Caribbean Cruise (4/10/2005)

We spent last week on the Grand Princess in the Caribbean. We left Tucson Friday morning. I drove to Phoenix where we left Max at the kennel (the same one he stayed at when we went to Seattle). We then drove to the airport and flew to Houston where we spent the night at a hotel. The next morning we went back to the airport to catch a bus to Galveston.
Before I start talking about the cruise , I want to say a few things about us. During the last 25 years Rich and I have been on 21 cruises, one was 15 days, one was 1 day, but most have been 7 days long. Our ships have been various sizes: one was a small European river cruise with about 200 passengers, the Grand Princess at 2600 passengers was the largest ship we have ever traveled on. There are positives and negatives to a large ship. The public areas on a large ship can be spectacular, but the service can sometimes take a hit.
About the Cruise:
Food: The food was excellent. I tried very hard this time to try new things and each one was very good. I even had some excellent 'no sugar added' desserts. I gained 4 pounds, hopefully, I will lose them this coming week. The Grand Princess has 2 restaurants with the traditional early and late seating, 2 restaurants for personal choice dining, 2 restaurants for buffet dining, several small areas for pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, etc.. We chose personal choice dining this cruise. We were traveling with 2 other couples so there were 6 of us. After the first night, when we had a long wait for a table, we made a reservation for 8:15 ( they would not accept reservations between 6:00 and 8:00) for a specific table and still we had to wait in line to get to the table. With traditional seating you come at your dining time and go immediately to your table. Although with 2 or 4 people personal choice was supposed to be easier there was still a long line to get to the table. We will not chose personal choice dining again. Rich and I had breakfast every morning in the buffet. It was excellent. Despite the number of passengers there was never a line at the buffet.
Entertainment: I expected to have some difficulties with the size of the ship in this area. On other ships we found that we had to go very early to find a good seat at the entertainment. We were pleasantly surprised to find that with the many venues available on this ship, we did not have issues with too many people. I went to 2 live performances, several movies under the stars, several movies in our room and I did not have any difficulty finding a good seat in any of them. I loved the movies under the stars. The ship provided lounges with blankets (not that I ever needed them) with excellent views of the screen. The screen provided excellent picture and sound even during the day.
Itinerary/Tours: Our Itinerary was embarkation (Saturday), 1 day at sea (Sunday), 1 day in Costa Maya (Monday), 1/2 day in Belize (Tuesday), 1 day in Grand Cayman (Wednesday), 1 day in Cozumel (Thursday - our 38th anniversary), 1 last day at sea (Friday), and disembarkation (Saturday). Our days at sea were spent watching movies on the big screen, reading, and resting in the sun. In Costa Maya we took a tour to ChacChoban, (the city of the red corn silo) a Mayan ruin. It had an interesting mix of excavated and unexcavated ruins. The excavation was temporarily stopped. Some day I would like to see excavation in progress but I expect that will be difficult to set up. Costa Maya is an area of the Mexican coast which is mostly jungle. There is a small area with the dock with a brightly colored shopping area. I have the feeling this is a lot like the beginning of Cancun, not much development until the cruise ships started arriving. It has a reef and will have a lot to do some day. For our day in Belize, we took a snorkeling tour to the reef off shore. We had a good time on the tour, saw lots of coral and fish. Then we went to a small island and rested in the sun. We really did not step on Belize at all except for the island. We will have to go back to see Belize. In Grand Cayman, we took a tour to Sting Ray City (a sand bar in the bay where sting rays congregate and tourists can walk with them). 2 of our friends kissed the sting rays, I fed one, something I was too afraid to do last time we were here. After we visited sting ray city, we snorkeled at a coral garden a few hundred yards away. This snorkel trip was even better than the one in Belize with more varieties of fish although the waves were pounding over the reef. In Cozumel, we shopped at the pier not in the center of town (there were 5 other cruise ships in town when we got there). After the shopping, we took a taxi to the San Francisco beach where we went swimming and sunning. Service: The service on the ship was generally very good. Our wait people were excellent as was our room steward. We had to tender in to Grand Cayman. The timing on picking up the tender tickets was not very organized but once the staff began the process, it went very quickly and the whole process was very smooth. Except for the dining line and the embarkation/disembarkation lines the service on the ship was very good even with the number of passengers.
Room: Our room was very nice. It was supposed to be a window with a fully obscured view. Actually we had a partially obscured view and when the lifeboat was lowered we had a full view. The room layout was different then the other ships we have used. At first I did not think there was enough storage space, but I was wrong - there was plenty and there was lots of room under the beds for the empty luggage. Overall, I believe the room layout was excellent.
Embarkation/Disembarkation: This was the one area where the Princess cruise line really failed. On embarkation, we waited for over 1.5 hours for the bus to take us to Galveston (after being told the bus would be there in 20 minutes). The bus driver was talking on her cell phone for the entire ride. After we arrived in Galveston, we decided to walk around before boarding the ship. We had been told that going through the line after 2:00pm would be better. After walking around, we joined the line for boarding at a little before 2:00. The line for boarding went well past the end of the line markers. When we finally got to the front of the line there were 2 of 3 security lines working. (I once knew someone who did a study for a bank. The study consisted of evaluating customer satisfaction when in a line at a large bank branch or a small one. Customers at the large branch with lots of empty teller cages imagined that the staff were at break or otherwise not working and were dissatisfied, whereas the customers at the branch with all the teller cages working were satisfied even though both had the same number of tellers working and were in line the same time.) Waiting in a long line to find not all security lines working is annoying. On disembarkation, we got off the ship to find a huge mass of people milling around. We went to find our luggage and joined a line that went from one end of the building to the other end with no line markers or princess staff in evidence anywhere. People were cutting in line everywhere. When we finally got to the end of the line, we went outside to get in line for a bus to the airport. Once again no one knew what was going on. We were told to go behind the line and wait, which we did. There were no princess representatives anywhere. Finally we found someone who informed us that there was a bus to our terminal hidden behind the other buses. We boarded that bus. It took us, but instead of going to the airport it went to pick up 2 additional passengers from the carnival ship. It then took us all to Hobby airfield where it dropped off the Carnival passengers. Finally, it took us to Sky Harbor airport. From the time we boarded the bus until we arrived at Sky Harbor was 2 hours. 2 of our passengers had 10 minutes to catch their plane after we arrived at the airport.