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Reader's Review My wife and I went on this cruise with two other couples. Prior to taking the cruise, we decided to fly into Fort Lauderdale a night early. This was a great decision, as it let us not have to worry about our flight running late and then missing the ship. We stayed at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort, which was a beautiful place that's located close to the pier. This was our fifth Princess cruise, so it goes without saying that we were already Princess cruise line fans prior to this cruise. This cruise certainly did not disappoint. We got a great deal by booking it early, and were very happy with the ship, itinerary and staff. We decided to go with the Emerald Princess' 7 day Western Caribbean itinerary. It sailed round trip from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and visited Princess Cays (in the Bahamas), Ocho Rios (Jamaica), George Town (Grand Cayman) and Cozumel (Mexico). There was also a couple of days at sea, which provided great opportunities to explore and enjoy the ship. Boarding the ship was a relatively quick process. We arrived around 1:30 pm and got onboard within 30 minutes. The check-in process was pretty organized; however, I do think that Princess should make it more clear to guests that have "preferred check-in" where they should go. There was a sign that told passengers where to go for such a check-in, but it wasn't very noticeable. Not a big deal either way though. We had a category AD mini-suite, which was only slightly larger than the category BA balconies our friends stayed in. In fact, because of the extended balcony of the BA's, their balconies were actually larger than ours. The rooms were decorated tastefully, and the mini-suites had a larger sitting area than the balcony staterooms. Dining on board Emerald Princess was quite good, which we've come to expect from Princess. We opted for the Anytime Dining option, as we didn't want to have the restricted schedule that assigned dining would result in. The wait staff was very courteous and quite good. Even without having the same wait staff on each night of the cruise, the staff was still very friendly and attentive. Aside from the main dining room, we also dined one night in each of the ship's specialty restaurants. Sabatini's, an Italian restaurant, was amazing. The food seemed to never end. Crown Grill, a steak house, served fantastic cuts of meat. The only aspect of Princess' dining that could be better is the lacking room service menu. There was a pub lunch served at the Wheelhouse bar on the days at sea - this was excellent and resulted in long lines to get in. The ship's entertainment was good. There was a comedian onboard (I forget his name), but he was hilarious. I'm not a big fan of production shows, singing and dancing, but they did have a few shows like that and they seemed pretty good. The casino was usually crowded, but that should be expected. Bars and lounges were never overcrowded - there was always a place to sit. The night club was on and off as far as the crowd went. On some nights it was very busy, with lots of dancing. Other nights, it was pretty empty. The swimming pools could of been larger, but they were nice. The "movies under the stars" was pretty cool, but there was a bunch of seating that had obstructed views of the screen (due to the railings in the line-of-sight of some of the seats that were on the upper levels). As far as the staff went, I wasn't crazy about the ship's cruise director. We also thought that it was weird that there were probably around 4 assistant cruise directors. On past cruises, I've only noticed just one or two assistants. The cruise director seemed to be a little pretentious, as did a couple of the assistants. Besides his strange attitude, the cruise director wasn't as "all over the place" (or fun) as the typical cruise directors I've experienced on past cruises, where they would seem to be everywhere at all times and seemed to know everyone on the ship. Aside from the cruise director and his assistants, the rest of the staff was great. Any time we needed anything, they were more than willing to assist. Our room steward was very good, always cleaning the room a couple of times a day. My wife and I did spend some time at the Lotus Spa, onboard the ship. It was a beautiful spa, which a variety of treatments available. We decided to book a session at the Rasul, which is very nice and intimate for couples. It was interesting when the fire alarm sounded in the middle of this. We ran out of the room only to find a few other guests all confused about what was going on. After a few minutes the alarm was shut off, as the staff told us that they had to find one of the ship's mechanics to turn the alarm off. It was never disclosed to us as to why the alarm sounded in the first place. While in the waiting room at the spa I did notice that the fresh drinks were empty. I didn't really mind, but I did see another guest complaining to the staff about it - she seemed to say that it had been empty for a while, and that she already had asked someone to refill it (who I assume didn't). Also in this area of the ship is the fitness center. There was a decent variety of machines there and it wasn't too crowded. As far as families go, I certainly think that the Emerald Princess is appropriate for a multi-generation family. We don't have kids, but we did see a decent amount of kids and teens on board. We noticed that the kids program was very active, as we'd see groups of supervised little kids walking around the ship every now and then, taking part in fun activities. At each port of call, except Princess Cays (where we just enjoyed the beach and some drinks), we took a shore excursion through Princess. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great when we were in Princess Cays, it was on and off with heavy rain all day, but we made the most of it. We decided to do the Dunns River Falls and Mystic Mountain excursion in Ocho Rios. The falls were really fun to climb up, but the locals (including the tour guides) were very annoying and aggressive, as far as constantly getting in our faces and insisting (not asking) that we purchase something. They would act nice at first, but after realizing that we didn't want to purchase anything, they'd start mumbling stuff under their breaths. It was really quite a turn-off, and as a result we do not feel the need to go back to Jamaica any time soon. Don't get me wrong - it's a beautiful country, but we've experienced this in the past on other trips there and it seems to be something that we'd rather avoid on a vacation. In George Town we took an excursion on a beautiful sail boat to Stingray City, where you get off the boat and can interact with the stingrays. They were actually quite cool, but somewhat freaky. It was funny to see a bunch of grown men (including myself) squirming around the water when the stingrays got close. It was something I'd definitely do again in the future (although my wife doesn't feel the same way). The boat's crew was extremely nice and very informative, but after purchasing the supposed HD video of the tour from the guide, we were disappointed when we got home and saw that the video quality was not HD (we had hopes of getting high-def pictures from the video, but couldn't due to the poor quality). One snag with the excursion occurred when our bus driver took us to the wrong harbor. He didn't leave us there, but he was very confused and ended up costing us about 45 minutes of time. Eventually, he did get us to the right area and he was very apologetic about the confusion. Our favorite excursion of this cruise took place in Cozumel, where we did the Deluxe Dolphin Experience. This was lots of fun, as we were able to swim with the dolphins for a while. There was even a few minutes that they took us into the water with a manatee, which was very interesting (sort of like a "water cow"). The staff was very good, and the dolphins were perfectly trained. The only strange part of the experience was when we finished with the manatee, they took us in our bathing suits into a building (without the chance to change or at least get a towel), where they played the entire video of the tour for us (which was available for purchase). They had us sit through the entire experience that we just had a few minutes earlier. I joked to my friends saying that "maybe they'll next take us into another room, where we can watch a video of us watching the video." After being able to leave the video room, we then went to dry off and were able to go to a show with a group of seals that was very entertaining. In all, this was a great cruise and I highly recommend the Emerald Princess, and Princess Cruises for that matter, to travelers of all ages that are looking for an affordable, entertaining and relaxing cruise. |
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