Coral Princess Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Selection of ports of call was good. Of course would have suggestions like give more time in Aruba or less time in Colon., but over all nice variety.

Service on the ship was good especially dining area and stateroom. 

Entertainment has some interesting shows especially dancers and some individual performance, but could use a bunch more easy to set up group activities like quick dance lessons with reviews. Such activities draw large groups. On the other hand setting up just dancing in bar brings a few couples with some ballroom dancing experience to show off their "skills" to totally shot down rest of people from even entering the floor.

Over all organization of the cruise was good and I would recommend to others.

Of course we aware of the way cruises operate trying to make you feel like you are on a shopping trip and need to buy, buy and more buy ....

Also know how you want to organize your activities at ports of call. I don't recommend many of organized excursions as they are overpriced comparing to what locals offer.

As expected vast majority of people were retired and many, many either overweight or with disabilities, but that should not matter unless your goal is to meet someone. 

The Coral Princess ship although kept clean, had a very bad odor in many areas throughout the ship.  When walking the corridors near rooms and walking around the ship inside to get from one area to another, we experienced foul odors every day-don't understand why this is.  

The entertainment was excellent and we enjoyed many nights of lounge music and atrium piano, violin playing.  The night shows were terrific-entertainment staff and headliners were wonderful.

There were ports of call and excursions we took that  were EXTREMELY disappointing.  I actually visited the tour desk & complained and actually asked for a refund on the Costa Rica excursion, which I did not get.  I treated 2 other people to tour.  I will elaborate on this within.  It cost me $200.00 for 4 people to take this tour which was horrible-why Princess would have this on their itinerary remains a mystery to me.

We loved our fabulous cruise on the Coral Princess!  The ship is beautiful, and the staff were excellent in every way.  Service was superb, and the entertainment was top shelf.  At the end of 10 days...we had relaxed, made new friends, and definitely felt pampered!  We highly recommend this experience.

 

We loved the cruise!  The panama canal was extremely interesting and the ports and excursions gave us additional insight into the different countries we visited.

 

We booked the mini suite and were glad we paid the extra.  It made going back to the room more comfortable and enjoyable and especially being able to order coffee in the morning and having a glass of wine on the balcony at night.

 

The service was great.  The ship was spotless.  The food was good.   Embarkation and disembarkation were always efficient and well organized.  The ship was not too big, plenty of things to do if you wanted.   

 

The negatives are the choice of movies under the stars was not always appropriate given the average age of the passengers.  The coffee was poor quality. I did not think the Coral princess entertainers productions were not that good.  The entertainers were fine.

The majority of the cruise was very good and the type of experience we have come to expect from from Princess.  The food, the cabin steward, the wait staff and the kids camp were great.  The shortfalls occurred when we sought information related to the fire alarms going off in the wee hours of the morning (2 separate times) and the source of the water from a burst pipe in the hallway.  Getting management to respond was long, drawn-out venture. 

Coral Princess cruise February 5 -15, 2016.

Cabin B 209 

Greg and Melinda Holleman

Date: 2-26-16

 

Positive things about the cruise in no particular order:

1)      Movies under the stars is nice

2)      Self-laundry facilities are nice

3)      All the beautiful wood accent work all through the ship was nice. The lounges were quite soothing and set up well where you could come and go and not feel like you were getting in anyone’s way.

4)      Visiting the Panama Canal was the highlight.  I think nearly everyone we talked to had that as the primary reason for the choice of this cruise on this ship.

5)      Deck 7 promenade had a most excellent walking loop around the ship.  I thought they should have installed a sign in places that said “one lap equal this much distance”.

6)      2 tv’s in our mini suite cabin was nice.

7)      The indoor solarium pool and hot tubs was designed well.  I liked the canopies over each hot tub.

8)      We actually played shuffle board several times on deck 16 sports court but I don’t think many people knew this was available.  We also enjoyed the putting green and bocce ball games in the links area.  This also seemed rather hard to find and a lot of people likely did not know it was there.

9)      The international crew talent show was really good.  Please keep doing this.

 

Negative things in no particular order:

1)      Our cabin was nice but we needed to get some things fixed.  One was a lumpy mattress pad.  Only 2 large towel per day. Comforter had a body order smell to it.  Only one bed sheet. Once I made these issues aware of the steward he took care of them right away.  The point I have is that I as the guest should have never had to bring them up.

2)      The shower curtain billowing in and out was a nuisance having the wet curtain stick to your back side while showering.  I suggest a section of glass about 24-inch-wide be installed in the shower area and then only use a short curtain to close the opening.

3)      It was hard to get hot water at times out of the shower. It seemed that no matter whenever we took a shower we could only get moderately warm water to come out so I think this was not an over use situation. 

4)      The pool deck had some issues: 

       We ran out of towels numerous times.  I cannot understand why there is not and endless supply of pool towels.  I never experienced this on any other cruise I have been on.        The plastic deck lounges were quite flimsy. I ran across three lounges where the back incline piece was broken. Also I never saw the lounge cushions getting cleaned. I would think these would be sanitized daily by the deck crew.        All three hot tubs had no bubbles. And the some of the tubs were not hot. I have seen this type of tub design on several ships and they do have the capability to have air sucked into the jet stream but this function was not in service on these tubs.        Water volleyball. Who can play water volley ball in water 5.5 feet deep on one end and 7.5 feet on other.  They would not lower the water level down to effectively play. But the water could be lowered as was the case when the seas were rough and pool was sloshing about.

5)      The buffet restaurant on deck 14.  I had experienced cold pancakes and French toast twice. The first day only one side was open and the lines were a 100 ft. long.  Everyone was eating there on first day and some provision should have been made to process that many people in a timelier manner. Also plates were so hot at times you could not hold it without some insulation such as a towel napkin.  The table staff was overly zealous to clear your plate. I got up to get another helping and had to open another silverware set and reorder drinks because everything was cleared away in the couple minutes I took to get more food.

6)      We chose the anytime dining.  This did not work out.  We waited in lines outside the dining room for as long as 45 minutes to get seated. We waited in a line every day of the cruise.  Service was fine once we got to a table but no one should have to wait in lines repeatly like this in same area while on vacation.  They have got to rework this system.  The room was open from 5:15 pm until 9:30 pm.  We generally went around 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.  The “rib eye “steak was not much of a steak. It looked like a child’s portion steak. 

7)      Main atrium area.  We passed through this space numerous times.  Beautiful design. But there were many times I smelled a septic stinky order near the main center area.  I wonder is the small water fall had an issue with bad water or was there a vent open somewhere.  This small smelled like a sewer pipe.  We would just get a whiff and then it was gone so it was hard to figure out where the source was.

8)      Shore excursions:   The cruise needs to plan a whole day at each port. 7:00 am until 5:30 pm or longer.  Anything less and you feel shorted trying to make sure you get back to ship in time.   Also I could not understand why we could not get an extra day in Grand Cayman when our day in Limon was canceled because of rough seas.  We tendered in Cayman with only one other ship. There was plenty of room to anchor for an extra day but we slowed down getting to Cayman and wasted a potential port of call day with another sea day.  Too many sea days on this trip.   The Cayman excursion we chose was a 4.5 hour scheduled event where last stop was for 2.5 hours to snorkel with the stingrays. This portion got canceled because of what the management said was unsafe conditions.  We were let off in same place we started after 2 hours of driving about.  Then we only get $22.5 off our charge of $75.00   We should have been refunded at least $45 since we had less than half of an excursion.  Then we find out later some other guest contracted with a local snorkel boat to take them out to a reef and they had no problems.

The Coral Princess is a smaller, older ship and is showing its age. The casino, Princess theatre and Horizon cafe are small and can get crowded. On dolphin deck there were pipes leaking in the ceiling. I also felt that there was not as much entertainment during sea days or at night. On the plus side the food was excellent and in general the service was good. 

Very disappointed based on past 5 cruises.  My first Princess cruise, however. Felt the cruise line was far more interested in getting more money out of me than pleasing me with a cruise.  Lines for dinner for "Anytime dining" were ridiculous!  Food in Horizon was very poor but OK in the Dining area.  Dining was VERY slow, plan for 2 hours. Spa was not well managed as I would make an appointment with the Doctor and they would not write it down and she would not know.  When I arrived  they would tell me to sit in the room and never tell the Doctor I was there. I waited 30 to 45 minutes until she would happen to walk by.  She told me she did not know I was there.  I believe her.  The daily activities were lame!  The hall ceilings on the 9th floor were leaking and thus the hall was musty.  The Madre d'  at dinner was so rude I asked him if we were doing something wrong.  We missed our port in Costa Rica, but not their fault. Dr.Miya (sp) was exceptional!!!  I used about 1/2 cup of water out of a large bottle of water in my room, and they replaced the bottle and gave me a bill the first day.I chased my Stewart down and told him that was unacceptable.  I ordered some cheese and crackers for an afternoon snack before I went on vacation, and they came at dinner time. I had heard good things about the Princess line so I questioned my many dinner companions since they differed each meal.  All agreed that this was the poorest Princess Cruise they had ever experienced and not consistent with their past experiences.  They also felt the Horizon meals were terrible but we had to go sometimes as I figured one day I was in meals for 6 hours due to the slow service when I had 3 meals in the dining area that day.  It took me two days to figure out why I was unable to get a reservation between 5:30 and 7:30.  Anytime does not mean anytime, they block out he times between 5:30 AND 7:30 so it is not much different that a set seating meal time.  Very disappointed in my trip for sure!

The cruise itself was nice. There were a few problems regarding the cruise. The Entertainment staff were never around. No announcements made during the day to let passengers know what was going on. The staff in the dining room are excellent always willing to go the extra step. The person that takes care of the room was fantastic. Always asking if everything was okay. The bathrooms are very small. Not a big deal but if you are tall your not going to fit in the shower. I wrote a letter to Princess asking them to comment on items and have not heard from them as yet. The Panama Canal was exciting. Get up early and stand in the front to watch the ship go through the locks

The ship employees were all very nice.   Very orderly in the excursions and excursions were quite good.   Food was delicious.    The only complaint I have is the entertainment was not good.    

We had an extremely enjoyable time aboard the Coral Princess. The ship is one of two smaller ones in the Princess line, because a small size is needed to go thru the canal, and passages in Alaska. We liked the somewhat smaller ship, tho the difference is not extremely apparent, in comparison to other ships we have been on.

We would have liked more time on land: unfortunately we were not able to dock in Costa Rica because of poor weather, and that was our long, 7.5 hour booked excursion.

The days at sea were relaxing and fun filled. My only complaint was that is was always really noisy on the deck, between bands playing and music coming out of speakers. For quiet we used our balcony.

The staff was, without exception, curteous and friendly.

One of my favorite experiences was joining the chorus!! We practiced for about 4 times, and put on a Sound of Music show in the atrium. It was wonderful!

 This cruise was her worst one we have ever taken. We were on the coral princess and it is definitely a step down for princes lines. We were very surprised that the ship had so many problems as it was just coming out of drydock.  We did not enjoy the food either on the horizon or Dining room. The coffee was just like drinking mud. We're not sure why we couldn't get a decent cup of coffee other than to pay for it.  We were scheduled to do three stops and only could do one. One was due to maintenance problems and the other one was due to weather.  Overall we are very disappointed in Princess cruises. 

The Coral Princess was coming out of dry dock and it was not ready for passengers.  Public restrooms were under maintenance, the pool was not filled until late afternoon of the second day, the big screen for movies was not working, not enough towels at the pool for passengers, one of the engines was lost and we spent an extra day in Cozumel fixing it (which meant we missed one of our ports), gale force winds prevented us from docking in Costa Maya (which wasn't Princesses fault).

On the up side, the organization was fantastic--easy embarkation, disembarkation, easy to get into anytime dining.  Staff tried to remain upbeat.

The biggest problem was that we were kept in the dark and really didn;t know what was happening until after the fact.

Coral Princess was renovated just before this cruise. Many problems occured during our cruise. First day, pools and jacuzzi were still empty, a big deception. First night, no hot water in the cabin. Second night, no cold water in the cabin. We had technical issues so we reached Cozumel 12 hours later than suppose so we haven't been to Honduras. In Costa Maya,due to strong winds, we couldn't dock. Anytime dining room staff were so unorganized, we had to wait every evening even if there was a lot of tables avalaible. Princess gave us  a good compensation but still, they should have test everything before the first voyage. As Elite members with Princess, we know that their standards are normally very high but for new customers on Princess, I'm sure they'll never cruise with this company again.

The Coral Princess is a lovely ship inside.  All public and private areas are clean and spacious. The service was impeccable , the food delicious and well prepared and pleasing to the eye in the dining rooms. There were many things to occupy us while at sea. Games ,cards, entertainment in the bars and atrium. 

Two of our three ports-of-call had to be cancelled.  One due to malfunction of the ship's motors and another because of  very high winds making it dangerous to dock.  As a result we spent 5 days at sea.

The evening entertainment was very professional and a lot of fun.  The ship.s dancers and singers were great with a lot of energy and youth showing through!  All in all were were very happy that we chose a Princess ship to sail away on!

 

at sea Sunday with no power for a few hours, then onward to Cozumel on one engine, arrived 11 hrs late then had to cancel Roatan.  next day off to Costa Maya only to run into high seas and wind.  For the safety of everyone, Costa Maya aborted.  Cruise back to Pt. Everglades at a slow speed.

We did get 100 shipboard credit (corporate to send check) and 1/2 price of whatever we paid towards next bookings by 12/31/16.

First they didnt fill the pools till sunday then sunday night something went wrong with the engine were barely moving. Monday morning captain said technical issues running really behind.  Was suppose to be in Cozumel at 8am didnt get there till 7pm spent night and all day tuesday in cozumel. Cancelled Honduras headed right for Costa Maya.  Bad weather in Costa Maya so couldnt go there.  Got to see 1 of 3 islands. Food was horrible no deserts for diabetics except one night. Not alot to do if under 55.  Carnival blows Princess out of the water! was offered a  credit of half of what we paid for cruise but honestly never wanna sail Princess again!!!

Except for Aruba, ports and Panama Canal were a good choice.  Not much to see on Aruba.  Ship was as good or better than previous cruises.  Food, in general, was good; choices in main dining room were varied and imaginative. The one choice of the Curtis Stone selections that I had, mahi mahi, was overcooked.  Musical/dancing shows were very good.  Magician and comedian were mediocre. Had thought I had been to all of my "bucket list" destinations around the world but this was a very good "add on".  Only had to fly to Fort Lauderdale to board ship, not a more costly foreign destination. 

The cruise staff were very attentive and helpful.  The entertainment was first rate and on-board activities kept us as busy as we wanted to be.  The variety of food choices was impressive although many of the dishes needed seasoning (possibly to accommodate passengers who are on low-salt diets).  The land excursions were a mixed bag.  The excursions in Panama and Costa Rica were interesting and educational.  There was not much to the Aruba, Cartegena and Jamaica trips other than souvenir shopping with aggressive locals hawking their wares.

My husband and I chose the Coral Princess since it is one of the few cruise ships narrow enough to get through the locks of the Panama Canal.  It is my understanding that the ship was built to be able to travel through the canal.

 

The itinerary included Aruba, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Jamaica.  We were very pleased with all the excursions that we took.  We used the ship's excursions in every port except Jamaica.  There we just got off and walked since we had been there several times before.

 

We enjoyed the on-board activities as well.  There was always something to do making it hard to find time for our afternoon nap.  All-in-all it was a very good cruise.