Melinda Kazmer

Age: 57
Occupation: Business Owner
Number of Cruises: 18
Cruise Line: Princess
Ship: Grand
Sailing Date: September 15th, 2002
Itinerary: Eastern Caribbean

We have just returned from a GRAND cruise on the Grand Princess and I wanted to share our experiences with you. Let me give you a little background first. This was our 18th cruise but our first on Princess. We began cruising in 1987 when we were living in Chicago and one cruise a year was the norm for us through 1992. We took a break from cruising and began again in 1998, having moved from Chicago to Naples, FL. We then started taking 2-4 cruises a year since the ports were so accessible. The majority of our cruises since 1998 have been with Celebrity and we love them – but wanted to try Princess. I had been resisting the Grand because of her size, but she had the itinerary we wanted and the price was right and our travel agents, Russ and Michelle Reynolds of Gulfshore Travel, assured us that we would love her – so we booked. I combed the cruise-addicts and cruisecritic boards for information about the ship and gots lots of good hints and advice. Next thing I knew, we were on the bus and heading for Port Everglades.

We arrived about 11:00 am. We had registered for Express Check-In and it was the smoothest we have ever experienced. We had to wait for about 15 minutes upstairs before boarding and then it was on to find our cabin and lunch. We had booked an inside guarantee and ended up with a JJ category on Baja Deck forward. Our philosophy is to always book the lowest category we can live with – it allows us to cruise more times in the year and many times we are upgraded. The cabin was smaller than those of Celebrity, but well set up with plenty of storage space. We met our cabin steward, Donato, and then headed for the Horizon Court for lunch. The buffet is set up in stations – not a line – and it seemed to work very well. We headed for tables at the rear and had a delightful lunch. The rest of the day was spent exploring the ship and getting our bearings.

This is a LARGE ship – it was sailing with 2718 passengers we were told and that is a full ship! It never felt crowded at any time to us. It was easy to get around and the space planning was excellent. Decks 5, 6, and 7 are the main public decks. Deck 7 is the Promenade Deck with a full Promenade running completely around the ship outside (you have to climb up one deck in the forward section and 3 times around is a mile). The Horizon Court is on Deck 14 as are the pools – all four of them – one of which is an adult pool at the rear of the ship. They are freshwater pools and open 24/7. We thought the ship was beautifully decorated and enjoyed the various art work around the ship as well as the art auctions. We didn’t purchase anything – but the auctions were fun and Michael and Monika were very good.

There are stairs forward and aft – plenty of elevators and some stairs midships that don’t go to every deck. We tend to take the stairs whenever possible to lessen the effects of eating – it seems to work for us. We had Personal Choice dining and loved it. We ate mostly in the Michaelangelo Dining Room around 8:30 pm or after. We only had a short wait for a table for 2 once. The food was very good – on a par with Celebrity’s to our surprise. Breakfast in the dining room could have had a lot more variety – we only ate there once and then had the remaining breakfasts in the Horizon Court – lots of variety there. We ate lunch both in the Horizon Court and in the dining room – liked the food in the dining room for lunch better. We found that with Personal Choice dining there was never a “stampede” of people to the dining rooms at one time. We had excellent service in the dining rooms – we asked for the same section most of the cruise – from each and every waiter and assistant that we had.

The Captains welcome party was held in the atrium on all three floors –Captain Guiseppe Romano was mingling with the guests and introducing himself and visiting a bit with each group. It worked well as did the Champange Waterfall that was held on all three floors.

We opted for brunch at Sabatini’s and it was wonderful. We would recommend it to anyone over dinner. Eat a very small breakfast, if at all and have a fabulous brunch. This is only available on sea days and well worth the cost of $15/pp.

The entertainment that we saw was excellent – both in the Princess Theater and in the Vista lounge. Each venue has excellent sight lines - and we enjoyed production numbers, magicians, comedians. There was something for everyone every night – the cruise directors staff did an excellent job.

The ports were St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Princess Cays with the remaining days being sea days. This is our favourite route as it combines great relaxing time on the ship as well as ports that we love – especially St. Maarten. We did get off at Princess Cays for the boat ride over and back – the day was somewhat overcast and we just walked around a bit. Since we live a couple of block from the beach - beaches are not a big attraction for us.

Since we are used to Celebrity’s no announcement policy, we found the announcements of the Cruise Director, Tim Donavan, to be intrusive and not necessary. We found the the Princess Patter to be extremely commercial and lots of “sales” brochures were put in our mailbox each day. These are minor things and certainly did not detract from our cruise.

Disembarkation was the easiest we have ever experienced. It began right before 8 am and the ship was completely cleared about 9:40 am. We were the last group off since we were on the bus program and it worked well.

Princess now has two new fans and we expect to book another cruise with them soon. Our next voyage will be in December on the Mercury. It is nice to know that we can have two favourite cruise lines. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions you may have – especially as to how the two lines compare.

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