If you've read my cruise reviews before you know what to expect -- a way too wordy day by day account of all trivial details of the trip along with some editorial commentary. What can I say? If you want a short summary of the ship/food/activities/ports -- I doubt you'll get it. So, if you've got 20 minutes or so, read on. If not, there are lots of other cruise reviews out there.
We took lots of photos which are here, uncaptioned. I'll try to get some notes on them soon.
About us. We are a couple in our 30's. This is my 20th cruise, Ben's 14th. We've been on all mass market cruise lines, plus Radisson Seven Seas. We've both been to Hawaii, me six times, Ben three times. We've never cruised in or into Hawaii, and the longest cruise we've previously taken was a 14 day Panama canal cruise the same time last year on Celebrity.
Princess is our current favorite cruiseline due to Personal Dining in combination with a large entertainment variety, much of it catering to us -- live music, dancing (including partner dancing), comedy, trivia, etc.
We have a balcony cabin on deck 8, Emerald, E705. It's true what they say, once you have a balcony cabin, it's hard to go back. I'm sitting on the balcony now, writing this.
We get dropped off at the San Pedro pier around 11:05am, pick up our "Are you sure you haven't had Norwalk Virus" forms and get shown into a nice waiting area which is set up outside with white plastic chairs under a large tent. There are about 50 people already there waiting. In about 10-15 minutes I see someone with a name tag indicate where the line would be forming to go in, and see a few people stand there, so I do also. At about 11:25 they start letting us in, through the medal detectors and into the check-in area. Check-in takes less than five minutes. We then get directed to some more chairs to wait till the ship is ready. We sit there for less than five minutes before we are waved onto the ship. We're on before noon and the process is completely painless, even the very slow taking of security photos as we get on-board.
We get to our cabin and start to unpack. Ever since the luggage-theft incident we try to only have what we can carry, even for a two week cruise, so we don't have to wait for our bags.
A little about the cabin. The first thing I notice is a serious lack of drawers. There are two tiny ones in each nightstand, and two tiny ones on the little "makeup" table between the beds and the balcony. That's it. The closet is huge, both hanging space and shelves, but it's be more convenient if some of that space was drawers. Our stuff fits easily.
The bathroom is typical but a little worse than I've come to expect. Basically it's the smallest bathroom with the tiniest shower stall I've ever seen on *any* cruiseship. I mean, tiny. Six-inch cylinder, as the first night comedian described it was NOT much of an exaggeration! It was truly ridiculous. The storage space in the bathroom was on the small side also.
There was a little fridge which we immediately filled with the wine we brought with us. The balcony was large due to the cabin being towards the aft of the ship. It was also one that was fairly private with no one able to see into it from above. On one side was a solid wall, and on the other was a partition that you'd have to work hard to peek through so, about as private a balcony as you can get in a regular cabin. I decorated the railing with light-up garland of stars (battery operated, now standard packing item for our holiday cruises). There was a large table and two high-back/can recline chairs on the balcony and there was still plenty of space left.
We notice a few other items -- burnt out light bulb in one of the night stands, missing pool towels (delivered as requested), missing robes (delivered without sashes/belts, which we didn't get for days), no "do not disturb" sign and a lame excuse about how they ran out, really uncomfortable pillows (very dense), but quite comfortable beds, well designed curtains for keeping light out in the morning, the usual small TV, plenty for room for stowing the suitcases, the usual safe. There was one plug in the bathroom into which I plugged in the night-glo nightlight, and two plugs by the table into which I tried to plug in the laptop and the phone charger but both couldn't be plugged in at once because the plugs were too close together! All in all, I think I would have preferred a slightly larger cabin with a smaller balcony. Or just a minisuite, but they were all booked by the time I was booking this cruise last May.
By noon we are unpacked and ready to start exploring the ship. We had been on the Coral Princess which is the sister-ship to the Island Princess, so things looked quite familiar. The best thing about this ship is the large promenade deck on 7 which went all around the ship and was great for walking or running, 2.8 times around is a mile, and also the large and wooden dance floors in three different lounges.
We took a tour of the spa and gym on our own and noticed that it had one of those extra-charge steam room areas that Ben likes so much ($90 for cruise for one, $150 for two, $15 for a day). It was also packed with people making appointments, but the aerobic room was nice and the other side which was the gym was also nice. Lots of free weight dumbells, and machines, as well as elliptical machines, bikes, etc.
Buffet was okay, not very impressive, but we usually find the embarkation buffet isn't as good as the food the rest of the cruise. We grab a bite and continue exploring. We stop by the Explorer's Lounge for our favorite drink and discover something that would happen again and again -- the bartenders and waiters working that lounge have no idea what the special drink menu for the bar is. We'd ask for drinks by name and then have to show them on the back of the menu before they would know what we are talking about. Ugh.
We go back to the cabin to relax and end up watching "Freaky Friday" before dinner which is pretty funny.
The sailaway is delayed and we are still tied up at pier when we go to dinner around 6pm. Apparently some people's planes are late and since our next port stop is in five days in Hawaii I thought it was very nice for them to wait :) We get a table for two in the PC dining room which essencially no wait. The dinner is typical. We get a lobster terrine and veggie eggrolls for appetizers, mushroom and chicken consumme soups and pasta and fish for entrees. All are quite food. We are pretty full for dessert but can't resist the honeydew sorbet and the cheese place (stilton and camembert are excellent the cheddar and munster were skipped). A basic, good cruise dinner.
Princess has two specialty restaurants, Sabatini's and Bayou Cafe both of which we signed up for in the afternoon while touring. They claim they will get booked up, but yet they spend the first two days soliciting people to sign up because it'll get booked up. Well, duh.
We go to the show. The comedian is the same one that we just saw on the Sapphire Princess a couple of months ago on a repositioning cruise, he's quite funny (he'll have two more shows during the cruise). I laugh, Ben falls asleep (to be fair he's operating on basically no sleep). We then walk around and check out the lounges and the live music acts for their dancibility. There is a usual mix: a Jazz band in the Bayou, swing-trio in the Wheelhouse Bar, pop/rock band in the Explorer's lounge till 11:30 then the DJ. There is no actual stand-alone disco on this ship. There are two lounges though while one had the comedy show, the other showed a "first-run" movie (it would seem the same movie would be available on the cabin TV the next night).
We call it a night early (for us).
I wake up in the middle of the night to what feels like very rough seas. They are not too rough, but enough so that I'm being tossed back and forth which keeps waking me up rather than gently rocking me back to sleep which is what I'm more used to on cruises. It keeps about the same level of motion all day.
We get out of bed by 10am and head up to the Horizon court for breakfast. It's okay, there's a made-to-order eggs and omellettes which makes everything better, plus there is smoked fish, one of my favorite foods. It's smoked mahi-mahi today. Very yummy. We fill up and head off to morning trivia.
Those who've read these reviews know that we have three goals for trivia. One, and primary one is to kick our fellow passenger's butts. Two, least important, is to win junk. Sadly it's usually junk, so that's not much of a reason to go. But third and most important, just once during trivia we want someone to turn around, look at us, shake their heads and say "How the *hell* do you know that?" Without fail, it happens at least once a cruise. We end up teaming up with a couple of guys in their seventies, Pat and Cup. We normally stick to ourselves in trivia (keeps the win more pure), but the space is small and when we fail it's usually on some 30's/40's/50's trivia, so we figure we'll make a good team (plus we're competing against other teams of up to six).
We get 17 out of 20 which puts us into a three-way tie and a tie breaker question is tossed out: "What year was the golf tee invented" Ben's puts forth 1890 which we put down and the answers are read off. The other teams put down 1880 and 1885, and the quizmaster announces that someone is within one year of the correct answer which is ... 1889! We win! I give Ben the "how the hell did you know that" look and we collect our luggage strap-gift cerfiticates for the gift shop.
Even though it's past noon we are not even close to being hungry for lunch so we go to the game room and play a game of Carcossone (which I win handily). We brought the game with us, along with a deck of cards, but the game room was reasonably well stocked with games we like: Tabboo, Outburst, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, etc.
By 3 we finally head up to the buffet for some lunch. It's much better than the first day. After it's time to go to the next trivia! We meet up with Pat & Cup again, but alas we can't stay undefeated, we lose by *one* point (if only we'd known what the 4th official language of Switzerland was, or what year Mao died in -- we were off by one).
It's formal night, so we figure we'll dress, do some dancing and catch a late dinner. We end up watching some DVDs in cabin to kill time, since we're still full from lunch and I can't get into my formal wear for the evening (which involves a corset) untill the food is well digested :). Eventually we make it out, stop by the captain's party in the atrium for a free drink and go by some lounges. We get in one dance (my formalwear isn't that easy to dance in!) and decide to go to the variety/comedy show which is actually an impressionist. He is not very funny, though he is a very good impressionist -- of people who have been dead for fifty years!!!! We eventually can't stand it any longer and leave. It's about time to go to dinner anyway, it's after 9pm. As we get there they are seating a large number of people who'd been waiting (they are all holding those flashing pagers). We get seated right after them.
Dinner is similar to the previous night. Salmon roe and crab quiche aps, beef consumme and chilled yoghurt tamarind soup and fish and pasta. Fish is really excellent. Again we go for a couple of cheeses and papaya sorbet for dessert. After dinner we go back to the room and change. We end up not going anyway the rest of the evening. The only late night activities were movie and disco, I indend to catch up on some reading and instead end up getting rocked to sleep early (by midnight).
We set our clocks back an hour before going to bed so I wake up "early" -- a little after eight. After lounging around for a while I decide either the seas are calmer or I got my "sea legs" and it's not bothering me at all, so I get dressed for a run. The weather is beautiful, just a little chilly, maybe around 60, and I do a few miles around the promenade. Like I noted before, it's an awesome place to run, the best of any ship I've been on. It's large so you don't get dizzy doing 10-12 laps/mile and it's mostly wide making it easy to pass the walkers. There are at least two large clocks one on each side, so it turned out I could have left my watch in the room. THe only "shortcoming" is no drinking fountains along the way.
Even though I'm right near the Wheelhouse Bar I decide to skip the 9am trivia (Ben's the real trivia brain anyway, I just fill in the TV and movie blanks) and head back to the cabin and balcony where I write up the cruise so far till I'm starving and we head off for some breakfast.
After another buffet breakfast we buy Ben a cruise pass for the Thermal Sanctuary at the spa (we check the gym, it is PACKED) and then we walk around, doing much of nothing till we stumble across a martini "demonstration" at the martini bar. I manage to win a martini (tropitini, which is pretty good) by knowing correctly what the drink of the day is. I also buy a couple of decks of cards which have a different martini recipe on each card. We then wander over to the lounge where ballroom dance is being taught (it's cha-cha day). The nicest thing I can say about the couple teaching is that they were slightly better than most of the students. 'Nuff said about that, really.
At one point when we're in the cabin a stewart tries to deliver some sparkling wine to us. It takes me a while to convince him that he's in the wrong cabin -- it was for D705 not E.
We kill some more time and eventually it's lunch time, buffet again, which is supposed to have sushi buffet. By the time we get there (1pm, an hour before it's supposedly over) there is no actual fish left. Oh well. We find a few other okay items.
I decide to skip the BlackJack tournament because unlike the early cruising days (for me) when the entry fees basically went back to players as a prize pool and the event was mainly held to get people into the casino, it's now a big cashcow for the cruiseline -- they give a single prize of $500 and t-shirts to other finalists. Considering that they usually take in at least $1400 from the entry fees, I've started just saying no. Too bad because they were fun. We end up in our cabin and watch one of the movies I have on my hard drive ("The Butterfly Effect"). It's okay. We decide to skip afternoon trivia and get ready for dinner and hopefully some dancing.
It's Martini Happy Hour, so we stop by Crooner's and get a couple of martinis. Ben drinks most of both of them as the one I ordered is way-strong (and I'm not much of a drinker). We check the dinner menu and decide it looks very uninspiring, so we decide that after Ben steams himself, we'll go to Bayou Cafe for dinner.
Bayou cafe is nice, there's a $15/person extra charge. They have a nice large dance floor and a piano player till 7:30, and a jazz trio after 7:30. We get there a little after seven and hear them both. The drinks there are all very New Orleans themed but taste extremely weak, maybe that's by comparison to the Martini Bar. The food is decent, and extremely plentiful (read: more than a normal human can eat). Ben has the sausage and grits appetizer, I have the grilled prawns (both excellent), he has the bisque I have the salad for next course (both very good) and he gets the very spicy (allegedly) jambalaya (turns out to be tasty but only moderately spicy) and I get the lobster tail ($5 extra) which is fantastic. As a "grill" item it comes with a little bit of four sides: dirty rice, succotash, fried green tomatoes and some sort of slaw. The tomatoes are so good, I could do with a whole order of them! Neither of us can finish our food, even so we only order one dessert (bread pudding which is good except for raisins which i really don't like in my bread pudding) of which we each have exactly one bite before giving up. In spite of being really full we manage to get up and do some dancing to the jazz trio.
Having missed all three shows tonight (classical concert of which we heard about a minute, the broadway salute and the musical comedian) we head over to Explorer's Lounge to listen to the party band and wait for Karaoke. The party band (D'Version) is actually quite excellent, and have very decent set list (hopefully we haven't heard all of it already). Their drummer is particularly fun to watch.
Karaoke is staged as some sort of prelims for "Princess Idol". I do my classic "I will survive" and Ben tries a new song "Man of Constant Sorrow". The singers are uniformly excellent at the beginning, but the quality rather deteriorates towards the end (I may never listen to "Phantom of the Opera" again!) But it's all good, clean fun.
After some more wandering around and dancing we finally stop by the late night buffet, mostly to check it out, though we each pick a thing to try (the soups which we missed from the main dining room by skipping dinner there). For the most part the late night buffet is pretty pathetic. We get back to the cabin and end up watching "50 First Dates" which is pretty cute and far better than I would have expected.
We wake up a little after 9 and Ben goes back to sleep while I try to figure out what I want to do. My feet are still hurting after last night's dancing, so I don't want to run, but I don't want to go to the gym around this time after seeing how ridiculously crowded it was yesterday morning. Plus tonight is disco night, which means we'll be doing a LOT more dancing. I decide to get to the gym in the early evening for weights -- it's usually pretty empty then. I decide to grab a camera and walk around the ship taking some pictures. I stop by the store and buy Ben a travel coffee mug (since he can't function without coffee, this allows for him to have a portable supply). I stop by the tours desk. We had tried to book a noon kayaking tour online for Hilo and got waitlisted. We got our tickets on the first sea day, but they were for 2:30 which was not a listed departure. The guy at the desk confirmed that they added a second departure because of the length of the waitlist. Since it's going to be Xmas day and not much to do in Hilo anyway, it wasn't going to matter if the extra couple of hours we'd have there would be before or after the kayaking tour.
Morning trivia was moved from Wheelhouse Bar (large space) to Crooner's Bar (small space) again. Not sure why, this was the second time it happened already this cruise. Anyway it would be packed so we skipped it and lingered at buffet breakfast. In fact, we had determined that the lunch buffet which they started setting up while we were still there (change-over happens at 11:30) looked good so we'd do that for lunch again. For the next hour we walked around the ship, mostly the top deck and then the promenade wraparound deck. We took some more pictures and sat in the nice recliners watching the ocean go by.
To kill some more time we went to the game room to play another game of Carcossone. This time Ben won convincingly, but the notable thing about this hour was the four kids (5-9 or so in age) who were left to pay by themselves by their oh-so-responsible parents. Of course the younger two were going nuts and running around and while the older ones tried to get them to calm down, of course they couldn't. This resembled the scene at the breakfast buffet, though the kids were different. I'm not sure if it's because the children's program on the ship is only geared towards English speaking kids, but all the kids going nuts on their own generally spoke Spanish.
Lunch was good. After I went to the Future Cruise booking office to try to book our cruise for next year holidays. Unfortunately, the cruise I wanted (19 day Singapore to Sydney) was pretty much all booked, only inside and obstructed view cabins were left! And it doesn't depart for a year!!! That was pretty bumming. I made the booking anyway, and plan to get waitlisted for the mini-suite, but if we don't clear it's pretty certain that we'll be taking a different cruise -- 19 days is WAY too long to spend in a small cabin with no balcony!
We end up at afternoon trivia and team up with Pat and Cup as well as a British couple. We win again. Quiz master didn't have prizes but she assured us they'd be either luggage tags or luggage straps. Again. Ugh. I did learn a few new things, like who wrote the soundtrack to "Gone with the Wind" and what my true love brought to me on the tenth day of Christmas, a question the answer to which raised quite a bit of controversy.
Since the dinner menu looked highly uninspiring, we tried to make a reservation at Sabatini's but were told they were fully booked. We made a reservation at the PC dining room instead so that we wouldn't have to wait and were done with organized activities for the rest of the afternoon. We headed up to the gym. For a while. After working out I take advantage of the large shower in the gym. Much easier to shower when the shower cirtain isn't wrapping itself around you as you turn under the water. I watch "13 Going On 30" back in the room while Ben gets a drink at the martini bar and reads. We head off to dinner at 8:15, and walk right in with our reservation while dozens of people are trying to get in without a reservation. Definitely, PC is convenient if you like to have dinner early or late, otherwise you really have to make a reservation or wait for quite a while for your table.
After dinner we headed to "Name that tune" and meet up with our teammates. It's lucky they are there, because there are basically NO songs which got any radio play after I was born. Many of them are from before my parents were born. We win anyway and I even get to help by being the only one to recognize an Elton John song (the only song from "my" era). Afterwards we head off to the Explorer Lounge to listen to D'Version, who still rock, and then for "disco night". We have a blast dancing for about half an hour, but can't last much longer because it's quite warm and we get very sweaty. We get back to the room, watch some more TV and eventually turn in.
We roll out of bed at the crack of 10am and head off to breakfast buffet. I've checked the sit-down breakfast menu by then and there is no reason to do that -- it's just a limited version of what's available at the buffet. We head over to morning trivia which is movies, but sadly we suck. We play some games in the game room, get a light snack since Ben has a wine tasting in the afternoon and I plan to check out the afternoon tea. I skip the tea but hit another trivia event (lost again!) and meet up with Ben after his wine tasting. We get a bite at the grill/pizza parlor -- the pizza isn't too good but the knockwurst is excellent. I kill some time reading, watching TV while Ben goes to the steam room and washes up.
I go to check out the Christmas Variety show which is pathetically bad, so I leave after about 20 minutes. We hang out for a while before heading off to the headline comedy show -- same guy we saw on our previous cruise and opening night show, but he's got three separate shows this cruise, so hopefully they all have different material. His show is decent but that's about it. Overall, the entertainment has been on the weak-ish side so far.
After the show we go to the dining room for dinner which turns out to be best so far. I have lobster tail entree which is perfect, and Ben has the filet which is also excellent. We get "traditional English crackers" with dinner which I think are going to be, like, crackers -- like bread. Turns out they are those little not-quite-fire crackers that make a loud noise, smell like gun powder and cough up a prize and some silly jokes -- sort of like a fortune cookie, but much worse! :)
By the time we're done with dinner it's after 11pm and we decide to call it a night early as we have our first port day tomorrow.
We are docked in Hilo from 11am till 6pm and we have a "kayaking and waterfalls" shore excursion booked from 2:30-5pm.
At 11am on the button an announcement is made that we can go ashore and after checking out a map we get some coffee and juice and hit the road to check out the Japanese gardens and a place called Coconut Island that according to the map seems to be less than half an hour away by foot. We brave major crowds to get off the ship and out of the pier area. We walk for about half a mile along unscenic industrial area and then make a right onto Banyan Rd which leads us along nice looking houses and hotels along the waterfront right to the final destination (total walking time probably 35 minutes). We walk around the island and the gardens for about 45 minutes and then decide to take a cab back to the ship so we'll have time to rest up and get lunch before our shore excursion. The ship is pleasantly abandoned -- very few people at the pool, at the buffet, in the hallways. It's nice and quiet. We grab a quick bite, relax for 30 minutes and then change to head off to the kayaking excursion.
The kayaking is awesome. It's not too hot, just hot enough to keep the spashing ocean water feeling very refreshing (doubly so for those who tipped their kayaks over!). We drive for 5 minutes with our group of 14 and get our 7 double sit-on-tops put in to Hilo Bay. We paddle across the Hilo Bay and then enter the mouth of the Wailuku River. We paddle a little ways up the river, including navigating up a little class two rapid (which it took us several tries to get up, at least we didn't tip over like three other kayaks did). We then found ourselves next to a small but beautiful waterfall. It was past 4 and the sun was behind the clouds much of the time otherwise we might have attempted to paddle behind the falls (which would have gotten us drenched with much colder water than the bay). We took some pictures and then paddled back to the bay and across to the beach where we put in. All together it was probably around 3 miles or so according to our guide. It took us about an hour and a half to two hours and we were exhausted!
A short ride back to the pier found a huge line to get past "port security" and onto the ship. We stood around for at least 25 minutes for a ridiculous and totally superficial check by local "authorities". After this we still had to use our ship card to actually get onboard so I'm not sure what the heck this checkpoint is all about other than giving jobs to locals and giving tourists more time to shop for trinkles along the line while they wait.
Before dinner we went to the Crooner's Lounge for a drink and ran into our trivia buds who were having a drink before dinner themselves. We chatted for a while about this cruise and some other cruiselines -- they also had lots of little complaints -- nothing really big but it was clear Princess was cutting some serious corners all over the place.
We had a dinner reservation at 7:30 at the Bayou so we saw the first half hour of the Knave of Clubs show. It was a juggler who was effortlessly more funny than all the comedians we've seen this cruise put together.
Dinner was okay -- we took it easy leaving room for dessert which we then didn't like (all of Bayou's cafe desserts we tried, bread pudding and pound cake, would have benefited from being served warm) so we left it mostly untouched and went to the regular dining room later to have some souffle. It was okay but the mango tamarind sorbet was fantastic and worth the trip in. So far the absolutely flawless items have been the fruit sorbets after dinner in the dining room. By the way, the service in the Bayou was bad enough that I doubt I'd want to go there again. I like long dinners and sitting around between courses but not with the dirty dishes in front of me and it would take them 15+ minutes to clear them after we were done, each course. It would also take that long or longer to get their attention to get a drink or something else.
Shortly after we were done, it was almost 10pm and the ship was passing by an active volcano on the South tip of the Big Island. We luckily had a balcony on the starboard side so we went outside to watch it. It was kind of amazing and unreal to be watching actual red glowing lava from an active volcano on an island that thousands of people live on. We tried to take some pictures but lacking the right photographic equipment I'm sure they won't come out too well.
Afterwards, Ben went off to read and I watched "Under the Tuscan Sun" before falling asleep for the night. I've had a scratchy throat all day and I hope I'm not coming down with anything (again! I got sick on my last two cruises!) and root to wake up feeling healthy.
We are anchored in Kona from 8am till 6pm. We have friends who live in Kona so we booked no shore excursions and just plan to spend the day visiting with them. We get in touch with our friends and arrange for them to get us at the tender drop-off point (Kailua Pier) and go to brunch. The wait for the tender is kind of long (but then three show up at the same time!) but about 30 minutes after leaving our cabin we're getting off the tender. We tried to go to brunch but the place our friends picked was closed so we went to Kona Brewing Company instead. This turned out to be a fine choice -- the beer selection on the ship is rather thin, so Ben's who's a big microbrew fan was thrilled to be sampling half a dozen local brews. We split a small pizza and salad and then headed off to Stuart and Teri's house. They live a couple of thousand feet above sea level so it turns out it stays nice and cool up there. The temperature dropped from mid-80's at sea level to low 70's at their house by the time we arrived. We were enthusiastically greeted by their three dogs, less so by their five cats and indifferently by their four goats. The house and the view from it were beautiful and we hung around socializing and catching up for a while. At one point we "helped" Stuart move the goats from their pen to another area where they were scheduled to "clear" stuff (by eating through it).
In a little while our friends Gerard and Vicki were back from their morning SCUBA trip and we went to their house. This house was closer to the ocean, so it was quite a bit warmer there. They also had a lovely pool which we joyfully took advantage off. Their life definitely doesn't suck. I can see spending a few days/weeks/months/years like this.
All too soon it's time to take a tender back to the ship. We go through the same silly "port security" charade and are let on to the tender. Back at the ship Ben goes to the steam room and to wash up in the spacious shower at the gym and I watch the news (Earthquake/tsumani news in the area of the world where we might have ended up this week if I'd made different vacation plans!) I also take advantage of the passenger laundry room which is right across the hallway where for $3.00 ($1 each for washer, drier and a box of detergent).
The dinner menu looked ordinary tonight so I made reservations at Sabatini's in the morning before leaving for Kona. We head off there for a leisurely dinner around 7pm.
Sabatini's is definitely an experience that's easy to overdo. You only pick an entree, everything else they basically "force" on you, like your favorite Italian grandmother, it's you don't want to offend her by not eating it all, now do you? Especially since it's really good. I had trouble deciding between the lobster, seabass and tiger prawns, so I told the waiter to surprise me. And he did -- I got all three! (On one place, in smaller portions, thankfully!). The dinner was excellent, but for the first time we truly felt like we ate way too much when we were done.
Since dancing, or really, moving, was out of the question, we headed back to the room and watched "Cold Mountain". Man, what a depressing movie. Probably could have spent the time better, but at least now I've seen it, having heard so much about it and all the great performances.
We are docked in Honolulu from 8am till 11pm. We have no shore excusions booked and are going to play it by ear. One thing I miss during cruises is sushi, so part of our plan is to find a nice sushi place for lunch while we're in town.
We get off the ship after grabbing a quick bite for breakfast and take a city bus from the Aloha Tower area where we docked to Waikiki to do some shopping. The bus costs $2 each, we get a transfer each good for the trip back as long as it's within a few hours, and it's clean and air-conditioned. We get off towards the east end of Waikiki and our timing is "perfect" as the drizzle which we don't mind turns into a downpour a minute after we start walking. We duck into a store and find ourselves in one of many semi-indoor hotel malls. We start some shopping -- I buy a nice fitted sleeveless Hawaiian shirt and an embroidered t-shirt (partly because I like it, partly because I underpacked casual t-shirts).
We continue walking around eventually buying Ben three nice and totally different Hawaiian shirts and a sun dress and another outfit for me. We also pick up some Macademia Nut liqueur (Kahana Royale) which we discovered on our first trip to Hawaii together in '98. We take a bus back to Aloha Towers and I go back to the cabin with our stuff while Ben browses the shops at Aloha Tower and the downtown area some more.
The ship is nearly empty so I decide to go to afternoon tea, having skipped lunch. I have a couple of cute little tea sandwiches and try (again) to have herbal tea. This deserves its own note: for three straight nights I've been trying to have herbal tea. Each time they ask what kind I'd like and each time I get flavored black tea. This time I ask for Chamomile and finally what I get is an actual herbal tea. Other times I got lemon flavored black tea and mint flavored black tea.
After Ben comes back we change into our new festive Hawaiian shirts and walk 10 minutes over to the Restaurant Row which we saw from the bus. The restaurant we had our eye on, Hiroshi turns out not to be Japanese but rather a "Eurasion tapas" place, whatever that would be. Having checked their menu we opted for a low key tiny sushi place we saw nearby Kinchan which worked out very well as they had good fresh fish and a fabulous selection of sake, better than what we ever see in SF.
After dinner we walk around downtown a little, but it's already after 8pm and the place looks like it gets shut down at 6pm. Some of the stores at Aloha Tower are still open so we wander around there some more. Eventually we get back to the ship. There's not much going on, so we turn in relatively early. Oh rather I fall asleep early, Ben tells me he eventually makes it up to the buffet after midnight and reports that some of the items there late at night look suspeciously like left-overs from Sabatini's and other restaurants.
We are anchored off of Lahaina from 8am till 6pm. We have no plans except to shop for another Hawaiian shirt for Ben. He's got one from every tropical trip he's taken (about seven so far). That was the original plan anyway, till the insane amount of shopping we did in Honolulu. At this point the only things we still need to buy are postcards, macademia nuts and an extra suitcase to bring it all home in!
Maui is another tender port, which I sort of dread, but it worked out well. We waited to go off till we were done with the 11:30 trivia (won again! More luggage tags!) and by then luckily the big crowds were gone. We got on for a pleasant 10 minute ride in and got off to find it was opressively hot. After a very short walking/shopping we had had enough and went back. On the tender back, however, we got to see several whales! We had heard later that the whale watching boats only saw one whale and we saw two on the ten minute ride to the ship! And we didn't have to pay the $120!
We stopped by the buffet for a quick bite and Ben headed back to the room to read, after writing a few postcards I headed off to the salon for a haircut, something I badly needed but didn't have time to get before leaving on vacation. Before leaving the room I call and make a PC dining room reservation as with the both shows sounding interesting (and Karaoke being tonight also) we want to have dinner at 8pm, and without a reservation at that time you may as well settle in for a 45+ minute wait.
After my haircut I stopped by the trivia and then did some more reading till it was time for the seven pm comedy show. Btw, the haircut was great and for once there was absolutely no attempt to sell me anything at the salon (back when it was all Steiner, the hard sell was unbearable). The comedian started out pretty weak, but after about 20 minutes either he warmed up or the audience got drunk enough for him to start being funny, so the rest of the show was enjoyable enough. We then headed off to dinner which was okay. We've still mostly been sticking to the fish/pasta/seafood. We skipped dessert and headed off to 9:30 Karaoke. It was in the Expolorer's Lounge to we got to hear the band and chat with them a little after their set. They are from Montreal and this was the last cruise on their current contract, and they'd be going to Royal Caribbean after that.
Karaoke was the usual silliness. We go first and I pick "Mamma Mia" and Ben does "Island in the Sun" in honor of being in Hawaii and all that. There is a shortage of singers so we get to close with our standard duet of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" except with me doing the boy part and Ben doing the girl part, which goes over pretty well, except for the fact that it's an eight minute song!
We then go on to the late show in the main theatre which is "Beatlemania". The Beatles Tribute band was pretty decent. The usual songs, a little audience participation, silly costumes. Because we have to get up early next day, we go up to the buffet and pick up a plate of snacks for breakfast (cheese, smoked fish, etc).
I had sent a couple of shirts out to be laundered when we were in Kona and they should have been returned by five today, but weren't. I make a mental note to check on that tomorrow.
We are docked in Kauai from 8am till 5pm. We have 9:30 till 1pm excursion booked -- more kayaking. We ordered room service "breakfast" which was coffee, and fresh grapefruit halves to go with our stash from the night before. I order it to be delivered between 8:30 and 9, so of course they show up at 8:15am. The alarm isn't set to go off till 8:45am. We eventually make it off the ship and into the meeting area right around 9:30. When a few latecomers show up, the two vans take the 20 of us about a quarter mile away to the river input. We get quick instruction on kayaking and pile into the two-person sit-on-top (ocean) kayaks. We paddle up the Hule'ia river for about an hour (two miles or so) till we get up to the Rice Ranch. We get out and go for a nice 15 minute hike to a waterhole where we would go swimming, rope-swinging, posing for photos in front of the waterfalls, etc. We then hike back to the river where we caught a ride back in a boat which took us and all the kayaks back to the starting point. It was an excellent shore excursion, probably one of the best we've done.
We were exhausted when we got back to the ship at 1:30. We took quick hot showers, got lunch and went right off the ship to do any last chance shopping as after this we'd be heading off to Ensenada. We walked about 15 minutes to the nearest group of shops (there were free shuttles available) and looked around. There were interesting shops but we'd pretty much done all of our shopping in Honolulu and Maui. We got back to the ship in time for 4pm trivia.
After that I mostly sat on the balcony watching the Norwegian Wind sail off about 30 minutes before us, then us get towed out of the harbor, then the sun going down. During all this my clean laundry showed up. Sadly, the ship laundry isn't what it used to be. It used to be they could get any stain out you'd give them, so I got into a habit of bringing favorite but stained shirts on cruises to get them cleaned if I couldn't myself. However, now they just come back with the same stains and a note that says "We saw the stain but couldn't get it out without damaging the garment". D'oh. Means I gotta throw it out now anyway :(
We decided to have dinner at the buffet since the dinner menu wasn't inspiring. The movie "Troy" was showing at the Princess Theatre at 7pm. We grabbed a light snack before since we weren't hungry for dinner yet. "Troy" was okay -- the screen was large for a cruiseship, but not quite movie theatre quality. The sound left a lot to be desired, but it was just barely passable for watching a movie there. After, we still weren't quite hungry so we went to check the show "Tribute" -- that basically turned out to be the singers and dancers doing numbers of various famous groups/performers. Ben found it boring after about 10 minutes, I lasted about 25. When we got there, however, we got cornered by the assistant cruise director Allice, who was there at karaoke when we were hamming it up with "Paradise by the Dashboard Light". She was short one couple for the passenger lip-sync show, and thought we'd be perfect for it. We said, what the heck, we'd do it. I've seen one or two of these shows before and they can be quite hillarious. She told us she'd get all the info to us the next day. After the show we ended up getting another snack at the buffet (another advantage of not going to a proper dinner, you can have as little as you want) and after a little dancing went to bed.
The previous day we'd found an invitation to captain's party for Captain's Circle Members at 6:30 tonight.
We pretty much veg'ed out all day. I'd picked up Jonathan Kellerman's latest two books (mysteries) at the library and was making quick progress through one of them. We met up with Allice mid-day to learn the "choreography" for the lipsync show. We went to the Captain's Circle party which was surprisingly sparsely attended till we realized that they had to have three of them at separate times because of how many members were on-board (1300 or so). We got free drinks, did a little dancing, listened to lots of "thank you" speeches and then made our escape.
We went to the last karaoke night at 9:30 (Ben did "Walking After Midnight" and I did "You Sexy Thing"). After some dancing we then had dinner at the buffet around 11:30 (We'd had a late lunch). Buffet was definitely an attractive option, as you basically got the same items that were on the regular menu for the dining room, but you could try a little of everything, and it didn't have to be a two hour affair.
Formal nights had been rearranged for this sailing, so tonight would be the last formal night of the cruise.
It turned out that dressed rehearsal for the lip sync show would be at 9am. Ugh! We don't do mornings. But we set the alarm for 8:55 and stumbled down to the lounge. We were the second "skit". First was "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to". I was supposed to be a very pregnant Connie Francis (in a red sequin dress and a baloon underneath) "singing" 'Who's Sorry Now' to Ben and by the end of the song I'd have to tie him to a chair and wield a large cleaver over him for "having his way" with me. There are pictures. There's video. It's pretty scary :). The other acts range from Elvis, the Temptations, the Blues Brothers, Aretha Franklin (she was excellent) and then the male cruise director assistants doing Diana Ross and the Supremes. It looked like it would be pretty funny.
After attempting to nap some more, we hit the buffet right between breakfast and lunch (when one side still has breakfast but the other already has lunch) and had "brunch". Because we'd be eating at Sabatini's at six we figured we should keep the rest of eating today light.
I finished the first Kellerman book a few minutes before it was time to show up backstage for the lipsync show. It went off without a hitch and was a big hit. We watched most of it from the side after finishing our number. They tell us that if we get the souvenier video of the cruise, the show in its entirety will be added to the tape at no extra cost. What a way to sell videos! We'll probably buy, what the heck.
Afterwards, for the first time I got online at the internet cafe. I tried to access it wirelessly first with my laptop but the set up was such that you had to prepay for an access card and the whole thing was just a hassle so I used a regular station (there was always a wait, this time I got on after about 15 minutes). Pat, one of our trivia buddies came by to ask me to look something up, and when I told him I was pay-by-the-minute insisted that I sign off and sign back in with his card (they are Platinum which gives you free internet access -- we'll be platinum on our next Princess cruise). After finishing my emailing and surfing I phoned Ben in the room to see if he wanted to catch up on his e-stuff.
Last formal night called for cleaning up, and getting ready which pretty much took the rest of the afternoon. The other dilemma, of course, was deciding where to go for New Year's. There will be at least four different parties on the ship -- in the Explorer's Lounge, in the Wheelhouse Bar, the Bayou Cafe, and the big one in the Atrium, with baloons and all that jazz. Also the Beatlemaniacs would do another show, late one being after midnight.
We had dinner at Sabatini's. After having a drink and some New Year's caviar at the Crooner's bar we watched the sun set from the promenade deck and came to Sabatini's a few minutes after six and ended up at probably their best table -- large round table that could seat 3 or 4 but was set for two, all the way by the windows, at the end, so not near any other tables. This time we skipped about half the courses, and were much less full at the end. In fact, we skipped the desserts even though we had room because the desserts in the main dining room seemed better (sorbets and granite). We saw Kevin Hughes' show -- he's pretty funny, but really, this relationship humor of the men-and-women-are-different-and-don't-get-each-other variety is just getting so old. We stopped by the main dining room and had some sorbets (mango-orange and raspberry-ginger). After some more karaoke and dancing in the Explorer lounge we headed to the room to pick up the two mini-bottles of sparkling wine we brought with us and headed for the Atrium where the big party was. D'Version was playing there, with a couple of horns from the main orchestra. Each floor was absolutely packed along the railings, landings and along all the wrapping stairs. So I got the bright idea to stay in the elevator -- they are glass, and only go between 5 and 8 all of which are part of the atrium. We figured we'd get the best view, and as a bonus the really loud music wasn't as quite ridiculously loud in the elevator. We took our places at 11:50 or so, and within five minutes a few people figured out what we were doing and joined us. When it hit midnight and the baloons which had been in a huge net on floor eight got released we were between floors six and seven which worked out perfectly.
After the big toast we hung around the atrium, danced a little and just listened to the band which played for another half an hour. I checked the other lounges which were hopping -- wheelhouse bar had loads of people dancing to older (bid band) tunes, Explorer lounge had the DJ going with disco and contemporary music, and the Universe lounge was full for the second Beatlemania show (which sounded the same as the first one at least the couple of times that I passed by there).
One small nit as compared to Celebrity Infinity last year (see my Panama Canal review) -- Celebrity was handing out glasses of champagne around midnight for toasting. Princess was selling bottles of champagne.
Because of late night partying, breakfast in the dining room was cancelled in favor of a New Year's brunch. We showed up for it around noon and were told that the wait for a private table would be at least half an hour, so we opted for a shared table (against our better judgement). It wasn't too bad, I had a nice conversation with an Irish couple sitting next to me, unfortunately Ben was sitting next to some chronic complainers. The service was on the slow side and we didn't get out of there till close to 2pm!
By then it was time to go to the Princess Theatre for the afternoon showing of "I, Robot" which I was sorry to miss in the theatres. The Princess Theatre was literally full. There was probably over a thousand people there. There was nothing much going on around the ship and the weather was a bit too cool for sunning by the pool. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, as did seemingly most of the other passengers.
Right after we found ourselves outside the Wheelhouse Bar as trivia was starting, and we joined in. We tied for first (because we said "Bee" instead of "Honey Bee" for insect that produces something human's eat, and also because I said that the body part that teenagers have altered with plastic surgery the most is boobs instead of nose -- and I'm still convinced that these days my answer may be right even if it used to be nose). We lost the tie breaker (we didn't come closest to the date Grand Ol' Opry first broadcast -- 1927) so we were spared more luggage straps.
I still had a book from the library to finish to I went to the cabin to read but took a break to go see "Laws of Attraction" on the movie chanel (it was cute) and then to see the comedian's early show. He was lame. He had some funny jokes but then he switched to the old tired man-woman humor and I left.
We had a late dinner and skipped all other entertainment as it was country & western night with D'Version and we weren't much into anything else going on, so more reading it was.
Since we lost an hour, we sleep in, and don't get up till lunchtime, after buffet, I take a walk around deck, and then we go to the Princess Theatre to see the "sing along, audience participation" version of "Wizard of Oz." I had actually never seen the movie before, so that was fun.
When we get back to the cabin, we find tags and instructions for disembarkation. Booo! At least our color tags had us going ashore at 8am (first group) which would be plenty of time to make it to Long Beach Airport (about 15 minutes away) to catch our 10:15 flight. This is all assuming no delays or unexpected problems. With a few hundred-plus non-US citizens onboard, I'm sure there'll be plenty of chances for problems.
We go to trivia, tie for first and miss the tie-breaker. Again. Spared more luggage tags!
After almost an hour at the gym (it was pretty empty so the normal time limits on the machines didn't apply) we get showered and changed for dinner. We arrive at the dining room at 6:35 and are told it would be about a half an hour wait for a table for two. We take the pager and go up two levels to the Crooner's Bar and get a couple of drinks. There's a Captain's Farewell cocktail party scheduled from 7-8pm so we figure if we're still waiting at 7 we'll just get some more (free) drinks. Our pager goes off about 6:55 while we're still waiting for drinks. (By the way, this isn't the first time that the drink order takes a really long time to arrive). We have a nice dinner (I get lobster tails for the fourth or fifth time this cruise, Ben has chateaubriand, both excellent). Tonight's dessert is irresistable to us - Passion Fruit souffle. We split one. I finally discover the second herbal tea they have as they've run out of Camomile -- Orange Spice.
The show is "Piano Man" which we've seen and aren't that interested in. We stop by "Name That Tune" and again, get basically no songs written since we were born (okay, I'm lying, there were a couple of Streisand tunes from the 70's, and an utterly unrecognizable version of "Lady in Red"). We tie for first again but this time lose the tiebreaker. On the way back to the cabin I buy the video of the cruise. Because we were in the lipsync show we get the entire show added to the end of the video. With the $5 off coupon, we get the whole thing for $29.95 which isn't so bad.
After reading for a while (I finished the second library book finally at around 1:30am) we stop by the late night buffet for some snacks -- nothing really looks too great so I snack on some salad and veggies. There is a late night menu but I never see anyone eating there and it doesn't look too interesting anyway.
We dock in Ensenada from 4pm till 8pm. It was originally listed as a 7pm-8pm stop. Not sure why it was expanded, but I saw some tours actually listed, so probably there's demand. In the unlikely chance that we step off the ship here, it'll probably be just to buy some Kalua.
I get up a bit after 10 while Ben sleeps in and get a run on the promenade deck in before it's time for 11am trivia. We lose this one (if Ben had been there we would have either won outright or tied). I then go over to the Captain's Circle desk to clear up my number-of-cruises problem. Ben and I have both been on the same five Princess cruises, but for some reason, my first one got lost from their records so on our second cruise they had him as gold but not me, and now this morning we get Platinum benefits package for him but not me. I wait in the line of five people or so (the current people in the office are clearly there to complain, so they'd been there for a while, but everyone else just has quick questions). When I get in there and explain the situation, she looks up my record makes a notation and apparently the problem is solved. We'll see on the next cruise.
I get Ben and we go to buffet for our last lunch. I think either I've gotten jaded in 14 days, or there's not much good there. I pick at this and that. Then we go down to the stores to stock up on our alcoholic purchases. I pick up a bottle of Grey Goose for Mark for giving us rides to/from terminal, Ben picks up a bottle of Cointreau for his bar. The prices really are amazing. Sometimes for half of what you'd pay in the US for 750 ml bottle you can get a full liter of the same thing.
We get back to the cabin and I do a little packing. The suitcases to be taken off the ship by them need to be in the hallway between 6 and 8pm. It's good to not disturb people who go to bed early, but we almost never pack before midnight of the last night. We might pack one of our bags early and carry off the rest.
I finish packing my bag just as "Hellboy" is starting on the movie channel so we watch that as we approach Ensenada. We could actually see land a little after 2pm and I took some pictures from the balcony. I also turned on my cell phone and found that I had signal (analog only, roaming). I left the phone on and within 20 minutes it rang. Wrong number! I tried to make an outgoing call but it didn't work. Anyway by the time the movie was over, a little before five, we had a gorgeous view of the sunset. We went off the ship and as expected, there was nothing but a crammed little "mall" with about a dozen shops selling liquor, souveniers, trinkets, etc. One pharmacy, one leather goods store. Liquor prices were ridiculously high, except for Kalua and some other local goods. We ended up buying nothing and after less than half an hour were back on the ship. There were shuttle busses available, but we didn't ask where they went.
A little before six I put my packed bag outside the cabin and hope I see it again (our bags were stolen a few years ago in these circumstances on a Holland America cruise, which is why we'll never cruise with them again). I go down to the photo gallery and pick up our videotape. I swing by the buffet and confirm that it looks more interesting than the dining room menu. On the way back I notice that the pool and hottubs (outside ones) are open but there's not a soul there.
15 day cruise and we hadn't made it up to the pool/hottubs once! We quickly throw on our swimsuits (I dig mine out of the already packed bag before sticking it outside the door again) and run up to the top deck and enjoy the tub for a few minutes. It's not too hot, but I decide to check out the pool anyway. Princess uses fresh water for the pools, and it turns out to be definitely heated to a very comfortable level. Taking advantage of having the pool all to myself I start swimming laps. These are very short laps, so even though I get in about 20 of them, it probably takes about 10 minutes total. My arms are still a little sore from the last shore excusion, but definitely feeling better.
Afterwards we went into the "Lotus Sanctuary" (a set of steam rooms with and without aromatherapy) where Ben has had a cruise-long pass. I get in for free as there is no one around to pay a day-fee to. Ben cooks himself in the hottest steamroom while I enjoy the tropical mist showers.
After showering and dressing again, we head to the buffet for the last dinner. We then get back and Ben packs his garment bag full and we put that outside as well. Today's "Princess Patter" asked people to put their suitcases out between 6 and 8pm, but they only started picking up around 8:30 on our floor and when I asked them they said they'd be back a few times for more, and not to worry about putting the bags out there as long as it was by 10. I'm sure they'll pick up bags even later, I think they wanted to get the main ruckus over before people started hitting the sack.
There is a comedy show, and the finals of "Princess Idol" (karaoke) as well as several movies being shown. I'm too tired to consider going to anything that requires paying attention so the movies are out. We end up going to Princess Idol which is a total lame waste of time -- they really should just have an extra karaoke night. After getting tired of that we go to Crooners for the last martini before giving up on nightlife and heading back to the cabin.
The schedule has us back to LA at 6am. Since we have a 10:15am flight back (from LGB) we need to get off the ship by 9am at the latest. Hopefully that won't be a problem. We turned in a form showing our plans, so we should get the first group ashore. If the ship clears at 8am like it normally would without delays, then we'll actually have a bunch of time to kill before our flight.
two days ago we got our tags (Red 5) and the schedule of groups off the ship which looked like this:
Cream 2,4,6 8am Red 3,5 8am Brown 4,6 8:30am etc. in groups of two and three, every 15 minutes.
The alarm wakes me up a few minutes before 8am. I hear a few annoucements outside, and I gather that the ship is more or less cleared and it's just a matter of a few minutes before they start calling people off. We get up, get our stuff that remains into a few bags and leave our cabin. We head to the Universe lounge which is set up for Platinum passengers (which we are now) with coffee, and some continental breakfast items. We wait around for a while, hear them call cream tags and after 8:30 passes decide to get closer to mid stair on deck 7 where the exit is.
We find ourselves very near there when next they call ... Brown? Yep, the skipped Red tags entirely. Normally I'd be in their faces wanting to know what's going on, but compared to some very tense people already doing that, I'm being rather mellow, plus I know I've got at least half an hour to spare.
Another 15 minutes later, they call Red 3, and specifically tell Red 5 that we can't go off. Since their excuse is that our bags haven't been cleared by immigration this really pisses off the passengers who have all their luggage but aren't allowed to carry it off. This turns out to be totally bogus for a number of reasons: no cares about nor asks for our color once we are off the boat, and all the red bags are mixes together so clearly they became available at the same time.
Eventually a few minutes before 9am they call Red 3 and we are the first of that group to step off the ship. We follow instructions of signage and people giving directions: "US Citizens with US Passports keep to the right". Sure enough there are two separate lines for US Passport holders that are (or should be) moving quickly. Only one problem. The family of four right in front of us are from Mexico (they of the 500 or so Mexican nationals on this cruise) and apparently no directions apply to them here, just like on the ship. It literally takes them over 10 minutes to get through immigration, while about 7 or 8 parties of US citizens go past in the line next to us. I'm literally steaming because at this point we might miss our flight by these 10 minutes.
Eventually, we get through, grab our luggage and make it to the curb. I call Mark who's supposed to meet us there at 8:45 but who went to get gas at that time when I called him and told him we were still on the ship. It takes him another 5 minutes to get to us, so it is 9:15am (10:15am flight, remember?) when we get in and he informs us that the most direct way to get to LGB is under construction and the shortcut (the bridge) has an accident in the direction we'd be going so we'll have to take surface streets.
30 full minutes later we are pulling up to LGB, where the only good news is that for once our flight is late (10:25 departure now) and Long Beach is still a really small airport where it just doesn't take that long to get checked in and through security.
Curbside luggage checkin line is pretty sizable (5-6 people) so we go inside where the line is even longer, but I notice no line in the self-check baggage drop so I check us in at the kiosk and then drop the bags off with no wait. Five minutes. We then proceed to security where we get held up by the three souvenier lighters that Ben got for some friends. They aren't even filled, and while each passenger is limited to two lighters, there are two of us and only three lighters but it turns out the TSA guy is worried that they are torch lighters. I have no idea what that is, but I assure him that they aren't that. We're waved through. Five more minutes.
We are at the gate and it's actually a few minutes before 10am and they are just about to start pre-boarding. We make it onto the plane uneventfully and make it back home (well to Oakland airport), to the parking lot where 16 days of long term parking only cost $94.50 (thanks AAA) and then home for Ben and to work for me.
Was it a good cruise? Of course it was a good cruise. There is no such thing as a bad cruise as far as I'm concerned. But compared to lots of other good cruises, there were an aweful lot of little things that just didn't live up. Here is a list of the ones I can remember:
The pillows were terrible. Flat and uncomfortable.
Water tasted horrible. We ended up buying a lot of bottled water.
Drinks at the buffet were water, coffee and tea. They didn't even have iced tea, I guess you had to make hot tea and then ice it. At breakfast they had orange and grapefruit juice and milk.
Our cabin service was highly substandard. I don't think the carpet was vaccuumed even once while we were there - I dropped something under the table the second morning and found it there over a week later (it was a bit of garbage). In addition, we had brought some wine we drank in our cabin. On Celebrity when the room steward noticed the bottles he brought two wine glasses which were cleaned every night. Here, not only did we have to forage for the wine glasses, we had to keep doing it because if we didn't hide them in a drawer, she would remove them. Yet several times, dirty plates were not removed, and the empty bottles from the wine were there till the very end of the trip. The lightbulb in the lamp on my nightstand was burnt out, and a day after telling the room steward and nothing happening, I called passenger services -- it was fixed within the hour.
We got robes when we asked for them the first day but never the sashes for them (I had to find some in the spa a few days later). We never did get a "do not disturb" sign and I made one out of the back of a breakfast order that you'd normally hang on the door.
Trivia prizes were pathetic. Now, we don't play for prizes, we play for fun, but when we accumulated six luggage straps and four luggage tags, you gotta start wondering.
I already mentioned the size of the showers. I've been in some small rooms and some small bathrooms, but that shower shocked me by its dimensions.
The waiters in some of the bars (Crooners in particular) were quite pushy. I'd come over and sit down, one would run over to get my order. I'd say "I don't know what I want yet, give me a few minutes". Three out of four times they not only would stand over me but start making suggestions, as if I wanted their help with what was good there. In addition, on a number of occassions drink would take 10-15 minutes to show up after they were ordered. And a quite a few times, waiters working a particular lounge had zero familiarity with drinks on the menu of that lounge (Explorer's Lounge in particular).
My personal food pet-peeve "the parsley sprinkle" was everywhere. I associate this with rather sub-standard cuisine and I'm sad to say Princess now uses it liberally on everything.
The 500+ Mexicans with their kids. Clearly there is a different cultural standard here, because kids were left completely unattended in public areas at ages that I'd normally expect to see either closely supervised or involved in the children's program. I wonder if Princess simply doesn't provide any children's activities for non-English people kids. Or maybe being how the ship is a close environment parents would simply figure that they can leave a bunch of kids in the five-nine age range to play by themselves wherever. Anyway, we cruise over the holidays a lot, and we expect to see a lot of kids. Tripping over them in the stairway is nothing new, but it seemed to have reached a particularly high level on this cruise.
Comedians were considerable below the level I'd expect on an average cruise. Maybe they just all ran out of jokes because they seem to be recycling very heavily.
The internet cafe was always packed. Since Platinum and Elite get unlimited free internet, it was hard to get on, unless it was in the middle of the night or the ship was in port. It was also rather small (about a dozen terminals). Wireless signal was strong, but because getting on that way involved having to go to Passenger Services and pre-pay for a fixed amount of time, I never bothered. It'd be better if it were the same as the regular internet access -- pay as you go.
The gym was quite small.
The pool deck and that whole area was always soaking wet. At first I thought it was due to the motion of the ship and the water splashing out of the pool, but then I noticed every day they were hosing down the plastic deck chairs and I think that's what was causing that area to always be wet. Walking through there in flip flops or barefoot was kind of gross.
Personal choice dinners tended to be rushed. You'd be finishing one course and the next one would already be arriving. You could easily get through the whole dinner in about an hour. This is both good and bad. If you were in a rush to get to other activities, it was good. But frequently we just wanted to have a leisurely dinner, then it was bad.
Many live bands had basically the same set that they played every night. We had two dinners at the Bayou Cafe and heard the exact same songs. Same seemed to be true for the Wheelhouse Bar. On a 15 day cruise that could be a problem. After a while you run out of places to go.
Not having a separate disco meant the Explorer's Lounge became one after 11pm. We liked the live rock'n'roll band that played there and would have preferred to have the option to listen (and dance) to them all evening.
Princess has no "guest services" channel. I'd been able to do things on my TV last year on Celebrity and eight years ago on Carnival like booking shore excusions and checking my bill. But nothing on Princess, even on the newest ships.
There were plenty of great things about the ship. It had just about the best dance floors of any ship we've been on. The food was decent, the buffet especially. Martini bar is a favorite of Ben's, I like the drink menu in the Explorer's Lounge, a Princess-only thing. Shore excusions were organized and run well, and we had no problems with our bill or anything else having to do with the passenger service desk.