Coral Princess Review
Great cruise, but the theatre is of concern.
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Just disembarked the CORAL PRINCESS last Sunday, March 6 after a 10-day cruise to central America/partial Panama canal transit. We are seasoned cruisers and this was our 16th boat overall (10th w/Princess).
The cruise overall was fantastic. We had heard lots of prior discontent about the issues after dry dock procedures were completed earlier this year, but we could find no evidence of problems noted by earlier passengers....the ship was clean, no odors, crewmembers were polite, ship is laid out nicely for easy movement (with one exception.....discussed later in this review).
We selected early traditional dining in the Provence dining room. Our waitstaff (Paul & Ernie) were professional, pleasant, and seemed to enjoy their jobs. Their top priority seemed to be making our dining experience pleasant, which it was. The MDR food offering was EXCELLENT....never had a bad meal there. We had contemplated using either Sabatini's or Bayou upscale restaurants prior to embarking, but with this food selection so good, why throw away money on these other eateries? Food in the buffet was also good.....staff was right on top of getting your beverage order as soon as you sat down. Loved the hot dogs at the Grill and also the pub lunches offered several times in the Bayou dining hall. We had carried on our two "complimentary" room bottles of wine and paid corkage fees for two additional bottles we purchased shoreside in FLL at Total Wines, so we did not avail ourselves to the ship's wine selections.
Cabin Review
Port Reviews
Cartagena (Colombia)
Rode a taxi from port to old town (that's an adventure in itself!). Just walked around for a few hours and returned to ship.
Colon (Cristobal)
This is just a "bus stop" for princess to pick up passengers they sold their tours to while in the canal, everyone else stays on board. Not worth the time to get off the ship to see anything.
Puerto Limon
Booked off the ship with a private on-shore vendor. MUCH LOWER rates than on ship and see basically the same things. Our tour guide was a former cruiseship employee (Fabiana Bonati, from Brazil) with great English skills that provided an educational, informative, enjoyable tour
Grand Cayman (Georgetown)
We are very familiar with this island, so typically, we grab a private van ($4 pp one-way) out to seven-mile beach where we swim/sun then back into Georgetown where we enjoy a drink in a tiki bar bayside before shuttling back to the ship.