Our journey began in Vancouver, BC Canada where we boarded the Crown Princess Cruise Ship to go on an 11 day itinerary to Alaska! It was our third time going to Alaska with Princess cruises, but our first time on the Crown.
As experienced cruisers, we thought we would review some of the highlights and fails of living on the Crown Princess Cruise Ship for 11 days!
Table of Contents:
Have you been on the Crown Princess?
0%Yes
0%No
THE SHIP: About The Crown Princess
The Crown Princess first came out in 2006 with a capacity of 3080 - 3674 passengers. (The number of passengers vary from site to site, and it could be because there are many bunk beds that drop out of the ceiling for additional passengers).
We were on an 11 day Inside Passage Roundtrip from Vancouver to Alaska and back.
There was a multi-million dollar refurbishment of the Crown Princess back in 2018 which included improvements to the dining venues; the staterooms (offering luxury beds); and the upgraded spa and fitness centre.
There are many locations around the Crown Princess Ship which include the Elite Lounge (Skywalkers), Fine Arts Gallery, Future Cruise Planning and Captain's Loyalty, Gatsby's Casino, Guest Services, Internet Cafe, Lotus Spa and Salon, Medical Centre, Ocean Front Accessories, Photo Gallery, Shore Excursions, and The Shops of Princess.
THE CHECK-IN:
We always find that the Vancouver port is super easy and efficient for our check ins... and us boarding the Crown Princess in June 2023 was no different.
There is a section for passengers to drop off their bags, and lots of signs and staff everywhere to lead everyone in the right direction.
We always have our Princess APP ready by having it completely filled out. The more you do in advance, the faster you can be processed. We always pick up our Medallions at the desk as it seems to be a lot faster and easier in the long run. *Not to mention that we don't even have an address to send the medallion to!
We arrived at around 11am at the cruise terminal on June 23rd. That always seems to be the ideal time to arrive. It was fairly busy with a long line, but there were also two ships boarding at the same time! Mostly it was pretty organized and efficient.
Future Note: There is NO priority boarding for ELITE passengers in Vancouver.
THE STATEROOM:
For this particular cruise, our room was located near the front of the ship. We had purchased a "guaranteed balcony" where Princess ended up choosing our room for us. The idea was that we would bid for an upgrade and change our room if we didn't like it. Well, we had bid for an upgrade but we didn't get it this time! This was because the ship was at full capacity for this sailing!
We were in a balcony room on the Starboard side. Being in a balcony is a lot better for us, because we like to sit and look at all of the Alaskan scenery from our own room. It is great because we can order in food and drinks straight to our room, and not miss a second of Alaska's beauty.
Our neighbours on either side of our room also seemed to LOVE the balcony too, because they were ALWAYS out there. Morning. Noon. Night. They spent the entire ship talking so loudly to each other... on the phone... to themselves... to the TV... it was constant, and overall, pretty annoying.
BALCONY FAIL: On the last night of the cruise, specifically at 3am, I actually went out on the balcony and asked the neighbours on the one side of us, to stop talking and laughing and being so loud, as we were trying to sleep! They finally went inside their room and closed the door, and we got some peace and quiet for a few hours.
We have been on MANY balcony cabins on many itineraries. In fact, with Princess, this was our 20th sailing! We have NEVER experienced so much constant noise on our balcony, to the point where we had to keep our door closed the whole time.
The Stateroom itself, like I said before, was a Guaranteed room near the front. It was a small room, but super comfortable with an amazing and standard layout made for convenience. The bedding and pillows are super comfy, and therefore, it is one of our favorite things to look forward to on a princess cruise!
Our Stateroom housekeeper was very slow, but she was very thorough. She told us that she, alone, takes care of 19 staterooms and does 2 services a day on each room. No wonder she was always looking so tired.
THE FOOD:
Eating is a big deal for us! There are plenty of restaurants and bars on the ship, and a great buffet.
As WFPB eaters, we tend to start off with oversized salads for lunch, and then usually pick a nice curry with rice, or pasta with vegetables for lunch.
On this ship, we had decided that we would forgo the specialty dining, and the regular dining rooms, as we wanted to have more control of our own time. We typically don't spend too much time on our meals, and tend to be more in a hurry to get to the next thing to do!
Note: *There was ONE night that we had looked at the dining menu and decided that we wanted to try out the dining experience... BUT, we were told that the first available table would be at 8.45 pm... which, for us, is way too late. We like to finish eating for the day by 6:00pm. (We do this to try and keep our weight in check while cruising full time!)
List of the Dining, Bars and Lounges:
Adagio Bar, Botticelli Dining Room, Calyso Bar, Club Fusion, Coffee & Cones, Crooners Bar, Crown Grill, Da Vinci Dining Room, Explorers Lounge, Michelangelo Dining Room, The Sanctuary, Good Spirits at Sea, International Cafe, Outriggers Bar, Sabatinis, Salty Dog Grill, Skywalkers Nightclub, Slice- Pizzeria, The MIX, Tradewinds Bar, Vines Bar, Wheelhouse Bar, Salty Dog Gastropub, World Fresh Marketplace Horizon Court.
Although all of the dining areas, bars and lounges have something great to offer everyone, our particular recommendations for WFPB eaters would be the following:
We loved the Salty Dog Grill as we had discovered their veggie burger made from quinoa, and we discovered the street taco made with black beans and sweet potato. We altered the food a little by asking the cooks not to add cheese or creams or sugary syrups, etc.
We loved Slice Pizzeria as they had made us each a pizza coated with tons of veggies and removed the cheese for us. The quality was super good!
THE ATMOSPHERE:
We were pretty surprised to learn that the CROWN Princess has the Skywalkers Lounge. Not all Princess Ships have this location and it is a definite place where we like to hang out!
About The Skywalkers Lounge.
Once you get to the Platinum level of cruising with Princess, you are able to go to the lounge for specialty drinks and pre-dinner snacks. It is almost like going to a wedding pre-reception every day.
The lounge is located at the end of the ship and it is very close to the Air conditioning system that cools the whole ship.... this means that this room is usually VERY COLD. In fact, I wore a blanket over myself while we were in there for the Platinum members event!
During the day, Skywalkers is pretty quiet, except that there is a running track and constant balls being dropped on the floor above, so one in a while you get a jolt of surprise while quietly reading your book.
At night, we also like to go to Skywalkers to dance! The view is exceptional!
The Rest of the Ship:
The overall presence of the ship is clean, bright and sparkling, and the staff are super friendly. The overall atmosphere has a good energy.
The only area we did try to avoid was the Casino, as one section of it, particularly close to Churchills, is very smoky. There was a constant waft of smoke that I could smell every single time I walked by. We walked a bit faster through the casino, but also tried to avoid the area altogether.
THE ENTERTAINMENT:
We find that there is always something to do on Princess Ships, and the Crown Princess was no exception!
As a former head of performing Arts in a high school in Toronto, I have a genuine interest in the entertainment on a ship.
The Crown Princess did not disappoint. Each day, you would be able to hear professional entertainers such as the violinists, piano players, and singers just doing their thing in the Piazza.
There were also dances with the specialty bands; ballroom dancing; karaoke nights; and disco nights.
Each night in the main stage, there would be something special. There was no shortage of Guest Performers which included the following on our cruise itinerary:
Entertainment Guests:
Comedian Miguel Washington
Alaska Enrichment: Rachel Moreno
Soprano: Kelly Curtin (Amazing!)
Comedy Magician Reggie Rice
Coffee With the Captain Christopher Lye
Jeffrey Allen as Elton John Tribute Performer
Vocalist Todd Adamson
Enrichment from Wild Alaska Nick Jans
Comedian Sam Demaris
Standard Princess Performers:
Piano and Vocal Entertainer Colin Salter
Live Music with Ocean Boulevard Band
Acoustic Guitar and Vocals with Dave Barrett
House Band
Pianist Jowita
D.J. "J.D."
Grapevines Wine Tasting
Love Boat Piazza Party (wear white and gold)
Entertainment Staff Events:
The entertainment is pretty typical of the Princess Cruise line. In fact,, the shows are pretty much identical, but they are great games that keep the passengers involved!
Some of the games included:
YES/NO Gameshow; Rock The Room; Music Bingo; True or Moo; Marriage Match; Hollywood Hiccups; Strikeout Gameshow; Various Trivia; Game Show: Generation Gap; Majority Rules; You Be The Judge: Liar's Club; We Play You Say, Little White Lies, Read My Lips, Survey It!
ENTERTAINMENT HIGHLIGHT: 8 Bit Music Trivia (probably my favorite game on this ship!) We never played this one on any other ship, and it was BY FAR the most funny game we played in a long time! All music that was played turned into a robotic version of the song, where your team had to figure out the actual song!
TRIVIA FAIL: As a former music teacher, I did try to inform Morgan, one of the entertainment staff, that the world "PIANO" in musical terms, does not mean "playing alone." However, he looked up the term on google, so he would NOT agree with me that his definition needed double checking.
The Main Production Shows:
Encore (Similar to "Bravo") I think we have seen this about 20 times now!
Movies Under The Stars.
Champagne Waterfall
Voice Of The Ocean
Blame It On The Boogie
Sweet Soul Music
Love Boat Piazza Party (Don't forget to wear white and gold clothing!)
There are way too many things to list. I merely highlighted the events that we went to. Of course there were a lot of dances, lessons, tours, challenges, physical activities. It would be impossible to participate in everything!
The Princess Medallion
The Princess Medallion has been around for a few years now, and should have all the bugs cleared out by now. Overall, the app is okay, but there are a lot of little things we don't like about it... especially seeing as it seems like nobody is really manning what is being listed on the APP.
For example, we turned up to an event listed on the medallion (50% off future cruises to the exotics), and were clearly in the wrong spot. Instead of the presentation that we were looking for, we found ourselves in the middle of the Princess Art Auction!
We went down to the Future Cruises to ask them about their presentation, and after looking at our APP, we were told that the presentation was a mistake as it listed an employee as a presenter, and she left the ship MONTHS ago!
We found ourselves at another event, where it was listed that the winner would get a $100 cruise credit. Well, our team won and we each got a blue little diary book. I showed them the APP, and they said "well, that is a mistake! We are NOT giving you $100).
One afternoon we were dreaming about chips and fries, so we ordered it on the APP. We waited for over 45 minutes and decided to try and cancel the order as we were going to get our own snacks. There was no way to cancel the order. So, about a half hour later, we ended up getting our delivery of fries and chips right to our table while we were eating other food. LOL
Also, we met a couple new to Princess, and had no idea what was on the medallion, or how to find anything like their account bill, or other people, etc. They told us that they went to the Medallion Class Welcome presentation, but the only presentation they got was about the up-sale of the drinks package! We ended up spending some time showing them how to activate the app, and then how to use it.
OTHER SMALL MENTION FAILS:
Little Promises: We were in the Disco for "One Hit Wonders" night, and the DJ seemed surprised that I was able to guess most of the songs and artists. He had told me that if I got the "next" song, that I would get a bottle of champagne... well, they back tracked on that too. He said I could come up for a GLASS the next night, but I didn't bother.
The Constant Up-Sales: The up-sales for the first 2 days were really quite excessive. We were repeatedly approached to purchase the princess plus package, which we decided against from the start, not to mention that all shows and entertainment started with a reminder about the packages!
For this particular trip, we decided against taking the princess plus: See our reasoning and calculation below...
Package vs no package:
a. Gratuities are $16 a day, pp for a balcony. $32
b. Wi-Fi at the Elite level is $10 a day per device. $10 (We only used 1 device)
c. We drank ciders at $10 each drink. (4 drinks per couple). $40
d. Specialty Coffee... we spent $10 as a couple per day. $10.
Our total: $92 a day for the two of us. The package would have been $120 a day. ($60 each)
It really depends on how much you want to drink. For this trip, we also brought on our own bottle of wine, and had a FREE bar service, and a FREE Wine Tasting event. So, we had more than enough drinks for the 11 day duration.
OUR OVERALL IMPRESSION OF THE CROWN PRINCESS
MORE HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Meeting great people that we got to know a bit.
2. LEARNING and buying a new game Rook (Lisa and Norm were great teachers!)
3. Amazing chefs, sous chefs, waiters and hosts going above and beyond
4. THE 50 PERCENT off deals in future cruises with Kyle and Sylvain
SOME MORE FAILS:
The dirty hallways... never seen people leaving dishes, plates of food, towels on the ground in the hallway... How would anyone in a scooter get down the hall?
Huge groups who pretended like they were in their own bubbles and spoke so loudly over announcements, shows, etc. We spent a lot of time trying to get away from abnoxious people. There was one guy, we nicknamed "Flossy" as he sat in the middle of the buffet and flossed his teeth as everyone around him was still eating.
In summary, we would definitely consider travelling on the Crown Princess again. There is definite value for the money in booking an older ship with all of the amenities that we are used to having travelled with Princess Cruise Lines so often.
SHOUT OUTS TO CROWN PRINCESS STAFF
We had a great experience with so many staff members! Here are a few of the main stand-outs! By the way, if you ever see any of these people on YOUR next cruise, tell them that we say HI!!!
Kyle in Future Cruises was AMAZING!
Sumal in the Horizon was HELPFUL!
Chamika in Housekeeping was FRIENDLY
Rodel, the Ice Sculpter was GENUINE
Jenefer, the Chef, was OUTSTANDING
We know that everyone's experience is unique. We wanted to share our perspective of being on the CROWN Princess for the first time, and hope that you find something interesting in our reflections.
Thanks for reading.
Excellent review! I won't be cruising any time soon. I hope all this technology cruise APP ideas are fixed by the time I get back to cruising. Hopefully, the cruise line takes your feedback with serious consideration and gets their **** together. 😎