Cruise Ship: Caribbean Princess
Cruise Destination: Eastern Caribbean
Cruise Dates: October 22, 2005
Guest Contributor: Louise
We had a wonderful 7 day cruise on the Caribbean Princess. The itinerary included Princess Cays, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. We traveled with 3 other couples, 2 of us flew from Buffalo, N.Y and the other couples who live in Florida met us on the ship.
We arrived at the port after a short cab ride from the airport and even though the line was long, embarkation went pretty quickly. If I could make one suggestion to everyone reading this, it would be to read the information you received from Princess and keep a folder with all your travel documents and have them ready. Most of the delays we observed were due to passengers who are not prepared when they got to the counter.
After finding our room and meeting our room steward (Elena from Romania) we proceeded to the welcome aboard buffet. The buffet line is a little hard to manage at first because people are entering from both ends and of course since many of us haven't eaten anything except the bag of pretzels on the plane, people are a little aggressive. The buffet will never again be as crowded as you see it on the first day of the cruise.
Our Impressions of the Caribbean Princess
We reserved balcony rooms on the Caribe deck, (our room was C735) toward the back of the ship. The balconies on this deck are larger and more private than other decks. We could actually look down on balconies below us. We were pleasantly surprised at the size of the room, it was quite roomy with plenty of closet and storage space. The refrigerator conveniently held the 3 liter box of wine we had packed in our luggage. I don't think I need to mention the size of the bathroom since that has been covered in great detail in other reviews. We knew what to expect so it wasn't a problem unless you dropped the soap. The bathroom is stocked with hotel size shampoo, conditioner and lotion from the Lotus Spa. During the cruise, these were constantly restocked.
It's a little hard to navigate since all elevators do not go to all floors. We suggest you carry your pocket guide and memorize which set of elevators you used to get to your restaurant. This may mean walking past the closest elevator to your room and using the mid-ship elevators.
We really enjoyed the adult pools and hot tubs. We found the pool by the movie screen much too crowded and loud, but that is personal preference. If you don't like crowds, there are lots of quiet areas where you can relax and read a book or take a nap. It would be hard to find a lounge chair around the MUTS pool, but no problem in other areas.
We found the public areas tastefully decorated and very well kept. The only evening the atrium seemed crowded was the formal night when the photographers were set up. We liked the fact that they had several photographers and backgrounds so that the lines weren't so long. This was actually the first time we had our picture taken because of the lines we encountered on previous cruises.
Our room was in the aft section and even though we didn't seem to encounter any stormy weather, we felt the motion of the ship quite a bit on this cruise. Even in other parts of the ship it was noticeable. Our group is not prone to seasickness so it didn't really bother us, just something to note.
Because of our dinner time and the fact that most of the movies and shows on the MUTS screen weren't of great interest to us, we didn't go down in the evening. We did, however watch the football games on Sunday. The screen is awesome and I would try to do that on a future cruise.
Our Impressions of the Dining on the Caribbean Princess
We ate breakfast and lunch in the Horizon Court/Café Caribe daily. There was a large variety and we enjoyed most of our choices. The food was not very hot though, and there could have been a few more drink stations available. We ate dinner in the Caribe Café the first night (seafood extravaganza) and the crab legs were actually frozen. The water from the drink stations is filtered and tastes just fine, you really don't need to purchase the bottled water they are trying to sell.
We also tried the pizza and the grill items and we liked them. The challenge is to find a table once you have your pizza, or hot dog or burger. Seating is really at a premium in this area.
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