14-night Transatlantic Cruise (Cape Town/Rio de Janeiro)

Pre-Cruise:
We arrived on the Saturday (October 25th) before the cruise. We had transfers to the ship and stayed at the Marriott -Airport. Very nice hotel. We were late getting in (5:30 pm pacific: 8:30 pm eastern) so we dined at the sports bar in the hotel. Food was good but quite expensive.
Transfer from hotel to ship was smooth and uneventful. Princess has a nice plan for moving a lot of people from hotel to ship and it works. You get a colored ticket and when your ticket color is called then you board the bus. Trip to pier is about 35-40 minutes unless traffic is heavy.

Embarkation:
From the time we arrived at the pier to walking into our room was less than 15 minutes. I was very impressed with this. when we walked into our mini-suite, we had an even bigger surprise. Our luggage had already arrived and was ready to be unpacked.

Room:
We booked a mini-suite on the Dolphin deck. Room was clean though a little dated but not enough to matter to us. The room was very large for the two of us and plenty of storage. I like having the balcony to go out and relax on. Though not large, these balconies were quite comfortable for 2 people. Princess really needs to look at improving the mattresses on their beds. They get real hard very quickly. Duvet was very comfoprtable. Made going to sleep a lot easier for some reason.

Food:
Because we prefer to dine by ourselves, we ate mostly at the buffet. Food was pretty good for a buffet. Plenty of selections, though stations are a little too close together. We did dine int the Crown Steak House three nights and the food was very good. The cost is $25/person but you can eat as much as you want for that price. It is well worth the cost. Had room service 4 times and food menu, though limited was good. We had a pizza one night and it was very good or we were really hungry.

Entertainment:
Though we did not see all the shows, the ones we watched were really good and some of the acts in the lounges were very entertaining.

Excursions:
We did not use any of the excursions. We rented a car on each of the 4 islands we visited and did our own sightseeing. Highly recommend doing this but be aware of your time frame and how long it may take to get back. We never missed a sailing but on th efirst Island we had to take some short cuts back in order to make it on time. Our fault not the cruise line.

Service:
95 % of the service we had was awesome. Could not ask for anything better (especially room steward). Two places where we felt service was lacking was on the open decks and in the International cafe area. In both places servers seemed to spend more time walking around ignoring people than checking to see if they need anything to drink. In the International Cafe we had them come clean our table and not even ask if wanted anything. More than once the bartender had to tell the servers to see what we wanted to drink. This not only happened to us but to others as well. The servers seemed to be more receptive to the drinkers of alcoholic drinks than those of us drinking cokes or coffee. Guess they figured they could make more on tips that way.

Disembarkation:
Our flight from LAX was for 11:30 and Princess said they could not provide transfers for us that early (Princess wants a 12:30 or later departure for transfer) , so we did the walk-off disembarkation and got a cab to LAX. Cab fare is $56 one way. We got off the ship and through customs with no problems, other than hauling luggage all over the place (makes you appreciate having someone else do it for you).

Pros:
Loved the 4 days of sailing before getting to the islands. Gave us a chance to rest and relax. Getting to visit four different islands was very nice. Plenty to do or not do on the ship. Quite a few options if you wanted to do the excursions. On the whole, Princess really knows how to do customer service right.

Cons:
14 days got to be a little long. I guess after enjoying Hawaii so much, everything seemed like a let down after that. Not a Problem for princess but some of the passengers were extremely rude. They were of the more mature age and seemed to think they had a right of entitlement, whetehr in the food line or getting on the elevator. We are not spring chickens, but we were embarrassed by the actions of some of our "elders". As mentioned before, Princess really needs to look at improving there mattresses as they are not comfortable at all.

Overall:
We would do this cruise again but not right away. Thjs was our third cruise with Princess and so far, other than a few minor incidents, we are very pleased with sailing with them.
Star rating 4 stars.

Pre-Cruise: This was our first cruise on Princess, but we have cruised on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and NCL.  The trip started with a three-night pre-cruise stay in Los Angeles at the Belamar Hotel in Manhattan Beach…great location near restaurants, shops and tours to Los Angeles.  We did not use the Princess pre-cruise hotel next to the airport because there was nothing around it within walking distance and it was more expensive than the Belamar. We did not buy any transfers from Princess because we don’t like to wait for the buses at disembarkation.

Embarkation: Took cab from hotel at 11:30 to pier.  Cost from the Belamar was $52, traffic was light because it was a Saturday.  We arrived just before noon and embarkation was underway.  Very smooth embarkation (we had printed out our Boarding Passes in advance).  We went straight to our mini-suite on Dolphin Deck and dropped off carryon luggage.  Cabin décor was a bit dated with lots of light aqua colors and old-style lighting,  but the cabin was very spacious with excellent storage space. Bed linens had been upgraded to high thread-count cotton sheets and duvets.  Beds have very thin mattresses and were quite hard.  We noticed an odor outside the bathroom area, but were pretty hungry and headed out in search of food.

We went up to the Horizon Court for lunch.  The food stations were arranged so close together that it was very crowded, with people going in all different directions….it was simply chaos with very crowded tables.  And most people weren’t even on the ship yet!  Food was pretty good, but beverage stations were very far away, out of ice, and had very bad fountain iced tea.

Cabins: We returned to our mini-suite on Dolphin Deck and one suitcase had arrived and the other two followed shortly, well before our dinner at 6:00 pm.  The odor in the cabin was so strong that we asked our room steward to do something about it.  He wanted to spray a room deodorizer and wait to see how the odor was after dinner.  We said that wasn’t going to work and asked to speak with his supervisor.  She came very quickly, assessed the problem and said that they would replace the carpet tomorrow.  We said that we couldn’t sleep in the cabin with this smell.  She checked with her supervisor and they replaced the carpet while we were at dinner.  It made all the difference…not only was the odor gone but the carpet what a nice light color with a more modern pattern that brightened the entire cabin.  This was superb customer service.  The next day, we did notice that they were replacing carpet in two other cabins not far from ours.

All throughout the cruise, we could hear very loud, rhythmic groaning-like sounds as well as a very loud (not cabin) door banging shut.  The Dolphin Deck is right over the life boats so perhaps they were swaying and causing the noise.  Also, because the cabins on the Caribe Deck above are set back further into the ship, our balcony on the Dolphin Deck was totally exposed.  The balcony on the cabin above was also over our cabin, and we could hear constant moving of furniture and sliding of patio door.

Food: We had dinner at the early 6:00 pm seating in the Canaletto main dining room.  Since all of our prior cruises had been on ships with two-story dining rooms, our first impression was one of confinement, but we soon grew to really like the more intimate space. but the noise level was very high.  We were traveling with some friends of ours and we had our own table for four.  Over the entire cruise, the food in the dining room was excellent…far better than on Royal Caribbean.  Service was also outstanding, including my request to bring hot tea and three glasses of ice to the table for me to make real ice tea.

One night we ate at the Desert Rose steakhouse ($15 per person) and the steak we had in the main dining room was better than the one we got in the Desert Rose.  One night we ate at Sabitini’s ($20 per person).  We had never experienced their type of food presentation before.  They gave us menus that included starters but we only ordered our entrees.  They brought out small amounts of all of the starters for us to try, which was quite filling and then we were served our entrees.  Food was very good.  There were no other specialty restaurants on board.  We enjoyed having the set dining room plan instead of the 'anywhere dining' so we didn’t have to worry about making a lot of reservations. 

We used room service every morning for breakfast.  The menu was limited but always arrived on time or a few minutes early which really kept us on schedule. Again, excellent service.

Formal night was on the first sea day.  While we were at dinner, there was a loud rumble and the ship slowly stopped.  The Captain came on immediately to say that there was a problem with the electrical system and he would keep us updated.  We had lights in the dining room, but other areas of the ship were in the dark, including some cabins.  Generators were operating much of the lighting.  The Captain continued to give us updates about problems with the starboard electrical system that had to be rebooted by the computers.  We went on to the Princess Theatre not knowing if the show would go on.  Several times the stage lights came on and ran through lighting cycles.  The Captain finally came back on to say that everything was running smoothly, the show would go on, and we would not miss any of our ports and it was all true.  The communication from the Captain was excellent.

Entertainment in the Princess Theatre was always very good…better than we had experienced on most of our other cruises.  The production shows were great and the comedians were hilarious.  The layout of the theater, however, did not include an upper level.  We later learned on a tour of the backstage area that the theater only seats about 800 people.  We had to arrive at the shows 30 minutes early to get a decent seat, and many people had to stand at the back of the theater.  The Skywalker Lounge was wonderful.  We tried to get into a production show in the Vista Lounge, but there was no seating.  That was a disappointment.

Pool areas on sea days were very crowded and we could never find a lounge chair close to the pools.  Many chairs were being “saved”, and we didn’t see any pool attendants clearing them off.  This is so unfair to the other passengers.  The only chairs that we could often find were on the second level of the solarium, and even though the roof was open, these chairs were in the shade.

Excursions:  We booked Princess excursions for all three ports.  We had never been to theses cities. All these excursions were well organized with no problems gathering on the piers. The first was “Hacienda, City Tour and Tequila Factory” at Puerto Vallarta.  We had a nice air-conditioned bus for transportation.  The buffet lunch was not so good, but we enjoyed the folkloric entertainment after lunch.  There was not much to see at the Tequila Factory but the tasting of six different tequilas was quite a highlight. 

“Best of Mazatlan” again had a nice air-conditioned bus but there was not very much to see other than coastline.  At stops for photos, we were swarmed by people selling souvenirs.  We went to the old Cathedral and over to the Golden Center were we had about 45 minutes for shopping.  There were three cruise ships in town and everything was really crowded.  After shopping, we went to a lovely hotel and had a wonderful buffet lunch with two free drinks on a terrace on the beach.  We returned to the ship on crazy “golf cart” taxis. 

We chose the “Premier Beach Break” on Cabo.  Tenders were used at this port and getting off the ship was very well organized.  We went to a beautiful hotel on the beach and the tour had its own area with Balinese style lounge beds, lounge chairs and lots of great towels.  The downside of the tour was they began serving us chips and salsa at 10:30 followed by a fajita lunch at 10:45 and we were not so hungry.  The tour description included a taco bar, which we didn’t have.  The tour description also said the tour was 9:30 – 1:30 but at 11:45 we had to gather to get on the bus to take us to the tender area.  The tender line was so long……but we finally got back on board.  The ship left the port at 2:00pm, much too soon!

Disembarkation:  We arrived at Los Angeles about 5:00am instead of the scheduled 7:00am.  Perhaps we could have spent two more hours in Cabo.  The disembarkation went very smoothly as we were called by colors from various lounges.  Luggage in the terminal was very well organized and easy to access.  We took a cab to the airport for about $45.