June fantasy - a wonderful experience
Crown Princess Cruise Review to Europe - Western Mediterranean
Sail date: June 01, 2009
Ship: Crown Princess
Cabin type: Balcony
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 14 years ago
Review summary
We realised after boarding that this in fact was a repositioning cruise, a onetime itinerary, but very successful.The size of the ship is overwhelming, but easy to navigate and plenty of room for all. We were surprised at the lack of crowds in the dining rooms, the Horizon Buffet, and indeed in all the theatres. Plenty of performers and performances, although not all to our liking. No pushing of "cocktail of the day" as on other ships. In general a quieter and seemingly more refined cruise. Took some time to get used to the size of the ship, and how to get around, but not a big problem.Crew and all we dealth with were super polite and in most cases most efficient. The only problem was the long queue to reduce/increase the onboard gratuities.We and others felt the ship was trying to make it difficult for passengers to change. On previous cruises a visit to the purser at ant time was sufficient, now only on sea days with two people to attend to hundres of passengers. More than enough eating places, even though we did not try the speciality restaurants due our strict diest, we only heard good reports. As for the dining rooms, we took anytime dining, and could not have been easier or more pleasant. No more than a few minutes wait and we always had excellent service and well presented tasty food. Due my wife being vegetarian, we also ate in the Horizon Court. Tasty and plentiful food almost 25 hours a day, again with good attentive service. For the most part the crew/staff were more than friendly and personal once they became to know us. I personally would have liked more poolside activities, but due only 3 sea days with one having high winds it was understandable.The Movies under the Stars, with small touches like popcorn, really made the day. We did not try the other outdoor eating venues, such as poolside grill, pizza parlour, but like to check the cafe in the piazza to see what daily offerings were on hand.Always something different. We had decided that we would enjoy the cruise part of the trip as opposed to the land excurions, since for us we have visited many of the places, and due closeness to us it is easy to return to those interesting places if we should want to do so.So at all ports we only walked around the port of call fo a few hours, except for Livorno where we had arranged a private tour to Cinque TerrePros: The itinerary, ship, different dining venues and times
Cons: For me the number of ports.
1 Comment
Gwbigdog 2 years ago