Great staff, food and entertainment lacking, targets senior customers
Caribbean Princess Cruise Review to Panama Canal, Central America
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 51
10 Night Panama Canal With Costa Rica & Caribbean (Ft. Lauderdale Roundtrip)
Sail date: December 09, 2018
Ship: Caribbean Princess
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: C108
Traveled as: Large Group
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
The cruise staff was great, the destinations were great. The food was good but not much difference from day to day. Most of the passengers were over 60 and all the entertainment and activities were targeted towards the senior age groups. Younger people should choose another cruise line unless they are looking for a quiet and relaxing vacation.Embarkation
Our hotel had a free transfer but the only time slot open was 9:30am. We arrived very early, around 10am. As a result the lines were short and we got on the ship around 11am. Very nice. Having our medallion all done ahead of time really speed up the process through lines at the port and the waiting area had seating similar to that found in an airport.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
I ate buffet 7 nights, dining room 2 nights, pool food 1 night. I was traveling with family and most nights somebody didn't want to do the dress code, or the menu wasn't to somebody's liking in the main dining room. The food was good for the most part but the variety of food was very bad. Some food was the same every single night, example the buffet had potato soup every single night and it was terrible potato soup. Later in the cruise I inquired about getting take out from the main dining room or a specialty restaurant so I could eat it with my family at the buffet, I was told this wasn't allowed at both the main dining room and at steamers/planks. The evening buffet opens at 4pm and serves until 11pm but has the same thing available that whole time.
Drinks, bars were never crowded on the pool decks. It wasn't unusual for a bar to not even have a customer. Ordering a mimosa in the buffet at breakfast nearly made the wait staff panic, they had to take your medalion and bring it to a pool bar and then the bar runner had to go find you based on the picture registered to your medalion and where the wait staff said to find you. Everybody on the wait staff really needed a portable reader for medallion to be nice. Not a good system, I gave up on having a mimosa at breakfast. Ordering a drink in the main dining room was better but they still wanted to take your meddalion. There was no walk up lemonade in the buffet at any time but if you asked a server they could go get you a glass of it, a nuisance if it was 3pm and you were thirsty. Everything about drinks was annoying.
Onboard Activities
I'm not sure if the british lady that gave presentations on each port the day before visiting is an activity, she was excellent. She really got into the port itself and avoided endorsing where to shop like NCL's port presentations do. There really weren't a lot of activities except for shopping events and watching cable TV movies on a big screen. The cruise director dressed nice and had an australian accent, but besides introducing people at the various events, he was dull.
The medallion had a feature to help you locate your traveling companion, there was no way to get it setup so I could locate my family that were staying in adjoining rooms however.
I'm not sure the movies under the stats in an activity or entertainment. It generally was running 11am to 11pm. In the evening there were paper bags of not-fresh popcorn available. The movies were what ever is currently playing on cable movie channels. I found myself here quite a bit, not because it was what I wanted to be doing on vacation on a cruise but because it was the best thing going for somebody in their 40s in the evening.
Entertainment
Stage shows were good to excellent. Lounge musicians catered to age groups ages 60 and older, so while they may have been excellent for their targeted age group, for me they weren't good. There was one night lounge show for music from the 1920s and 1930s, but there was nothing for the 1980s and 1990s.
My wife has the wifi package and it worked great, but there were issues. I prepaid for it. After on board my wife went to the internet cafe for help connecting her phone where she was signed up for a new package, not the prepaid one. We had to go back a second time where they offered to refund the prepaid package and keep the higher cost one the assistant at the cafe had purchased for us earlier in the day. I did not use internet on my phone at all but did try their wifi for access to the onboard texting feature, the entertainment schedule etc. The "order a drink from your phone" feature of the meddalion did not work unless you had the internet package. The phone would not stay connected to wifi without internet so to check for texts you had to click wifi, select the ship, select log in and then look for texts.
Service and Staff
My room steward was friendly, kept our room clean. Waiters were for the most part good, some were also entertaining. One employee in the breakfast buffet refered to my 40 year old brother's apple juice as "baby juice" which we found hilarious and will laugh about for a long time.
Ship Quality
On NCL there are people pushing hand washing at the buffet constantly and I was used to that. Princess had nobody pushing hand washing and the vast majority of people walked right past the hand washing station into the buffet. Besides hand washing, cleanliness was good, tables were cleared quickly, towels were picked up. There were staff outside on the prominade or lido every day painting so wet paint was a familiar smell.
The three areas of elevators do not face a consistent direction and the halls are not marked port or starboard clearly, at least on Carribe deck. I never completely learned which way to turn to get to the correct side of the ship when coming back to my room.
The main atrium is focused on shopping instead of entertainment. I have zero interest in shopping while I'm on vacation so that lost points. Those spots would be better served by another bar/lounge that had evening musical entertainment that was targeting younger crowds.
Cabin / Stateroom
Comfort, size, and cleanliness all scored high, the balcony was very large.
Ports of call
Ft. Lauderdale (Port Everglades), Florida
Port was set up well for easy embarkation and debarkation. Our shuttle driver was driving a 10 person van, not even a bus and the florida cops near the port were very rude, even racist, towards him for driving into a "no commercial vehicles" area near the port, he told us after the event with the cops; that some days they are equally as rude if he drives his van, into the area intended for buses. I arrived in Ft Lauderdale at 9pm the evening before the cruise and didn't see any of what the town has to offer.
Thumbs Up
3
Well developed port, roads were good. Lots of tourist shops. My brother and I did the blue hole and river tubing excursion through cruiseline, the blue hole part was too preplanned, even rushed, but the tubing part was enjoyable. The jerk chicken lunch that was included was also good. My wife and mother did a beach tour also through cruiseline, their tour, they liked the beach but thought the tour portion of the excursion was bringing them to preplanned spots where people were begging for donations.
Beautiful old city. My wife couldn't control herself and said hello to every vendor she saw. It looked like a parade with all the street sellers following us at some points. There was a street performer mime that was very good. Tour was called sea rumba, and our guide was named Carlos. The boat part had loud music, and rum punch, only on our boat, the rest had no music and no punch. There were half a dozen boats, it was a large princess excursion. Our guide was having everybody on his boat yelling and cheering, all other boats were quiet and boring. This was the most fun excursion. The port has a visitor center with some native animals on display near the pier, its worth a walk over to it.
Cruise Gatun Lake And Panama Canal
I wanted to experience the panama canal so I chose to stay on board and watch, interesting system they have at play.
This port is a parking lot with a dozen vendors setup under a tent, it is just to pick up people that took an excursion from Gatun Lake. Princess announced that we weren't even allowed off the ship here, but 20 minutes after docking they changed their mind.
Visited the sloth sanctuary, it was informative. Sloths are not very active as expected. The visit also included a canoe ride in the mangrove on site. From the canoe, we saw a small gator, howler monkies, a couple sloths, a crab, a couple lizards. Near the pier there was a large open building with many tourist vendors. Multiple people were selling the same things and they were willing to deal.
George Town, Grand Cayman Did not visit port
Princess said the waves were too high to safely board the tenders. There were Carnival and RCL ships anchored with tenders unloading their passengers. It was disappointing to end our vacation with 3 days in a row at sea.
Disembarkation
I used self disembarkation, carried my own bags. Princess had assigned spots to go but once there we found virtually no coordination to get people unloaded in an orderly fashion. Most people ended up just mobbing the exits and that worked pretty good.