Elizabeth Giancarli

Age: 29
Occupation: Accountant
Number of Cruises: First Cruise
Cruise Line: Princess Cruises
Ship: Grand Princess
Sailing Date: April 21st, 2002
Itinerary: Western Caribbean - Princess Cays, Grand Cayman, Costa Maya, Cozumel

First-Time Cruiser – can’t wait to do it again!

My husband and I took our first cruise on the Grand Princess on April 21st with another couple who also were cruising for the first time. After looking at Royal Caribbean, Carnival and Princess as our cruise choices we settled on Princess based on price, itinerary, and accommodations. We arrived at Port Everglades on Sunday afternoon at about 2:30PM and were on the ship and in our room by 3:00PM. Embarkation was extremely fast and smooth.

We stayed on the Aloha deck cabin A1429 and had a balcony. The room was decent sized with a closet with lots of shelves and a safe and another closet where we were able to hang all of our clothes. We also had some drawer space available. Our steward, Grace, was very friendly and efficient. The only downfall was the size of the bathroom. I chose to do my hair and makeup in front of the mirror on the desk. Other than that, I found our accommodations to be satisfactory.

Once boarded and settled, we started to wander around the ship and had pizza and burgers by the pool. The waiters were friendly, the pizza and burgers were exceptionally good, the music was nice and it wasn’t as crowded as I had originally expected. When we went back to the room our after muster, our luggage was there waiting for us. We then went to dinner at the Horizon Court buffet. The choices were good and the food was fresh and tasty. We were on the personal choice plan for meals and it had its good points and bad points. It was good because we didn’t have to ever rush to make sure we made our dinner seating however, we didn’t develop any relationships with the waiters and we didn’t get a chance to mingle with other cruisers as much. Also, I didn’t find the dining room food to be as good as I thought it would be. It was good but nothing struck me as fantastic or fabulous, except for maybe the desserts. However, I really did enjoy the Mexican restaurant. The food was fantastic and the margaritas were out of this world. Sabatini’s was just OK for me. Being 100% Italian, I found that some of the items just weren’t as good as I expected. However, it was a nice experience.

As far as other amenities go, the pools were nice but the main pool was the only one that had music at it and it was always very crowded. The other pools weren’t as crowded but they were also less “fun”. It wasn’t very hard to get a chair near the pools and I never felt very crowded except for the last Saturday at sea. Then it was packed. I really liked the disco and we also liked the British pub night but since my husband and I really like Casinos we spent a lot of time there. I found that the Casino didn’t pay out very well but we mostly broke even. We didn’t lose lots of money. They could stand to add another craps table though since the one that was available got really crowded.

On to the excursions:

Princess Cays – I had read countless reviews and everyone said that when you get off the tender go right. Well right is Right! It was significantly less crowded, there was a big bar right there and since we were on the opposite side of the BBQ buffet we didn’t have to worry about smelling the food all day. The buffet was OK. We decided to spend this day in a very low key way so basically sunbathed all day and at the end of the day the four of us decided to try the banana boat ride. BIG MISTAKE! I felt like I was on a mechanical bull going full speed. It looked like such a calm ride from afar but we were bounced so hard. Of course my husband and my friend’s husband absolutely LOVED it. I, on the other hand, was so sore the next day. I thought the layout of Princess Cays was very nice and thought they offered a lot of good activities.

Grand Cayman – This was our absolute favorite stop. We decided to use Captain Marvin’s (www.captainmarvins.com) for our stingray and snorkel excursion and it was great. They were so nice and professional and since the tour was so much smaller than the ones organized by the cruise lines we had a much better time. We didn’t feel like we were being herded like cattle. They took us to two reefs and then to the stingrays. At one of the reefs, Eric, our tour guide coaxed out a 6 foot long moray eel and we got to hold it and take pictures of it. Once the tour was over we had enough time to relax and grab lunch at a little pub and do a little shopping.

Costa Maya – We only got off the ship for about an hour. I didn’t like this port at all. In fact, even the cruise staff jokes about Costa Maya. There wasn’t much to do here. Maybe when it’s built up some more it would be better. You could take some excursions from here but since I had a bum knee we thought we could use this day as one of our relax and do nothing days. Also we got to enjoy the ship because so many people had gotten off.

Cozumel – We did the 4 wheel drive jeep adventure and that was my husband’s favorite part of the entire cruise. It was a little pricey but it was really a lot of fun. I had a little bit of a bad experience only because my seat belt wasn’t working correctly so it kept tightening to the point that I thought I would be crushed. Other than that, the scenery is amazing, the beach we went to was very nice and we had the most delicious lunch. However if you don’t like being bounced around this is not the excursion for you. And the Princess staff doesn’t warn you of this. In fact, that kind of bugs me because there was a 6 month pregnant woman on this excursion and once we got off road she and her husband had to detour straight to the beach stop. That was a ridiculous waste of money for them.

Once we came back from the jeep excursion, my husband and I headed to the Cozumel Beach Club for the beach break. That was the biggest was of $75 dollars of our entire cruise ($25 ea for the passes and then we had to pay a cab to get there). Supposedly we had use of their entire facilities except food. The drinks were terrible, I couldn’t even get a soda because the fountain was covered with bees, and they didn’t really have any “special” facilities. There was a pool and then the beach. Waste of time and money. We ended up staying ½ hour and then coming back. Since we’re not really shoppers we just walked around and hit Carlos and Charlies. Our friends went there separate ways. My friend shopped and walked around and said she felt extremely safe walking around shopping on her own and her husband went on a scuba excursion that he absolutely loved.

All in all, the cruise was very good. We had a great time. I hope this review was helpful. I would recommend Princess for anyone who wants a relaxing vacation with good food and lots of activities. However, my husband and I are going to test out another cruise line for the next time just so that we have something to compare to.

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