there are no beaches, no shopping, it has little to offer. In the future we will not consider booking a cruise stopping at Dominica. We have allowed three strikes - all bad experiences.St. Thomas / St JohnWe docked at Havensight - YEAH! Ruby was docked at Crown Bay.Left the ship at 8AM, took a taxi to Red Hook, boarded the 9AM ferry to Cruz Bay, and boarded a taxi to Trunk Bay for impressive snorkeling and swimming and the beautiful Bay. Returned on the 1PM Ferry from Cruz Bay to allow for shopping in St. Thomas, had plenty of time to shop for everyone's favorite BLING BLING! A second group took a trip from Princess to Turtle Cove/ Buck Island, loved snorkeling at Turtle Cove. The Jolly Mon catamaran crew was fantastic! They rated it their best excursion. They highly recommend this tour. This excursion was booked through Princess.Princess Cays Great way to end the 10 day cruise, however, beach entry is extremely rocky, returned to the ship early to enjoy the quiet time on the ship with everyone at Princess Cays. Tender processes has improved greatly since our last trip to Princess Cays, lines were organized, moved quickly and there was no "line jumping" as in the past. DisembarkationWell organized, easy to locate luggage, Princess does it the best, kudos to them. Captains Circle Party - Who came up with the idea to host in the Atrium? You couldn't see, or hear, very warm uncomfortable air all as a result of the massive crowd gathering. The Atrium was extremely overcrowded creating nothing but a congested mess. It is worse than traffic grid lock at high peak rush hour. This location, in our opinion, is not conducive for enjoyment, presentations or celebrations, it cannot handle the crowds. All in all it was a different cruise, the weather was out of the ordinary with mostly cloudy and rainy days, but no one can control the weather. In our opinion, we noted definite cost cutting measures in place that made a difference. We feel family and friends made the cruise giving us good times, laughs and memories to share forever. Always happy to be cruising, a great vacation!

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin BD

We booked 10 adjoining rooms together on the Baja Deck, where the balconies all could open up to each other's - an added PLUS for our group, we loved it, our own Meet and Greet area!

previous reviewnext review

Find an Emerald Princess Cruise from $578

Any Month

Get special cruise deals, expert advice, insider tips and more.By proceeding, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

© 1995—2024, The Independent Traveler, Inc.