Caribbean Princess Cruise Reviews - Reviews

cruise was very very good overall. food, service and entertainment on the ship was excellent. We really enjoyed the "adults only" pool area.  the only negative about the ship is that signs for the restrooms could be a little more conspicuous. the only real negatives were the ports of call. Ship docks at less than desirable locations on the two ports of call especially in Jamaica. the town of Ocho Rio in Jamaica is nothing but a dumpy tourist trap; i.e.somewhere the locals can harass the heck out of you to buy their trinkets.  also, beware of dishonest cab drivers.

Have been cruising at least once yearly for the last 2 yrs, I think I have a fair judgement what to expect on a good cruise, this was not a good cruise.  Also for the last 5 yrs I have always booked a suite so you expect certain things in this rm. category.   1.  The suite was clean and beautifully designed but our steward was surly, defensive no matter what we asked for.  It took him 2 days to get us a dining menu which is a suite perk of having full menu for room and dining on balcony.  Food leaves a lot to be desired, half the time something was forgotten such as spoons for our soup and butter for rolls. Basic things.  Bottle of wine showed up after 2 days and 3 phone calls later.  We felt they were making meals as terrible as possible so you would go to special restaurants for extra cost and after 5th day they started repeating the menu.  Italian restaurant was spectacular. 2. shows were very simple and repeated after 5th day.3. Our  surly steward disappeared after the 5th day and replaced with new steward who was so confused being thrown into new situation, sheets never changed in 9 days, yuck!  Really the staff on cruise acted like they had never been employed on a cruise ship, called rm service re: chef's dinner.  Answer was didn't know about it, would try to find out, finally had call back on 7th day of cruise, were we still interested and we had asked about it daily from day one.  This list goes on but you get the idea how it went.  We have been fans of royal Caribbean but decided to try Princess, which I had used in 1990's and were spectacular.  Never again, from now on Royal Caribbean always which treats passengers wonderfully.

Our group cruised on this same ship 2 years ago.  Then they had the bands playing at least 3 nights that week in Club Fusion with a variety of music-top 40, western night and even beach music.  This time the band mainly played waltz and ballroom dancing.  Our group is not young(52-60) but at nights they had bingo, trivia, piano music, etc.  They did have a DJ in the Skywalkers Lounge but that did not start until 10 pm each night.  It would have been nice to have different music between the hours of 7 -10.  Princess also pushed the "Artwork" alot.  

The Caribbean Princess was a very nice ship. We did not like the 5 day cruise- we prefer 7 days or more. The food was very good, both in the dining room and buffet. One problem we had at the buffet was that the dishes were freshly washed and were VERY hot. They were handed to us by a server with a napkin so we wouldn't burn our fingers. Hot plates are great for hot dishes, but the first thing we came to was the salad bar. Salad dishes should be COLD- NOT HOT. The ship rode with  a very noticeable vibration. The entertainment was very good. The crew was attentive and very pleasant. PRINCESS'S CAPTAINS CIRCLE gave excellent benefits- BETTER THAN ALL OTHER CRUISE LINJES. Since we were elite, we got early boarding, free internet and free laundry and dry cleaning.  This feature is a very important feature when we plan future cruises.

My preference for cruising so far is to go with Princess, I have sailed with other cruise lines and while I have enjoyed them I always return to Princess. I like the food, entertainment, décor and staff. I would recommend booking a room higher than Fiesta as it is less noisy at night when the stabilizers are in use, other than that I would gladly book my next cruise with Princess.

The balcony room was amazing. The stewards and waitress in the dining room were the best. The whole experience was very good. What I was disappointed with was how every place around the pools were stayed by breakfast time. It was even a joke with the cruise director. I was disappointed with the cruise director, as I have had much better directors in the past.

Cruise was very enjoyable. We had a wonderful time and as usual in February the weather was warm and sunny. This is or favorite time to go because we have always had good weather while the weather at home was dreadful. All the staff on the ship are wonderful and very attentive to our needs. When we got to our room the sink was draining very slowly and Jose' our stewart contacted maintenance to fix it which was done right away. Also the commode stopped flushing on Wed. and it was fixed very right away also. The food was excellent in the dinning rooms and the buffet and my husband's favorite the juicy hotdogs were ideal. This area of the Caribbean (the eastern) is our favorite, St. Thomas and St. Maarten are gorgeous and one of our favorite places to visit. St. Thomas has Magens Bay which is so beautiful and relaxing and this time on St. Maarten we went to Maho Beach to watch the airplanes land, that was  a real rush and a great photo too! I also recommend the anytime dinning because you do not have to be on a schedule for what time you want to eat. We usually share a table so getting seated is easy and you meet such interesting people and sometimes this leads to lasting friendships. The entertainment is always topnotch and we are never at a loss for anything to do in the evenings. We have always sailed on Princess Cruise Lines so I can not compare to any others but we have never wanted to switch because our experiences have been so wonderful, we will be doing another cruise next year with Princess and can not wait.

Cruise was great but 3 areas need improvement service in the lounges was very slow, toilet did not work one morning, television did not work one day cabin steward did a great job the waiter and her assistant were great service was terrific we had a good time with our 2 sons and their ladies

I enjoyed everything about the cruise.  The food was delicious.  The entertainment was good.  We chose the Swimming with the Dolphins Land Excursion in Costa Maya which was incredible.

Our only drawback was that we bought a bottle of Amoretta Tequilla in Cozumel and brought it back to the ship.  We checked it at the deck when we came back on board and we were told it would be boxed, wrapped safely, and placed outside our stateroom on Friday night.  It was returned on Friday night in the same bag that we brought it in on with no wrapping or box.  We got through customs off the ship with it in our carry on but when we got to the airlines we were not allowed to bring it onto our flight.  I had to go back to the Delta check in and ask if they had a box it could be checked in which they did not.  I had to donate the Tequilla to Delta Airlines and rush back through customs to make it to the flight in time.  What should we have done and how can this be prevented from happening again?

 Just right! Not too long, not too short. A day at sea to rest, two ports, and a day at sea to get back. Excellent entertainment and activities. Nothing extravagant, everything high quality. Hand sanitizers everywhere! 

This was our first cruise so we have nothing to compare cruisewise, but this was an absolute wunderfull experience.

We have bin to the most luxurious hotels and this was the same experience, beautifull ship and an excelent crew.

I highly recomend.

In almost every public bathroom, there was a faucet or toilet that didn't work.  For some reason they didn't provide spoons with other sliverware...fork, knife wrapped in napkin, no spoon, even at seated breakfast.  I felt the food was good but not enough selections.  Traveling on the OASIS, ALLURE and recently a Holland America ship, the food on Princess disappointed me. 

All special requests were no problem. room was clean and large. breakfast every day on our balcony..stewart was very helpful.  food and service was excellent

Food variety was slim

Rooms & kid's club were good.

Cabin service was disappointing as we had used towels folded back and re-stocked 2x in our bathroom (we had left them on the floor to be washed!)

Dining room & disco were great. Both servers & DJ's catered to our "likes"

Good cruise. Princess does a nice job, 9 day itinarary a bit odd, perfer 9 days out at sea. Food choices so so, diners better than lunches. Entertainment was terrific, especially the production shows.. The lighting in the rooms needs to be improved.

Can't say enough how fantastic Princess Cruises was compared to Carnival last year. Service and amenities were great and food was 100 percent better. They run a top-notch operation and would use them again. Enjoyed excursions to the Mayan ruins, Guide Daniel Balam was  terrific fun and well informed. Also liked the tequila tasting tour even though I don't like tequila. Guide Martin was very funny and informative as well. It was a great trip south of the border.

Overall, the cruise was a good experience,  The entertainment was excellent.  There were four production shows on this nine day cruise.  We enjoyed all of them.

The one big negative was a mix up in the dining room seating.  It was not handled well and it took 5 days until we got to sit with the other five couples that we were traveling with.

The ship was excellent, clean, and you would think brand new. The food was good and the entertainment very good. The ports were fair. Costa Maya was too similar to Cozumel. 

Best vacation that my wife and I have had in quite some time.

Entire crew were super friendly.

We picked this cruise because we have been on other carribean cruises and this time we never left your ship except for a 2 hour visit to your island.

We have been on every size of a ship (60 passengers to 6000 passengers) and enjoyed this ship.

I give the cruise a "good" rating because of the price that we paid. However, the cruise crowd was a little too old for our taste. I saw two children and one teen the entire time we were on the ship. My wife and I kept joking that we expected to see scooter races or walker relays in the daily agendas.   Our sailing was only half full (nice) but we did feel like we were at times on a ghost ship. The entertainment was very limited to a sub-par magician, comedy, a very short, 30 minute, but ok, "Do You Wanna Dance" theater production and some very off key piano bar singers. Most of the night time entertainment was focused on the movie on the open, very cold pool deck.  A few times we saw a few people sitting with blankets or towels covering them. We had a mini-suite and it was kept clean by an efficient room steward. Our only objection was that the balcony was totally exposed to the upper floor balconies. This was at times awkward but we dealt with it. We ate in the main dining room every night and found the food mostly favorable. Service was impersonal but polite. The buffet was chaotic and provided very little variety. The food was tasteless and very often ill prepared. Two health concerns that I noticed were the infrequent use by fellow passengers of hand sanitizer (and the lack of concern for this by the crew), and on several days I noticed massive amount of fruit flies on the fruit and other sweets. One day, I pointed to a plate of brownies with hundreds of insects and the staff just swatted them away. After objecting again, the plate was taken away; however, the flies just looked for something else to munch on.  My wife and I enjoyed Princess Cay. We rented a bungalow and the staff delivered our food, drinks and kept checking on us to see if we wanted/needed anything. Nassau in my opinion is a waste of time. Nothing to comment. Princess service was good; however, not outstanding. This is the first cruise line that we have been on, that we felt that the auto-gratuities were actually hurting the moral of the ship. We found that the staff were attentive, but none of them (that we experienced), actually exceeded our expectations.  (Usually I am a very generous tipper but not on this trip. This is the first time in 20+ cruises that I didn't feel the need to tip beyond the required.  We felt that the staff were on autopilot .) This was our first sailing on Princess and they have some strange policies in place that didn't make much sense. On board purchases are held until the end of the cruise. Pre-cruse amenities (cheese tray, wine, shrimp...) were not delivered to the stateroom on embarkation. You had to call room service to have them delivered. I pre-ordered vodka and when I asked about it the room service delivery guy outright accused me of taking the bottom ticket. After several telephone calls, it was discovered that those tickets were held by customer service, to be confirmed by room service and then signed for by the passenger. Strange system. I ordered a champagne breakfast (pre-cruise) and it took three phone calls to get it delivered. Once delivered, it was very nice. In closing, we enjoyed ourselves. We just walked away feeling as if Princess Cruises wasn't the best fit for us. If you can entertain yourself and enjoy being in your stateroom by 8 p.m. then this is the line for you.