Worst cruise
Crown Princess Cruise Review to South America
14 Night Cape Horn & Strait Of Magellan (Buenos Aires To Valparaiso)
Sail date: February 01, 2017
Ship: Crown Princess
Cabin type: Balcony
Cabin number: B305
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 7 years ago
Review summary
Unfortunately the ports on this cruise do not seem to cater to cruise ships. Buenos Aires doesn't have a dock for large cruise ships. Ship was docked at a pier normally used for cargo container ships. Since you are in a shipping container yard shuttles are used to take passengers from the terminal to ship. Valparaiso (end of cruise) was no different. Most of the ports of calls require tenders which means less time on shore even if everything goes right, unfortunately most times things didn't go right. We were late getting off ship at almost every port. Ship tours are over priced. For example In Puerto Madryn we took a tour to Peninsula Valdes for $122/person (includes $22 entry fee to Valdes). Similar Princess tour was $239/person. There are tour operators at all ports with similar tours so we had no problem getting tours on our own. Of course taking ship tours guarantees you won't get left behind if tour returns late but we didn't have any problems. Princess also seems to give more time on shore to those taking their over priced tours. Princess would tell us the last tender back to ship was 3:00 pm but Princess tour schedule showed last tour returns at 4:30 pm which means the last tender cannot be at 3:00. Also the ship was scheduled to sail at 5:00 pm. I have never seen this on other cruise lines. We were supposed to dock at Ushuaia however water wasn't deep enough so tenders had to be used and 1st tender left 2-1/2 hours later than advertised docking time of 7:00 am. On return from town at 2:45 pm we find a 2 hour wait to get on tender back to ship which left Ushuaia about 3 hours late. This resulted in 1 hour late arrival at next port. At Valpariaso the ship docks at a shipping container yard so shuttle buses are use to take passengers from ship 2 miles away to terminal. We were scheduled to leave at 9:35 am however the bus drivers went on strike around 9:00 am and didn't get back to work until just after 1:00 pm, we finally got off the ship at 1:30 pm. If you don't like a lot of tender rides (some lasting 25 minutes) than I would not take this cruise.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Children's Programs
Service and Staff
Ship Quality
Cabin / Stateroom
Ship tip
Don't go to South America
Ports of call
Port Stanley, Falkland Islands
Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina