Princess Cruises, Sea Princess Mediterranean Review

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★★★★☆
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  • Food - quality & variety

  • Entertainment on board

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showmetheship's review of Princess Cruises, Sea Princess Mediterranean

“Brief overview: ”

★★★☆☆

written by showmetheship on 06/07/2007

Good Points
Clean ship.
Hard working waiter and stewards.

Bad Points
Older clientel.
Lack of amenities.
Time in key ports too limited.
Disembarkation at ports of call poorly managed.

General Comments
Brief overview:

I was very excited to try a new cruise line and LOVE cruising, this was our 4th and our first with Princess (Majesty of the Seas '93, Celebrity's Summit '04, Celebrity Horizon '04). My wife and I (ages 45 and 46) had planned to spend 2 weeks with the kids (ages 9 and 10) in England, but with the every shrinking value of the dollar we were going to cancel were it not for this unbelievable coincidence, the trip dates for Sea Princess matched our travel dates exactly. When I saw the interline (military) rate of 1299 PP for 14 nights, I jumped at it! Including transfers to and from the ship from Gatwick the grand total for 4 of us in 2 inside cabins was only 5916, saving us 1500 dollars. Let's go!



I knew Sea Princess was slightly older at 9 years but what I did not know was that her clientele would consist mainly of older people and the British (~85%). Before you say "what else do you expect you are in England!" Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas left exactly the same day for exactly the same number of days with an eerily similar itinerary. Her passengers were almost all American. This was first evidenced in the passenger waiting lounge at Gatwick when 90% of the arriving Americans with us from several flights left to catch the Navigator. Also, the Port of Gibraltar lists Sea Princess as British passengers and Navigator of the Seas as American. With these qualifiers, let me begin my critique.



Embarkation / Disembarkation:

The transfer to the ship and embarkation were excellent were it not that our particular agent was completely new and inept which required an addition 15 minutes to check us in. Upon arriving at the port, all we had to do was get off the bus and proceed directly into the terminal where there was an orderly line. Our bus dropped us off at the terminal at 1230, we were embarking the ship by 1:15 PM. The terminal was clean and the staff very courteous. Our bags magically appeared in our staterooms within the hour. Princess also loaded our bags onto the bus at the airport as well.

Disembarkation was a mess! They refused to allow us off the ship until they called our tag color (which was the first to go) despite those with luggage in hand being allow to get off. In addition, the contract bus company would not leave until all the assigned passengers were aboard. I honestly do not know how some some people think because it was made clear by Princess that if you were going to Gatwick you needed to be first off due to the 2 hour drive. Despite being the first off and being on the bus by 0800, we were required to wait until 0905 while the more older group meandered to the bus as if we all had all day. Our driver decided she knew a "better way" to get us to the airport and what was a 1.5 hour drive in turned out to be a 3:15 back! With FF miles used and a 1400 (2PM) flight to catch, we arrived (finally) at 1220.



General layout:

Passenger Space Ratio is an important concept I learned about after traveling on the Horizon in 2004. The PSR for this ship is 37 and with a sold out cruise, I felt was adequate but not great. PSR refers to personal space or feeling of crowdedness aboard. Previous critics complained about the horizon court (buffet area) on board (14th deck forward), we found it to be plenty roomy and rarely 1-2 times waited in line to get plate to get our food.. However, despite a very open feel, there simply are not enough seats and tables if you arrive during peak breakfast times (1000-1100). There are some tight spots aboard where dodging and weaving walkers, canes, and slow walkers were problematic. Areas include the dinning room, the horizon court in certain area, berthing hallways and the princess theater. As mentioned by others, i think the princess theater is a terrible design, not enough seats and no outer passageway to exit. For a older clientele this is really poor planning. Everyone must file all the way into the center to exit the theater. There is a quirky design to the ship in that several decks to not go all the way forward and aft which require walking down the hall to catch a separate elevator or stairs. The elevators were plentiful but there was at least always one being worked on and at times there could be a 5 minute wait.



Amenities:

Sea Princess was very clean and her staff were constantly cleaning. The carpets and common areas were in excellent shape, there were no funny odors with exception. Walking down certain corridors one could smell a slight and distinct musty smell.

The free washer and dryer were an excellent touch as well and compulsory for a 14 night trip. The only comment here is that there were only two washer and dryers per deck.



Gym and Spa:

As a Naval Officer, staying in shape is paramount, their gym and spa are very good with 9 upper body and 3 lower body brand new fitness machines as well as spin, yoga and pillaties (sp) classes to stay in shape. Princess also gets high marks for establishing the promenade deck (7) as the dedicated jogging track with 3 laps equaling a mile. No need to "dodge" lounge chairs to get your exercise. The fitness center also features 11 new tread mills, 5 elliptical machines along with 2 or 3 stationary bikes for alternative aerobic conditioning.



Pools:

There was supposed to be 4 pools, no one could find the 4th one! There are plenty of hot tubs and they layout is nice. There is not enough space for me in the pools to effectively swim, very disappointing. All one could do is mill about in a small space and dunk to stay cool.



MUTS (Movies Under The Stars):

A brilliantly simple concept that makes excellent use of otherwise wasted space. Some movies shown include: Indiana Jones, Freedom Writers, Happy Feat, The Transporter, and other new DVD releases I do not recall.



Card room/ casino:

I am not a gambler and limited my black jack losses to $40 but I found it great that they offer 1 dollar hands while at seas 1200-3PM. The card room opposite the casino is an excellent idea and our family spent a considerable amount of time using provided games of all sorts on stable felt covered tables (cribbage, cards, monopoly, scrabble, etc).



Entertainment:

THE WORST I have EVER seen! Almost all second rate British comedians and second rate acts. The singers and dancers were OK but the productions and sets were terribly basic as compared to those aboard Celebrity and Royal Caribbean. I skipped several productions as I was geared for those in their 70's and 80's. MUTS offers a good alternative provided you have not seen the movie. The waiters come around in the evening passing out small bags of popcorn and blankets for those lounging around and watching the movie, very nice.



Service:

Overall the service we received was very good. The overwhelming majority of both waiters and stewards were from Philippines. With the exception of some of the staff, the crew bent over backwards to try and please. I am cheap but tipped my stewards and waiters extra due to their commitment to excellence. As an example, every time I came back to the room and my steward was around, he went out of his way to open my stateroom door. When servicing the room, he ensured he was never intrusive and I found my room spic and span with fresh towels twice daily.



Our waiter wanted to ensure our experience was top shelf reminding us that if at any time we did not like a particular choice to please let him know so he could offer an alternative. Our assistant waiter always ensured our diet coke glasses were full at dinner and remembered who want what type of coffee after dinner. My 10 year old son is a very picky eater and on several occasions modifications to the menu choices were done to meet his taste.



We found the some of the officer crew to be curt and inflexible ..unable to think outside the box. Rules, rules, rules, it took away from the experience.



Food:

As I am not a food expert, I will limit my comments. In general dinner meals were excellent, however, as noted by other critics, I found the beef to be awful! The steaks were always tough and lacked good flavor causing us in part to shy away from the specialty steak house. What we all really liked was the "always available" menu selections.



The buffet was decidedly British, so choose your food carefully, we noticed a significant decrease in quality here.



Shore excursions and itinerary:

This is an area where Princess get hands down failing marks for several reasons. In one port of call (Barcelona) the tour guide spoke such horrible English and offered such narrow insight to the city we really felt ripped off, as if we truly got almost nothing for our money. To add injury to insult, leg room was non existent on the bus making the entire experience miserable. When asking for an adjustment to my bill, the tour desk politely said "out of the question". My father in law and I (traveling together) really took offense at this. A second important and cautionary note, if you are not on a tour, consider yourself chopped liver. This was really significant at two ports (Cannes and Corsica) where tenders were required to get to shore. We were forbidden from getting off the ship until all tours were completely disembarked, um .. wrong answer! Two sets of tenders port and starboard should be run. Given the older construct of passengers this meant decreasing shore time at shore even more. Lastly, it was very disappointing to me to have to be on board hour prior to ship's movement. For example, the itinerary advertises 7.5 hours in Barcelona (1000-1730) but in reality it meant 1030-1700, hardly a fair crack at seeing Barcelona which leads me to my next point. In retrospect, Princess is trying to bite off too much on the European Medley cruise. Passengers would be better served by skipping insignificant ports such as Vigo and instead overnighting in ports such as Barcelona. Navigator of the Seas did exactly this enabling passengers a truly adequate time to explore the city. Adjusting the itinerary would also allow for less days at sea. For the first time in my cruising experience, I found I was bored and ready to come home. The ship lacks the attractive amenities offered by RC such as a rock climbing wall and ice skating rink and other amenities.



Concluding remarks:

In my subjective view, the Brits were all too happy to lay around and drink all day. This is a matter of choice, I would not elect to cruise with this company nor on this vessel again. Did I get my money's worth, you bet! Would I elect to choose this experience again, NO! While the price was right, the adage "you get what you pay for" comes back to haunt me. In discussing our experience amongst fellow American passengers toward the end, all of us felt unanimous in that 14 Nights with Princess in not an option we will likely choose again.

  • June 2007

    Date of Cruise

  • 14

    Nights on board

  • Western Mediterranean

    Itinerary Name

  • Inside

    Cabin Type

  • Family

    Group description

  • Food - quality & variety

  • Entertainment on board

  • Value For Money

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