Coral Princess Cruise Reviews - Reviews

Princess is pricey. We did a 7 day on the Dawn back in 1999 and this time included a 6 day land package (2 Mt. McKinley Lodge, 2 Denali Lodge & 2 in Fairbanks). Princess service ends when we left the ship in Whittier. The train seating was cramped and uncomfortable although the car attendant was very good as a guide and story teller. Bus transportation was also cramped, probably like the airlines new “basic” with no leg room. The drivers though were all very good. Rooms at McKinley (the lodge was beautiful) and Denali (more asphalt than grass) were 2* “Best Western” at best. McKinley had nice dining venues, Denali, not so much. While we enjoyed the excursions very much, I don’t give Princess credit since they’re available to anyone. The Denali Park tour which we upgraded from the included 5 hour tour to the more extensive 8 hour was wonderful (the bus sucked) and the Fairbanks riverboat excursion was excellent. No tour was included at McKinley so we bought a very nice flight tour (the glacier landing was canceled). None of the Princess hotel rooms had air conditioning and the weather was quite warm (just plain cheap). In Fairbanks we stayed at the non-Princess Bear Lodge which did have (noisey) air conditioning. The facility was nice as was the limited menu but for 3 or our 4 days (we extended our stay) the room maids failed to lock the door to our room when done and our daily complaint to the front desk didn’t correct the problem. In all our years of travel this has never happened before. The hotel shop was closed for our last 3 days which was inconvenient since the hotel is isolated.

Land tour with cruise was the best way to see the Alaskan Wilderness and get taste of the culture. This was on our bucket list , and is still on our list as we want to return. We look forward to returning in about 5 years with kids and grandkids.

We had a wonderful and very memorable vacation. This was my husbands first cruise. Sorry to say it was his last. Not anything against princess he just doesn't like being confined. He enjoyed the trip. Just said that would be his last. So feel blessed that I did get to go on this cruise and had a great experience to remember.

Service service service was great great

food very good

to excellent

Would like to see evening activities time staggered so more could be experienced

after the cruise the princess lodge was

a

much

lower level of hospitality

My 1st cruise was ok..I didn't know anything about a cruise ship.  The "ride" was basically smooth, and  a few Dramine helped. The cabins were nice, the crew was always helpful, the portions were reasonable. The shops were only open at sea, so plan ahead, if you need something. I found it tiring to be constantly asked to buy:trips, packages, jewelry, wine, special drinks, lottery tickets..etc. Our PROVANCE DINING ROOM was fine, the menu was varied, the waiters were helpful, etc. Towards the end of the cruise I found the lingering toilet chemicals smell over powering on some decks or locations. Overall, I'm not planning another cruise.

The staff and crew were super friendly and helpful.  I've been on other cruise lines where when anyone does the least little thing for you they have thier hand out for a tip, this was not like that, the crew seemed delighted to help you and only asked that if they did something exceptional that you fill out a report an turn it in so that they get the credit for thier excellent customer service.  This is how a cruise ship should be ran.  Excellent food, clean ship, and the BEST AWESOME excursions we've ever been on. 

The crew was warm and inviting and the ship was in good shape. 

We we did the majority of our meals in the main dining room. The food was good and well as the service.

Overall it was an enjoyable cruise with a good crew.

Cruise was amazing! So much fun and such a great experience! I loved all the excursions and would definitely recommend to anyone to take advantage of those. I also loved glacier bay national park, that was amazing. 

Wonderful cruise!  Beautiful ship!  Excellent service.  Delicious food!

I felt like the balcony rooms were too small. We had to wait for each other to walk by the beds - room for only one person at a time.  I've only cruised on Carnival before and their regular balcony rooms are much larger and include a couch and coffee table and plenty of room to entertain other guests.

Definitely get a balcony room. Watching views from balcony was fantastic.  No problem watching glaciers  or enjoying the sun sets. A definite plus on an Alaskan cruise.

This was our first cruise experience and I am so happy we chose The Coral Princess for our Alaskan Cruise! We loved everything about this cruise from the beautiful atrium to our cosy balcony stateroom. The crew were awesome. The style of the cruise was tailored to us perfectly and was super relaxing. I would recommend to anybody who wants a classic cruise experience. Can’t wait to cruise with you again Princess!

This was our first cruise and we were unsure of what to expect, but almost everything exceeded our expectations.  There were three in our party; when we first arrived we didn't know where the third bed was.  Dante, our steward, dropped everything right away and showed us how the bunk worked.  That friendly, quick and attentive service pretty much defined our whole trip.  The food was great and having a buffet open till midnight allowed us to have a quick snack after the entertainment and evening activities.  The activities were varied --from the standard comedian and trivia to nature and historical talks about Alaska culture and environment.  A wide range of excursions was available at each port.  This was a graduation gift for our son and it says something that he was never bored - with no Internet or TV!! and we had a great time as a family.

I was so impressed with the way Princess has their cruise/land vacations down to a fine art.  It was so nice to be given your room key on the train or bus for the next hotel/lodge, and not have to "check in".  Our vacation had no snags.  It was wonderful!!

It is very difficult to pick one thing that was my favorite when everything was so terrific. It is more accurate to say that everyday had its own favorite and that favorite could be an excursion, a day at sea or a ship activity. Every favorite has to compete with the food though! And the crew! Excellent!

I would recommend Princess to anyone. Everyone.

Suggestions? No. A wish though. Could Princess and Holland America share loyalty points?

Bye for now......see you again-but you knew that. I put a deposit on a future cruise.

This was one of the most amazing cruises I have been on and I have been on 6.  The views are breathtaking, seeing mother nature at its best.  The staff and crew were great and the ship took cleanliness seriously. I am glad we went early in the year when the mountains and valleys still had snow. 

Panama Canal- great time and great food.  Excellent service from all employees.

Ship was clean and well cared for. I wish we would of had more time in some of our p orts.

This was a third Panama Canal cruise. The ship is beautiful. Our suite was perfect and clean. The best port was hualtulco. A clean and beautiful city. I think the food in the dining room could have been better. We never complain about food, bit a few nights weren't great. The service was the best. We had a problem at home and the front desk could not have been more caring and helpful. All in all a go

I am not a frequent cruiser but wanted to mark my 65th birthday with a special event. We had a mini suite, D617, it had plenty of room, very comfortable bed, very clean, and nice balcony. We had the door between our balcony and our friends next door open so we could go back and forth and have coffee/wine on the balcony. The service was excellent in all areas except for dinner time.  Our room steward was fabulous. We ran into a couple of waiters at dinner (we chose anytime dining, so had different wait staff every night) who were surly and/or downright rude.  The food at dinner was very good and had a nice range of choices each night.  If we went to dinner by 6pm, there was usually no wait, if we were a bit later, the longest wait was around 30 minutes.  Some nights we sat with others, some nights we requested a table for 4, kinda fun to mix it up. The Horizon buffet was exceptionally clean, with a wide variety of offerings and some things were changed each day so you didn't have to eat the same thing. Room service was prompt (except when you forget to give them your room number!) The customer service staff were very helpful, gave great input on what to do on shore, what to pay taxi drivers in the ports where we didn't do ship excursions, and what to expect/prepare for.  When I found a charge on my ship account that wasn't mine they speedily arranged for it to be taken off my bill. (It seems people will give the bartender some cabin number other than theirs, and then sign the bill illegibly so that the staff was unable to figure out who it was, but since they could clearly see that nothing about the signature matched my name, off came the $75 bar tab.  Loved that the ship wasn't over crowded, could always find a comfortable lounge chair, or a table and chair in a cozy spot to sit and read and relax. I was concerned about norovirus as it has become a big problem on cruise ships. Our rooms were cleaned twice a day and they used bleach/water (the only thing that kills norovirus) twice a day in our rooms and I saw cleaning staff in the public bathrooms with their bleach solution all the time. I was very impressed with the cleanliness everywhere. Except for the Panama Canal I felt that the ports were just OK, too short a time in Aruba to do much, HOT, HOT, HOT in Cartagena, Costa Rica rainforest okay, Grand Cayman lovely.  But the highlight of the trip and the reason we came was the Panama Canal and we were not disappointed.  There was a guest speaker on board who gave a couple of very interesting talks about the canal in the days before our arrival there and then he narrated our passage in the canal/locks.  Sadly, you could not hear his narration from the balcony and we were unable to get it on TV as they said we could.  The cruise ship only goes through the first set of 3 locks from the Caribbean to Gatun Lake.  We then took an excursion that put us on a ferry boat and we went the rest of the way through the canal to the Pacific with views of the Panama City skyline.  That was FABULOUS!  You really see the locks up close (in fact you can touch the sides), you see everything up close and personally, there was narration on this transit too so we learned even more.  There is nothing like sharing a lock with two large sailboats tied up to the side of the ferry and a huge car carrier coming in behind the ferry to fill up the rest of the lock!  It was a long day, probably left the cruise ship at 9:30, returned at 8pm, but all 4 of us loved the canal transit and agreed it was worth the long day. Overall I was very pleased with our cruise on the Coral Princess and would recommend it to anyone.  My friend who has taken many cruises raved about how uncrowded everything was.  The Coral Princess is smaller than most cruise ships as it was built to be able to fit in the Panama Canal, so you don't have as many fancy water slides and climbing walls and such, but you also don't have to fight crowds.

Beautiful ship. Loved the Coral Princess Clean and well maintained. We ready reviews before we went and we could not see why there were any negative reviews regarding this ship All staff were helpful and friendly. We never had an issue getting a seat in the Horizon buffet or getting one in the Princess theatre or getting a lounge chair at either pool. Getting on and off the ship went very smoothly We had a wonderful time. Our excursions were great and went off without any issues We have decided to take the Coral again for our Alaska cruise

1st time on a Princess ship. I do not understand what many of the complaints were about the Coral Princess ship. I didn't feel it was horribly outdated. My hubby and I are in our 40's and we loved it. Great crew (especially Corey the cruise director), ship, things to do, excursions, food and shows were fantastic! There are a few bathroom odors near the two main theaters but other than that it smelled fine. We were in a balcony room and no room temperature issues. We were on the even/port side E624 cabin. Princess really put our favorite cruise line Holland America to the test. We are thinking of switching to Princess. What a fantastic trip we had. No issues with any sickness that we know of on our cruise. We just sanitized, sanitized, sanitized. If I had to complain about one thing would be when people win trivia or game shows all the prizes seem to be champagne and we didn't drink so we gave it to the runner up. I'm sure if we mentioned it to the crew they would have done something but there should be options for non alcoholic drinkers.