Princess Hadn’t Convinced Us To Cruise With Them Again
Emerald Princess Cruise Review
Contributor Level:
Third Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 3
Helpful Votes: 31
7 Night Canada & New England (New York Roundtrip)
Sail date: September 16, 2023
Ship: Emerald Princess
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 1 year ago
Review summary
This was our first Princess cruise after receiving rave reviews from friends (who admittedly have never cruised with anyone else) but it’s unlikely we’ll be back unless we see some amazing offers out of the UK. The business with the account having wrong drinks added, too many allocated to one person, the calling up the wrong guests on the computer etc was a pain. That system and staff training need to be sorted. Furthermore, the complete lack of interest from Guest Services when I raised a formal complaint was stark and surprising. Food and service in the main restaurants were good and the 24hr cafe is a great touch but we found the buffet and overall bar service to be poor. The Cruise Director was rather uninspiring but that said we didn’t really see him in the theatre that much. All theatre shows were very good to excellent, the other onboard entertainment, less so. I’m sure Princess fans will not recognise what I’ve written but there was not enough to convince us to either change from our preferred cruise line or try others for the first time.Embarkation
Embarkation scheduled for midday but as the ship had been docked here for an extra 24hrs and, I’m assuming, many more guests disembarked early, they opened the gate about 1145. We were onboard within ten minutes. Super swift.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
We found the MDRs very good both food and service wise. Crown Grill excellent. Buffet seemed pretty poor; lack of decent vegetarian/vegan options, the usual feeding time in the monkey house atmosphere and not a great selection overall. I thought the bars were pretty mediocre at best. The payment via the Medallion system is cumbersome and we discovered many faults eg other rooms’ drinks being billed to our package, water and tea/coffee coming off our 15 drink allowance, actually having a 15 drink allowance, when buying drinks for two and presenting both medallions, staff taking both drinks from only one passenger resulting in one of us using up our allowance whilst the other was on 4 or 5. Table service, especially in Explorer’s lounge poor. Frequently saw 4 or 5 staff chatting at the bar whilst waiting for a drink.
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Cast productions in the (too small) theatre were excellent. Guest entertainers enjoyable too, especially comedian Carlos Oscar. The house band sounded atrocious to us. The singer had a unique voice which only seemed to suit a limited amount of songs and the drumming was overpowering the music. Some late evenings it was difficult to find a quiet bar with no music and the music itself in some bars was way too loud for the venue. Nice Skywalker nightclub with good variety of music but very underused by guests.
Service and Staff
Stateroom steward was excellent, MDR staff were pretty good too. Bar staff mixed; some ok, some mediocre at best. Most staff friendly.
Ship Quality
Overall, the ship is kept in very good condition but this is my first cruise where I’ve never seen a cleaner in any toilet and also there was frequently bins full of paper towels and lack of soap.
Cabin / Stateroom
Smaller than most we’ve been in with no sofa and with wasted space near the fridge in the corner. Massive walk-in closet opposite the tiny shower/toilet room. A very annoying feature is that when you enter this closet area the light automatically comes on; great in the day but an absolute bind when going for your overnight toilet run. Difficult to then get back to sleep. Also, the sensor-controlled lights at the foot of each bedside cabinet which come on automatically to light the floor area when you’re near them come on if your arm or leg comes out of the bed so some restless nights were had. Large balcony but overlooked by the deck above. Fridge is situated in a wooden cabinet which gets extremely hot. Not convinced that this isn’t a potential fire risk. Cleanliness was excellent, cabin tended to every day by our diligent steward. However, annoyingly, all used towels and flannels were replaced every morning and evening even when hung up. Not very environmentally friendly.
Ship tip
Don’t set your standards too high and you probsly won’t be disappointed. Get to the theatre early. It’s ridiculous, I know, but this is a ship that holds over 3000 passengers and the theatre, I believe, holds less than 500. For the big shows, one had to get in at least 20-30 minutes before show time.
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We did a ship’s excursion to the reversing rapids, St Martin’s to see the caves and back to the city to see the rapids reversed, the city market hall and a fort. For me, an expensive $135. Yes, the rapids are a interesting natural phenomenon but hardly breathtaking in any way. The caves were closed off so in fact it was just 15 minutes on a pebble beach following a mediocre cheap meal in a small cafe in which we were all rammed together. Ten minutes to buy some coffee or ice cream then it was back to see the rapids reversed via a frankly pointless 20 minutes in a market hall. The fort was very uninteresting. The guide was sweet and engaging but when during her brief she points out petrol stations to you, you know it’s not a 5* excursion.
An absolute washout due to the biblical rainfall. One of us did a trip to Fenway Park for a tour which ended up being very pricey having to use taxi/Uber. The other got halfway around the Freedom Trail before giving up and returning to ship, soaking wet. Note: two,separate taxis (Metrocabs, white vehicles) to two different locations didn’t turn on their meters and claimed they were fixed-rate trips which was nonsense. Before getting in one, the driver straight away said, ‘$30 to Fenway’ so,I waited until arrival before telling him I was paying by card. He claimed his machine wasn’t working and when I asked if it was because he hadn’t tuned on his meter, he was silent. I had cash and gave him $20 along with a promise I wouldn’t report him.
A small but beautiful place, not too dissimilar to NewPort but in our minds, much prettier with nicer walks near the town. Locals pleased to deal with you and nowhere seemed overpriced. Another place where we just disembarked to walk around.
We hired a car and drove to Peggy’s Cove which is a very picturesque village in St Margaret’s Bay. Beautiful coloured houses and shops, a scenic view with a lighthouse and some lovely photo opportunities around the bays. We had lunch at a restaurant outside of the village before returning to Fairview Lawn Cemetery to see the Titanic Memorial graves. We also took a trip up to the Citadel but didn’t go in (entrance fee of about CAD10 each. Not a bad day.
A picturesque town with plenty of shops, bars and restaurants. An international boat show was on thereby restricting access to some piers and wharfs.
Disembarkation
We arrived at our nominated disembarkation lounge just before our booked time to hear a PA announcement advising that they were running approximately 20-30 minutes late with the disembarkation process. There were no further announcements on the PA or by the staff present. After 30 minutes we went to the disembarkation point to find no guests so we just left the ship which we could have done earlier. Some baggage was in the wrong area and the queue for US Immigration was very long (as usual.) After finally clearing this process, the queue to get outside took forever and the exit was being controlled by some very petty, officious staff, sadly something else not unusual in US ports/airports.
7 Comments
MidsCouple 1 year ago
@willworkforcruz. Hi. our complaint to Guest Services included but was not limited to drinks being put on one medallion (and this IS inconvenient when the person who has registered the fewest drinks goes to bed whilst the other stays up for a few more and is now up to their limit. Plus, some bar staff would not let you use the other person’s medallion alone.) You’ll also see that other drinks (not taken by us) were allocated to our account and water and tea were coming from our allocation of 15 drinks. I should also have added that one drink added to our account was whilst we weren’t even on the ship and despite having the Premier Package (drinks up to $20) one waiter tried to charge us for an $18 drink because ‘It’s over your $15.’ I think I was entitled to be peeved that my complaint wasn’t taken seriously.
willwork4cruz 1 year ago
Having taken several Princess and Celebrity cruise’s recently, I would say your comments are pretty accurate. Both lines are great but if you’re looking to find reasons to prefer Celebrity over Princess, you found them. I think it’s great if you want to stick with Celebrity. I lean the other way and prefer Princess for their strengths but will go Celebrity for a great deal. You are correct that the method of using the medallion at bars can be confusing for bartenders and results in mixups. I don’t see that putting both drinks on one spouse’s account is a big deal though. Even if you regularly drink your max you can then max out the other spouse’s account. If that was your complaint at Guest Services, I don’t doubt they didn’t seem very concerned. But agreed, that wouldn’t happen using the old method of key cards. New tech is a risk. I’ve never felt to see how hot the outside of the fridge gets. How hot was it on Celebrity?