Caribbean Princess
by Dean
Eastern Caribbean
January 27, 2008
My wife and I sailed the Caribbean Princess on Jan 27-2008 for a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise. This was our 5th cruise, 2nd with Princess (2 with Carnival, 1 with RCCL) and we sailed with a group of 8 other people. Age ranges were from mid 30s to 70s Our overall experience was a very positive one shared by all of our travel mates.
A couple of positive points that stand out for us:
Embarkation -- We arrived as a group via taxi at about noon and were through the entire check in process and in our cabin at about 20 after 12. Very fast!!
Another thing we liked was the way the sections of Lido and Sun deck were like independent areas of the ship. Depending on which area you were in you couldn't hear any noise from another area bleeding in. Hard to explain but if you were at the spa pool you would not hear any of the movie sound that was just a short walk away. Or if you were watching the movie you couldn't hear the band playing at Neptunes' pool just a few steps away. It felt like each of these parts of the ship were very independent.
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We ate in the dining room every night, late seating. Our server was good, lots of selection. The food was excellent. Only a couple of the entrees during the week were less than impressive. The sea bass and prime rib were a little disappointing. We also tried the buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner and always found there to be lots of selection, excellent quality with different theme nights every night; Italian, Octoberfest, Seafood just to name a few.
We did afternoon tea in the dining room and were very impressed. Burgers, pizza and hot dogs on the deck were yummy.
If I had to pick a couple of things that could be improved on, I would say the buffet layout is one. There is no real flow to the buffet. You can enter from two sides which causes a lot of traffic jams when it's busy.
The day spent at Princess Cays is the other item for improvement. The beach and water are lovely, the bbq lunch was very good, loads of shade and loungers, but the last tender back to the ship is at three p.m., which really means you have to start packing up by 2 p.m. to get in line for the tenders. Princess Cays is their own private island. Why can't we stay until 5 p.m.? Give us all a little more time to enjoy it.
These items hardly affected our overall enjoyment of the cruise. We all had a great time and would highly recommend the ship and the line to anyone who wants to cruise.
