We enjoyed our Mediterranian cruise with wonderful friends seeing amazing things together.
Royal Princess Cruise Review to Europe - Mediterranean
Contributor Level:
Purser
Cruises: 2-3 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 38
11 Night Grand Mediterranean (Barcelona To Rome)
Sail date: September 30, 2017
Ship: Royal Princess
Cabin type: Suite
Cabin number: C402
Traveled as: Large Group
Reviewed: 7 years ago
Review summary
Wonderful time with special friends seeing amazing places & celebrating together! So much to experience and enjoy. We recommend this cruise to anyone interested in this area of the world.Embarkation
Embarkation was easy and fun to watch the ship movement & port.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Our main dining room for our group of 14 was Allegro @ 5:45 most evenings. Our Waiters, Daniel Henriques, his assistant, Rodrigo @ table 570 and Jesus Ramos & his assistant @ table 572 were outstanding. They remembered the beverages (Rodrigo always brought me lemon tea & my husband Sprite each night when we first arrived!) we enjoyed, gave advice on food choices, & helped our gluten free friend to pre order each night. They went above and beyond in their friendly and helpful manner. Even when our last excursion ran late for four of us, they helped us feel welcome & enjoy the last meal with them, including the baked Alaska! What a wonderful experience.
We all chose to eat one evening at the Grill specialty restaurant. My husband's steak was delicious. My fish dish was okay. I recommend the steak choices! Our wait staff was okay, but we missed our usual friendly & helpful gentlemen.
The buffet had an abundance of choices. The omelet bar was a yummy choice in the morning, after we found out about it from one of our friends.
It was helpful for me to have the coffee card to get mochas with soy, that were delicious hot or cold after a long day! My husband did not find the soda & more package to be cost effective for him after all. He did like the beer package of 5 for the price of 4.
Our first "meal" was hamburgers with fries on the lido deck by the pool with our friends as we all signed into the Princess App to be able to communicate with each other for free on the ship! Once we all got our individual numbers and shared them with each other this was a really helpful way to make plans and meet up for things we wanted to do together.
The room service breakfast options are so limited & not very good compared to other things available on the ship. It would be better to provide more options. It's really helpful when you have an early morning excursion to be able to eat in the room before heading down for prep for the excursion.
Again, we want to thank our wait staff at Allegro! They were so awesome. Please recognize them for their efforts for our large group!
Onboard Activities
We enjoyed our deck and the opportunity to relax & enjoy the view as we celebrate our 50th anniversary!
I enjoyed the shows for the most part after dinner. My husband also came to a few.
The main areas around the ship always had music and dancing venues available. Some of our friends enjoyed the dance lessons. The wine tasting was fun even though we had to pay to be involved. Would have done the afternoon tea like I did on our Alaska cruise, but now there is a charge for that too. Our long time cruising friends say they've noticed a lot more charges for things increasing & quality is changing too (skimpy in room robes). That's too bad. Maybe look at that issue a bit. Was nice to have the fitness center, classes available etc. The fountain & light shows were fun, but brief some evenings. It was nice to have the pop corn & blankets available. The "sales" aboard ship were sometimes truly sales, other times just a promo to get people into the shop. The sales people at the chains by the inch were helpful with putting a necklace together for me with something I bought in Greece! They went above & beyond, especially Caroline. It was fun to find a few t shirts for my husband that were on sale for less than $10 during the $10 Princess merchandise sale!
Generally, we enjoyed having so many choices. It was fun to read the Princess Platter each day & mark the things of interest to us.
Entertainment
They were for the most part enjoyable. The stage band was good in the Princess Theater. Not as I remembered from our previous cruise. Seemed more like Broadway quality shows in the past.The chefs interactions & cooking were hilarious & we enjoyed the galley tour. The seafood up on the buffet afterwards was yummy, but gone quickly, just missed the lobster!
Children's Programs
No children with us
Service and Staff
Once again Daniel Henriques & his assistant Rodrigo @ table 570 and Jesus Ramos & his assistant @ table 572 in Allegro are to be commended for excellent service above & beyond. (see comments under dining).
Our steward was fabulous, kept everything ship shape & efficiently and quickly saw to any request! He too should be commended.
Also, Caroline at chains by the inch was extremely helpful & informative. Also Olga in the Swarski shop was very fun & helpful.
Ship personnel were for the most part friendly & helpful.
Ship Quality
For the most part it was good. Confusing at times, especially when we were trying to find Allegro a few times & got stuck on the right floor, but couldn't get to it without going back up & ...
Bathrooms at times seemed to be out of order near the theater or other high use areas. Inconvenient!
For the most part, beautiful & well-maintained.
Cabin / Stateroom
Our mini suite cabin was a step up for sure. Our steward kept it immaculate. Nice to be greeted with a smile & a glass of champagne! He responded to any request quickly & efficiently. The size was better than our last cruise for sure! We loved being on the port side & the view it provied most of the time. The couch was a bit uncomfortable, but we used the pillows provided to block the bars.
Enjoyed having the refrigerator, would have been nice to have a microwave to reheat the room service food at times. Hard to devliver it warm. The lotion, chocolates, clean towels and care to detail were very nice.
Ship tip
Get involved, check the daily Princess Platter. Put the Princess app on your phone & communicate with your friends.
Thumbs up
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Ports of call
We arrived early stayed At the Corner Hotel (great buffet breakfast, be sure it is included in your package) and toured with our friends. Thanks to one couple in particular, we saw an amazing amount in a short period of time! Thanks so much R&R! It was an awesome place to visit. La Familia, Concert Hall, Shopping... so much to do & see! Enjoy the tapas! Pay by the toothpick!
We went to Aix
The excursion was interesting, the guide was good.
Beautiful little city.
Note: sometimes it was difficult to hear the guide with the earbuds on the excursions...reception went in & out.
Cinco Terra was absolutely amazing. We recommend the excursion where you are in a boat & get to stop at one of the cities. Our guide was very informative & fun. What an experience. We had no idea places like this existed. Be sure to try the olive oil & lemon products! Fun people!
Our excursion was the 4 hour best of Mykonos tour. It was informative and beautiful
Again we had a very helpful guide.
We also went on an excursion to Olympus. Was very interesting to see the place of the first Olympic race & the site of the lighting of the torch. Good guide as well.
Our excursion started with a visit to Santor winery with an incredible view, wine tasting with snacks. Interesting to see the way they train the grape vines to grow in a little nest on the ground with the grapes inside to protect them from the wind.
Then we got to travel to Fira & Oia. Beautiful. It was a strenuous walk at times, but well worth it. Such views and interesting things to learn. The family "churches" built in thanks to God were so pretty & you saw them everywhere on the Greek Islands we visited. Free time was great & the ride down to the boat on the vernacular was fun afterwards. Our guide was awesome!
We did a three part excursion! Pompeii, Sorrento and then Capri! It was really a long day, but we're glad we did it. Great tour guide again. Pompeii had so much more to see than we expected.
Sorrento was so quaint & fun. The meal in the restaurant in Sorrento started with white & red wine, water & a yummy manicoti, & ended with creamy cake.
Could have done without the cameo & wood factory tours...took away time from the main events. Was nice to have some free time, could have used more without the factory time. Capri was nice, our only time with rain on the whole cruise! Otherwise sunny & beautiful each day!
Just headed for the airport. Nice to have a package that included transportation to the airport. Made it much easier.
Beautiful place. The walled city, the varying landscapes. We'd highly recommend this place for a vacation destination. Our excursion was wonderful, again a great, informative guide.
Disembarkation
Went very smoothly. We were a bit apprehensive about putting our bags in the hall the night before etc., but it all went quite well