Caribbean Princess Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We just returned from a trip of a lifetime ! Panama, Cartagena, Limon, Costa Maya, and Cozumel.  Lovely Dining and Lots of Fun !!!  The Voice of the Ocean was a blast, Comedians were awesome.

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overall service and friendliness of staff was great; ship was not what was expected; promenade on 3 floors instead of 1; not enough direction as to aft and forward when getting off elevators.  With priority disembarkation, it was not what was expected, had to wait 2 hours before getting off ship.

Amazing time had on this cruise.  The ship was great, food was fantastic and staff was friendly and helpful as always.  My only complaint would be that they call it a cruise out of Houston.  Really the cruise port is an hour outside of Houston. Or $100 cab fare outside of the Houston airport...... Panama was a filthy port and left me with no desire of wanting to return.  Other than that it was excellent.  We will continue to cruise with Princess, but think we will go back to cruises that leave from Florida due to the transportation costs alone.  

Generally, the cruise was good, although we were to high up because m y wife gets sea sick The food was average. They are g to cut back on and it shows. Entertainment was excellent. maybe too many comedians. Service was also excellent. 

Overall trip was good, though not as good as previous Princess cruises. Seems like overall quality of Princess has gone down since going under Carnival umbrella.  Traffic control at disembarkation at the terminal was very poor.

The Carribean Princess was a well designed and appointed ship.  The style and layout is very pleasing.  The entertainment was the best I've ever seen on a cruise ship.  The crew was extremely nice and helpful.  This was true of every Filipino that we met, however the Ukrainian crew were abrupt and not so helpful or friendly.  I was surprised how apparent the differences were between nationalities.  We specifically wouldn't sit at certain tables with Ukrainian servers because of how we were treated early in the cruise.  We are not complainers, I just want others to know what we experienced so that they can enhance their own experience by avoiding some of the concerns we found.  The maintenance around the ship was

lacking a bit (cracking or falling out ceramic tiles in many of the public bathrooms, Windows needed washing, rust spots needed painting and general cleaning on the pool decks in most of the corners.  Overall, these didn't bother me too much but in comparison to other ships, they lacked attention to detail.  The food was best in the main dining rooms. The buffet food was pretty good too.  Let's talk about Ports...

Houston was a nice building but that's all the good I can say about it.  I will never sail out of Houston again.  2 days of sailing before we got to warm weather.  The fist day of the cruise essentially was spent in a dirty channel and then once in the gulf we were going through the many buoyed channels for the next day before getting to the pristine waters of the Caribbean.  Then, on the way back to Houston they informed us that we may have to be delayed due to fog in the bay between Galveston and Houston and we should prepare for changing our flights.  Thankfully that didn't happen and we did not have to go through that hassle.  In all my years sailing out of Florida we have never encountered any of the issues that we did sailing out of Houston, not to mention that immediately we are in warm temperatures and pristine Caribbean waters from Florida ports.

now to talk about the ports we sailed to...

Too many ports in a row (6).  We got really burned out from arriving early and only had a few hours to spend on each stop.  After disembarking and getting through the many pushy vendors and bus/taxi drivers we came to mostly just broken down towns that were quite dirty and everywhere we went the locals told us to be careful. We had too many cab drivers lie to us about fares and wouldn't give us US Currency as change and we were not aware of each ports exchange rates and monetary denomination values anyway.  Even the employees at the Margaritavile told us not to drink the water, so we were stuck to having a soda or beer.  Neither of these tasted like ours in the states.  I'm assuming they re-bottle their own.  So basically if you stayed in the cruise ship suggested and built areas it was nice, but basically just an extention of the cruise ship with cruise ship prices and you really don't get to experience the local culture at all (might have just as well stayed on the cruise ship. If you were out celebrating the previous night at all, it was easy to become burned out after the first two ports.  I wish they would visit fewer ports for longer periods with a Sea Day between port stops.  So basically I had an amazing time but see some definately improvement opportunities that would have made this cruise perfect. 

This was our first cruise ever and had a great time and treated great until it was time to leave the ship. We looked at our bill for detailed expenses and noticed we were charged over $400 for Internet use that we barely used. Every charge was for exactly one hour. They made it very easy to logon and near impossible to logout. It is a complete scam to get more money. We had a $1900 bill when we were to leave and I agree with every bit of it except the over charges for Internet that we did not use. I asked to talk to customer relations manager and he refunded a small portion of the over charges which was an insult. I told him we didn't use that Internet and should not pay for it. He was very rude. He interrupted me every time I tried to explain and he talked down to me like I was stupid for not logging off. He blamed me for all the charges and said he wouldn't take any more off the bill. I asked to speak to his supervisor and he told me that there is nobody above him which was a flat out lie. What started out as a perfect cruise and we were looking at dates to cruise again was all ruined on the last day as we were leaving the ship. I doubt we will ever cruise with Princess again because we feel we were scammed and completely insulted and had the absolute worst customer service experience of our entire life. When we remember back to this cruise all we can think about is how it ended. It's too bad that one hour of terrible customer service ruined what would have been the best vacation of our life. Princess needs to realize all the work they put in during the cruise to make it great can be completely ruined in a matter of minutes on the customers way off the ship. We did finally get refunded for the money they scammed us out of a few days later by Princess headquarters and an apology for the worst customer service experience of our life but the apology just doesn't get us to trust Princess again. Who is to say it wouldn't all happen again and we get treated like animals on the day to leave ship again. We will probably try a different cruise line and see if they know how to treat their customers, not only during the cruise but on the day we leave the ship also. One thing I know for sure. It can't possibly get any worse than our last day with Princess. 

Really enjoyed this cruise. I especially liked having new movies shown in the theater every day. I also loved that you had some comedians (clean and funny) in the theater and not just loud music shows and dancers. Really liked having Happy Hour at 4 PM every day before dinner. Dining room service was great--did not see the staff cut-backs some other lines have had.

We have cruised with Princess a number of times and as usual we enjoyed our cruise. Loved having 10 days instead of 7. Princess knows how to treat their customers the right way.  We love cruising!!

Nice ports of calls, good food and services. The ship is big and stable a crossing the ocean. The airport transfer was not well organized. The shore excursion wasted too much time and did not get enorgh time to see the actual site.

We have been on over 15 cruises with 5 cruise lines. This ship vibrates so bad we renamed the cruise the "Massage Cruise." One morning as we pulled into port I was shaken awake by the vibration and my drink fell off the cabinet. It appeared to be something in the propulsion system, bent shaft or bent propeller. The cruise itself was fine, the service the best we have experienced but there is something wrong witgh this ship!   

Overall, we had a good time on this cruise. Our cabin steward was friendly and helpful. He did forget to leave wash cloths a few times but always delivered promptly when we called. However, no one in my party got any towel animals and we were all expecting to see some. I was a little disappointed in the food. It was not what I was expecting compared to a previous cruise 6 years ago on another cruise line. The buffet seemed to repeat the food for breakfast and lunch so I was not impressed; however, the dining room was only slightly better. 

I have no way of knowing if this is just Princess or if the quality has gone down overall for cruises. 

We did have a good time at all the ports and our evenings were fun. We got some cheap liquor which makes everything better! 

The Caribbean Princess would have received a much higher rating overall, IF there was better customer service. We chose Princess Cruises so that we could take a nicer cruise, with less children and better service.  We received better service on a previous  Royal Caribbean cruise to the same destinations.  (Please read the full rating below.)

My wife and I loved the ship layout and what it had to offer. The food and presentations were very nice.  However, the customer service and follow up were lacking.  We were awakened at 4:30 or 5:30 every morning by our neighbors fighting, arguing or letting alarms ring for 45 minutes.  Each time, we informed the cruise relations desk as it was happening.  Limited to no follow up from the cruise relations desk was received. With the exception of 2-3 employees, we found the staff to be lacking service.  It appeared they were just "going through the motions".  Ruel (cabin attendant), Alma (Crown Grill) and Isabel (Coral Dining) were very attentive. 

We had a great time.  This was the first time on Princess and the first time cruising this itinerary.  The staff on the Caribbean Princess was great, friendly and full of smiles.  Snorkeling in Roatan and Belize was fabulous.

Our second Princess cruise was just delightful.  Having sailed on the Regal Princess two years ago we had felt we were pretty spoiled and were nervous about traveling on the Caribbean Princess since it's over 10 years old. We were very surprised at the quality of the ship, the amazing food and beverage and the overall attention to detail by Princess.  This cruise line knows how to take care of it's guests and we can't wait to travel with them again. 

We once again took the Caribbean Cruise from Houston with Princess.  The service was exceptional, the food choices wonderful, spa services incredible, entertainment top-notch.

Disembarkation was incredibly easy and fast.  We were off the boat by 7:35 am.

Overall, OK.  Service very good as was dining rooms.  We had a good, though not outstanding trip.  Really makes little difference as the line is leaving Houston for good as of this month.  We booked especially for Key West & Private Island and got to see neither one.  The ship is nice but getting a bit "tired".  The crew was outstanding in all respects.

First let me say that this was our first princess cruise.  The ship was very clean, staff was very helpful the food was good.  Embarking the ship was a very pleasant experience.  The terminal was new, clean and very simple to navigate.  From the time we arrived, we were on the ship and in our state room in under 30 minutes.  We are sorry to hear that Princess is leaving the Port of Huston but, business is business.  After arriving on the ship, we found out that one of the generators was not operational slowing the speed of the ship so Princess cancelled our stop at Princess Cay and replaced it with Nassau, Bahamas.  Disappointing since the reviews of their island were so great.  Life goes on.  After being at Sea for nearly 2 days to reach Key West (another port that we really anticipated since it is the reason we purchased this cruise) with land in sight, the Captain and Harbor Pilot cancelled our stop.  I guess the combination of cross wind, narrow harbor entrance and limited power caused the Captain to decide to skip the port so we spent another day at sea.  Life goes on but I am getting restless at this point.  The next day we made our scheduled stop in Freeport, Bahamas.  We found a couple of nice beaches but there is really not much there.  It was nice to be off the ship.  The following day we made our (re)scheduled stop in Nassau.  There is quite a bit to see and do in Nassau and we made the best of it with a walking tour of the historic sights on the Island. However, since the loss of the generator slowed the ship, we were forced to leave Nassau 2 hours early...another disappointment.  After 2 more days on the ship we were back in Houston where the process of leaving the ship was very well organized and painless.  We were off the ship, through customs and in the car in under 30 minutes.  

To be fair, Princess compensated use $50 per person shipboard credit and 25% off our next cruise with them which was a nice gesture.  However, Princess knew about the generator at least a few weeks prior to our departure (according to passengers that were on the previous sailing that remained on board) and I think I would rather have been given the option of being advised before we left than the compensation package offered.   I read all the disclaimers that said Princess could cancel or change ports of call without notice, blah, blah, blah.  But if I had known ahead of time that we would be spending more time on the ship and not going to the two ports of call that were the primary reason for booking the trip, I think I would have probably tried to do something else; that is the only reason I didn't give this cruise 4 or 5 stars. Compared to the other lines we have sailed with (Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and Disney) this was hands down the best service and food we have ever experienced (my wife still liked Disney more).  

P.S. Princess, I would have purchased more drinks if you had stocked the mini bar.

All the staff were professional, friendly, efficient and accommodating. The food was good and the entertainment good as well. It was very relaxing and will recommend this cruise to others. Wish we could seen Key West instead of Freeport (nothing to see). 

My wife and I chose this cruise for two reasons; we were both in need of a relaxing/restful vacation and we loved the "original" booked itinerary which included Key West, Princess Cays and Freeport; with Key West being the highlight of the trip.  Even though I grew up in Coral Gables, FL I had never gone to the Keys in the nearly 20 years of living there, so seeing Key West was a real treat.  Or so it would have been if we made it there!  Two days prior to the cruise we were sent an email that due to a generator issue the stop in Princess Cays was cancelled but replaced with Nassau (overall not a bad thing), but 45 minutes prior to us docking in Key West on a beautiful, sunny day, the Captain told us that the stop in Key West was cancelled due to strong winds.  It would have been nice if they came up with an alternate port like Miami or Ft. Lauderdale for that day.  But in the end they gave us a refund of the port charges, a shipboard credit of $50 per person and 25% off what we paid towards a future cruise which was fair.  But having such an altered itinerary was disappointing, but my wife and I did not let it ruin the cruise.  We had a great time on a beautiful, well-kept ship, with excellent food and overall very pleasant staff with the exception of the staff in the EFFY store (they were really rude).  The entertainment was great with a special performance by the 3 Entertainers of the Year candidates and a stellar performance by the guest soprano, Jennifer.  Overall it was a good cruise and I would definitely recommend Princess Cruises.