Caribbean Princess

We just got back from a 4 day cruise on the Caribbean Princess and I must say I was disappointed. This was my 9th cruise on Princess and 23rd over all and Princess is nothing like the cruise line of old. The entertainment was mediocre at best, the food and service in the Coral room left a lot to be desired and the buffet in the Horizon Buffet was even worse. This is the first time I've eaten at the buffet and there were now trays to carry your food and drink back to your table with. I asked one of the drink servers if they had any trays and she looked at me as if I was from another planet. They allowed people to enter the buffet line from 4 different sides. Talk about chaos. They had entirely different selections on the same buffet. If you didn't go against traffic and check out both sides, you missed a lot of items. They no longer serve lobster in the Coral Room, that has been moved to Sabitini's or Sterlings which are both surcharge restaurants. If you cruise on the Caribbean and want to eat at either of them, book it before hand or as soon as you get on board. I guess the less then desireable foom in the other restaurants makes every body want to eat in them. We tried to get reservations in both on the second day and they were totally booked up for the entire cruise.

We booked a mini suite (D-420) and it was the same size or even smaller than a balcony room on Holland. Room service selection is the pits now, all you can get is a continental breakfast. I remember when a full breakfast was the order of the day and you enjoyed it on your balcony. To get fresh fruit you have to fill out a form and hang it on your door everynight or you wont get any. It used to be automatic. There were no robes in the room and those also had to be requested which like the fruit also used to be automatic. We were sitting on the balcony the first night and around 1 am it felt like it was starting to rain hard. It turned out they were hosing down the pool area up above and it was running all over the balconies. Nice touch.

The room steward was great and kept our cabin clean and orderly all the time.

The casino staff was excellent, friendly and accomodating. We actually enjoyed ourselves the most in the casino.

The huge screen movie on the top deck left a lot to be desired. The sound was horrible and the quality terrible at best.
It looked like there were one foot faded squares all over the screen which didn't match the rest of the screen. The popcorn was lousy... .

All in all I would rate this trip a C- . Most everyone else we met felt the same way. I only hope these crusie lines start
listening to their passengers and try to set new higher standards or they will end up being in trouble just like the airlines are.

Maxinnc

I fin it a bit shocking as we were on the ship during it's fisrt year of operation and it was fabulous.

In 2004 we used Caribbean Princess for our Caribbean cruise and couldn't have been happier. The food was good. I think they were one of the first to introduce Movie Under The Stars and it was such a wonderful idea. We enjoy the popcorn and the blanket while watching the movie at night. We also loved their king crab legs during captain night. We had an early seating. After that we got hungry again and went to the buffet. Luckily we discovered that they had tons of king crab leg (not snow crab legs) at the dinner buffer so we pigged out (With the economy, I'm not sure if they still have this !?). The ship is also beautiful and well maintained. We were really happy with the ship. I can't wait to sail in again in August 2009 for our New England cruise as this is a free cruise when I booked the 2010 Halloween cruise freek forum special. I love this forum

We were also on the Carribbean Princess. It's a very nice ship and the crew were friendly. Food were good also. Movie under the stars is very nice:)