Sea Princess Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We almost cancelled this cruise because of all the negative reviews and the recent Noro virus outbreaks, but I am so glad we didn't! My husband I and both really enjoyed this cruise! This was his 5th cruise and my 4th (all on Princess ships).
EMBARKATION/DISEMBARKATION:
Embarking out of Pier 35 in San Francisco's main tourist area was nothing less than a complete zoo! We had driven up the morning of from LA and expected the more organized embarkation experience we have had out of Long Beach, but this was the complete opposite. Cars line up for miles trying to drop off people at the incredibly small Pier 35 front building. When you finally reach the point where you can pull in and drop off your luggage, there are only 3 or so cars that can fit at a time (hence the miles of backed up traffic). My husband left me with all the luggage and went to park the car (at ACE Parking $12/day, $132 for the 10 day cruise). From here, the embarkation went very smooth, they took our luggage from us, and we got in line to embark, We were on the ship 20 minutes later. Very fast and organized once you got inside Pier 35, outside was a different matter. Some other reviewers had mentioned that the luggage guys were asking for tips, though you aren't supposed to tip them, but we didn't have that problem. When we got back into port on 7/19, we had signed up for the walk off list (if you can carry your own luggage and want off the ship first). We had received a note in our stateroom that we were assigned to the 8:50am group of walk offs. We got to the meeting area at 8:30am and they told us they were ahead of schedule and that we could go ahead and walk off right then. We were at the parking garage by 8:45am, so were very happy with the quick disembarkation so that we could get on the road for the 6 hr drive back down to LA.
Cabin Review
We had an interior room (C711) and though the room was small, it was very adequate. It had a nice flat screen tv with HDMI hookup available, so we were able to hook up our laptop and watch movies which was nice (we brought our own cables to hookup). The bathroom was the same size as all the other princess ships we have been on (small!), though the room was definitely smaller. On other Princess ships we had a king bed with a bedside table on either side, but on the Sea Princess there isn't enough room for that setup. So instead they have a king bed pushed up against the wall and one bedside table on the other side of the bed. It was slightly annoying having to crawl onto my side of the bed (against the wall) from the end of the bed, especially in the night to go to the bathroom. Even on the other side with the end table, my husband had to scoot around the fridge/tv stand sideways to get to his side of the bed. While this wasn't quite as spacious as the other ships we have sailed on, it was workable for the 10 days. The room had a lot of closet and drawer space as well as plenty of room under the beds for our luggage which was nice! My main complaint about the room was that it was located directly across from 2 service doors that had Princess staff going in and out of all hours of the day and night. Each night every 20 minutes or so, loud staff (chatting loudly to each other) would push the carts full of rattling room service trays and dishes through these doors. I slept with ear plugs each night and even through the ear plugs I could hear all the racket in the hallway outside our room. I don't think Princess should allow staff to use these doors at least between the hours of midnight - 6am out of common courtesy to their guests in rooms C709, C711 & C713. You also can't tell when picking these rooms that they are located across from the service doors, which I think is deceitful of Princess, as had we known, we certainly would have chosen a different room location. If you do happen to get stuck in one of these rooms, you can go to the pursers desk and request that the doors be closed for certain hours. I didn't learn this until the last day of the cruise when I complained about it, so it didn't help me any. But, I also don't think it should be up to the passenger to have to go and make a special request for something the Princess should be proactive enough to have done already (I know that I can't be the first passenger to have complained about this). If Princess would put the customer satisfaction first, then those doors would always be closed overnight to ensure that the people in those rooms can actually sleep and have the best onboard experience. Creating a situation each cruise that requires a passenger to complain before anything is done about it seems lazy on the part of Princess.